The Love Jar

I have a confession to make. I am a habitual idea stealer.

There. I said it.

That’s right. When I find an idea that I absolutely LOVE, I can’t resist stealing it. In this case, I was doing my normal Friday thing, checking out all the Feel Good Friday’s over at The Girl Next Door Grows Up, when her very own Feel Good Friday post about her husband’s Love Jar to her gave me a fabulous idea. (ok, well it wasn’t my idea exactly but, you know – can I just say, she is one lucky woman to have such an inventive, thoughtful husband).

It’s no secret that I haven’t been the best mother to my amazing little girls lately. Working full time, going to school, all the studying, etc. has unfortunately left me with not much time for my kids. When I happened upon this idea I immediately thought to myself, (after I got over the jealousy of course) I have GOT to do that for my oldest daughter! She would LOVE it!! (The little one is too little to understand so she isn’t missing out on anything :p) This weekend, I went out and got a cute little jar. I decorated it with a bunch of love stickers and wrote out 36 things that I love about my daughter. One for each week for the rest of the year. Every Monday morning, she gets to pull one out and read it.

She was sick last week and ended up missing a few days of school. One of which was Fancy Nancy day. She was so upset. We had her fancy outfit picked out the night before, complete with TONS of jewelry, silk gloves, a fancy dress, and of course, some fancy shoes. I think she cried harder when she realized she was going to miss school that day than she did when she was puking her guts out in the toilet that morning.

Yesterday, we had a Fancy Nancy day of our own. She got to dress up in her fancy outfit, I even dressed up in a fancy outfit, and we read Fancy Nancy books, had a tea party, and did each other’s makeup. It was so nice taking a break from the day to day crap and having some one on one time with my daughter. As we were cleaning up our fun, I gave her the Love Jar I had made and told her how it worked. She was so excited that I had to let her get a note out of the jar right then and there!

"I love the way you make me smile"

Sometimes I need to step back and realize that it is the little things that will get us through this. The little moments are often worth more than the big ones. I hope by doing this she will know that even though I am so busy with school and work right now, even though I seem to always be grumpy or yelling at her, even though I’m not around as much as I would like to be, that I love her so much.

Thank you The Girl Next Door’s husband, for giving me a great idea to steal!