HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I {heart} you all and am overjoyed with the love you give to Hailey's Helpful Hints. One thing that is especially on my heart lately is keeping life in perspective and trying not to stress over the little things. We are surrounded by "stuff" and influenced so easily with an overload of information. I was especially reminded of this after I received an email from my dad on Friday. Along with the forwarded message, he wrote "Let your kids be kids and just enjoy life." This came at such a fitting time for me. Ironically I was just having lunch with my husband talking about the day to day pressures of life - the expectations of breastfeeding, vaccinating your children, buying organic, cleaning with "green" products, dangers of high fructose corn syrup, limiting your child's tv time, enrolling them in school. In the end, does it really matter? Based on the blurb below, the answer is no. Granted I strive to be the best wife and mom I can be but in the big scheme of things, is giving my son a pack of fruit snacks going to kill him? Should I feel guilty letting him watch cartoons? Should I yell at him for jumping on the bed? My conclusion - absolutely not.

Although this was written to all the kids that survived the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's, it's a relevant reminder not to sweat the small stuff. Let your kids be kids and just enjoy life for what it is. Not what the pressures of society say it should be.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a barehand and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.