Guest Blogger Tracey Lyons - The Parent Trap

A recent segment on a morning TV show that I watch featured a mom blogger who posts about how worn out she is by the end of the school year. She has five children and should be worn out! It got me remembering how I couldn’t wait for the end of the school year to roll around. Usually by Mid-May I was more than ready for the summer to begin. I went on all the field trips, was the classroom mother for both kids simultaneously and PTA president for 2 years. I can remember staying up late to “help” with homework, how one son always had his assignments done on time and one would wait until the last minute. I think how some days it seemed like I was going through grade school all over again as I toiled away beside my sons so they could go on to the next grade level.

It seemed like my fellow parents started the hands on approach to schooling our children. When I was young if I had an assignment due my mother would be like, “hey, get moving, time’s a wasting.” I recall how we didn’t have glue sticks; we had those little bottles with the rubber stoppers that you had to push down on in order to get that little drop of clear glue to come out or we made our own “paste” with flour and water! I think back to my 6th grade social studies project that counted for 50% of our grade. We each had to replicate one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. I chose the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I used cardboard pieces and plastic cake decorations for the building and then I took plastic ivy plants and flowers draping them over my rugged multi-level structure. I thought it looked pretty darned good until one of my classmates, whose father happened to be an artist, set her beautiful replica next to mine. Her building actually looked like the Hanging Gardens with sculpted columns and live flowers. It could have gone on display at an art gallery. Simply put hers was a work of art, while mine was just another class project destined for the large green metal trash can.

Would I have changed my parenting ways? NO. Do I wish one of my parents had been an artist? You bet! But the long and the short of it is I survived 6th grade and I survived parenthood. My sons are now grown with children of their own and are on the cusp of looking at life from the other side of the parenting fence. I can hardly wait to see how they fare…I’m sure they’ll do fine after all they had good examples set for them!

How about you, are/were you a hands on parent?

An avid lover of books and wine, Tracey has been writing romances for almost thirty years. She sold her first book on 9/9/99! Tracey always wanted to be an actress but couldn’t get past her stage fright. Writing gives her the best of both worlds; she can act out the parts on the pages without ever having to go on stage! She and her husband live in downstate New York with two dogs and two chickens. When not busy writing, and wine tasting, she is busy making her husband crazy with renovations on their 1800’s farm house. She holds membership in Romance Writers of America, Novelists Inc. and Liberty States Fiction Writers. To learn more about the Wine Country Vixen series visit www.TraceySorel.com. Visit Tracey on Facebook at www.facebook.com/traceysorelauthor and www.facebook.com/traceyjlyonsauthor . Tracey is also published in historical romance. You can learn more about these books by visiting www.traceylyons.com.