madameblogalot

I found this post that I had written over a year ago. Its sentiment still rings true with me…

I do not advocate lying. I don’t like lying to people to protect them, even kids. I don’t mean that we have to tell them everything in an effort to be honest, but I think if we lie, we end up making things worse when the truth does come out.

I have tried to live an honest life and to be up front in dealing with my children. As they age, I think they can handle more truth about how we live and feel as people. I wonder though in my honesty (I am not talking about brutal honesty) if I am hurting my children. Am I giving them too much information too soon? Am I hurting them by telling the truth about how certain actions make me feel? Is it unfair or will it help them to see how their actions affect the people around them.

It is such a delicate balance in rasing kids. As I strive for honesty, I ask for it from my family in return. I hope that I am not causing too much stress when I tell my kids the truth about their actions, whether that be good or bad.

One thing my daughter had trouble finding to her liking while decorating her room was window treatments. She didn’t like most of the curtains we found. They were too heavy or too gaudy or just plain did not meet her tastes. But my mom was able to find some sheer panels that have worked perfectly for her. While these are great in her room, most of our windows are covered with cheap blinds, which work perfectly well for us.

I love the blinds because they blend in with any decor and color scheme. It is easy to find blinds in nearly every color and they are one of the cheapest window treatments to utilize. They are easy to use and maintain. I used to be pretty good about taking them down once a year to spray them down with the water hose! This has gone by the wayside, but all in all our blinds have held up well.

It seems that you can do just about anything with duct tape. Our neighbor even used duct tape as a border in his room. When my daughter saw that, she had to give it a try, of course using different colors. So for her birthday she got three colors of duct tape-black, lime green and turquoise. She has used these as a border around the top of her walls as well as to cover her closet door in a diagonal direction. It looks pretty cool! While several folks told us it might stick to the sheetrock and be hard to remove, we have found just the opposite to be true. The tape began coming down within a month. She has now gone back to add wallpaper glue to the back of the tape to help it stay attached to the walls.