I’m always in awe of parents who have the patience of Job—ones who have the ability to not only provide discipline in a calm, loving manner, but who also let their children get creative and crafty in their home on a regular basis without complaining about it.

I’m the first to admit I occasionally judge other parents, but many times I’m comparing myself to them: how good they are at A, B, C, or how they let their kids slide down the stairs on the couch cushions because it’s good, clean, indoor fun. When all I’d be thinking is, “Hey! That’s going to ruin my couch cushions!”

My children’s latest in-home craze is to build forts. Forts and kids go together like a runny nose and cold and flu season. When I was a child, building forts was one of my own favorite past times, and I have fond memories of playing in them on rainy days, peeking out from the sheet ceiling to watch the lightning. In this technological age you can even find directions on how to build a fort on the web, for kids who’d rather Google it than experiment by trial and error.

My children like to gather every unattached blanket and bed sheet in the house and proceed to create a fort that spans the entire downstairs living room. I remain upstairs silently grateful that the kids have been kept busy for at least an hour without fighting or needing a snack, but I’m fully aware that this brief moment in my day will have consequences and is simply the calm before the storm.

The cherubs then appear upstairs to beckon, “Come see the fort mom!” with excitement in their eyes, anticipating my enthusiastic response to their budding architectural skills. I wander downstairs with them, hand in hand, and look at the creation that’s given me a few quiet moments of respite.

It is times like these when my brain splits in two and I become the Sybil of myself, which is to say that there is the good mom response (GM) and there is the controlling woman response (CW), and I need a few seconds to make sure the correct persona is the only one speaking aloud.

GM: “Wow!” I exclaim. “What a huge fort! You could fit about 35 kids in that thing.”

CW: Seriously? I can’t even see the other side of the room! Are those the sheets from my bed? I just made that bed!

GM: “Boy howdy you kids are creative, using the craft wire to poke holes in the edges of the blankets so you could string it up to the drapery panels. I never would have thought of that! I can see you also used every book in the house to secure the edges of the sheets to the book shelves. And every Yankee Candle too. Just be careful that those don’t fall off and hurt your heads.”

CW: For the love of all that is good, they punctured my blankets with wire? And seriously? They used every book in the house as sheet weights? Wait’ll those books  fall on their heads, then they’ll learn.”

I restrain that controlling woman so only good mom speaks aloud, which inspires even more glee from the children who then ask, “Can we eat lunch in the fort? And watch a movie? Please please please please please?”

GM: “Why of course you can! That sounds like such fun! How ‘bout I make a picnic and bring it down here and you all can play in the fort while you wait? After lunch you can watch a movie, how’s that sound?”

CW: Fabulous. Now I’m going to have to vacuum bread crumbs and wipe peanut butter smudge off the carpet after they eat in there. And no doubt some kid is going to spill her drink. And they’re going to want popcorn with that movie. Ugh.

But I make lunch. And they joyfully eat it in the fort. Five minutes later, their lunch inhaled, they scurry upstairs to announce, “We’re going to go play next door. ‘K mom?”

GM: “Wait a minute. You kids need to go clean up downstairs before you leave. Make sure you fold everything back up and put away all the books.”

CW: And that room better look just like it did before you started.

They pick up, rush out the door in a Tazmanian whirlwind and I wait for the dust to settle momentarily. That eerie silence pierces my ears a few seconds. I relish this brief moment before I head downstairs to find what I know I’m going to find.

The blankets, “folded” in lumpy piles, that wouldn’t fit back into the closest even I used those vacuum suction bags. The furniture, misplaced and moved in various parts of the room. My books, still stacked on the shelves that held up the sheets. More books on the floor—along with packing tape, scissors, and bits of wire from previously held blanket corners. Lunch plates. Bread crust. At least there is no popcorn.

The whole thing is enough to give me a migraine. At moments such as these I really admire those parents who embrace this mess as part of childhood, pleased that their children were able to form fond memories of their youth–when they ate lunch in the tent-city sized fort downstairs. I wish I were more like them. I give myself a mental pat on the back for allowing only Good Mom to speak, although now that the children are gone, Controlling Woman is back and has a headache. I’m trying to channel the patience of Job, but it’s difficult. Perhaps I should build the fort back up and watch a movie.

Rachel Vidoni is a freelance writer and mediocre mom at best, as evidenced by the controlling woman that lives inside her head. If you’d like to tune in to read about her latest life mistakes or feel better about your own parenting skills, visit her blog at East Coast Musings.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I assumed he’d sleep in a crib. After all, that’s where babies sleep, right?

At that time, I’d never heard of co-sleeping, slings or attachment parenting. Dr. Brazelton was barely on my radar, much less Dr. Sears. I’m assuming I planned to breastfeed – since I never stocked up on formula – but I wasn’t particularly passionate about it either way. As for labor and birth, I don’t think I gave them much thought either. I took the series of childbirth classes at our local hospital and read What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but that’s about it.

Then my son was born, and everything changed.

After an uncomfortable and slightly scary birth that ended with the doctor dragging my son out with forceps, I wondered whether or not my epidural might have been a factor. I’d heard that epidurals are related to an increased risk of instrumental delivery. Was there a link? And what if I had never agreed to let the doctor break my water in the first place? After all, that’s what made me insist on the epidural.

I read. I learned. (One of my favorite books was The Birth Book, by Dr. Sears.) For my next birth, I chose a certified nurse midwife and opted for IV pain relief and water immersion instead of an epidural. By birth #3, I’d opted out of the hospital all together; boys # 3 and 4 were born without the aid of pain medication at the first out-of-hospital birthing center in the state of Wisconsin.

I’m not saying my choices are right for everyone, just that my choices were right for me. Through trial and error, I learned what worked best for me.

And so it’s gone, through 11+ years of parenting. When I realized that my newborn son slept better beside me, he slept beside me. When not nursing during a painful bout of mastitis was far more painful than continue to nurse, I kept nursing, eventually discovering the joy of breastfeeding. For me, it was the easiest way. No bottles, no formula, no mess.

It felt natural for me to hold my son frequently and often, to respond to his cries. Later I would learn that this high-touch style of parenting (especially when coupled with breastfeeding and babywearing) is called attachment parenting.

As for homeschooling, it’s more of the same. School just didn’t work for my son. He’s always been a highly motivated, highly individualized leader who learns best by following his own light. After watching his love of learning dwindle – and seeing him grow to hate school (by age 5!) – we knew it was time to make a change. We worked with the school for a while, but eventually decided to homeschool.

It worked! And so here I am, 11+ years after becoming a parent: a natural birthing, attachment parenting, homeschooling mom. My brother calls me a hippie, but that’s OK with me. Parenting is a system of trial and error, and as every parent knows, what works one day may not work the next. But for now, this works for me.

Jennifer Fink is a freelance writer and homeschooler and blogs about raising, educating and learning with her four boys at Blogging ‘Bout Boys.

I’m happy to introduce  my guest blogger, Leah Ingram. Thank you for your great post, Leah!

This past Mother’s Day I wrote a posting on my Suddenly Frugal blog dedicated to my mother and the frugal lessons she taught me when I was growing up. But it got me thinking: what kind of frugal lessons did I hope I was passing on to my daughters? Granted, they’re only 11 and 13 right now, so I’ve still got plenty of time to teach them the importance of being smart with their money. But here are the four frugal lessons I hope they have taken to heart.

You Can Wear Clothes More Than Once. In my mind you can wear a pair of pants or a shirt until it is either visibly stained or noticeably smelly. I’d like to think that my kids feel the same, though I have plucked many a still-clean pair of jeans from the bathroom hamper and put them back in their dresser when no one was watching. Soon enough I know they’ll realize that it takes a lot of time, energy and effort to wash clothes (just wait until they’re out on their own) and so going for as long as you can in between loads of laundry is ideal.

Budgeting Is Key to Making Your Money Last. I’m so glad that my husband and I decided two years ago to begin giving our daughters their allowance monthly. This automatically forced them to figure out how to make their money last longer and made them rethink how they shopped—especially since my husband and I also decided that from here on in, the kids were responsible for buying themselves all non-essentials.

Buying New Isn’t Always the Best Option. Suddenly last year my younger daughter became label conscious. Brand names, especially on clothes, took on a new meaning, and seemingly overnight she wanted to wear the same maker clothes that all the kids at school were wearing. But she had a problem. Mommy and Daddy were no longer footing the clothing bill (see Lesson 2 above), and my daughter couldn’t afford brand-new, brand name clothing in those dimly lit stores with loud music. Thankfully, we introduced our daughters to the concept of consignment, resale and thrift store shopping, where they discovered they could indulge their desires for certain label clothing, albeit used, and not use up their entire allowance in the process.

Swapping and Borrowing Can Stretch a Dollar. In our pre-frugal life, we never balked at buying our daughters books to read. I mean, if there was one indulgence we shouldn’t feel guilty about, it would be buying books, right? Well it turned out to be wrong, especially after we reviewed our annual spending on books one year and discovered how much cash we were laying out in bookstores. So we reintroduced our daughters to the concept of the library, and suggested that if they wanted to read a book badly, they could borrow it from the library. We also explained that if they got lazy and forgot to return the book or, heaven forbid, lost the book, they would be responsible for the late fines. In addition to using the library again, my daughters got creative and began swapping books, DVDs and clothes with friends. These days they are well read and well dressed with nary a dime spent in the process.

Leah Ingram is founder of the Suddenly Frugal blog (www.suddenlyfrugal.com) and author of the soon-to-be-released book Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier on Less (Adams Media, 201), a book that promises to save a family up to $25,000 in a year.

I am thrilled to announce my guest blogger, Leah Ingram. She comes with a boatload of credits (author, editor, magazine writer, etiquette consultant, just to name a few) and she’s just an all-around great person who is incredibly generous with her time and knowledge. Leah is the author of 12 books, has appeared on over 200 TV shows and is quoted as an expert in publications from InStyle Magazine to The New York Times.

Leah’s blog, Suddenly Frugal, has amazing tips on ways families can pinch tons of pennies. For instance, today she blogged about ways to save on healthcare. On Fridays, she writes the aptly named Freebie Friday post, which dishes on a variety of free stuff like online webinars, food, gift cards and museum admission.

I’ll see you here on Thursday with Leah. It’s a post you won’t want to miss!