It's Monday. Need to recharge?

If you, like I, spewnd your weekends keeping up with the husband and kids and catching up on household chores, Monday morning at work finds you dragging a bit. By Monday afternoon, you're a little hazy from shifting gears, and Monday night the hardest thing to do is respond to "Mommy I want..." with a smile.
So here comes "Energy Coach" Jon Gordon with some tips to recharge your inner battery (and wear out the kids while you're at it).
1) Play "Red light, green light. Start with the kids across the room, across the yard, across the playground. Green means run as fast as you can toward mom and the popsicles in her hands. Red means stop. Everybody (mom included) stretch up on your toes, arms above your head, and take two deeeeep breaths. Slowly. Then relax, and green light. Sometimes, we moms just forget to breathe. and focus. And hey, the popsicles will give you an extra three minutes of peace to complete your stretching and centering.
2) Teach the kids about positive reinforcement - for mom. "Hey - a thank you would be nice!" We all think it, but how many times do we say it? Teaching your kids - even two and three year olds, to say please and thank you will not only go a long way for their lives, it will help you, too. Imagine how much easier it would be to make dinner or fold laundry if the end result was greeted with "thank you, mommy" instead of "I don't want to eat that" and "what do you mean, put them away?" My guys have been taught the fina art of gratitude by a couple of well-timed mommy strikes. As in "What's for dinner?" "You're on your own tonight, I'm outta here!"
3) Mom is a lady - treat her like one. That means let the kids hold the door for you, carry some groceries to the house for you, and pick flowers (even the roses from your garden and the weeds from the yard) for you. As an independent woman and a rose enthusiast, that's a high hurdle for me to jump, but I'm willing to give it a try if occasionally it makes me feel like the guys really do value me.
Gordon has more advice - and some flat-out cheerleading, on his Web site: www.energyformoms.com
--Misty