I awoke to rain and a toddler who refused to go to school. I knew the latter was crucial since said toddler would not be getting out of the house due to the former, so I started the long process of getting a writhing child out the door in a timely fashion. He’s usually very excited to go to school, so this was a little weird to me. He was adamant that he was not down with school today, not cool with walking to the car, and generally just “vewy angwy!”

And you know me - I started to wonder what awful thing had happened at school that made him so upset about going. Had a classmate been mean to him and the teacher didn’t help? Had he gotten into trouble and no one told me? Had he gotten hurt?

So as we drove there I continued to ask him why he didn’t want to go. I started talking about how they would get to go to the “big room” to play instruments since it was raining outside, and then he yelled, “No! I NOT want to pway Duckduckgoose!”

“Oh, did you play Duck-Duck-Goose at school?”

“Yes. It raining and I NOT want to pway.” Aha, so on rainy days they not only go to the big room for instruments, but also for games. That was a relief.

But then, about four seconds later, I started up again - Wait, why does he hate Duck-Duck-Goose so much? Does nobody pick him as the goose? Is he always the first one “out”? Do they put him in “the pot?” Oh God, they shame him and make him sit in the pot so that all the other kids can sit around him in the circle and stare at him because he was out first. He’s already having sport-related school anxiety! He’s going to hate gym. He’s going to have stomach aches on Field Day. He’s going to be like my brother and run himself into a wall to break his arm so that he can get out of P.E. because a shattered ulna feels better than the shame of being a non-athlete . . .

“You put your hands on the heads and I NOT want them to touch my head.”

“What?”

“I NOT WANT THEM TO TOUCH MY HEAD!”

“You mean you don’t like Duck-Duck-Goose because they touch your head? It’s not because of the part where you have to run around the circle and get chased and sit in the pot if you are out?”

“No, that a wittle fun. Running part is fun. I just not want them to touch my head.”

” . . . Ohhhhhh.”

When I picked him up two hours later I looked in the window to see Sam happily sitting in a circle with his hand stuck out so that the kid who was the ducker could walk by and tap him high five style - “Gooooooose!” - and Sam running and laughing around and around the whole room as the teachers tried to direct the two boys to at least head in the general direction of the circle, which had really spread out into something more like a line. There was no “out,” no “pot,” and absolutely no shame.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Tales, Talking, The Big One

When I was in college, a friend and I decided to drive from Ohio to Boston for an audition, and then on to Florida for our spring break. There was much overnight driving, but one of the nights we decided around 3:00am that we needed to sleep in a bed, so we pulled over to the first motel we saw. When we got inside and turned down the sheets of our lovely beds we found several dead bug carcasses. And the “pillows” were simply pillowcases stuffed with shredded newspaper. Hey, at least they were recycling. Gross.

I look forward to doing a lot of reading today and getting some good ideas for our family to keep on truckin’ with our green endeavor. Here’s are some of the things we’ve incorporated over the past year.

No more paper napkins - only cloth. Got them on sale. Love ‘em.

Have switched to only eco-friendly, non-toxic household cleaners, detergents, and bath products.

Used this website to find out where we could recycle paper goods because they aren’t picked up in our area, only plastics, metals and glass. Now we have a paper recycling bin and we go drop all of it off every month or so. We create so much less waste now because we even break down food boxes to be included. It’s amazing how much of our trash was recycleable if we just went that extra little step.

When I pack snacks and picnics I use containers instead of plastic baggies. We also don’t use juice boxes or bottled water and, instead, refill our own bottles and cups.

Canvas bags for all shopping. And I love them. They hold so much and make it so much easier to carry everything! Imagine, being able to carry a grocery bag on your shoulder because it has straps. Aaaaahhhh.

No fast food. No, no, no.

We started using the library instead of buying books. Books do not have to be trophies to be displayed. No, they’re not, Hubby! When we do need to buy a book we buy it used online.

Dish cloths instead of paper towels. This is one of my weaknesses. I’m not 100% on it yet, unfortunately.

Switched over to CFL bulbs as our light bulbs died.

We buy organic whenever we can. Our grocery store actually has a relatively new store brand organic line that includes tons of products that are typically priced close to regular brand items. And it’s all great quality stuff, so that’s how we do our milk, ketchup, eggs, and anything that is comparable in price to its non-organic counterpart. I also use a list like this because we can’t afford to buy all of our produce organic.

We don’t throw out anything that could be donated or put up on freecycle.

Unplug all appliances when not in use.

Happy Earth Day, all. Looking forward to sharing and learning more.

And Seattle Mom Blogs is doing some great giveaways (even for those of us not in Seattle), so head on over.

Labels: Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business, Learn More Every Day

We went to the playground today, the four of us, and tried to get in some play time before the HUGE freaking rain cloud overtook us. Both the boys were on the swings, and then Sam went off with his daddy to climb and slide. I was left alone with Robby, just the two of us. Once I looked away from Sam walking away toward the big curvy ladder, and once I’d warned my husband to help him because Sam wasn’t wearing good playground shoes and might slip, I looked back at Robby. And looked. It was just us, and the feeling was so foreign. And all of a sudden I had all these flashbacks of when Sam was very little, how we did absolutely everything together, just the two of us. That’s how things were for the first 27 months of his life. And I told him telepathically, I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is the first time I have pushed you on the swing without being distracted. I’m sorry I can’t tell you when this will happen again. You will never know what it is like to share me with no one else. It is something you will never comprehend. And I’m just really, really sorry. He just continued to smile at me.

Do you ever just feel like you’re not very . . . present? Lately I have just been completely overwhelmed. It’s constant. I’m listing things to do, and we are spending every free moment trying to take care of something, some project, some packing, some phone call, some something. I know a lot of it is due to the upcoming move, but a lot of it also is just the difference in having more than one child. I never feel calm or in the moment. If a time comes when both children are content I feel I can’t just be there with them. I need to go make lunch, go return a phone call, go pee. Because if I don’t take advantage of that moment, then I may be making lunch while being screamed at by a baby to pick him up, talking on the phone while being pestered by an almost three year old to get him some scissors, holding the door shut while, well, you know.

There’s just never a moment to just be with them, especially not one on one. Sam is tough right now. Most things are negotiations, warnings, battles. It feels like that’s what we’ve been doing now for about six months. The other night he was running down the hall laughing and singing a song he’d made up himself. I was behind him, watching, and I just thought, that’s right: Sam is fun and sweet and happy. Why does it feel like he is never happy anymore? But he is, it’s just happening when I’m not paying attention because that period of calm for him makes me feel like I can move on to something else. He and I don’t get much time together for just us anymore either. Lately I have felt like I hardly know him. He has all of a sudden turned into a boy who can talk to me and tell me what he wants, yet I feel I understand him less than when it was just the two of us, and he couldn’t speak a word.

The past six months . . . I don’t know where they’ve gone. I don’t know what we’ve done with our time together, or where I’ve been. I haven’t really been here. I’ve just been moving, trying to function, trying to get things done. I hope tomorrow I can stay with them when that moment of contentment comes and tell them, telepathically, you guys are it. You are the center of my everything. I am here with you both. I am going nowhere else, but staying still.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Mommyhood, The Big One, The Little One

My kids are pink. I took them out for a walk yesterday, not planning to be out long at all and therefore quite unprepared. But, of course, Sam could see lots of kids down at the playground for our complex and how can you say no when your child is saying, “I want to be wif all the ofer childwen!” And so, we walked further and stayed out longer than I’d expected. And now I have a boy with a red ear, a baby with a slightly pink face, and a mom with a guilty conscience. Oddly enough, I blogged about this very thing when I first started two years ago - it was my fourth post. And I just went to go look at it for old time’s sake. I had two comments on it. Would you like to know who they were?

One - Mama D. I love D. She’s been with me from the very beginning (well, not really. She found my blog about seven posts in and then went back and read all of my previous posts. That’s about as beginning as you can get, I suppose.) She’s someone who I feel I really know well, and our relationship has surpassed the regular internet friendship. And I’m so excited that she’ll have her second child soon, so we can continue to commiserate.

Second - Daring Young Mom. Isn’t that funny? She was my very first commenter on my blog ever. It was probably the only time she ever came over here, and it was probably because I left her a comment saying I had just started blogging. I remember how very excited I was getting my first comment. All of a sudden the whole blogging thing made sense, and I was hooked.

But now, on to sunscreen. The other reason I let my kids roast yesterday is because I didn’t actually have anything in the house to put on them sunscreen-wise. I had not yet done my research to find a product to use that wasn’t laden with toxic chemicals. So I’m all over that today. If you haven’t yet found it, Skin Deep is a really helpful site when it comes to finding products that are safe and don’t contain dangerous ingredients. I think my husband found it back when all that stuff was coming out about the dangers of ingredients in baby soaps and shampoos. We now use it to check the products we already have, as well as researching those we might want to buy. You can look up individual products to find out how the products you use are ranked, or you can search various types of products to find the safest to bring into your house. I just printed out the list for baby sunscreens (it ranks them according to both health hazard and sun hazard, and the safest are listed last with the more hazardous listed first - it’s backwards - so I can see that the Coppertone water babies that I was using last year is like an 8 on the hazard scale…excellent) and will use it today to help me find something I can feel good about. And then maybe I can stop calling Robby Robster.

If anyone has a sunscreen they feel good about as far as the ingredients and the sun safety please let me know. I’d love to have a personal recommendation for this. Steph? Ashlee? Kate? Charline? You’re the first that come to mind on this one.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Mommy friends

My mom, Mimi to the boys (Meme? Memi? We’ll have to decide on that) just left this morning after a one week visit. Many of you may remember her from this escapade, and some of you may know who she is without realizing it - she’s the lurker located in North Carolina that reads all your blogs (sorry mom, but you’re just such a LURKER!).

I was worried about how Sam would take her leaving. He’s very attached to her and has pretty much had her undivided attention this whole week. When she left he hugged her goodbye and gave her some kisses, told her he loved her, and then he walked away and went back to playing with his cars. I thought it was a bit abrupt. Honestly, I expected a tantrum. I realized that he just didn’t really understand that she was leaving for good. I figured I’d see his real response in a few days when she still wasn’t back.

About two minutes after my husband and she left for the airport, Sam went looking for “Mimi’s hairbrush.” When he couldn’t find it I explained to him that she had to take it home with her so that she could brush her hair, would he like his comb? Well, he flipped the eff out. He wanted Mimi’s hairbrush NOW. And then he started crying. We sat on the couch and talked about what a nice visit we had with her, how we both really looked forward to seeing her again after we move into our new house.

He still kept insisting that he was just upset because he wanted her hairbrush. It must be so hard to have such strong feelings that you don’t understand and can’t explain.

Hope you had a safe trip back, mom. Thanks so much for the visit.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, The Big One

I’m so ashamed, but it’s time to come clean. Just this past week my husband and I finally got life insurance. That means that up until last Friday, we had none. I know. We have CHILDREN for goodness sake. Why weren’t we thinking of the CHILDREN?! Well, we were; I think we just didn’t understand.

Hubby and I agree that we both have a very strong aversion to salespeople, and that this directly influenced our very (very, VERY) irresponsible choice regarding this matter. See, when we started getting mailings about life insurance when I first got pregnant, we just threw them out. All I could think of was those horrible daytime TV commercials for Col0nial Penn - life insurance for the ahem, older folk - Double Indemnity (this is must see, by the way), and Death of a Salesman, of course. In our minds life insurance was a bad thing, a hoax, if you will. And while I’m embarrassed to admit this to the world of the web and as a parent, I do so because there may be others like me.

See, Hubby and I are not ignorant (no we ain’t!), we’re well-educated (we been educated real good!), and we’re responsible parents (Hey, if I don’t hear ‘em, they must be ok!). But we still didn’t think life insurance was something we needed. I think I started to put it together when I was listening to Suze Orman lecture that blond St@rbucks addicted woman on Oprah a while back, and then it hit me. The first thing this woman needed to do was get life insurance on her husband? Really? She didn’t need to cut her caffeine addiction and shopping obsession, or get medical insurance for her children? And here I was sitting there being all smug about the latter - I’d never neglect medical insurance for MY children - but here I was being a big idiot. Huh.

So we started looking into what all this meant. At the time we decided to wait until my husband started a new job to sign up for a plan. He is starting in October . . . I know! We still were going to wait! Ridiculous. Time went on and I found myself becoming more and more uncomfortable about our plan. I started having a lot of anxiety, worrying about something happening to my husband, thinking of all the ways that something could happen to him between now and when he started his new job, knowing that if the worst did happen to him that we had no plan in place at all. In addition to dealing with that type of tragedy, I’d also have nothing in the way of supporting our kids. I decided we needed to sign up for a plan immediately.

If you don’t have a life insurance policy, getting one is a very easy thing to do. With minimal research you can learn the basics that you need in order to feel confident about the terminology and to get a sense of what (type of policy and for how much) you might need. Here and here are good places to start. When you’re ready, you just make a call to a company and someone will walk you through the rest. We had an agent (a salesguy no less, with a briefcase and everything!) come to our house and go through this stuff with us while we fed our kids lunch. He took our information regarding our debt, monthly expenditures, income, and so forth and plugged these details into his handy little program to come up with how much we might need. We had a fairly strong sense of what we wanted going in and were clear that we wouldn’t be purchasing anything we had not planned on, so we felt in control and didn’t have to worry about being “sold” on anything extra. We even have someone coming out to the house to do the necessary blood work. It is all very convenient, simple, comforting, and I can’t believe it took us this long.

We now have an appropriate policy on my husband and myself. Why me, you wonder? Don’t I just stay home? Why yes, yes I do. And separate and apart from all the hubbub regarding what the work we do is worth and so forth, there is a logistical reason that a SAHM needs life insurance as well. This article from April’s issue of Parenting, laid it out pretty well (see topic number 4. Topic 5 deals with retirement accounts and is also somewhat helpful): stay at home moms need insurance not to cover our imaginary income, but to cover the costs that would be incurred by the family if we were not around - childcare, housekeeper, etc. See, if I was gone, in order to keep the income that supports our family, my husband would need someone to take care of the kids and keep the house running, and that’s why we SAHMS need policies as well.

Maybe this is all common sense. Maybe no one is even still reading because you all already knew this. But I tell ya, we were kind of floored that we had let this go so long without doing something about it. So I expose myself to public mockery in the event that there might be a few of you out there who were like me. Maybe you just didn’t know. Maybe you didn’t know how to start. Maybe you just haven’t gotten around to it. But it’s easy to do. And it’s truly important for your children. Think of the children, the CHILDREN for pity’s sake!

This site is for entertainment purposes only. I am not a financial advisor (whoo Nelly, I sure ain’t!) this post should not be construed as financial advice.

Labels: Hubby, Learn More Every Day

We all had a vision of how we would parent before we actually had kids. My vision involved homemade baby food, cloth diapers, co-sleeping through the night, etc. Oh, how things change once the baby arrives. Things seem unrealistic, expectations are lowered, we feel some guilt but not enough to change it. Part of my perfect vision also involved no tv watching for Sam. Before he was born I didn’t understand why anyone would want their baby watching tv, and I admit that I saw it as a type of laziness in parents. Then Sam came and I needed a way to fill up hours and hours of time, just the two of us. When he was very young he was all colic, all the time, so tv wasn’t an issue. Eventually though he settled and every so often we had some down time by watching a Baby Einstein video. As he got a bit older it turned into the occasional episode of Teletubbies, and as of late Sam has discovered the joys of Elmo while mommy has discovered the joys of getting to take a shower while Elmo babysits.

It was never a lot of tv, about half an hour so that I could get ready for the day. And maybe if he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to cuddle on the couch…and maybe if he needed to be still to settle down for a nap…you get the picture. And I did this, knowing full well that the American Academy of Pediatrics did not recommend any television viewing for children under the age of two. And I did this knowing why they would make that recommendation. Certainly nothing good was coming from Sam’s tv viewing other than some down time for me. He wasn’t learning anything from it since we all know babies learn by doing, not by watching a 2 dimensional screen. I could see him sitting there totally zoning out as I thought to myself, “this is not right.” He was engaged but not in a good way. When asked if he wanted to watch Elmo though, he would smile and run to the tv waiting to see his friend sing that incredibly annoying song, and he would dance, which I could rationalize as “interaction”. And so I continued - a bit of tv, every so often when I needed it, like to shower for 5 minutes without Sam standing there opening and closing my shower door. I had become that “lazy” parent but I didn’t care, not enough to change it anyway.

About a month ago a writer on Slate suggested that there might be a possible link between the increase in children diagnosed with Autism and the rise of tv viewing among children in the past 25 years. On first read I thought the idea was interesting, but not very convincing. He had very little in the way of hard evidence to support this theory and acknowledged in the article that it was little more than speculation. I actually was a little pissed off by the article after thinking about it a bit because I think it’s dangerous to insinuate that Autism might be linked to something that a parent can control when you have no evidence to support you. Parents of Autistic children, I am sure, already beat themselves up enough wondering if they did something wrong or could have somehow prevented this from happening to their children. For us, it hits close to home because my husband has two autistic half brothers. The idea of my Mother-in-law berrating herself for letting her boys watch too much tv was too much, especially if there was no basis.

Yesterday a follow up article was posted on Slate discussing a recent study done by Cornell University, potentially linking Autism to tv viewing by children under three. If you’ve not yet seen this article you really need to go and read it (it links to the previous article I mentioned above, which is also worth your time to read as it gives a lot of background on the potential connection between the two). Reading it was enough to make me jump from my seat, grab the remote and delete every episode of Teletubbies and Sesame Street we had. The researchers are not suggesting that tv is the sole cause of the rise in autism, but they, and the writer, believe there is a link, that it is one factor among many. What it comes down to for me is this: no one knows the real cause of autism and why it has become so widespread, but this study has found that tv might play a role, potentially a big role. And since I already know that tv does nothing good for my child and that his time would be better spent doing…well, just about anything else, then that’s enough for me. I find the article to be extremely compelling in its case against tv for children under the age of three, not perfect, not without holes in the argument, not to be taken as fact without further scrutiny, but compelling, compelling enough to make me stop doing something that I know wasn’t really good for my child anyway. And so the Teletubbie and Sesame Street season passes have been cancelled and the remote has been hidden. We are officially a no tv household, at least before Sam’s bedtime we are - Hubby and I are working hard to get through the first season of Lost on DVD and there’s no way we’re stopping now! I think it’s a good decision whether or not this study proves true (and there is already some major backlash and criticism of it). Sam and I have already had more tickle fights, read more books, and done more dancing than we would have on a regular morning. The question is: how am I going to get my shower?

Labels: Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business, Learn More Every Day