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Commuter Girl has discovered a new friend in the neighborhood. He’s lived here for a while, but they never really connected more than once or twice. Last weekend we had a BBQ and Commuter Girl and Neighbor Boy had a ball! They ran and ran and ran and ran. Then they ate and ate and ate and ate. They played and played and played. I love seeing her play with other kids, so it was really fun for both of us.
At one point Neighbor Boy wanted to show Commuter Girl his playroom. The two kids and the two moms were hanging out in the playroom when the kids decided to go upstairs…up the metal and wood steep-slippery-spiral stairs. We don’t let Commuter Girl use the spiral stairs in our house; we still have them gated off. But, off Neighbor Boy went…right up the stairs with no issue. Meanwhile I’m hovering behind Commuter Girl, afraid to be more than one step behind her.
How do you know if you are giving your kids enough space to fall and learn to get back up? When do you draw the line and say it just isn’t safe even if the next door neighbor thinks it is? I don’t want Commuter Girl to be afraid of taking risks, but I am afraid of her getting hurt.
This morning was a typical weekday morning: wake up at 5:30; get self semi-presentable for workday; rouse, dress, and feed the baby and toddler; pack lunches, put on shoes and coats; make it halfway down driveway, turn around and run back to house so toddler can go potty, put shoes and coats back on (toddler won’t go potty while wearing shoes); load kids and schoolbags and car snacks and blankies into car, kiss kids and husband and wave goodbye. Breathe. Feed and throw balls for dog. Breathe. Wake up 6-year-old, assist with appropriate dressing, washing, feeding, back-pack packing; walk to bus stop, put child on bus. Run back to car (no time for breathing), drive to work.
All routine, except for the conversation that took place at aforementioned bus stop. There, my next-door-neighbor told me that his wife, who is traveling overseas for business, texted him twice already to make sure that he had dressed his children in the clothes she had purchased especially for picture day. Picture Day????? How could I have forgotten? I’ve been feeling like a horrible mother all day. My colleagues are reassuring me that it’s no big deal; that my son will look great no matter what he’s wearing. But I think they’re just being kind. I’m hoping that his dazzling smile will distract from his everyday t-shirt. And tonight, after playtime, dinner, baths, reading, brushing, and bed tucking, I will mark all such dates on my calendar for the remainder of the school year.
I can’t not talk about Sarah Palin, though I forewarn I do not invite a political discussion on this blog. There are lots of outlets for those who want to express their political views, and the mom-to-mom blog aims not to be one of them. This isn’t about which party I, or my fellow Mom to Mom bloggers may or may not support, this is about a mother running for office.
I do feel Sarah Palin’s candidacy inarguably brings to the forefront so many issues facing working mothers that it needs to be addressed here. Let’s face it, she’s a mother of five, including a newborn, she’s about to be a grandmother, and at the same time she’s been raising a family she’s had a successful career trajectory with an even higher profile goal on the horizon. As one of my sisters said, “Politics aside, she’s every working mother’s fantasy.” Let’s be real: she’s a mother of five; she’s been involved in the PTA and the hockey games; she’s a former beauty queen; she’s held impressive executive jobs of increasing significance; and now she’s doing it all in the public spotlight with relative personal grace and dignity.
To me, she seems like someone who I could have gone to high school with or whom I could know from my local town committee. She makes me feel that if I had had a little more ambition I could be running for Vice President, and there’s something about that that makes me want to achieve more. It makes me feel that my everyday struggles to balance my job with my one child are completely surmountable.
It makes me angry that people question her ability to be a good mother with the pressures of the job (or vice versa) when they never ask those questions of the men who run for office. Male politicians’ roles in their children’s lives have never been much fodder for discussion. Joe Biden was hailed a hero for ultimately deciding to be sworn in to his Senate seat just weeks after the death of his wife and daughter when he had two young sons in clear need of his fatherly attention. By all accounts, he seems to have achieved a remarkable high-power political career while raising two remarkable sons. To me, he has proven it can be done. Why does Sarah Palin have to do that all over again just because she does the job in high heels?
I recently saw a show where a natural living expert was helping a busy family improve their eating habits by using more natural ingredients. She did a taste test and had them try organic macaroni and cheese as well as the blue box macaroni and cheese. All three members of the family chose the blue box and you could tell that the host was annoyed. The same thing happened in my house.
I decided that I was going to make all of Green Baby’s food. How hard could it be to steam and mash carrots or peas? I bought several jars of baby food to have on hand for when we were out or when I needed something quickly. Well, in our own home taste test, the jarred food won. There were several nights that I had to scrape my homemade organic baby food off the floor, high chair, and walls; while on the nights I served the jarred, I’m sure he would have licked the jar clean if I let him. I continued making his food and eventually he learned to like it, but I can’t help but think the people at Earth’s Best are out there snickering at me.
I get the day off. It isn’t often that I have the chance to be home for the day, by myself, on a weekend. Imagine my delight when this morning Commuter Dad asked Commuter Girl if she wanted to go out for breakfast. Then imagine my increased delight when he asked if she wanted to go shopping and to the park after breakfast. Wow! A daddy-daughter spur-of-the-moment date and I have no plans.
What am I going to do with my time? Take a bubble bath, get a pedicure, go shopping, have lunch with a girlfriend, see a chick flick. Ha. The reality is that I have done an hour of work that I didn’t get done yesterday (I cut myself off at an hour!), started to clean up the clutter in the house, took the dog for a walk, put clean sheets on the beds. I’m getting ready to clean out the linen closet. Not nearly as glamorous or fun as a day of shopping and pampering.
But, you know what? I’m ok with that. When Commuter Girl gets home I’ll feel like I have accomplished something today. I’ll be relaxed and ready to play!!
It seems that nearly every day there’s another story in the media about the importance of the “family dinner.” We’re told that by eating together as a family, our children will perform better in school, stay off drugs, become more politically aware, get along better with their peers, and so on. Given that my family eats together at least 90 percent of the time, I’ve always thought I’ve done my duty on this front. If my children run into trouble later in life, it will not be because they ate dinner on the fly!
But lately I’m noticing that the time my kids spend at the aforementioned family dinner, is getting increasingly short. They eat much less and considerably faster than my husband and I, and they are therefore ready to be excused and go play within 10 minutes of sitting down. I’m not sure what to do about this. Do I make them stay at the table and watch them fidget and squirm, listen to them whine about being done? Or do I let them get up and go play, making good use of the short time they get to spend at home each weekday? And if the latter, will they suffer consequences later on? How long exactly does the family dinner need to take for the children to reap its benefits?
Every new mom hears it, I’m sure, “Make sure you take care of yourself,” they say. “You’ll spend lots of time and energy and expend a lot of stress caring for your new baby, but don’t forget to do something good for yourself every now and then.” I ignored it all. I’ve never been much of a “me” person. Even before NewGirl entered our lives, I wasn’t much for self pampering, spa weekends, and the like. And I’ve always been pretty laid back about my own health. The daughter of a doctor, I was led to believe that most things heal themselves on their own. And most things probably do. But then NewGirl came around, and every little cough, scratch and burp caught my attention. Even a funny looking toenail was cause for a call to the doctor (strangely enough, the pediatrician said she looks at more toenail problems than she can count).
But still, when it comes to me, it will heal itself, I figure. So when I had an inkling that I, and not NewGirl, was developing an ear infection, I ignored it. I suffered through several days of pain, figuring I could heal myself. It proved an unwise decision that resulted in ultimately unbearable pain, three trips to the emergency room, weeks of compromised hearing, and several follow up visits to the doctor’s office. You’d think I’d learn. But, no. As my ear was still hearing, I fell on my knee. You’ve never seen a bruise so massive in your life. It will fade, I thought, it’s just a bruise. But now, five days later, still too stiff to climb the stairs normally, I’ve finally called the doctor’s office. “Well, it’s your knee,” the medical assistant said, “so you better come in. You want to use that knee every day for the rest of your life, so it makes sense to at least have the doctor take a look.” She was right, of course, and I have an appointment for this afternoon.
I feel a bit like I’m physically falling apart at the seams, and I think I’ve finally realized that I need to treat my health like I treat my daughter’s. Don’t freak out, but do take care.
Since I always find great new blogs and web sites from reading others, I thought it would be helpful to list of few of my favorite green blogs and web sites here. I’m always looking for more, so please list your favorites in the comments section.
Blogs:
www.greenmomfinds.com- a great resource for hearing about green baby and child products
www.ecorazzi.com - find out which celebrities are going green
www.idealbite.com/blog- you can sign up to receive easy-to-follow eco-living tips, some are even location specific
www.thegreenguide.com - National Geographic’s take on going green
zrecs.blogspot.com - this site reviews safe children’s products like bath toys and bottles
Web Sites:
www.cosmeticdatabase.com - plug in the name of your favorite cosmetic and find out its toxicity
healthytoys.org - test the toxicity of your toys and even get best and worst lists
www.diapers.com - some of the pricier all-natural baby products are less expensive than those sold at major chain stores
The other day I woke up to “Mommy, my eye hurts.” I didn’t really think anything of it at first, but then I got Commuter Girl into the light. Her eye was practically swollen shut and she had eight to ten big red bumps on her face and neck, a few on her hands, and two enormous bumps on her back. She looked like she had been in a boxing match, and hadn’t won.
I tend to be a “glass half full” kind of person when it comes to health issues. Mumps. Chicken pox. Hives. No, mosquitoes. There was a hungry mosquito trapped in her room overnight. I am working on the assumption that there was only one. I killed only one, and after what happened on Commuter Girl’s face I’d like to think that no other participating mosquito survived to brag about its evening feast. We made an appointment with the doctor to find out what to do since there were so many bites and they were so large. I’m proud to say that I did resist the urge to take the dead mosquito with me to the pediatrician’s office in case we should test it for West Nile.
After leaving the doctor’s office I took Commuter Girl with me to go to the pharmacy and pick up calamine lotion and Benadryl. I felt like I needed to give everyone an explanation…no, she didn’t get into a fight…it was a mosquito. The cashier felt so bad for her, she gave her a balloon. I felt so bad for her I bought her madelines and vanilla milk from Starbucks for breakfast, and spent most of the day playing with her in her water table.
Would it be weird to put mosquito netting over Commuter Girl’s bed?
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