Why One-on-One Time is Surprisingly Wonderful

My husband and I spend most of our non-work time with our kids, but nearly all of the time we’ve got the whole brood in tow. As working parents, we want to maximize “family time,” so we tend to spend the weekends doing things en masse.

But last week we had the opportunity to take our oldest son to New York, leaving the younger two at home with a babysitter. On our way home, I asked my son what his favorite part of the trip had been. I expected that he’d say it was the two-hour visit to FAO Schwarz or the Willy-Wonka-style adventure of Dylan’s Candy Shop. So I must admit, I was more than a little surprised when he said his favorite thing was playing catch with his father in Central Park.

Given that we play catch in our backyard nearly every night, I didn’t think that would even make his top-ten list. But then I realized that when we play catch at home, his younger siblings are in the game as well (and let’s just say they haven’t exactly mastered the required skills yet). We have a ball (pun intended), but it’s not the same as playing one-on-one. I guess that’s why my daughter always insists that she, alone, come to the grocery store with me, an outing we’ve incorporated into our weekend routine.

The challenge, I guess, is to figure out how to spend special time with each one, even if that time is spent doing mundane things like going to the supermarket. When you consider that playing catch scored higher than the toy store, I’m optimistic that we can meet the challenge.

-- Modern Mom

I am Cooking Mom!

Hi! I’m Cooking Mom and, like the other moms on this blog, I juggle a full-time career with raising a family. I am contributing to this blog to share my culinary adventures to prepare wholesome, nutritious meals for me, my husband, and our 2-year old daughter. As a working mom, I don’t have much time each night so I tend to use recipes that take less than 30-minutes or that can be prepared ahead. I also am on a mission to be less wasteful so you’ll see many recipes that say “using any stray veggies in your fridge.” I should also share that this is my first time blogging (I know – I’m way behind the times). I hope you will join me on this journey and come back often to check in with me. Please leave comments and definitely share your favorite recipes.

For my first post, I want to share one of my favorite foods, Rainbow Frittata. What do I love about it? It can be a breakfast, lunch or dinner food; it takes less than ½ hour to prepare; you can prepare it ahead and reheat for any meal; it can use any “stray veggies in your fridge.” One may say it’s the perfect recipe. You can judge for yourself.

Rainbow Frittata

YOU NEED
12 eggs (for a large pan, use less for smaller pans)
Splash of milk
¼ - ½ cup favorite “melty” cheese
½ - 1 cup fresh stray veggies:

• red onion
• yellow or red bell pepper
• carrot
• zucchini
• baby spinach

2-4 tablespoons butter
Oven-safe frying pan (no plastic handles)

MAKE IT

1. Preheat the broiler on low heat.
2. Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl. Add the milk and cheese. Whisk until well blended. Set aside.
3. Dice the veggies. Set aside.
4. Heat a large frying pan on medium-high heat.
5. Melt the butter. Add the chopped onions, pepper, carrot, and zucchini. Sauté for 5 minutes.
6. Add the spinach. Cook for 2 minutes.
7. Stir in the egg mixture.
8. Cook for 7-8 minutes occasionally stirring the mixture being sure not to scrape the bottom. The bottom should set and be slightly browned.
9. Place under the broiler for 5-10 minutes until top is set and browned. Be sure to check often so it doesn’t scorch the top.
10. Cool for a minute, slide from pan, cut & serve.

-- Cooking Mom

Playground Etiquette

Dear Playground Parent,

Please pay attention to your child. Not just to make sure they are safe, but to also ensure they are playing “nicely in the sandbox.” When my 3-year old, after waiting for 5 minutes, asks your child if she can have a turn on the slide, please encourage your child to give her a turn. Or, are you not even paying attention to what your child is doing? Why should your child get to run up the slide and then slide down over and over and over without another child being able to take a turn? And, please, teach her how to wait until the child in front of her gets off of the slide before sliding down and pushing her onto the ground. When your child makes another child cry, I think it’s time to put down your sandwich and pay attention. And, to the parent whose child spit at mine…really?!?!

I’m pretty strict about manners, but I don’t think it is asking too much to expect adults to take some responsibility for their child’s behavior – share, don’t spit, and play nice. Please.

Thank you.

-- Commuter Mom

Making Dreamcatchers – beginner, intermediate, advanced

My oldest is at the point where she is starting to remember her dreams. And there is a lot of talk of dreams and nightmares in our house lately. So when we came upon instructions for a dreamcatcher in a craft book from the library, she was all over it. (I would reference it but it is really old and I can’t find it online)


She is thrilled with the results of this project but I have to say, it was a little more complicated than she was ready for. I ended up doing a lot of it for her, which is fine by me because I like the idea that I made something that seems to give her true comfort. But we have some other dreamcatcher projects that are much more suited to kids under 6 and I’m they guessing will catch the same amount of dreams. Our versions of these, however, have yet to make it out of kitchen.

What you need:

• Plain paper plates
• Feathers
• Yarn or string
• Pipe cleaners
• Beads with holes large enough to fit around pipe cleaners
• Dreams

To make the easiest of dreamcatchers:

1. Punch three holes in the bottom of the plate and one at the top for hanging
2. Attach a pipe cleaner to each hole on the bottom and slide a bead (or two or three) up the pipe cleaner
3. Position the feathers on the ends of the pipe cleaners and pull the beads over the feathers to hold them in place
4. Let your littlest child color on the plate to personalize

To make a dreamcatcher with your child who is roughly 3 and up:

(Depending on your child’s age, they can do all of this or you can set the plate up and let them do all the adorning.)

1. Fold the paper plate in half and cut out the smooth part of the plate so that you end up with a ring
2. Cut several pieces of yarn slightly longer than twice the width of the hole in the ring
3. Punch three holes in the bottom of the plate and one at the top for hanging
4. Punch holes around the inner edge of the ring (along the edge you cut)
5. Attach a pipe cleaner to each hole on the bottom and slide a bead (or two or three) up the pipe cleaner
6. Position the feathers on the ends of the pipe cleaners and pull the beads over the feathers to hold them in place
7. String pieces of yarn through holes opposite each other and tie the loose ends together. (You can get creative with this and do longer pieces and more intricate stringing but that is the basic concept. You want it to look like a web)
8. Decorate the ring with drawings or happy thoughts

-- Crafty Mom

Obsessed with Michael Jackson’s Kids

Why am I obsessed with Michael Jackson’s kids and what happens to them? Unlike many of my fellow teenagers of the ‘80s, I didn’t personally mourn Michael Jackson’s passing. He didn’t play a huge role in my pop culture life. I like some of his music and am awed by his dancing, but I don’t feel any great loss in my life now that he’s gone. As to whether he was a miscreant or just misunderstood, my opinion changes daily. So why do I find myself obsessed with what happens to his kids?

First, I actually cried when I first saw the news clip of Paris speaking at his memorial service. Since then I’ve been entranced by the beauty of his kids. And now I check several times a day to see if there’s new news about their future. Perhaps it’s just the unfathomably bizarre nature of their lives. Maybe it’s the completely incomprehensible role Deborah Rowe chose to play in the life of Michael Jackson and not in the lives of the children. Or maybe it’s that he willed guardianship to his very elderly mother or alternatively to Diana Ross despite having legions of siblings.

It’s all so strange and so foreign and so governed by extraordinary circumstances. It is all at once a soap opera, a circus, a theater show, and at the same time just three little kids’ lives, plain and simple. I feel slimy peering into their lives via TV, magazines and Web sites, and at the same time, I simply can’t stop.

-- New Mom

Crib Notes: Crowd Safety

When taking your child to a crowded place, such as an amusement park, fair, or festival, outfit them with a bright yellow Livestrong wristband (or one of the many other similar cause bracelets – many come in youth sizes) and use a permanent marker to write your cell phone number on it. If your child gets lost, event staff or police will be able to track you down easily.

Toddler Car Seats

I just came across this article. I had no idea that the AAP had changed their recommendation on rear-facing car seats so I thought I’d pass along the info.

-- Green Mom

Crib Notes: Slow Melt Popsicles

To help cut the mess from summer popsicle fun, try Slow Melt Popsicles. There’s a touch of gelatin to help slow the melting process. Helps keep clothes clean on a hot summer day and helps keep the furniture clean for indoor popsicle eating. One warning, the colors of the SwirlWinds version we bought bore no resemblance to the cool pictures on the box, but they tasted good regardless.

Crib Note: Make your Frosting go Further

If you use store-bought frosting, before you frost your cakes or cupcakes, empty the container into a bowl and whip it with your electric mixer. By whipping air into the frosting, you will get so much more frosting and it will save you from getting another container for just a few cupcakes.

Release Yourself From the Guilt of Not Buying in Bulk

On a recent day in my house, I happened to realize how ubiquitous plastic wipes containers are in my organization system (and I use the term organization lightly). They primarily end up holding craft/art supplies or small homeless objects but I decided to look around a bit to see exactly where I had them and I realized they are my go-to storage container. How did I live without them before children? What will I do when my youngest is potty-trained? So not chic, but free!

But I have also used them for a few things other than storage so I thought I would throw those in the list. So for those of you who look at those wipes containers and think, jeez, I feel like I could use this to hold something something, here are 20 ways I do (and have in the past).

1. To hold my daughter’s hair clips/ponytail holders.


2. To hold Barbie clothes.


3. As a self-assembled first aid kit for my trunk.


4. As a container for puzzles whose boxes have collapsed. Tip: cut two small pieces of the original box and tape one to the top and one to the front so it’s identifiable.


5. As a home for boxless crayons. (This container lives in my road trip/restaurant/overnight bag so we can color whenever we want to.)


6. As a makeshift piggy bank. (Tip: If you take off the top lid, that inner lid acts just like the money slot on a piggy bank. When first implementing an allowance system, you can create spend/save/donate containers. )


7. As a container for paint when painting the trim in my house.


8. To hold nail polish bottles and mani/pedi supplies so they all stay in one place.


9. In the craft closet – for embroidery thread, for acrylic paint, for beading supplies,
   for wooden beads that I bought for a project and never used them, for glue sticks,
   for barrettes waiting for ribbon to be attached, for random tools I needed but have
   no place to keep.


10. As a container for countless types of screws/nails/tools.


11. To hold the “fourth C batteries” we never need.


12. To hold batteries waiting to be recycled.


13. To hold seasonal utensils – corn on the cob holders and seafood crackers.


14. As a container for decks of cards.


15. As a container for homeless sidewalk chalk (does anyone else go to parties where they give a couple of pieces of chalk in the goody bag?)


16. As a coupon holder (this happens every New Year when I make a resolution to cut coupons.)


17. To hold cookie cutters


18. As a container for vegetable/flower seeds we didn’t use.


19. As a way to pack food for a road trip. It makes a great way to hold lunches with cold drinks and snacks! (Obviously everything should be self-contained within the wipes box). It keeps things from getting soggy and squished, and they stack nicely in a cooler.


20. To hold plastic utensils leftover from various parties.

Does anyone else have these all over their house?

-- Crafty Mom

Who Needs Sleep?

My husband and I have been walking around in a haze the past week or so. We’re having sleep issues at my house. My almost two year old has been skipping naps and/or waking up in the middle of the night or very early morning and we’ve had no luck getting him back to sleep. We’ve always felt very lucky that he taught himself to go to sleep at night and at nap time. When he was a baby, we never had to read sleep books or debate whether to let him “cry it out” or not.

Now, I’m beginning to wonder if that is all going to change. For the past week or so he’s either skipped his afternoon nap (his choice, not ours) and was a mess by 5:00 p.m., or has been up for several hours during the night. We’ve tried letting him cry and going in at intervals to calm him down, keeping him in his crib and rubbing his back, and taking him into bed with one or both of us. This has been the only thing that works…for him. When it’s my “turn” to get up with him during the night and we end up in the guest bed together, I spend the night making sure he’s not falling off or close to getting my pillow over his face. Needless to say, between these restless nights and having a newborn to tend to as well, I’m tired.

-- GreenMom

Crib Notes: Sandy Kids?

Pack a bottle of baby powder in your beach bag and before getting in the car sprinkle sandy feet and legs with powder. The sand will come right off.

In Boston, the Rain, Rain Won’t Go Away

Maybe you’ve heard that in Boston, we’ve just had the rainiest June on record since 1903. And the first few days of July have not shown any improvement. I simply can’t look at the pool as half full right now. All I want to do is rant, so here it goes:

1. At first we made the best of it. We built forts, baked cookies, visited the local museums. Now we are simply stir crazy. Our new play structure is teasing us through the misty windows; our hammock looks like it will take three years to dry out.
2. My son asked me this morning why the clouds haven’t stopped crying.
3. I used to live in Seattle. If I wanted grey skies and frizzy hair every day I would have stayed.
4. I am tired of my friends in other parts of the country complaining about the heat. I would rather be looking for ways to escape the heat than trying to come up with yet another rainy-day activity.
5. My kids are going to grow out of their bathing suits before they’ve even had a chance to wear them.
6. We were going to camp out in our backyard, make s’mores, and explore local hiking trails this weekend. Instead, we will probably be making forts, baking cookies, and exploring local museums…again and again.

So please, please, if you have any ideas of how we can brighten our spirits that have become so very dampened, let me know!

-- Modern Mom

What’s in a Name

We had a rare afternoon of sunshine last week which meant that our neighborhood was busy with kids out riding bikes and enjoying the weather. One of my neighbors, who I think I have spoken to only three times ever, was out walking with her 2-year old daughter. She stopped by to say hello, and our daughters played with sidewalk chalk while we had a brief conversation. When it was time for them to continue on their walk she said to her daughter, “Give the chalk back to Auntie.” Auntie?!? Are we related? In all honesty, I’m not even sure I know this woman’s name!

Yesterday I was out with my co-worker and both of our kids. When speaking to her son she used “Mrs.” when she referred to me. Mrs?!?! It sounded so formal – especially for our casual outing.

This got me to thinking about the way children address adults these days. I don’t think I have used anything but first names when talking to my daughter about adults. She calls her teachers, all of our neighbors, my college friends and the parents of her friends at school all by their first names – unless she refers to them as Jane’s Mom or Eric’s Mom…literally. I suppose “Auntie” is an attempt at calling me something more personal, but I tend to feel it’s a name that should be reserved for just that, Aunties.

I want my daughter to “respect her elders” but I’d like to think that has more to do with behavior rather than names or titles alone. Can’t she still be respectful even if she calls them Paul and Lori?

-- Commuter Mom

Making Thumbprint Cats…From the Everything Old is New Again File

When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with rubber stamps. We lived a few hours south of Boston but we did a day trip at least once a year and I loved going to Faneuil Hall because I could buy stamps at Ink-a-Dink-a-Doo. Sadly, it no longer exists but I have vivid memories of bringing home my new stamps and ink pads (usually purple or the ultra-cool rainbow pad).

Of course, as soon as I thought my oldest daughter was ready, I bought a stamp pad in every color imaginable, all sorts of stamps with images I thought she would like and….total dud. She was bored in 10 minutes...OK, more like 2 seconds! So like any bored kid, she started sticking her hands in the ink and in a flash I remember good old Ed Emberley.

I loved making the thumbprint pictures made famous in his 1977 book. I could not get to the bookstore fast enough. We bought Ed Emberley’s Great Thumbprint Drawing Book and what a success! The book is exactly as I remembered it with crystal clear directions on how to go from thumbprint to any number of insects and animals. She loves doing these and loves that she can make it look just like the picture in the book. I totally know how she feels!

-- Crafty Mom

New Battleground: Parents v. Non-Parents

A new study was released at this month’s World at Work Conference revealing that mothers are less likely to be hired and more likely to earn less for the same job than their equally qualified female counterparts. (Interestingly, they found, the inverse to be true for fathers v. other men.)

I’m not sure what to make of it. I can’t say I’m shocked, but I also can’t say I’ve known anyone to face that particular bias. I am working for the same employer, in the same role now as I was before I had children. While I could be underpaid (and let’s face it, aren’t we all), I’m confident it has nothing to do with my parental status. But what bothered me even more than the study’s results was the bitter venom between moms and non-moms in the comments posted to BusinessWeek’s blog entry about the study.

To summarize, apparently there are an awful lot of women without children who think their parent-counterparts get away with luxurious hours off from work to attend their children’s every little whim. At the same time, there are a lot of moms who seem to feel that every “childless by choice” working woman is a cold, heartless, unattractive, fill-in-the-blank. Admittedly, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but what is clear is that there is a new battleground of bias in the workplace and parenthood, motherhood in particular, is smack in the middle of the fight. I suppose in some ways this is a natural sociological evolution in the overall movement for gender equity, but that’s exactly why it leaves me wanting to shout out to all women, moms and non-moms alike, “Can’t we all just get along?” Men have “Bands of Brothers.” Why does it seem like women have so much more trouble finding common ground, allegiance, and support.

-- New Mom

“Flip”ing Easy

We just bought a Flip video camera. I love it. It is so small – I can throw it in my jacket pocket when we go for a walk on the beach. It is easy – it doesn’t have a lot of fancy options, but I never used the “fade” button on our regular video camera anyway. The best part is that it is really easy to share videos via e-mail – no tapes to convert or fancy software to master. You plug the camera into your computer (the USB pops right out of the camera…no cords needed) and the software opens up so that you can download your files. Then, with the click of the mouse, you can publish online/e-mail/edit & create/save & organize.

Last weekend my husband took our daughter to ballet class. It was the last class before the big recital this weekend and my daughter insisted she didn’t know the dance – turns out she wasn’t kidding, she couldn’t even show me one step! Enter, the Flip. We videotaped the class and have been rehearsing in front of the computer ever since. If my daughter actually dances on Saturday, I owe it all to the Flip.

-- Modern Mom

Sick and Tired

It could be worse. Whatever “it” is, chances are it could almost always be worse. I really tried to keep that in mind last week when I was home for 12 days straight – yes 12 days – with 3 sick kids and my own full-fledged flu. When I’m sick, I like to give in to it. I want to dig out my flannel pajamas and curl up under a pile of blankets with a gallon of chicken soup. Clearly, that wasn’t an option. I was too busy managing the spreadsheet of fevers, medication times, and doses; trying to keep track of which sippy cup went with which child; and keeping them all hosed down with a constant spray of Purell (sorry Green Mom). Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the only movie they could agree on; we watched it approximately 17 times. I did feel at times like I was throwing a pity party for myself…though it was clear I was the only guest. I guess nobody wanted to come for fear of catching what I had. So now we’re well, save for some residual coughing, leftover sneezing and lots of exhaustion. I wish I could say I emerged with some great lesson to share, but really all I know now that I didn’t know before are the lyrics to the entire Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack.

-- Modern Mom