It’s Friday, so it’s time to give away cool stuff. This week’s giveway is courtesy of Care4Hire.com, online database for families and caregivers, dedicated to helping families find their perfect match:
THE FREEBIE:
WHAT’S THE PRIZE?: You could win an annual membership to Care4Hire.com valued at $69.99!
WHY THAT’S COOL: Not only can you find babysitters, but you can also search for housekeepers, tutors, pet sitters, companion/eldercare, personal assistance, gardeners and other miscellaneous help. As a registered member, you will have access to contact the thousands of caregivers in the database. Whether you are needing someone for 1 day or a permanent basis, you can find it at Care4hire.com.
HOW YOU CAN WIN: Post a comment under this blogtelling us what chore you’d like most to have someone else do.
DEADLINE: Noon ET on Sunday, February 28th. A winner will be selected at random by Random.org. Good luck! (more…)
I was hoping that nobody at the middle school would realize that I was spying on my son. I’d just followed the junior kindergarten bus to school, and I was hiding next door at the middle school, watching my first-born, Nicholas, get off the bus.
Loser.
I didn’t want to be a helicopter mom, but if you knew how much hand-wringing I’d gone through before making the decision to put my son into junior kindergarten, our school system’s program for children who aren’t quite ready for the rigors of a competitive kindergarten (a.k.a. boys), you’d understand. He was the oldest kid in the program and, according to the principal, he really only needed half-a-year, but there was no such thing. As a result, the decision was much harder than I’d anticipated. (more…)
Back in the day, I could make castles out of empty boxes.
Back in the day, I used to post funny stories on MommaSaid under the heading “Potties in Heaven,” a reference to the question my son asked me when he was in pre-school: “Are there potties in heaven?” (Answer: “Yes, and there are no lines at the ladies’ room.”) For your enjoyment, I am posting some of my old favorites:
Where is it? During a playdate at our house, I sent the boys upstairs and the lone girl to the powder room to change out of their wet bathing suits. It didn’t take long before all three boys were running around naked upstairs, shouting something about pirates. I settled them down and persuaded them to get dressed when suddenly, the girl appeared at my side.
Me: “Where’s your bathing suit?”
Girl, 6: “I put it on the couch.”
Naturally.
A Wrinkle in Time
Nicholas: “When do you get prunes?”
Me: “To eat?”
Nicholas: “No. I mean on your face.”
Me: (Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.) “Oh! You mean wrinkles?”
Nicholas: “Yeah. When do you get them?”
Me: “When your kids start asking you questions you can’t answer.”
Copy Cats
I was driving my car when Nicholas and his playdate, Andrea, started copying what I was saying.
Me: “So, Andrea. How’s school?”
Nick and Andrea: “So, Andrea. How’s school?”
Me: “Oh, are you copying me?”
Kids: “Oh, are you copying me?”
Me: “I think I’ll clean my room tonight.”
Kids: “I think I’ll clean my room tonight.”
Me: “I sure love broccoli.”
Kids: “I sure love broccoli.”
Me: “I promise to stop using my sleeve as a tissue.”
Kids: “I promise to stop using my sleeve as a tissue.”
Me: “And to put my mom up in a luxury nursing home with handsome nurses when she gets old …”
Kids: “And to put my mom up in a luxurynursing home with handsome nurses when she gets old …”
Here, Nice Doggie
When Chris, 4, returned from a playdate, he told me his friend had two dogs.
Me: “What kind of dogs?”
Chris: “A mean dog and a nice one.”
Share, share, that’s fair: What are your kids’ Potties in Heaven stories?
Ever since an e-mail came in from a PR person offering me a “prenatal music belt [that] offers a more modern, comfortable way to help your baby’s development with your favorite music,” I have been trying very hard to be nice. After all, the PR person was just doing her job, and, having been in her job before, I know that she doesn’t need to be raked across the coals by a cranky mom blogger.
But c’mon folks: “Any mom-to-be will tell you that stretching a headset across your belly is clumsy and hard to position.” Really?
Nope. Never tried it. But I did accidentally flip on the seat heaters in my mother’s new car the summer I was pregnant with my second son, and immediately assumed I had gone into labor.
Not that I expect a PR person with a million things on her plate to know everything I’ve ever written or produced. I can’t even remember everything I’ve written or produced. But I do think these sorts of baby-improving gadgets are not only silly, but they add unnecessary pressure to mothers-to-be who are busy enough trying to figure out how to switch off the seat heaters in their cars.
Moms-to-be have enough to worry about without having to strap on an iPod to their pregnant bellies so their babies can get a headstart on their Beethoven (or Devo or Lady GaGa) musical education. And though I know that quite a few prestigious parenting awards have been bestowed upon this particular device, I still wonder why it’s so darn important nowadays to make sure our not-even-born-yet babies listen to music in the womb, which the press release says, (unnamed) experts assert “encourages learning, language development and memory skills.”
But I assert that our babies spend the first 18-22 years of their lives learning, developing language and improving their memory skills. Can’t they just have a few months of peace and quiet? And who says that listening to their mothers sing along with “Jungleland” on the car radio doesn’t produce the same results (albeit out-of-tune)? Because that’s what I’m banking on getting my kids into the ivy league institution of their choice.
Or not.
Rather, I think it’s our children’s life lessons, from school work to piano lessons to lazy afternoons catching fish at the community lake, that I believe will make my kids well-rounded enough to succeed in life. And I know I’m not in the minority here. Not anymore. Too many of us are parenting a little less intensely these days, letting kids be kids (and fetuses be fetuses), so that they develop in their own way, and not through my iPod’s playlist. Whether you’re raising Free Range Kids or you’re simply slow parenting, you know what I mean. And you probably don’t have any plans to strap anything to your pregnant belly anytime soon.
But if you are, well, at least now you’re not alone. The press release promises: “And it’s a great way for daddy to get involved, let him pick the tunes for the iPod!” Might I suggest “Video Killed the Radio Star”? Aha! That’s next: MTV for the baby-to-be, because, I as learned today, “Your baby’s education should begin in the womb.”
Darn. I’m 13 years too late.
Share, share, that’s fair: So, what’s it going to be? “You go, girl” or “You’ve ruined your kids”? Tell us what you think.
When Lenore Skenazy suggested to the First Lady yesterday on her blog, Free Range Kids, that the battle against childhood obesity can’t be won without letting kids play, I agreed. But I bristle at the (anti Free Range) idea that we have to teach our kids how to play. Here’s what I wrote 18 months ago for Good Housekeeping:
All five boys in my backyard were complaining through my window at the same time. Something about “weapons” and “territory” and “He started it.” Apparently, one of the boys had violated the rules they’d set up about pilfering “weapons” (a.k.a. hockey sticks and wood) from the other group’s “fort” (a.k.a. a precarious lean-to in the woods.) But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Then my phone rang.
“Go figure it out yourselves,” I shouted over the complaints and the ringing. “If you can’t get along, you can all go home.”
I didn’t hear from them again. One-by-one, they raced by my window, shouting orders to each other for the rest of the afternoon. I figured they’d worked it out – anything to get to play together.
Then an e-mail came to my computer about some books designed to teach children backyard games that “demand imagination and physical well-being.” In other words, they teach them how to play. (more…)
No doubt, you’ve got kids at home today, racing through the snacks and fighting over the Wii, so you’ll understand when I just drop in this fun, classic video in honor of Presidents’ Day and go see what that loud crashing noise was:
I picked this shot from our night at a fundraiser because we looked hot that day, didn't we?
To My Valentine,
On this day, 19 years since you proposed marriage, I suppose it’s entirely predictable that tonight, I will once again pull the blankets off of you.
I don’t do it on purpose. I simple pull the blankets with me as I turn away from you in my sleep, effectively rolling myself up like a giant, double thick roll of Bounty paper towels. I don’t think about how this leaves you with nothing but a corner of the sheets and, likely, seething anger. I am asleep and way too busy trying to save the universe from invading Goldfish crackers on mo-peds, or whatever the dream of the night is. (more…)
