Chicago Moms Blog

A bookworm is born

As if it wasn't troubling enough that my 5 year old can more quickly and confidently identify the countries of South America or the faces and places on U.S. coins than I can, I've found myself in the awkward position of wondering if she's reading too well, too soon. And trying to figure out what that means (if anything) long term.

A brief history. My daughter learned to read somewhere between 4 and 4 1/2. Shortly before she was officially 4 1/2 she fluently read me a 28 page book she'd hadn't seen before. It was then that I acknowledged she really was reading--not merely memorizing her favorite books. 

Z is 5 now and her reading and writing skills are tremendous. Her Montessori teacher deserves a lot of credit for teaching her to read and continually challenging her, and she's probably inherited some natural verbal ability from me and her father as we're both professional writers. But still.

The case for organic milk

While I am conscious about the food choices my family makes--choosing whole, recognizable foods and avoiding processed and most prepared foods--I've been somewhat slower to go organic.

I've got a good job, but I'm the sole breadwinner in our family and we need to stick to a budget. We've cut back on our meat consumption so that we can afford to buy organic, humanely-raised meat, but I have a hard time justifying paying $6.00 for a gallon of organic milk when I can buy hormone-free for as little as $1.99. I've been especially troubled by the notion of paying a premium for organic milk when those so-called organic cows are being kept indoors in what amounts to factory farm feed lots. (Horizon Organic, I'm looking at you.)

Now that's changing. The USDA just imposed new standards for organic milk, requiring that those cows have access to pasture grasses. As you can probably tell from the bucolic images on the front of many milk cartons, cows are supposed to graze on grasses. Chowing down on corn in a feedlot makes cows gassy and prone to infections. And a gassy cow burps methane into the atmosphere, which adds to our greenhouse gas problem.

Too many snacks!

I confess, I snack. Typically I have a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit mid-morning and another around 3pm. I think it is perfectly normal--and acceptable--to have a little something (preferably healthy) to tide oneself over between meals, provided, of course, that those meals aren't too hearty. 

Unfortunately, my kids do not share my sense of moderation. 

If they had their way, all meals would be replaced by snacks. Crinkly wrappers, cheesy crackers, little bowls of pretzels and Goldfish and Cheerios and M&Ms--these are their bite-sized tastes of heaven. They expect snacks at a playdate and demand snacks at the park. They're hungry for snacks after school and again after gymnastics practice. They want snacks in the car and snacks on the plane and snacks in front of the TV... And they want juice boxes and water bottles and milk in a sippy cup!

Can we moms band together and give this snacking thing a rest? Cars didn't used to come with cup holders. Toddlers used to manage between mealtimes without the self-serve convenience of a Snack Trap. We got water at the water fountain and snacks (if we were lucky) at snack time. There was an era before Clif Z bars and 100 calorie packs and McDonald's Snack Wraps and demands on parents to provide snacks for 90 minute events. 

Brunch for HOW many?

It was in the doldrums of mid-December, after defending my decision to axe holiday cards from my to-do list, that I decided to host a New Year's brunch open house. I dimly recall my mom opening our home for this kind of event a few times while I was growing up, and visions of bagels, coffeecake and steaming cups of coffee filled my head as I entered the details into Evite. 

Ah yes, the Evite invite list. Assuming a good portion of my friends would be traveling, hung-over or otherwise occupied on New Year's, I invited a lot of people. I figured I'd be lucky to get a 50% response rate.

The first two RSVPs arrived in the next hours. Both regrets. I started to regret sending out the invite. What if no one came? What if I ended up being the giant loser who invites a bunch of people to brunch and ends up sitting in the living room alone, sadly nibbling fruit salad?

I ended up with the opposite problem. Having largely ignored Evite while traveling over Christmas break, I logged in three days before the event to find 64 yeses and 15 maybes. By New Year's Eve the total we were up 69 yeses. Panic set in. I live in a small, 1100 square foot house. I've never had more than 25 people over at one time, let alone 69 people, half of whom would be children!

My husband, not exactly the soothing, sympathetic type by nature, wasn't reassuring. He basically told me I was nuts to invite more than a handful of our closest friends and that this was a dilemma of my own devising. My next door neighbor sympathized with my plight and offered her basement for spillover of any "big kids." She also handed me her three largest serving bowls and advised me to simplify my menu offering and maximize each item's quantity. 

A few things I'd like to bring home from Australia

I just returned from a two week visit to Australia, where my sister lives with her Australian husband and their family. As far as foreign countries go, it takes a long, long time to get there, but it is pretty familiar territory once you land. A thoroughly modern, cosmopolitan city, Sydney kind of looks like Southern California, complete with tattooed surfers, texting teenagers, Target, McDonald's, Subway and KFC outlets.

But Australia isn't America Down Under, and they've got a few things I'd like to import.

1. Public Health Care 

Yeah, this is a big one. No one in Australia goes uninsured. Everyone has access to the state-run Medicare plan. Yes, you might have to wait a few months to get non-emergency work done, but you won't have to mortgage your house or go bankrupt to pay for it. Once your household reaches a certain income level, you can pay a penalty (I believe it is $2000) to stay in the public plan or you can opt to buy private insurance. In my sister's case, private insurance cost about the same as the penalty but got her access to "fancier" care like a post-partum recovery suite at a local hotel where she had catered meals and 24/7 access to a private maternity nurse.

A mighty case of mommy brain

I pride myself in being an excellent juggler. I can't literally keep three balls in the air, but I somehow manage working full time, being an involved mother to two little girls, serving as co-president of our Montessori school and studying for my Bat Mitvzah.

So it was inevitable that something would fall through the cracks.

My sister, who lives in Australia, called me at work on Wednesday afternoon.

"Are you all packed and ready to go? Do you leave tonight or tomorrow?" she asked.
"Oh, we don't take off until Friday night," I responded.
"Um, it takes two days to get here and I'm picking you up at the airport on Saturday. Are you sure you leave on Friday? Check your itinerary."

I checked.

Giving up on a cat

I never in a million years thought I would be writing this. Saying this. Even thinking this. I'm an animal lover. A former foster mom and volunteer at the Anti-Cruelty Society and an adoption coordinator at the Animal Care League. 

But here it is: my cat may have to go.

Tallulah is a sweet, personable cat. I fostered her when she was an 8 week old kitten, undernourished and riddled with fleas and worms. We nursed her back to health in the bathroom of our apartment, our first cat growling outside the door.

Buckle up and vaccinate

Imagine for a moment you had a friend who doesn't buckle her children into car seats. Her pediatrician is horrified and her daycare provider protested, but your friend just waves away their--and your--concerns. She says sure, seat belts and car seats have saved some lives, but they could also be deadly. They're not fail proof. They're not fully tested. There are recalls all the time. Not only that, they could kill her kids if, say, the car engine catches fire and everyone needs to get out as fast as possible.

You're crazy, you respond. Everyone uses seat belts. It's the law!

Then your friend points out how the government has no business mandating how she raises her children. She needs to trust her motherly instinct instead of some government goon and that instinct knows her kids are safer without seat belts. And besides, she continues, car seats are expensive. They're made by big corporations with an eye to maximizing shareholder profits. That whole recommendation not to buy used and replace a car seat after 6 years of use? It's all about making money for the man, man.

To help defend her position, she forwards links to horror stories of kids killed or disfigured while strapped into their car seat. She cites experts--even celebrities--who eschew seatbelts and car seats for their own children.

Back on the potty train

Something had to go wrong. It was just too easy to potty train my 25 month old daughter. She started asking to use the potty on her second birthday. She told me when she wanted to go. She happily visited every toilet between here and Omaha.

So after a few of weeks of dry Pull-Ups, I put her in underpants. One, two, three days passed without an accident.

So I got cocky. I told friends. I updated my Facebook status. I went places without a change of clothes.

I should have known better. I don't exactly believe in the evil eye, but I've heard of the blogger's curse, which pretty much guarantees that if you write it, they will fail.

So yeah, two pairs of poopy underpants and two wet Princess panties later, I'm not taking this potty training thing for granted any more. I'm packing spare clothes. And I'm not taking "I don't need to go" for an answer.

But I'm not giving up. After so much success, we're not--I repeat not--going back to diapers.

Flickr photo by snowpeak, used under Creative Commons license.

Original Chicago Moms Blog post. Alma writes about life as a working mother to two little girls at Marketing Mommy.

The half-life of friendship

Like a lot of women, I need friends. My husband completes me in many ways, but my life would have a giant hole in the middle without girlfriends. And since my lifelong best girlfriend hasn't lived within 1000 miles of me since we were both 17, I don't take girlfriends for granted.

After graduation, my college girlfriends moved away. A few years later, I changed jobs and drifted apart from my work girlfriends. I made friends with the women who dated and married my guy friends, but I was lonely for genuine girl-friendship.

Finally, in 2004 we started a family. Now having a baby is good for lots of reasons, but for me, the cherry on top of the cuddles and cuteness was the whole new social network motherhood opened up. For the first time since college, I could strike up a conversation--even exchange phone numbers--with someone I'd met by chance. It seemed "How old is your baby?" was the ultimate pick-up line. And it kept getting better.  I made friends at a new moms' support group, at the park, at daycare, in the neighborhood and at baby classes. I made friends with other mom bloggers. I organized a playgroup, took turns planning girls' nights out and just about cried with joy when my still fairly new friends helped my husband plan a surprise 30th birthday party.