TheMommyBlog

Thursday, July 29, 2010 QOTD

If I wake up with a needle in my eyeball, I’m gonna be pissed.
—Logan, as I dropped my needlepoint in bed

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Family

TrueAnthem and The Villa Group gave us a preview of the social media video player featuring four other mom bloggers and me on our trip to see their Cabo San Lucas properties: Andrea Fellman of Savvy Sassy Moms, Laurie Cooper a.k.a. Clueless Mama of Guessing All the Way, Heather Spohr of The Spohrs Are Multiplying, and Colleen Lanin of TravelMamas.

• See! Bat rays leaping out of the water!
• See! Newlywed men doing “sexy dances” for their ladies on a pitching boat!
• See! Each of us after a huge breakfast and tour before amazing spa treatments!
• See! Me powered by tequila and rapping to Moulin Rouge’s “Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi” with Heather of (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (and fellow Momversation.com panelist)!

No, really. And let us all thank them for having the voice-over blot out the singing.

What’s impressive about how they handled our visit was that they showed us the place and let us run with it, with lots of free time. Then they interviewed us and we said whatever came to mind. NO SCRIPTING. We were in heaven.

Heather (and Colleen of The Travel Mama) already wrote in detail about the trip. I will too, soon as the kids are at Dad’s and the construction outside my window dies down. Riiiiight.

For now, check out the video over there in the sidebar.———>

Pics and pics and more pics posted to my Flickr photostream!

Monday, July 26, 2010 Family

Seriously, people. I have tucked in three children several times a piece, each of their lovies after wrapping them in the appropriate blankets, the dishwasher, the washing machine, every light fixture in the house (but not the front door; that’s locked all the time otherwise it just swings open like a barn door if it’s not bolted), two computers, five remotes, and finally, over the phone, my Guy.

Isn’t the strangest thing, standing in a full yet completely silent house, so tired you can’t remember what it was you wanted to do when everyone was finally in bed?

Never mind, I’ll remember in the middle of the night. It’s probably my phone needing charging, and it will wake me with its plaintive little beeps.

*Yawn* Who’s going to tuck me in?

Thursday, July 22, 2010 Family

OF COURSE I want my kids to be safe on cell phones, especially since we’ve gone to an all-cell phone family. For the first time, we don’t have a house phone. That just blows my mind.

See, I’m used to the kind of family phone everyone had to fight over so your parents set elaborate rules about how many calls you can make and how long each can last. Eventually you learn to sneak calls by making it look like you’re not actually ON the centrally-located kitchen phone because you’ve stretched that 25-foot cord out the kitchen door, around the corner of the dining room, and then around the corner of your bedroom where you’ve found a gap in the door that lets you close it without pinching the phone cord too much. And then your sibling finds out when he trip-wires the cord on his way to get a bowl of cereal and takes revenge by disconnecting the cord from the phone base, letting the yellow, stretched-out, curly cord spring back and whip around the corners until it WHAPS against your closed bedroom door where you’re having a whispered conversation because you think you’ve pulled off the bluff of the century.

And then you’ve got like twenty twists to reverse in the cord because it’s all out of shape and there’s always that one that won’t untwist unless you run it all the way to the ends of the cord and when you wake up the next day it’s BACK, with three or four cousins. And believe it or not, your parents never replace that cord. It will persevere throughout your childhood, going from springy and not quite reaching your knees, to a long, worn-out looping thing that has to be tossed over the top of the phone to keep it from dragging on the floor where you will trip on it eleventeen times a day.

So. Cell phones.

My kids use them. And I want to know HOW they are using them because they are portable little buggers and you never know where they are until you call them and your shoe starts ringing. Well. Here’s a story that ought to get your attention, and get you thinking about how to keep your family safe while using a cell.

Forbes Personal Tech: Keeping Kids Safe on Cell Phones
By Claire Courtney

SAN FRANCISCO—Colorado mother Sharon Hamilton thought she had a close eye on her son’s technology use. The 15-year-old turned in his cellphone every night at 10 p.m. One evening, Hamilton became suspicious when he frantically deleted text messages before giving over his phone. Her worst fears were soon confirmed.

When she turned on his phone, a text message from an unrecognizable, out-of-state number appeared. “Good night Babe,” it read.

REET! REET! REET!

“I am a watchful Mom,” she said, ” and this bypassed my watch.”

Her son told her that the text came from a 30-year-old female friend he met while playing “World of Warcraft,” a popular online multiplayer videogame. Hamilton, unconvinced of the innocence of this friendship, investigated the woman further. She ended up paying a company to discover that her son had spent three months communicating with an adult male. Read more…

Don’t EVEN get me started on texting.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Family

I loved this opening line. (My site wasn’t featured, but it was funny to see my face on the screen shots of two of them!)

Mom Speak: Answers Moms Need to Know
By Kerry A. Dolan

I dipped my toe into the mom blogosphere and nearly drowned.

I’m one of those busy moms with a full-time job and not much time to read mommy blogs. So when I took a peek at the latest collection of parenting blogs, I was blown away by the variety of information they contain. Turns out that even friends who aren’t parents are sneaking a look at some of these blogs. Collectively they’re growing real muscle: Family and parenting Web sites got close to 62 million unique visitors in March this year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Read more…

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Family

How’s this for a writer’s life? Nothing that is going on right now—and there is a LOT going on—is suitable for blogging. I can’t talk about any of it. Privacy reasons, work reasons, my head is ready to pop and I can’t even work it out through writing it down. Which is a relief to some of you, I’m sure.

We love where we are living, but are paying a fortune to store our furniture while living in a furnished house with perpetual construction. Guy and I would like to consolidate households for all sorts of reasons but we live in different counties and between us have six children attending schools thirty miles apart. No matter what we did everyone would have to make major sacrifices. So that’s on the back burner.

Soon, I promise, something will break and I will be able to write more freely. Until then, well. I got all kids of trite and frivolous in reserve.

Monday, July 19, 2010 QOTD

Mom, your thigh is bigger than my head.
—Name Withheld

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 Family

Congratulations to Denise Ziemann for winning the Organization of Mom’s $2,000 Grand Prize!

Her winning tip?

I made a school memories binder for each of my kids using an Avery 1 1/2” EZ turn ring binder and Avery Premium Heavyweight Sheet Protectors. Each grade is divided with Avery Tab dividers. Every year I have them fill out a template “questionaire” of all there favorites. I slip it in the beginning of the year along with anything else throughout the year I want to save. Art projects (if they are too big i take a picture and put the picture in), report cards, holiday cards from school, certificates, etc….

I have also laminated some of the special ones for extra protection.

The next phase is getting Avery baseball card sheet protectors and putting a wallet sized picture of the kids in each year!

Denise’s Three Avery School Memory Books

You can slip more than one project / card in the sheet protectors.

Even oversized or odd shaped projects will work in the sheet protectors.

Monday, July 12, 2010 Family

I was just in Cabo San Lucas for a few days as a guest of the Villa Group at Villa Palmar with four other lovely travel bloggers. I am furiously editing photos, and will be back to regular programming as soon as is motherly possible. The connectivity wasn’t great and when it was, it was expensive, so I apologize for the radio silence.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010 Family, Momversation

Short answer: No. Kiss mah grits!

Tell us if you feel more like a short-order cook than a willing parent when it comes to your own version of kitchen wars. Do you take multiple food requests at each meal? Do you agree with some of our featured mom bloggers that taking a hard line with your children about what you serve may actually be creating a fussier eater? Our feisty guest mom blogger Jennifer Brandt, asks other real moms to take a hard look at what goes on in the kitchen every day. (In fact, Jen says she offered her son no less than nine breakfast options today!) Our own lovely Jen is also the Managing Editor of our own parenting expert video site, Parents Ask, and she’d love to hear from you!

Wednesday, July 07, 2010 QOTD

Dylan and Daphne have been really good sports about going to all of their big brother’s baseball games. Logan’s in the Little League Majors this year, and not only did his team win the league, they went on to the Tournament of Champions and now he’s on the All-Star team, which is in first place. That is A LOT OF GAMES.

Dylan is usually quiet, checking in with me occasionally by tapping my leg repeatedly. He asks if it’s annoying. When I say yes, he replies, “Then I’m doing my job.”

After a particularly spectacular hit, we watched the batter toss the bat end over end in graceful arcs as he pelted toward first. As we were cheering, he said:

I just feel sorry for the bats.
—Dylan

Friday, July 02, 2010 Family

Convincing my son to trim his mane was soooo much harder than cutting it! It had been at least four months, maybe more, and when his teacher started asking him every day whether he’d combed it…

I said he’d feel better, like our dog did when we got her a summer haircut. Just get all the undercoat out.

Whew. Thank God I did a good job; now it should only be 75% as difficult to persuade him next time. It’s still past his jawline, it touches his shoulders in the back, and he can still tuck it behind his ears. We have very similar standards.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude, Family

Ok, everyone, I got some ‘splaining to do. I haven’t been updating and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s like part of my brain has been removed. The part that is creative, light heated, able to write, oh, you know, the part that EARNS MY LIVING.

Could be a number of things, not limited to:

• construction right outside my office window that has been going on for a month and has at least that much more to go;
• change in meds followed by a frantic change back due to unacceptable personality changes (putting it gently);
• frantic scrambling mixed with cautious, slow-acting optimism re school situation (read: we don’t know which school district the kids will be attending next year);
• a perhaps unwisely timed embarkation on a cleansing program;
• Guy doing some heavy international travel such that much of our time together consists of naps and reminders of what day and time it is, sometimes which year;
• preparation for trip to Cabo with a few other travel mom bloggers (I’m always the oddball—I’m not a travel writer but am generic enough to be included sometimes);
• having had to turn down a paid trip to Hong Kong and Shenzhen with Guy on the SAME DATES, but hope to make it up later in the year but in Berlin instead; playdate scheduled to start in ten minutes;
• barely any structure to the summer so far outside of relentless Majors Little League games and practices, followed by Tournament of Champions, followed by All-Star tournament and after-parties;
• and mommy-let’s-go-NOW-I’M LATE so I can’t finish this post.

Now I’ve forgotten what I was saying because the table saw is firing up outside and MLB is on, and Sleeping Carl is snorting in the background…

BUT at least I have an exciting new project. My landlady has a studio apartment attached to the garage she’s just torn down and is rebuilding and wants to use it when she visits CA. The other day, she said, hey, if you want, you can paint the concrete floor, fix it up, make it nice, and I’ll give you free rent.  HELLO! It’s ON! So now I begin my hunt for cool ideas for making a 450 sq ft studio with a concrete floor into a cool livable escape. Sooo excited! Appreciated any tips/links!

Thursday, June 24, 2010 Family

Today I read a comment on the Oprah Network video I submitted that affected me profoundly. If this woman is half-right, I have done what I’ve set out to do in life.

Posted: Thu 6/24/2010 7:26 PM
SgtGreta: Mindy is what rhetorical theorists call ‘the good (wo)man speaking well.’ In the often choppy and super-snarky world of blogging, her kindness prevails. She makes fun of no one more than herself and her love of her family jumps from her words. She manages to be impressive without being self-impressed. I wish I were half as fabulous. VOTE FOR MINDY.

I wanted to create a record.

I wanted to give life to children, love them fiercely, and turn them loose in the world knowing what is to be loved and cherished and also to be held accountable for their actions and for their fellow beings.

I wanted to show YOU what you are, what you are worth, and what you have brought to this world.

I wanted, desperately, to love and be loved and for all of those in that lovely goodness to know who they were.

I have no regrets; I have nothing to atone for; I am utterly at peace.

You have given me all that a person could want—confirmation that I did not take more than I gave and that I helped make things a little more fun.

It’s a strange feeling, because we are brought up to believe that there is always a goal to be chased, a purpose to fulfill. I think I’ve fulfilled mine. I could die happily tonight, but then I’d miss out on all the fun.

I give myself permission.

You all SO totally rock.

Thursday, June 24, 2010 QOTD

The kids and I were talking about exercise and how I need to make sure we all get out and burn off energy because they are driving me nuts at home they need to move their bodies.

Me: “I need to move mine too, if I want to wear a bikini this summer. I mean, I don’t really exercise. At all.”

Logan: “Sure you do!”

Daphne: “We’re your exercise!”

Dylan: “Yeah, remember? Kids are your workout!”

Daphne: “Be the pants!”

Dylan: “YEAH!”

Daphne: “FIND YOUR INNER PANTS!”

I must have three pair of Kids Are My Workout Yoga Style Pants from Planet Mom Tshirts. I love Eileen and Elise.