moonfever0's blog

The Magical Season of Winter

2009-11-17T00:51:46-06:00

When I tell people that my favorite season is winter, they think I’m crazy. Most people think of short days, cold weather, hectic holiday shopping, and endless snow. Of course I also mind these inconveniences, but I still relish the coming season.

Perhaps it is because I was born in January in the middle of a blizzard in North Dakota. Perhaps it is because my kids were born in November and December. There are a million reasons, but the heart of my love for winter is that life can finally slow down, so you can stop to appreciate the love inside your home and the beauty outside.

In the summer, especially in New England, there is an expectation to make the most of the good weather. There’s no excuse just to laze around indoors. You have to travel while the kids are out of school. If you’re not traveling, you need to make the most out of every non-rainy day by doing something outside. Never mind that it’s hot and sticky, you must take the kids to the playground, or on a hike, or to a lake, beach, water park or amusement park!

Sure we also go skiing in the winter, but it is prohibitively expensive to do on a regular basis. After the holiday season, our calendars are finally free of non-stop activities. And finally, I have time to do things around the house that have been piling up around me. One of my favorite things to do is go through all the photographs from the previous year (i.e. obsessively tag them in Flickr) and choose which ones to print. If I’m ambitious, I even make a photo book. Sewing and knitting projects are finally completed. And those books and magazines piling up? They are finally read in peace instead of in bits and pieces during sports practices. It finally becomes okay to be a homebody for a change.

Winter isn’t dark, look around at all the beautifully lit houses around the holidays. Candles in the windowsills look ever so peaceful. White lights are always classy, colored lights are festive. Add some snow and it becomes a picture-perfect postcard. Last year, my daughter caught her finger in a door late one evening and we packed her up to bring to the emergency room because she was screaming in so much pain. In the car, we kept telling her to look at the lights. After a few minutes, she was quiet and mesmerized. At that point, I turned to my husband and said, “Let’s just drive around and look at the lights, I think she’s fine.” We drove for a half an hour through the fancy sections of town as she ooh’ed and ahh’ed at the beautiful decorations. We brought her home, tucked her in bed and she was just fine. Magic, I tell you.

Here’s another piece of beauty that I experienced this weekend. I was driving home from shopping with my son at 4:30pm and it was already starting to become dark. It had rained heavily the day before and was overcast for most of the day, so the weekend was pretty much a wash out. But as we looked at the darkening sky, we saw clouds streaking the sky in long lines as if painted by a paintbrush. As we pulled off the highway onto country roads, we saw fog forming in the trees. The setting sun beamed hazily through the fog and turned the sky brilliant colors, first orange and then purple. As the sun set, the trees were enveloped in a soft purple haze, the furthest ones barely visible. We had great music playing and I kept exclaiming to my son, “Look at the trees, isn’t it amazing?” He truly seemed to appreciate the beauty we were experiencing, that can only happen during the colder parts of the year.

Winter is not cold, it is the warmest season, just ask author Lauren Stringer. There is nothing cozier than sitting by a fire while it is snowing outside. And what warms better than hot chocolate or spiced apple cider? In the winter, our cats are finally allowed to sit in our laps and sleep on our beds, we have tick problems in every other season. It is so warm!

Winter Is the Warmest Season: Lauren Stringer

Hopefully, my love of winter has rubbed off a bit. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her hectic and not-so-hectic seasons at mommy bytes.

The Almighty Gift List

2009-11-10T00:44:43-06:00

If there’s one thing that keeps my sanity in the holiday season, it is the gift list. This is not your ordinary throw-away list like a weekly grocery shopping list. It has become an invaluable resource throughout the year, as well as a record of giving through years past.

Every year since around the time my kids were born, I’ve keep an electronic gift list as a note on my PDA and now my phone, which is synced to my computer. At the beginning of the year, I make a copy of the list from the prior year, keeping all the names and erasing all the gifts. The list includes both gifts given as well as gifts received. It has holiday gifts as well as birthday gifts. Each gift to give has a marking for idea(*) and bought(+).

Before you think that I’m obsessed with all things material, it is definitely more of an organizational disorder. To me, there’s nothing worse that finding and purchasing the perfect gift for someone early in the year, safely stowing it in the attic, and then completely forgetting about it during the mad rush of the holidays, only to buy another mediocre gift for them. The only way to remember that you’ve bought something months ago is to write it into your gift list! Can you tell I’ve been burned?

Having a gift list at the beginning of the year also allows you to think about and buy gifts throughout the year. Who hasn’t wandered the stores looking for gift ideas on December 24th? At that point, you just pick anything just to get out of the store, and it is a waste of time, money and effort. Having a list doesn’t guarantee a quality gift, but it does help you think about it before the 11th hour. Sometimes we come up with several great gift ideas for someone, and I save it as an idea for next year. Don't forget that all gifts don't have to be purchased. Add your knitting projects and homemade gifts to the list as well!

I wish I could say that I am organized enough to get all my shopping done before Thanksgiving, but I’m still human. Having the gift list handy on my phone allows me to get through the holiday crowds without losing my mind. I can easily see who has presents purchased and who has a huge blank spot. Once something is purchased, I immediately write it into the list (looking like a texting fool, but it works).

Another gotcha is forgetting someone that you should buy for. At the beginning of the year, when the yearly list is created, names are gathered and culled. These include relatives and friends that are easy to remember, but also easy to forget service providers including teachers, bus drivers, coaches, music teachers, baby sitters, housekeepers, hair dressers, mail carriers, waste collectors, etc. Check out this great guide to holiday tipping for service providers.

And why would I keep a list of gifts that we’ve received? One, for the rare occasion where we re-gift an item. In that case, it is important not the make the ultimate faux pas of re-gifting to the same person or to a friend of the original giver, who may find out. It’s also a great trip down memory lane. We were recently wondering how old our oldest goldfish was. Since we got him when we received an aquarium as a gift for my daughter, I simply looked in our old gift lists and saw that we received the aquarium in 2007 and the goldfish is nearly two years old. Finally, when one of our kids receive a cool present, it becomes a great idea for gifts for other kids. Of course, all the gifts received on the list include from whom, so we don’t appear to do faux pas number one.

If you’re gadget and organizationally inclined, try the electronic gift list. You may have your best holiday shopping season yet.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her “obsessive organizational disorder” at mommy bytes.

Spooky Traditions Are Here to Stay

2009-10-21T10:02:01-05:00

Trick-or-treat! These words bring back images from my childhood as well as new traditions with my own family. The custom can bring out the best from children, the worst from teens, and is loved and hated by adults. Still, Halloween marks the start of the autumn and winter holiday season, commercialism and all.

Growing up, I lived in a high-rise apartment building in the city as well as a house in the suburbs, and Halloween was great in both locations. In the apartment building, there weren’t any special provisions for Halloween like having Santa come through the balcony because there was no fireplace. In fact, trick-or-treating was super easy, I only had to hit a few floors of my apartment building to fill up on candy. The hallways were full of happy, bustling children ringing doorbells. And there was no need to bundle up against the chilly October weather because we all stayed inside.

In the suburbs, I was finally old enough to go trick-or-treating without my parents. These days, that age may be much later than when I was allowed. But it was my first real taste of freedom, walking down the streets at dusk, being able to take in all the smells of autumn, giggling with my friends.

As a parent, Halloween has become chore, but one that we look forward to each year. There’s the buying or making of costumes, (modest) decorations of the house, carving of jack-o’-lanterns, and hoping for good weather for trick-or-treating. The first time I took my son trick-or-treating, he was two and had no idea what was going on. I had rushed home from work and pushed him in an umbrella stroller so he didn’t have to walk up the long driveways. But since then, he has eagerly looked forward to trick-or-treating each Halloween. And miraculously, both our kids insisted on walking themselves since they were three. Our tradition has grown to include our entire family of four. Our house is off the beaten path, so no one needs to stay home and man the fort. Kids love family traditions and this is one that we are happy to continue.

Although Halloween originates from All Hallows’ Even, the eve of All Saints’ Day, it has turned into a secular holiday, mostly in North America. It is one of those holidays which is not religious, or political or even serious. It marks the beginning of our neighborhood’s house decorating season, which in some cases, lasts through Valentine’s Day. Seeing the decorated houses for Halloween is one of the things that our kids most look forward to. Some houses are spectacularly decorated with flying ghosts, fog and even hearses. It is a huge community event. But most importantly, it is a time to connect with neighbors. Sadly enough, our lives are too busy to visit with neighbors during the year, but at least we have this yearly event to do so.

Soon our kids will be old enough to go trick-or-treating without us, but hopefully they will fondly remember our family trick-or-treating outings and pass the tradition on to their kids.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about creating family traditions over at mommy bytes.

Adventures in Thrifty Halloween Costumes

2009-10-09T12:05:41-05:00

When it comes to Halloween costumes, I have always pulled the working mom excuse and bought costumes for my kids. Sometimes we got hand-me-downs or found deals at costume swap events, but for the most part, we forked over large sums of money for costumes. This year was different! I was somehow inspired to make my daughter’s costume and it cost less than five dollars. If you’re already crafty and can sew, move along, you will be seriously underwhelmed!

My five year old daughter was flipping through one of her favorite catalogs, Oriental Trading, where amongst all the junk she wanted to buy, she found a cute candy corn costume. I was in automatic no no no mode, but when I glanced over I thought, hey, that’s something I could make. It’s just a straight dress with three colors, two if we used a white shirt on top. Even though I haven’t sown a piece of clothing for over twenty years, I figured this was something that I could pull off, working mom or not.

When we set off to buy fabric, I got into an argument with my daughter in the car about the order of the colors on candy corn. I said that it went top down from white to yellow to orange. She insisted that it was white, orange, yellow. I was so frustrated that I pulled out my iPhone and did a google image search for candy corn. She was absolutely right. Already correcting mom at 5 years old! Ay!

In the store, I wrapped my daughter with yellow and orange fabric and determined that we only needed one yard of each color (44 inches wide). I thought that you could buy some plastic hoop material to make the skirt hang in a circle, but the helpful fabric clerk suggested that I simply repurpose some coat hangers (can you tell that I am totally not crafty?). We went home with the $4.29 worth of fabric and a long sleeve white shirt for our chilly New England Octobers.

I am by no means a seamstress, but I do know that you can’t cut a skirt into a straight triangular shapes and expect it to hang correctly. So I pulled out one of my daughter’s dresses with a decent flare to help create a pattern of sorts.

I cut two orange pieces to match the curve of the bottom of the skirt, leaving plenty of extra material on the sides for seams.

Then I cut two yellow pieces below it, extending the line and following the curve.

While sewing, I kept reminding myself that this costume will never be scrutinized or laundered, so it didn’t have to have perfect seams. For the yellow-orange seam, I folded over and ironed the orange side of the seam and simply stitched the yellow over it on the backside. By the way, searching for orange thread turned out to be a wild goose chase, so red worked just fine. Besides, when will you ever use orange thread again?

I left six inches open on top of one side and sewed in a velcro closure. For the straps, I used pieces of elastic. I won't lie, it took me about six hours to complete. But in the end, it was a success!

But the proof is in the pudding.

She loved it!

For more thrifty Halloween costumes, check out Fireflies and Jellybeans, Non-Toxic Kids and Atlanta Bargain Hunter.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about juggling supermom-hood at mommy bytes.

Balance Hacks for the Control-Freak Perfectionist

2009-09-21T22:11:58-05:00

Balance can be extremely difficult to achieve especially if you are a control-freak perfectionist. Unless of course, you choose balance itself to master. Over the years, I have strived to "have it all", from work, to personal life, and finally family. Once the kids came however, everything was thrown out the window. Now that my oldest child is nearly nine years old, I have finally found a sense of balance in most areas of my life, although it sometimes comes crashing down like a house of cards. Here are some of my tips to help achieve balance.

The Calendar. For an obsessively organized person, a family calendar is a must. You can use a paper calendar or an electronic one. I personally use Microsoft Outlook because it syncs to my iPhone. Each activity is color-coded by person or type of activity. My husband is blue, my son is green, my daughter is purple, I am yellow, family events are red and home service events are orange. This works great for me, but my family still scratches their heads over the colors (I bet my husband is saying as he reads this - oh, is THAT what orange means). Every week, I print out the calendar and put it up on the fridge so that everyone knows what is going on. It is quite colorful! I also use Google Calendar sync so I can access the calendar online (not in its color-coded glory, but I have other color-coded Google calendars that I use for work and blogging). But beyond the tool, the calendar is essential to see when you've overbooked yourself. Obviously, you can't do it all, and it is easily apparent when you look at the calendar.

Delegation. For the perfectionist, delegation can be extremely difficult at first. Obviously no one can do it better than you! But if you want to keep your sanity, it just doesn't make sense. There aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done yourself. In 2006, I was interviewed for the book, Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Worry Less and Enjoy Life More by Alice Domar and Alice Lesch Kelly. Here was my response to the question, "In what area of your life (housework, career, your body, parenting, marriage/dating) does your perfectionism cause the most trouble? Why?"

Definitely parenting. I have a hard time letting go and letting my husband do things his own way. When I get it in my head that things need to be done a certain way, I become blind to the fact that there may be more than one way to do things, or that doing it a different way is not going to cause irreparable damage to my kids. Especially this year, my husband is staying home with the kids while I work outside of the home. He is spending more time with the kids than I am and I have to let him do things his way (making lunches, getting them dressed, naptime, etc.). I still ask for a detailed list of what happens during the day and end up criticizing him for things that I would have done differently. I wish I could be less controlling in this area.

I think I've come a long way in three years (my husband may beg to differ). I no longer ask about every detail of their days and I only cringe a little when mishaps happen like being late for an appointment. Coupled with management experience at work, I've finally learned that delegation can actually work. Marriage is a partnership, and works best when responsibilities are equally shared.

Lastly and most cliché, is to make time for yourself. It may seem totally obvious, but it can be the most difficult to follow through on. I schedule time on my busy family calendar for therapeutic massage and girls' nights out. It is also a priority to spend time with my husband away from the kids, whether it be a lunch on a school day or an overnight getaway for our anniversary. Carefully scheduling family time, couple time, as well as "me" time are essential in achieving that perfect state of balance.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about juggling life with her family over at mommy bytes.

Vitamins and Supplements – Good for Adults and Kids?

2009-09-15T22:25:38-05:00

I have always struggled to get my son to eat healthy foods, as witnessed by his complete refusal to eat fruit. Vitamin supplements are the next best thing right? We all know that’s not true. But when should you rely on vitamins and where do you draw the line on vitamins and supplements?

For some reason which defies logic, my son loves almost every supplement that comes in pill form. He loves chewable multivitamins, chewable vitamin C, chewable fiber tablets, chewable fish oil tablets for kids, you name it. We even had a scary incident when he was two years old where he downed a few non-chewable aspirin tablets because he thought these bitter pills would be tasty. He refuses to eat fruit and eats only a handful of veggies, but he gladly eats “veggie gummies” even though the smell of them turns my own stomach. My daughter is the opposite. She likes all kinds of fruits and tries most vegetables, but she is extremely picky about the type of vitamin or supplement that she will take. Thankfully, this all works in our favor, the picky eater likes vitamin supplements and the healthy eater doesn’t.

When anyone in our family gets sick, we all bone up on vitamin C. My daughter refuses the sour chewable vitamin C, but she does like to drink the Emergen-C kids drinks. And since they both have issues with being regular, I have no qualms about pushing the chewable fiber supplements in addition to making sure their diet has plenty of whole grains and natural fiber (tough when one of them doesn’t eat fruit!).

But I am always concerned about how much vitamins to give my kids. Obviously we don’t give them more than the daily recommended allowance, but we also don’t give them vitamins every day. I’ve heard that vitamins and supplements are just a big money-making racket that uses scare tactics to get people to spend money. I do believe that the basic vitamins and minerals are essential for good health, but you should already be getting them from eating a healthy diet.

But what supplements like fish oil? I like to give them to my kids because we seldom eat fish and supposedly the Omega 3 fatty acids increase your brain function. But is what may be good for adults necessarily good for kids?

Another supplement that I have mixed feelings about are fluoride supplements. When our pediatrician looked up our town and saw that we didn’t have fluoridated water, he immediately prescribed a fluoride supplement. We gave the kids the liquid supplement and then the chewable fluoride tablets for a while. Then our pediatric dentist told us that the fluoride supplement was unnecessary if the kids had transitioned to fluoridated toothpaste. We gave up the fluoride supplements and then a few months later, both kids got cavities for the first time. Coincidence? This immediately made me suspicious of the dentist. Where they just trying to make more money in fillings instead of looking out for the best interest of our kids? We’re back to giving the fluoride supplements again, but only about once a week. And our rate of cavities has gone back down again.

What are your feelings about vitamins and supplements for kids? Love them? Hate them?

Contributing editor Angela blogs about keeping her kids healthy and their parents sane at mommy bytes.

A Dollar for Every Perfect Test Score

2009-09-09T22:55:21-05:00

You can put me squarely into the category of “overachieving Asian”, thanks to my parents' policy of paying me a dollar for every perfect “100” I scored on a test. Anything less and I would get nothing. Pay for grades? Does that actually work? In my case it seemed to.

It may sound a bit harsh that my parents would not give me money for a test score of 99. But they simply had the expectation that I should excel since I was already a straight A student. Expectations for a weaker student would have been different (I assume!). Given that there were often multiple tests per week in various subjects, I actually did quite well for myself, as a bonus to my allowance. Having to always strive for a perfect 100, however, only fueled my perfectionist nature. There probably is a better way to pay for grades without promoting perfectionism!

But will this approach work in this touchy-feely age of promoting self-esteem to the extent of narcissism? I believe it will. Nowadays, kids are getting accolades and awards just for showing up, whether it be a sports team or a scavenger hunt. Everyone is a winner all of the time! There’s no incentive to rise above the crowd. True self-esteem comes from actual accomplishments, where constantly patting children on the back just causes a sense of entitlement.

Now that our kids are in school, we need to determine if and when we institute a pay for grades system. I believe my parents started when they noticed my test scores faltering a bit. Once they instituted the new pay scheme, I instantly fell back in line. In fact, I remember once in college, where it is nearly impossible to get a perfect score on a test (especially at MIT), I achieved a perfect test score and they offered to pay me for it. I laughed because by that point, getting a good grade was accomplishment enough.

So far my son is excelling in school and has no trouble achieving good grades. He beats himself up when he doesn’t get a perfect score, so there’s no need for us to step in. His internal sense of achievement and competition takes care of it. If he does start to show signs of apathy or underachievement, paying for grades may be instituted.

For some kids, it is hard to understand the point of having good grades. There’s no immediate reward or benefit for it. The benefits come only 10 or 20 years later. In fact, having good grades lands you in the nerd category and can be a de-motivator. So having an immediate reward is beneficial for motivating kids to do well in school. Sure, they may not be doing it for the right reasons, but a reward system is still better than a punishment system.

Plus, paying for grades imitates real life. In corporate America, mediocre performance gets mediocre raises and no advancement opportunities. And if your company is actually giving raises this year, good reviews get better raises. The geeks shall inherit the earth!

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her nerdy kids at mommy bytes.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Ponyo

2009-08-21T15:47:29-05:00

Disney has just re-released Hayao Miyazaki's 2008 Japanese hit Gake no ue no Ponyo, or Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. They went all out, employing an all-star cast including Cate Blanchett, Noah Cyrus, Matt Damon, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin and Betty White. My five-year-old daughter has been begging us to see the movie, so we finally ventured out to see it last night.

Disney's Ponyo opened to wide release in 927 theatres across America on August 14th. "Wide release" apparently doesn't include our local theaters, so we had to travel a bit to view it. Our kids, ages eight and five, were first introduced to Hayao Miyazaki through his film Spirited Away. We had only heard of this anime filmmaker through a friend who is well versed in anime. Spirited Away was filled with mystical forces, stunning animation, and compelling story-telling.

Ponyo is a modern day telling of "The Little Mermaid" set in a Japanese fishing village. Ponyo is a goldfish that longs to be human to be a precocious and charming five-year-old boy. There's magic, tsunamis, transformation and salvation.

Having been saturated with computer generated animated films from Pixar and DreamWorks for the last ten years, viewing a traditionally animated film was almost quaint. The visuals were rich in details and color and the characters were immediately endearing. As a foreign film purist, I kept being distracted by the ways Disney Americanized it. There were some signs that were left in Japanese, and then some signs that were in English (potato chips, for one). Most of the character names were Japanese, but the mother's name was Lisa. I suppose that Americanizing the movie makes it more accessible to the American audience, but I would definitely want to see it in the original Japanese with subtitles. According to IMDB, the mother's name was Risa in Japanese, so I guess it wasn't too far from the original.

My family was split on their feelings for the movie. My husband doesn't like the anime style of animation with the large eyes and felt that the movie was a bit weird. Ponyo was the strangest looking goldfish he'd ever seen. My eight-year-old son didn't know what to make of it and couldn't give me an opinion other that "I don't know". I think the visuals were overwhelming and the cultural differences felt strange to him, although we came home to "magical" ramen noodles. My daughter's first reaction was, "The movie was horrible! Because I dropped my food!" Indeed, she dropped not one, but two bags of pretzels and chips all over the floor and proceeded to melt down during the movie. But when I tucked her in to bed and asked her again, she said that she really liked the movie. Her favorite character was Ponyo, of course.

I felt the movie was beautiful and enchanting. My favorite character was the spirited, fast-driving mother, voice-acted by Tina Fey. The voice acting by eight-year-old child actors, Noah Cyrus (younger sister of Miley) and Frankie Jonas (younger brother of the Jonas brothers), were spot on. The film is definitely geared towards younger audiences, but despite the hackneyed plot, it was still endearing.

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Are you planning to see Ponyo? If you have a child under 10 years old, it should certainly be a magical experience for them.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about entertaining her family at mommy bytes.

Bedtimes? What Bedtimes?

2009-08-13T22:13:12-05:00

Our kids don't have a set bedtime. What?? Are we insane? What about schedules? What about some quiet time after the kids go to sleep? Are they getting enough sleep? Before we get labeled as unconcerned, free-for-all, no boundaries parents, let me qualify this with - we do have bedtimes, but not set bedtimes.

Several years ago, my husband and I went from a two working-outside-of-the-home parents to one stay-at-home parent (my husband). Prior to that, the kids had to be woken up at 6:30am to get ready for daycare. Those days were filled with strict schedules and grueling bedtimes. With an energetic toddler and a nursing baby, it was nearly impossible to get everyone to sleep at a reasonable hour. We'd start at 8pm, but inevitably, bedtime stretched beyond 9pm. Every night, we were exhausted getting them to bed, and the kids were tired when they were woken up the next morning.

With the changing of the guard, the kids no longer had to get out of the house at a set time. Which meant that they could sleep until they woke up naturally. And since we no longer had a strict morning schedule, their bedtime schedule also relaxed. Suddenly, we were not exhausted fighting with them every night and the kids were miraculously well-rested in the morning. At first, we were aghast that the kids were going to sleep after 9pm and even up to 10pm. But since they were waking up naturally around 7:30am, they were getting enough sleep. Our own waking schedule also shifted to around 7:30am, so we ended up going to sleep later as well (luckily being a software engineer, it is "normal" to come in late to work).

Basically, we allow our kids' natural sleep rhythms and needs to govern their sleep schedule. This requires constant monitoring and adjustment of bedtimes according to their energy levels and the time they wake up. It sounds like more work than having a set bedtime, but it is actually easier to "go with the flow" and make adjustments when necessary.

In practice, we usually call bedtime around the same time every night, but we don't insist on an exact time. If we know they've had a particularly active day, we usually call bedtime earlier. If one of them takes a long nap during the day, we let their bedtime be a little later. And we know it is working as long as we don't have to wake them up in the morning.

When grade school started for my son, we were once again faced with having to get him ready at a set time every morning. We simply adjusted his bedtime so that he woke up naturally with plenty of time to get ready for school. This shift in bedtime is akin to the shift for Daylight Saving Time in the fall.

(Of course all this is good in theory, as my daughter is melting down before bedtime as I type this. She is obviously overtired!)

In the end, bedtimes are whatever works for your family, as long as it maintains the childrens' health and the parents' sanity. How do you handle bedtimes?

Contributing editor Angela is mostly sleepless herself at mommy bytes.

Help! My son doesn't eat fruit!

2009-08-07T22:31:58-05:00

When I was little, I was forced to eat prunes everyday despite the fact that I hated them. I had to sit and eat three prunes every morning to be "regular". The prunes would sit and slowly dissolve in my mouth for what seemed like hours, and I would try not to gag. Of course, I vowed never to impose foods on my own children. Little did I know that I would face myself in spades.

When my son was a baby, I breastfed him and then followed all the rules about introducing foods. He had rice and oatmeal cereals, followed by organic fruit, vegetable and meats. He loved every type of food when it came in a jar, but transitioning him to the real solid food was a challenge. At first, he first he would eat a variety of foods, as long as they met his texture requirement. Slowly, but surely, he started refusing various fruits, from bananas to blueberries. At age 2, the only fruit he would eat was pears, skinned and sliced into triangular and rectangular pieces. Finally, he refused the pears as well, and I found myself trying to push the pieces into his tightly clenched mouth.

It dawned on me that history was repeating itself, forcing a child to eat. He simply did not like fruit. I tried apple sauce and smoothies to no avail. For a while he ate raisins, but then the dentist said they were bad for his teeth, like gummy candies. He doesn't like jelly or jam or even fruit-flavored ice cream or sorbet. He doesn't even like to drink juice except when he is sick or ordering a drink on the plane. He runs from the room if he smells a banana.

I got lucky with vegetables because I found a secret weapon - soy sauce. He had a special dipping bowl which he was allowed to dip his vegetables. He still claims that broccoli "makes me want to barf", but drowning it low sodium soy sauce still gets it down. And thankfully, he does like taking his children's multivitamin and fiber pills, although it's no substitute for the real thing. He's healthy and growing despite the lack of fruit.

When my son was three, his baby sister started to eat solid foods. She loved all types of food and ate almost every type of fruit from berries, apples, oranges, stone fruit and even pineapple. I made the important realization that the fact that my son didn't eat fruit was not a parenting mistake, but simply his own preference. So I laid off fruit guilt trip and let him be. I still offer him fruit with the rest of the family but even at age eight, he still refuses.

My son has been an avid soccer player since he was five, and at every game, he was the only player that did not partake in the soccer oranges at half-time. No amount of peer pressure was going to persuade him. Finally, last year, he started having one orange slice per game. Hallelujah! He hasn't ventured beyond one or two slices per game and won't eat oranges outside of soccer games, but it's a start. Maybe, just maybe, he'll try other fruit someday.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her kids and their idiosyncrasies at mommy bytes.

The Art of Letter Writing for Kids

2009-07-14T21:20:16-05:00

In today's tech world, the art of writing a letter on paper has all but disappeared. Niceties have been replaced by convenience. I've been guilty of writing e-mail thank you notes, but sending a real thank you letter in the mail is always courteous and proper. A few months ago, I attended a preview of Frontline's Digital Nation and one of the questions posed was, "We are the last generation to have a foot in both the non-digital and digital worlds. What do we want to carry forward?" I believe letter writing should be one of them.

Back in high school and college, I loved to write letters. It was a way to write my stories to an audience (of one) before blogging came along. This love of writing continues to this day. I never really liked writing essays for English class or creative writing, but I have always enjoyed writing the stories of my life. If I had never written letters, this whole world would never have opened for me.

So hopefully I can spread this love of writing to my kids. For both my kids, their very first written "letters" were Valentine's Day cards for their classmates. All they had to do was to write their friend's name and their own name on each tiny foldable card. At three, I would hold their hand and help them draw the letters. At four, I taught them to copy letters for each name from the class roster. They loved the idea of exchanging cards and to this day, they enjoy taking out the old boxes of Valentines and looking over each card.

My kids are in grade school now, and they are still only old enough write the obligatory thank you letters. And this in itself can be quite a challenging feat. When my son was five, I started having him write his own thank you cards. Since he is complete perfectionist, he kept freaking out when his words would curve instead of following a straight line. So I took a ruler and drew pencil lines for him. Eventually, I printed thank you notes with lines on them and this has helped tremendously.

Last night, my daughter lost her second tooth at summer camp and it got lost on the playground. I explained to her that we should write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining where she could find the tooth. We could also draw a picture of the playground in the letter. She immediately cried, "No! I don't want to!" and "I don't care!" To me, this was just a sign of being too tired. So I offered to write the letter for her. As soon as I started, she immediately piped in on which words I should use and explained where in the playground she thought the tooth was. We placed the note under her pillow, and this morning she delighted to find that the tooth fairy did indeed receive her letter (only money was found, a letter back would have been nice, but the tooth fairy was busy writing this blog post). Hopefully this will bring some understanding about the power of writing letters.

As they get older, I know that my kids won't be passing notes in school as this has been replaced by texting (yes I know this isn't allowed, but then again I know kids). Even writing e-mails to friends will probably be replaced by instant messaging. But hopefully, I can impress upon them the beauty of putting thoughts down on paper.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about parenting in this technology world over at mommy bytes.

Vaccines - Necessity, Luxury or Liability?

2009-06-24T00:10:34-05:00

I vaccinate my children. I believe in the benefits of vaccines, so it was just a matter of course. Our pediatrician laid out the immunization schedule and we agreed to it. I knew other parents who didn't vaccinate their children, and felt to each his own. Sure, you can have the right to choose, my kids would be protected. But this story changed my opinion.

Last December, This American Life broadcast the radio episode, Ruining It for the Rest of Us, which firmly put me in the "you should vaccinate" camp. In this episode, they interviewed parents involved in the San Diego measles outbreak of February 2008. A boy who was not vaccinated contracted the measles while abroad, and it quickly spread through the community. Children who were not vaccinated were quarantined for three weeks, which is an incredible burden if both parents work and they are not sick. Some people say that vaccines actually made it possible for women to work because they no longer had to stay home for numerous quarantines.

And then there was the story of a 10-month-old boy who contracted the measles during this outbreak. This baby was too young to receive the vaccine and his only crime was to be in the doctor's office at the same time as the boy with the measles. The mother retold the harrowing and frightening story of her baby son dropping from 18 pounds to 12 pounds, spiking fevers of 106°F, and of doctors trying to get an IV into his collapsed veins. All of this was caused by a family who refused vaccinations. In this light, declining vaccinations is not personal choice, but a public health issue. It is not fair to babies, the elderly and people with weak immune systems to simply opt out. The baby's mother went so far as to say that people who don't vaccinate should go live on their own infectious diseases island. I agree that people should have a responsibility to society and not just their own agenda. However, "protecting the herd" reasoning rarely works to convince non-vaccinators. This argument probably fuels the paranoia and conspiracy theories.

But consider this. Twenty years ago, 123 people in the US died in measles epidemics, and they were mostly poor kids with no access to vaccines. It was only the rich who had the luxury of having vaccinations. Poor countries still rely on charity donations for polio and other vaccines. Now vaccines are widely available in the US and it's the kids of wealthy and highly educated parents who are affected by measles outbreaks. Suddenly vaccines have turned from being a luxury to a liability.

I can understand that some parents choose not to vaccinate because they don't trust the system and truly believe that a vaccine would permanently harm their children. They want to completely control all the substances that enter their children's bodies. They read the testimonials of other parents just like themselves who believe that vaccines have caused autism. They hear about children with severe reactions to vaccines. They become convinced that these purported side effects will happen to their children and vaccines should be avoided at all costs. This is where vaccinations becomes an emotional decision and not a scientific or rational one. Yes, there are children who have a reaction to vaccines. But what percentage have severe reactions? And can you be absolutely certain of the judgement of parents with autistic children who are desperately seeking to find a cause for the disorder?

I think people have also forgotten the whole point of vaccines. Doesn't anyone remember that smallpox has been eliminated because of vaccines? And how many people are NOT crippled because of the polio vaccine? People have forgotten that vaccines actually protect you against serious fatal diseases. It's time to remember what a miracle vaccines are. It's also time to open communications between the two sides.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her family at mommy bytes.

Making Memories at Summer Camp

2009-05-26T23:56:05-05:00

Summer is nearly upon us and if you have school age children, you've undoubtedly already made summer camp plans for your children. I remember summer camps of my youth and want to pass some of these great experiences on to my children. It's a time to stop learning about academics and learn about life and appreciate the great outdoors.

If you have two working parents in your household, summer camps are a necessity. In these economic times, parents have gone with day camps close to home or opted to have the kids summer with their grandparents. I know parents that piece together weeks of different activities throughout the summer to fill the time: a soccer camp one week, a math camp or a space camp, swimming lessons, tennis lessons, etc. To me, that is a logistical and scheduling nightmare, so I prefer a single location just for simplicity and routine. My son and daughter also thrive on routine. Last year, I found a nearby private school that had a summer day camp program which offered swimming lessons, ballet lessons, karate class, field trips, etc. It was quite a find although not exactly inexpensive. The highlight of the summer was a whale watch trip which I gladly volunteered to chaperone (really, I enjoyed it much more than the kids).

This year, I signed my kids up for the same summer camp. Since my son will be entering third grade, he will be with the "senior" campers and will have even more exciting activities this summer. He has a couple of sleepovers including s'mores by the fire, as well as field trips for canoeing, baseball games and deep sea fishing. It makes me want to be a kid again!

I was fortunate to attend a great summer day camp when I was eight to twelve years of age. It was a camp for the arts, where I took piano lessons, painting, creative writing (which I hated because my mom forced me to take it... who knew I would enjoy blogging as an adult?), dance lessons and swimming. Everyday, we attended performances by different artists, including yearly visits from Cat Stevens (now Yusef Islam). Everyday, we wandered through in the woods between classes catching toads and sucking on sassafras tree roots. Little did I know what a great opportunity this was to develop my creative soul.

When I was fourteen, I was accepted to the Young Artists Piano Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Although this is not your typical sleepover summer camp because you need to practice three hours a day and attend master classes (it is not really grueling at all because everyone WANTS to practice and outdo each other), it still had the same intense life experiences and bonding of any other four week sleepover camp. I had the opportunity to attend all the concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but eventually blew many of them off to hang out with my new best friends in the whole world (darn teenager!). I learned how to hitchhike, mostly under the safety of Boston Symphony Orchestra patrons, but once with some not-so-safe local teenage boys. I learned how to solve the Rubik's cube (OK, I was a pianist and a geek in 1980). I learned that I could say no to the bong being passed around and it was still cool. And most of all, I learned a whole lot about boys.

Image from Boston University.

Ah, the memories. I could go on and on. I definitely want to provide the same opportunities for my kids to have these life learning experiences, but let's leave out the bong. And the boys.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about making memories with her kids at mommy bytes.

Birthday Parties 'R Us

2009-05-12T23:02:30-05:00

If there's one thing we love to give our children, it's a good birthday party. But that doesn't mean that we need to keep up with the Joneses or even keep up with parties past. With reports of extravagant birthday parties costing upwards of $10,000, it's enough to make parents completely overwhelmed.

Fortunately we live in an area where most families give reasonable birthday parties. We've gone to parties hosted at home and outside of the home. One memorable party had a Harry Potter theme, where they used a sorting hat to sort the kids into the various Hogwarts houses. Each kid received a t-shirt and button with the house color (my son was sorted into the Hufflepuff house). Shirts are a bit extravagant as party favors, but it was incredibly creative party.

We've also gone to a variety of parties hosted outside of the house. Some of our kids' favorites have been McDonald's, a movie theater, a bowling alley, a gymnastics place, and an indoor baseball arena. The baseball party was for two friends who attended different schools and each kid's "team" included baseball shirts as party favors (OK, that was definitely extravagent).

We tend to have our parties at home, and not go all out. My son's birthday is in the fall, and the biggest attraction is usually piles of fallen leaves. Who needs fancy moonwalks when Mother Nature will do?

My daughter's birthday is around Christmastime and it is extremely difficult to plan a party where there are enough people in attendance. Once, there is a huge snowstorm and everyone canceled. In the future, we may try a small sleepover.

Here are some more things we do to keep our sanity and keep costs down.

Keep it simple. A birthday party can have a theme or not at all. A theme makes it easier to pick out party favors, but don't get sucked in by all those birthday catalogs. Catalogs can offer pre-made favors, but often they can cost up to $5 per child.
Make your own invitations. The cost of printing invitations versus buying invitations are probably a wash (inkjet cartridges are expensive), but when you print them, you don't physically have to write out all the party details on each invitation. It is easy to find an appropriate picture from the Internet and create a simple invitation on the computer. Here's one that I made for my son.

Print your own thank you cards. I usually take a photograph of my child with their cake or during the party and use that to make thank you cards. I like having this personal touch for thank you cards, but other people may find them tacky (who cares?). Here's one I created for my daughter.

Stay at home. Some parents feel it is easier to go somewhere to host a party because there's nothing to clean up. We like the warm, comfortable feeling of being at home and we're also too cheap to host a party elsewhere!
Order pizza for food. For my son's first birthday, I made separate meat and vegetable lasagnas, side dishes, and baked him a cake. Most of the people coming to a one year old's party are adults, not other babies, so I felt I needed to prepare a proper feast. It was overwhelming and I've ordered pizza for every party since. When it comes to feeding kids, slice the pizza again so that each slice is half-sized. This will cut down tremendously on wasted food.
Ask for one small present. One year we received so many extravagant gifts that we were overwhelmed by stuff and finding a place to put it. Since then, we've always stipulated "One small gift only please" in the invitation. They still get big gifts from us and their grandparents, and they are perfectly happy opening small gifts during the party.
Cakes. This is an area where I unfortunately splurge. Not with delicacies from a pastry shop, but with homemade extravaganzas. I completely went off the deep end when I created this Spongebob cake.

Since then, I've found a great way to make theme cakes. Figurines. Just take your child's favorite figurines, wash them well, and allow them to decorate their cake. Afterwards, wash them again and you've gotten your theme cake practically for free. Here is a Star Wars cake for my son. The figurines lying down are "dead".

Here is a Disney princess cake for my daughter. Simple, yet perfect.

Most of all, keep in mind that birthday parties are for your children. It's not about impressing their friends' parents. And it is not worth getting stressed out over because ultimately you want your children to be happy.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about cakes, parties and hoopla for her kids at mommy bytes.

Letter to My Mother, Now That I Am Grateful

2009-05-11T23:56:23-05:00

When I was a baby, you said that my father wouldn't let you bathe me because he felt you weren't strong enough to hold me. But what he didn't realize was that you are the strongest woman I know.

When I was in elementary school, you left for work before I woke up and returned home at dinnertime. I assumed that you were so consumed with your work that I told my school that you were too busy to attend PTA meetings. It didn't bother me one way or another, but you were so angry with me when you found out.

When I was in sixth grade, you found a new job and moved our family to a house that was one mile away from your work. I didn't like moving from the city to the suburbs. I quit going to church and stopped taking ballet lessons because I could no longer walk by myself. I thought the suburban kids were stupid and bigoted. But I did like seeing you in the mornings.

When I got an A in math or science instead of an A+, you were disappointed in me. "You should do better!", you would yell at me. I thought this was totally unfair and that an A should be good enough, but deep down I knew I could do better.

When we got back from a cross country flight the night before a science final exam, we all overslept the next morning. When I saw that the clock read the start time of the exam, I told you that the teacher would let me make it up if you just called in. You refused and said I had to get to the exam right away, even though I was jet-lagged and would be late. It was the hardest exam I had ever taken in my fourteen years and I thought I had failed. But you had faith in my abilities and I ended up having the second highest grade in the class (and I didn't get dinged for not being first!).

You taught me from an early age to be independent, never to rely on man financially. I nodded my head and said yes Mommy, of course Mommy. You always harped on me to be responsible. I didn't really know what you meant, but always felt it was unfair because none of my friends had to live up to these ridiculous standards. I always thought that your expectations and demands of me were too high.

But now I understand, I am a mother. I understand that everything you did, from working, to moving, to expecting academic perfection was all for my benefit. That you sacrificed so much so that I could thrive. From living in a strained marriage to pushing me to be independent instead of holding me too close. You could see my potential far better than I could and never pushed me beyond my capacity. It takes a tremendous amount of love and energy to keep your belief in your children strong. It is so easy to just let them take the easy way out. But I try to persevere, just as you did.

I remember this quote from the book From This Day Forward by Cokie and Steve Roberts. "In your parents' eyes, you become an adult when you have children. In your own eyes, I think you fully become an adult and fully aware of your own mortality when you lose a parent." Nowadays, you constantly remind me where your safe is and where all your legal documents are if you were to pass suddenly. You ask me to call you to make sure that you haven't dropped dead. In your way, you are preparing me for your demise. But what you don't know is that I don't know what I would do without you. I don't know how I would bear the pain. How would I go on without the person who believes in me the most? Perhaps you have shown me the way already, but I haven't seen it through my insolence.

I love you Mommy and I am so proud to be your daughter. Happy Mother's Day.

Contributing editor Angela blogs about her adventures in parenting at mommy bytes.