The MomSpeak

Ow It’s Sunday afternoon. Since Friday I have made the equivalent of five meals a day, met several thousand demands, done six loads of laundry, scolded my two kids at least five times (only five?), watched bemused as my almost six year old daughter disappeared frequently to change her outfit into something she liked better tossing the rejects to sprawl helter skelter across her bedroom floor, taken out and put away countless piles of coloring and drawing equipment, shlepped back and forth to the grocery store, the playground, and noisy pizzeria (thank heaven for the pizzeria), and failed to shampoo my own hair. Of course I’ve left out the delicious stuff: helping a small person reach the next hardest rung on the climbing structure, laughing a whole lot, watching my son read to his little sister before bedtime, and snuggling at six thirty in the morning when they climb into our bed to start the day. Still, I’m exhausted, frazzled, and in danger of losing my sense of humor. Since I’m not planning a solo getaway to an island beach any time soon, there’s only one thing to do. Unload on my best friend.

A generation ago, Ringo and his pals reminded us “we get by with a a little help from our friends?” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At this point in our lives, no one has to tell us that our friends are vital – a lifeline, a source of comfort, compassion and humor. But it’s hard to find time to connect with our friends and when we do, we often feel guilty for putting off our family responsibilities. Feel guilty no more. Abundant research shows that friends are good not just for our sanity bur for our health and our families.

Gurus in various guises urge us to feed our spirits, firm up our muscles, nourish our bodies. “Relax,” we’re told. “Light an aromatherapy candle, take a bubble bath,” take time “for ourselves.” Yeah, right. But have you noticed how seldom we’re advised to nurture our minds? I guess it’s assumed that if we’re home with our kids, our minds are totally occupied with family-centered stuff; and that if we have jobs outside, the combination takes up every bit of brain space we possess. We know better. If it’s true that the more we have to do the more we get done, it’s also true that the more we use our minds, the more flexible and penetrating they become.

SO

Think of something you’ve been curious to know more about. In those rare spare moments, research the topic. It could be Renaissance painting; the life of Coco Chanel; how to grow orchids – whatever. There’s no time limit and you can do this in as little as ten minute spurts. If you’ve picked the right subject, the more you learn, the more you’ll want to find out.

We were not one of those lucky couples who had our children’s names picked out on our second date. Or the 175th.

Far from that in fact, I was pregnant-twice-for close to seven months before my partner and I could agree on names for our girls. Part of the issue is that he was pretty insistent on naming them for one of the Washington Redskins, most notably Clinton Portis. On the positive side, she’d be the only Clinton Portis in her class. On the negative side…well, no. Just no.

So I did what any mother would do in the same situation (besides considering temporary separation until I could get something reasonably cute down on that birth certificate); I turned to the vast baby naming resources on the web to help inspire some ideas.

Google “baby names” and you get 13,000,000 results, which is almost the number of possible spellings of the name Jaden these days. So while indeed, there is online help out there for you, navigating it can be overwhelming. I remember clicking from link to link, wasting far too much time on sites with faulty technology or on those so inundated with flashing ads and sponsored text links the content was clearly an afterthought.

It’s lunchbox season again. And again I find myself wandering the grocery store aisles looking for inspiration. The “fruit snacks” and sugar-filled yogurt tubes my kids beg for only depress me. Where’s the real food?

It is indeed possible to pack delicious lunches with a minimum of fuss and waste. Here are a few tips passed along by Parent Hacks readers over the years:

Send your kids on a spy mission. I ask my kids to report back to me what their friends are eating that looks good. I’m often surprised by what they tell me. Some of the ideas that came back from last year’s recognizance: hard-boiled eggs, lasagna, skewered apple chunks.

Freeze a week’s worth of sandwiches. Build your sandwiches assembly-line style on good quality bread, then pack them back into the thick plastic bread wrapper and pop the whole package in the freezer. Works well for peanut butter and jelly, many lunch meats, and cream cheese on raisin bread, and cuts down on the morning rush. (This trick works for muffins, too.)

 

When it comes to dressing my preschoolers, I’m sort of a snob.  

The daughter wears smocked dresses like playclothes; the son sports the preppiest duds this side of Bermuda.

My secret?  95% of their wardrobes are secondhand. 

And why not, when you can buy Kitestrings for less than K-mart? 

Recycling clothing eliminates waste and teaches kids that expensive is not necessarily better.

Here are 4 places to score quality kids clothes for pennies on the dollar:

Consignment stores (like Kid-To-Kid and Once Upon A Child):

You can browse through their racks just like any boutique, but you’ll find tags from every store imaginable.  Most items are priced $8 or less, with clearance prices as low as $1 an item.  Store buyers check carefully for stains and flaws.

You don’t have to conduct an elaborate research project to know that busy moms rate mealtime as among the most stressful times of the day. As we all know, it’s no small feat to tackle all your daily to-dos AND get something heathy, economical, and enticing to the table seven days a week.

Let’s imagine a familiar scenario. You are scheduled to work in your kindergartener’s classroom in the morning, then pick up your baby at the sitter and take her for her six month’s checkup before school lets out.. When it does, you’ve promised to take your two and your neighbor’s toddler to the playground. After that, it’s absolutely crucial that you take the car in for the oil change it’s been needing for at least a month. In the midst of all this, your partner, who usually does grocery duty, gets called out of town on business before making it to the market, As you’re all too aware, the fridge is empty, but you’ve taken the kids out for pizza one too many times this week.

What’s a busy mom to do?

Meal planning. Sounds so sensible and mundane. Where’s the spontaneity? The allowance for food cravings? And what if there’s no room for the overhead of planning in your already busy life?

I wouldn’t classify myself as particularly organized or systematic, but I do consider meal planning to be the backbone of my domestic week. The fifteen minutes I spend mapping out the week’s meals save me hours of time I’d lose dashing around my house trying to scare up dinner, or running back to the store for an overpriced item from the deli case.

I’m here to reassure you that meal planning does not have to include seven days’ worth of perfectly balanced meals, nor does it require a lot of work or time. Just a few minutes and the willingness to sit down with a cookbook and a grocery list.

The first time I opened the big fat Baby Book That Shall Not Be Named, I freaked. Just freaked. It was probably a combination of first trimester hormones and the legitimate fears of a first time mom-to-be, but those so-called experts destroyed my confidence in my ability to be a parent.

It seemed to me from the Baby Book That Shall Not Be Named that parenting had nothing to do with love or commitment or even instinct, but one’s ability to memorize the 14 pediatrician-approved breastfeeding holds or dedication to creating a perfect germ-free home.

I was going to be a total and complete failure as a parent.

And so, like tons of parents-maybe even like you–I turned to the web. I couldn’t believe what I found: Message boards, blogs, websites, and online communities filled with people like me who were admitting that they too were freaked out. Plus advice. Oh boy, was there advice. But not from experts who seemed to have no understanding of the constraints and limitations of real-life moms– more like moms themselves who were willing to contribute their own experiences to the community and see if it might benefit anyone. Less the “ask an expert” approach to parenting and more “ask the chick from your new moms group, the one with the bangs and the cool sling.”

Along with ever rising gas prices, the price of milk is headed for the stratosphere, salaries seem to be shrinking, credit card balances rising – let’s not talk about keeping our kids in clothes. Still, even as we struggle and squeak the budget til it screams, it’s hard to ignore others who have far less than we do and suffer from far bigger troubles. We want to give back, especially to teach our children the value of thinking about others, but most of us have as little time as we do extra money. What to do?

The internet has made giving easy and inexpensive, with sites such as www.KIVA.org , which lets you make small business loans to people all over the world who want to start a business but need help. You can donate as little as $25.00 to someone you choose from an array of profiles. Best of all, the loan is repaid once the business gets underway. Heifer International (www.heifer.org) is another terrific site also dedicated to helping people help themselves out of poverty.  For as little as $10.00 you and your kids can buy a share of a dairy goat (or pig or sheep), something that will supply a family with several quarts of milk a day or enable them to add protein to their diets and even begin a small dairy or weaving business. Closer to home, www.kitzforkids.org lists organizations all over the country that for $12.00 will get packages of school supplies to kids who can’t afford them. This one’s especially nice right now.  These worthy organizations make giving really easy. But they’ve established a real presence already.  What about the small local programs working hard every day to make a difference without getting much publicity or attention?

With grocery prices at record levels, we’re all looking for ways to save money on our food bills. With just a little bit of forethought and common sense, you can lower your grocery budget while still eating well. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Plan your meals. This one’s obvious, but may feel overwhelming if you’re not one who likes to cook (or plan). Any meal planning you can do — even if it’s for three dinners during the week — will help you buy only what you need, and, in the process, save you money. You can also build in time to defrost meats you’ve purchased on sale or cook dried beans (rather than having to buy more expensive canned beans). Another option: sign up for a meal-planning service such as savingdinner.com or thescramble.com. For a subscription fee, you’ll get meal plans and grocery lists emailed to you each week.