The MomSpeak

One of the most popular topics on Parent Hacks is the fearsome intersection of children and air travel. Most of us have an “if-it-can-go-wrong-it-will-go-wrong” story about that time we took the kids on that cross-country flight that got delayed, and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get the car seat buckled in, and then there was turbulence, and the sippy cup leaked all over my lap, and remember that monster diaper blowout?

Yeah. That story.

Some kids are natural born travelers, but most have a hard time with the waiting, unpredictability, and discomfort that comes with every flight. So before your next trip, make a few simple preparations that will make the experience a lot easier for everyone:

Pack smart snacks.

Novel snacks have magical tantrum-diffusing properties. Not that I’m suggesting you bribe your kids with Twinkies or anything, but a well-timed snack (given out before everyone is grumpy and ravenous) can often head trouble off at the pass. Pack stuff that’s not crumbly, not sticky, and not smooshable.

Ah, the holiday letter. That self-congratulatory Christmas card photocopy supplement  crowing about the family’s Nobel- and Olympic-level accomplishments over the past year. So ostentatious. So presumptuous. And so fun to read!

C’mon, admit it! You love holiday letters! I know I do. I can’t wait to hear about how much the kids have grown, and how the job’s going, and what the adventures have been. If the sender threw in a few pictures, all the better.

In my experience, very few holiday letters actually fit the obnoxious stereotype. After all, the people who send us cards ARE our friends, and it’s nice to read a little more about them than “Sincerely, Bill and Janet.” I especially love getting letters from the folks I hear from once a year. Some of my oldest friendships are sustained by the annual holiday letter, and that’s just fine with me.

A couple of years ago I sent out a holiday letter in lieu of cards. I had a great time taping a collage-like collection of photos, ribbons, fortune cookie inserts to a blank piece of printer paper. I then hand wrote a letter in the spaces that were left on the page. I took the whole thing to Kinko’s, made 100 copies onto colored paper, and only paid about $10. I didn’t even stuff the letters into envelopes. I added a personal note to each, tri-folded them, secured them with stickers, stamped and addressed them and sent them out.

I didn’t do it last year, and I felt so great about it, I’m never doing it again.

I didn’t buy a shred of wrapping paper.

Now I love beautifully-wrapped gift as much as the next guy, but buying paper specifically produced to be thrown away? Between the Earth’s stretched resources and my stretched budget, there’s just no way.

Are you with me on this one? Give it a try this year. A few ideas:

Craft paper. My daughter has an easel which uses an attached roll of recycled newsprint. She draws or paints, then pulls the roll revealing new paper. But what to do with the miles of resulting art? Turn it into custom wrapping for the grandparents’ gifts. Same deal with the art projects that come home from school.

Second-hand scarves. I know someone who picks up Goodwill scarves — the more garish the better — for pennies apiece and then uses them to wrap gifts. Also: baby blankets.

Starting on October 31, sweets seem to be a staple part of kids’ diets through the end of the year. Halloween candy, pumpkin pie, hot chocolate, cookies, candy canes…it seems like there’s no end to the sugar. Seasonal treats are part of the holiday fun, but eating something sugary every day for a few months sets kids up to crave it year-round.

Here are a few strategies for a more healthful holiday season:

Store surplus candy and cookies in the freezer. My kids were horrified at prospect of trashing the bulk of their Halloween candy, so we threw it into a Ziploc bag and tossed it in the freezer. Whenever we go to the movies, we dip into our stash so we can avoid the overpriced (and supersized) theater snacks. Otherwise, it’s out of sight out of mind.

Establish a dessert rule before the holidays. Before the holidays, we talk about what a body needs to be healthy, and we refer to those ideas as we celebrate. Believe it or not, our kids appreciate the guidance, even when they don’t like the restriction. Without supervision, our son has been known to take a dinner-sized helping from the dessert table.  Our new rule is “choose one treat and come see us about the rest.” We stop short of hovering, but be don’t allow unsupervised gorging on sweets.

Did you hear? The United States is in economic crisis, and much of it has to do with credit. That is, buying stuff with someone else’s money hoping you can pay it back later. Which sounds a lot like what my nine year-old son tries to do with me: “Pleeeeeease can you buy me Super Mario Giganto Turbo Supernova III: The Adventure Continues? I’ve got the money! I’ll pay you back!”

Um, no. In fact, my saying no is part of an important financial lesson: you can only buy something if you can pay for it. In this case, I meant it literally — he needs to bring his wallet along if he wants to buy something. But it also applies to the notion of saving one’s money for future purchases.

It’s just one lesson along the way to my son’s understanding of the fundamentals of money management. It’s more important than ever for kids to learn how to make money, how to save it, and when (and on what) to spend it.

My first visit to the dollar store filled me with a mixture of wonder and horror. I was overcome by the vast array of products that could be purchased for Only! One! Dollar! But I was depressed by the mass of cheap plastic that would eventually find its way into the landfill. Could there be some decent buys for someone who values quality, but wants to save a few bucks?

In fact, there are enough deals to make a stop at the dollar store worthwhile, especially if it’s nearby other shops you frequent. Here’s what I found on a recent visit:

Art and craft supplies: If you’ve ever been to one of those big box craft stores, you know how easily you can blow your budget there. You go in for a few bottles of tempera paint and some brushes and you come out with a hundred dollars’ worth stuff you swear you’ll use but probably won’t. If you’re just looking to set your preschooler up with some basic doodling equipment, you’ll do just fine at the dollar store.

I so appreciated Liz’s recent MomSpeak post “Need advice? Just ask a mom.” (And not just because Parent Hacks appeared in her list. Although it was lovely to be included among such fantastic sites.) She reminded me of my own love-hate relationship with parenting advice books.

When my first child was born in 1999, there wasn’t yet a widespread Internet community for moms. There was BabyCenter, which was an incredible resource, but I never felt at home on its message boards. There were no blogs at the time, and I was a new enough mom that I hadn’t yet made many friends with children similar ages, and so I mainly relied on my trove of parenting books for advice.

Whenever I felt stumped as a parent (which was often), I paged through those books looking for answers. Everything seemed so seemed so clear, sitting there on the page, but when I tried to apply what I had learned to my own child, he rarely responded “by the book.” Was he broken? Or was I?

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.)

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.

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.