It Comes with the Territory

by Julie Davidson

It’s funny how we have wish lists. Actually it’s not the wish lists that are funny, but rather the conditions we place on those wishes.

How many of us were hoping our kids would have some interest or ability to compete in sports? Gymnastics is great, if you can be at the gym three days a week for two-hour-long workouts.

Maybe swimming is a possibility. The pool area, however, tends to be a bit humid, and for moms with curly hair, things can get a bit frizzy.

My guys love soccer, and I really enjoy the games. If I have coffee. And if I have other moms to chat with. And if it’s above 60 degrees and sunny.

Of course, you’d like to send your kids to a good school. A good education is likely the best thing we can give our children. But that might mean you’ll have concerned teachers and mounds of homework.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find a school for your kids that still includes music in the curriculum. I know several parents chose the school our kids go to for the fact that the kids have music class a couple times a week. But I couldn’t help but smile when I saw one mom’s recent Facebook post about the new recorder instruments our kids were given.

Yep. The kids were given recorders to keep. They could now play them at school, in the car, and at home. You might recall that a recorder plays very high notes. I like to say that it plays variations of what seems like one very high note. Over and over.

Cramped schedules, frizzy hair, freezing on the sidelines, and listening to one very high note over and over. Wish all you want, but some things come with the territory.

Liar, Liar

by Julie Davidson

You probably have a list of values you want to teach your kids. Things like respect, empathy, and responsibility. Might as well add honesty to the list.

But honesty is a tricky one. Like when you go to the zoo and admission is free for kids under five. If your six year old is short for his age, would you just say he’s under five? You could save eight bucks. Which means more popcorn and soda. And that means you would be the coolest ever (or at least for that day). Hmmm…tempting.

Did you ever swear you’d never use a certain babysitter again? The kids told you she used bad words, talked on her cell phone all the time, and sent them to bed early. But then you were in a bind, and she was the only one available. Do you beg your kids not to tell her you called her a juvenile delinquent?

Have you ever gone grocery shopping with the kids, paid for a cart full of groceries, and just as you squeezed everything into the trunk you noticed there was a carton of milk on the bottom of the cart? The milk the cashier didn’t charge you for? The same milk you really need because you have none in the fridge. You’ve told your kids that you have to pay for what you take. But it’s Friday, and the lines are getting longer, and the kids are getting hungrier.

Lying isn’t good, but it sure is easy. Like telling the kids you’ll buy then that cereal they want next week. You never did it. You took money from the piggy bank and never told them. You said there was no more gum, but there’s a whole stash in the top cabinet.

It’s good for children to hear us telling the truth. Even if it’s not convenient. Except maybe when they ask our weight.

It’s Mother’s Day!

by Julie Davidson

It’s almost here. Mother’s Day. It’s the one day since prom you get to wear a corsage. It’s the day you get to do what you want to do. And a day that your family holds you in high esteem and tells you how special you are.

It’s always interesting to get children’s perspective on things. Two years ago, I asked both of my boys what Mother’s Day was about. My youngest couldn’t get past the fact that there wasn’t a kid’s day. So I asked him who paid me to do things like laundry, shopping, and cleaning. He thought my boss paid me for those things.

Then my oldest son said, “Dad pays you to do all those things.”

And before I got my full rebuttal in he added, “Because he said every time he gets paid, you take his check.”

So I wanted to see if things had changed, and today I asked my nine-year-old what Mother’s Day was about. He explained, “It’s celebrating what Mothers do for their kids and how they work hard to get you things you need.”

Somehow when it comes to Mother’s Day, there seems to be more sentiment put into it than other occasions. The cards are often handmade, with stick figures of the family. You’ll likely be the one in the dress. And if things work out with Mother Nature, you might get some fresh flowers from the garden. Yes, they might be dandelions, but you’ll love them anyway. Breakfast in bed might be served. And even if the bagels are burnt and the cream cheese is piled on too thick, it will be the best food you’ve had in days. If you opt for the overpriced brunch, it will be worth every penny. Your kids might give you coupons for free chores they will do around the house.

So enjoy your day. And your kids. But just a heads up: Those coupons might expire at midnight. So use ’em up while they’re good.

Sunday Safety School

by Jennifer Bright Reich

I admit it: I’m a worrier. If I’m not worried about something, I worry I’m missing something.

My best tools I have to combat this constant anxiety are education and training. I learned that as a Lieutenant in the Army, and I see it in action too with my husband, a professional firefighter.

When our sons were babies, we babyproofed the house really well. I literally wrote a book on it when Tyler was a baby, The Babyproofing Bible.

As our sons grew, we adjusted our babyproofing efforts accordingly, removing some methods and adding new ones. I once might have thought that when my kids were school aged, I wouldn’t worry so much about their safety. Oh no, I just have new things to worry about.

So we recently started a new program: Sunday Safety School. Each Sunday after supper, we “meet” in the living room to talk about safety concerns. My husband and I try to make it fun, and keep it as light as possible. In addition to explaining things, we also do a lot of role-playing. But the boys know this is serious stuff. The first week we talked about what to do if someone tries to lure them into a car or grab them in a store. (Yell and run away as fast as you can to find a grown-up.)

Other topics we plan to cover include:

• Fire drills
• Stop, drop, and roll
• Don’t play with matches
• What to do if you see a gun
• How to be safe around dogs

I’ve gradually removed some of our safety devices, such as outlet covers. But here are some of my favorite kidproofing tips that are still imporatant for older kids.

• Turn the temperature of your hot water down to 120°F. To test it, run your hot water until it’s as hot as it gets. Fill a ceramic mug, and then take your water’s temperature with a meat thermometer. If you live in an apartment or can’t adjust your water temp, install an anti-scald device on the faucet. Because kids have thinner skin than adults, their skin burns more quickly. Just three seconds of exposure to 140°F water can give a child a third-degree burn.
• Install nonslip mats in your bathtub and on the floor next to the tub.
• Check the temperature of the tub water before letting your child get in.
• Never ever leave your child unattended in the tub.
• Wipe up puddles of water immediately. Teach your child that wet floors are slippery floors and to “walk gently.”
• Keep all medications and vitamins in high, locked cabinets. This includes items you might not think of as dangerous, but can be, such as Visine and iron tablets.
• Keep hair dryers and curling irons unplugged, and better yet stowed away.
• Make sure your hair dryers and other appliances in the bathroom have large, rectangular plugs. Inside those special plugs is a circuit that senses water and, in milliseconds, shuts off the power, keeping your child safe if the appliance accidentally falls into water.
• Keep cleaning chemicals in high, locked cabinets. This includes dishwasher detergents, furniture polish, and pretty much anything you’d use to clean your home.
• Load the dishwasher with knives pointing down and keep the dishwasher closed, locked if possible.
• If your stove’s knobs are on the front, within reach of your child, remove them or install knob locks.
• Train yourself to cook on the back burners whenever possible and to turn pot handles toward the back of the stove.
• Before you take a hot pan or pot off the stove, for example, to drain cooked pasta in the sink, scan the room to see where your toddler is. Then say a simple warning like, “Hot stuff, stay back!”
• Keep electrical cords and power strips out of reach.
• Keep candles and matches far out of reach.
• Slide TVs back from the edge of cabinets, or better yet mount them to the cabinet or wall.
• Secure heavy and tall furniture, such as bookcases, to the wall or floor. Each year, nearly 15,000 kids visit emergency departments for furniture-tip-over-related injuries.
• Latex balloons should be kept completely away from kids younger than eight years old. If a child puts a popped balloon in his mouth, the balloon can drape itself over the entrance to his larynx, suffocating him.
• Along the same lines, tie up and discard plastic shopping bags, keeping them far out of your toddler’s reach.

***

Mommy MD Guides–Recommended Product: Safety 1st Oven and Refrigerator Locks

Your child is now tall enough to reach the oven door and strong enough to pull open the refrigerator, so it’s time to start making these appliances safe. It’s particularly important if you have an extra fridge or freezer in your basement or another out-of-the-way place where your child might decide it’s a good spot to play hide and seek.

Safety 1st offers oven and refrigerator locks to prevent injuries, but remember when you install them that the surface has to be very clean before you put them in place. The Safety 1st Oven Door Lock (Model HS035) retails at $5.49 and can be found at Wal-Mart, Babies ’R Us, and online retailers. The Safety 1st Refrigerator Door Lock (Model HS187) retails at $5.49 and can be found at Wal-Mart and online retailers. Visit Safety1st.com for more information.

A Little Niceness, Please

by Julie Davidson

People don’t have to be nice. It’s not a law. It’ a not a rule. Not even a commandment. But being nice would be…well, it would nice.

I’ve often thought that we should do our best to be nice to everyone. Not just at the family reunion. Or during Lent. Or at work. But always. But if that doesn’t suit you, perhaps the default plan will work. The basic premise of that is if you choose to be nice to only some, perhaps those some should include the elderly, people who have physical or developmental disabilities, people who are gravely ill, veterans, a woman who is getting married within 24 hours, pregnant women, and new mothers.

Why new moms? Well, for starters they’ve just spent 9+ months housing a human life. That’s gotta be worth a few nice points, right? How about the fact that a new mom has to figure out how to add caring for this new little person on top of everything else she does? And then there’s the fact that no matter how educated, well-insured, and financially stable a woman is when she brings that baby home from the hospital she feels overwhelmed. And tired. And emotional.

Not even one month after actress Hillary Duff had her son, she was surprised to find out how mean people could be to new moms. There was a Twitter message that mentioned that she was waddling into a Pilate class. Wow. Just wow. Who would say such a thing?

It isn’t easy getting back to normal after having a baby. Well, actually it would be except for that teeny tiny newborn has a few round-the-clock needs.

So maybe instead of being upset by what others think or say, we should look at what we have done. The campaign could read like this: “Just want you to share in my joy. I just recently gave birth to a baby. Yes, 9 months was a long time, but nothing as hard as the labor was. Who knew I could sustain another life for months with milk from my own body. I don’t want to miss a thing with the baby. I’m so excited! I’m in no rush to color my hair. And no rush to drop a ton of weight. That’s why I’m waddling!

You Want Chickens?

by Julie Davidson

Spoiling kids is fun. Or maybe not spoiling them but rather seeing them happy. They smile; you smile. And think of all the things that you’ve given them to make them happy.

For the first couple years of life, it seems that your very presence makes them happy. But that huggin’ and kissin’ stuff fades by the time they get to school. Not completely, but it subsides. Then you do what any rational parent would do. Yep. You buy ’em things to see that smile. Is it shameful? Yes. Does it work? Almost every time.

Thanks to slick marketing, there’s always something in eyesight of a child at virtually every store. There are cards to collect. Cards with plastic characters to collect. Cards with plastic characters that come in very cool, bright tins to collect. Hot Wheels makes about 3,145 different styles, and what boy doesn’t want one of each? To whoever invented the Wii gaming system, thank you. We now have more games than fit in the drawer designated for such things.

There’s always the next “cool” thing. When I recently saw that backyard chickens are becoming popular, I knew that I had do have a pre-emptive plan for saying no in place. All I really had to do was imagine how the conversations would go if we had a yard full of chickens.

“Mom. Something happened, but it was an accident. I stepped on a chicken.”

“Can the chickens mate with the rabbits that live under our porch?”

“Hey wait. We had 30 chickens, but now I only see 10!”

“Can we shave them?”

“When it’s cold outside, can the chickens sleep in my bed?”

My sons haven’t asked for any chickens yet, but when they do, I might have to bribe them with trading cards. Or Hot Wheels. Or Wii games. Or Chicken McNuggets.

How Do You Choose a Family Cord Blood Bank?

by Rallie McAllister, MD, MPH

Cord blood banking is a topic being discussed more often by physicians and expectant parents.  The dizzying array of information on the Web can be difficult to sift through.  Here are my top tips to help soon-to-be parents sift through some important issues when selecting a family cord blood bank.

Do Your Research and Do It Early:

• Talk to family and friends and your physician or midwife to get recommendations.
• Check online for testimonials and reviews. What is the bank’s reputation?
• Don’t assume it’s best to enroll with one close to home. A bank’s headquarters and its storage facility may not even be in the same state.

Know the Regulations and Requirements:

• Has the bank registered with the U.S Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and met all state regulatory requirements?
• Is the bank accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB)?  Accreditation, which requires audits every two years, is evidence that your sample is screened, processed, and stored following the strictest quality assurance guidelines.

Be Picky with the Process:

• What delivery method is used to transport the blood? Samples can be destroyed because of improper transit.  A reputable bank should use a medical courier company.
• Ask about collection and storage methods, as well as published rates on cell viability to ensure the bank is using the best available technology to save your cells so they will be ready in the event that you might need them.
• Find out if they’ve facilitated any successful transplants. A red flag should go up if a bank has a high volume of cord blood units in storage but has never used a unit for transplant.  This could mean transplant surgeons have rejected their cord blood which could mean its procedures are not careful or thorough enough.

Business and Stability:

• How long has the bank been in business?
• Is the bank involved in any research or clinical studies with prestigious medical research institutions?  A bank on the cutting edge of research would likely play a stronger and supportive role if the cord blood was needed in treatment for your child.
• How profitable is the company? It’s important to realize cord blood banking is a business.  If the bank goes out of business it could mean the cord blood units will be no longer be retrievable.

There’s also an online education site that might help parents understand all of their cord blood banking options.

Sleep Much?

by Julie Davidson

I recall before having kids so many people would say things to the effect of, “Enjoy those quiet nights of sound sleep. They’ll end.”  Ahhhh…the sounds of unsolicited advice.

But it’s kind of true. Be honest. How much really good sleep have you had since you had kids? And this doesn’t include the ones you’ve had after having a glass of wine before bed. When I think back to before I had children, I remember staying up late. I’m talking way after the ten o’clock news. Just because I could. And then I’d sleep in until noon. Again, because I could.

Pregnancy and all of its discomfort has a way of bringing on the beginning of interrupted sleep. That bump on the front side makes for some rather uncomfortable sleeping solutions. Your back is sore, and you fidget back and forth from side to side. And even once you do find a comfortable position, thanks in part to your unborn child squishing what once seemed like a normal bladder, you spend much of the night making trips to the bathroom.

When the newborn arrives, sleep really becomes a precious commodity. You’ll never convince me that it’s normal to be woken up to a screaming voice every two to three hours for a few months. I understand it’s necessary and part of the cycle, but I gotta be honest, it scared the junk out of me. My baby was so angelic when he was asleep, but then, without notice, he’d wake up and cry until his face was three shades different from his own and the vein on his forehead would pop out. Hey, I like a midnight snack every now and then, but if I pulled that scenario, I’d be locked up.

So at some point you probably realized that it would be good for you and your family if you could get more sleep. But how? Your body and the kids seem to be in cahoots to keep you sleep deprived. You’re on call. All night. Every night. And even when a frightened voice doesn’t call out to you in the middle of the night because of a bad dream, your body magically just wakes up. For no reason at all.

Have you tried a Mom’s night away? It doesn’t have to be out of town or at a fancy hotel. Think “slumber party for moms.” Consider going just yourself overnight somewhere that no one will scare the living daylight out of you as they stand over your bed at 5:00 in the morning looking for breakfast. It’s likely the only thing someone will yell out in the middle of the night is, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

Do You Hear That?

by Julie Davidson

Do you have those days (or weeks) where you just need some you time? Sometimes the days just kind of mold together. If it weren’t for the calendar on your smart phone, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t know what day it is. You work from sun up ’til sundown, but inevitably your to-do-list never gets completely done. Just rearranged.

But do you ever wish for a little time without the kids? Shameful, huh? Somehow when you become a parent, you feel guilty asking for time alone. But maybe we should look at it as more of self-preservation than selfishness. Kind of like if Mommy doesn’t get some head space, she’s going to lock herself in the laundry room.

It’s likely that you’re good at multi-tasking. It kind of comes with the territory. But there comes a point where it all gets overwhelming. Last week, I went to Target to buy floor cleaner. As I searched for the right aisle, my boys were circling around me like two-legged buzzards.

“Can we go to the toy aisle?”

“Are there snacks here? I’m hungry.”

“Are there skinny jeans here?”

“Can I push the cart?”

“Mom, mom, mom, mom.”

The line of questioning continued until I stopped in the middle of the aisle and gave the boys the look. Yep, the one that says, “You better get it together or you won’t be coming back to Target with me for a long time!”

Almost miraculously, a friend must have heard my cry for help. She sent me a FB message asking if the boys (yes, both of them) could spend the night. They’re first sleepover ever! Four hours later, they were off. And then…there was silence. No screaming. No fighting. No running through the house. No giggling.

The quiet wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t the dream I thought it would be. Who would I remind to clean up their room? And brush their teeth? And tuck in at night? Oh no. I wondered if I was destined to be one of those moms who falls apart when their kids go off to college because they’re so wrapped up in their kids’ lives?

I appreciated the silence. Plus, I figured if it really got too quiet, I could make a Target run. There would be countless aisles with children asking a million questions. I’d feel right at home.

You’re Doing Just Fine

by Julie Davidson

How many times do you obsess about not being the kind of parent you want to be? Twice a day? Maybe five times? More? You fret over whether you’re doing enough for the kids. Or are you doing too much?

I imagine you’re doing your best. And that has to count for something. Mistakes will be made. Perhaps even on daily basis. You gave them too much sugar. You didn’t kiss them good night. You threw away an art project. You fed them Pop Tarts for dinner—twice in one week. We all have a list.

Perhaps you need a baseline. Something to measure yourself against. Ever watch the Real Housewives series? I can almost assure you that you’re doing a good job at being a parent. Unless you flip tables at a family event. Or pull out hair weaves in public. Or drink booze like it’s water.

Second guessing is a natural part of life. It might even lead to growth, but at a certain point, you have to just know you’re doing your best.

Who doesn’t have a friend who can bake so well she could run a bakery from her kitchen? I have friends like that, and they swear their tasty treats are easy to make. I never fall for that. Somehow for me, even making cookies doesn’t go so well. The bottoms are burnt, and the tops are gooey. The cookies I make serve one purpose: to fill up the garbage can. Hint: If you’re baking challenged, buy the cookies that have the pre-made dough and the pre-cut cookies. This totally takes the guesswork out of whether or not you put a “pinch” of an ingredient in and if that was a “rounded” teaspoon you plunked down on the baking sheet. The kids won’t care how those cookies got there. They’ll just be happy they’re there at all.

Maybe you feel deficient when it comes to being crafty. It doesn’t help if you have a friend who has a closet or even an entire room dedicated to all things crafty. From glittery bows to cellophane wrap, she can make amazing creations. When I make things, you can’t tell what it is. Hint: If you can’t craft a thing head to the craft fairs. There’s a ton of home made goods; they’re just not made at your home.

Maybe you cringe when it’s your turn to host play group. All you can think of is the juice boxes, mini sandwiches, animal crackers, crayons, finger paints, and baby wipes you’ll need. You just know your house will become a two-story, unstructured daycare for two hours. Hint: When it’s your turn to host play group, head to a park. The kids will get tired and your house will be no more messy than it was when you left it.

I’m not saying we should cut corners all the time. Just whenever we can. It’s all in the name of saving time, money, and sanity. Remember: You could be table flipping, weave pulling, and booze drinking. You’re doing fine.