Philly Moms

Learning to Just Say No

I’m a people pleaser.  I want people to like me; I can’t stand strife.  Because of this, I often find myself pleasing someone against my own wishes.  In college, it was helping out an editor with just one more article.  (Even though I had a paper due the next day, and had already written two pieces that week.)  At work, it was helping someone out with a project that wasn’t in my group. 

In mommyhood, with a growing family and schedule, it’s getting asked to volunteer constantly.  To join just one more playgroup.  To just please pick up two-dozen cupcakes for the class.

And the mom factor adds an entirely new dynamic – most of these volunteer opportunities are easy, so who could say no? 

Because how hard is it to scoot over to the grocery store to pick up extra cookies for the class?  And why shouldn’t I join one more playgroup for my 3-year-old because he would enjoy it?

Public vs. Private Kindergarten: One year later

The other night I was bored and perusing some of my old posts here on the Philly Moms Blog.  I came across this post: Public vs. Private, I’m losing sleep that I wrote and posted on November 3, 2008.  Last year at this time, I was fretting over the decision about which Kindergarten to send my son off to for the ‘09-‘10 school year.  It boiled down to public or private.  Our local public school is a 2 ½ hour program for Kindergarten.  Private, almost 7 hours.

After much debate, I chose to send my son to parochial, private school.   But even after I made that post in November of 2008, I debated.  I would say it wasn’t until May of 2009 that I really felt set with my decision.

How did we come to the decision?  It was as simple as a Pro and Con list I made in Excel.  You hear people say to make a list, but I’m not the list type.  But by the time I wrote everything down electronically, listing in three columns the three schools we were choosing, it became pretty clear which school was right for us.  The little things that may not matter to another family (religious education, longer hours), ended up mattering to us and that’s why I think it’s really important for every Mom to consider that’s important for them.

We’ve been thrilled with our decision.  In just the span of a few months, I’ve seen my son mature by leaps and bounds.  He’s doing so much more on his own – is independent and happier. 

The evolution (or lack thereof) of the school bus

This past summer, I asked my five-year-old what part of entering Kindergarten in the fall excited him the most.  Not surprising I’m sure, his response was, “riding the bus!”  Riding the bus is like a rite of passage for a Kindergartener.  So to defray other worries about entering a new school and being in Kindergarten, we spent much of the summer playing up how much fun it would be to ride the bus.

But one day when we were discussing the experience further, he told me that he was most excited to ride on the bus and not have to wear a seat belt since they don't have any seat belts.

“Well, of course there are seat belts on the bus.  And you’ll have to wear one,” I said. 

Later I was telling a Mom friend about our conversation.  This Mom friend has several bus-riding school-aged kids.

She looked at me like I had four heads.  “Hate to break it to you Whitney, but there are no seat belts on the bus,” was her comment that caused me to drop my jaw in shock.

Inflation and the Tooth Fairy

My “baby” lost his first tooth last week at 5 ½ years old.  Considering that it still seems like yesterday that he was a gumless baby, this milestone took us by surprise.  It was loose one day and came out two days later before we had much time to give the whole thing much thought. 

There was much discussion in our house about the tooth fairy.  What will he bring?  What happens if the tooth falls out, and we lose it?  How does he know to come that night?

Behind the scenes with my hubby, it was more like, “What the heck does the Tooth Fairy bring these days anyway?”

I asked various sources on Facebook, Twitter and my Message Boards.  I got quite the variety of responses.

Dealing with death: the loss of a beloved pet

It’s been a little over a month since our beloved cat, Zoe, passed away. She was only 9 years old and although she had never been a healthy cat, her death was unexpected. 

In our house, our cats are a part of the family.  They are an integral part of our family life; my boys are already big animal lovers.  We all took Zoe’s passing hard.   It was especially difficult for me to explain the inevitable question of WHY that came from my kids.  The cliché “it was her time” didn’t seem appropriate when she was taken so soon from us.

My boys are 5 ½ and 2 ½.  My younger son didn’t really get it.  He’s still asking for Zoe on occasion – which hurts – although I’m almost glad to know he’s spared the pain.  My oldest has been trickier.   He’s seen me crying about it, and he’s been very inquisitive.  Zoe’s death brought about a whole host of questions and a new found curiousity in death.

Where did Zoe go?  Is she with your Grandma in heaven? 

T-Ball Quitters: To be, or not to be - that is the question

My 5 ½ year old has been on a T-ball team this spring.  I signed him up last winter although I wasn’t so into the idea of doing it.  I’m not a big baseball fan but everyone seemed to rave about the local league, and hubby thought it would be a fun Father/Son event for them.

The season started and my son was so-so on the whole thing. A neighborhood friend was on his league, he seemed to take pleasure in that.He went to games, seemed to have an okay game and that was that.

But then the unexpected happened: a close family friend passed away after a long battle with cancer.

Obviously everything in our lives took a backburner as I traveled out of town twice – things were out of sorts in our house for a few weeks. One thing lead to another and we had missed four games.The last one was on an afternoon after a busy weekend, we had my son dressed and ready to go and he had an uncharacteristic meltdown. We skipped the game and let it slide.

Pondering the meaning of life with a 2-year-old

My two year old son and I had a conversation in the car today that went something like this:

Him:  Mom, where’s Daddy?

Me: Daddy went to work.

Him: Why?

Me: Because Daddy needs to go make money for us.

Him:  Why?

Me:  Well… because we need money to buy stuff. Like food, and to pay for our house.

Him:  Why?

Me: Because that’s the way it is, you need money to buy things.

Him:  Why? 

Me: Because that’s the way our society works.  You can’t just take stuff, you have to pay for it with money.

Him:  Why?

Me:  It’s called capitalism.  We work to earn money to spend it and put it back into our economy.

Of course you can guess what his response was.  (Why?)  It’s usually around this point that I give up and ignore responding, or answer “I just don’t know.”   I don’t know which is more ridiculous, that my answers eventually get serious or profound to a two year old who definitely doesn’t get it, or that I loathe that I have to eventually say “I don’t know.” 

Could I do it? Could I leave Philly?

Every year I do this to myself.  January and February creep slowly by, as the snow and ice freeze eliminate the good mood I had leftover from the holidays.  I’m outside shoveling, hating life and the cold weather and I wonder why I live here.

Philly this time of the year makes me miserable!

This year, my 2-year-old has amplified my feelings about the winter months.  He hates the cold.  I thought I hated the cold.  This kid is kicking and screaming when I take him outside.  One gust of cold air hits his face and he’s screaming “it’s cold Mom, it’s cold!”  My oldest never did this – in fact, he still doesn’t seem phased at all, but it’s a different and painful story with my youngest, who makes me dread going outside all the more. 

Which brings me to the latest and how this post came to be.  We just got back from a 10-day trip visiting my parents in Vero Beach, on the Atlantic side of Florida.  (My mother, who has hated the cold all her life, was all too happy to move down to Florida when my Dad got a job down there six years ago.)  It only took a few minutes outside in Florida to get that big dark cloud to move from above my head.  Everything about the warm weather is just so invigorating.  My kids are happier, we get outside and take walks, I take deeper, calmer breaths.

Bakugan obsession takes over our house & lives

My oldest turned five in early December. After his birthday party, we sat around the family room opening presents. As he ripped open one present, he started to jump up and down in excitement – inside was a Bakugan Launcher and two balls. “Mom, it’s Bakugan!” Say, what? I had no idea what these little balls were, or how my son knew about them. Apparently one of the kids at preschool has an older brother, and enough said, right?

Two balls quickly became “not enough,” and he was asking our Elf on the Shelf daily for more balls. Mrs. Claus of course had to do a scramble, as her kid wasn’t the only one who wanted them for Christmas. Apparently this Bakugan thing is all the rage and Moms were grabbing them off the shelves in a frenzy (if they were even there). I had trouble finding them in-store; Amazon resellers had them available only at jacked up prices.

Finally, a friend of mine happened to be in Toys R Us as an employee was stocking the shelves, so she grabbed a big pack for us. I also lucked out and found the “storage tin” (I’m all about the toy storage!) one way in Walmart.

 

 

Germaphobe conundrum: can the inevitable illness be avoided?

My family and I spent the week after Christmas on vacation in the Outer Banks. It was a lovely week spent with friends. We rented a house on the Sound, the weather was great and we didn’t leave the house for days at a time. While there, I kept noticing on Facebook more and more comments about friends back home having sick kids – stomach bug sick kids. It seemed like each hour I logged on, I heard about someone new puking.

We drove home on Saturday. Halfway to Philly, my mother-in-law called to cancel her Eagles get-together the next day, she had been throwing up all night and had the stomach flu. And thus began my full blown panic. I just knew we’d get it. I had a bad feeling, the one that told me that each mile we headed north was putting us that much closer to the puke-a-thon.