Mom Blog Work

I can't believe the boys are old enough for this yet, but apparently we're in a new development phase, and it comes knocking at my door almost every day.

Neighborhood kids that I didn't even know existed have started showing up every day, knocking the door and asking the perennial question of the summer, "Can Alex come out to play?"

The first time this happened, I wasn't even sure what to say. Alex was looking up at me with those please-please-please-let-me-go eyes. So, off he went.

Here's the rub at the moment though. One of the kids came to the door yesterday, and I went to introduce myself, since, well, I've never met this kid before. As I started to talk, I realized…I have no idea how to introduce my self to this kid.

Options:

To our close friends and family, I go by Auntie M or Aunt Megan. I teach my kids to call close friends and family Auntie or Uncle. That seems like a weird approach for neighborhood kids, though.

So, that day, I went with Megan. It is my name, after all. Oooh…maybe now's a good time to introduce a fun, quirky nickname? Maybe I should go by Princess Cupcake of the House of Notarte?

I'm watching them sleep. The are side by side, breathing like one but noisely with noses stuffy with late spring colds. I wrap B's blanket across both of them because it's gotten the tiniest bit chilly in the bedroom. The coziness is short-lived though because Mo rolls over, leaving B alone under his blanket, and, well, she farts really loudly.

Even in their sleep these kids crack me up. Today B was shouting at Mo "it's not funny, Ate!" except in his sweet baby talk it sounds just like, "no bunny, Ate!!". How do you not laugh when somebody is repeatedly shrieking "No Bunny!!!" at you so insistently? Poor boy. Even I couldn't suppress my giggles. "No bunny!!!"

The girl...She slays me on a regular basis with her questions about the world and how or why things work. She asks what words mean and comes up with creatively insane solutions to everyday scenarios. The other day she was quizzing me on who was whose mama as we settled down for bed. "Who is Grandma's mama?", etc. We get to my Grandpa's mom whose stepmom was named Peggy. "Piggy?! Her name is Piggy?" she whispered, shocked, not even laughing because she was so blown away. Then the giggles came and we laughed and laughed under the covers in the dark, trying not to wake B. Hysterical! We called each other Peggy for the next two days and giggled every time.

They crack me up. I love how their brains work. I need to write down more of these endearing snippets of them at these ages. (sign me up for Megan-Google's brilliant idea!) Corny, but it really is going by quickly. That's another topic though, Peggy.

I'm just not a scrapbook-type person. The thought of making things on paper and putting together physical books makes me want to run away and hide (with my iPad, of course).

My aversion to all things scrappy means that my kids have no baby books to speak of. I have TONS of digital pictures (on a network drive) and even real, touchable prints (in a box, naturally). But, I always feel so guilty that I don't have any real mementos of their day to day lives, or the special things that happen.

I don't journal either. I have a hard time finding my voice in exercises like that. Do I write in first person, or third? Who am I talking to anyway? (And who the hell would read it? If the answer is no one, then why am I writing?)

Anyway, I was inspired by this Google ad on TV the other night. (Warning: unless you are made of stone, you will cry. Be prepared.)

It struck me as totally genius and I immediately set up a gmail account for Rey and Alex.

A few times a week, I send them an email. I get to write TO them, telling them about what cool thing they did that day, or what funny thing they said. I can email pictures to them from my phone; even video. I'm creating an archive of little digital notes to them. And I love doing it.

Here's a sample:

Hi Alex,

Today you rode your bike without training wheels for the first time! It was really so amazing.  Your dad and I had been talking about how we were going to teach you how to ride sans training wheels, and honestly, we didn't even know how we were going to do it...

I know that by the time they are old enough to read these emails, Gmail will probably be old-school (their hotmail to our gmail?). But, it feels like I'm making them a keepsake that will grow over time, and is easy enough for me to keep up with. I can't wait until they are old enough to read it.

Also, since both boys are pre-readers, my first email to them was the very first time I closed something with "Love, Mom". *weep*

Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives

Even before the terrible tragedy in Japan, I had been worrying about the state of my family's preparedness in the event of an emergency. Since it was winter, I focused immediately on fire safety. We had just started using our wood burning stove and we didn't even have a proper fire extinguisher! Not to mention there was only one smoke alarm in the entire house. (Gah. I have no idea how this house was up to code with only one. How did that not come up in our inspection? Also, how did we not fix that immediately?!)

So, we bought and installed another smoke alarm, so there's one on each floor now. (I'm not going to lie, I bought that alarm like a year ago but never installed it. When I told Karissa about this, her appropriately freaked out response was just what I needed to get that damn thing installed.) The recommendation is that there is one in each bedroom, but the upstairs one is right outside of all the bedrooms (small hallway), so I think that one is OK.

We also bought a proper fire extinguisher, which resides right outside the room where our wood burning stove is - and right near the kitchen. Finally, we bought a fire ladder than can be used from the 2nd story window. That's being stored in the boys room, which is the only room that is in use that could be used to escape from the 2nd story.

We still have some things we need to do: I'd like to get a carbon monoxide alarm, more smoke alarms and a small kitchen extinguisher, but I think we've covered all our bases (minimally) for the time being.

With that complete, I've started looking at putting together a general emergency kit. Right now, I'm debating: should I put something together myself, based on the recommendations from Ready.gov and other ideas I can troll from the Internet? Or buy something like this:

Expensive, but I'd be done in one click.

I'm curious: what does your emergency kit look lit? Did you buy it or make it yourself? How do you keep it up-to-date?

Photo: ciao_yvon

$160. That's how much a week's worth of groceries cost me this week. One week's worth of food for my family of 4 (well, 5…my bro-in-law is living with us).

Let me back up a bit. A few months ago, I watched the movie Food Inc., and quite honestly, it immediately changed the way I think about food, specifically where the meat I purchase for my family is sourced and how it is raised. Being a middle class family, I feel like I am in the position to make better choices about the food I feed my family, and I was willing to pay a little extra to do so.

That was about six months ago, and really, it had been going pretty well. I ended up shopping a lot a Whole Foods, which is thankfully right down the street, and it seemed like my grocery budget went up about 10-15 dollars a week, something we could absorb pretty well.

I did start making different choices, namely:

1. Reducing the overall amount of meat we buy. It's expensive to buy meat at Whole Foods, so I tried to get at least one or two veg meals in a week.
2. Red meat in particular is really expensive, so I cut back on that a LOT. I noticed we mostly cooked it in ground form, so I used whatever was on sale (ground turkey, chicken, pork, or sometimes beef).
3. Buy local or organic produce. We started shopping at a local produce store, and I tried to pick items that were either organic or local (or both).
4. Shop at different stores if I need to. If I have the time, I'll go the produce store, Walmart/Target/Fred Meyer and Whole Foods, or some combination of the three.

This week though, things did not go as planned. I went back to one of the normal menu planning tools I had used in the past: the Grocery Bag feature in Everyday Food Magazine. Basically they give you 5 healthy, balanced recipes and the shopping list that goes along with it. The idea is that everything that you need for that week will fit in a grocery bag.

While the grocery bag part has never really panned out for me, I have enjoyed these recipes in the past. The food is usually good, generally includes a lot of vegetables and it's a complete plan, so I don't have to really think. Just grab the list and go.

That didn't work out so well this week. I spent $80 in general stuff at walmart, basically, everything for the week, plus laundry detergent, excluding produce and meat. I figured I was in good shape to spend about $20 on meat/produce. $100 a week is what we normally spend, so I try to stay in that range.

On to Whole Foods, where the meat cost me $40. GASP. That was for 1.6 lbs of skirt steak, 2 bone-in chicken breasts and 8 bone-in thighs. Sigh.

The rest of the produce I needed was $40. $7 alone for like 6-7 sweet potatoes. Which, btw, apparently wasn't even enough. I have to go buy more this week.

I left the store depressed and dejected. I don't know how an average family could afford to eat this way all the time. The food is high quality, but I just can't afford enough of it to feed my family (and the live-ins!) every week.

I have to say though, that my grocery bill has only reached this high point a few times since I stopped shopping solely at my local WinCo. So, I'll keep trying to find ways to make healthy, local (and sometimes organic) choices when I'm shopping. It's really hard though - I already feel like I'm doing more than you could expect an average person to do: planning ahead of time, trying to take into account weekly sales, shopping at several stores. It's taking a lot of time (and money!) to figure this all out.

Last night, I wasn't even home to eat the $20 skirt steak we bought this week. I heard it was delicious - thankfully!