On Poop

There are a great many things that I never thought I would say in my lifetime...and among them, the following utterance probably ranked right near the top: "Now remember, don't pee on Ni Hao honey. It will make her saaaad."

So began our final journey into a diaper free world last Sunday. It's been almost a year since A bought her own potty, but last week, she also picked her own underpants.

For the record: Ni Hao was the compromise. Even though she doesn't watch Dora the Explorer, she knows who Dora is. I hate Dora. We both agreed on Ni Hao. (And don't talk to me about Dora being the same as Ni Hao. They're not. I don't hate Ni Hao.)

Fortunately, play skool also potty trains. And of course, because she's an angel at play skool, she's a champion potty-goer there too. But at home, especially this weekend, after a week in underpants, we've had more out of the potty than in, or so it seems. She refuses to poop in the potty at all here, although I'm bribing her with sparkly, shiny stickers as of todaytty, so who knows.

Last Monday, I spent 40 minutes in the bathroom waiting for a poop. I showed her how to make the  "I'M POOPING!" face; I sang the pooping song. I applauded poop. And I thought to myself, when I used to say I was in the shit, especially overseas, I never thought that someday it would come to mean this. My, how the toughest do fall...

That was the first, and last, potty poop thus far.

Now, I am so tired of poop. I know we're in the beginning stages, but poop is poop and I have "potty trained" enough puppies in my day to know that I'm so damn done with cleaning up accidents, especially poop. If I never see another poop where it doesn't belong again, it will be too soon. Even my own mother, mother of all mothers, sent me a text on Monday that said, "Potty training is a good form of birth control."

I texted back saying that was true, but it's also a milestone, and almost typed millstone instead.

I know we'll get there. She's great with not peeing on Ni Hao, Yo Gabba Gabba, or her frogs. It's just that I don't like poop. I really don't like poop.

Tips or tricks on potty training you'd like to share?

It Takes A Lot of Money to Raise a Child?

Who knew?

The ever prolific Lylah M. Alphonse wrote a piece the other day with respect to a study that's been done that says that the average cost of raising a family tops a million. It's not the article, it's the comments that got me. The thirdcomment railed against fear mongering and alarmism and noted that it's numbers like these that are preventing her own family members from starting families of their own. Many others followed suit in that same train of thought.

But what's all the outcry for? Kids are damn expensive. I probably won't spend but half a million in the end with my own. We don't have the incredibly high cost of daycare to contend with for one thing, and we're out of the formula stage (I failed at breast feeding).

So,I did some math and came up with a figure of 12 grand for everything we've spent in the last 19, almost 20 months that was solely on or for her. That didn't factor in my OB visits and tests during pregnancy, or the cost of my own hospital stay after she was born - but it did factor in hers because we got whacked with a 3,000 dollar bill that our insurance didn't cover.

I wouldn't trade her for the world, but the cost and the making ends meet struggle is one of (not the only) the reasons we won't plan to have more children.

In fact, I have some friends who keep asking when I'm going to give her a brother or sister. I hate that. My response is, "When you carry the baby to term and foot the bill." Usually, that works. Sometimes though, I get this: "Oh, you'll always find a way."

You know what? We found a way once. There is little else to sacrifice and I'm not going to cut any more just to have another child. It's selfish and frankly, I don't think it would do our mental health any good.

So, why can't we just be happy parents making do with one child? Why does understanding that kids are expensive, even without the fancy toys and classes and day care and all of the other stuff that adds up, make us bad and not, instead, simple realists?

As it is, I'm of the "get a job" school of thought when it comes to gadgets and toys and clothes that aren't necessary. If that job is chores and I end up paying for it vis a vie an allowance, at least the kid learns the value of things (and when the overpriced cheap piece of crap breaks, she will learn the worth of things too). As she gets older, the job can be at McDonalds if necessary, but I'll not be buying this phone or that iPod or that laptop or that Prada just because. She can save and do it herself. Thankfully, her father and I are not only on the same page, but fighting for the same punctuation mark on this score.

If parents don't mind shelling out, well, to each their own. But if the cost of raising a family being public knowledge offends you, you, honestly, scare me and you may well be one of the asses who pesters me about "finding a way" to have more children. So you annoy me too.

What do you think? Would you have children anyway or would this reinforce your decision not to?

The Potty. The Bathmat. And Me.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, M and I sat down and decided that at age 18 months, this tiny bundle of...bundle of...well...bundle would start to potty train. It seemed reasonable. We had a friend who had successfully trained each one of her grandchildren at that very age in just 3 days each. We teased her that she'd be training ours too...but of course, we didn't really intend to torture a dear friend that way. Or did we?

Back then, it seemed an eternity away - a pie in the sky notion, a bridge not to be crossed for a long time.

But on Columbus Day, A turned 18 months and she has actually taken any decision on our parts with respect to the where and when she will potty train completely out of our hands, crumpled it up, chewed on it a bit, stomped on it and then tossed it in the garbage ("What a wonderful help you are, Bean!" I proudly exclaim).

You see, our not-so-little bundle of....bundle, started getting interested in just what exactly goes on behind that closed bathroom door when Mommy or Daddy are occupying it about two months ago. As a result of that, neither M nor myself have had much private time to sit, do our business and escape the clamor of the household. The child insists on following us in and repeatedly pointing between our legs yelling, "PEE! PEEPAH-EE MAMA!!!! PEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Occasionally, she'll pepper the running PEE dialogue with, "Poop? Toot?" [facepalm]

In spite of her obvious willingness to learn to secrets of the privy, we didn't push. We were in the throes of some major issues and life changes and were trying to keep the routine as close to normal as possible for her. We moved a month and a half ago and we're still not pushing. In fact, the idea of potty training at 18 months had really just sort of fallen off of our radar.

But, about 3 weeks after the move, at Babies R Us (shopping for new feety pajamas no less), the little bean broke free and ran, shrieking with delight and yelling, "GO GO GO!!!!" across the store faster than it took me to fling the pajamas I was inspecting, fall on my face and recover and get after her. She had actually gotten out of my line of sight, but fortunately, she's loud. Oh so very loud. So I followed her siren noises (she makes those too when on A Mission) and found that she was at the back of the store, investigating the training potties.

"Pah-ee, Mama!" she pointed excitedly. "PAH-EE!!" I was a little put off that she recognized a plastic frog as a potty (and it was) but realized that what she really recognized was the picture of the smiling cherub sitting in the familiar potty position on the box. And so it went. Every potty she could reach was pulled out, sat upon, fondled, examined and put into two piles: "Maybe" and "Nooooo". All of this was done by her and her alone while I stood, open mouthed in awe and just a little bit of horror, and sort of...let her comparison shop.
 
She finally settled on the cheapest potty, a simple tan and green affair that converts to a step stool and is made of sustainable materials. It's the Nature's Way Eco Potty. I should note that, while I do not consider myself an Eco-Warrior or even very green (nor do I care all that much either), I do make a point to recycle a lot and I have been buying environmentally friendly cleaners. But it's not a general point of discussion in the household, so I had to laugh silently as she passed by all of the flashy, fun potties for something so simple, so cheap and so...green!


She wanted to carry her "pah-ee" herself and as she toddled back to find Daddy and show him, she also stopped to show every single person along the way. She proudly held out her self selected potty and, with an ear to ear grin would exclaim, "PAH-EE!!" I got a few wan smiles, some confused looks and a couple of good laughs in my general direction, but A was wholly unphased by the lack of excited response from strangers. She was simply too proud to be carrying, in her arms, her very own potty.

The night she brought the potty home beaming with pride she spent nearly the entire post-dinner, pre-bed time sitting on it, waiting to pee. The lack of anything happening while actually on the potty hasn't discouraged her one bit. It's her potty, it's her choice, it's her excitement.

Since then, she takes it on herself to sit on it each night. Nothing has happened in it yet, though not for lack of her checking to see. She'll look between her legs and then look up, beaming, and ask, "Pee?" Sometimes, she'll stand up and check the catch basin to see if anything materialized. Tonight, of course, she sat. She checked. She beamed. Nothing. So, she got up and began throwing her bath toys into the filling tub...and peed.

All I could do was sigh and think, well, we're getting closer. She peed by the potty...

But that night - the first night living in a house with a baby potty nestled next to ours, after she had gone to bed, M and I sat on the back porch, watching the stars and I tried not to cry a little. As I explained to him - while the prospect of not having to buy diapers anymore is an exciting one and I can finally see the light of a diaper free household dawning on the distant horizon, the very fact that our daughter, at 18 months, chose, on her own, to pick out a potty and try to use it is just a little heartbreaking. She's no longer a little bundle of warm, sweet smelling, independent cheerful joy. She's fast turning into a big bundle of warm, sweet smelling, independent cheerful joy - with her own very articulate thoughts and one calling her own shots. In short, she's growing up and doing it just a little bit faster than I thought I was ready for.

Learning New Ways to Have Fun

A few days ago, someone wrote a letter to Barbara Meltz’s Child Caring column asking a two part question. The first part was whether or not they should capitulate and give in to their children’s demands for everything they wanted (er…no.) and the other part was for suggestions on ways to have fun with their kids, presumably if the answer to the first part was “No”.

Without knowing the ages of the kids in question, I suppose it’s hard to suggest some age appropriate ways to “have fun”, but it got me thinking about what we do to have fun with our daughter who will, in just a couple of days, be 19 months old.

I remember that I worried a lot before she was born, mostly about where we lived, but also that I wouldn’t know how to play with her and would end up being more a part of the furniture of her childhood rather than a participant. Fortunately for me, it turns out that kids are largely capable of creating their very own age appropriate activities, often without any toys or supplies required. All we as adults have to do is follow along and accept the fact that, as in Calvinball, the “rules”, such as they may be, are subject to change or be completely abandoned for reasons only our children understand.

I cherish our fun times together because right now, she’s patient when I don’t do it right and will correct me in ways that only a baby can. I know that will change soon enough – eventually I’ll be abandoned for other playmates and she’ll completely ensconce herself in the world of children when she plays, but right now, we do so much more than I sometimes realize when it comes to fun. Here’s a list of some of the current favorite activities:

•  Playing “Lump in the Bed”. When I try to make the bed on weekends or days off, she’ll scramble under the covers and sit, giggling like mad, while I try to smooth down the “lump”.
• Endless singing. I sing silly songs I make up on the spur of the moment all of the time and am always rewarded with a round of applause and, “Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaa!!!!!!” for my troubles. We also sing, “If You’re Happy and You Know it Clap Your feet”, endless rounds of “ABC”, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” – anything that helps her engage and think. She claps her feet in the appropriate moments (and face it, it’s so much more fun than clapping your hands), she points to all of her body parts, dances the Hokey Pokey and tries to make the spider climb up the water spout. I’m starting to worry she’s going to remember her early years as a Disney Musical and find herself rather put out when she realizes that people don’t actually go about singing instead of saying. But hey – she sings along with me, she dances and she is a great audience.
• Monster! This is a new one of her own invention, but it seems to largely involve climbing and falling on me while going, “RAWWWRRR RAWWWWRRRR RRAAAWWWWWRRRR!!!” I respond with my own “RAWR”s and tickle her. We can do this forever and she’s still entertained.
• Adventuring! Last Thursday (the night of the Slackups), after we had set dinner in the fridge to absorb the goodness in the sauce before cooking, I took her out into the early dark with a bucket and a flashlight and we gathered leaves around the neighborhood. This did take some doing – any parent will remember or tell you their own stories about walking with a baby. You have to stop every 6 inches to poke, prod or observe whatever shiny thing it is that caught their eye, so this really became two adventures rolled into one. After dinner, we took the leaves and taped them to some paper and finger painted around them. OK. So, that one involved supplies, but…
• More Adventuring!! Saturday afternoon, we took our Charlie Cards and added a couple bucks to each and jumped on the subway. We got off a Haymarket, took the long way to the water front through Faneuil Hall (I get so annoyed down there, but it’s always fun to watch the Tourons [Touron: n; Tourist Moron] and leave nose prints on the windows of the Coach Store), stopped to pet one of the carriage horses who was awaiting fare (she loved this and tried so hard to give him hugs and kiss after kiss…) then moved on to the outdoor Atlantic Harbor Seal exhibit at the aquarium. We lucked out – they were doing a training session, so the seals were especially active and she thought it was hilarious watching them catch the fish. After she got bored, we went around to the back of the aquarium and suddenly, 2 hours had passed. All we did was watch her run back and forth, jump on the blue lights inlaid into the platform and wave at boats. All for some added fare on the Charlie Card.

During the week, M will take her down to the Boston Commons and Public Gardens and let her loose on the unsuspecting human and wildlife populace. She chases ducks by the swan pond, kicks the ball across the open expanses of the Commons and sometimes finds a favorite stick to run, shrieking with. They usually take the long road down to the waterfront and stop off to see the horses along the way, the seals when they arrive and have races behind the aquarium too.

He also tries to take advantage of the playgrounds we have around us – she’s a slide junkie – and the toddler story and sing a long time every Tuesday at the library.

They have a daily routine that I get to be a part of during the weekends and holidays where they go for a walk to the square, stop to smell (and sneeze at – something she saw on Tigger and Pooh) the flowers, wave to the local business employees as they pass and he will get a coffee for himself and a jelly munchkin for her. Or sometimes, they’ll pass on that and just explore insect life and autumn leaves.

All of these things are totally or, in the case of the coffee run, almost, free and don’t require batteries, but our kid seems to think that it’s the most fun she’s ever had that moment. I know that for me, sitting under one of her blankets and shaking my head back and forth, trying to keep up with her; or spinning in circles until we fall down together on the grass has taught me a lot about what I used to think I knew when it comes to playing.

And to think, I was a kid once. How could I have forgotten so much about fun already? Thank God I have her to remind me every day.

How about you? How do you have fun with your kids?

I am in the Wrong Business

Fo' real, yo. Before A was born, we had it All Planned Out. I would breast feed. I would make all of her baby food when the time came. Our biggest expenditures would be the initial outlay for the necessities - crib, car seat, furniture for her room. Diapers would cost, but since we weren't going to have to buy formula or later, jarred food, it would even out in the end.

Our budget was perfect. We could do this!

Until she was a month old and my milk dried up. The only explanation I was given in the end was, "Well, sometimes it just happens." I had the right diet. I pumped. I fed. But one day, the flow slowed to a trickle and the trickle, well, petered out. I felt so guilty. I cried. I blamed myself. I cursed my mammaries. And with a heavy heart, I bought a great big tin of formula...then promptly had a heart attack at the register.

I tried to convince myself that the tin was huge, it would last a few weeks. It lasted a few days. Now, I'm not a math whiz, but I can do some simple multiplication and addition in my head and after doing the simple multiplication and addition in my head, I took to my bed for a week.

Fortunately, as with everything else, A started early on food. I steamed and baked, mashed and pureed...and found that while vegetables were easy, fruit and meats were not. She didn't like them when I made them - but she loved the jarred variety. [facepalm] In the end, I bought her food while continuing to make what I knew she would eat homemade.

Through it all, we never sterilized her bottles in a fancy sterilizer; never warmed her wipes; and we never bought a tool specifically for making baby food at home.

In the end though, I wish I'd thought of this. As if it weren't expensive enough to keep a non-breast feeding infant alive (30+ dollars for 2 - 3 days worth of food? Really?! Bastards!), now we're innundated with absolutely silly non-essentials that are being pushed out as MUSTHAVETHISORYOUREACHILDABUSER items.

Case in point? 150.00 + tax to make baby food in your own home. Because paying nothing for a comprehensive collection of recipes and advice, learning how to steam using a regular steamer or *gasp* pot and basket and utilizing a common blender or food processor just isn't good enough for our baby.

In my next life, I will come back as a member of the Nestle or Gerber family...oh wait...they're the same now...or I will invent a totally unnecessary tool for new parents and charge them a fortune and hire an advertiser to make sure that they feel like VERY BAD PARENTS if they opt out of spending said fortune on this item.

I suppose for now, though, I'll stick with being just another overworked, underpaid employee of the government who will continue to believe that makers of baby formula are the true Evil Empire and scions of greed and who will continue to shake her head and sigh when she sees how easily fools and their money really are parted. (I love this link - it's better than part 1.)

Oh...and who will wish that she had been blessed with no soul and the creative ingenuity to be part of this class of inventors and marketing geniuses. After all, I only hate corporate greed because I haven't seen a dime from it myself.

What were your biggest gripes when it came to baby products? What item do you see all of the time but think is the most unnecessary?

Denialism and Parenting - Where to Draw the Line?

This morning, I was dismissed from my military duty for having the appearance of being sick. It's true, I've been sick for a while, but I am on the mend and didn't feel altogether awful. Nevertheless, policy has changed and now, so much as a sniffle can get you sent home. To think...I showed up with 3 broken ribs back in 2001 and wasn't sent home then. [sigh]

It's a long drive and on my way home, I tuned in to NPR. Normally, NPR is not my thing. Well, most talk radio isn't. But NPR is a little too politically skewed and I tend to prefer objectivity in my news (which is probably why I don't put much stock in any of the news I read or hear now that I think of it...). But, well, it is what it is. I was listening to NPR as I drove and what I heard floored me.

Michael Specter was the guest on Saturday's Weekend Edition show, on to talk about his book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives. I know, that's quite a mouthful, isn't it? Yet, what he had to say had me cheering. Finally! Someone for whom a large segment of progressives have a great respect for has come out and said that which has been attributed to the conservative right or those with no grasp of science for so long - that perfectly intelligent people are making decisions based on incomplete or misinterpreted data that are harming us or, at least, have no backbone of support.

The examples he talked about specifically were the rising number of communities with large percentages of completely unvaccinated children and, what calls the "organic food fetish". It was amazing. Here was a popular science and technology writer finally, finally saying publicly what I grumble about under my breath all of the time: Denial is Harmful.

Not too long ago, I wrote an article for our Emergency Management newsletter at work about denial and the cost in both lives and dollars as it relates to the way that people think of and prepare for disasters. It will probably end up here at some point, but Mr. Specter's argument was the same. That perfectly logical, intelligent, well educated people can still, especially as a societal group, think completely irrationally and buy in to misinformation without looking clinically at the facts - and it is a threat.

He went so far as to say that parents of completely unvaccinated children were irresponsible and frankly, I could not agree with him more. In fact, when it comes time to choose a school for our daughter, the numbers of unvaccinated children (exempted from the requirement) will play a part in that decision.

This form of parental denial is growing. In 2008, AMN Healthcare featured an article on vaccine refusal and the resurgence of Pertussis (Whooping Cough). It was noted in the article that the antigens that children are exposed to through all of their childhood vaccinations are less than the antigens that were contained in the original Smallpox vaccine - and less than those they're exposed to daily just going about their business. Mr. Specter, in his interview on NPR today used the following example of just how ignorant us intelligentsia really are when we make these kinds of decisions. In his words, "A vaccine may kill one child in over a million, whereas the disease itself will kill one in every 1,026." Yet, parents see that one child killed by a vaccine and believe the vaccine itself to be worse than the disease it's treating.

He even went on to say that he had spoken recently with someone who refused the flu shot because they said they didn't want any foreign substances in their body. He laughed and asked, "What do they think they're doing when they sit down to dinner each night?" Touche, Mr. Specter.

On "natural" food and drug products, he asked, "What does that mean? What is natural?" He pointed out that, if you remove vector borne diseases (i.e. diseases carried by insects and animals) from the history of man, you will find that the two largest killers of humans are pure, untreated water and untreated food products. So, is "natural", that is, food and water that has been untampered with and in a natural state, really all that great?

I'll be honest - I think that organic food tastes better, but it's expensive and so I don't buy it very often. I do know, though, that nutritionally, it is no better or worse than a "non-organic" food product.

So why is it that, when I make the choice to save money; when I decide that yes, the risks of the disease far, far outweigh the risks of the vaccine; when my daughter gets sick, I give her actual medication (the reason the FDA doesn't regulate homeopathic remedies is because they have zero impact on the human system. That means they don't DO anything - other than act as a placebo) - I'm made to feel like a Bad Parent by the not-so-All Knowing, not-so Scientifically Savvy parents out there?

Look, I understand that when bad things happen to children, we want to find something to blame. When we can't find that culprit, we turn to our environment and select the thing or things that we think are the most sketchy. Vaccines are a perfect example. They hurt when they're administered. They're developed by scientists working for "evil" pharm companies, so they must not be for the better good but for profit, right? They're administered by people who know more than we do about such things and one thing I've observerd is that other smart people don't always like thinking that someone out there is smarter than them. It's threatening, somehow. So vaccines have a lot to fear and be worried about and there seems to be a body of convincing conjecture out there that sounds scientifically sound that "proves" that vaccines are the cause of certain lifelong problems in children.

From a personal perspective, I wanted to blame a flu shot on the miscarriage I had before our daughter was conceived. Nothing could explain why it happened, but the flu shot coincided with the miscarriage. I was devastated. Yet, I have a cold, calculating voice that seems to sometimes be independent of the rest of me and it pointed out that miscarriages are bad, but they happen more often than we're made aware of in general, for a myriad of reasons. Conception is not perfect. Chromosomal matchup is not a flawless dance. Mistakes are made and it's the body's way of deleting the file that's become too corrupt for use any longer, in order to start again.

But dammit, it was so much easier to blame the vaccine. I hate having shots to begin with and I'm a skeptic too. I know they're good for me, but I don't trust them. In the end though, I don't really blame the vaccine. I blame a bad chromosomal matchup. I'd like to blame the needle, but I don't. I researched the body of evidence on vaccine interactions in early pregnancy and much to my disappointment, I found that I had nothing tangible to say, "A ha! THAT made it happen!" It would have been nice though. Perhaps made me feel a little less defective...

I'm going to pick up his book. He's well respected in his field and it'll be an interesting read. If you decide to do the same, he closed the interview with this thought: "Some will agree with one part and not another. I already know this. But I would ask that reader to consider WHY you agree with one and not the other." You see, as he pointed out, it doesn't work that way. Selectively denying scientific statistics and proofs is still a denial unto it's own. And I agree with him. It is extraordinarily harmful to us and to the generation we're bringing up now.

To listen to the full Weekend Edition interview with Michael Specter on Denialism, please click here.

City Mouse, Suburban Mouse or Country Mouse?

Let me be clear – I am a city rat. I lived in a suburban area until I was about 16, but I moved out and quickly made my way to the city, where I’ve lived (mostly) since. I suppose I say “mostly” because I have had a few sojourns to other regions and spent enough time to get a driver’s license in some decidedly rural areas in other states – but I want it known that I pined for the ocean and the pavement and made my way back to the city as quickly as possible where I felt I could finally breathe.


Yet, when I was pregnant, I worried (often out loud) about living in the city and the possibility of having to move once or twice depending on what landlords decided to do and whether or not I was going to be bringing a newborn into a potentially unhealthy and unstable place. “Oh please,” my friend KT said to me at one point. “At least she’ll grow up with street sense!” Yes, I conceded, this was true.

But still, we looked at the possibility of moving outside Zone 1 on the T. Newburyport was too expensive, but there was always enough happening there to make it appealing (I spent a lot of time there in my formative years); Salem was considered but didn’t call to us; other seaside communities were either too isolated or too expensive; NH was just too…rural. Finally, a beautiful place came up that was owned by a couple we knew and loved like parents and though it was considerably more than we were currently paying, it felt like it would be worth every extra cent. Last month, we packed our home and moved…around the corner.
It was then that I knew for sure we would never move out of the city. We couldn’t. We only have one car, so the convenience of the T is also a necessity for M during the week. Everything else is in walking distance and, frankly, A has become a fixture in our little slice of the urban landscape. It seems that everyone knows her, even if they don’t know us.

If we move again anytime soon, I hope that it will be because we’ve purchased a condo or perhaps a house somewhere in East Boston, Somerville, Dorchester or maybe as far out as Quincy. Neither of us can see ourselves going any further out than that.

Yet, A has two playmates, neither of whom live in the city. One, a boy two weeks her junior, lives about an hour to an hour and a half away in a quasi-rural area of NH. The other, a girl two years her senior, lives about 30 minutes outside of the city in what most of us call a suburb. The homes are close together, though not as close as they are in our neighborhood. The streets are purely residential, nothing is in walking distance and there is a significant lack of public transportation.

Both parents of these playmates can’t imagine living in the city as much as we can’t imagine living in a suburb or rural area. The suburban mom of the little girl is actually afraid of coming in to the city at all, so I was a more than a little shocked when they did come for A’s first birthday. Needless to say, in both cases, we take A to them – they don’t come to us. I don’t mind this arrangement too much. We drive both ways to the suburban sleep overs and usually, we only drive one way to the quasi-rural slumber parties. They’ll bring A back the next day.

I am just a little saddened by the fact that although we have a lot of kids, even kids A’s age, in our neighborhood, it seems that there isn’t a whole lot of sense of close parenting community in the here. People in our area keep to themselves more, perhaps because we’re so close to each other to begin with that any amount of privacy is coveted. Or maybe it’s because it’s not the safest place to be and people are just naturally mistrusting? I don’t know. I do know that the two kids we see the most who would probably make ideal playmates for A are from families who don’t speak English as a first language (or at all from what I can tell), so maybe that’s part of the reason too.

I also can’t help but wonder whether A’s playmates now aren’t missing out on something. While I’m happy to know that she gets out of the city to a relatively quiet place at least once a month for a two-day playdate/sleepover, I also know that she’s growing to be a city rat like us. So with that in mind, I think it’s good for her to have different experiences, to see that not every place is concrete and loud and smells vaguely of rubbish, urine and exhaust. It’s important to have those quiet nights and truly fresh air and experience the different types of neighborhoods that exist beyond the city boundaries. Similarly though, I think it would be great for her friends to spend time with us and see that not everyone’s home and mom looks the same, to hear 10 different languages spoken and to smell a veritable nasal cacophony of different cuisines cooking, all at once. It would be cool to take her friends around the harbor on a boat, to let them ride the T and see that here, people walk, run, bike and drive a variety of vehicles too.

I am not saying that any one place to live is better than another, don’t think that. But I am saying that I think it’s good for kids to leave those confines once in a while and experience the way that others live, in other areas more than, say, once in their lives.

Next year, both of us would like to resume our old camping habits too. Those were favorite memories from our separate childhoods and an activity that, as adults, we both feel like we’ve missed out on in some way (living in tent cities in the Middle Eastern desert or mountains of Asia doesn’t technically count as camping, though it may put you off of seeing a tent for a few years afterward). I figure that I can use camping as an opportunity to teach A about the beauty of the natural world that she only sees in landscaped microcosms at home – and of course, use the time to educate her on rural and wilderness survival too. No, I’m not being facetious either.

Ultimately, what she’ll want to feel under her feet and the air she’ll want to breathe every day will be up to her. It’s up to us, though, to give her the tools to be able to make that choice wisely – and survive her choice in the end.

What kind of an area do you live in? Do you think your kids should experience more than your city/town/township/village or do you have everything you need where you are and hope your kids grow up to feel the same?

Stay at Home Parenting - Since When is it Only for the Wealthy?

Earlier this year on the Work it Mom Blog, Nataly wrote a post on nannies at kids birthday parties. This generated a really interesting (read: somewhat ire inducing) comment thread and one theme that seemed to run subtly throughout was that parents who could "afford" to keep their kids home, out of daycare, were automatically relegated to a class of people who could "obviously" afford nannies or au pairs.

Reading through some of the comments, I could only scratch my head and say, "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. Over?"

We live in one of the more expensive cities in the country - Boston, MA. Granted, it's not as bad as NYC or San Francisco, but I've also lived in many other parts of this nation and it is right up there in terms of outrageous cost of living. That being said, as I've noted here before, my husband is a stay at home parent to our almost 14 month old child. But that doesn't mean we're wealthy. Rather, quite the opposite.

I suppose that on top of the title of "Working Mother", I also carry the honor of being a "Breadwinner Mom" (whoop dee doo?). That was never more apparent when, before Amelie came along, we sat down to figure out what our child care options were going to be after my maternity leave came to an end.

My husband worked as a mechanic and I work as an Emergency Manager for the Department of Defense. Neither of these job titles hold huge dollar signs behind them, believe me. Because that is the case, I also moonlight as a military reservist and a bartender at our VFW which makes a big difference - although admittedly, I had been performing all jobs long before my husband came into my life...and

No, the truth of the matter is that we're very, very lucky. Our condo is a 3 bedroom, 1000 square foot dream in a triple decker owned by a longtime friend - so we definitely don't pay anywhere near market value for it. We only own one car and we bought that from our best friend at a seriously reduced price after our old car blew a transmission (4 months after I finally paid it off). While I make too much to qualify for any form of assistance from anyone, anywhere in the universe, I did manage to sob story may way onto fixed price option utility plans. I have access to a military Commissary which means that even though I do spend 200 dollars every two weeks on food (so it seems), I still get 3x the amount that I could on the civilian market. Our furniture is a mix of rent-to-own, used and IKEA brand. My wardrobe, thankfully, will never go out of style unless women stop wearing jeans and t-shirts.

So that's how we do it...but why did we do it? Because the only daycares that we found in our area, with the schedules we needed, were astronomically high in price. My husband's entire paycheck and a little of my own would have gone to her care each week. We decided that working solely to provide daycare was pointless. Yes, it's meant a lot of sacrifice in terms of how we live, but I don't think that our daughter will ever know it. There's always food on her plate, clothes on her back and (too many) toys for her amusement. She has a bookcase brimming with books, enough stuffed animals to lose herself in (a favored pasttime, actually) and something to occupy her time, with or without our help.

To do this, it means we don't often go out. We have one night a month set aside for ourselves and we usually just go to our VFW where the entertainment is free, the drinks are dirt cheap and the friends are pletniful. To do this, it means I make my own lunches 5 days a week and rarely buy my coffee out anymore. To do this, we wear our own clothes and shoes until they simply can't be worn any longer. To do this, we rarely buy The Little Things - a book, a game, a trinket or bauble - that we might have not thought twice about in the past.

We're often down to our last before I get paid again, but that's OK. We have shelter, good food, lights, warmth, little perks like cable and yes, the internetz, phone and car. We use the subway as often as possible and limit our family outings to mostly free events and places (the beach, the parks, meandering, aimless rambles throughout the city).

It can be done without any measure of wealth. It's a matter of personal choices and for us, a lot of luck and goodwill from friends. We decided that we just don't NEED certain things and those things aren't missed. But does this mean we're well off enough to afford a nanny or to host an au pair? The idea makes me laugh. We've neither the income nor the space to do either (yes, we did research those options) and the implication that the ability to stay home equates to the ability to have this sort of child care is preposterous.

So, how's it working thus far? Well, Most days, M dreads the prospect of enrolling her in school and returning to work. That day is still a long way off, but he's accustomed to their routine and though he'll tell anyone who listens that he has the most demanding boss in the world, an observation that is pretty close to truth, he also admits to not wanting to trade this job in for anything else. Sure, sometimes the arrangement feels a little foreign to us - people seem to think that, by and large, we're an anomaly (not true!) and apparently, rich (lollerskates), but that's OK. Everyone's situation is different. Ours is no exception.