Has anyone seen my iPod?

Ben, our 2 ½ year old is getting into things and turning our household upside down

He means well, really. He’ll bring me my purse when I don’t need it “Here Mommy.”  Or my sunglasses  “Sunglasses. Broken.” (My third pair this summer that he has snapped in two.  I’ve learned to never spend more than $5 on sunglasses ).

He’s not hiding things intentionally. But he’ll grab things, put them elsewhere, and neglect to tell us.

Like my car keys.
Which I was also unable to find this morning. 

I still blame my misplaced things on sleep deprivation or brain synapse miss-fires.

Which very well could be true for my car keys.

But we’ve caught him in the act so many times.

Saturday I found my Visa card in his sock drawer.  WHAT!?   Must’ve slipped it from my purse before handing it to me. Put it in safe keeping so he could go on toysrus.com later.  hmmmm.

Tuesday morning I was late why? Because he likes to go in our bedroom, press the different buttons on my alarm clock and watch the digital numbers fly by.  I found out too late that my clock was now set for 2:16 pm.

Oh well, it was a lovely morning to sleep in.

Sometimes we’ll find the dishwasher running when it isn’t full, or the coffee pot will brew with nothing in it. 

Peter will ask.  ”Did you turn it on? No. “ Did you?” “No. ”

We’ve caught Ben in the act – he likes to watch the little lights go on “Green! Red!”  

Now I know the onus is on us as parents. We try to keep these our things in out of reach places.  But I swear that overnight he has grown stretchy arms like the mom in “the Incredibles”.  He can stand on his tippy toes and can reach to the back of the kitchen counter no problem.

Sigh.

I guess we should be grateful he hasn’t dropped anything down the toilet yet.  (To our knowledge)

But has anyone seen my iPod?

Any child sabotage going on in your household?

Peter and I were married eight years ago yesterday.

Just the two of us starting out.

Prior to our wedding we had taken the requisite “couples compatibility” test given by our church.

At the time starting a family was dead last on both of our lists of priorities.

I was reminded of how much our lives have changed since that day.

Yesterday morning all four of us were jammed in the bathroom.

Peter and I brushing away at our teeth. Elbows knocking.

Ben with his arms wrapped around my knees.

Vivian in the crook of Peter’s arm looking luminous and round

just like 9 month old baby’s do.

The four of us reflected in the mirror.

A full-fledged family.

#1 priority on both of our lists.

And it is so fantastic.

No fancy anniversary dinner with wine and candles.

Just a late summer evening trip to DQ for all of us. 

The traditional 8th anniversary gift is apparently “bronze.” 

(I had to google that)

For us… it was soft serve.

And it was lovely.

…. my four-year-old asks at breakfast.

Phew. Such a simple question. So difficult to answer.

I want to say it’s something you get paid for but then how to explain what her stay-at-home dad does? And then there’s the “work” they do at preschool (Montessori teachers call everything work - as in “put away your work now.”).

I end up telling her a story instead of how I love to write and I’m good at it so I went to the newspaper and they liked me too. And so they said will you work for us and now they give me money for it. And I use the money to pay for food and our house. Long-winded and lame and narrow, I know.

And it didn’t really answer her question at all.

And with that less-than-riveting answer, my daughter gazed out in our back yard and pronounced: “Mommy, that’s a really big spiderweb.”

Her question stuck with me through the morning.

Because you know, it’s a question we ask ourselves all through our lives. I’m lucky enough to love what I do for a living. But there have definitely been ups and downs in my career.

Our enduring quest to answer Zoe’s question - “what is work?” - is why we read books like “What Color is your Parachute.” It’s why something gets caught in our throats when we watch “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” and the bearded, long-haired drifter talks about searching for his “life work” which unexpectedly appears in the form of a flock of wild green and red parrots.

So I asked a couple of people who know a lot about work what they would have said to my Zoe. (more…)

Ah, summer…..sun shining, kids outside. Wait, that’s when Samara Tilkens Postuma notices something…

It is always something isn’t it.

Upon a child’s birth, its breast vs. bottle, working vs. staying at home, preschool vs. Montessori and so on. Most of the time we all do what works for our own families trying to leave our own biased opinions out of it, don’t we? It’d be nice if as our kids got older the arguments over what is better and the decisions over what is best ceased, but it seems that isn’t the case.

My stepson, Tyler, is 9 and entering 4th grade this fall. Imagine my surprise when I watched him and three of his neighborhood friends bike around the neighborhood and he was the only one wearing a helmet. In years past, all the kids wore helmets. And I mean ALL. This year, he’s the oldest one wearing one.

It doesn’t seem to bother him and only once have I even heard one of his friends question him. His friend started to point and laugh saying; “You still wear a helmet? Helmets are for babies!!!” and Ty quickly put the blame on me, (his evil stepmother), “She makes me.” He said pointing at me.

I was fine with that explanation and feel thankful that he willingly puts it on each day when he hops atop his bike but I can’t help but wonder how much longer it will be before he starts asking when he’s old enough to go helmet less.

Helmets weren’t what they are today when my husband and I were growing up. As a matter of fact, I first got a helmet when I was 10, from my pediatrician after a fall on my noggin. But even today my husband and I wear helmets when we go biking because we want the kids to all understand that it’s about being safe and making the right choices.

Is there some sort of magical age that helmets are no longer needed? The way I see it, my two year old is probably safer on his tricycle without a helmet versus a 9 year old boy who wants to ride hands free, going off of jumps. What do you think and how does one approach and encourage this as the kids get older?

Samara Tilkens Postuma
http://simplicityinthesuburbs.blogspot.com

Today we have a ”lousy” article from Lucie Admunson. It first published in Family Times magazine - she was kind enough to share this  piece with Cribsheet.  Warning: I shuddered about 12 times reading it. But it is good information to know - you can have the most squeaky clean family and still get them.  Lice aren’t nit picky when it comes to choosing scalps.

Our lives have been pretty wild recently. We’re in a transitional phase where our family home is on the market, dad lives the week out of town and I’m having a hard time fitting in all my client work. Making a house into a real estate fantasy while real children live there hasn’t been easy on any of us.

So when I saw the school nurse phone number pop up on caller id, I sighed the sigh of a burdened parent. Honestly I know I’m blessed there wasn’t a terrible accident or exposure to a flesh eating bacteria, but what I heard stopped me cold. “Mrs. Amundsen, you need to come get your child; she has lice.”

Now before you stop reading thinking this will never happen to you, I’ve got bad news. Lice are more prevalent than ever. Schools right here in the Twin Cities have temporarily closed due to outbreaks they couldn’t get under control. Sadly, lice happens.

(more…)