CityMama™

The real developmental milestones

Remember when we all hovered over our babies waiting for them to smile, sit up, crawl, walk, or talk? Some of us probably sized up our kid with all the other kids in playgroup, or constantly checked BabyCenter to see when our babies should have a pincer grasp or eat solids or be expected to sleep through the night. All those developmental milestones are encouraging to parents, but I venture to say they aren't as important as the real milestones of young childhood. Like:

Learning to wipe her/his own butt. At a meeting with teachers before Bunny started kindergarten two years ago, the teachers said that they expected the kids to be able to handle all their own potty needs. All. So the next day, I bought a box of Kandoos and went to town teaching eager-to-learn and independent-minded Bunny proper bum-wiping skills.  Two days later, she was solid. Wallie, on the other hand, refuses to even try and starts to cry when I mention it.  We have a whole summer to work on it. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Clicking her/his own seatbelt. At age four, I taught my kids to click their own seatbelts. Pull, pull, pull the belt, hold it, then click. Then, pull, pull, pull it tight. For several weeks I gave a final check until I was confident that the belts were straight and tight.  My back thanked me very much for not having to lean into a car, across two kids to click seatbelts. And I admit I am a little thrown when we carpool a kid who still can't do it, so I teach him/her how. They can do it! Let 'em!

Working the TV/DVD Player/AppleTV: "Wallie, push the button that looks like a house...yes, that one...take out the DVD...put the new one in DON'TFORCEIT!...Now push the button that looks like a sideways nose, the triangle button...It'll start...NODONTPUSHITAGAIN...just WAIT...it'll start....I said wait!"  You know what?  That is BULLSHIT.  Bunny is our official AV Kid and that's how I like it.  As long as she asks permission before renting or buying any movies on AppleTV, she can pretty much run the TV viewing show in this house.  (It's not a free-for-all, they have designated TV times and have specific shows they can watch, but not having to push the TV/Video button to get the TV on the right setting to watch regular TV or DVDs or AppleTV = priceless.)

The moments that make your heart melt

I was invited to co-present a panel on social media at the EngageHer conference in Berkeley today, and  J. suggested that the whole family go along. This is something we've done ever since we first started dating. If one of us has an appointment or an engagement somewhere a little bit far away, the other drives, finds something to do for a few hours, then comes back for pick up. It started, I think, because back then we wanted to spend every minute we possibly could with each other, and after 15 years and two kids together, I am secretly thrilled every time J. suggests it.

He said he'd drop me off and then he would take the girls over to Fairyland and come pick me up when I was done.  I wasn't sure what time the session would end so we arranged for a 12.30 PM pick up no matter what.

When my session was over, I was asked by the women from See Jane Do if they could interview me which meant that I needed to text J. and tell him not to pick me up until 1:00 to give us more time to get the filming done.  He said not to worry, they'd grab lunch, hit a park, and then come get me.

When the interview finished, I rushed to meet my family. J. had texted to ask if I was ready. They were here. I spied the car across an expanse of green lawn and hurried towards it, but as I got closer, I noticed that no one was in it. A second later, as I rounded a group of scruby rhododendrons, I spied my adorable family sitting on a blanket having a picnic lunch in the sun. The scene took my breath away.

There is nothing in the world that makes me happier than seeing three bright, shining, squinting-in-the-sun faces grinning at me. Nothing that sounds better to my ears than a chorus of, "Mamma!!!'s"

J. looked at me and his smiling eyes spoke volumes. Our girls are magical. Our family is love. This we know a thousand times over.

J. handed me a sparkling lemonade and I sat down on the grass. Bunny offered me a bite of her artichoke fritter and, giggling, shared how Papa got her Aranciata open by prying the cap off on a street sign after trying several other unsuccessful methods. Wallie speared mozzarella balls and tomatoes with a fork and handed them to me while scrambling into my lap threatening to drip olive oil all over my skirt. But I didn't care.

I just wanted to sit in the sun and sip lemonade and listen to the stories of Fairyland and picking out lunch at the deli and deciding on where to have the picnic until I felt like I had been with them for three and half hours instead of apart.

Of schedules and routines

We've always been a pretty routine-oriented family. From a set bedtime routine that has been the same since both kids were babies to our habit of having coffee and pastries at the mall every Saturday when the weather is nice (it's an outdoor mall that is very pretty and pleasant) to Sunday mornings spent moving from one hippie church activity to the next until lunchtime, we're kind of set in our ways.

 The hardest times for me are the after school to bedtime hours, I know these hours are hard for a lot of stay-at-home parents. They are especially tough for me as a work-at-home parent because I am interrupted so many times during the day by appointments or phone calls or school volunteering or school picks-ups that oftentimes I'm not even really getting rolling with work until after lunch.  The afternoon is also when I try to schedule all my calls, something I may have to revisit.

We have after school activities that fill an hour or two here or there, but for the most part, we've been playing those hours fast and loose. And it's been a problem.  Left to their own devices, the girls will play for a while and then eventually start getting on each other's nerves. Then the day ends on a bad note where everyone is frustrated and pissed off at each other.

Little things marking big changes.

After one month of patching Wallie's stronger eye, the vision in her weaker eye has improved. We do it four hours a day and she hates it, but was encouraged to know that that it is working.  We will continue for three more months and hope we see even more improvement. It will probably never reach 20/20 but maybe it won't be so, in Wallie's words, "blurry" when she tries to read books.

And Bunny has another loose tooth. #6.

I can do what I do because my kids are my kids

I watched Michelle Obama discussing the Women and Families Blue Print (I swear this isn't a political post), and as she talked about how much women have to juggle in their daily lives, I was struck by one thought:

My girls are damn good kids.

She talked about how—even if moms work—the bulk of child-rearing duties fall on them. I work. I work from home but I work. And yet I must carve out time in my day to cook, clean, do laundry, organize school papers, run the carpool, kiss booboos, arrange the playdates, grocery shop, administer medicine and on and on.

I am the one that has to clear space in my cluttered brain to remember what needs to be brought to camp, the school form the doctor needs to sign, the times and locations of various pick-ups and drop-offs, to buy and wrap the birthday presents, and on and on.

Kaimana Beach Memories, Old and New

My girls are sun-kissed from playing on the beach in Honolulu, the same beaches I used to play on when I was their age. Their curly hair is full of new, salty, blonde streaks and their skin is bronzed. As a kid I remember digging and digging and digging down into the sand, convinced I would eventually reach China. I could dig for hours it seemed, and the rising tide would threaten to flood my hole at the edge of the waterline until finally, with one perfect waves, it would be washed away, rearranged by rushing water and shifting sand. I remember jumping off the pier, no longer there, into water so clear you could see fish, and seaweed, and bright white coral at the sandy bottom. Once I spied a ten dollar bill at the bottom of the ocean and dove off the pier to retrieve it.

It's important to me to continue the tradition of "beach love" with my girls. Oceans are for swimming, fish are beautiful, surfers are the coolest of cool. My mom lives in Hawaii, and growing up in there, the beach is part of everyone's life. Almost from the time they can walk Hawaii-born kids swim or Boogie board or surf or snorkel or canoe. As soon as we touch down in Honolulu, we scramble into our swim suits, the very last items to make it into our suitcases so they are readily available for just such an occasion.

Little Unitarians

Overheard this morning as Bunny and Wallie were playing with their baby doll in our bed:

Wallie: Let's pretend we're married. We can be two mommies and this is our baby.
Bunny: Okay.

Alcatraz. It's where the naughty children go to live without their parents.

And it's the ace up my sleeve when my kids are acting like effing hellions. When my kids are acting up, really acting like little...bad kids, I threaten to call Alcatraz to see if they have any rooms available. Bunkbeds? Fine. That's what they sleep on at home.

Whenever we cross the Golden Gate Bridge, I give a nod to Alcatraz. The girls snap to attention immediately even if they aren't doing anything wrong.

Why is it that, on a day like today, they don't respond to warnings or reasoning or yelling or time-outs, but as soon as I mention Alcatraz, all naughtiness stops? Wallie can be wailing on ever-patient Bunny (because she is a hitter), and as soon as I tell Wallie to pack her bags, Bunny is the one saying, "Nooooo! Don't call Alcatraz!" That threat is only for special occasions. Once every couple months. And as you can see, it works, long enough for me to stop the madness and explain what better choices look like anyway.

I used to think that I would be able to redirect or reason away any bad behavior with my children. We'd...talk it out. They would be intrinsically motivated to make appropriate choices at all times because we are thinking, rational people. I'd never raise my voice. After all, I was an educator.

I think all the educational psychologist professors I had never had a Wallie. She has had a strong personality since the day she was born, and that will hopefully serve her well in adulthood, but lately the child has been testing the limits of this family.

Alcatraz! Alcatraz!  What a beautiful, beautiful name! (Sorry, was channeling Babs.)

Henyway. San Francisco Bay Area, I love you for many reasons, but today, it's because of Alcatraz.

Feel free to invoke Alcatraz whenever you need it. Alcatraz is meant for sharing, plus little kids have no idea how far away San Francisco is (if you never tell them).

The Napping House (a rarity 'round these parts)

Both girls napped today for the first time in at least a year. While Bunny napped daily until she was a little over 4-years-old, Wallie said "eff naps" when she was around two, two-and-a-half. I worried that I would somehow be stunting her development by not allowing her brain and body the downtime. I suppose time will tell. So far, she seems to be fine.

They definitely needed rests today between engagements so I put them in the tub around 3pm, scrubbed them up, washed their hair, and blew it dry. All cozy and relaxed from their baths, I tucked them into their beds and Wallie was asleep inside of five minutes. It took Bunny a little longer, but eventually she napped, too. And they didn't get up until almost 6pm.

J. took them for dinner and playing with their friends while I stole away with the moms to watch the Oscars. I met up with fam later to drive the girls home, and on our way down the freeway I said, "Girls, isn't it good to take a nap in the afternoon? Then you wake up and you still have the rest of the day ahead of you, but you aren't tired and cranky so you have more fun?"

Bunny pondered that for a moment then nodded, "Yes. I want to do that again."

Wallie could totally use the nap everyday. Rest time was working for awhile, but it kind of fell by the wayside. I think I'll try to institute it again. I just hope she isn't up until 10:00 every night. Like she was tonight.

A new CityMama is born

Now that we've got our soft launch behind us and the kinks worked out, I'd like to "formally" welcome everyone to the new me. Pull up a chair and sit, why don't you?

The decision to fold Family Food, my food blog, into CityMama was about a year in the making. Actually, maybe even a little longer than that. I've been seriously blogging since 2004, and somewhere along the way, I decided that the focus would be less on my kids and more about my life in general.

When you have one child, it's easy to focus are your blogging time and attention on that one child. They are the center of your world, the stars of the show. Their photos plaster your blog. They are so cute, how can you resist sharing that cuteness with the world? When you have two or more children, you suddenly think about devoting equal time to each, and being fair. At least I did. And I knew that I probably never be no matter how hard I tried. That realization combined with an effort by me to reclaim a shred or two of privacy in my life led me to the decision to focus less on my girls and more on our world.

I will miss seeing my sweetpeas in the banner at the top of my blog. Their photo made me smile and made my heart swell with pride every day. And I admit having a twinge of "buyers remorse" not seeing them there anymore. They are still here, though in the background, as I strive to present a fuller, more rounded (no pun intended) picture of our world.

Our world includes many things: the usual packing of lunches and school runs, the carting to and fro from gymnastics to soccer to birthday parties. But it is also informed by me: a 38-year-old woman who unabashedly loves pop culture, who is a serious media junkie, who can be easily distracted from almost anything by the words, "Want to go to Target?," who loves to cook. Mostly who loves to cook. More than anything.

I considered shuttering CityMama completely and only focusing on Family Food, and about a year ago I almost did, but then I started question why my food blogging and "CityMama blogging" (for lack of a better term) needed to be separate. Both blogs seemed to serve different purposes, but in the end I decided that they both defined me. So why couldn't they be combined? The answer to that question for me is here, in the new CityMama. These are the stories of our lives, captured forever for Bunny and Wallie, combined with what I cooked along the way.

Thanks to Trish for inspiring the tagline: Always Cooking Something Up.  She's won the contest and will receive the prize consisting of "Random Crap PR People Send Me," although the package will be light since she lives in Australia!

Thanks also to Marlynn and Alain of Event Bliss for helping me to realize my vision. The biggest recommendation I can give them is that they worked with me—a fickle, indecisive, emotional, finicky, Libra—and managed to turn my eccentricities into a functional and beautiful site. (They also didn't bat an eyelash when I said, "Here's the deposit for your services, cash the check right away!") Yes, I know the script is hard to read for some, but I love it, and it's called "Jane Austen" so you have to love it, too!

So welcome to my new digs. I hope you'll stick around and keep the conversation going. There will always be a seat at the table—and a glass of your favorite libation and some nibbles—waiting for you here!

photo credit: CityMama