I was doing some back read­ing of arti­cles I book­marked last week & in my cue was a New York Times arti­cle, For First­borns, Sec­ond­hand Fits the Bill. I had book­marked it to read because I am look­ing for arti­cles to give my stu­dents when school starts back up. I’m try­ing to find some that deal with how changes in the econ­omy can cause other social changes.

In this arti­cle the focus is a sup­posed increase in fru­gal choices when shop­ping for kids. I know the NY Times has a pretty skewed audi­ence, trend­ing toward a higher income & higher edu­ca­tional level. I get there are dif­fer­ences in cul­tural under­stand­ings about money & neces­sity based on socio-economic class. But PULEEZE if this is what money & edu­ca­tion gets us then we are totally screwed on lessons of sen­si­ble eco­nom­ics. For exam­ple as the arti­cle points out that par­ents who have it “together” have real­ized this stun­ning fact:

No longer is it nec­es­sary to buy a thousand-dollar chang­ing table in order to prove your parental savvy and breadth of love; if any­thing, the oppo­site is true.

I’m not sure any­one in my classes will be able to relate, no mat­ter their age or if they have kids. I know I can’t. Because really a grand?

Is this really a news­flash? I don’t know about any­one else, but I don’t think it was EVER nec­es­sary to buy a $1,000 chang­ing table. Not unless your kid is going to cre­ate lit­eral dia­monds on it, which I’m pretty sure is impos­si­ble. Rain­bows maybe, but dia­monds nope. No dia­monds then no grand is going to be dropped so I can wipe a tush.

Tech­no­rati Tags: babies, chil­dren, fam­ily, fru­gal, media, NY Times, par­ent­ing

You decide it will be fun to give your kids each 1 donut. You then learn the following:

• If you give each of your kids 1 donut they will each ask for a 2^nd one.
• If you say no to another donut because 1 donut is plenty of sug­ary sweets for the day & you have 3 kids you then will hear 3 kids cry for another donut. 
• 3 kids cry­ing for more donuts sounds like 6 kids cry­ing for more donuts.
• I’m not sure why it sounds dou­ble, per­haps it’s the power the donut has over them. Mak­ing them super­hu­man in their cries.
• You will then have regret over giv­ing any­one any donuts or try­ing to do any­thing fun.
• You will promise your­self you’ll never do that again.
• That is until you for­get & do it again.

Tech­no­rati Tags: chil­dren, donuts, fam­ily, par­ent­ing

Ever have one of those morn­ings where you wake up and sud­denly remem­ber you’re a Mom? Like some­how you for­got while sleep­ing that a house full of kids and laun­dry wait­ing to be put away awaited you? Today was that kind of day for me.

I was hav­ing a dream about being off trav­el­ing. It was a jet-set dream with din­ners out, shop­ping, & I was wear­ing high heels. Then I felt some­one shake me. I tried to ignore it but it wouldn’t stop, it was get­ting annoying. My heels were fad­ing away so I peeked out of one eye & asked “What? Who’s there?”

It was Hubby. “I’ve got to go to work and take out the trash before I leave. He’s hun­gry.” I stared at him for a minute, groggy & won­der­ing why I wasn’t in Paris any­more. I felt a look of con­fu­sion creep­ing across my face, my eyes squint­ing at him try­ing to see his face.

“Who’s hun­gry?” I asked. “Um, the baby. The baby’s hungry.” He looked amused at my con­fu­sion. “The baby’s hun­gry.” I repeated as if to con­firm there was a baby. Hubby smiled. “Yes, the baby. I’ll get him up and bring him over to you. The other kids have break­fast so you don’t have to worry about that when you get up. I also will take the trash out.” 

Other kids? For a sec­ond I felt like Goldie Hawn in that movie “Over­board” You know the high-quality film where Goldie gets amne­sia after hit­ting her head & Kurt Rus­sell essen­tially kid­naps her, makes her think she’s his wife, and has her care for his 4 wild boys. He does it because he’s upset with her treat­ment of him. She is rich, bitchy, & won’t pay him for the work he did on her yacht. In the end, she falls madly in love with him & totally for­gives the creepi­ness of his lying about the whole being his wife, mother of his chil­dren thing, & his kid­nap­ping her. It’s the stuff that long-lasting love is really made of. 

Well this morn­ing I thought maybe it was like that. Like I was Goldie and it was all a ploy. I was still sup­posed to be in my heels walk­ing down a Paris street with shop­ping bags in hand. In my fan­tasy dreams I shop, alone. It’s my ulti­mate shop­ping fan­tasy no one peek­ing under doors, ask­ing if I’m done yet, or throw­ing them­selves down over hav­ing to go into one. more. store. It’s just me, every­thing fits, & I can afford what­ever I try on. 

Then it hits, other kids. I am fully awake & it hits me. My other kids. I have other kids, who I can hear down­stairs fight­ing over what show they are going to watch for morn­ing cartoons. And I have to feed the baby. I’m his food, my breasts are like the local 7/11 to him. Open 24 hours a day, ready to serve. Of course how could I forget? 

“Oh, yah the other kids. I’ll be down when I’m done. Bring D-man here, I’ll feed him & change him.” I kissed Hubby & thanked him for tak­ing out the trash.

I was back to real­ity. All before 8 am I fed D-man, changed him, got up, unloaded & reloaded the dish­washer, switched the laun­dry into the dryer from last night, picked up sev­eral toys that already made their way out, got more food for the other kids, broke up 3 “It’ mine! He’s look­ing at me! No, I want it!” scuf­fles & finally got myself a cup of coffee. 

Although I still secretly won­der if Hubby isn’t pulling one over on me & this isn’t all ploy.

Tech­no­rati Tags: fam­ily, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Rus­sell, mom, moth­er­hood, movie, Over­board, par­ent­ing