Chicago Moms Blog

Social Media Overload

I love blogs and blogging, Twitter and Tweeting. I enjoy the ability to connect online in a variety of different networks, but I'm waving my white flag. I've hit the wall. I'm suffering from social media overload.

Unlike the proverbial wall runners hit prior to a rush of endorphins, this one feels more like a dead end. I used to think I spent a lot of time reading and responding to email, and that was back when I received a scant 50 or so messages each day. Now, although I ruthlessly delete anything irrelevant, the number of messages building up in my inbox seems to grow exponentially each week.

But it's no longer just my email inbox that's daunting me, it's those inane Facebook invitations to play this game or take that quiz, or "friend" a person I've never met.Oh, and don't get me started on the daily requests to become a fan of this company or that blog.

Bloggers Who Brunch

My husband often refers to my Internet peeps and blogging buddies as my imaginary friends, so when Chicago Moms Blogger Cindy Fey asked me to co-host a brunch for our group, I jumped at the chance. It's always fun to get an IRL view of virtual friends. And speaking of view, Cindy provided a fabulous downtown venue for our gathering.

As Caitlin noted, for most of us the day started out like any other with chores and family obligations, but turned into something much more special once we gathered together.

Our brunch was fabulous. The food, the penthouse setting, the women and, of course, the food. Local purveyor of fine foods, Pastoral Artisan provided us with a cheese tray so delicious that even the pregnant among us could not resist the temptation of the selection of soft cheeses from Midwestern farms. (Cough *Carrie*)

Failing as a Parent

Every mom feels "mommy guilt" now and then- we let our kids have too much screen time, we forget to pack the bathing suit on swim day, we miss teacher conferences. Oversights, mishaps and occasional lazy parenting, can be forgiven and maybe even laughed over once time has passed.
But lately my mommy guilt is above 11. It's Beyond. And I'm hearing the same thing from my friends.
We are smart educated middle and upper middle class women who have failed--or are teetering on the brink of failure, staring down its dark unforgiving maw.
We have broken promises to our children. Because of the recession.

Sweet Day at the All Candy Expo

Just hours after asking my blog sistahs to share their thoughts on responsible blogging, I attended the All Candy Expo and made a complete blogwhore of myself. Oh, the sweet, delicious, chocolate-covered irony. As my friends were digging into their souls, I was grabbing handfuls of chocolate at every turn.

Actually, the slim, smiling salespeople offered me tastes and free samples at nearly every booth. The moment someone asked me if I wanted some chocolate-covered chocolate, I knew there was no holding back at this event. The fact is, I attended the expo not just to eat my fill of chocolate, but to uncover industry trends and find the latest new candies to share with my kids readers.

I sampled Jelly Belly's craziest new "BeanBoozled" flavors--dog food and centipede, Peanut butter and jam M &Ms, the 85-calorie Fling from Mars in its pink girly wrapper, Lindt's not yet released Sea Salt Chocolate, lollipops that taste like bacon, cassava chips and more. I met the women behind Give Me Some Sugar, a Chicago-based organization that offers at-home cooking classes and parties. And, yes, I Iearned about industry trends thanks to my press kit. What I read was every bit as eyebrow raising as my centipede-flavored jelly bean.

It's Never too Early to Advocate

When my son entered kindergarten, I gave a head's up about my special son to his very experienced teacher. She ignored me. Whenever I asked how he was doing, she told me he was just fine.

Fine, I've since learned, means your child is not causing problems. Fine means your child behaves reasonably well. Is compliant. Fine does not mean your child is happy, growing academically, or making friends.

Indeed, by first grade, it was clear that none of these things were happening. My son grew increasingly anxious and depressed about going to school.

Indiana, I'm over you

We loaded my boys and their best friends into the minivan and left our north suburban home just after 9:15AM on Good Friday. I don't know if it was our timing or the holiday, but we breezed through the city on our way to Indiana. Life was good.

But then we hit a major traffic snafu heading south on I-65. A lane closure due to construction slowed us to a standstill. I was more annoyed than worried. After all, we had plenty of time to make it to our 1:30 tour of the Endangered Species Chocolate Factory near Indianapolis.

By the time we passed through the bottleneck, our crew was ready for a bathroom break, so we pulled over at a nearby rest stop. We piled out of the car and made our way to the entrance only to run into locked doors with a smattering of signs taped to them."Facilities Closed." This did not deter some men and boys (not my group) from going around the back of their building to pee near it. Or on it. Take that, Indiana rest stop!

The Trouble with Twilight

I finally read Twilight, the book that has millions of moms, not to mention teenage girls, going ga-ga over a good looking group of vampires. Meh, I'm not impressed. In fact, I'm especially bothered by one particular oversight.

Edward Cullen, the vampire so desired by Bella, a mere mortal high school student, has an equally strong pull toward her. He's intrigued by Bella as a person, a love interest, and, you know, also in that blood-sucking vampire way.

There are many points in the story in which Edward, who has a vampire's supernatural ultra-sensitive sense of smell, mentions Bella's special scent. How he craves and is crazed by it. That caused a big problem for me. If Edward found Bella's scent irresistible on a normal day, don't you think he must have gone nuts when she had her period? Or even when she was ovulating? As hormone levels in a woman's body fluctuate during her cycle so do her, um, special scents. And this can impact the males around them. I have personal experience with this.

Food, Glorious Food Bank : Greater Chicago Food Depository

Last week, in a grown-up version of Alternative Spring Break, I spent an afternoon at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. I was due there at the southwest side facility at 1:00 and left my north suburban house around noon, without eating lunch first. My volunteer commitment was to last until 4:00 and I knew I wouldn't make it on an empty stomach. How obnoxious would that be-- showing up at the food pantry only to complain about being hungry? Oh yeah, as embarrassing as this incident.

So I grabbed a bit of road food, which then left me feeling a bit rushed. I headed to the highway to find a jackknifed semi blocking the entrance. It only took me one illegal U-turn to remedy the situation, though. (This from a recent graduate of Traffic Safety School.) I was driving in mid-day traffic, but it felt like rush hour. I think I averaged about 40 mph on the expressway.

The Food Depository is huge. They distribute over 46 million pounds of food each year, helping an estimated 500,000 people annually. For over a decade my dad's business has made a holiday donation to the organization in lieu of buying client gifts, so it was nice to see firsthand how the money helps the Chicagoland community.

Dorky Mom Does BlogHer or Why I'm Keeping My Mouth Shut This Year

My 10 year-old recently half-jokingly hurled an insult at me, "Mom, you are a wannabe nerd. And that makes you a dork."

Me? A dork? I resemble that remark.

And now as Twitter is abuzz with chatter about upcoming conferences like the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston this week and SXSW Interactive in March, his comment made me realize that maybe it's best that I'm not attending either of those events.

After all, there are two conversations from BlogHer08 I still haven't lived down.

Teaching my son to lie

Never mind that I've been carrying around a few extra pounds around for a few too many years, now that I've started losing weight I feel comfortable preaching to my ten-year-old about the importance of self-discipline. And why not present my svelte self as very the model of self-control? I've been watching what I eat and exercising daily for a whole month now.

So during a recent mother-son chat about a certain someone's lack of self-discipline I explained, "I know it can be hard to curb our impulses. But look at me, I started making careful choices about what I eat and I've lost five pounds."

He turned to me. He looked me over. Twice.