DC Metro Moms

Confessions of a Grouchy Dieter

Dieting makes me grouchy. I don't like having to change the way I eat. I would much rather bike 20 miles or bust my butt in the gym every day, both of which I used to do before kids, than do a "diet." I've never been a believer in fad diets, though I confess to having tried chocolate shake meal replacements which didn't work for me and tasted like runny, chocolate mud. Having thyroid issues doesn't help with losing weight, never mind keeping it off. I can lose about 5 pounds but never get past that plateau, even with exercise. I went down one jean size in the spring and then got stuck again. We generally follow a Mediterranean diet at home, and I'm a scratch cook so it's not like we're hitting the fast food windows. I just couldn't budge those pounds.

Having a collection of jeans from pre-baby days still hanging in my closet teasing me makes me even grouchier than dieting, and I finally got desperate enough to try another diet revised eating plan. One of my blogging friends did the South Beach Diet and lost 42 pounds, and more importantly has kept it off. I always thought South Beach and Atkins were rather flaky, right up there with those miracle juice diets where you shed 10 pounds in a day or some other ridiculous claim, and of course reading about the supposed health problems of the Atkins founder only confirmed my doubts. But I had reached the point of desperation and general goals like "eating more healthy" and giving up sugar had not given the results I wanted.

Pardon Me, I Can't Smell My Food

I remember the days when going to a restaurant meant walking through a cloud of smoke to get in the door and everyone was smoking all around you. I don't remember my mother ever saying the smoke bothered her though I knew she was not fond of it. My father liked to light up his pipe after meals, and while I never liked the smell of cigarette or cigar smoke, I did like the earthy smell of his pipe.

Sometime early in grade school I began hearing about the dangers of smoking, as this was not long after the surgeon general's warning began appearing on tobacco products in 1971. I remember my teachers saying that smoking was harmful and we should never do it. In my nine-year-old mind, I was sure my dad was going to die any minute, and I told my sister that we had to convince Dad to stop smoking, and boy did we go after that. We pleaded, and I even remember crying as I begged my father to quit smoking, saying I didn't want him to die. I'm still not sure if it was our onslaught or a doctor who said he should quit, but my dad did quit smoking when I was about 10 years old. Of course now there is hard evidence that smoking, including second-hand smoke, causes cancer and other diseases, so I'm doubly grateful that my father quit when he did.

Once we had children of our own, we really disliked going to restaurants that allowed smoking and we have stopped going to those restaurants altogether because smoke drifts, especially if the restaurant has ceiling fans.

Preschool or Daycare? Not Enough of Either

"Our waiting list is currently about 2 years long," the preschool/daycare administrator informed me.

My mouth dropped open and I lost all sense of inner monologue. "You're kidding me!"

"No. We have over 400 families waiting for a spot, and we even have unborn infants on the waiting list."

Registering kids for daycare and preschool while in utero is probably not a new phenomenon, but it's new to me, not that anything regarding preschool or daycare registration should surprise me anymore. People camp out overnight to get a spot in a preschool or daycare, so registering kids before they are even born just seems to fall right in line with that.

Knowing all of the craziness involved in preschool registration and how anal I am about making sure we have a spot somewhere, one would think I would not be calling schools in August, but alas I am. The folks at the preschool where we are currently registered accidentally put our son on the wrong wait list.

Multi-Tasking Yoga

The Saturday morning yoga session at BlogHer '08 felt somewhat familiar, even though my body was protesting the entire time. I went to the session prepared for relaxing, hatha-style yoga, only to find myself sweating to the music as we flowed from one asana to the next. So much for the shower I took right before.

In my 30s I had a regular yoga practice, inspired by images of uber-flexible women stretching themselves into positions that reminded me of my cheerleader/ballet/gymnastics days as a teen. I started by taking some classes and at first felt horribly out of place and self-conscious, thinking I was the only person in the room who could not position my leg up high enough for tree pose, but I soon got over that. After becoming more familiar with proper posture and more comfortable with my body and center of balance, I began practicing daily at home using the Gaiam yoga DVDs.

Now my 40-something body that has carried three babies is not quite as forgiving as it was during the teen years or even my 30s, and somehow I manage to get into a pose but then often wonder how I will ever get out of it. The yogi who led the session at BlogHer picked up on that right away.

Vacation Without the Kids

We're leaving for vacation on Friday, just the two of us. The islands are calling my name, and I plan to indulge in some beach time, sipping tropical drinks as I dip my toes in the sand and salt water. It's been a long time since we had a vacation without children. We went to my sister's wedding last September and had a nice weekend away, our first time ever apart from our children, and before that our last vacation together was six years ago when I was pregnant with our oldest son. We used to wake up late, go for a hike or an easy climb, ride bikes in the afternoon, eat our meals whenever we felt like it, and stay up late. Now when we go on vacation, it's usually to visit the grandparents because going anywhere else and managing three curious little boys in a small hotel room is not relaxing.

Packing for vacation has changed dramatically since our children joined the family. Before children, my husband and I could pack light with our own personal clothes and gear, but once kids came into the picture we had to deal with a much larger packing list. When the kids were babies, the list was enormous, almost a logistical nightmare.

Packing list without children:

shirts
shorts
hiking shoes
sandals

How Much Should You Tell?

I'm coming out now, and it's been a tough decision. My family knows, and now I'm finally talking with others about it.

I've struggled with health issues for over two years and have heard a variety of guesses from doctors depending on their clinical specialty, including post-partum depression, seizure disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, rare types of migraines, the natural effects of aging (I'm only 42), perimenopause, or diabetes (even though my blood sugar is perfect). I've listened to some unhelpful advice, such as: "If you get out more, you'll feel better," or "Try to think positive thoughts," or the best one, "Why don't you get a hobby?" I think my cooking blog and gardening are pretty darn good and fulfilling hobbies, but maybe they don't fit the typical definition.

In spite of a battery of tests over the last two years, including EEGs, EKGs, X-rays, multiple MRIs and blood tests, no doctor could pinpoint the problem, and as a result I have not wanted to talk about it.

Help! I'm Going to BlogHer and Have Nothing to Wear!

I am not a fashionista, though before children I did take time to think about my wardrobe and actually had clothes that required dry cleaning. I enjoyed dressing up for work and had a closet full of suits in various colors. My favorite was a dark plum double-breasted jacket and skirt combo that I wore with an opaque lace t-shirt underneath, and I called it "my purple power suit" because I felt really good in it and always got compliments. My last two office jobs had smart casual dress codes, so I traded in my suits for pants and shirts.

After the birth of our first child almost six years ago I became a WAHM then later a SAHM, and my clothing requirements went from something nice to wear to the office to anything washable that would not show reflux or breast milk stains. I let my hair grow out to my waist and just kept my bangs neatly trimmed because it was easy and I could put it in a ponytail or braid to keep it out of the way. Now my summer wardrobe mainly consists of polo shirts and slightly feminine t-shirts and cotton shorts with drawstring waists, and in the winter I trade all that in for jeans and sweat shirts or long sleeve t-shirts collected at the various 5Ks I've done. I don't even wear sweaters anymore because the kids pull at the threads and I end up with strings hanging everywhere.

I took a first step towards a makeover when I got my hair cut last December, and my husband nearly keeled over when I told him I wanted to cut several inches off my Rapunzel-esque locks, though after the

A Tale of Two Bears

Our first two sons never really got attached to particular toys, and they certainly did not care for a pacifier, but our youngest, the toddler aka Monkey Boy, loves two things: his blue bear and his pacifier. All of our boys received blue bears when they were born, but each one is slightly different in some way, whether it's the type of fur, or the way the body is shaped, or the bow around the neck. All three boys named their bears "Bear," and all three boys still sleep with their blue bears. Thanks goodness the Bears are all machine washable! Monkey Boy, however, won't go anywhere without his Bear. He drags it all over the house, takes it in the car, and brings it to eat all meals, though we do not allow bear to sit at the table because it's a toy. We do allow Bear to sit somewhere close by so he can "watch" Monkey Boy eat, and Monkey Boy feels a lot better knowing Bear is near.

We realized about eight months ago that Monkey Boy's attachment to his blue bear was unique and because of that attachment there was a risk of loss. We had a few close calls when it was sleepy time and Bear was nowhere to be found and Monkey Boy protested loudly, refusing all other stuffed animals other than Bear to go to bed, but fortunately Bear was always found safe and sound, usually under a piece of furniture or in the basement. We tried other animals like a big red stuffed Clifford and a small Elmo, but both were cast aside when sleepy time rolled around. Monkey Boy was a one-bear man, and while monogamy is often good in relationships, it had become evident that we needed a backup plan for our toddler. We needed another blue bear just in case something ever happened to Bear.

Our Son Talks to Us Now

Our oldest son did not exhibit overt signs of autism during the first couple years. He played with us, laughed, and showed all signs of being a happy, healthy child. It wasn't until he was about 2-1/2 years old that we noticed some things were different. I can't say precisely which symptom I noticed first, but I remember the incredible tantrums that came seemingly from nowhere and the growing obsession with ordering things and the unusual play. He would gather all of our shoes, every single one, and arrange them in unusual designs all over the house, or he would line them all up in a row. This wasn't a game where he laughed and tried to get us to play with him; in fact he seemed to retreat and wanted to be alone. At first we thought it was cute that he was so focused and used his toys in creative ways, but then we quickly realized this wasn't just play because no one was allowed to touch the shoes. If anyone bumped the shoes accidentally, he would launch into a huge screaming tantrum or try to hurt his brother then quickly repair the damage. Calming him down took a long time. Trying to get him to clean up and put them away became a nightmare of tears and screaming every single day. And he couldn't explain to us what he was doing. When we tried to engage him and ask what he was making, he just glanced at us out of the corner of his eye and kept arranging and building.

After several months of this, we finally managed to redirect his interest to blocks and plastic containers. We save all of our cottage cheese, yogurt, and sour cream containers for other uses, and we let him play with those. Just as he did with the shoes, our son grouped and categorized the blocks and containers and made nonrepresentational sculptures that went all over the house, stacking the blocks and containers in complex, creative ways. When our boys got some Thomas the Tank Engine trains and track for Christmas, he did not play with the trains by rolling them around the track. Instead he took all of the track and continued making sculptures all over the house, precariously balancing three or four pieces of track on top of each other. He still could not talk about what he was doing and he stopped making eye contact and he started pacing and talking softly to himself.

Yes to Year-Round Schools

I grew up loving my school summer breaks. When school let out I would spend my days reading, playing outside, riding my bike, pretending I was an Olympic gymnast (I'm dating myself if I say I was pretending to be Nadia Comaneci, right?), sketching, going to the pool, and playing with my friends. My Girl Scout troop did summer campouts and my family sometimes went to visit my grandparents for a week or so. Summers were almost magical.

So why would I, a professed lover of my long childhood summer breaks, want to change that for my own children by asking public and private schools to adopt a year-round calendar? After all, I was a K-12 teacher for eight years and enjoyed my summer breaks even then, particularly because it meant I had time to travel and visit family. Why would this former teacher even contemplate changing the standard nine-month school calendar that has been in place for well over 100 years?

Water Restrictions: More to Come?

We woke up to rain this morning, and as far as I'm concerned it can rain every night for the next several months. Last fall Loudoun County imposed outdoor watering restrictions due to the low water levels in Beaverdam Creek Reservoir, which provides water for much of the county. The reservoir, which is fed by the Potomac River and Goose Creek, dropped into drought emergency levels after months of little rainfall.

It got a bit ugly after the voluntary watering restrictions became mandatory. Loudoun residents complained about the various HOA's watering the common areas when they were not allowed to water their own lawns, only to learn that several of the neighborhoods had wells for irrigation purposes. One of my neighbors was questioned in Costco when she bought some autumn perennials to plant. "But we're under watering restrictions," the person said to her. We watched our own lawn fade to brown, knowing there was nothing we could do. We had our tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in pots last year, so we could water with a three-gallon can and keep them barely alive. But this year we have planned raised beds so that we can grow more of our own produce, and I'm not looking forward to potentially more drought.

On the Way to My Skinny Jeans

I recently celebrated a milestone...I tossed a pair of perfectly good jeans into the donate pile. This is unusual for me because I keep jeans forever and in fact am inclined to grant sacred status to a good, well-fitting pair of jeans. Even when the material is worn thin and has a few holes in it, I can still wear them while working around the yard or cleaning house, so they stay in my closet. I have about 10 pair in various sizes, cuts, brands, and shades, but only half of them are pre-baby jeans. I don't know if that's a lot of jeans, but it feels like a lot to me, and I'm trying to whittle it down.

You see, the pair I tossed was slightly too big, and that morning I had moved down into the next pair between me and my skinny jeans. I walked confidently into the kitchen and started making breakfast hoping a certain someone would notice my new (old) look. Hubs noticed immediately and showered all sorts of praise about how good I looked, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

When I say "skinny jeans" I'm not talking about the ultra skinny low-rise type that seem to be very popular now, I'm simply referring to my favorite jeans from my skinnier days.

Mass Transit Woes for Dulles and Loudoun County

I don't pretend to understand all of the subtleties of the Dulles Metro project, aka the "Silver Line," or the politics behind it. The project has many supporters as well as detractors, and other people have written eloquently about the need for a Metrorail extension to Dulles Airport as well as the problems with the project in its current form. Last month the Federal Transit Administration dealt what would seem to be a death blow to the project by denying $900 million in federal funding, citing numerous problems that disqualify it from receiving any federal aid. Though the FTA money is only about 20% of the total cost, without that money the project is definitely in peril. Some lawmakers have come forward supporting the existing plan while others have cheered the FTA decision.

Speaking as a Virginia taxpayer, I'm not happy with how the project has gone. Costs have overrun before any real work is done, and the mess with the Bechtel, one of the primary contractors on the Dulles project, and their handling of the Big Dig in Boston just reaffirms my concerns, particularly since the construction phase of the project was not competed. I am certainly glad to hear that some of our delegates are working on different solutions, particularly one that would require the project to go through a bidding process and would likely scrap the existing partnership with Bechtel. 

I Want a Generator

The ice started coming down yesterday afternoon as I was driving the boys home from school. It looked like little drops of rain, but within a minute I could hear the characteristic scraping sound of the wipers as they tried in vain to clear away the ice from the windshield. By the time we got home just 20 minutes later, the front steps had already iced over and become treacherous, and from the sound of the forecast it was only going to get worse. A judge in Maryland even ordered the polls to remain open an additional 90 minutes due to the hazardous road conditions. There were already accidents all over the area, and I found myself thinking how glad I was that Michael was off in Hawaii and not trying to make the one hour commute home from the office. I would have been even happier if I could have gone to Hawaii with him, but I digress.

The ice continued to pile up on the trees and the road, and with the temperatures dropping I knew there would be no school today, but that was fine because my 3-year-old had started feeling sick at school and was running a fever by the time we got home. Then I started the fever an hour later and my stomach started rebelling soon after. The 5-year-old had been sick over the weekend, so I should not have have been surprised. I just practiced my horizontal parenting skills while the sick boy and I hung out on the sofa. I was grateful that we were all safe and sound in our nice warm house and not out in the mess. I had a fleeting thought about a possible power outage due to all the ice, but I was too far gone to worry about checking the emergency kit and gathering up all the supplies. My bad.

I Can't Wait Until...

I turned 42 last week. No big shindig, just a simple celebration with my little family, though I did make myself a birthday cake. I may not have big parties, but by golly there had better be cake! I'm not particularly nostalgic or retrospective when it comes to my birthday. I don't throw my hands up in the air and wonder where all the years went, but this year I did pause to think how birthdays are different from when I was a child. Back then I counted down to my next birthday because it almost always represented some sort of milestone.

For example:

• I can't wait until I'm five and can go to kindergarten.
• I can't wait until I'm in fifth grade and can join band/orchestra.
• I can't wait until I'm a teenager and get my period. (Boy, what was I thinking?)
• I can't wait until I'm 13 and can get my ears pierced.
• I can't wait until I'm 16 and can start dating/driving/wearing makeup.
• I can't wait until I'm 18 and can go to college.
• I can't wait until I'm 21 and can drink beer. (Actually, I never thought about this one because I didn't like beer back then.)

Quarantined! Again!

Maybe we've just been unlucky, but for the last two winters I have spent a lot of time indoors quarantined with my children. They've had all the colds, sinus infections, croup, and rotavirus that I can stand, but it doesn't look like this winter is going to be any different. George5 (five-year-old) and George3 (three-year-old) go to preschool, get sick, stay home, infect their brother, go back to preschool for a few days, George1 (the toddler) gets sick, and the cycle repeats. This goes on almost continuously from December through April, and sometimes even into May. Our house turns into a germ factory/biohazard zone, and many days I feel like putting on a hazmat suit or wrapping the house in plastic and setting off some kind of biological cleanup bomb like they do for termites in Florida.

Last winter we had all the usual contagious miseries back to back, but then in the middle of trying to sell our house in Hampton Roads and buy a house here, the kids and I all got pink eye. I was the last victim to fall, most likely infected while trying to administer the medicine to three squirming boys. My husband was probably very glad that he was already at his new job in the DC area and missed that whole episode, and he's the only one of us who didn't get it. I won't gross you out with descriptions of the multiple weeks of diarrhea brought on by rotavirus or the trip to the emergency room with the baby when he couldn't keep breastmilk down, refused to take Pedialyte, and got dehydrated.

Menu for Hope 4

As a mom, I try to teach my children about eating the right foods and trying new things. And even though they don't yet understand, we also try to teach our children that food is a precious gift to be appreciated and not wasted. As our boys get older they will come to understand both how fortunate they are to live in a country where food is widely available, and that for a variety of reasons many people in this country and around the world don't have enough to eat.

A few years ago Pim of Chez Pim saw the need to help people in Southeast Asia and decided to do something about it. She created an event called Menu for Hope, which is in it's fourth cycle. The now-annual event unites food bloggers from all over the world, and in the past the effort has supported UNICEF and its work in areas devastated by the tsunami in 2004, the victims of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and the World Food Programme. This year the effort will benefit the World Food Programme's work in Lesotho, where the WFP purchases grain from small local farmers and uses it in local food programs, including one that provides school lunches.

Last year the international food blogging community raised over $60,000 to help support the World Food Programme's work in developing countries and feed those in need. What better present to give someone than hope? Tickets only cost $10 each and they make great stocking stuffers! Oh, did I mention that there are prizes? Yes, this is a raffle with great prizes donated by food bloggers, restaurants, chefs, authors, and a host of other contributors! Click here to participate.

Andrea blogs about her adventures in the kitchen at Andrea's Recipes.

Project Linus

Our first child was hospitalized when he was barely six weeks old. He was in the hospital for 17 very long days during Christmas and New Years, and it was the hardest thing that we've ever been through. He was connected to miles of tubes and wires which prevented me from holding him. For the first few days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), I could only sit next to him and stroke his tiny arm and cheek. I sang Christmas songs to him, not really caring who heard me, all the while wondering when I would be able to hold him again. Because of all the wires and tubes, he only wore his diaper and the doctors put him under a warming lamp periodically, but my maternal instinct was to wrap him in soft blankets and reassure him.

It was a very rough time for us, but we were able to get through the ordeal thanks to the generosity of family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers. People fed us and brought Christmas gifts for our son, the most precious of which was two warm fleece baby blankets from the volunteers at Project Linus.

Ho Ho Ho

When my husband and I started getting serious in the dating process, we made sure we talked about the very important subjects like finances, religion, politics, and having kids. We seemed to be on the same page about the big things and able to compromise on the smaller things, so we thought we were doing pretty well. Monthly budget: check. Have children: check. I stay at home with the children while they are little: check. Raise our children with a spiritual outlook and eventually choose a church that we both feel comfortable in: check. Agree to disagree agreeably on political matters: check.

However, there was one sticking point that brought on quite a bit of discussion. We both felt very strongly about our positions and neither of us wanted to compromise.

We could not agree on Santa Claus. He wanted to do the whole Santa Claus thing but I didn't.

DC Metro Area Special Needs Identification Programs

I knew that something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. When he was just two, my oldest had a pretty substantial vocabulary, was a natural at math, and memorized things very quickly. He organized and categorized, making complex non-representational sculptures using all the family shoes, then moving on to anything else he could find in the house. On the surface he appeared gifted, but there was something amiss in his communication, because he often had a blank look on his face when we tried to engage him in conversation.

His first preschool teacher said that she thought he had an auditory processing disorder because he would only respond to her if she was in close proximity and made direct eye contact, which mirrored what we were experiencing at home. We had his hearing tested, which was normal, and we were told that testing for auditory processing disorders was almost impossible with a child his age because they generally can't respond appropriately anyway. So we waited and watched, but by the time we moved to Northern Virginia last spring, I knew that we needed to do more. I searched around and learned about a program in our county called Child Find, which seeks out preschool-age children who appear to have some developmental challenges and screens them for possible inclusion in special needs services from the public schools. Early intervention is key for children with special educational needs because they have a better chance of succeeding in school.

The Underwear Argument

My oldest son, who is just a few weeks away from turning 5, recently started voicing opinions about his clothes. Until now he happily wore whatever we bought for him and rarely gave us any trouble about getting dressed. This week we had our first ever disagreement about changing his underwear, and last week he told me that he didn't like a certain sweatshirt and pants set that I had bought for him, and he refused to wear it. Good thing there was no school for him that day, because after he announced that he didn't like the clothes, he stubbornly refused to get dressed at all and stayed in his pajamas for the rest of the day.

To have made it this far without any disagreements about his clothing is pretty good, I think. I actually thought it would start sooner, but now that it has I'm preparing myself for his 3-year-old brother to start copying his older brother and refusing to get dressed. The two of them seem to like working in pairs.

The underwear incident was quite a dramatic way to start the day, and it went something like this:

Mommy: "Ok, time to get dressed. You'll need some clean underwear and some pants and a shirt for today."

Son: "No, Mommy. No underwear. This one." He points to the same underwear he has been wearing for 24 hours.

Going It Alone

My husband's job requires him to travel, sometimes just for a day or two, but more often for a week, which means that it's just me and the three boys here at home. That's three boys ages four, three, and one that I have to get going in the mornings, corral for meals, get into the car to drive to school, keep occupied throughout the day, and then get to bed at night, all without losing my sanity. Most days it's like herding cats.

There was a time B.C. (before children) when I would have gone with my husband on his trips and worked from the hotel room. We went out in the evenings and enjoy the sights and restaurants in a new or familiar city. Even after the arrival of our first child, we still joined him on trips that didn't require air travel. I worked while the baby napped, and then would get out with baby in the jogging stroller and explore the area.

When Hobbies Take Over the House

I sometimes wish I had a hobby that didn't require so much equipment. Well, "require" is probably a bit of a stretch, because the truth of the matter is I collect kitchen gear and cookbooks.  Of the several hobbies that I enjoy, the highest on the list is cooking, especially baking. My kitchen is chock full of tart pans, cake pans, sheet pans, Bundt pans, muffin tins, loaf pans, springform pans, pie pans, cake keepers, cake stands, cake decorating equipment, pizza pans, small appliances, and all the little pieces of gear such as spatulas, measuring spoons, mixing bowls...you get the idea. And I do use all of it, or almost all of it, especially since I like to photograph what I make and blog about it.

But the clutter and storage issues involved in my hobby are somewhat daunting, never mind the constant clean-up. Right now, I have all the cabinets full, and my gear is overflowing into our basement storage area. My cookbook collection fills the shelves in the kitchen and the study. I have a file box under my desk containing miscellaneous recipes that I've cut out of magazines or printed from websites. In our last house, we actually had small kitchen appliances in our bedroom closet and my photo studio lived permanently on the dining room table. Something had to give.

A Weekend Away from the Kids

My sister got married this weekend, and we made the trip to Michigan so that I could participate as the Matron of Honor. The bride looked stunning in her wedding gown, and everything was beautiful with the bridal party decked out in black and white. The festivities were a blast. A 17-piece swing band from Detroit called Jump Street played for the reception, and the band was smoking! We had a fabulous time and danced all night long. I haven't had such a great time in...I can't remember when.

This weekend was a really big deal for us. It was my first weekend away from the kids. Ever. Our last vacation alone was in 2002 BC (before children). I've never even been away from my children for more than two or three hours, usually when they are in school or when I have some mommy time out, which is nothing more extravagant than doing the grocery shopping by myself. Once or twice a year hubs and I will get a few hours away when grandparents are visiting. We don't have sitters, though I took a big first step this summer and hired a mother's helper to come to the house for a few hours a week so that I could get in my workouts.

For me, hiring sitters seems so scary.

Remembering 9/11

On September 10, 2001, my best friend from Chicago started her new job with the State Department in DC. She had just moved here. The next day, she and thousands of others evacuated the city on foot, watching smoke rise above the Pentagon.

Ironically, while many people around the world watched the events of that day in horror, I was blissfully unaware. I had a dentist appointment that afternoon and had decided to work from home instead of driving to work in the Northern Virginia office. So I was at our home in Southern Maryland with no TV or radio playing in the house. My first inkling that something was wrong came around 11:30 am, when the phone rang and the receptionist at the dentist office wanting to know if I planned to keep my appointment that day. Not knowing what was going on, I said of course I wanted to keep my appointment. She didn't mention NYC or the Pentagon, and I was still had no idea what was going on.

For me, this day would turn out to be very similar to a day five years before.

First Visit to the Dentist

Having three very curious boys ages 4 and under can turn simple thing like going to the grocery store or doctor and  dentist appointments into logistical nightmares. Any trip out of the house requires advance planning and preparation to minimize potential problems, but there are times when even the most thorough planning isn't enough to mitigate unforeseen challenges.

For example, earlier this month I took my two oldest boys ages 4 and 3 to their very first dentist visit. I'll just call them George4 and George3, after their favorite curious monkey. I feel like a bad mom for not taking them to the dentist sooner, I just had this nagging worry that they wouldn't sit still for it and would start crying, struggling, kicking, falling out of the chair, all of which they do when they don't want their finger and toe nails trimmed. My concern was based on years of experience, so I spent a couple days prepping the boys. I said things like:

“You’ll get to sit in a big chair.”

“The dentist will tell you to open your mouth wide, like this. AHHHHHH.”

“The dentist will count your teeth and make sure they are healthy.”

We repeated this over, and over, and over until they could say it along with me.

The Wait List

On Monday morning the phone rang, and I recognized the number on caller ID because I had dialed it many times. It was a preschool that had us on the wait list, and I was hoping for some good news.

Preschool registration has become so competitive that it takes on the aura of a sport, and each preschool has its own rules about how it accepts new students. Some require students to be fully potty-trained, others will accept students in pull ups. Some do a lottery, others take registrants first-come, first served. Current students and family members usually get preference and take up many available slots before open registration begins. The very popular or prestigious programs may even have parents camping out overnight in the parking lot to make sure that they have a shot at getting their child into the preschool of their dreams. I haven't heard about any preschool stampedes or riots as parents jockey for position in line, but I'm sure it has happened somewhere.

We went through all of this when I registered my oldest son for preschool in February 2005. I didn't camp out overnight, but I had done the tour, met the director, and had all the paperwork prepared early in hopes that I would secure a spot in our preferred school. Luck was on our side and he got one of the last two spots in his class. The next year we were able to skip the insanely early registration line, which was fantastic.

Then last December, the day after Christmas, we got word that we would be moving to Northern Virginia with my husband's job, and the first thought that came into my mind was, "Oh no, we're starting over with preschool." It was horrible timing because January and February are the critical months for preschool registration. My husband was just starting his new job in mid-January and we had no clue where we were going to live at that point, so all I could do was make some cursory searches to see what would be available in the areas where we were house hunting.

Preschool hunting is almost as hard as house hunting. The research, the phone calls, the tours, the endless amounts of paperwork that you fill out for multiple schools just in case your children don't get into the first choice school. It's like going to college! And don't get me started on the nonrefundable fees to register and remain on a wait list, which really gets expensive with two children to register.