DC Metro Moms

Elation to Frustration...Trying for White House Easter Egg Roll Tickets

How did you spend your Thursday?  If you were like me and so many other DC Metro parents you probably spent a portion of it online trying to secure White House Easter Egg Roll tickets for your family only to experience hope, disappointment, and frustration repeatedly throughout the day.

This year the White House abandoned the old practice of waiting in line on the Ellipse the weekend before the event.  When I first heard that tickets were going to be distributed online, I thought this was a brilliant idea.  No longer would families be camping out, trading parenting shifts to secure highly coveted tickets.  Going online to reserve tickets seemed like a much more humane method of ticketing.

Or so I thought. Since the ticketing information was quite vague, there was a lot of speculation about the process for obtaining tickets.  The official website did not say what time today the online ticketing portal would open and there were also rumors of a lottery system.  Speculation abounded on my various DC mom listservs, Twitter, and through my friends on Facebook. 

When ticketing finally became available, it was clear that the Obama Administration and/or the online ticketing system powered by Front Gate Tickets did not to understand the lengths that parents will go to for White House Easter Egg Roll tickets whether waiting outside in the cold or camping out online. 

Barack Obama Is Coming to Our House?

The conversations started in October when our six year old son came home from school talking about the elections and how he was going to vote. He didn't have a full understanding of the whole presidential campaign thing, but he could tell us that Bush was currently president and we were going to get a new president. He repeated it several times a day for a few weeks, and was thrilled when we took him to the polls to vote. After the election he began telling us we had a new president and asked when Barack Obama would come.

"The new president starts his job in January," I always said.

"But that's a long time," he would reply, looking dejected.

I would explain that the new president had a lot of work to do before he could start his new job. We would look at the calendar together and count the days until January 20th, and every few days or so he would tell us how many more days until Barack Obama became our new president.

After he started back to school this month, he began talking about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and how that holiday was the day before Barack Obama was coming. As the big day approached he got more and more excited and got his four year old brother excited, too. I started fielding questions from both of them.

"When is Barack Obama coming?"

Forfeiting the Golden Ticket

I'm one of the lucky few.  I have a ticket to Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20th.  Actually, I have 2, along with tickets to the opening ceremonies and the Mid-Atlantic ball.  I could be there Tuesday morning, along with 250,000 of my closest friends, standing in the security lines for hours on end and freezing my tush off, awaiting a glimpse of history.  But I won't be.  You see, I'm giving my tickets away.

I was very involved in several Democratic campaigns this election season.  I joined a group called Blue Star Families for Obama and became involved in the leadership and in developing social media for the group.  I was thrilled to go to the Democratic National Convention with the MOMocrats. I met Michelle Obama on several occasions. I met Joe Biden twice and actually have a fabulous picture of him carrying my son Hollis around.  I've seen Barack Obama speak four times, and each time moved me to tears.  I've had so many wonderful opportunities and memory making moments over the last year.

Economy Isn't Slowing Down Inaugural Festivities

The powers that be in the nation's capital are working overtime to fix our economy.  I know this not so much because of all the media coverage, but because one of the dad's from PunditGirl's school is involved in the process.  His wife tells me he hasn't been home before about midnight for the last six months.

Of course, President-elect Barack Obama is also doing his part to move things along, making speeches about how it's not going to be easy and that we'll all need to make sacrifices to put our collective finances back on track, if that's possible after eight years of dire neglect and rampant deregulation.

But it appears that some families aren't paying attention and are going even deeper in debt to spend a few days in Washington, D.C. for the Obama inaugural events.

The Effect of the Economy on Schools

For the first time in many years, this fall I returned to the classroom to teach after being on hiatus from a more administrative role in central office.  My experience in central office taught me many things about the way the school system operates including budget cuts, spending freezes, internal politics, and staffing.

I’ve seen departments in our school system go through “restructuring” where departments are renamed, jobs are given new titles, and ultimately positions are cut.  I learned that central office “restructuring” always happened to try to insulate schools from drastic budget measures.  Schools were always the last to be touched…Or so I thought.

We recently had a staff meeting where we learned about how next year’s budget directly affects our school. Like other industries, I suppose it is no surprise that positions in our school will be cut.  We will be losing the equivalent of 4 positions belonging to classroom teachers and other positions

Where Will Malia & Sasha Obama Attend School?

Where will Malia and Sasha Obama go to school? The Washington, D.C. private school gossip mill is working full tilt, chewing over the options, the whys or why nots, the connections, the prestige, the free publicity for any school that snags this "get."

"Imagine if they came to our school!" I've overheard more than one parent I know say, giddy with the anticipation of being close to a little piece of history.

The questions of public vs. private, big vs. cozy, famous vs. less-known are nothing new when it comes to the world of Washington, D.C. schools. How do I know? My third-grade daughter attends an independent school in the District, though it's not one that you're hearing about in the news.  (My
eight-year-old has gone to summer camp at Sidwell Friends, but I don't think that counts when it comes to tracking alums!)

One thing I learned as my husband and I tried to navigate the Washington, D.C. independent school culture was that the application process can be insane and it's hard not to get sucked into the private school one-upsmanship that seems to go along with the other status symbols here in the nation's capital, like your zip code and how few degrees of separation you have from a Capitol Hill power player. 

Where the children of the notable and noteworthy go to school is one of the better traded currencies here.

Someone stole my paper

I live inside the beltway here in the DC area, and someone stole my paper today. I had no idea WHY someone would want to steal my paper until my husband came home and asked if I was keeping it or if he could take it in to a co-worker as she hadn't seen today's paper. Huh?

My morning started out as it always does, with the exception of the fact that I told my 8 year old that I'd get up early with him to go over election results (getting up early is a big sacrifice on my part - that's usually Dad's job but I'm the wonk in the family and I offered to do this with him this morning). He had a map to color in from the Washington Post's Kid Post section showing all of the states and how many electoral votes they had, which way they were projected to go, etc. He is really plugged in this go round and is loving every minute of the election and wanted to take his colored in map to school. Anyway, the boys had gotten up, eaten, and were packing their lunches when I finally dragged out of bed and sent one of the little ones out for the paper. He came back in and said there wasn't a paper out there, so I tossed my jacket over my nightshirt and, waiting until the middle school bus passed my driveway, wandered out looking for my paper. I figured that the subscription had lapsed or that the guy delivering the paper was sick or something, no biggie. So I came back in and looked up the info online so that my oldest could color in his map, and they were off to school.

Tagless Infant Clothing Can Cause Chemical Burns

As a parent, I want the best for my children.  I want them to be safe, to be happy, to be secure, to be comfortable.  I want to give them the best and always look out for their safety and well-being.

I want to feel that the people and companies who make the products that I use to dress, bathe, entertain, and feed my babies are looking out for them too.

But I don't.  I don't feel that way at all.

I know we all remember the millions of toys that were recalled last year for lead paint.  I still try to avoid buying toys made by many of the companies whose products were recalled.  I just don't feel as though any proof has been given that we should no longer be concerned.  I don't feel confident that toys are being inspected more frequently, more thoroughly, or more efficiently.

And now, I've learned that the clothes I have been putting on all three of my children since their respective births can cause serious chemical burns.  I am at a loss.

The candidate's health care plans hit home

I watched the presidential debate last night, eager for information and ideas, and I came away with one stark realization.

Only one candidate proposes a plan that would ensure that I'm not dropped from my employer's health plan due to a pre-existing condition. 

Only one candidate would ensure that all children are adequately covered for the checkups, vaccinations, and (God forbid) treatment they need.

Only one candidate offers a plan whereby my husband and I will EVER be able to change jobs. 

Dow what?

The Dow dropped 700 points in one day recently and another large investment bank just declared that they were about to go under.  I am no economy-buff but this is going to effect ALL of us. 

We've all heard about the working-class family-man whose construction job no longer exists, not to mention his health insurance; the family who too-eagerly took on an interest-only mortgage a few years ago and now their payments have tripled.  We remember Enron.  Lehman Brothers folded.  Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have admitted to overextending themselves in the same casual tones that I once I did as an early twenty-something who bounced a check to the hair-salon.  What are we to think when these large financial companies admit to basically screwing up the checkbook while their hands were in the cookie jar?  I can't believe I ever took the existence of these things for granted.