DC Metro Moms

What's One More?

This past week, we had the pleasure of having my cousin's son come and stay with us for four nights while his parents got away on a much needed vacation for just the two of them. Since I've already extolled the necessity for parents to do exactly that for a while, and because my kids get along with her son so well and I've long stated that "with this many kids, what's one more?" is an overriding philosophy of mine, I thought it would be a piece of cake. And in many ways it was: there were extra ears to listen to my daughter's incessant chatter. He's an incredibly well-behaved child and he did a lot of teaching my kids how they are supposed to behave, and it was refreshing to have a six year old telling my kids what I tell them on a daily basis. He isn't a picky eater and I think it was great for my kids to see him eat everything I put in front of him, mostly fruits and veggies and meat. But I'll tell you what else it was: a heck of a lot of work, for which I wasn't exactly prepared.

It's Time for Lyme

First, it was my baby, when he was only a year old. This summer, it has been both of my daughters. Despite tick checks every single time we come in from outside. Despite making them cover up. And since it is definitely the season, you should be on the lookout for it, too: the dreaded bullseye rash caused by the deer tick bite carrying Lyme Disease.

The Metro As Icon of My Life

The very first field trip I remember happened when I was in second grade, when the DC Metrorail system opened its redline operations in Montgomery County in 1978. As a class we all got on the Metro train, rode it to the other end, then turned around and rode it back. I thought it was the most magical thing in the world. And I was hooked.

Metrorail was always the go-to assumption on how to get into the city. My family hated to go into the city, so it was mostly field trips or when my friends' parents generously invited me to go to a museum with them, but it was always there, and as soon as I was old enough to travel by myself, that's how I got around the city.

A Fun Saturday Afternoon Boat Ride

"It's up to you, I don't think it's a good idea."

"Why are you abdicating responsibility to me?" my husband asked. Long pause.

"Because I don't want to let my fear get in the way of our kids experiencing life," I said. "I just think Nemo is too young and too active and that this isn't a safe situation."

"Oh, I think he'll be alright. Besides, if he falls in, we'll just go in after him and get him."

And with that, my brilliant, wonderful husband and I took our four kids under the age of 10, including one very active 2 1/2 year old boy, out on Lake Marburg in a pontoon boat.

When Grandparents Are Sick

My mother-in-law has Parkinson's Disease. She has had to learn to adjust how she lives her life to cope with her illness, and we've all had to make some changes to accommodate that. Our house is too small and we are looking for a new one, and one of the requirements is that we won't have a sunken living room like we have now, or a lot of steps to get in the front door. My mother-in-law's leg function has deteriorated such that she needs a wheelchair all the time now, but she doesn't want to give up what little independence she has, so she tends to try to walk with either a walker or two canes because "I'm fighting it." And while I admire her spirit, when it's something that you can't get rid of, fighting it sometimes does more harm than good.

DC Metro: City or Suburbs?

I am a child of the suburbs, but I am a life-long local Washingtonian. Local meaning the Metro area, of course. And while there are those that would argue that I am no more a Washingtonian than one who calls Baltimore home, I know that it's in my blood. I am a Washingtonian. But I don't live within city limits, and growing up, it might as well have been a country away instead of down the street, because I never went there unless it was for a school field trip.

My parents grew up in the suburbs, but my mother's mother grew up in city limits. My parents grew up in a time when going into the city was dangerous, when the city was crime ridden, so to them, the city was always a place to be avoided at all costs. I'm not sure why they continued to live here their whole lives, since they hated the city. But live here they did, so live here I did, too. And growing up, we never, ever went into the city. Then I grew up, and married the son of a DC firefighter, and I've had to change my own impression of the city.

Assessment is a Four-Letter Word

My nine-year old daughter called me from school on Friday to tell me that she had won an iPod nano at a raffle at school. She didn't buy any tickets for any raffle, so I had no idea what she was talking about, but one of the school administrators got on the phone to verify that she had, in fact, won the iPod and to ask me to pick her up from school because they didn't want to send it home on the bus. I came to find out that other kids had won bikes, scooters, game systems and games, and more iPods. What did they do to deserve these things? Was it a big fundraising scheme? No. All of these "prizes" were given to compensate the students for taking the MSA, or Maryland School Assessments.

Keep the Fires Burning

One of the things that I find toughest about being a parent sometimes is the effect that it has had on my relationship with my husband. Not that we have a bad relationship, but having a good relationship takes time, and with four little kids, time is something we really don't have a lot of. We don't have family that can reliably watch our kids very often, and although we have a Manny, he has other things that take his time, sometimes for an extended period of time when he has a show that goes into a long run. But my husband and I are committed to modeling a strong relationship for our kids, so we do what we can to have time to ourselves. Only twice have we been away by ourselves without our kids for longer than a few hours, the most recent time being last weekend. But it's something we're sure to do a lot more often - as often as we can swing it logistically and financially. It's worth the effort.

Date Night! At the Grocery Store?

Recently I had to go to the grocery store for last-minute items needed for my kids' valentine's day parties at school. The minute I went through the door, I noticed someone shoving paper at the poor guy in front of me, talking about something or other, and I looked for a way to dash by and make my escape. Nothing doin'. A well-dressed guy saw my 2 year old son and offered a balloon, and only an ogre of a mother can resist that, right? As he tied the balloon to the cart, he talked about all the great things that would be going on at the grocery store that night, and then handed me a flyer. The title? "Join us for Date Night!"

At the grocery store?

Sick Snow Day

The Washington area had its first taste of measureable snow this week, an event looked upon with dread and excitement to those of us who live here - excitement, because the city is truly beautiful in the snow, but dread because absolutely no agencies have a clue how to deal with it, and never have. This year we got only about an inch of snow before the ice and wintery mix kicked in, but that would have been enough to enjoy it - a little bit of sledding, a little bit of snowballing, a teeny little snowman or two before coming back in to our cozy warm house for hot chocolate and baking. But our family did no such thing, because our kids had sick snow days.