not that you asked...

Vacation

We took off Saturday and drove through Hurricane Irene to get here. it wasn't too bad actually; the most painful part was Friday night, when Dave went to get cash at the ATM before the trip and ran into a friend. They were catching up and Dave mentioned our beach plans and some random lady using THE OTHER ATM overheard the conversation and gave him some long-winded, irate speech about the HURRICANE, didn't we know about the HURRICANE (I ask you, who DIDN'T know about the hurricane) and we were being STUPID to do something like drive THROUGH THE HURRICANE, didn't we know the PRESIDENT wasn't even going to finish HIS vacation in the HURRICANE? 

The drive through the hurricane was FINE. I want to go find ATM Lady and tell her that we are not idiots. It was windy and at one point a very small tree branch blew into our car (it probably qualified as a stick) and it rained, but that was it, and we drove through North Carolina right after the thing made landfall. SO. We're here now and we're having a good time and for all we know that could end on Saturday when we drive home and find that our house has a tree right through the roof. SOMEONE PLEASE CALL US IF THERE IS A TREE THROUGH OUR ROOF.

But for now, IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

An interview with The Diaper Bank founder Joanne Goldblum

Hey, remember when I went to Utah? One of the many privileges I had while I was there (in addition to good hair days, of which I had FIVE – an amount equal to the number of days I was THERE, and which has pretty much never happened in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE WORLD) was the opportunity to hang out with Joanne Goldblum and her awesome family. Not only is Joanne brilliant and kind and hilarious, she's also a freaking Diaper Warrior (I'm going to have to make her a cape with that emblazoned on the back), and she's as driven as she is compassionate.

Joanne was a social worker in Connecticut (New Haven, actually – you probably recognize it as the home of prestigious Yale University) working with families living in poverty when she realized that very few of the families she interacted with had access to hygiene essentials. Things like toilet paper and soap weren't covered by social programs; according to a Time Magazine piece that was published about her in 2009, she saw a mother take a diaper off her child, “empty the solids, and put it back on.” A lightbulb went on in her head and she decided to take on the challenge of providing fresh, clean diapers to babies in need in her community. Joanne started one of the country's first diaper banks, called (cleverly, she'll tell you), The Diaper Bank, and since then, has given away more than 200,000 diapers a month to families in need. I told you! DIAPER WARRIOR.

I asked Joanne to answer a few questions for me about diaper need in America – she was generous enough to do that for me, and I think her answers are absolutely brilliant. She's incredibly educated about this subject and her answers will really make you think and will open your eyes to things you may never have considered.

First of all, can you clear up some misconceptions about people living at or below the poverty line? Please remind us that they're not all drug abusers and alcoholics. What kinds of people require federal assistance, like welfare and food stamps?

Joanne: Many different kinds of people get food stamps and TANF (temporary assistance for needy families). Many working people get food stamps. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That is $15,080 annually - can you imagine living on that? To qualify for food stamps you can make as much as $19,020 (for a family of three - the amounts change based on number of people in family, and there is some change state to state). Many families need to receive TANF because the work they have does not allow the family to live above the poverty level. Often people do not work because of childcare issues, because of health issues and/or because they have to take care of a sick relative, not at all because they are lazy or using drugs. I think it's really important to remember people want the best for their children; parents do all they can to provide for their children. TANF and food stamps are part of our nation's safety net - we need to provide a net so those families truly in need do not fall through the cracks.

So there is no federal assistance for hygiene items like soap, toilet paper or diapers, even if you qualify for food stamps or the WIC program. How do families living in poverty manage without these items? What are some of the direct effects on children?

Joanne: The short answer is that they do without. Often a child spends a whole day or longer in one diaper. The children may be dirty because they have no soap or shampoo; clothing may be dirty because they have no access to laundry. Often poor children have problems with oral health because they do not have toothpaste and toothbrushes.

How does access to clean, fresh diapers improve the quality of life for these families?

Joanne: Inadequate diaper changing increases the risk of numerous health problems, including diaper rash, and may be linked to an increased rate of hepatitis. Low-income parents cannot take advantage of free or subsidized childcare if they cannot afford to leave disposable diapers at the childcare centers. An unfortunate consequence of an inadequate supply of diapers is work and school truancy among the caregivers.

A baby crying from being in a soiled diaper for a prolonged period of time may be at a greater risk of physical abuse by the caregiver, as recognized in studies of patterns of abuse among low-income families.

Why did you decide to start The Diaper Bank? Was there one experience in particular that pushed you over the edge and into action?

Joanne: I started the Diaper Bank while I was a social worker at Yale Child Study Center Family Support Services working with homeless families in New Haven [Connecticut]. Some of you may be familiar with Yale Child Study Center, a branch of Yale University that is world famous for its breakthrough research on behalf of the physical and mental well-being of children. Family Support Services, where I worked, was the community outreach arm of the Child Study Center. I liked working at the Child Study Center because we were very research driven, always monitoring the concrete effects of our efforts on the children we were serving.

As part of my work, I spent a lot of time in the homes of families that were recently homeless or about to lose their homes. I saw families living in abject poverty less than a mile from where I live. I saw children who did not go to school because their parents could not do everything necessary to make their homes work and get them to school every day.

This seems unbelievable at first, but when you think about all the little things that have to fall into place to make a mom’s day work, it’s not so unbelievable. We all know how hard it is to raise children, even for those of us who have everything we need. It is hard and we don’t always do everything we should.

Even with our own car and enough gas, our kids are sometimes late to school. We have all had that thing happen where the power goes out randomly in the middle of the night and our alarm clock doesn’t go off. But it’s no big deal for me. I call the school, say my kids will be late and drive them. Now what if the school bus were my only option and because of the dumb power going out (which, by the way, happens a lot in the kind of houses where low-income people live), my child missed the bus?

Now she can’t get to school. And what if I have no phone to call and explain what happened? What will the teachers and principal think of me and of my child? And what if I have no food in the house and my child depends on school for breakfast and lunch?

So a small thing like a momentary power outage leads to a big thing like my kids not eating today or getting suspended from school. My work with these families taught me the same lesson again and again: for people struggling with poverty, small things affect big things. And the small thing I fixated on was diapers. I saw all these families who did not have enough diapers; who were emptying out disposable diapers to reuse them again and again. And I realized that these small diapers were affecting big things like education, jobs, and child welfare.

What is the first step you would suggest someone take if they want to help moms struggling with diaper need?

Joanne: Donate diapers to a local diaper bank, Head Start program, or food pantry. If you want to find one in your area, go to the Huggies Diaper Bank Finder. You can also donate to The Diaper Bank (www.thediaperbank.org).

(Thank you, Joanne!)

Disclosure: I have partnered with the Huggies® brand to help promote the Huggies® Every Little Bottom program. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes writing about it here. However, my opinions are entirely my own.

Seriously, though. BACK OFF, IRENE.

The other night we went out to dinner with our neighbors and their daughter, who is about a year older than Lucy. It was fun, we ate pizza, we played in the arcade room, we left rather abruptly when everyone at the table melted down because there were NO MORE QUARTERS for the game room (we are apparently the meanest parents EVER for not wanting to spend $85 on a pinball game that appeared to date back to 1978 or a racing game with cartoon bikini-clad women waving the starting flags) and stepped outside into some beautiful evening weather. The restaurant we ate at is in the middle of one of those new hipster pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments, so at the end of the street there was (what appeared to be) a nice little lawn where the people living above the shops and restaurants walk their pets or eat picnic lunches or whatever it is the suburban hipsters do these days. (Is there such a thing as suburban hipsters? Are they allowed out of the city limits?)

Seriously, it was (from afar) this lush, green, thick, beautiful grass and was just BEGGING those kids to run and chase each other through it. So we sent them ahead and told them to work off some energy and they took off. Asher, at two months shy of five years old (SHUT UP, I KNOOOOOW), is a much faster runner than the two younger girls and arrived at the grassy area first and – oh, you guys, this really happened – COULDN'T STOP RUNNING when he got there and slipped in some mud and fell into an ENORMOUS, ENORMOUS puddle. Like, really, let's be honest, a SMALL POND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIELD; a pond that was a FOOT DEEP. It wasn't visible at all from where we were standing, and I am not even kidding you, when he fell there was this HUGE splash, like he'd done a cannonball into a POOL and Dave took off running and Asher was just SITTING there, in a pond, TOTALLY embarrassed and crying and soaking wet but FINE and it was just the most hilarious thing ever. I mean, we didn't laugh in his face or anything! We were kind and compassionate and understanding but we were laughing TO OURSELVES, because it really had been so amusing to watch. It kind of killed the mood, though, if you know what I mean, and we all just walked back to the cars and had to strip Asher down and put a pair of spare underwear and a blanket on him for the ride home.

And so that's understandable, right? An accident, whatever, but laying in bed that night I realized the REAL issue was the fact that we hadn't BATHED him when we got him home, which gives me the heebie jeebies now to think about, seeing as how that little “pond” was probably teeming with hipster dog poo bacteria. Ah, well, immunities, yes? YES?

Technically this is our last week of summer, since we're headed to the beach on Saturday for a week (BACK OFF, HURRICANE IRENE) and Asher starts preschool the following Thursday. WEEP. But before then, I have a whole week of sitting on a beach, likely watching my children fight over a yellow shovel when there are 36 other shovels available POSSIBLY EVEN ANOTHER YELLOW ONE, and maybe reading a book or two, which means it is time for our annual Book Recommendation Post! I'll go first. Since the last time we did this, here are the five books I loved the most:

Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, by Lisa See
Ok, so this is TWO books but the second is the sequel to the first and if you can have them both at the ready so that you can move directly into number two after finishing number one, you will be SO RELIEVED. This is the story of two women who left their home country of China to come to America and it is absolutely BREATHTAKING. Opened my eyes to a whole different world. The second book takes off where the first one ends and takes place in China instead of America and it is just heartbreaking – but I love everything Lisa See writes, she's amazing. Highly HIGHLY recommend these books.

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
I hate war books, generally, which is why I avoided reading this for so long. I don't want to hear about aircraft or fighting or invasions – I have no experience with anything military and it all seems to go right over my head and gets me all confused and then I SKIM. This book was different since it was written about ONE MAN and what happens to him during World War II and it was absolutely fascinating. I mean, granted, what ISN'T fascinating about someone who survived in the middle of the ocean for 30 days ON A RAFT? And that's not even the bulk of the story – what this guy went through is mind blowing, and it is really well written and beautiful and I loved it. It ALMOST makes me willing to read Seabiscuit, which was also written by Laura Hillenbrand, but UGH, I have the same feeling about Seabiscuit as I did about this book. I should probably just get over the fact that it's about a HORSE, as this one was about WAR and I ended up completely engrossed in it.

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
What is there to say that the entire Internet hasn't already said? Tina Fey is a hero for women and moms; she's smart and funny and writes extremely well and I love her. I cannot remember the last time Dave read a whole book, but he downloaded this one (I believe it was his first e-book EVER) and read it in a couple of days. He loved it too.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
I am not a mysteries kind of person, but I kind of fell in love with Maisie Dobbs. She's smart and beautiful and her story is intertwined with the story of the job she takes on as a private investigator and I couldn't put it down. It was really well-written, and my only issue was that it seemed TOO SHORT – I would have loved for it to go on for 300 more pages or something.

Moloka'i, by Alan Brennert
I realize that I appear to be reading a lot of stuff that is grounded in actual events (World War II, the beginnings of Red China, etc.) and this book is no exception – it's a fictional account of a woman who was torn from her family at age six (SIX!) and sent to live in a leprosy camp in Hawaii – a leprosy camp that ACTUALLY EXISTED, and does to this very day. Did you know such a thing existed? I did not, and I did not know really anything about leprosy, but this book was FASCINATING in that regard, though a wee bit grotesque, because it turns out leprosy is kind of, well, way more awful than I imagined it was.

OKAY OKAY SO THAT WAS ACTUALLY SIX BOOKS and I am reading TWO right now that I really love and would tell you about but I have PACKING to do, you guys. Your turn! What have you read and loved in the past six months? Other recommendations here and here.

Seven Kitchen Quick Takes

We've been living with our remodeled kitchen for six weeks now and it is still, as you might imagine, very very awesome. The thrill of opening a non-moldy refrigerator door has not abated in the least, and I find myself constantly wandering around the house, looking at all the other rooms as the Ugly Ducklings to our beautiful Kitchen Swan, and clucking over things that were perfectly fine/serviceable six weeks ago, like the old Ikea Malm dresser in our closet, which I suddenly, passionately hate. IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR US ANYMORE. We are people with maple cabinetry! Stainless steel appliances! Self-closing drawers! A garbage disposal that you turn on with a BUTTON instead of a SWITCH. Every time trash day rolls around I have to fight the urge to wrestle old Ikea Malm down the stairs and to the curb, but I don't, because it is KIND of heavy and Dave will absolutely kill me (like, the DEAD kind of kill) if I damage the new wood floor, which I kind of already DID when I dropped (and subsequently broke) a glass and gouged it the other day.

However! Things I Wasn't Expecting, Kitchen-Wise:

ONE: The bottom freezer door will lock open, but not the drawer that contains the ice cube tray. This is so unbelievably annoying. I have to pull open the whole drawer (it's heavy) and then I have to pull out a SECOND drawer inside the drawer to get to the ice. I have to use one hand to hold the drawer open, while the other hand holds the glass I'm going to put the ice in, and HA HA HA THIS IS SO FUNNY, because I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS. I have to set the glass INSIDE the ice cube tray and hold the drawer open by holding the glass while I throw ice into it with the other hand all while bending over. It isn't, like, KILLING ME, or anything, but it is kind of annoying. With a top freezer, you can use your body to hold the door open while you hold your glass with one hand and get ice with the other. Do yourself a favor if you're shopping for a bottom-freezer refrigerator: if you have a separate drawer for ice, check to make sure it will lock open, or get yourself a third hand.

TWO: Our undercabinet lighting is awesome and so helpful, but since we are without a pantry, we store some food in our upper cabinets. No big deal, until I reached up into the cabinet one day for a chocolate chip granola bar, unwrapped it, and watched as it crumbled and melted right in my hands. The undercabinet lighting – if we leave it on for an extended period of time (like, say, an hour) – warms the cabinet above it JUST ENOUGH so that things on the bottom shelf have to pretty much be shelf stable or else there will be goo. There will be goo, you guys. The granola bars will be goo and the Oreo cookies will be goo and the other stuff will just be suspiciously WARM and it will not make you feel good about that situation at all. Thankfully, it really was as easy as moving the meltable stuff up a shelf and calling it a day, but it certainly was SURPRISING when I discovered it could happen.

THREE: Hardwood floors are always, ALWAYS dirty. I could walk across our carpet and not really realize it was dirty unless I stepped on something crumbly or, well, or LOOKED at it. But walking across hardwood in bare feet is DISTURBING. I can feel every little bump and crumb; when I am doing my push-ups per Jillian Michaels' request, I am distracted by each and every dust mite lying under the kitchen table. Perhaps the MOST annoying thing is that the couch is also always dirty, because the kids walk across the floors with their little sticky kid feet which collect debris much like a Swiffer, then climb onto the couch where the debris gets wiped off onto the cushions. So the couch is ALWAYS covered in crumbs and dirt particles, even though we do not allow food to be consumed on it or shoes to be worn on it. This is depressing.

FOUR: Having lived with our old cabinetry for nearly eight years, I still occasionally forget that it's gone and will walk over to the silverware drawer and yank it open with all the strength I can muster. It worked perfectly with the old drawers; now it just sends a shower of cutlery all over the floor and sometimes my feet and honestly, I worry less about my toes getting cut off by a rogue knife than I do about maybe nicking or denting the floors and evoking the wrath of my husband.

FIVE: Our new dishwasher? Our third in eight years? The one we paid way too much money for because the one we wanted was discontinued and so we had to UPGRADE to get similar styling to match the REST of the appliances we bought? HOLD YOUR HORSES, people, because it actually WORKS. It works awesome, it works better than any other dishwasher I've ever used, it has fantastic, non-flimsy racks and it holds so many dishes that I have not even overstuffed it yet. I wholeheartedly endorse you, Kenmore Built-In Dishwasher with Ultra Wash System.

SIX: We have altogether eliminated our junk drawer. THERE IS NO JUNK DRAWER, YOU GUYS. There is nowhere to throw old pens or batteries or coupons or more batteries or more coupons and it is SO FREEING. Since there's nowhere to put it, I have to deal with stuff on a Right Now basis. Nothing is building up on our countertops or leaking out of drawers and it is so nice. I did a major clean-out of our stuff when we packed up the kitchen and as much as I felt an emotional/guilty pull to save a bunch of Christmas card photographs and greeting cards, I no longer feel bad for tossing them. They're gone, I don't have to see them, and if I don't have to see them then I'm not reminded of them. It is AWESOME. I am going to start a No Junk Drawer Revolution.

SEVEN: A lot of people warned us that buying stainless steel appliances was akin to selling our souls to the Fingerprint Devil, but I have been pleasantly surprised. I'm not cleaning the stainless any more than I was cleaning our old black appliances (ok, so I never cleaned the old textured white refrigerator monstrosity because IT BELONGED AT THE DUMP) and I don't know if this is just because the kids don't really touch it? Or maybe your kids are the kind of kids that lick things and mine... aren't? I don't think that's really it, but I have been super happy that they look clean the majority of the time. I mean, I still feel like a total sellout with them in my house, but hey, whatever gets this place sold in another year or two, right?

Beyond food and diaper banks

I cleaned out Lucy's closet over the weekend. Oh, you guys, the things I feel so pressured to keep because of the general loss of her babyhood. Why would I EVER want to hold on to THREE NASAL ASPIRATORS, just because she came home from the hospital with them? I threw two of them away. WHAT? Sometimes I need to threaten Asher with it when he won't blow his nose, OKAY? (Yes, it turns out that I have made a child who is both petrified of getting his face wet AND blowing his nose. I don't know how we won that lottery, either.)

I have a harder time figuring out what to do with big ticket items, even if they were gifts or were clearance priced. Like her little white faux fur jacket. I know she will never wear it again, but it's like I keep holding on to it until I can find the perfect person to hand it down to. I guess because I loved it, I want it to go to someone ELSE who will love it, too. So I have a generous amount of things that are not quite special enough to keep, but too special to just... donate, because (perhaps this is ridiculous) I kind of want to get to SEE them again. Oh, that sounds so stupid. But it's a part of moving on, I think. Right?

Anyway, one of the things I came across was a big pile of diapers we will never use – either they're too small or they're “too itchy” (Lucy's words) or they didn't fit right and leaked and I stopped using them. And I put them in a bag and wondered what I could do with them – the closest diaper and food bank to me is in downtown Washington, DC, more than an hour away in traffic. Things I Am Not Going To Do With Two Kids: Drive into downtown DC. PERIOD. I kind of forgot about them until this morning, when we arrived at church and found that it was Volunteer Sunday and I was suddenly reminded that my church has several programs that minister to the surrounding community, including one that helps low-income families with things like groceries and necessities, and one that aids a local pregnancy crisis center.

All this time that I've been working with Huggies Every Little Bottom, I had it stuck in my head that diapers only went to diaper and food banks. But that isn't the case at all. There are so many other local organizations that deal directly with people in need, and just about every one of them would be thrilled to ease a struggling mom's burden with a package (or the leftovers of a package) of diapers. Homeless shelters. Women's health centers. Churches. Missions. Shelters for abused women and children.

If you are moved to help, know that donating diapers and other products doesn't have to be something you do on a large scale – if you know of a church or other social program that you like or trust or that tugs at your heartstrings (as the pregnancy crisis center does for me), all you have to do is stop by and drop off something small. The remnants of your last package of diapers, a sale brand that was marked down to $4 just when you had $4 to spare. (Though you may want to call first, to ensure they'll take your donation. Some organizations cannot accept open packages of diapers for health reasons – though that's certainly not true for all of them.)

Don't let your ability to help be limited by the idea that all donations need to go to food banks and diaper banks. There are opportunities everywhere. And for those of you who don’t know of any local organizations to donate to, there is always EveryLittleBottom.com, where you can find local diaper banks as well as donate online.

Disclosure: I have partnered with the Huggies® brand to help promote the Huggies® Every Little Bottom program. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes writing about it here. However, my opinions are entirely my own.

You thought I could go six posts without mentioning House Hunters?

Ok ok ok so I know we talked about how summer is ending and our kids are acting like turds and everywhere on Twitter people are talking about BOOTS and JEANS and SCARVES but there is one minor thing that is making me panicky about the onset of fall and that is all these NEW TELEVISION SHOWS.

New television shows do not excite me. At all. In fact, it's one of those things that makes me so crazy that I try to ignore it altogether, which is most definitely Not Good, because then I end up watching something like Hillbilly Handfishin' for six straight hours. You don't exactly feel good about yourself, having watched fully dressed people shove their legs into muddy creek holes looking for gigantic mutant fish for six hours, you know? But I have all kinds of hang-ups about pilots and season premieres and did you know that there are something like EIGHTEEN HUNDRED CHANNELS available through our cable provider? How am I supposed to know what is going to be good and what is not? How does anyone have TIME to sort through the hundreds of new shows we're about to be bombarded with? How will I be able to catch up with a (in hindsight, must-see) new series if I miss the first three episodes?

WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE JUST LEFT US WITH FRIENDS AND E.R.? Or better yet, why can't there just be a whole channel with stuff Tina Fey spearheads on it? THAT I would watch. (Tina Fey is totally the new Oprah, except we won't have to suffer through all those Suze Orman segments.) (Or any more concerts with Celine Dion.)

I guess the truth is, if I'm to be honest with myself, I'm not just a TV and movie kind of person. THERE. It's OUT. I like TV! I do! I even WATCH it! But most of what I watch is mindless television that I can have on WHILE I DO OTHER STUFF. I'm a multi-tasker to the core, so the only time I really pay attention to what's on TV is when I have decided to dedicate myself fully to what's on (Dave and I usually watch a movie on Friday nights). Otherwise, I'm painting my toenails or I'm flipping through a magazine or I'm scrolling through Pinterest, which is why I don't watch anything except HGTV. Except that I WANT to watch the cool shows, I DO. I WANTED to be  hooked on Lost and discuss it with everyone! I WANTED to care what happened on Top Chef! Except... not enough to actually WATCH it, and once everyone else was already watching it and I was playing catch-up... well, that killed it for me altogether. Guess what? You don't HAVE to catch up on House Hunters! Each episode is a whole different group of idiots complaining about a lack of stainless steel appliances and granite countertops and there's no need to figure out a plot. It's just THERE and EASY and I can make a whole meal plan for the week during one episode and also WOW AM I A LOSER.

So. Anyway, I feel better now.

Big news in our household last week: Lucy moved to a Big Girl Bed.

It was all very spur of the moment and very unlike me. I'd been browsing through Craigslist for a week or two, deciding how much I would be willing to pay for a toddler bed (our crib doesn't covert and her room is really too small for a twin bed), and then suddenly, there was the perfect one, at the perfect price, just around the corner from us, and so I snagged it and sent Dave out on a Friday night to pick it up. It sat in our kitchen for a few days and then Dave came home one night from work and I simply asked him to go take down the crib and that was it. The hardest part was asking him to take the crib down, I think. I mean, it went in our attic, and we can put it back together if we need to (WE DON'T KNOW YET IF WE'LL EVER NEED TO) but it was the whole thing about how we took it down.

That crib was in the nursery (not that it qualifies for a nursery any more) for more than five years; two babies slept in it – two babies who aren't babies anymore. If I'd let myself dwell on it, it would have been much harder, I think. I bought the toddler bed without thinking just to secure it at a good price. And then I didn't involve myself in the dismantling process at all – I stayed downstairs with the kids until Dave was finished, and then Presto! There was a new bed in the room and I didn't have to experience the pain of watching that little part of my life get shoved into the attic.

She's doing great in it, though. She's been sleeping like a dream (with 85,000 of her closest stuffed friends), and she hasn't climbed out yet, which is FANTASTIC. Our kids are DEFINITELY rule-followers, and it helps that she's just a touch afraid of the dark. Also, I did promise to buy her a big stuffed Nemo if she stayed in bed and WOW I really am kicking myself for not having saved that bribe for potty training, because for four straight days she asked me, “Is today the day we get my big Nemo, Mom?”

Today I said yes. I am such a sucker.

That little blip about PMS is probably the key to this post

Parenting around these parts has been, shall we say, less than rewarding for the last month or so. Things I know: I love my kids, and I am lucky to have the option to stay at home with them. Things I also know: They are driving me to the brink of insanity. Things I am sad to tell you I also know: It is time for summer to be over.

There, I SAID IT. I am a hard core Summer Lover through and through. I love the long days and the hot weather and I am not afraid of weeks upon weeks of nothingness spread before me (I can fill those days with ease - it's one of my few talents, along with predicting people's starting weights on weight-loss shows) but I think summer has run its course around these parts, and if I have to mediate one more fight over Lightning McQueen, I will cry. No, I will weep. I will weep and I will gnash my teeth and I will REND MY GARMENTS. And before you make any assumptions, we already tried to solve this problem the simple way, the way you are thinking we should, which is to buy more Lightning McQueens, so WE HAVE FOUR LIGHTNING MCQUEENS, YOU GUYS, but we only fight over one particular Rust-eze Lightning McQueen with the SHIFTY EYES.

The thing is, the beginning of the summer went SO WELL. My kids practically had halos over their heads the entire time we stayed with my parents while our kitchen was being remodeled in June, and those same halos were only slightly tarnished for most of July. But in the last two-ish weeks, everything has gone downhill to the point where I wake up in the morning and think, Oh, no, not THIS again. We are headed to the beach for our annual Big Family Vacation in two short weeks and all I can think is that Dave and I DESERVE a pleasant vacation this year – the last two years we've gone on this trip we've had Lucy with us (you know, since I birthed her and all) and PERHAPS COINCIDENTALLY, we've never slept through the night on vacation. This year she was supposed to sleep through the night and everyone was going to be loving life and pooping rainbows and now all the small people are acting like big fat jerks and our vacation is going to be ruined AGAIN.

(I do have a TOUCH of PMS this week.)

Honestly, it's not ALWAYS terrible – there are times when they do seem to enjoy each others' company, but OH, do I miss the days of June, when they would wander off onto my parents' screened-in porch armed with a handful of diecast cars and play together happily for hours. This morning Asher watched from the couch as Lucy put a lid on a box wrong – yes, you heard me, A LID, INCORRECTLY, ON A BOX, THAT HE WAS NOT TOUCHING OR INVOLVED WITH IN ANY WAY – and after demanding that she put it on the right way, then YELLING at her to put it on the right way, then moving off the couch to hover over her and SCREAM at her that she was DOING! IT! WRONG!, she simply said, “No, I'm not,” and he drew back his arm and just THWACKED her right over the head. That's Game Over for me; when my kids cannot get along over the LID to a BOX and resort to corporal punishment so everyone spent some good quality time in their rooms, playing alone, which sounds like it would be relaxing and a relief for me, except that they both wailed like they were being beaten with a hot poker the entire time. LOVE IS CRUEL, KIDS.

This afternoon Asher came to me, whining that his cousin and his sister each had a toy fishing pole, and that he wanted one too. “Then go over to them and ask them to take turns with you,” I suggested. All I want is for him to take the first step towards initiating something remotely (I stress remotely) confrontational, and he just will not do it, even with his own COUSIN. (This is a source of frustration with me, and likely a whole different post.) Anyway, he refused. He wanted a fishing pole NOOOOOW, he didn't want to WAAAAAAIT, but he wasn't going to ASK for one – he wanted ME to do the dirty work for him, and it's not like he was asking me nicely. A few moments later Lucy came in, and handed him the fishing pole of her own accord. I said, “Asher, you need to say thank you to Lucy. That was so nice of her to give you a turn.” He gave me the look of death, turned halfway around so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye and said, barely audibly, “Thank.”

THANK. You guys, he said THANK. He could not even be bothered to say THANK YOU, this is how stubborn he had decided he was going to be about this. We went back and forth for several angry minutes. Me: “Say THANK YOU, or I am taking that fishing pole AWAY.” Him: “Thank y....” (trails off, looks casually up at me to see if I caught it). !!! The NERVE of this child. And this is just one example, yes, but this example kind of sums up the last two weeks. It has been challenging, and frustrating, and I feel like all I am doing is getting annoyed with him, but in all fairness, he HAS been pretty annoying.

I know it's just a phase, and that it will pass soon, and I love the kid, I swear I do. I just wish we were ENJOYING summer more. I wish we were all having fun together instead of heading off tantrums and teaching lessons and correcting behavior. Parenthood, right? Major buzzkill at times.

So fall, then. Bring it on. Bring on the nine hours a week of sweet, sweet, preschool-enforced separation between these two. Maybe they'll actually MISS each other and ENJOY each others' company when they're together. I am going to try to milk some sweet memories out of these last three weeks of summer – I am going to allow fewer afternoon movies, and encourage more time outside, and spend more time on the floor working puzzles and drawing pictures – but I am finally resigned to the fact that the magic of summer is gone. Summer, you are dead to me.

Back-to-school shopping tips! Even though this is technically our first time going BACK to school.

Thank you to Crocs for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about Crocs new Back to School line. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.

 

So officially, this is our first year of back-to-school shopping. Last year was Asher's first ever year of school, and it was only PREschool, so I guess last year was simply... TO-school shopping, as we were not headed... back to anywhere, you know, since we hadn't even BEEN yet. It doesn't seem like preschool would require much preparation, and you're right, it didn't, but HELLO, I am your friend Emily, who is Mega Type-A and who is Boy-Scout-like in her ability to prepare for any situation, so OF COURSE, I overthought EVERYTHING.

But you know what? It turned out to be the best thing I did. It eased my mind, frankly; my kid had no idea I was making his life so much easier than it could have been. So here you go, my tips for shopping for a child entering preschool, because back-to-school shopping for a child entering REAL SCHOOL and maybe RIDING A BUS and also STAYING ALL DAY isn't happening for me until next year, which: RELIEF IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT.

Elastic-waisted pants and shorts. One of my biggest fears concerning Asher heading to preschool for the first time was that he would struggle in the bathroom with his pants and not ask for help. He is not a chatty child; in fact, it was several months before he started raising his hand in class or participating in any kind of discussion with his classmates (and even then, it was very little). So I knew he'd be reluctant to ask his teacher for any kind of help with a button or a zipper. I invested in lots of elastic-waisted shorts and pants, most of them from Target at around $4 a pop. Yeah, so maybe he wasn't the most STYLISH preschooler on the planet, but I was secure in the fact that he could pull his pants up and down with ease, and I was also perfectly okay with the cheap shorts getting dirty/painted on/ripped to shreds on the playground, YES THAT HAPPENED ONCE.

Easy-on shoes. Our preschool frowns upon sandals (and traditional Crocs, the only shoes my children wear during the summer, SIGH), preferring sturdy sneaker-type shoes. It makes sense – the kids play outside on a playground every day for at least a half an hour, and the playground is covered in mulch, little pieces of which can stab little toes through shoe holes, and can also work their way inside the shoes causing cuts and splinters. And as cute as little tied sneakers were, I chose something my kid could get on and off himself, with very little assistance. Last year, we opted for shoes with velcro, but I think even slip-on sneakers would have worked well. I didn't have to worry about him tripping over laces or burdening his teachers with requests for them to tie his shoes (not that he was likely to ask).

A backpack. Here's where I made my big mistake: I bought Asher a backpack, but did not insist that he use it. And he didn't WANT to use it because I didn't consult him in the purchase and he was not INTERESTED in having a Thomas the Tank Engine backpack. Truthfully, a backpack for preschool is not a necessity. Having said that, I was kind of annoyed when I picked him up every day and had to figure out a way to get his leftover snack, his papers, any notices and his TWO-YEAR-OLD SISTER back out to the car without dropping anything or leaving anything behind. We are investing in a backpack this year, and we are going to use it, and by using it, I mean THAT KID IS GOING TO CARRY IT HIMSELF IF IT KILLS ME.

Crossroads (NOT the one with Britney Spears) (although I did see it in the theater)

I feel like I'm coming up on a big crossroads with my kids and my life. In two months, Asher will turn five, and two short months after that, Lucy will be three. Three and five; I'll have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and so much about my life is going to change in the next year or so and I'm not sure I'm ready for it.

Ok, so sure, Asher's headed for another year of preschool and Lucy's not heading into any kind of school, so this year will LOOK a lot like last year did, routine-wise. But a FIVE-YEAR-OLD, you guys. Since the day Asher was born, I have looked forward to taking long walks with him packed away all safe and secure in the stroller, and now he is going to be five and while he still loves to sit in the jogging stroller with Lucy while I walk, I realize we're really operating on borrowed time... how much longer will he want to walk with me? How much longer is it APPROPRIATE for a nearly-school-age child to ride in a STROLLER?

I get that eventually, I will be able to take actual walking WALKS with my children, but right now, the idea of them making it through the entire 3.8 mile loop we often do (and that they really enjoy, because it goes through the woods) is ridiculous. And anyway, as stupid as it sounds, I'm kind of mourning the whole kids-in-a-stroller phase of my life. There was a moment a couple of years ago where I wondered how in the world I would be able to exercise if I couldn't do it while walking with my kids in a stroller, and I've moved past that. I get up early to run or I run after Dave comes home; I do exercise videos at naptime or while Asher watches a show. And even though we walk with the stroller much less often than we used to (maybe once or twice a week at best – the summer heat kills my desire), it is still one of my favorite favorite favorite things to do with my kids. I love looking at the stuff we find in nature, I love being able to cover a much larger distance so we always have interesting things to look at, I love that we have plenty of options for activities, like playgrounds or throwing rocks in the lake or wading in the creek or feeding baby ducks and looking for tadpoles.

SIGH. I guess really what I'm mourning is the loss of babyhood – my kids are KIDS, you know? No one's sitting in a high chair. No one's being rocked to sleep. One of them is still wearing a diaper even though she's perfectly capable of using the potty, but that's a whole different post. I guess I'm just in this weird place where I wonder, is this it? Are we done having kids? Or are we open to another one, whether it's biological or through adoption? If we're done, then I've got to be okay with moving on to the next phase of life, which means no more strollers, amongst many many other things. (I know, the whole stroller thing sounds so SHALLOW and I KNOW it is, but it's just symbolic of everything I've loved about having small children.)

It's just weird to be in this place. I knew, after I got married, that I would have a child. And after I had that child, I knew, without a doubt, that I would have another. I always thought, when I was younger, that I would have three children. Did I really WANT three children? Back then, it just sounded like a nice number, and I have always loved being around a big group of people. Christmas is extra fun with more gifts to open, right? It was always that kind of mentality. But how could I have known what parenthood would really be like? And now I also know that I really don't love being pregnant (pre-eclampsia and 60-pound weight gain aside), newborns stress me out like you wouldn't believe (breastfeeding accounts for at least 60 percent of that stress), and I don't relish the idea of getting in shape all over again for the third time.

I think the weirdest part is just that, for the first time in nine years (NINE!), I don't have a set plan ahead of me. I'm not engaged, planning for a wedding. I'm not a newlywed, looking forward to getting pregnant with my first child. I'm not pregnant with Lucy, worrying about how I'm going to deal with two kids. I'm... I'm kind of... here. I've arrived. This could be it, you know? I could be finished having kids, and if I am, there is a crapload of baby stuff sitting in my attic waiting to be distributed to someone who can use it.

But what if... we're not done? How am I ever going to know? And how am I going to know if adding another child to this family is what I truly want to do or what I THINK I want to do so that I can postpone having to think about these little people growing up and not being my babies anymore? It is scary to think about them getting bigger, and me having more time on my hands, and needing to do something meaningful with that time (that would hopefully earn me a paycheck, too). I haven't worked in an office in more than five years now. Am I really capable of going back to work or dedicating myself to a freelance career?

Yet, at the same time, I confess I do feel that bit of relief thinking about how I'm at a place now where I'll never have to spoon food into anyone's mouth ever again, and that we will soon be able to take family vacations that are not based around cartoon characters and everyone will ENJOY THEM.

See? The whole world is changing around me and this decision – this place in life - is more frightening and anxious than finding out I was pregnant with my first (and very unplanned) child. I keep waiting for a feeling or an answer, and I don't have any idea where our lives are headed right now. I don't want an unplanned pregnancy or sheer laziness to do the work for me, either. It's such a weird, strange place to be. So I'll ask you: How did you know when you were done? How do you know you're NOT?