Lunch Box Mom

Dogs React to Latest Homework Assignment

2017-02-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

Dogs everywhere are reacting to the high-pitched notes produced by the latest round of third graders issued those slim, but loud, musical instruments-- recorders.

"First of all, I wouldn't call them 'notes'," said Wilson, a shorthaired Terrier in Hopewell, New Jersey. "It sounds more like when my owner tries to sing along with Adele in the car. It's not pretty. I may move back into the dog house.”

Other dogs do not have that option.

Snickers, a rescue Beagle recently adopted by a family with third-grade twins, reported constant ringing in his ears ever since the boys brought home their instruments.

“I mean, it’s in stereo. As soon as one stops, the other starts. And what can I say? Would I rather be sleeping on a concrete floor in a kill-shelter? I don’t think so, but this…this is not what I expected when they told me I was moving to the suburbs.”

A representative from the Association of Concerned Dogs said the group has no official policy when it comes to dealing with the instruments. In 2014, Ralph, a spirited Pug from Lawrenceville with his own YouTube Channel, created instructional videos on how to best destroy wooden recorders without getting splinters. Since then, schools have switched to issuing plastic instruments and Ralph has suffered from bouts of colitis.

Princess, a Maltese puppy, said she didn't understand how "homework" could involve anything besides sitting and rolling over and wearing barrettes in her fur. As it stands, she's seen no improvement in behavior.

"Generally speaking, offering peanut butter is a good idea. I think the kid needs more incentive."

Cats, fish, and birds have reported little disturbance with the exception of parrots, many of which have been heard repeating the phrase, “When will it stop? When will it stop? When will it stop?”

Like Girl Scout cookies, distribution of recorders is staggered across the country. Not all dogs have encountered the high-pitched sounds and squeaks of the wind instruments-- yet.

“It’s going to be a rough spring,” howled Bacon, a Dachshund whose brother, More Bacon, lives in Scottsdale. “Should I tell him, or not tell him? Honestly, even if I had thumbs I’m not sure texting him the news would be much good. I see him every few years at our family reunion. All I can hope is the kid doesn’t start the flute next, you know?”

Music teachers, meanwhile, say the unit on recorders is especially important.

No one knows why.

Next up: The Media Diet: How to lose five pounds of periodicals without even trying.

This post is part of my: Tips the Parenting Magazines Won’t Tell You, an occasional satirical series. As always, thanks for reading and drop me a line. I'm posting more on my new blog and website: www.writeonsarah.com and sometimes on Twitter. @writeonsarah

Join me!

ps: the photo of the dog is from Sportingnews--and is of a very well bred Bulldog at the Westminster Dog Show.

2016-08-29T21:03:00.006-04:00

Mom Goes to Target: What She Does is Unbelievable!

2016-08-29T21:03:00.004-04:00

Today I went to Target and bought only one item.

The odds of doing this, calculated by my rough estimation, are about 1 in 3,000.

I am more likely to be hit by a meteorite.

NASA data aside, it’s worth putting my point in context: I had both kids with me.

The ace in my pocket was the note from the choir director with a photo of the shoes we needed for my eight-year-old.

Apparently, my eight-year-old can now be called a chorister. As a chorister, my child needed “unembellished black ballet flats”.

The shoes pictured in the director’s note were made by Cherokee and cost $14.99 at
Target. This seemed like a good deal, considering my daughter would wear them a few times this year while standing behind other people wearing the exact same shoes.

My daughter’s pervious pair of ballet flats had been a bit of a bust and there was nothing unembellished about them. To be fair, the gold glitter didn’t fall off all the time, just when my daughter walked or actually had her feet in the shoes. That pair of troublesome flats was not made by Cherokee but by another brand I’d never heard of at the time, something called Ivanka Trump kids.

Back to Target.

We arrived at 10am sharp and headed directly to the shoe section.

No cart.

No basket.

Nothing but the description of the shoes in my hand and the foot, attached to the chorister, at my side.

We found the shoes. We found the size. They fit.

At that point, I was near the socks. I felt the pull of shopping trips past. We did need some crackers. Maybe more Windex? Where else could I find the 5-calorie doggie treats in such a variety of flavors? Did we really have enough glue sticks to get through October?

But I had declared a “one item” trip and we were dedicated to our mission. We headed to the checkout with the same unflappable focus with which we’d entered just minutes before.

“Self check-out,” my eleven-year-old barked.

We couldn’t risk the temptations we’d find while waiting in line for a cashier. The packs of gum would do us in.

One item.

One bag.

A quick moment with the credit card chip facing the correct way for once in my life and we were out of there.

Outside, I felt the sun on my face. I didn’t have a large grocery cart to haul to the car. I had my little chorister and the unembellished shoes she’d need to blend into the choir.

It was one for the record books.

This post is part of my: Tips the Parenting Magazines Won’t Tell You, an occasional satirical series. Click here for past posts. As always, thanks for reading and drop me a line. I'm posting more on my new blog and website: www.writeonsarah.com and sometimes on Twitter. @writeonsarah

Join me!

Mom Goes to Target: What She Does is Unbelievable!

2016-08-29T21:03:00.002-04:00

Today I went to Target and bought only one item.

The odds of doing this, calculated by my rough estimation, are about 1 in 3,000.

I am more likely to be hit by a meteorite.

NASA data aside, it’s worth putting my point in context: I had both kids with me.

The ace in my pocket was the note from the choir director with a photo of the shoes we needed for my eight-year-old.

Apparently, my eight-year-old can now be called a chorister. As a chorister, my child needed “unembellished black ballet flats”.

The shoes pictured in the director’s note were made by Cherokee and cost $14.99 at Target. This seemed like a good deal, considering my daughter would wear them a few times this year while standing behind other people wearing the exact same shoes.

My daughter’s pervious pair of ballet flats had been a bit of a bust and there was nothing unembellished about them. To be fair, the gold glitter didn’t fall off all the time, just when my daughter walked or actually had her feet in the shoes. This pair of troublesome flats were not made by Cherokee but by another brand I’d never heard of at the time, something called Ivanka Trump kids.

Back to Target.

We arrived at 10am sharp and headed directly to the shoe section.

No cart.

No basket.

Nothing but the description of the shoes in my hand and the foot, attached to the chorister, at my side.

We found the shoes. We found the size. They fit.

But I had declared a “one item” trip and we were dedicated to our mission. We headed to the checkout with the same unflappable focus with which we’d entered just minutes before.

“Self check-out,” my eleven-year-old barked.

We couldn’t risk the temptations we’d find while waiting in line for a cashier. The packs of gum would do us in.

One item.

One bag.

A quick moment with the credit card chip facing the correct way for once in my life and we were out of there.

Outside, I felt the sun on my face. I didn’t have a large grocery cart to haul to the car. I had my little chorister and the unembellished shoes she’d need to blend into the choir.

It was one for the record books.

The Flapper in the Family Tree

2015-11-02T12:29:00.002-05:00

2015: the flapper.

My ten-year-old struck a pose with a black feather headband and sleeveless dress lined with fringe. I was exactly her age when I wore a shinny blue version of the same iconic shift, performing as a chorus member in Thoroughly Modern Millie for the school variety show. My own mother had a black version of the outfit, a standby for costume parties in the 80’s. But let’s go back, way back, to my maternal great-grandmother, Ceil McCoy, née Miller, in this photo.

An original flapper.

She hung out with guys like this:

And in modest “cabins” like this:

What I know about Ceil is limited to my mother’s stories, a few old photo albums, and the collection of postcards passed down to me after my grandmother died. I have two memories of visiting Ceil. Once, when I must have been in third or fourth grade, my mother and I took the train to see her in Ohio. It was a long, slow ride and the woman in the seat ahead snored and belched all the way. But my great-grandmother had a pantry full of Campbell’s Sirloin and Country Vegetable soup, a gastronomic revelation as far as I was concerned, which made the journey well worth it.

Another visit involved my entire family stopping by her mobile home. I remember my father somehow locked us all out using the sliding door. And I remember pickles.

But now, here we are, nearly 100 years after some of these candid photos of my great-grandmother were taken in Cincinnati Ohio.

Ceil married Bob McCoy, a musician, shown above with members of Gregory’s band: Jack King, Bob Luig, Buss Shriver and Bill and Red Ruck, according to the green script on the back. Later, Bob would sell Electrolux vacuums to make ends meet. It was while doing this that he died in an accident. For Ceil, with three young boys and my sixteen-year-old grandmother, the music ended.

Ceil never remarried. From what my mother tells me, she’d take a yearly trip to New York City to attend a function held for the wives of salesman. And she’d visit my mom in Madison each summer, wearing long braids pinned to her head, perhaps a tribute not to the bobbed hairstyle of her flapper days, but to her mother, Emma Miller, née Gueth, whose photos are also in the album I’ve been sifting through and whose obituary, yellowed from age and the size of a stamp, I found loose. The flapper’s mother was born in 1877 and died on December 5^th, 1959.

A 1940 census record shows a snapshot of the flapper’s life. Born about 1902. Married to Bob. Four children ages 15, 11, 9 and 1.

That fifteen-year-old is the one I hitch my story to. Patricia Jean, who met an officer in training, Ritchey T. Porter, during the war. His family album I also have, and it shows a photographic history of a slightly more privileged upbringing, although a Victorian stoicism dampens any sense that they were enjoying themselves all the more for it.

College was in Ritchey T.'s future, and a good job at Oscar Mayer, where he wisely saved and bought stock options and did what a company man was expected to do.

The lives of the women, Ceil, Pat, Linda, Sarah and now Heidi are somehow connected in this family tree that has endured harder times. I thought a lot about that as I ordered my daughter's flapper dress from a website. Surely Ceil would have shook her head and told me I could have sewn the thing myself. That's what she would have done, and skillfully, too.

My daughter pulled the dress out of the box and held it up to let the fringe shake free. The earrings dangled like sparkling globes—so fancy compared with her usual tiny studs. We added black satin gloves. A feather band around her hair.

Two histories merged, through wars, jobs, marriages, deaths and births. And all in the blink of a century.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

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Is the Universe Trying to Tell You Something?

2015-10-16T17:27:00.004-04:00

I owe my yoga teacher, Romy Toussaint, special gratitude for introducing me to Melody Beattie’s Journey to the Heart.

Beattie’s entry for July 7^thdescribes her drive on a highway in New Mexico. The car ahead stopped suddenly and although Beattie avoided a collision, the car behind her had been too close and hit the rear of her Jeep. No real damage was done, but Beattie says that afterwards, “the incident still nagged at me.”

Weeks later, on a two-lane highway, with a school bus ahead and a truck loaded with cars behind, traffic once again came to a sudden stop, this time when the bus stopped to drop off a child.

“I looked out my rearview mirror,” Beattie writes, “the truck loaded with cars was frantically trying to stop. I pulled my car off the road onto the shoulder, giving him an extra car length…..Had I not noticed, not pulled out, we’d all have been piled up.”

Her final message includes this thought: sometimes the universe gives us a little nudge, a little sign.

Today, after going to a mid-day yoga class in a busy shopping center, I stepped off into the pedestrian crosswalk. A car had just passed by on the right and my path was clear. Or so I thought.

I heard the revving of a large engine and within seconds a huge SUV, the size of a Suburban, sped into the crossway from the left. I jumped back. It was a near miss. My yoga mat and I would have been like flies on a tank if I'd not been alert.

Ten minutes later, while on the highway, my car shook from the vibration of a police car as it speed past me on the left. No siren, before or after, just the reverberation inside me as I thought about how quickly this car, too, had appeared out of nowhere.

Ten minutes after that, as I drove along a beautiful section of Route 206, the fall foliage shining red and brown in the sun, I heard a loud bang. Had it been a rock the size of a lemon? It had the thud of something heavy and slow moving, but I knew that even in spirit, no ghostly Redcoats were hurling 2-pound cannons at my minivan on this historic trail.

Still, I was shaken now and eager to meet my friend for lunch.

Had the universe given me a nudge and closed out its trifecta of uncomfortable events or was the big one still ahead?

I tend to believe it is the former. But, as Beattie says, "Sometimes the universe gives us warnings."

Thanks for reading. Follow me on my new Twitter handle @writeonsarah and check out my growing webpage, www.writeonsarah.com

Lucky 13: What Lasts

2015-09-28T15:32:00.000-04:00

What lasts after thirteen years of marriage? Does it undermine the beauty of the relationship to say that through it all, I stand in awe at the enduring quality of our bath towels?

They were a wedding present and made with some percentage of silk that doesn’t seem popular anymore. Maybe with 3-D printing and a cooperative silk worm I can make my own, but I suspect they just wouldn’t be the same.

There is something about those towels that represents the quality of a bygone era. I feel the same about the wooden basket we got when we were engaged so we could take picnics to Central Park and read books, printed on paper.

When I carry the basket now, people comment. It stands in contrast to the polyethylene ones with frustrating zippers that have taken over the snack and portable lunch scene.

Maybe it’s appropriate that the objects of our courtship and wedding were made of quality. There was the garlic press that didn’t make it to 6 months, but aside from that, I’m reminded of friends and family nearly every time I make dinner.

There’s the mixing bowl given to us by a dear friend and her husband from college.

The high quality stainless steel slotted spoon, a gift from long time family friends. Making pasta is filled with memories.

We’ve got a lot of formal bowls, too. They were trendy back in ’02. Crystal bowls, pottery bowls, hand blown bowls, and one with a turtle. I use the purple salad bowl every Thanksgiving and the one from a former boss anytime I need to serve nuts at a party.

Those may be salted peanuts, but the bowl is a work of art.

Our wedding china is another story. I take it out sometimes and just admire the smooth, cool surface. My husband selected the pattern and it’s modern and sophisticated, a 180 departure from the floral patterns I gravitate to that remind him of British tea or slow TV drama.

I don’t feel bad about keeping our china protected in the dark green boxes it came in. The carpe diem spirit that struck me on my 40^thbirthday, when we broke out the wine we’d saved from our honeymoon, doesn’t sit on my shoulder telling me to get to it and serve the kids hotdogs with an eight piece table setting.

The china is a reminder of the fragile and precious part of our marriage, and the intentions we had when everything was still ahead of us. And the material gifts from friends that have lasted in this disposable world we now seem to live in, remind me of the warmth and love that witnessed that special day.

Last night, on the eve of our anniversary, I saw a commercial that made me feel a larger gulf between that wedding day and the millennials heading off to the alter now. The bride and groom looked young and happy and had that ever-so-cool look I can’t quite identify. Then, hungry and exhausted from visiting with guests, they bid their farewells and slid into their limo, where the bride’s father has left some McDonald’s hamburgers for them to eat.

I turned to my husband, speechless, and he knew exactly what I was thinking.

And maybe that’s another reason why we’ve made it to thirteen years.

Thanks for reading. Join me @educatedmomMP or www.writeonsarah.com

Mistaken Identity at Doggie Daycare

2015-09-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

New details have emerged in the case of mistaken identity for Wilfork the dog. Weighing in at 29 pounds, Wilfork (Willy to his friends) is a few hundred shy of his namesake, nose tackle Vince Wilfork of the Houston Texans, but with his Blenheim coloring and floppy ears he shows a keen resemblance to any other overweight Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in need of a bath.

On the day of his misfortune, Wilfork was mistaken for a female Cavalier named Pearl. Rumor had it, Pearl would be in the slammer (aka doggie daycare) for seven days. Her owner had scheduled a grooming appointment prior to her release, with a full shampoo, haircut, and sanitary shave.

Trouble was, Pearl was a no-show. Not even the Beagles caught scent of her. Butt-sniffing at the water bowl confirmed she was as absent as a flea after Frontline application. Word spread among the regulars at doggie daycare that Pearl was MIA, but the humans on poop patrol appeared oblivious.

We may never know how or why the official record reflected no cancellation of Pearl the Pooch, but interviews with those who were there, as well as phone records obtained by the New Bark Times, reveal a series of errors that highlight the nationwide frustration experienced by dogs across America.

According to one witness, a Bichon who goes by Snickers, Wilfork was his usual sociable and matted self when roaming the concrete play area reserved for their weight class.

“He stayed out of trouble. Wagged his tale. Sat in the back and observed,” the Bichon said through the help of a telepathic dog communicator. “We were all surprised when the big guy in sneakers came and scooped him up.”

According to the Bichon and his best friend, Marvin the Chihuahua, the big guy knew who he was looking for.

“It was clear he wanted the Cavalier,” Snickers said. “Wilfork looked confused. As far as we knew, his owners hadn’t scheduled a bath for him. I remember some of the better singers had organized a round of howling just after dinner. Wilfork wouldn’t have committed if he knew he’d be all tied up.”

What follows is based on Wilfork’s own account. Video cameras are not stationed in the grooming room and the only eyewitness is a comfort dog en route to Madrid. Efforts to reach the Golden Retriever have not been returned.

According to Wilfork’s owners, who were vacationing in the Poconos at the time, he was taken off the play area shortly after snack time. DNA evidence from milk bone crumbs is inconclusive. Wilfork maintains he was three-quarters done with his peanut butter flavored snack and had hopes to take his turn at the water bowl.

That opportunity never came.

“Before I knew it, my paws touched the cold metal table,” Wilfork wrote on this Twitter account. “I said, ‘you got the wrong dog’ but no one understood.” Within minutes, the grooming session began.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Marvin the Chihuahua said, “Wilfork can definitely make his new style work. It’s a little more dramatic than his usual trim, and between you and me, it’s not true to his breed. But, hey, it’s not like he’s doing dog shows.”

As dogs across the country have whined, once the fur starts to fly, it’s too late. It can takes months to regain the smells, knots, and barnacles they work so hard to acquire. One human, who asked not to be identified because it might comprise her job at the doggie daycare, explained how the mix-up finally came to light.

“Well, the groomer was doing the sanitary trim,” the human said, referring to a technique in grooming that shaves or trims the areas near the dog’s anus and genitals.

“I’m pretty comfortable with myself,” Wilfork said with his puppy dog eyes, “but it was a little awkward. She looked at me and, you know, I just wanted to say, ‘I told you I’m not Pearl.’”

Based on real events. Not entirely true.

Thanks for reading.

Follow @educatedmomMP or Like on Facebook.

Escape at the Dentist's

2015-07-15T21:47:00.000-04:00

I don’t need Novocain.

I’ve got kids and it’s summer.

My threshold for pain is, shall we say, higher than the average patient's. In fact, getting 45 minutes to recline in the leather dentist’s chair with only the sound of a drill humming in the background is as peaceful as it gets these days.

“You only have two tiny cavities,” my dentist said, looking over my chart. “Do you want me to numb you?”

The problem with the numbness is that it tends to stay that way for about four hours. There is one version of the shot my dentist administers that dissipates faster, but it’s still not much fun feeling like a swollen bug bite has taken over your mouth.

“Just go for it,” I said. And with that, I donned the over-sized black sunglasses and checked out for a while.

There was drilling and the suction of water, the taste of something foul, the tap, tap tap, of that sheet of blue paper that indicates how even the fillings are—and there was the quiet conversation crisscrossing above me as the hygienist and the dentist handed off equipment.

Ah, peace.

No one asked me for a snack. In fact, I was often handed a small paper cup filled with water and provided a moveable funnel in which to spit. Such service.

No one fought over who got more of my attention. Only occasionally did the dentist request that I turn to face her, but that was done delicately and in everyone’s best interest.

When it was all over, I got to use their restroom and no one followed in behind me asking where she left her dirty socks.

I paid and didn’t have to fend off requests for gum at the checkout line.

I should add that my dentist’s office is in a brownstone in Princeton. Legend has it that Einstein used to go there. It’s a stately building, still, with Persian carpets and soothing wall colors, and a Keurig machine in the quaint waiting room. My dentist is a woman about my age with two young children, whom I met at a Music Together class on her day off. I could spend all day at her place. It might require a root canal or oral surgery, but it’d be lovely.

A few hours after I got home, when the peaceful feeling of my “me-time” had been overwhelmed by the reality that followed, one nagging thought entered my mind.

Hum.

My mouth hurt.

Thanks for reading. Follow on Twitter @educatedmomMP

Help! It's Summer...Top 10 Things I Shouldn't Have Said

2015-06-11T21:43:00.004-04:00

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, times of difficulty bring about creative, or, perhaps, desperate, writing. And so it goes with the past seven days, when the the joys of summer vacation have lost their golden hue and I've sunk to uttering the phrases experts caution parents not to say.

"This is ridiculous."

"Is it 5 o'clock yet?"

And, the one that never makes it to print, "Yes, you can watch another show."

Below, however, are the Top 10 Sentences I've uttered in the past 7 days, phrases that perhaps you might recognize.

TOP 10 "Help! It's Summer" Sentences

1. Well, it’s 10am. I’m not making your lunch yet.

2. Your babysitter is a lacrosse ref. You have to behave.

3. If we were roommates, you could get upset with me for drinking the last Bai5. But I’m your mom, so, this is different.

4. I can’t be in two places at once, by which I mean, I can’t help your sister and you at the same time even if you are, technically, in the same place.

5. Thank you for bringing me the tub of yogurt. But, I’m upstairs. And you’re going to need a bowl.

6. The dog has something on his paw that is not chocolate ice cream.

7. Of course I will help you clean your closet. Here’s the thing. It’s 10 pm.

8. The days seem short to you? Tell me about that.

9. I know the pool water is cold. They don’t heat it. Apparently, because then it gets cold again.

And the favorite thing I’ve uttered to my children today:

10. You start camp next week.

Finally, the top five things I've done to keep my cool as the kids, the heat, and the inability to do two things at once get a little intense:

1. Wake up before sunrise to go to yoga.

2. Drink a mug of tea at bedtime.

3. Actually, I've only done two things. I haven't figured out the other three.

Thanks for reading. If you're counting down the days until the end of the school year...why?

LBM

MASH: Where Where You?

2015-01-31T14:14:00.003-05:00

Where were you between the years 1972 and 1983? I went from not-being-born to becoming a nine-year- old. And if you asked me what TV show I remember my parents watching throughout that decade it was MASH. I have a feeling we comprised four of the 125 million people watching the final episode in late February of 1983, which, as legend has it, created a drop in water pressure in New York City because everyone headed to the bathroom at the same time after the episode ended.

Mash is coming to Netflix (streaming I presume) in February, according to the company, and it’s being touted as another show to “binge watch.” Many of us grew up watching re-runs of the episodes through the 80’s, but the idea of pushing a button and watching episode after episode on a hand-held screen would have seemed like something from the Jetson’s.

It will be interesting to revisit this show as an adult. There were at least three misconceptions I had when I was a naïve kid catching it while my parents let me stay up late, or later, on afternoons in re-runs.

The first was that the war was about Vietnam. I was told it was about the Korean War, but I remember not knowing how to put that in context and eventually just associating the green fatigues with the ones I’d seen more recently in the news about Vietnam.

The second misconception I had was that the show was a comedy, missing the darker side to the comedy that make it, in some descriptions, a dramady or dark-comedy. Which brings me to the third thing I mistook about the show as a kid, which, as with the dark tone, would be any sexual innuendo or theme of romance.

So now that the series will be on Netflix, I’ll be seeing it from the perspective of an adult. Alan Alda, the tall, wry, doctor, Hawkeye Pierce, is now almost 80. And, as many have stated, the 256 episodes of MASH far outlived the three-year war on which it was based.

Last February, well before MASH came to Netflix, comedy writer Ken Levine wrote in his blog about what happened once they took the film from a Hollywood lab to the studio.

“Once we approved the final product the show was shipped to CBS. They transferred it to videotape and that’s what they aired. First you lost a generation due to the transfer. And then for whatever reason CBS’s color was just a bit off.”

Watching the show on disc 40 years later, Levine said the color was closer to what he remembered seeing before the transfers.

Levine’s post came before Netflix’s acquisition, but maybe we’ll all be seeing MASH in a whole new light.

This post is part of my monthly series on shows to watch, with our without the kids. I have a blog about education, "Never the First to Finish: Why Pace Matters" featured on the website Getting Smart this week. I invite you to hop on over. Thanks for reading Lunch Box Mom.

Young Lovers with a Grocery Cart...

2014-11-22T19:49:00.000-05:00

One recent Saturday night, around 6pm, I dashed into the grocery store to pick up dinner. My husband was with our kids and it was a rare trip to the store by myself, free of my two mini-me’s who ask for samples and overpriced packs of frozen kefir. I flew through the aisles with nobody interrupting my thoughts.

But then I saw them. The couples that go to the grocery store together. These were the young lovers who still had time to shop together because they enjoyed it. They’d pick out some food, go home and cook, and maybe even watch a movie. They’d watch the entire film, too, neither calling it quits three-quarters of the way through because sleep was more prized than closure, even ones Hollywood devises.

They think they’re busy, these couples on the tip of marriage. They don't have time to grocery shop until six o’clock on a weekend, after all. They don’t have a single bit of time between waking up at 10am, going for a jog, catching part of the football game on TV, and finishing the book for book club.

“Want to go out for dinner?” one of them asks.

“Let’s cook. We need more organic free trade coffee, anyway, and I’d like to pick up some chia seeds.”

And so they stroll through the aisles with a tiny basket or maybe a cart. What interesting crepuscular creatures. I was once among them.

Now, I am part of the brood of mothers who shop before they shower, early during the week or at 1pm on a Sunday when well-dressed four-year-olds lose it by the soup station. I am there next to the mothers who manage to nurse a child in a sling while keeping four others in sight with a version of hands on a hard grocery cart. Don’t touch the squares of chocolate near the register. And they don’t.

In our salad days, when we shopped for greens at Bread and Circus, my husband and I would buy some prepared food and sneak it into the movie theatre. That was before children, when we lived recklessly and saw movies in something called a movie theatre.

So I say to those young lovers in the produce section, enjoy the moment while you can. Sniff the melon together and ponder the differences between yams and sweet potatoes.

One day soon, when the kids are in grade school and your dog has white whiskers, you’ll go to the store at 6pm on a Saturday night, and be thankful that you're there....by yourself. And maybe you, too, will marvel at those young lovers who stroll slowly down the aisles, remembering when that was you.

Photo credit: click here.

Thanks for reading. I invite you to follow me on Twitter. I've got two other recent posts to share, one on The Washington Post's On Parenting blog about parents behaving badly, as well as a round-up of articles on ADHD on The Educated Mom.

When they hatch, count them

2014-09-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

I don’t count my chickens until they hatch, a habit that’s gotten me into trouble, as it did when my figurative chicken hatched three weeks early and I almost delivered her in an elevator. But it’s also saved me heartache, with several, “I never thought it would happen anyway” predictions I’d rather have been wrong about.

Still, I’ve always known, for a fact, that the calendar would eventually arrive at the second of September 2014. And for several months, I’ve known that on that day, despite my superstitious doubts, both kids would finally attend the same school. No more preschool: they’d be in together in elementary school.

One school. One drive. One calendar. One parents’ association. One place to focus our commitment to their learning.

Did I say one drive?

For the past three years, I’ve been doing what folks around here call the Bermuda Triangle. The towns aren’t that far away: twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there, a bit of traffic at the expected times. Everyone knows the drill. It’s a triangle, but you feel that you’re just driving in circles. And it’s added an extra hour and a half each day for what on paper seems to be only a few miles.

I don’t think most parents look for sympathy when they admit to hating a part of their routine that is of their own making. But can I share an unexpected moment of happiness?

It snuck up on me like a jolt of giddiness at 4pm the day before school started: an honest smile that wouldn’t leave. My husband said I was glowing. It wasn’t a compliment. He was reading a book and looked up because of the glare.

How we’d gotten into the Bermuda Triangle rut, as with most things in life, was due to a haphazard collection of choices. We found jobs, a home, an elementary school, a preschool, and bam—we were in the Bermuda Triangle.

The time-sucking danger zone wasn’t just on the literal road, it was in other things: school schedules that didn’t overlap which was a real shuffle when I was teaching full time and we had three schedules to remember. And friendships, not for my children, but for me. In some ways, I could say I doubled my connections. But to be honest, I was pulled. I was always in a rush to get to the other school and not able to commit to the things that build relationships beyond a pleasant “hello”.

These woes were all small beans in the context of larger problems, but over time, minor burdens take their toll, ones you may not appreciate fully until they’re lifted.

And that’s what happened.

While my girls took one last jump in the town pool they’ve played in all summer, my husband and I sat in the late afternoon sun, and I realized, that at long last, I could finally count my chickens.

Thank you for reading Lunch Box Mom. I invite you to hop over to my blog focused on education and parenting, The Educated Mom, to see my new post on the JoltSensor, a concussion tracking device invented by a recent MIT grad. It may change the way you watch from the sidelines.

Back to the Routine: one "No" at a time

2014-08-23T22:50:00.001-04:00

I established the first rule before we’d even left North Carolina, the last of our visits in a month of visits on the road.

“No more Sprite,” I said emphatically to my nine-year-old.

“And you,” I said making eye contact with the littler one who’d developed a Pavlovian drool near rest-stops.

“It’s over. M&M’s from the vending machines are a thing of the past.”

Vacation was coming to an end and we were going cold turkey. No more soft drinks. No more candy because it’s “11am somewhere.” No more watching Scooby Doo in the back seat for 8 hours a day. When we pulled into our driveway at home the next day we were going to be a lean, mean, post-vacation machine.

But I had a lot of laundry to do. And the dog forgot he was potty trained. And there was that super moon.

Things were pretty much a mess when we got home after thirty days away from our routine. Rules are made to be broken, unless you’re the one whose sanity depends on them.

The dog was probably the easiest to retrain.

“I don’t care if they let you pee wherever you wanted at Camp Bow Wow,” I told our one-year-old spaniel. “We don’t have concrete floors.”

The milk bones were my most effective tactic with him.

And the crate.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use either of those incentives with my human children, and I had to resort to phrases I’d used when they were toddlers.

“Whining won’t work.”

“I’m in charge.”

“No.”

Looking back, there’d been a surprising absence of that two-letter word on our vacation, and it took some time to relearn the meaning of it.

Again, the dog surpassed his sisters in this. But my tone with him was more emphatic. The threat of dog poop on the floor is just that much more intolerable than the prospect of the kids watching another episode of Guy Fieri’s Grocery Games.

It was a long process of detoxing from some very bad habits: TV as if it was an inalienable right; dessert as if it was more vital than oxygen; and bedtime, which lost all definition and meaning and became just a quaint word they heard me say from time to time, like “whom” and “post office”.

It’s been about three weeks now and things have finally settled down. In fact, the dog is fantastic.

The kids are ok, too. A regular bedtime. No expectation of Sprite with breakfast or a feature film every time I merge onto the highway.

“We’re only going five miles,” I still catch myself saying from time to time. “Nobody needs a snack!”

I am once again the alpha dog—with the dog, I mean. And we have finally re-established a very good routine for bedtime.

That should last for about ten days until school starts.

At least the dog hasn’t started Pre-K, yet.

Thanks for reading. Please follow on Twitter. I follow back, unless you're selling Sprite and M&M's to my children for breakfast.

This week on The Educated Mom, I write about the Common App Essay for college, and a private consultant who helps guide students in an era of sensational "over-sharing".

Other People's Children at the Hotel Pool: Lessons in Hypocrisy

2014-08-04T13:33:00.003-04:00

You can’t really expect the whirlpool at a hotel to rival the rejuvenating powers of the likes of Franzensbad, but on the second-to-last day of a month on the road, I’d hoped for something akin to relaxation.

The seven-year-old girl with the bobbed hair had something else in mind. While her parents swam in the deep end of the adjacent pool, this little sprite sat curled up on the steps of the hot oasis a few feet away from me.

At first it was just a trickle of water I felt dance across my nose. I turned, and she smiled at me, swirling her hand in the water.

Kids will be kids, I thought just as her older sister hurled a soggy hockey sock at us, the ball landing with a plop in the water.

I looked for the parents, who were engaged in some sort of tickle fest in the deep end. Maybe they had just finished a long drive and were trying to ignore their children. I was doing the same thing, of course, but my children were swimming laps with olympic form, nary a splash from their toes.

Eventually, the hockey sock flew past me in the other direction. I closed my eyes.

A few seconds later, water again on my face and dripping from my hair. This was no mistake.

“I do not want to get wet,” I said with a smile to the child in my irritated-patient voice, fully aware that most of my body was submerged in water. Surely the kid understood the subtleties of what I meant: I was wearing a pony-tail.

I glanced back at the parents. The mother was occupied in a snorkel-like float on her belly, but there were no tropical fish in this pool. She knew what was up.

I sighed and watched my girls.

An older couple got in the whirlpool, sipping from cold drinks. They probably thought they were going to get to relax.

Two other kids hoped in. I took a quick scan at the rules posted by the steps. You can’t use the facilities if you’re drunk or using drugs, but being under the age of 8 is apparently just fine.

Trickle, trickle. Water from the fountain of youth once again. I closed my eyes, deciding to take a cue from the mom and ignore the child. It was probably now time to get out. I was fully cooked, sweating, actually, in the way you do when you’re in 104-degree water, but there was no way I was leaving the whirlpool before the kid.

The next attack was not really a trickle; it was a full force assault. Water, scooped with her tiny hands and tossed right at me. It had all the deliberate force of a snowball fight.

No more Miss Manners.

“When I tell you I don’t want to get wet,” I said, looking the child in the eyes, “why do you still throw water on me?”

The kid didn’t say anything, consistent with her ways.

The other kids began tossing an inflatable ball around. I gave it another minute or two and then got out, wrapped myself up in a towel and sat in a chair, still hot from the soak.

The sound of screams, splashes and some laughs as the balls and hockey socks were thrown around the tiny indoor pool in the underbelly of the historic hotel in the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson.

We'd be going to dinner in a few hours, and if the karma of parenthood held, we'd become the subject of another parent's gripe you read about it in a blog somewhere.

With this road trip and soon summer coming to an end, I hope to return to writing LBM more frequently. Thanks to all my kind and loyal readers. And to those who have joined me over at the additional blog I write, The Educated Mom. Education--it's not just for parents!

Tips the Parenting Magazines Won't Tell You: Hi Folks! It's Book Club!

2014-04-21T21:53:00.000-04:00

Hi folks! Sorry about the hiatus. Now that everyone is over the stomach bug, I thought I’d send out this month’s book choice. Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World. Happy face-it’s in paperback!

A few of you wrote to say that after Travels in Siberia you did not want a book that was a) long b) not funny and c) long. So I apologize to any of you who put the book on reserve at the library. We will not be reading about the Supreme Court Justice. This month, we are reading Bossypants by Tina Fey.

Hi folks. I forgot to mention that my house is being fumigated again because of fleas. I thought we’d meet at the community room at Panera or the library.

Quick weather update-It looks like we are having a monsoon next week, so might have to reschedule.

Scratch that—it’s not a monsoon. My five year old changed my "Weather.com" profile. But we might have a hailstorm followed by a blizzard—somewhere between 3 and 17 inches. Still tracking the radar.

My power is back. Rough week. I did manage to read the first three chapters by candlelight until those ran out and I had to dip into our summer supply of citronella. While the Orkin man did a great job, I think the citronella is actually helping with the fleas! A tree fell in our driveway and my minivan is totaled, but if the sidewalks aren’t too icy, I think I can ride my daughter’s scooter to book club. Remember, Panera at 8 sharp.

Because of unforeseen circumstances, Panera will not be available. Some sort of team training for new bread-bowl bakers. I would suggest my house, but after the fumigation we have had a minor infestation of bed bugs. Not to panic. I’m not contagious. I’m wondering if the library is still available.

Hi folks, it looks like the library is not available. There is a knitting circle and I was told they do not like conversations about books. I told them we were a book club, so it was unlikely we’d be talking about the book, but they were not flexible.

Hi folks, anyone have an extra copy of Bossypants? My husband accidentally put it in the book return at my daughter’s elementary school. I do have a copy of Nancy Clancy Super Sleuth. Happy to discuss if anyone else is reading it.

Just a reminder that our book club will meet next Friday. As some of you know, I sprained my ankle. My fault. I was trying to balance too many bags of groceries and hold the dog leash and overestimated my sense of balance on my daughter’s scooter. Good news, it’s my left foot! The windshield is almost fixed on my car and once they replace the brake lights, I’m good to go!

A few of you were kind enough to remind me that we never selected a location for the book club meeting this Friday. I am looking into it.

Wine bar.

Nobody read the book.

I need a ride.

This is part of Tips the Parenting Magazines Won't Tell You, a series of occasional satires. Inspired by true enough events and the winter of 2014.

Yoga with Ace: Was this guy Fred Astaire, Frank Underwood, or Chuck Yeager?

2014-03-25T13:23:00.000-04:00

It was six-fifty in the morning and my mother and I stood by the water cooler at the gym, talking, as one is supposed to do by water coolers. We were on vacation but had woken up early to do yoga so we could relax. Sure, that doesn’t make sense, but that’s never stopped me.

An elderly gentleman, not much taller than I am, with white hair and wearing a sharp looking polo shirt and nylon sweats came over and introduced himself. He said his name was Lloyd and he asked if we were there for the yoga class.

“Indeed we were,” I said.

“Well good,” he responded. He was the teacher.

The spinning class soon wrapped up and Lloyd led us into the studio, taking his spot in front of the mirrors.

I’ve been doing yoga for about sixteen years and have never sat before a teacher who looked like an old Fred Astaire and sounded like Kevin Spacey in "House of Cards".

Lloyd had his regulars, whom he greeted with sincere pleasantries. The yoga class, and the health club of which it was a part, served not only our vacation suite, but the residents of the community. Most of the folks were retirees but, as I learned, these folks were fit.

Lloyd led us through deceptively challenging movements, his version of “Hatha” he explained. He never put his foot over his shoulder or stood on his head, but he was the real deal.

As the class neared an end, he sat cross-legged and read from a book.

“Circumstances, “ he read, “are largely determined by the discipline we employ, the friends we keep and the rules we choose to follow.” Namaste.

Then he invited my mother and me to attend the seven AM cardio dance class he taught the following morning.

I was game. So the next day I once again woke up early and headed to Lloyd’s class at the gym. I noticed a different group of regulars this time, but loyal students all the same. Lloyd put in a CD of upbeat music, a generic remix of tunes from the 90’s that kept our heart rates up. He led us through the grapevine, some basketball shuffles, jumping jacks, and more dance moves. We never shook our hips, but this older southern man in the well- pressed clothing could move.

The second part of class was floor work with weights. I hate weights. But I did what Lloyd asked. How could I not?

It was time to say good-bye, finally, and I explained that we’d be heading back home soon to New Jersey.

“Y’all come back and see us,” he said.

I left the studio and headed straight to the water cooler.

“Excuse me,” I said to one woman who’d been in class with me, “but I was just wondering if you knew anything about Lloyd. He seems so versatile.”

He was also charming, broke every stereotype I didn’t realize I carried, and was an example of how to age.

“Well,” the woman said, “I don’t know much. But he’s retired Air Force.”

Turns out Lloyd used to be a fighter pilot.

Namaste.

Thank you for reading Lunch Box Mom. I invite you to join my Facebook page, subscribe via email, follow me on Twitter or hop over to The Educated Mom. I'm exhausted just saying that....

We Serve No Wine Before It's...

2014-03-16T21:38:00.002-04:00

The weather in Tuscany was mild and dry in the spring of 1997, suggesting the vintage would be one of the best years. When my husband and I arrived in the fall of 2002 on our honeymoon, we bought a few bottles of this promising year and shipped them back to Boston. The Chianti bottles were put in a box labeled “Olive Oil” and arrived unbroken, ready to be admired, but never opened.

We took the bottles with us when we moved to an apartment in Connecticut, to an apartment in New Jersey, to our first house in New Jersey and finally to our second house in New Jersey.

A decade went by and I bought my husband a few more from the same vineyard, this time picked out at a liquor store near a mall instead of in the halls of the Italian estate. Nothing beautiful about Joe Canal's liquor store, but the familiar label connected us to a place and time we missed.

Last Sunday, to celebrate my 40th birthday, my husband made dinner and the girls and I set the table. It was still light out, thanks to the time change, and something about the late afternoon seemed quiet and calm, the opposite of the agitated anticipation I’d had leading up to the day.

“I thought we’d have the wine,” my husband said, taking a bottle out of the refrigerator where he’d placed it earlier in the day. I caught a glimpse of the label. Badia a Coltibuono. Probably the one I’d given him for our tenth anniversary from the liquor store. Special, but not, too special. Not one we’d picked out when we were twenty-eight and and didn’t have much to worry about except how much bubble wrap it took to protect a bottle of wine disguised as olive oil.

He took the cork out of the wine to let it breathe. A few minutes later, he got me a glass.

“1997?” I yelled, looking at the date on the bottle.

He poured the wine into my glass. I stared at it a while. No going back now.

I sipped.

How do I describe it?

It was uniquely still. Simply happy with what it had become. I don't think that's a perfect metaphor for my own process of aging, but perhaps I can hope.

A New York Times article from 1998, “Wine Talk; Italy's 1997 Vintage: Poised for Greatness” quotes an owner of Badia a Coltibuono, Emanuela Stucchi-Prunetti discussing the wine’s prospects when it was still all conjecture: ''It was certainly a good year,'' she said, ''but high sugars and consequent high acid levels can cause problems in the cellars.''

What would Ms. Stucchi-Prunetti say now, sipping this wine of high expectations?

Had the high sugars caused a problem? Was it somehow dusty?

For us, it didn’t matter. We’d waited. I am not even sure what for--the birth of a child, the birth of a second child, fifth wedding anniversary, tenth wedding anniversary, minor triumphs, major ones.

Was there ever the right time?

“Let’s wait," I'd have said, if my husband had asked me.

But I'm glad he didn't.

As always, thanks for reading. Join me at my day job over at The Educated Mom....

Twitter: @educatedmomMP And, Subscribe to The Educated Mom by Email.

This is 40. (more tips the parenting magazines won't tell you)

2014-03-07T22:02:00.000-05:00

This Sunday, I’m going to a Happy Hips workshop at the cozy yoga studio down the street. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to go to Lowes afterwards and check out the wall ovens.

And I’ll turn 40.

So I am a little worried about the wall oven. Every time I burn the sweet potato fries I blame it on my current one, which must be twenty years old, and, now that I think about it, half my age, but, you know, in terms of home appliances—old.

The Happy Hips, well, I suppose I do carry tension. I’m working on the multiplication tables. If it weren’t for six times seven, I think I’d be a whole lot less stressed. But what can you do? Numbers are so sequential. (That’s what I tell my 8 year old, the reason I’m revisiting the times tables, by the way.)

Speaking of numbers, 40 doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’ve felt forty for the last fifteen years. I only started looking this age, though, after I had kids. I’m not sure how that happens but it must have something to do with them sucking the life out of you.

Or maybe collagen.

So, no midlife crisis for me. I have started doing yoga at 5:45 in the morning, and I’m back to getting Rolfed, a process that feels a bit like someone taking a rolling pin to your connective tissue, but my posture’s really improved. And that’s important when I’m at ballet--waiting for my kids. That’s right, no crisis in identity; I still drive a minivan.

As for goals, the great thing is that the ones I made last year haven’t been met so I don’t even need to make a new list. That’s one of the benefits of a school year in which the kids haven’t actually gone to school much because of the polar vortex. I haven’t procrastinated; I’ve been trapped in my home with munchkins who drink Swiss Miss.

Turning forty is a blessing, I know that. And in many ways I feel I’m finally getting started. But 1974—the year the universal bar code was first used on a pack of chewing gum—seems like a fuzzy Polaroid photo away. As the distance between then and now grows each year, I can't help but feel the gap between the world I was born into and the one I live in now. And in that sense, this is 40.

I miss you all at Lunch Box Mom. Hop over the my new weekly blog if you have the inclination, The Educated Mom. Or add your name here and get the blog sent to your inbox.

Tips the Parenting Magazines Won't Tell You is an occasional series, made more occasional by my new schedule. Read more in the series here.

Have I Retired?

2013-11-07T10:47:00.002-05:00

Have I retired?

That was the question a reader (ok, a relative) asked me recently. Lunch Box Mom has not retired but I’ve been on a hiatus, putting my time into writing a play. I also write a blog for Mindprint Learning called The Educated Mom, and between the two, I don’t have much left to write LBM.

It’s not about having time. No parent has enough time. It’s about the capacity to think of something appropriate to write. This blog has usually been a place for me to write about what’s on my mind. When I began, I wrote about the agonizing period of sleep-deprivation we were going through with our youngest child. That showed me the power of a blog: strangers gave me useful advice. The blog ran in the NY Times, making something that was personal suddenly very public.

But anything on the Internet is public. Any blog, but especially a “mom blog” constantly confuses that particular relationship. We write about familiar topics or things that relate to the most intimate connections we have: our children, our function as parents, our day-to-day routines. But we send those thoughts out for all to read.

For a time, I became interested in how the non-personal became personal: contaminated children’s Tylenol, gender-stereotypes in toys, cadmium in toys, junk food for kids, the HPV vaccine.

At other times, I needed to express the absurdity of it all, and wrote Tips the Parenting Magazines Won’t Tell You, still some of my favorites.

I’ve taken two “long breaks” from the blog, but otherwise, I was pretty consistent about posting each week. The experience of writing nearly every day in preparation for the posts made me a better writer, I believe, as doing anything over and over may improve one’s skills.

So, I changed. But now, so have my kids. They are older. It doesn’t feel right to write about them as I did before. Perhaps a college admissions officer will one day read that Ava was a terrible sleeper when she was 2.5 years old, but henceforth her digital trail will be monitored, not created, by me.

And the other things on my mind: yoga, meditation, writing a play, working for a start-up, are things that don’t fit so neatly into the blog. And yet, I’m not ready to give it up. The thing I miss most on these breaks is hearing from other people. Readers. Friends. Relatives.

Over the years, a few readers, mostly moms, have asked if I ever publish guest posts. I always said no. If the blog was going to bore, offend, or delight people, I wanted the blame. But now, while I finish my play (which I cant’ talk about) and do yoga (hard to type in downward dog) and maintain my children’s privacy (it’s the least I can do), I am changing my views.

I’ve already learned how to use Blogger, and you’ve already subscribed to this blog. Why not make it interesting? I hope to return to writing posts, at the very least offer some Tips The Parenting Magazines Won’t Tell You, but in the meantime, a few friends in my writing group (which I’ve attended once) have some essays on parenthood.

When I’m not meditating, I may just get around to posting them. Drop me a line, if you have one, too.

-Sarah

Mad Men and Crayons

2013-06-20T09:36:00.001-04:00

A child coloring quietly, possessed by a creative focus. Just a box of crayons, a piece of paper and a limitless stream of ideas.

You know this didn’t happen in my house recently. We’re still in the bumpy transition into summer made glorious agony by cold rainy weather.

The quiet scene happened in a commercial for Crayola crayons from the 1960’s that I saw a few days ago while visiting the Crayola “Experience” in Easton, Pennsylvania.

The “Experience”, once called “Factory”, was a good rainy day outing for my two girls. They designed their own labels and affixed them to fresh crayons, they watched a magic marker become filled with ink, and we sat through a twenty minute performance starring two animated crayons and an actual human who explained how non-toxic crayons are made of paraffin wax and pigment. It was before this show started that we sat captive watching old commercials.

The commercials from the 60’s seemed to be of a series, each with the same tone and intensity. The camera moves in from behind or close to the shoulder of a child, as if we’ve been invited into the inner monologue of the young person who is living out a fantasy through his or her work. We hear the voices of the children, or in other cases the voice of a male actor--slightly smug, cool, and not very salesman-like.

At the end, there’s a memorable line, setting the crayon apart from other toys or fads.

Fifty years ago the Mad Men were playing on parents' desires to give children something valuable and a box of crayons was presented as the alternative to gimmicky, battery-powered distractions. If the influx of those toys was swelling then, now it feels the wave has exploded into an overwhelming ocean of electronics. And in some ways, we are on the other side of the threat implied in the ads. Watching the old commercials, I realized not many ads or products today so overtly suggest that our children's own creativity is enough. I am more aware of the push to augment their talent, or take it to levels that would not be found within them alone.

I don’t know if it was nostalgia, brilliant advertising, or honest sentiment, but I spent a lot in the gift shop on crayons.

This commercial on YouTube was not the best of the ones I saw in Easton, but it’s a good example of the tone.

Thanks for reading.

Just Shred It

2013-06-12T12:11:00.001-04:00

I recently bought a shredder, and the rest is history. Or should I say my history is shredded.

The papers that are now gone, testaments to an age before digital, were filed neatly in storage folders that I hauled around without thought. Eventually, after more than a decade of accumulation, the important documents had reached an age of no importance.

It was time to let go.

Did I need a rental agreement from 1998? My name wasn't even on the lease.

Probably safe to shred.

Perhaps the lease didn’t need to be so thoroughly pulverized, but I’d reduced the process of cleaning to two choices: keep or shred.

Those duplicate checks the bank sent by mistake? Shred.

My husband’s taxes from a year before I met him? Shred.

Taxes for both of us for several years after we met? Shred.

Pay stubs, bank accounts statements, receipts, old insurance cards, documents about our first house.

Shred. Shred. Shred. Shred. Shred.

I’ve had my identity stolen, and the initial impetus for shredding these papers was to lessen the likelihood of it happening again. But the process of revisiting the papers was emotional.

I felt that the person who kept such meticulous files had changed, at least in a literal sense. I no longer have the time or inclination to save a receipt from Kinko’s, file it, and lug it to three states and five dwellings.

That temperament and those papers were from a bygone era; one that needed paper and possession.

That thought struck me most when I found a small folder designed to hold business cards. These cards were once valuable--the information was not easily found online, you would not be scanning the card into a computer, or receiving contact information from an email, and the best way to reach someone was still through calling them on an actual telephone on a number not everybody had.

I am not sure when the year 2000 started to feel like ancient history. But the more papers I had to look at, the more the time appeared remote and unconnected.

This week on The Educated Mom we look at our first question for our Summer Series: When can a child walk to a friend's house alone?

The Cowboy at the Pump

2013-05-28T10:08:00.003-04:00

It was a disgustingly humid and sticky day last week when I pulled into a gas station near empty. There were at least six other cars at pumps and I figured I’d be in for a wait.

Seconds later a man rolled up to the pump across from me in a big truck. He was a landscaper by the looks of the logo stenciled to the side. Without waiting, he hopped out of his truck, put a credit card into the pump and began doing what I have not seen in ten years: pumping his own gas.

“What’s going on?” I thought.

I can’t tell you how quickly my mind raced: Was he not from these parts? No, his plates were from New Jersey. Did he know the owner? Had something terrible happened and there was a suspension of state laws?

He wiped some sweat off his face, pulled up his blue jeans and strolled into the quickmart.

Meanwhile the college girl in front of his car, impatient and probably motivated by what she’d just witnessed, got out of her car and attempted to finish her transaction without the attendant.

We are always on the brink of chaos, aren’t we?

The man in the truck came back, now with a large can of iced-tea. He popped the top and tossed it down, drinking it as if it were a cold beer. The vision gave me a flashback. Was I back in Texas?

No. I was still in New Jersey. It was humid after all. And the man was not wearing ropers.

My cowboy finished filling up before the attendant handed me back my credit card. He was long gone when I said, somewhere between a question and a tattletale: "That guy in the truck filled up his own tank, you know?”

The attendant looked at me with a smile. It seemed he didn’t speak much English. He'd had one less customer to tend to on that miserable day, I am not sure he was so saddened by my report.

If you look up the law, though, it was this attendant and not my cowboy, who’d have gotten stuck with a fine for daring to fill up his own pickup. According to the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act:

34:3A-6. Dispensing of fuel; regulations

It shall be unlawful for any attendant to: a. Dispense fuel into the tank of a motor vehicle while the vehicle's engine is in operation; b. Dispense fuel into any portable container not in compliance with regulations adopted pursuant to section 8 of this act; c. Dispense fuel while smoking; or d. Permit any person who is not an attendant to dispense fuel into the tank of a motor vehicle or any container.

As for the fine: A violator of any provision of this act shall be liable for a penalty of not less than $50.00 and not more than $250.00 for a first offense and not more than $500.00 for each subsequent offense.

I don’t know if the attendant or the retailer would have had to pay the fine. But I have little doubt that someday you'll see my cowboy at a pump again.

This week on the Educated Mom, we look at the Cognitive Style of dogs.

The Missing Sock: Would You Pay More?

2013-05-21T09:51:00.000-04:00

Recently, a friend and I had a conversation about socks. Not where most of mine were, although I’d love to know, but how much people were willing to pay for them. It started when I mentioned my concern over where my children’s clothes were manufactured.

I may have had good intentions, my friend acknowledged, but most people don’t follow through on them.

The socks she mentioned were part of a 2006 study, “Consumers with a Conscience: will they pay more?” Quentin Fottrell summed up the study well in a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch article last month (Would you pay more for fair-trade socks? Why shoppers don’t care about Bangladesh).

Given the choice between socks, one pair identified as being made in Good Working Conditions-no child labor or sweat shop conditions—and those with no description of working conditions at all, only fifty percent of consumers would buy the GWC socks even when the prices were identical. When the price of these socks went up, even fewer.

Fottrell’s article describes one reason why this might be the case, quoting a co-author of the original sock study, professor Ian Robinson. “Most people are conditional co-operators,” he says. “If other people pay more for ethical products, they will. If other people don’t, they won’t.”

We’ve certainly seen a swell of popularity for Toms shoes, it seems possible that “peer pressure” can be effective in creating a brand that is desirable and ethical. But as a parent dealing with laundry, as well as a conscience, there are a few things I’d add to the sock dilemma.

First, buying more expensive and ethically made clothing means buying less. If close to 80% of clothes bought this year eventually ends up in a landfill, according to a story on NPR this morning, it seems many of us are buying more than we need.

Second, the quality of what we do buy, not only the conditions in which it’s made, needs to be high.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Am I the only mother who has found that the clothes I bought for my oldest child—ones that have weathered years of washing and are now hand-me-downs for my youngest—are better made than the ones I might buy new right now from the same stores? I’m not talking about traditional “fast-clothing stores”, either.

My husband’s shirts—again, the same brand he’s used for nearly two decades, now develop rips on the elbows after a year. Our dry-cleaner said the fabric is cheaper these days. Her advice: my husband should stop using his elbows so much.

When it comes to children’s clothing, would I be part of the 1/3 of consumers who would follow through on good intentions and pay more for clothing made in good working conditions? I’d like to try. I don’t think I’d be perfect.

A cursory search on the Internet to find information about retailers did not yield the most easy-to-follow guidance: A t-shirt here, a pair of shoes there—clearing house of ratings with pop-up adds for stores I already use.

Recently, I ordered two shirts for my oldest from a company that uses organic cotton. Of the factories, I know nothing, however.

The purple shirt arrived in a week. The label said, “Made in China.” According to a chart in the New York Times, garment workers in China may make $500 a month compared with $37 in Bangladesh.

The green shirt arrived a few weeks later. Except for the color, it was identical to the purple one. Then I looked at the label. “Made in the USA.”

As confusing as a missing sock.

This week on The Educated Mom, we follow up our post on Summer Reading with a look at Math.

(Continue to) Listen To Your Mother

2013-05-11T20:21:00.005-04:00

Readers may remember Ann Imig, National Director of Listen to Your Mother, live performances of poems, stories, and monologues celebrating motherhood.

It’s been two years since my post on Ann, and the reach of LTYM has spread to several more cities across the country. I caught up with Ann recently to find out what’s new.

How has Listen To Your Mother grown since last we checked in? LTYM has (more than) doubled in size each year. From my first Madison show in 2010, to five shows in 2011, to ten in 2012, to TWENTY FOUR in 2013.

Where will you be this year? This season I saw the 2nd annual show in DC, the 2nd annual show in Chicago, the 3rd annual show in Austin, and I'll host my 4th annual show in Madison this Mother's Day Sunday.

What is your goal for the years ahead?My goal is to facilitate getting LTYM to as many cities as want to host it, while maintaining the mission, the vision, and what's left of my sanity.

Can you give us a sneak preview into one story or monologue from this year that you think is pretty great?One piece of the dozens of brilliant stories I've already heard this season that took my breath away and left me weeping in my seat in Chicago, is a love letter of sorts from Liz Joynt Sandberg to the mothers in her church-- a spoken word ode to the every day details of mothering, and her fervent wish that they could even for a moment see themselves the way she sees them. I'm tearing up even at the memory.

And for those who want another way to listen to a mother, my eight-year-old can't put down this interesting book on the presidents' moms: First Mothers by Beverly Gherman with creative illustrations by Julie Downing.

Happy Mother's Day. May you get to sleep late.