No more cheap sunglasses

Until now, I have never owned a pair of fancy sunglasses. Typically I buy pre-smudged, pre-scratched shades for $15 or less at the drugstore.

Last summer I classed it up a touch, spending $20 on "designer" shades from Filene's Basement. Since I managed to avoid losing them for an entire year, I felt like I might finally be ready for a pair of grown-up sunglasses.

Expensive sunglasses.

Ray-Bans.

Crappy Blackberry self-portrait

I picked out my favorite pair at Sunglass Hut, but forgot my wallet. Used that as an excuse to scour the internet for a cheaper price, but figured the $15 I'd save buying them online from some sketchy sounding site wasn't worth the wait--particularly since we've got a mini roadtrip coming up this weekend.

So what do you think?

Bad guys

My fearless child

This weekend Z came racing into the kitchen to tell me A was on the sidewalk, 2 houses away. I ran outside and shouted out her to come back, reminding her that she's not allowed to go outside without telling a grown-up and she certainly can't walk away from the house "without a big kid or an adult."

Carried away, I finished with "I need you to be safe. What if there was a bad guy out there?"

"Bad guys are just pretend!" A retorted.

Given that the kid's not even 4 yet, and I don't want to scare her with the terrifying but ultimately very remote possibility of encountering a "bad guy," I let that slide. But it might be time to check out that Stranger Safety video again.

Also from this weekend, the annual gym show!

Z leads the Super Mini Stars
A and the Young Mini Stars

May his memory be a blessing

The first 12 years of Blessing's life pass in comfort. Her father is loud and drinks a lot, but in her eyes, he is the lovable big man who swings her and her brother up onto his shoulders as soon as he returns home from his cushy government job.

Then her mother catches him in the arms of another woman and flees Lagos to move in with her parents in their primitive rural home. Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away  is the coming of age story of a girl uprooted, a family in turmoil and a country in chaos.

Seeing her father for who his really is--not the king of the family, but a flawed character -- a failure, really--is key to Blessing's initiation into womanhood.

And so relatable. I was 8 years old when my charmed childhood came to a screeching halt. Dad had an affair and my parents separated. I met the Other Woman. I hated her. I hated my Dad. Divorce was on the table.

Although my parents reconciled and the separation only lasted about half a year, my father's betrayal forever colored my opinion of him. I admired his charm, his professional successes and his smarts, but I couldn't shake the feeling that deep down he wasn't a good person.

My Dad died of a sudden heart attack 9 years ago this week. When loved ones die, Jews say "May his memory be a blessing," and my father's memory is a blessing.

A mixed blessing.

I received my copy of Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away as part of my membership in the From Left to Write Book Club. Instead of critical reviews, we write posts inspired by the book we've read.

If the bra fits...

Many experts believe that men's underwear sales are a leading economic indicator. When the economy's bad, they'll wear threadbare briefs, but when they are feeling flush, they'll splurge on new pairs.

I think I may be a man.

While I've actually made a major effort to invest in cute panties this year (l'm a fan of the Gap's cotton hipster style), my bra collection is bordering on vintage. I've got a drawerful of Wacoal and Body by Victoria bras I've purchased over the past 8 years, but since the Loehmann's where I bought the Wacoal bras closed and Victoria's Secret smells like a cross between a florist and a whorehouse, I've been letting my underthings get a little long in the tooth.

So when Wacoal invited me to get professionally fitted and gifted, I yanked off my shirt faster than you can say "Show me your tits." They say most women are wearing the wrong size bra, but at first measure, I was still the 34C I knew myself to be. But even within the same brand, not all bras are the same. And the cute bra I picked out from Wacoal's sexier, more youthful b.tempt'd line fit me better in a 32D.

The fitter advised me that when looking for a perfect fit you want to make sure the band doesn't creep up your back. Sometimes that means going down a band size and up a  cup size. She also gave me this great shopping tip: buy a bra that initially fits on the tightest hook setting. As you wear and wash it, it will eventually get stretched out and you can adapt by fastening it a bit tighter.

Josh, a champion of cute new undies, is also lending strong support to the purchase of sexy new bras. Funny how that works.

Old photos bring back a flood of memories

Me and Eleanor, 6 and 4

I remember the napkin holder and bowl

My mom bought a slide converter and has been uploading old photos to the web this week. Most of them are from 1980-82, so I was roughly the age my children are now. Many pictures are ones I've never seen before, and it's amazing how small details bring back a flood of memories.

Seeing my sister and I glumly posed in matching embroidered peasant dresses reminded me of how much we hated to be dressed in itchy, identical clothes (although similar outfits in different colors those pictured here were okay).

Most impressive is how seeing little details of our home has brought back so many tactile memories of day to day life as a child. Gazing again upon the rag carpet, cane-backed dining room chairs, plastic tablecloth, concrete block bookshelves and the cheap woodgrain storage drawers where Dad kept his cassette tape collection gets me wondering how much of our daily existence is burned deep within my children's memories. What will they remember?

Those suspenders were a prized possession

The Learning Goal Fair

On the drive to the local elementary school after dinner, Josh complained he wasn't feeling well. He snapped at the girls, asking them to keep their voices down. I warned him that the volume in the car was nothing compared to what he'd hear at the Learning Goal Fair.

And I was right. Oh Lord, how right I was. The classroom was packed cheek to jowl as parents and other students (and their parents) squeezed through, gaping at the posterboard displays on Parts of the Butterfly, Square Foot Gardening, Flags of My Family and Justin Bieber. I was proud to see that Z's was one of the projects clearly completed with virtually no parental help. Some looked like Mom or Dad had done the bulk of the work.

Sick Josh bailed 20 minutes in and went home to crawl into bed, leaving me with a hyper 1st grader and a 3 year old beyond excited to join the big girls (Z and her similarly skinny and bright BFF) as they showed off their research projects and chased down their friends ("There's Gabe--let's go chase him!").

I'm not proud to say I actually lost the girls for about 10 minutes.

Still, I found them, brought them home and put them to bed by myself. Did I mention I got my mommy mojo back? Thank you 1-2-3 Magic.

When life gives you lemons, you walk

Image courtesy of Derby Lite

In my head I imagined lacing up my skates with 100+ Derby Lite gals and gliding along the lakefront for today's ACS Walk & Roll. My only worries were sunburn and what I'd wear--leggings, Derby Skinz or both?

But it seems someone pissed off Mother Nature in a big way. From last weekend's picture-perfect weather to the record 90 degree high on Wednesday, the mercury went plunging to a bitter 42 degrees. Add wind and rain, and you have a pretty good picture of what things looked like this morning in Grant Park.

Still, 37 Derby Lite troupers walked 5 miles in the cold and wet, blowing on our fingers, wiggling our numb toes and sharing memories of the grandparents and parents we'd lost to cancer. As a group, we've very close to raising a total of $100,000 over the course of the last 4 years. Just an extra $25 per participant will put us over the edge. If you haven't already sponsored me, would you consider doing so now?

The whiny post

It's a cliche to complain that my life is busy, I know. But the last month has been such an overwhelming blur that I'm (almost) savoring 2+ hours of alone time. Even if it is with a glass of mediocre Merlot at the Cincinnati airport bar.

What's been keeping me go-go-going? It's not one thing. It's the pace of my job. We're working on more projects and at a faster pace than before and the boss I've loved working for just moved up and off the business. The good news is that he isn't being replaced and I'm getting to fill his role. The flip side is that I feel enormous pressure to not only do my job perfectly, but to keep my team, my account counterparts and my clients happy.

Add to that my position at our local Montessori school. I'm winding down after nearly 2 years of service as co-president of the board, but every time I feel like things are going really well, another fire flares up. It's emotionally exhausting to deal with so many personalities and issues and try to do the right thing all the time. And thing is, I care. I really do. Even when my term ends in the late summer, I can't wash my hands of the school. I love the community and I'm committed to sending A there for another 2 years.

There's the change in the seasons, too. While I love spring and summer and my mood thanks the sun for every moment of light and warmth, with the warmer weather comes more commitments: soccer games, gardening, picnics, yard sales, festivals and impromptu gatherings with friends and neighbors tempt the minute I leave work and all weekend long. And longer days make it harder to wind down the kids after dinner. Because who wants to take a bath and read a book when there's a basketball game outside your window?

Speaking of the kids, A is fully in the throws of the terrible 3 and three-quarters (to borrow a phrase from Whitney, who's daughter Scarlett is the same age). She can throw a temper tantrum like nobody's business, and there's no "hey, look at this fun toy!" distraction possibility like there was a year or so ago when she could be "redirected."

If you've been reading my blog for long or know me personally, you know I'm not usually such a Debbie Downer. So I'm going to end this post and try to cheer myself up with 3 2 Things to Look Forward to this Weekend.

1. I'm skating 10 miles in the American Cancer Society Walk and Roll on Sunday. It's still not too late to sponsor me! I've raised $742 and my team as a whole is up to $30,000+.
2. Friends are coming over for dinner on Saturday evening.

Happy Mother's Day to Me

Paul Goyette took this picture right before A's recital

My loot:
Josh bought me fancy beer and liquor and loaded up the iPod Shuffle I'd won with workout music. I ran 2 miles listening to Lady Gaga and 3 repeats of Faith No More's "Be Aggressive" (maybe I won't use the shuffle in shuffle mode next time).
Z brought home a "breakfast in bed" bag she'd assembled at school that included an orange, a packet of instant coffee, a homemade blueberry muffin and "If You Give a Mom a Muffin," a clever spoof of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," her teacher wrote and Z illustrated.
A gave me a flower seedling, a hand-painted card and an extra half-hour of sleep.

My day:
I let Z skip Sunday school and we all had brunch on the patio at Maya del Sol. We played at the park for a hour or so before Josh and I left the girls with a sitter and impulsively headed downtown to see Werner Herzog's 3D Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Probably a bad idea to waste a beautiful afternoon sitting in the dark watching a film about cave paintings, but it was pretty fascinating nonetheless.

For dinner had our neighbors over and fired up the grill for the season's first brats, dogs, coleslaw and s'mores. Eaten outside.

I couldn't have asked for a better Mother's Day. And that's taking into account the fact that A threw a world-class, every-neighbor-could-hear-it fit over not getting "the pink cup" at dinner.

Friendship

A has been driving us crazy with her temper tantrums, refusal to nap and general orneriness, but her friendships with other little girls are blossoming. [Focus on the positive. Focus on the positive.] Check out these snaps of her with one of her BFFs, Rachael. Not only is she a classmate, she's the younger sis of one of Z's best friends and soccer teammates.

Shake hands with a hero

I hope Osama bin Laden's death brings a measure of comfort to those who lost loved ones on 9/11. The timing, however, is serendipitous. Just last night, two hours after Obama broke into a broadcast of Celebrity Apprentice (and eight long years after President Bush declared "Mission accomplished"), my team launched a digital program for Kroger and Procter & Gamble that lets all of us show our gratitude to American servicemen and women.

Please participate at HonoringOurHeroes.com. Our goal is to get 50,000 people to offer a virtual handshake to one of the 300+ Kroger grocery store employees who active duty soldiers in the service.

My foodie husband's got a blog

Have you checked out Josh's blog, Fishsticks and Ketchup? He just posted reviews of the Oak Park area's latest burger joint and first Vietnamese restaurant. Stay tuned for his review of the most talked-about restaurant in the country, Next. We're among the 7000 people to get tickets to their Paris 1906 menu and we're going on Thursday.

The Happiest Mom: We have a winner!

Congratulations to commenter #2, Shylo Bisnett, who said this about her key to happiness: "Even though I stay at home, I finally realized that the best thing for me and my toddler was to send him to pre-school. We needed time away from each other and I need time to be with myself. I felt guilty about spending the money, but my son is flourishing and I have time to train for a triathlon."


Shylo was selected using Random.org. Thanks to everyone who played!

Walk and Roll update and the promised picture

Thanks to many of you, I've raised $742 for the American Cancer Society with help from 16 donors via my Walk and Roll participant page. And, as promised, I'm sharing a photo of myself in full derby regalia--fishnets, short shorts, knee socks and safety gear.

I'll be putting on my outdoor wheels and lacing up my skates for the 10 mile course on May 15, 2011.

Bring your kids to work...

Z with the McDonald's gang. "Who?" 

...And fill their bellies with junk and minds with TV commercials. What? Is that my working mother of the year award? You shouldn't have.

I brought in both girls for 3 1/2 hours of Kellogg's, Coke, Hallmark and McDonald's brand experiences (they're all Leo Burnett clients). The highlight of the day was the make-a-mess room where they could go bananas with finger paints, shaving cream, bubbles and silly string before cleaning up with the new Delta Touch faucet. The girls also got a kick out of posing on a green screen and getting themselves edited into a Coke ad.

A customizes a Pop Tart

The low point was the interminable waits for overcrowded elevators (a problem every year) and standing in an unmoving line for face painting. We finally bailed in favor of popcorn and slushies from the print room and mini chair massages before dad drove up to get them home. And I could get back to work. Real work, that is.

Bring your kids to work day 2010
Bring your kids to work day 2009

This Energizer ad is terrible

There are a lot of mediocre ads out there, but it's rare to come across one so head-scratchingly bad as this one for Energizer Max batteries.

But I'll start with what's good not terrible. Energizer is partnering with the National Park Foundation. Cause marketing is lovely and while I certainly need batteries for my flashlight when I'm camping in the woods, it is a little disingenuous for a disposable battery brand to associate itself with the environment. But if you look closer, this isn't really a cause marketing campaign. If you buy 3 specially-marked packages of Energizer batteries, you get the $10 award in the form of a prepaid MasterCard or PayPal deposit. Or, if you're particularly generous, they will donate it on your behalf. Just don't try claiming that as a deduction on your tax return!

The image at the center of the ad, with the image of nature superimposed over the battery window, it's fine. It makes literal sense of the association. The headline, "Get a $10 reward and explore America's National Parks through Energizer" is a bit of an overpromise as $10 doesn't even pay half of the entry fee for one vehicle at Yellowstone. But the worst part of this ad--by far--is the completely baffling use of a city harbor and skyline. Hell, the water takes up half the page! If anyone can explain this staid image's connection to National Parks, to battery usage, even to cash rewards, I'm all ears.

Like auntie, like daughter

My sister-in-law Bethany's been calling A her mini me since she was born. She may have a point.

Rub-a-dub-dub, it's all fun in the tub

My 3 year old has quite the imagination. Even bathtime offers no respite from her nonstop talk-out-loud fantasies. Tonight all of the tub toys were lined up on the edge for some kind of elaborate game.

 

Jellyfish, wow!

When your 1st grader has spent the last 2 months diligently working on a research project on jellyfish (complete with a hand-written book, model jellyfish and poster display), there's no way you're going to say anything but "Hell, yes!" to a Blogger Brunch invitation at the Shedd Aquarium and a chance to see their new Jellies! exhibit, even if it is scheduled for 8am on a Saturday morning.

The event itself was pretty disorganized. The parking lot we'd been directed to was closed and breakfast consisted of a table of coffee and massive jelly doughnuts (get it?) tucked away in a room full of duffles and sleeping bags from the previous night's "Sleeping with the Fishes" overnight. In fact, the PR staff kept having to shoo tweenagers away from the refreshments, asking "Are you hear for the media event?"

The jellies are beautiful and mesmerizing to watch, but their stinging tentacles are not the only reason to fear these ocean-dwellers: it turns out global warming, pollution and ocean acidification are actually good for jellyfish--making them a scary harbinger of bad news.

The Happiest Working Moms

I'm honored and delighted to host today's stop on Meagan Francis' virtual book tour. I've known Meagan since the early days of the Chicago Moms Blog (R.I.P.), and in the years since, she's added a fifth child (her first girl) to her beautiful family, moved from the big city to a much smaller town in southwest Michigan, and shifted her writing career into overdrive. 


The Happiest Mom is not unlike Good Enough is the New Perfect--also just released--in that its focus is on not sweating the small stuff, something increasingly hard to do in this age of hyper-parenting. But while Good Enough is a fairly weighty read of interviews and research into the lives of happy (and unhappy) moms with demanding professional lives, The Happiest Mom is a light, cheerful book full of quizzes, tips and adorable illustrations. It's not unlike an issue of Parenting magazine (who partnered with Meagan to publish it) in that you can open it to any page and find immediate inspiration in the form of a helpful hint. 


In The Happiest Mom and on her blog of the same name, Meagan speaks to a broad audience of SAHMs, WAHMs, part-time working moms and full-time working moms, regardless of their academic or professional ambition. So I challenged Meagan to come up with her top tips for happiness for moms like me--those of us who are as dedicated to our career selves as we are to our children and have upended traditional roles to become the primary breadwinners for our families.


Even though I'm a working mom, in our household my husband and I have still stuck to fairly traditional gender roles...at least, on the surface. But like many families, we're slowly working toward a more equitable division of labor: both the kind that happens in the home and the kind that pads the bank account. 

And we're just one face of the changing modern family. Maybe in your partnership the roles have been completely reversed: you're working outside the home while he's caring for the kids and getting dinner on the table. Or maybe you're a single working mom, or both you and your partner work full-time outside the home. These days, there are almost as many different variations of work-life arrangements as there are individual families.

No matter how you and your partner juggle life, work, and kids, my "secrets" of happier motherhood can apply to you. Here are three I think are particularly relevant to working moms:

1) You don't have anything to prove. As a busy working-out-of-the-home mom, my sister Kathreen used to feel obligated to chaperone every possible school field trip and head up the PTA, just to prove she was really caring and involved. After many years of giving all her personal time to the school, she realized she was volunteering more out of guilt than because she felt really strongly about accompanying her child to the zoo...and as for the PTA, well, it was time to pass the baton. Lucky me--by the time I got to have school-aged kids, I was able to follow my sister's example and limit my volunteering without guilt. 

Sure, maybe some moms shake their heads behind my back because I don't appear to be as involved as they are, but who cares? I don't have anything to prove to anyone besides myself and my own family...and there are many ways to contribute that don't include a lot of classroom face-time.

2) Do what you're best at or enjoy most, and delegate the rest. I actually love to clean...a few very specific areas of my house. As for the rest? Between deadlines and a toddler hanging off my leg, there's no way I'd regularly get around to cleaning my own baseboards or dusting the ceiling fan blades. My solution is delegating. 

My kids and my husband pick up a lot of the slack, but because my husband also works and my kids are still pretty young, there's just no way we can do it all. So we have a cleaning person, Lynda, come in twice a month to do the real dirty work. Worried about affording her services, I did the math, and realized her pay is about the same as the cost of a premium cable package.

I ditched the cable and never missed it. On the other hand, I'd miss Lynda something terrible.

Cleaning is just an example, of course. From grocery shopping to cooking, from schedule-keeping to managing your finances, chances are good you'll do a better job of juggling if you delegate the stuff that brings you down or just doesn't seem to fit. 

If you can't afford to hire something out and it doesn't seem all that important, another option is just ignoring it. After all, will anyone really notice if your baseboards aren't clean? 

3) Deconstruct guilt.
"Don't feel guilty" is easier said than done. And I'm not totally anti-guilt: I think real guilt (the kind you feel when you freak out on your kid for no reason, for example) is a useful tool that can let us know when we are on the wrong path. But nothing gets in the way of making confident decisions and enjoying life like free-floating, non-specific guilt. Whenever I'm feeling vaguely guilty but can't quite pinpoint a cause, I ask myself questions like these:

• Why do I feel guilty? Specifically, what did I do or not do?
• Is somebody else's opinion causing this guilty feeling?
• If so, does that person's opinion matter?
• Have I actually harmed anyone?
• Will my child (or spouse) remember this in a month? How about a year?
• Is there anything I can do to make this situation better?
• Are there positive sides that I'm not looking at?

And so on. Usually I find that the more I start to deconstruct what I'm feeling in relation to what's actually happened, the less and less guilty I feel. Sometimes I realize I'm feeling guilt over something silly, and that even though I, say, forgot to turn in the Scholastic book order (AGAIN), it isn't actually doing my child harm. Other times I realize that even though my child might be sad or disappointed (say, because I'm going away for the weekend for work) that there are positive sides (a fun weekend with Dad or Grandma!) and that I can ease his sadness with some special together time on my return.



Is Meagan's advice amazing, or what? I want her to move back to Chicago and next door to me so I can hear this kind of stuff every day, in person, over a glass of Pinot Noir. The only piece of wisdom I have to add is that just because you're working full-time doesn't mean you have to devote 100% of your nonworking time to your family. Meagan touches on the importance of pursuing your own interests in The Happiest Mom, but I find too many working women feel guilty about spending one more hour away from their children and avoid joining a book club, volunteering, or joining a roller derby team. I'm hear to tell you that you can do all of the above. Just not if you care to watch television ever again.


Do you want to win a copy of The Happiest Mom? Leave a comment here or on Facebook with your key to happiness, be it something you do...or something you don't. I'll select a winner in a week or so.

Happy Passover

Why is this Pesach seder different from all other seders? For starters, because it was 90 percent read/led by my precocious 6 year old. But also because we continued a childhood tradition of dying hard-boiled eggs with Easter egg dye and placing the prettiest on the seder plate.

My in-laws joined us around the seder table this year, and while A barely made it through our abbreviated 30 minute seder without losing it, it was a pleasant meal and one my children are sure to remember. Josh cooked a fantastic roast chicken and matzo ball soup as well as sweet potatoes and homemade horseradish. I contributed the charoset and Smitten Kitchen's addictive chocolate toffee matzo, which I sprinkled with pecans and sea salt.

And I'm because I'm still not tired of sharing pictures of my new dining room...

Happy Passover!

Two toys I'm raving about: Tegu blocks and Uno

In advance of yard sale season, we've been going through a massive toy purge at our house. Our girls are getting older and it's becoming clear not only which toys they've outgrown (Little People), but which toys have staying power (Playmobil sets), which are only intermittently interesting (puzzles) and which can disappear without anyone even noticing (those poor neglected stuffed animals).

We've also brought two very small new playthings into the house. Remembering fondly my own childhood obsession with Uno, I purchased a deck of Uno cards for Z at Walgreens. Hands down, it is the best $6 I've ever spent. Not only does my 6 year old want to play every single day, Josh and I actually enjoy a quick card game or two against our strategic little Uno player. And since A knows her numbers and colors, she can play too, with some assistance.

I also accepted a toy for review for the first time in many months. Tegu is a socially responsible company that makes these marvelous wooden blocks embedded with tiny magnets. They sent me a $28 Tegu pocket set with a little woolen carry case (not much larger than a deck of cards) which I promptly slid into my handbag.

People, A gave up the iPod touch to play with Tegu blocks as she waited for her gnocchi to arrive at Jimmy's Place. And once again, the parent play factor can't be ignored. I love the little click the blocks make as they snap together into tiny wooden beds, desks, chairs and robots. The smooth wood surface is pleasant to handle, and with their perfect size and magnet attraction, the blocks are intensely satisfying to tinker with. They're pricey, but I'm tempted to buy more.

An early taste of summertime

Winters in Chicago stink, but this city sure knows how to enjoy a warm day! With temps in the 70s on Saturday and mid-80s (!) today, we spent most of our time out-of-doors, rollerskating, scootering, yard sale-ing, biking and playing at the park. Z bonded with her buddies and A made new friends wherever we went. It was simply glorious.

Good enough is the new perfect: the book

It seems like the more I'm on my game at work, the less I shine at motherhood. And it isn't about time at the office versus time at the dinner table. I get home at a decent hour, but I've been so focused on ideation and creation and presentation that I seem to have misplaced my mommy mojo.

You see, Josh left to review a show last night and both girls were up late, fighting sleep and in tears two short hours after I was bragging about how easy they were to a prospective babysitter. And today I earned parenting demerits from Josh for making Buckeyes batter before lunch, for failing to get A to nap, and for letting the kids play at the park too long.

Good thing perfect parenting is overrated. In their new book Good Enough is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood (out April 19th), Becky Beaupre Gillespe and Hollee Schwartz Temple, the work-life balance columnists for the American Bar Association Journal, interview dozens of working women and comb through hundreds of surveys to determine what makes us happy. The answer, not surprisingly, is that the "good enoughs" among us are happier with our jobs, our spouses and our children than the "never enoughs." And while in our culture of perfectionist overachievers "good enough" is often interpreted as "you suck,"between the demands of our children, our jobs, our spouses and our own personal needs, something has to give. And it shouldn't be our happiness. Because you know what they say, if mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy.

Fortunately, I am happy. One of the hardest things about Josh and my gender-role reversal is I have to accept that--through practice and familiarity--he has become the more adept parent. He knows our children's routines and can read their moods better than I can. The bonus points I earned from breastfeeding and baby soothing (especially late at night) have long since expired.

My happiness comes from hanging up my supermom cape and realizing that my kids are thriving regardless of whether or not I'm packing every lunch, volunteering as room mom or watching them at swim practice. Not only that, I have obligations that take me away from my family multiple evenings a month. But I refuse to feel guilty about maintaining my friendships, nurturing my passions and staying fit. 

That said, I need to re-master the bedtime routine if I'm even going to qualify as a "good enough" mom.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of the book at no cost. I was not required to write about it and all opinions expressed are my own. 

Have you read Unbroken?

The story of Louis Zamperini, a ne'r do well kid turned Olympic runner who enlists as an officer during WWII, goes down with his plane and fights off sharks only to be further tortured as a POW in a series of horrific Japanese camps, is the focus of Unbroken, a newish nonfiction book by the same woman who wrote Seabiscuit.

My mom recommended it to me when she was last in town, and I suggested it to my book club, who gathered in my dining room to discuss it last night. I took a couple of photos before my guests arrived.


Note the new paint on the walls, the buffet I bought off craigslist last Sunday and the food. Emily set the bar high last time by serving a very English spread of shortcake, strawberries and homemade (!) lime curd for our discussion of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. How was I to keep up when Louie spends three-fourths of the book starving. I couldn't very well serve filthy, bug-infested rice balls or raw shark liver, so I pulled from Louie's Italian heritage and offered working mom-friendly antipasto assortment courtesy of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's: Parmesan-Reggiano and Provolone cheeses, a beef salami, marinated artichoke hearts, olives and Josh's homemade crusty loaf. "Dessert" was strawberries and Hershey bars.

Reading this book while following the crises in Japan was disconcerting, to say the least. On the one hand, I was watching the media's coverage of the immense challenges facing the poor, unfortunate elderly Japanese citizens living on the northwest coast and being reminded of the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On the other hand, I was finally learning about horrors a very racist, brutal country inflicted on its neighbors and POWs 60 years ago and how Hiroshima could have been prevented had the Japanese not been so unwilling to accept defeat. All of us were surprised we'd grown up so well educated on the Nazis and the Holocaust and so fuzzy on the details of the Pacific front beyond the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I recommend Unbroken without qualifications. It is a highly readable story about a truly inspirational character that gives today's reader a thorough education our war with Japan and a profound respect for the men and women of the greatest generation. At the very least, reading about the Louie's incredible trials (starvation, daily beatings, humiliation and torture) will put into perspective the relatively minor challenges we face today.

Changes are afoot in the Klein house

First it was the spring cleaning--clearing out toys my kids have outgrown and clothes I haven't worn all season for whatever reason. Then it was the rearranging of Z's room to accommodate a desk and chair and the clearing out of other rooms to get painted.

Last week we had our dining room, master bedroom, A's room and the bathroom professionally painted. I'm anxious to share before-and-after photos, but I want to wait until the rooms a little more "done." So I'm looking for rugs, reconsidering the placement of art and--in the most dramatic move--rearranging the dining room to make it less of a play area and more of a grown-up space.

Please, please arrive tonight!

The art table is going to go downstairs. The 7 foot bookshelf will be relocated or sold and a vintage sideboard (pictured) is coming in. I'll finally have a buffet and a place to store platters, extra silverware and the china set my mom's been threatening to give to me for the past decade!

Anyway, the piece is a 1958 Davis Cabinet Company Walnut buffet. Kate went with me to Edgewater to check it out in person last night and I handed over my $250 in cash. Called a mover I'd used to collect my dining room table and chairs and he agreed to pick it up after we finished our (delicious!) dinner at Big Jones. Only he got waylaid and now the plan is to have it picked up and delivered to Oak Park tonight. Fingers crossed all will go well.

Lucky, lucky me (to be in Miami)

This--THIS--was the incredible view from my 14th floor corner unit hotel room at the very luxurious Fountainbleau in Miami Beach Tuesday. And yes, I sat by those inviting pools with two of my old colleagues, finishing Unbroken and wolfing down an Indian-spiced shrimp wrap.

What did I do to deserve this Cinderella-at-the-ball treatment? I said yes to participating in a panel discussion at a shopper marketing insights conference. And it turned out to be a really fun panel, filled as it was with lively, personable, funny representatives of each generation.

Baby boomers Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender are professional speakers/retail snoops and hilariously self-deprecating. Apparently Boomers want large print labels and no-slip carpet floors in stores, but it's "not because they're old!" Marketer Isabel Villegas represented the Gen X Latina (dispelling the myth that Hispanics aren't heavy Internet users and reinforcing the stereotype that they like to shop in big family groups) and I offered the opinions and concerns of the Gen X mom ("It's a scary world in which to be raising small children. We're looking for brands that incorporate sustainable practices, reduce packaging, treat animals humanely, and give back to the community.") Our token Millennial was Sasha Halima, a quick-witted tell-it-like-it-is PR gal in NYC and avid blogger/tweeter who shared Millennials' close relationships with their moms ("I call my mom from the store and ask her what brand to buy").

Since the rehearsals and our actual panel took up only 3 or 4 hours of my time in Miami, I was able to take a bus to Lincoln Road mall in South Beach and soak up the atmosphere in the uber-cool lobby lounge Bleau, which is lit from below and features live music.

Catching the stinkeye to Miami

I got a robocall from American Airlines about an hour ago. My 7:45am flight to Miami was canceled and now I'm leaving O'Hare at the ungodly hour of 5:45 tomorrow. I've yet to count backwards to figure out for what time I should be setting my alarm clock so that I can be showered and in the O'Hare security line by 4:15.

Why am I flying to Miami during spring break? If you guessed it was to watch my children frolic in the pool at the Hotel Fountainbleau, guess again. I'm spending not quite 2 days in Miami Beach so that I can represent the Generation X shopper at SymphonyIRI Group's annual summit. I'm on a panel designed to give senior marketers a taste of the differences between shoppers of different generations. It's not entirely unlike the Mom Blogger panel I participated in 2 years ago in Las Vegas, but this time I'm even more professionally prepared. Not only as a shopper born in the mid-1970s and a mother, but because I work specifically in the shopper marketing discipline.

Since it's a panel discussion, I can't predict exactly where the conversation will go, but I'm hoping I will get a chance to talk about social shopping (everything from checking out product reviews to asking for opinions on Twitter on Facebook), category-specific paths to purchase and mobile-enabled shopping behaviors. I've also been asked to come up with Moms' Top 5 Fears. Using a pseudo-scientific blend of Leo Burnett BrandShelter research and my own survey of mom friends, I came up with the following.

1. Gas prices will go up

2. My town, city or state will raise sales, property or income taxes and fees

3. Feeling of powerlessness in the face of natural disasters, global warming, religious fundamentalism and corporate greed

4. Bullying/cyberbullying

5. Unable to save enough money for retirement and children's college educations


How do these fears align with yours? It's not too late to tell me!

The karma of sharing kids' stuff

The coat, dress, tights & shoes are "new"

While I'd donated money to the Red Cross to support those affected by the triple crises in Japan, I welcomed the opportunity to help in a more personal way last week. A friend I know from a private online mothers group was arriving in Chicago from Tokyo with her husband and two little girls. Due to the relief effort going on, their airfreight wasn't going to leave Japan any time soon. And while the weather here is still bone-chillingly cold, all the stores are selling spring and summer clothes. Exclusively.

So I ran around the house gathering up extra coats, hats, sweaters and mittens and brought them downtown to hand off to her husband. While I was at it, I rounded up some outgrown toddler shoes and boots for my coworker's daughter.

And karma came back to me in a big way. Saturday morning one of the mothers from Z's 1st grade class swung by with three bags full of hand-me-down clothes and shoes from her (slightly bigger) daughter. Not only did the clothing provide 2 hours of entertainment for a playdate (the girls matched outfits and put together a pajama fashion show), it has entirely relieved me from buying Z sneakers, leggings and pajamas for the next year! And Saturday afternoon another friend came by to return Z's 12" bike, which I'd loaned to their daughter late last summer. The sun might have faded the bike seat and handlebar cushion, but they'd added training wheels and a sassy/shill ladybug bell, making it a thrilling arrival for A, who's decided she's ready for a big girl bike this summer.

What's wrong with a good, old-fashioned spelling bee?

Maybe it's my competitive side, but I was disappointed to find out that my daughter's elementary school has replaced the classic spelling bee with something called "The Great Lincoln Spell Check." Unlike a spelling bee, which rewards the very best spellers with fame and glory (and their parents with pride and joy), the Spell Check requires students to solicit pledges from friends and family for each word they spell correctly on a grade-wide spelling test. And it's a fundraiser, of course, with the monies benefiting the school PTO.

We were given the 50 words all the first graders will be tested on and, while Z stumbled on 3 or 4 of them the first run-through, she could spell them all correctly within about 15 minutes. Which means I need to figure out how much I'm willing to donate to the PTO and divide it by 50 to come up with my pledge per word.

It's a bummer because Z's a fantastic speller and I know she'd kick some major spelling bee butt.

Happy Purim

Two Queen Esthers

The Jewish religion isn't exactly brimming with happy, festive holidays, but we do have Purim. Imagine the costume parade and sweets of Halloween mixed with the retelling of a classic story and plenty of with noisy audience interaction (this year our temple did it in the vein of A Prairie Home Companion) -- all capped off with a kiddie penny carnival.

To say the kids had fun would be an understatement. Between the dressing up, the carnival games, the moon bounce, the cake walk (which A won!), the hot dog lunch and the prize table, it was pretty much a child's dream come true. And unlike previous years, when all of the entertainment was crammed into the social hall and it was all you could do to keep your under 4s from getting trampled, this time the games and entertainment were spread out throughout the building. It was, dare I say, fun.

Speaking of Purim, I've been recommending The Gilded Chamber for months. It--like The Red Tent--is a highly readable retelling of a famous Hebrew Bible story. In this case, it is a sexed-up story of the Megillah (the Purim story) from the perspective of Queen Esther, a Jewish woman who rises up from the harem to marry the king and save her people from the evil machinations of the king's advisor.

The Purim carnival wasn't our only entertainment this weekend. Friday night Z and I attended the First Grade Night Out at her elementary school, which consisted of an hour and a half of circle dancing in an 80 degree gymnasium. I had to strip off my sweater to avoid passing out, but it was a blast. And on Saturday Z and her dad accompanied some friends to see a community youth production of The Wizard of Oz while A and I enjoyed a rare day alone together. We hit up story time at the library and had a lunch date at Blue Max. Then she pretended to nap and I finished Mockingjay while we waited for her best buddy from preschool to come over for a playdate. Saturday night Josh and I left the girls with a sitter. We had wine and cheese at the Marion Street Cheese Market and then went to a local tennis club for a friend's 40th birthday party.

Share your breakfast

I had coffee and a bowl of cold rolled oats with milk and dried cherries for breakfast this morning. Before I dug in, I snapped this picture and uploaded it to Kellogg's Share Your Breakfast. For every breakfast "shared," they'll provide breakfast to a hungry child.

Just snap a picture with your camera phone and text the word SHARE with the photo or a description of your breakfast to 21534.

I think it's a great cause marketing program with a compelling social media component. And I'm not just saying that because it came out of my agency, Leo Burnett. (I didn't work on it personally.)

Art by Z: Hummingbird

Parent-Child Night

One of the joys of our Montessori preschool is the annual Parent-Child night, when parents join their children for one hour in the evening. We attended 3 years of Parent-Child nights with Z, but this was our first time with A as our personal tour guide to the Montessori materials. We watched her methodically clean a mirror, pour tiny beans into tiny cups and assemble the binomial cube. She carefully cut paper along the lines and showcased her proficiency with "number work." We'd arranged to have our 13 year old neighbor babysit for Z while we were out, but in a stroke of luck, she called in sick just as one of Z's classmates called to invite her over for what turned out to be an evening playdate.

Small, small tragedies

It's been an expensive week.

Wednesday night I came home from roller derby practice and forgot to close the garage door. Our garage is not attached to our house, but I'm forever nagging Josh to close the door because bike thefts are rampant in Oak Park. This time it was I who forgot to double-check, and by Thursday morning our GPS and Josh's electric guitar, which he'd uncharacteristically left in the back seat, were gone. (Our bikes were still there.) Loss: approximately $1400.

Friday morning I tried to make a piece of toast for breakfast and discovered our 13 year old toaster oven wouldn't toast. Friday evening Josh heated it up to make chicken nuggets for the kids and the damn thing caught fire. Loss: approximately $25, although we're spending more than that to get the smaller version of the fancy toaster oven that Whitney and Cook's Illustrated recommended.

Then Sunday morning we were gathering in the kitchen for breakfast. As Josh made coffee and I opened a package of bacon, A was dancing in a circle with a Cinderella board book in her hand. She spun, let go of the book and sent it crashing through one of our kitchen windows, shattering it. Loss: we're getting an estimate tomorrow, but I'm guessing not cheap.

While I can't help but whine a bit about this week's almost comic series of misfortunes (there are advantages to having a personal blog), my complaints are being kept in check by the disaster in Japan. A broken window, a broken toaster oven--even a missing GPS unit--these are minor inconveniences compared to the mounting tragedies facing the Japanese people. I thank G-d for the comforts and conveniences I'm enjoying while their nation faces the triple threat of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear radiation. Scary, scary stuff that's so much harder to watch now that I'm a parent.

It's off topic, but while you're writing your check to the earthquake relief agency of your choice, would you also consider sponsoring me in the American Cancer Society Walk and Roll? I'm committed to roller skating 10 miles with Derby Lite and I'm raising money in honor of my late grandfathers, Robert Silverman and Hollis Limprecht. If 15 people donate, I promise to post a photo of myself in full derby regalia.

A portrait of my young artist

Now 3 1/2, A is showing an incredible aptitude for most everything she's introduced to (sleeping until 6am is still a work in progress). She's thriving at Montessori school, learning the continents, memorizing songs and manipulating the practical life and sensorial materials in the classroom. She advanced into level 2 at swimming lessons in a single session and got top marks on her gymnastics report card.

But what impresses Josh and I the most about our second born is her blossoming artistic ability. From the scribbles and circles she was drawing just 6 months ago have emerged people and animals with recognizable heads, faces, hair, bodies and limbs. She's even adding necklaces, earrings and shoes to her princesses and sisters. And she's prolific; we're getting 5-10 pieces of self-directed, self-created art a day. She sits down at the kids table, helps herself to markers and paper and draws. And draws. And draws.


She asked me to show her how to draw a spider the other day, and then spent the next 30 minutes hunched over, drawing 10 of them, including a "mommy and baby spider," a "grandpa spider" with a beard/wrinkles, and spiders of various colors and sizes. She cut them all out into roughly evenly sized pages and asked me to staple them into a book. Then she wrote "captions" opposite each page consisting of clusters of the capital letters she feels comfortable writing: N, O, W, H and M.

It's getting increasingly tempting to hang onto her little illustrations, but I remain a ruthless recycler, snapping a pic and burying deep in the bin every last masterpiece.

It's 32 degrees and sleeting: time to plan for summer camp!

The lottery for Oak Park Park District Summer Camps is Thursday, March 10th at noon. They supposedly send out their brochures the first week in March, leaving families a hair over one week to plan their children's summers. In actuality, we received the booklet on Friday and many of our friends haven't gotten it yet (although you can view it online in PDF form).

In preparation for registration, I printed out information about every camp under consideration for this summer, from the aforementioned park district day camps to sleepaway and local Jewish camps to arts camps, zoo camps, swimming camps and special learning enrichment camps. I sent our friends a link to a Google Docs spreadsheet where they could share their camp choices and set up my own personal planning camp at the dining room table with a pencil, blank calendar and checkbook in hand.

It's a dance, figuring out our summer plans. I have to factor in Z's interests, A's comfort level and nap schedule, our vacation plans and Josh's tolerance for driving all over the place. I ended up programming most weeks to my satisfaction and Josh's approval, giving Z 2 weeks of swimming lessons, 2-3 weeks at sports camp, 1-2 at a general day camp, 2 weeks at an eco-explorers camp and 2 weeks of art camp. There are a lot fewer options for the 3-turning-4-year old set, so A will spend most of the summer at her Montessori school's summer program. She will, however, get a taste of day camp and a week at art camp with her sister.

I can't imagine how frustrated I'd feel if I wasn't tuned into the summer camp early registration craze--if all these deadlines somehow slipped by me. Now I just need to set my calendar to remind me to register the minute swimming lesson registration goes live--two years ago Huskies filled its most desirable swimming sessions in the first 2 hours.


 Fellow Oak Parkers, while you're registering for summer camps, don't forget to buy your polar bear pool pass and sign up for the Spring sports lotteries--Z's hoping to play soccer!

Lady Gaga, Virgin Mobile and me

Lady Gaga fans practicing their poses outside the Virgin booth

Thanks to a full time job and children who don't understand the allure of sleeping in after Mommy's had a late night, I don't go to as many concerts as you might expect of the wife of a rock critic.

But hell would freeze over before I'd turn down the opportunity to see Lady Gaga live. You can get Josh's professional opinion of the show from his Time Out Chicago review, but suffice it to say she delivered exactly the spectacle I expected. In fact, she went way beyond mere spectacle: she's not just outrageous costumes, hot gay dancers and glitter. The Lady seemed so down-to-earth—so committed forging a meaningful connection with her Chicago fans and making all her "little monsters" feel loved and free to fly their freak flag high.

And I think I deserve an honorary freak flag for being one of the only concert-goers still wearing the same outfit I'd worn to work. Only the cute Boden dress, bright purple tights and green mary janes that had garnered so many compliments back at the office looked positively tame lame next to the costumes surrounding me. Men and women paraded around the concourse dressed like every possible incarnation of the Lady, as 1980s flashbacks (think early Madonna), and as a cavalcade of Pride Parade and burlesque dancers.

Since I never quite take off my marketing hat, I have to salute the sponsor, Virgin Mobile, for its savvy on-site activation of their tour sponsorship. From a photo booth in the lobby to a mid-show call to a fan in the stands from Lady Gaga to the posting of text messages on the jumbotrons to a donation to the performer's favorite charity (LGBT homeless youth), they managed to be ubiquitous without being distracting.