ReadySetMom

Nominations for sainthood

Today I'd like to take the time to nominate Mrs. Kris Moore to sainthood. Kris is the dedicated, hard-working head teacher at Burlingame Cooperative Preschool, where both of my kids have attended. While dropping off my 4-year-old this morning, Mrs. Moore invited my older daughter to stay and be a "big girl helper." You could not have given her anything finer. The love she has for that little school and her first teacher cannot be measured. What a wonderful gift to me as well -- given I had no clue how to keep my child occupied this morning in this long, long week of no school and with a household full of crabby, coughing constituents. Now I can cough, and sneeze and blow my drippy nose in peace for 3 hours. It's the little things in life that make it all worthwhile, no?

Anyone you'd like to nominate to sainthood this Thanksgiving?

I wuv you, too, thweetie.

My son is four and cannot say his R's, S's, Th's and L's. His pediatrician insists he will grow out of it. He did give us the name of a speech therapist but also said that the guy would probably send us home to wait it out. So we're waiting. Up until a few months ago my son was never really aware that his pronunciation was any different. But every once in awhile he'll make a concerted effort to say 'love' instead of 'wuv.' He'll stick out his tongue to say the 'L' but then suck it back in and say the 'W'. It's pretty cute. A little pathetic, but cute. My daughter is really good about not making fun of him (it's amazing how well kids respond to threats!), though occasionally I will tell him that I wuv him, too, which I think is starting to annoy him. (Which only makes me want to say it more.) It's not like you can't understand his words -- I think he speaks very clearly -- but he just can't form his tongue and lips to make these certain sounds. I have a hard time imagining him just 'growing out of it.'

Do you have kids with this issue? Do you have kids who've grown out of it? At what age, and did you seek speech therapy?

Countdown to Halloween: are you ready?

I spent a little time over the weekend putting the finishing touches on my kids' Halloween costumes. My 6-year-old is dressing as the Statue of Liberty (although if you ask her it sounds much more like the "Statue of LiVerty" -- which has a nice ring to it). My 4-year-old is a mouse. It's the first year they had some real say in what they wanted to be, and I didn't try to coax them into some matchy-matchy costumes. Hey -- it was what my mom did when we were kids. I can't help it.

Over on EnviroMom, I put out a Halloween challenge to "buy nothing new" for costuming my kids, and I'm super pleased with how cute the costumes came out. The creation process was a whole lot less stressful than usual (when I create everything from scratch). With bonus points for frugality -- probably spent about $10 bucks at rummage sales and thrifts on both costumes with the majority of it just being stuff we found around the house.

What are your kids going to dress as for Halloween this year? Are you ready?? Looking for last minute suggestions? We posted a bunch of great ideas and photos of super cute Halloween costumes on EnviroMom.

Looking for some guidance on the topic of divorce

Last week, my son told me that a friend's parents are getting a divorce. I don't know the parents well, so I was shocked and asked some followup questions to make sure he had his information straight.

Yes, he said, it was true, and his friend, David (not his real name), was really excited because his dad was moving to a new house with a cool attic. David didn't seem upset about the divorce at all, according to my son.

This gave me a good opportunity to talk with my son about divorce and what David might be feeling, even if he wasn't showing it.

My 9-year-old has several close friends who are in blended families, but being around a friend in the midst of divorce is a new experience to him. He asked me several questions -- the kind that are hard to answer whether or not you know the circumstances: Why are David's parents getting a divorce? Where will David and his sister live? Will they still be a family?

We've invited David over for a playdate next week. Part of me wants to prepare my son somewhat so he is sensitive to what David might be going through. On the other hand, maybe what David needs right now is something "normal" in his life, like a run-of-the-mill playdate with a friend. I don't want to inadvertently inject any awkwardness into the situation.

If you've been through this, what did you tell your child? If you were a child of divorcing parents, what did you find helpful in your life?

Unwelcome visitors at the bird feeder

A while back, I wrote about all of the action at our bird feeder .

Then came the mice.

We'd see them poking out of holes in the ground underneath the feeder, where there was no shortage of bird seed scattered about. At first we thought it was cute how we'd see them scamper in and out.

Then came the mice droppings. In the house.

We called the pest control company, which set traps under the house and closed up the clandestine openings into the crawl space. When the pest control worker saw the bird feeder out in the backyard, he shook his head and said we might want to get rid of it. It's still there, but we're not filling it with seed.

My husband keeps giving me this sad look and remarking on how much he misses the bird show. I miss the birds, too, but our pet hamster is absolutely, positively the only rodent I want in or near the house.

Does your bird feeder attract mice? Is there a way to put out the welcome mat for the birds but not for the rodents?

When will the fundraising onslaught end?

The school fundraising bombardment is upon us, and I am feeling besieged.

In the weeks since school started, we've been asked to write checks for gift wrap, a read-a-thon, book fair, pink flamingos, a pancake breakfast and scrip. The requests to contribute to the school's annual art auction, the biggest moneymaker of the year, are already rolling in and it is still months away. To top it off, my son's in 5th grade, a major year for raising funds because it's his class' final year at the school and they work on a big legacy project.

I don't fulfill all requests for funds, mind you. Even without the huge economic mess that is swirling around us, I usually pick and choose which activities to support and which to decline. Also, there are only so many times we can hit up family members to sponsor the kids, especially now that both of them are in elementary school (at Forest Park in Portland).

But what is more worthy than my children's school? If I'm going to donate a finite amount of money this year, I'm definitely going to funnel it to the place where my children spend six-plus hours a day.

Are you feeling similarly besieged and pinched? Is there a constant stream of requests coming from your school? Or do your children attend a school that makes one lump-sum request at the beginning of the year to cover many activities? 

Apparently, I really am a PC

I am loathe to admit it, however.

After years of working on my trusty Dell desktop, I encouraged my husband to purchase a MacBook Pro for school use (he's working on an MBA). I pushed for the Mac because I get SUCH GRIEF from friends (ahem) who insist Mac is the ONLY computer on the planet and certainly there must be something wrong with me for having a PC in my life. So I drank the Kool-Aid and we got the Mac off Craigslist with much hand-holding from Renee's Mac-geek husband (and I say that with affection).

But I hate it! Where is my delete key? And I don't mean the 'delete' key that is masquerading as a 'backspace' key! How come I've lost formatting options on my blogging platform? Nothing is where it's supposed to be! I find it inconceivable that people can actually easily switch from a PC to a Mac. Is the learning curve really this steep, or am I really this clueless? (Don't answer that.)

So, Bill Gates, you got me. I am a PC, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

What about you? Mac? PC? Pen and paper?

Sliding down the hill

When the sun came up this morning, this is what I saw from my kitchen window:

It's hard to see in the photo, but a house used to stand where that brown hole is. The house is actually about a quarter to a half mile away as the crow flies, but it sat on a hillside opposite mine, with a valley (Capitol Highway), and, obviously, a lot of trees running through the middle. The noise woke me up at 5:30 this morning. We keep our bedroom window open, so it was pretty loud. At first I thought it was thunder, but then it sounded like someone was dragging their trash out -- that scraping sound on concrete. But then I heard falling debris and rocks, and I knew something terrible must be happening. I waited for sirens and heard them about ten minutes later. Cue the helicopters. As the news has been reporting all day, a house slid about 300 feet down a hill in the North Burlingame neighborhood, knocking into other homes along the way. Amazingly, thankfully, no one was injured.

My house sits on the side of a hill, as do many on Portland's westside. It's not on as steep a slope as the one that fell, but my husband and I have talked about it sliding down, jokingly. Doesn't seem like a joke anymore. They haven't said why the house slid, but landslides around here are usually due to several factors: rain softening the hillside; felled trees; construction. Most of the houses around here, like mine, are at least fifty years old, if not older. But you do see new homes being built on these steep slopes -- they have to cut down trees, bore into the hillside to make it level, then shore it up with steel beams and boulders. It's insane, and it's dangerous.

This won't be the last house to slide down a hill in Portland -- half this city is built in the hills. Do you worry about it? Have you taken any measures to prevent it from happening?

UPDATE: I just came across this information: The Southwest Hills Residential League (SWHRL) is hosting a community forum on landslides and natural hazards planning in SW Portland. Controlling storm water run-off will be discussed. The forum will be from 7 to 9 pm, Thursday, Oct. 16, at Ainsworth Elementary School, 2425 SW Vista Ave., Portland. For more information contact info@swhrl.com.

Halloween: is it happening in your neighborhood?

Last year Renee and I took our kids trick or treating around our neighborhood, and I gotta say I was underwhelmed. (It is all about me, after all.) Our neighborhood is not much of a Halloween neighborhood -- it's dark and hilly and half the time people aren't at home. I think we saw about five other families out and about. For two years prior, I always took the kids trick-or-treating in Eastmoreland with friends. Now THAT is a neighborhood that knows how to do Halloween! There are mobs of kids and the houses are all decked out and the candy bars are BIG.

Half the fun of Halloween is showing off your costume and seeing other costumes, right? You (as in 'I') go through the effort to get a costume together, you kind of want to show it off. But if few people are around to see the costume, then what's the point? (I'm totally projecting right now. Do kids even care about this?) I'm not even sure they can wear their costumes to school in first grade. Basically, I want my kids to have the Halloween that I used to have in my own neighborhood. Or is this an epidemic? Are other neighborhoods not doing the Halloween thing? I mean, I want to support our neighbors that have made the effort, and I know they'd like to see the kids, but...eh.

What are you doing for Halloween? And, does one parent take the kids trick-or-treating while one stays home, or do you leave a bowl of candy out? While we're at it, what are your kids going as this year? (I've got one original Oompa Loompa, and one who changes her mind every five minutes. Today it's Captain Huggy Face.)

Photo from Free Digital Photos.

Letting an older child stay home alone

My 9-year-old has just started staying home by himself for short periods of time.

The decision to allow this didn't come easily. We live in a safe neighborhood and he generally has good judgment. But I still think of him as a small kid and I watch entirely too much scary TV news. Leaving him at home by himself felt irresponsible, even though he is about the age when it is considered appropriate.

Before his first home-alone experience, we had him take a Red Cross class called, "When I'm in Charge." It covers personal safety and first aid issues, how to correctly answer the door and phone, and gun and internet safety. It was a good class that involved a lot of role playing and went over written materials that were easy to follow. The class is designed for kids 8 to 11 years old.

The first opportunity for staying home alone presented itself on an afternoon when my daughter had soccer. My son didn't feel like coming along, and since it was just for an hour and I would be only five minutes away, I agreed he could stay home. But not before we pulled out the Red Cross book, went over key points (know my cell phone number, dad's cell phone number and 911) and agreed on a phone strategy (he could answer when he heard my voice on the answering machine).

Since then, he's been home alone a couple of times. He usually calls me a few times, which is fine, and all in all it's working out. I am a natural worrywart, so we are going to continue on this path with baby steps. But it is definitely a good thing that he's learning responsibility and gaining confidence in his own judgment and abilities.

What is your experience with leaving a child home alone? At what age do you feel it is appropriate? When would you allow your child to carry a house key?