The Catch-Up Post: the Big Move

I haven't written here in over a year and thought I should drop a line or two to catch people up.  I've been busy particularly busy working and coordinating the lives of two increasingly social children (and one husband and dog), which has gotten in the way of free moments to blog about it.  Facebook status updates seem to have filled that need to share my goings-on with friends and family .  But there is one big announcement I have not yet made on Facebook---we are MOVING out of Los Angeles.

Ryan got a new job in Sacramento, so we will be moving to Davis, CA.  I don't have a job there yet.  I'm still down here working at the current job through August while he has moved up there.  The kids are down here with me but they start school there in a few weeks.  We are selling our house.   I am moving up there in the near future.  There is a ton to write about.   There is a ton to pack.  Packing wins out for now.  But meanwhile a few thoughts:

I feel really nervous and upset all the time.  I can't fully relax because this move is not something I wanted to do, and I'm unsure about what I'm getting into.  I was quite happy, especially at work, and in where we live.  I love our neighborhood and it's gotten even better since the Expo construction is done and the stop opened up the block from us.  I feel the way I felt when we had to put our dog to sleep and had a few days with him before he died.  Knowledge that our time here is about to come to an end tinges the last good days with sadness.  I have been crying a lot.  I have been throwing out a lot of things that I wouldn't want to get rid of but I don't want to move either.

We have been fixing up lots of small things we should have done a long time ago but hadn't gotten to.  We've been spending a ton of money on things like new living room furniture so the place will look nice when we sell it.  Touch-up paint all around, new blinds, new carpets, new lights in the kitchen, new fixtures, etc.  There has been lots of drama with little projects and delays with tradespeople and orders coming in late. I have been at Lowe's so many times the past few weeks that they know me and ask where I've been.

Since the house is so "freshened, painted and cleaned, it looks great but it's hard to relax there because we can't, say, set down a coffee mug without worrying we might stain the grout or spill on the new carpet.  Being so "tidy" and anal about keeping it clean is so not me!  For the kids, most of their toys and books have been packed so they've been getting a lot of screen time and it's giving them that zombie-face and they give me attitude when it's time to unplug and go to bed.  They have been going to camp during the day, which keeps them busy while I'm at work.  But it's expensive, and so is eating out almost every meal because we aren't supposed to cook in the newly painted and cleaned kitchen.

I've been applying to a few jobs up there but only one phone interview so far, and they let me know up front that they took a look at my salary history and can't match it.    So I'm waiting to hear back from a job I maybe don't even want if it means doing harder work (difficult because I don't know much about the new organization) for less pay.

I know exactly one person in the whole 100 mile radius of Sacramento, so while I may have free time at first with no job, I won't know anyone to have adventures with.  We are renting a house for a year so at least I can give my Lowe's trips a rest for awhile.  (I'm sure there will be reasons to update things even as renters but not on the scale of our recent activity!)

The upside is that we needed a bigger place anyway as the kids get older and take up more space and want their own rooms.  So we're getting more room, and hopefully the real estate market will go down AFTER we sell, BEFORE we buy anything else.  I'm trying to look at it as a one-year sabbatical.  If we don't love it there this year, we'll move back to LA. Or try a new city.  But it's not a lifelong commitment if we don't want it to be.

So, follow along on my adventure in the next few weeks as we say farewell to beloved Los Angeles, my home for the past 17 years, and in the coming year as we say hello to a whole new world in Northern California.  After all of the unpacking, I'll finally have time to write about it!

Big news- new "baby"!

Our big news is that our family has gotten a little bigger.  Announcing the adoption of Trixie the Dog!  She is a Karma Rescue mutt of unverified lineage.  Speculation is corgi/shepherd/pit bull mix.  One of her ancestors gave her a long, low body with short little legs like a corgi or a basset hound.  She has a wrinkly face like a sharpei and she is mouthy like a Labrador.  Here are some photos.  What do you think?

What I Know About Car Seats After a Car Accident in California

A few times lately I have had this conversation with friends who got into a car accident and I thought I would type it out here.  *Note: I am only up on CA law here, I'm not informed about other states* Did you know that if you get into a car accident and there are car seats in the car, the insurance company will likely pay to replace them?  

CALIFORNIA CAR SEAT LAW
AUTO INSURANCE COMPANIES INSURANCE CODE SECTION 11580.011

. (a) As used in this section, "child passenger restraint system" means a system as described in Section 27360 of the Vehicle Code

.

(b) Every policy of automobile liability insurance, as described in Section 16054 of the Vehicle Code, shall provide liability coverage for replacement of a child passenger restraint system that was in use by a child during an accident for which liability coverage under the policy is applicable due to the liability of an insured.

(c) Every policy of automobile liability insurance that provides uninsured motorist property damage coverage,as described in paragraph (2) ofsubdivision (a) of Section 11580.26, shall provide coverage for replacement ofa child passenger restraint system that was in use by a child during an accident for which uninsured motorist property damage coverage under the policy is applicable due to the liability of an uninsured motorist.

(d) Every policy that provides automobile collision coverage or automobile physical damage coverage, as described in Section 660, shall include a child passenger restraint system within the definition of covered property, if the child passenger restraint system was in use by a child during an accident. 

(e) Upon the filing of a claim pursuant to a policy described in subdivision (b), (c), or (d), unless otherwise determined, an insurer shall have an obligation to ask whether

a child passenger restrain t system was in use by a child during an accident that is covered by the policy, and an obligation to replace the child passenger restraint system in accordance with this section if it was in use by a child during the accident or reimburse the claimant for the cost of purchasing a new child passenger restraint system.

(f) An insured, upon acquiring a replacement child passenger restraint system, may surrender the child passenger restraint system that was replaced to the nearest office of the Department of the California Highway Patrol

A tip I got from a car seat safety bulletin board is that if, let's say the car seat was unoccupied, but you feel there was damage anyway, and the claims adjuster does not want to pay for a new seat, say the following: "I request that XX Insurance Company write me a letter declaring financial responsibility should this car seat fail to perform in future."  According to the post, insurance companies will generally replace the seat rather than write the letter.

They for sure will replace if the car seats are occupied when the accident happens.  This is true even if you think the accident was minor.  And if they were empty yet the accident has obviously damaged them (i.e. the car was totalled, or you can see damage) then they will.  If not, if it was a minor accident and they were not occupied, then it falls into a gray area but you can still fight to have them pay. A car seat can appear to be fine but suffer structural damages that are unseen, and why would you want to put your child at risk?


If arguing with insurance, you can quote this fairly new CA state law (2010) that makes it against the law to resell a car seat that has been in an accident: 

 27362.1. (a) No individual may sell or offer for sale a child passenger restraint system that was in use by a child during an accident involving a motor vehicle. (b) A violation of this section shall be punished by a fine of one hundred dollars ($100).

Therefore, your collision, however minor it was, has taken away any resale value the seats may have had.  Check Craig's List.  For example, your 2011 Frontier might have fetched you $125.  But now you can't sell it when you're done.

If you have a Britax car seat, then Britax states that it is okay to continue using it if the accident is minor.  This is from their website:

Q. Can I continue to use my child seat after it has been involved in a crash?

A. BRITAX recommends that the use of a child seat be discontinued if it has been in a moderate to severe crash. We further advise of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) position that it is not necessary to replace a child seat after a minor crash.

A minor crash is one that meets ALL of following criteria:

1. The vehicle was able to be driven away from the crash site; AND
2. The vehicle door nearest the child restraint was undamaged; AND
3. There were no injuries to any of the vehicle occupants; AND
4. The air bags (if present) did not deploy; AND
5. There is no visible damage to the child seat.

  So you could be in a situation where you convince the insurance to reimburse you for a new one, but the old one is still fine.  Don't feel bad about it, remember that it is illegal for you to resell the old one. So you can keep using it but now you have a spare seat!
  So what to do with the old seat once the insurance company has paid for a new one?  The claims adjuster may ask you to turn it in to them, or to cut the straps and take a photo of it.  Or, they might ask you to turn it in to your CA Highway Patrol office, where the CHP will give you a later stating that you have surrendered it.  They want you to cut the straps so that no one will come across it in the trash and use it or sell it.  But if you get a chance, take off the cover and keep that.  Then if you buy the same kind of seat, you'll have an extra cover.

Hunkering down and staying in

Hi to my loyal readers!  Sorry I have not posted in awhile (besides the coconut water post I just did which I wrote over the summer and saved to draft) but a lot has been going on.  The biggest changes are that I am working in the office more (interesting projects, too!), William is in nursery school now 4 mornings a week plus one full day, and Lauren has switched schools to the one around the corner.  This is narrowing our world so that we can walk her to and from school, I can bike William to school and I could (in theory) take the bus to work.  What I actually end up doing most days is driving William and driving myself to work and paying to park, but I have *intentions* to do more eco-friendly (and cheaper!) commuting.

The elementary school change has been the biggest thing.  It's been nice to have playdates where the kids can walk over after school and it's so much less stressful being close by (rather than the 11.5 mile each way commute we had before.  Past lovely ocean views which swelled with traffic when surf was up, creating an hour long trip each way on some days!) We had a nice experience at the old school once we were there, but getting too and fro was stressful for school itself, plus parties and playdates.  It felt like so much work and the new school is so effortless in comparison.  Lauren forgot her lunch one day and I just ran it back to her in 5 minutes, no sweat.

We've also slowed our weekend trips away.  They're fun once we're at our destination (usually my parents' house in San Diego) but getting there, the hours on the road, the time spent packing and unpacking plus the regret of local events we miss at home...We went down last weekend for my mother's birthday but will probably not be back again until October or November.

Since I'm spending so much more time in my own neighborhood, I'm getting more involved in local politics (mostly as an observer at this point) and am going with my neighbor to a Neighborhood Council meeting tonight.  We have a particular opposition to something the Planning Committee is supporting so I'm on a tear to get the views of the people on our street heard, and doing some legal research on zoning laws.  

In other news, William is becoming potty trained and wears underwear part of the day now.  He is much better about going when he's at school than at home.  There are some funny stories associated with this process but I'm not going to blog about them.

Lauren is reading more and her bookshelves were overflowing with once-read chapter books that she likely won't re-read, so she is having a book sale so that other children can enjoy them.  She is relishing her role as salesperson and likes giving reading recommendations to younger children.  She's only made $8 in sales so far, but is aiming for $40 to get a new camera.  The Bank of Daddy will provide 100% matching funds.

So that's what's new over here!  I will try to blog more often.  "Perfection is the enemy of progress" and all of that. I don't have the time to devote to proofing and prettying up posts so it's all a first draft.  Thanks for reading my drivel anyway!  xxooxxx

Caffeine jitters? Try coconut water!

This morning I was veeeeeery tired and accidentally had two cups of coffee.  I was so tired I forgot I'd had one so I poured myself a second.  I'm such a caffeine lightweight that it made my heart pound like it was coming out of my chest and made me feel nervous and jittery.  I would have preferred being half asleep!

After I dropped William off at school, I went to Trader Joe's and got groceries and then as an afterthought, popped in to CVS to check my blood pressure to see exactly how fast my heart was pounding.  I truly expected to be some astronomical number, like they would say "300?!  I didn't know someone could still be alive with it that high!" but it was "only" 128 over 80.  I still felt like I was on speed (*note, I am joking, I have never actually done speed!) so asked the pharmacist if there was anything I could do to counterattack the caffeine and he suggested drinking a ton of water and eating lots of bananas for their potassium.

That got me thinking of coconut water which is naturally high in potassium.  I asked him about that and he said "yes, that would be great to drink!" .  Wow, it really was.  I downed one in the parking lot and IMMEDIATELY felt more calm.  It was the same effect as if, say, I had been really nail-bitingly nervous about a kid on the edge of a cliff, and then they got rescued and I could instantly relax.  Whew!

So, I felt the need to share with you all in case you find yourself in the same situation, learn from me.  And while you're learning from me and my stupid mistakes, here's what to do if:
-you accidentally steal a car
-your kid needs poison control
-you need your appendix out
-your kid cuts himself and needs stitches

Happy sipping!

Sprouts Westwood Finally Opens!

Note, my card reader is broken so all of the beautiful photos I took of the place will have to wait, will edit and add later, but for now I wanted you to know in time to get there for the party... SPROUTS IS FINALLY OPENING IN WESTWOOD!  YAY!!!

Not all of my readers are local so bear with me while I explain how fabulous this place is!

First the Grand Opening info:


Wednesday May 1, 2013
Sprouts Farmers Market
1751 Westwood Blvd (near the intersection of Westwood Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd) in the old Ross building.

7:00 a.m. the festivities start, with drawings and giveaways and one-day deals like $1 bags of organic romaine, $1 bags of vanilla wafers, $1 for a dozen eggs, $1 big artichokes, etc.

Why I LOVE SPROUTS:

-Big, spacious aisles with fresh clean produce and current products (I have never seen expired food on the shelves, they are great about checking that!  One of my pet peeves at a certain competitor store!)
-Really unbeatable prices, especially on produce (a few weeks ago they had navel oranges for 28 cents a pound!  organic apples for 50 cents a pound...I could go on and on...)
-Double sale Wednesdays (every Wednesday!) when twice as many things are on sale because the current and previous week's sales overlap
-Bulk spices, perfect for when I just need a bit of something or want to try something new.  I once spent 22 cents there on a small quantity of a spice.  It was great not to waste  a whole jar for one recipe.
-Bulk candy (and flour, nuts, beans and other less tempting fare) because sometimes if we were to buy the big bag, we'd *eat* the whole big bag!  William gets his cashews & yogurt covered pretzels every week from the bulk bins.
-Friendly, helpful, *empowered* employees!  I once mentioned at checkout that I had accidentally been overcharged by a few dollars for organic apples the last time.  The cashier apologized and deducted $4 from my bill.
-They have a $3 and under cheese section with smaller quantities of cheeses so you can try something new.  Lauren loves to pick out a cheese she has never heard of before when we're at Sprouts.
- They have free sample cups of coffee.  Mmmmm!
-They give you 5 cents per bag if you bring your own bags.  This last one is something little but since I do bring my own bags, it's nice to get a quarter back every time I shop.


Disclaimer: William and I shop at "Frouts" in Culver City every Wednesday (and the ones in San Diego in my college years when they were named Boney's and Henry's) and we've spent thousands of dollars there over the years.  But my disclaimer is that I was also invited to (okay, more like I begged them to come and they said yes!) their blogger event today where I got a tour of the store and received a bag of treats: coconut water, vitamin water, tortilla chips, salsa, vanilla wafers, BBQ chips, and dried apricots.  Yum!  But to be honest, even if all they had given me was the time of day, I would have still written glowingly and excitedly about their store opening.  So excited that I'm going back tomorrow with my friend who has never shopped there!!

The Fresh 20: A Review of the Vegetarian Plan

Page from The Fresh 20 cookbook

Disclaimer: I was provided with a 3 month membership in The Fresh 20 and a sneak peek at their cookbook for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated.  All opinions are my own.

Through MomsLA, I got a chance to try out The Fresh 20 meal planning service and see what I thought.  The Fresh 20 is based on the idea that you can plan out your entire week's worth of healthy dinners based around 20 fresh ingredients and some pantry staples.  You subscribe for $5 a month, and at the beginning of the week you get a meal plan, shopping list and prep guide.



My hesitations before beginning:

 Q: Would they have a vegetarian option?
A: Yes, and also a gluten-free plan or "classic".

Q: Would it be a bunch of prepared "add a can of soup mix to this" and "add this specific frozen dinner product to that" type cooking?
A: No, in fact it was a lot of whole ingredients and fresh herbs, no preservatives, I could control the amounts of salt.

Q: What if all the vegetarian recipes just substituted mushrooms or fake meat products?
A: No fake meat products, some recipes called for making my own out of organic tofu but nothing processed.  There was one recipe from one week that called for shitake mushrooms, but that seemed to be easily substituted out

Q: Would it be a lot of really exotic ingredients that would be hard to find that I would use only once and then would get stale in my kitchen?  (Like the toasted pumpkin seed oil I just had to have back in 2010 and haven't touched since, probably should toss that!)
A: No, the plan did a good job of using up most of what I bought from the shopping list.  The whole point of the plan is to get a list in advance for the whole week and use everything while cooking.  I mean, not *everything*, you might end up with a quarter of an onion not chopped or a smidge of leftover pesto (yummy on bread for a snack in my case), but most things.

My experience:
Last Wednesday I got the membership, logged in and saw the past 3 weeks of plans for vegetarian.  The first one I looked at did not excite me only because two of the recipes used corn tortillas and I just don't care for the taste of corn tortillas.  I wanted to really love the food so I picked another week (March 1).  I appreciated not being stuck with just 1 plan,  it was nice to have the previous few weeks to also choose from.

Armed with the list, I was off to Sprouts to shop!  The Fresh 20 estimated it would cost $58.50 for the ingredients.  Because I was also buying yogurts, breakfast foods and other things for the kids, I spent $70 on that trip.  I needed to buy a few of the pantry ingredients (grapeseed oil, white wine vinegar, cannelini beans) and there were only two list items Sprouts was out of: fresh thyme and whole wheat hamburger buns.

In case Lauren didn't like the food, I stocked up on some frozen dinners from Trader Joe's for her (pesto tortellini wins every time.)  I hadn't read through carefully before starting, and thought "I will just go home and start cooking dinner tonight at 5:00".  We like to eat by 6:00.  With two kids underfoot, there was no way I could do all of the prep work and get the first meal ready in under and hour!   I learned that it would be better to start the week's prep on a Saturday or Sunday.  It did *say* "make ahead" pesto, bread crumbs, cut vegetables".  So, the first night we all ended up having Lauren's week of frozen meals, and I delayed cooking until Thursday.

Thursday afternoon while William napped, I cut, chopped, squeezed, food processed and prepped my way through the list.  Feeling thoroughly prepared, I made the first night's meal, Pesto Tofu Burgers with Sweet Potato Nuggets.  Lauren wouldn't try anything, but William really liked the sweet potatoes. (While cutting the sweet potatoes, I was surprised that mine were white inside, I thought they should be orange!  In a panic, I called my dad to ask him.  He was surprisingly well-informed about sweet potatoes and told me they can come in other colors besides orange and off-white was one hue.  My dad knows everything!) The recipe called for cutting them up into bite-sized pieces, tossing with olive oil and coarse salt, and roasting.  Easy and tasted like sweet potato fries!

Another lesson learned-the tofu burgers tasted good but were falling apart like scrambled eggs.  I realize now that I did not properly press enough water out of the tofu in prep.  I shouldn't hurry through that step!  They still tasted good, though! Next time, I'll know.

Friday was supposed to be Day 2, but Lauren got strep throat and we spent a lot of the day at the doctor's office and pharmacy, so I could not bring myself to cook.  She ate nothing (too sick) and the rest of us had leftovers.

Saturday I made the Lemon Broccoli pilaf and this was surprisingly simple to make and good!  And a great way to use up some of the lemons from our tree.  I don't usually like rice pilaf, but I love crispy broccoli and chick peas, so yum!  The kids wouldn't try it so Ryan & I had lots of leftovers the next day.

Sunday: By then, most of the prep work had been done on the other days so it was a cinch to make the Spaghetti & Pesto Tofu Balls.  I liked this meal the best.  And it was easy to make "regular" spaghetti for Lauren since she did not like this version of pesto.  (She is a pesto snob and to her, pesto is *only* legit if it has pine nuts, garlic, basil, EVO and imported Parm and nothing else!)

Monday I promised Lauren her favorite Spinach Souffle (BTW, the plan assumes you will eat out or have other plans for 2 out of 7 dinners of the week), so I whipped that up from memory, and gave the plan a break.  (BTW, the plan assumes you will eat out or have other plans for 2 out of 7 dinners of the week. In my experience, you'll have leftovers to eat if you want.)

On Tuesday my parents were here and we ate out.  Last night we had leftovers and tonight I am going to make the Day 4 recipe (Herb Crusted Tofu) BUT I do have to go back to the store since the cauliflower I bought last Wednesday has gone bad by now.  The good news is it is in season and on sale.  The Fresh 20 creator tries to use seasonally fresh food in the recipes to make it easy and inexpensive to shop.

In conclusion: I really like the idea of the plan and the concept of the list and prep guide made planning ahead easy.  Next week, I think I will analyze which of the meals I could even cook entirely ahead, and then if I catch a chunk of time (nap, please William?!)  I could cook up a storm and reheat each night.  I'd also experiment with doing them out of order and substituting ingredients.  For this week I wanted to try exactly as written.

My one suggestion to The Fresh 20 is that it would be so helpful to include weights for those of us who cook with a scale.  "Three medium carrots chopped",  I did not have.  I had a bag of baby carrots.  So I had to put a bunch of baby carrots together to estimate how many might equal one medium sized carrot, weigh that and multiply by three, add that much more to the scale and then chop.  It worked but was a lot of extra steps.  Same with "1/4 of a medium sized onion".  If they included approx. weight for that measurement it would make it easier if I just had an entire chopped onion from the day before and could measure out.

Overall, I think The Fresh 20 plan is a great idea, and it costs very little money to subscribe, so I recommend my friends to give it a try!   It gave me some great new ideas, got me out of the pasta/pizza/quesedillas rut, and I got to experiment with new flavors.  For the roasted sweet potatoes idea alone, it would have been worth the cost.  =)

I also wanted to let you know that they are coming out with a cookbook on April 23 and you can pre-order it here.  They are running a great contest where you can win a stocked pantry, and that is here.

Cheerio Necklace

William had fun today making a Cheerio necklace with dental floss.  We've found "Reach" floss is the best for little hands because it's stiff enough to handle without dropping the "beads" of cereal.

"I can wear it and eat it!  Mmmm!"

William 2 year update

I just found an old draft I wrote on 10/3, and published it.  I felt a little bad about it, though (which is why I had delayed publishing it at all) because it's mostly complaining about being alone with my kid all morning, and William is really a sweet, easygoing child.  I couldn't ask for a better toddler if I have one keeping me company.  Most of the time, he's quite agreeable and even in instances where he's not, it's all completely age-appropriate.  (We're hearing "no" quite a bit right on schedule.)

He's trying harder to talk so there's less cave-man grunting and more sweet little phrases he comes up with like this one upon being caught in his first rainstorm- "Yay!  Falling water!".  He calls Lauren "Tee-ta" now instead of "Lo".  He says "Yites!" for Christmas lights, just like Lauren did.  ("Yay! I love yites!"  He is obsessed with "twash" and has to close the lid of every open trash can he sees.  He received a big Bruder trash truck for his birthday, which came with 2 miniature trash cans, and he plays with it every day.  Also 4 more trucks.

He likes to say "I WOULD" when he means "would like to".  "I would eat!  I would that!" "I would cut!  I would touch!  I would walk!  I would eat cake!  I LOVE cake!  CAKEY!"

At his well-visit, he weighed 36 pounds and was 38 1/2 inches tall (also I never blogged this but at 18 months, he was 36 inches and 34 pounds), which means if he stays on his height-curve, adult-William will be 6' 5"!  He eats about 3 times as often as I do, and his favorite treat these days is "shaboos!" (strawberries) or else "dooce" (juice).

He loves to make stacks of blocks and to play with his cars and to take baths with "buboos" and "shahmpoo!"   He wants to explore the neighborhood, and has named one of the local squirrels Julia.  Her husband or son or arch-enemy, another squirrel who runs around and chases her, is called Paul.

Back to my changing feelings about being home with William, it's gotten easier in the past 8 weeks since I wrote that post, partly because I seem to sense the fleetingness of it, knowing he'll be in nursery school in July so I will have less than a year left at home with what will likely be my last baby.  He's also so loving and sweet to me, and such a charmer.  

A funny story about that-we were at Home Depot and he had run off nearby, when a woman wearing the same colored jeans was shopping nearby.  He ran over and hugged her ankles, thinking it was me.  When she looked down and he saw that it was a stranger, there was a moment of shock on his face.  Instead of crying or looking embarrassed, he took a beat, then played it off as intentional and beamed a giant, flirtatious grin at her, like "how YOU doin'?"

A Vignette of my Mornings

Some days it's easy to play with William and get my work done while keeping him playing nearby and happy and everything falls into place.  That happened yesterday.  Oh wait, that's because I was out of the house, at my office without him for 4 hours!  Other days, like today, he just seems to want some kind of interaction that I'm just not into, like wrestling or throwing a football.  And he has to involve me in everything, he can't seem to just stack blocks by himself or zoom trucks around unless I'm participating.  I feel bad for him that he's stuck with me and not a "sportier" mother who's more into balls and things with wheels and dirt and worms. (And then start thinking I can't wait for Lauren to get home from school so she and I can do something "girly".)

He's not talking much-he has his words, but mostly those that describe all of the above interests: "ball, truck, bus, BIG BIG ball, bird, bug, mud, dirt, fleurs, plants, rocks, red, blocks, car, I go, I fall down, whee, wow, all done, puzzle, hot, water, dog, strawberry, and shoes."  And the favorite catch-all: "Eh".  Cave-man talk.

I guess what I'm realizing is we're both getting ready for him to spend time at preschool.  I might not be ready to pay that bill every month, but I'm ready to have a little space, otherwise, I get so exhausted here trying to keep him happy and then put him down for his nap, that when he is finally asleep and I have time to do my work (new job assignment at the office, by the way, so even more that I should be keeping track of), all I want to do is rest and not take apart the code on some web page I might get interrupted from halfway through.  (So I do it in the wee hours of the night instead, and the next morning I regret staying up so late.) I head to the fridge and eat the "grown up" things I can't consume in front of him because he'd want some and would  point and "eh, eh!" at me and do his caveman growl/whine because I wasn't sharing any chocolate, coffee, spicy foods which he would insist on trying and would then look horrified, spit them out and indignantly accuse me- "hot!"

Though we do have lots of little moments of giggling happy, sweet times.  And bits of comedy.  He tries on other people's shoes and clomps around pretending to be Daddy or Mommy or Lo. When he wants to leave the house, he can't say "let's go", so instead he charges into my closet, tugs on the sleeve of one of my pink shirts-always a Brooks Brothers dress shirt-pulls it down and drags it over to me, pulls me by the hand and gives me that look that means "let's go for a walk".  .

There are tantrum moments. when he badly wants to go outside and charge out into the street to chase a truck, and I stop him from himself by bolting the front door with the deadlock where he can't reach it (he can rip the childproof door knob cover off), and he rages at the injustice of not being allowed FREEDOM to just run around by himself.  And I feel bad for our neighbors who have to hear this.  If I were that single, childless neighbor getting to sleep in on my day off, I'd be hating me and my screaming kid right about now.  Today when this happened, I let him have his little tantrum (shutting the windows) and then after a few minutes when it died down, I distracted him by doing a puzzle with him 3 times in a row.  Each time we finished, we clapped and shouted "YAY!", high-fived, and then he did the sign language for "more".

But wow, that half hour on the rug took every fiber of my being, to sit and focus on the puzzle with him and talk about it and not reach for my laptop or call someone on the phone or read a magazine.  Because WOW, being present with little kids can be BORING.  And I know, there are people reading this who are OFFENDED that I admitted that, people who desperately want children, who feel THEY would NEVER be bored with the wonderful magical mystery of every second with their precious child that they love so much.

But the reality?  After I've read "My Truck is Stuck" for the two thousandth time, and had the same argument about why it is not a good idea to wear a long-sleeved sweatshirt on a 95 degree day, even if this sweatshirt does have "ya, ball.  wed."  on it, my mind does wander on to other things that I love so much...

Thanking my BlogHer12 sponsors

As I mentioned in the last post, I went to BlogHer'12 in NYC at the beginning of the month.  In the blogging world, some people are lucky enough to have corporate sponsors who pay for portions of their trips.  In exchange, the companies get publicity for their products.

Thanks, Dannon Oikos yogurt!

Well, my conference lodging and meals were sponsored this year, and the sponsors don't have a web presence and aren't even listed in the phone book, and don't need any publicity from me at all.  My aunt & uncle, who are some of the nicest people on earth, were my innkeepers.

Uncle Fred picked us up in Newark on Monday, and drove us back to his house (after stopping at the Bear Mountain zoo, where William made friends with a swan.).  He and Aunt Marguerite spent the week in a friendly "favorite relative" competition with my parents.  The pinnacle of this was a photo they emailed showing William eating not just one ice cream cone, but two at once!

They chauffeured,  cooked, cleaned and did our laundry and watched William while I was at the conference.  On Thursday night, they drove in with me for the Expo Hall portion, and took William to Aunt Andrea's apartment around the corner, then drove me home.  On Friday and Saturday, Uncle Fred woke up at 5:00 a.m. each day to get ready and drive me to the train station.

He and Aunt Marguerite took great care of their grand-nephew, to the point that William burst into tears when they left the room, even while I was there.  They kept him entertained by endlessly reading "My Truck Is Stuck", and took him on William-tailored adventures, including seeing planes at the local airport, throwing stones in the river, visiting several playgrounds, attending a birthday party complete with a clown, and seeing lots of trucks up close.  And one visit to a police car whose driver gallantly turned on the flashing lights for William.

This year I didn't do much partying after the sessions, I could have, I'm sure my aunt & uncle would have come to get me at the train station at whatever hour I wanted, but I didn't really feel like it.  I felt like going back home, to their house.  And I am so happy that William had this week to love them even more and to feel at home with them, too!

I can never thank you enough, Aunt Marguerite and Uncle Fred!  I would name a building after you, but that's been done before.  ;)  So here's a blog post dedicated just to you.   Thank you a million times for this and the countless other nice things you've always done for me, my whole life!  Love and miss you lots!

BlogHer 2012, you jealous?

It is really great to be here, but not for the reasons you'd expect.  More on that later, but for now, this photo for Desiree, to show one of the less desirable aspects of NYC in August.  I'm on the train coming back to my aunt & uncle's house as I post this.

If you just met me at BlogHer, feel free to comment  here and say hi.  I will write more when it's not by painstakingly pecking on my phone!

Italian Mama

I was just posting to my cousin Antonio's Facebook wall, and thinking about family and connections and celebrations.  Tonio's mother is my "Aunt Anne" who is really my mom's cousin, so we're second cousins but being Italian, we just say "cousins".  In our family, you wouldn't get introduced as, say "this is my mother's cousin's stepdaughter" which is who one of my "cousins" actually is!  When you're in, you're in.

It's funny, I'm only 1/4 Italian, which thins down to only 1/8 in Lauren's blood, but if you ask her what her cultural background is, she 'll proudly say "I'm Italian!" because it's the most fun part.   It's the side that throws big elaborate meals with her favorite cheeses and pestos and lots of laughter and grown-ups drinking wine and talking in big boisterous voices with lots of hand gestures.


Lauren's Nonna's Nonna came from Italy.  The family recipes we make the most are from that side.  My great-grandparents came here over 100 years ago but they're the most recent immigrants in our lineage.  We still have cousins that live in Parma,  we visit and correspond with them.  There is a town named after the family (or the family was named after the town, we're not sure!)  I've been there twice and I've been welcomed into their home both times.  Lauren longs to "go back".  (She was there in utero.)

We have food words we use from Parmigiana (the dialect my great-grandparents spoke).  We say "boo fa" which means to blow on something when it's too hot, and "poo cha" which means to dip the bread in the olive oil.  We have a song in Parmigiana that my grandmother used to rub my eyes and sing to me, about the rain.  I've never seen any of this written down.  I don't know how to spell the words.  Our traditional foods for the holidays are (to me) much more interesting than "American" fare.  Lasagna at Easter, not ham.  About 10 different kinds of antipasti.  And all of those desserts, would make my mouth water just to type about!

If you have an Italian mama, you never go hungry.  Italian mamas love to see chubby little babies and love to kiss cheeks.  I've got a lot of (especially male) grown up cousins who still live at home.  Or bring piles of laundry to their mamas on weekends.

I never thought I would turn into one, but now when I look at those little chubby cheeks and KISS them and KISS them, I think  "Lauren, William, you can still live with me when you're thirty, that's just fine!  Mangia!"

The tail end of summer: adventures thus far

We're more than halfway done with summer break, which seems crazy!  The reason it's so short this year is that LA Unified decided to move the start date to August 14th.  Last year they started the 2nd week of September.  So everyone has 3 weeks less of summer.  They say they're doing it to keep high school, middle school and elementary school on the same schedule, and they want high school to get out earlier so that students will have more time to prepare for national standardized tests-AP, SAT, etc.

What this has meant for us is a rather condensed summer.  Lauren spent the first week of it at Camp Nonna & Poppy, swimming and enjoying herself.  William and I were there for the first 2 days of that, then I came back to go to work, and she remained there the rest of the week. My parents drove her to a halfway point from their house in San Diego, we met in Orange County and drove her home.   She did not want to come back.

Then she had 3 weeks of STAR camp which she absolutely LOVED.  We decided to go car-free as much as possible and walk or bike to the school.  The trip there and back became one of our favorite parts of the day.  What a luxury, to be able to walk to school every morning!  (Instead of the 20 mile round-trip drive we do during the year!)  The campus was just over a mile away.  I wish it was our our home school, I would send her there in a heartbeat.

We signed her up for one week of "Supercamp", which was just the fun stuff, nothing academic, and 2 weeks of summer school-classes in the morning, fun stuff in the afternoon.  All 3 weeks at the same campus.  Every morning I would drop her off and watch her scamper over to her friends with excitement,  (Meanwhile, William was thrilled each morning to run over to a cage full of basketballs and kickballs, and try to shoot a basket, climb on the "big kid playground" and to try desperately to pass for a 5-year old so that he could join the camp, too!)

The 2nd week of camp, I dropped her off as usual and at pickup, I asked her what she learned at summer school.  "Oh, we didn't really do anything yet, probably they'll start the learning part tomorrow."  The next day, she went on and on about the science project they had done, and begging me to please enroll her in this school, which was so much fun, much more interesting than her school.  Third day, I asked her again what they had studied, and this time "I don't want to talk about that, Mommy!" and she told me instead all about the game of Capture the Flag, and the storytelling class and the nice kids she sat next to.  On Thursday, they went to an amusement park.

On Friday, we were running late so she missed circle time and the kids had already broken into groups and gone off to the classrooms.  One of the directors said "Oh, hi Lauren!  The Supercamp kids are over this way."  When I said "No, she's in Summer School", the woman got a funny look on her face.  I then realized why Lauren was having so much fun at "school"-she had been cutting class!  Turns out, they had been marking her absent at Summer School each day, and handwriting her name on the attendance sheet at Supercamp.  The camp staff was mortified when they figured out what happened, and they gave me a partial refund (because Summer School costs more).

Evidently, the first day, Lauren went to sit on the same bench she'd been sitting on the week before, and no one caught the mistake.  By the time she realized what happened, she also realized that if she could get away with it, it would be much more fun to stay where she was.  So, age 6, her first experience cutting class!

Con Artist in the Parking Lot of Vons

I was just the victim of a con artist at the Vons parking lot.  Boy, do I feel stupid!  

I pulled into the parking space with the kids in the car, to get some groceries.  Some guy in his early 20's was driving past (in an older white car)and rolled down his window and said "excuse me, ma'am, I couldn't help noticing your dent.  I work at a body shop and today's my day off.  I've got my tools in the trunk and I could fix that really easily."

I said "Okay, sure, give me your card and I'll think about it."

He then proceed to tell me that he was usually really busy working, today was his day off but that it would be easy for him to fix and he could do it for only $80.  He then jumped out of the car, got out some tools from the trunk and said he was going to show me how he could easily pull it out without taking the door off.  He introduced me to the people in the car, his father, sister and kids.  He said that it would only take a few minutes, then his father also got out and they started drilling a hole in the car!  :( 

I said "Hey, what are you doing?!"  I told him that I didn't have $80 and I hadn't told him to do that, and he said they said "you won't even see this when we're done, it just how we access it" and that I wouldn't have to pay them if I wasn't satisfied, and that there was an ATM nearby.  He was also going to give me his business card and his personal phone # in case I had any questions or problems.  I somehow got suckered into agreeing to pay $60 for it and he promised it would look good as new when they finished. 

Which I doubted, but felt afraid, because two guys with sledgehammers were now standing next to my now-damaged car and I was alone with my 2 children.  So I went to get the money and when I came back and went to pay them, he pretended we had agreed on $160, and wanted $100 more and started to get mad.  I told him my husband used to work for the DA and I could get him there to settle this!   Suddenly $60 was fine with him and he was in a hurry to leave.

I asked him why there was still a dent (which now had some white substance on it) and he went on and on about how they had filled the holes with matching clear coat which would not show, and  applied a special cream which would "pull out the dent"  after sitting on it for a few hours,  but was very toxic, so I shouldn't touch it or let the kids or any pets near it until it dried.  When it turned blue, it was done "curing" and I could wipe it off.Of course I didn't believe there was any substance that could do that, but I was also starting to be afraid of them.    And he had suddenly run out of business cards  but jotted down what was supposedly his name, "John" and #, on a piece of paper.  

So, they  "pulled" the previous dent but left another new one and 2 drilled holes, and they took $60 and made me feel threatened with my small children in my arms.

My husband is really mad at me for falling for this one but the whole thing started off innocently...it was the drilling holes in my car part that got me sucked in and afraid.  Yikes!  

I tried to call Pacific Division to report it, but couldn't get a live person on the phone.  Called our Senior Lead Officer on his cell phone and he said that since I had agreed to give them money (I did feel coerced, though!  Come on, someone standing next to you and your kids with a sledgehammer in their hands!) then it becomes a business transaction rather than a crime, that I would have to go in person to report it to the detectives in the West LA Fraud division.  I have a photo of the guy's back license plate, it was a white older model car, Buick maybe?

Yeah, I guess one day I will look back on this and laugh.  But right now I feel really sick to my stomach about it and it doesn't seem very funny!  Just wanted to  post this because I'm *usually* pretty street-wise (I tend toward my New Yorker attitude of being in a hurry and not even interacting at all with strangers in a parking lot let alone falling for this kind of thing.)  So anyway, be on the lookout and don't even engage with these kind of people and certainly don't get suckered by them!

Guest Post from Lauren: Ruckus Reader Event at Zimmer Children's Museum

On Sunday, I went to the Zimmer Museum.  I went in a room there was snacks in.  We met a girl named Lauryn (but she has a different way of spelling it!).  Lauryn showed me how to play the Ruckus Reader on an Ipad.  I liked about it, the My Little Pony game.  If I had an Ipad I would like to play it.  I colored with the Crayola color game.  It was cool!

Afterwards, I did a lot of other things.  I went in the play ambulance and the ball pit.  It was fun!  My favorite part about it was the boat that had balls around it, to represent water.

Upstairs there was a stage that was for dress-up.  There were mirrors and at the top of the mirrors there were words that said "today I would be".  I dressed up as a flower princess.

The airplane was cool!  I liked its wings.  I pretended to fly it.  I think it was a real airplane! But I think it was abandoned.

Lauryn's mom gave me a gift bag and some My Little Ponies!  I love getting gift bags, of course!  Thank you, Lauryn's mom!

(I am making a FUNNY face in this picture!)

I want to go back some day!
Love,
Lauren


Note from my mom:
If you go:

Zimmer Children's Museum

   Hours

• Sunday, 12:30–5:00 p.m.  
• Monday, closed
• Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m 
• Friday, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.   
• Saturday, closed
  

  Admission

  $8 Adults
  $5 Children 2-17
  Children under 2, free
  Grandparents free on Tuesdays when accompanied by grandchild

Part 2 Adventures: Who Needs an Appendix Anyway?

So where was I?  Oh yes, my abdomen was hurting on the lower right side, I had a fever and chills and the pain finally got intense enough that I asked Ryan to drive me to the emergency room.  I changed into my oldest, most comfortable sweatshirt and sweatpants, topped off with a pink Snuggy, and we were off.  (If you know me, that's a sign that I'm really sick, I rarely ever wear sweatpants!)

When we had almost arrived at UCLA, I started feeling better, probably from the Tylenol kicking in.  I almost decided to go back home and see if it would go away.  What if it was nothing serious after all?  I could be wasting everyone's time.  Luckily I did go in.  The admit nurse told me that I probably had appendicitis and that she'd had hers out the month before and "it really wasn't so bad.  I was expecting it to be so much worse."

When I got back to the hospital bed and they did my vitals, my fever was up to 100.5.  They offered me morphine, which I declined.  The first doctor came and immediately prodded my ovaries.  They did not hurt (which could have been a sign of ectopic pregnancy, the other malady that presents with similar symptoms).  She told me that they would send me off for a CT scan to be sure of diagnosis, but it was likely appendicitis.  Then an older male doctor came and poked and prodded me some more and informed me "that is not your appendix" but that they would do an ultrasound.

My cell phone was not working and Ryan was out in the waiting room looking after the kids, but for some reason texts went through, so I texted my brother (see this old post about why I don't text) which was my only form of entertainment while waiting.  I had him call my parents to tell them what was going on.

Meanwhile, they did do the CT scan, but the last-minute surprise was that they had to inject me with radioactive dye, so I would not be able to breastfeed for 48 hours.  This ordinarily would have concerned me but I just looked at them with glassy eyes and said "you do what you have to do" and decided to just pump and dump later.

I pumped and dumped in the ER, which was awkward and painful.  But getting the dye-contrast CT was the right decision because the scans came back showing that I did indeed have appendicitis and needed immediate surgery.  I never saw the male doctor again, who had told me it was not my appendix, and they did not need to do the ultrasound.  Good thing for modern technology!

Next, they wheeled me upstairs to the surgery room where at the last minute everyone was in a tizzy because I was wearing contact lenses and still had my underwear on.  Once everything was off, they had me wear an oxygen mask and explained that when I woke up my throat would be sore because while I would be unconscious, they were going to put a tube down my throat to help me breath.  Then I had a last minute panic thinking that the anesthesia was not taking effect, and worrying that I would remain awake for the procedure.

Then, I woke up about 2 hours later in a private room, with a vague memory of having been in a recovery room and even having spoken with a nurse.  My throat hurt but other than that, I felt a lot better.  My ribs did feel like I'd been bear-hugged.  There were 3 incisions, covered with bandages.  2 along my bikini line and one coming out of my belly-button.  I was strapped to all kinds of heart monitors, IV machines and each leg was hooked up to a machine which would "massage" it by lifting it up and raising it while squeezing like a blood pressure cuff.

Whenever I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I had to get the nurse to unhook all of the apparati first.  I did not sleep very well because of the leg "massagers".  The nurse told me that "some people actually like them".  I can't imagine who would.  I did manage to get her to surreptitiously agree to turn them off for 1 hour so that I could catch a nap.

No one had been very clear on when I was going home because "it is up to the doctor" but I did not see any doctors again until about 10:00 a.m. the next day.  There was also some confusion as to my breakfast diet.  Originally they brought me jello and beef broth "for your liquid diet" but since I'm a vegetarian, I didn't want that.  And I wasn't told of any planned liquid diet so I think they had me mixed up with another room.  I ordered and ate oatmeal and toast.

When it came, I hadn't realized they were going to bring just oatmeal.  No cinnamon, raisins and brown sugar.  They were nice and went back to the kitchen for the other things, but told me next time I ordered, to think of anything I might like with the meal besides the word it said-i.e. dressing with a salad, mustard, mayo, salt, milk for coffee, etc. and to make sure to say all of the other words on the phone.  Weird.

Around 10:00 a team of doctors marched in and said that everything looked fine, and I could go home at noon.  One of them told me that the rib pain was because they had to inflate my abdomen with air, stretching my ribcage.  So, Ryan and William came (William's separation anxiety could be a whole other post!) and waited around with me, and around 1:00, the wheelchair escort finally arrived and we went home.  On the way out, they gave me discharge papers with prescriptions for pain medicine and a note telling me not to lift anything over 10 pounds for 4 weeks.

So that is the surgery story.  Moral is, if you are having lower right abdominal pain with fever (also supposed to present with nausea, I didn't have any so that threw them off initially) then go to the emergency room immediately.  Don't wait because it's very serious and life-threatening if it bursts but if you catch it early, it's not a huge deal, as you can see from the above.  Oh, I will never be a bikini model now but we can pretty much agree that was not going to happen before! ;)

Part 1: Adventure on the new Light Rail Expo Line

On Sunday we had an exciting adventure that ended with a hospital trip but started out innocently enough.  Lauren had been begging me to take her on a ride on the new Expo Line.  There's now a Culver City exit at Jefferson and La Cienega, only a few miles from our home, and we decided to finally visit the Science Center.   So I took the kids and the Maclaren and headed out on Sunday morning.

We drove over to the stop, parked in the large free parking lot (which was mostly empty), paid $1.50 x 2 for one-way tickets and hopped on the light rail.  (They leave "every 15 minutes or more often".)  Lauren's face lit up, she probably caught my excitement at mass public transit finally coming to the westside.

It was clean, fast, efficient, and nearly empty on a Sunday morning.  We got off at Expo Park/USC and landed directly across the street from the Science Center.

There is a beautiful rose garden in front and Lauren grabbed my phone and took this picture.  

Inside, it was a smorgasbord of science delights, so many exhibits and bright and shiny moving objects that the kids didn't know where to focus first.  It was a little bit hard running after William and when I bent down to put him back in his stroller, I thought I might have pulled a muscle.  It hurt near my hip.

The kids' favorite part was the Ecosystems exhibit, where there was an aquarium with a clear tunnel in the middle that they could walk through, while fish swam overhead.  Lauren also wanted to explore the gift shop but by then, but we'd promised Ryan to be home in time for lunch (note, they have a Cafe and a McDonald's) plus my hip/abdomen was hurting so much that I just wanted to urgently get home and off of my feet.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
We left and caught a train back, drove home, and I had an agonizing 10 minutes waiting to turn right onto La Cienega into an endless stream of cars, which made the driving the longest portion of the trip.

Finally got home, went directly upstairs and into bed.  I had a 99 fever.  I put a heating pad on my abdomen, curled up into a fetal position and tried to rest but the pain got worse.  Finally around 4:00, I asked Ryan to take me to the emergency room...

(To be continued in Part 2)

  If You Go: 

Light Rail Expo Line Info:

• La Cienega Station is the westernmost station that's currently open.  Parking is free.
• Light Rail Tickets: $1.50 for ages 5 and up, per one-way segment (if you change lines, pay another $1.50) or $5 for an all-day pass.  Credit cards are accepted.
• Schedule: Trains run every 15 minutes or more frequently
  La Cienega Station
• Strollers and bikes are allowed on board 

•                 California Science Center Info:

•  Hours: Open daily 10-5
• Admission: FREE!  (Donation suggested) 

• 
  

Fun at the Skirball

In January, I took the kids to the Skirball Center on a Friday afternoon.  It was Lauren's 3rd time and Willie's first.  They had so much fun running around in the very photogenic garden outside that they would have been satisfied even if we hadn't gone in!









But once we did, we got assigned to the 3:00 group, were given time stickers, and we waited downstairs, where Willie tried to infiltrate the display's security system to smash some ancient pots and pans.

Once inside the exhibit, the animal sculptures made of recycled materials are fascinating!

They loved running around playing with the stuffed animals (2 of each, of course)

Their favorite part, by far, was sweeping the rubber fake poop.  I would post a photo of that, but it looks so realistic, it's the kind of thing that might really embarrass them someday, so you'll just have to go there to see for yourselves!  

If you go:

Noah's Ark at the Skirball

   Hours

• Tuesday–Friday, 12:00–5:00 p.m.  
• Saturday–Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
• Closed Mondays
  
  

  Admission

  $10 General

• $7 Seniors and Full-Time Students
• $5 Children 2–12
• Free to Members and Children under 2
• Free to all on Thursdays

Included with Museum admission

Disclosure: We were provided with free passes to get in this trip (thanks, MomsLA!), and we have also been there several previous times on Thursdays when it is always free.