Category Archives: K-6

How To Talk About a Death In The Family, And Help Kids Mourn

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Many years ago, I was struck by something I read in the NYT about death and home organizing.

What on earth has death got to do with home organizing?

I give you Lisa Whited, a professional organizer in the NYT piece who entered the profession when her kids were young and she thought she was going to die:

… one of her first worries was about her husband and three small children: “How is Pete going to know where everything is?”

And so:

She … began labeling the clear plastic bins she stored everything in. Children’s medicine. Adult medicine. Bread. Waffles (In a plastic bin in the freezer). Candy. Cat treats. All the stuff in the cellar: Caulking. Paint thinner. Linseed Oil.

This rang very true for me.

It is very likely, should I ever have to tell my children I was going to die before they were very very very old, that I would probably make them each a personalized, tabulated, color-coded binder with labeled instructions for everything I could imagine they would possibly need to survive day-to-day without me.

I would probably fixate on these binders so deeply that I’d miss out on other, incredibly important, conversations we could have.

I’m not good at big, messy feelings.

So I went and made a neat little list on this topic, instead.

Next week, I ought to start examining my less-examined life.

This week, I give you:

Photo by Marcia Levy.

Continue reading “How To Talk About a Death In The Family, And Help Kids Mourn” »

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Wonder Woman Wants to Know: Do Your Kids Know Your Phone Number Yet?

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Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/andertoons-cartoons/4141362234/

Last week a dear friend of mine was in a truly catastrophic traffic accident. A dump truck, poorly parked on a hill above Hollywood Boulevard, came loose from whatever shitty brake mechanism was or wasn’t engaged, and hit a city bus at such high speed it knocked that bus across lanes and into, over, and through my friend’s car. This event was basically the traffic equivalent of Spacelab falling on you.

Spacelab fell on my friend.

The photos on the news were the scariest fucking thing I have ever seen. They were the scariest fucking thing every one of my friends, and her thousands and thousands of other friends, have seen. If you had seen those photos, you too would be stunned my friend survived.

My friend is Wonder Woman. My friend, despite having ended up under a bus, is still with us, if in a hospital, in a bed,  and in a lot of pieces. She is being put back together, slowly, and at the end of this, she is going to be Bionic Woman, too. It takes a lot of effort to put back together what a bus has torn apart, and a hell of a lot of strength, and spirit, and if anyone can do it, my friend can.

And will.

And in the meantime, led by the amazing example of her amazing husband, who daily updates her thousands of friends via incredible, warm, funny, honest, sincere, and loving emails, we focus on the miracles that have come out of this fucking mess.

Wonder Woman is still with us – that’s a miracle.

You wanna know the other miracle? Wonder Woman wasn’t the only one in the car. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wants to Know: Do Your Kids Know Your Phone Number Yet?” »

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Go Ahead, Make My Day: How To Deliver Crazy Threats, Fold, and Still Win!

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Remember when Clint Eastwood was bad ass? (Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcbarnicle/4925079272/)

When I was a kid, a friend’s nanny threatened to drop my friend and me on the side of the road if we didn’t stop acting up in the back seat. We didn’t stop acting up. She then left us on the side of the road and drove off.

I worship her. If I knew where that nanny was now I’d probably send her flowers or a fruit basket. I’m not worthy.

Still, I try.

Continue reading “Go Ahead, Make My Day: How To Deliver Crazy Threats, Fold, and Still Win!” »

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Diddy’s First Day of Kindergarten / ChecklistMommy’s New! Morning Routine

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Diddy charging up the stairs towards her Kindergarten classroom. So much for nerves!

Today was Diddy’s first day of Kindergarten, probably distinguished most by the fact that she had me all to herself for breakfast at 6 am.

I rarely eat breakfast with my kids, as I can’t stand all the screaming and yelling and the fact that Mr. Big(ideas) thinks that they can eat fruit straight off the table sans plates. So for many years I have let him referee breakfast while I went off to walk the dog, and I’ve waited until the kids were out of the house / in the babysitter’s care before I sat down to eat in quiet, solitary bliss.

However:

Kindergarten starts a full hour earlier than pre-school did – 8 am! Jeesh! — so we’re shaking up the morning routine a bit. Here’s how we’re trying to get out the door on time these days. Continue reading “Diddy’s First Day of Kindergarten / ChecklistMommy’s New! Morning Routine” »

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FLYING WITH YOUR BABY / BROOD — PART 4: Travel Day! A Curb-To-Curb How-To

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Image via collider.com

1. BRING YOUR STROLLER.

I don’t care if you don’t generally use a stroller, or you won’t be using a stroller at your destination. You will be using it in the airport! You will be using it to push ALL THE CRAP I MADE YOU PACK IN YOUR CARRY-ON from the curb to the departures gate, and then back from your arrivals gate to the curb again on the other side.

That said, don’t bring a stroller that is difficult to collapse or has to be taken apart. Traveling with my Bugaboo when Diddy was a baby was the direct cause of me returning home and immediately selling it to an unsuspecting FTM so I could go buy a City Mini instead. I friggin’ love my City Mini, and my Double City Mini, so incredibly much that if you take nothing else away from this blog, take this:

BUY A CITY MINI.

 

2. WEAR YOUR BABY.

Continue reading “FLYING WITH YOUR BABY / BROOD — PART 4: Travel Day! A Curb-To-Curb How-To” »

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Check out My Medicine Cabinet

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Photo via http://www.arch1design.com/

I used to wonder who all those people were on TV shows and in movies who were constantly going into bathrooms and checking out their friends and neighbors’ medicine cabinets. I mean, who does that?

That said, I did do it, once, but I was looking for saline solution after waking up still wearing my contacts (this was before disposable lenses, ladies) following a super-drunk evening spent in the company of the man whose apartment I was waking up in. Luckily for me, we’d both been too wasted for anything to actually HAPPEN between us, as what I found when I opened up that medicine cabinet was a whole lot of pill bottles. We’re talking, I dunno, twenty or thirty pill bottles, all with names of drugs I’d never seen before — not even in my boarding school days of “pass your parents’ pain pills” roulette.

I was 22, and even though my eyes were dry and itchy, it was pretty clear I was staring at the one and only HIV cocktail-assortment I have ever been that close to. The man they belonged to was a lovely guy. I’m pretty sure he still is, thanks to modern miracles, (#iheartscience), and I am also incredibly grateful we both went to bed so drunk we woke up with all of our clothes on.

There but for the grace of god, people.

Anyway, this is a very different kind of medicine cabinet posting. This one is about how to keep track of the meds you give your kids — how much, how often, and to whom. Because seriously, it’s not that easy to keep track of how much Tylenol (ok scratch that, let’s be honest, it’s never Tylenol, they are ALWAYS recalling Tylenol) you are supposed to give your kids. It’s a little easier when you’ve only got one kid, and you’re pretty certain how much she weighs, and you’re pretty sure your ped told you to go with 1.2 cc — but even then, your husband/wife/partner/whomever doesn’t have a clue.

Which will become very clear if you ever send him to do a middle-of-the-night teething-pain-control-dosing and he comes back, turns on all the lights in your bedroom, and asks you where the generic Tylenol is.

Umm, did you actually LOOK for it? In the medicine cabinet? Where our meds live?

Still, leave the poor guy alone, because once you have two kids or more, keeping this shit straight is damned near impossible — which is why I went over to AskDrSears.com (no, I am not telling you to co-sleep until your kid is ten, but the man is chockfull of WAY more useful info, really) and copied his Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and Diphenhydramine lists into much more handy PDF downloads for you!

Go get them. Then go tape them in your medicine cabinet or wherever else you post this sort of information — AND DON’T FORGET TO ALSO POINT OUT HOW MUCH YOUR KID WEIGHS, so that everyone who needs that info has it.

Here’s how I do it:

 

1. Those are the cool Dr. Sears Charts I made.

2. They’re posted to the door with Stickr (corners). Love these!

3. I’ve also put up Post-it Super Sticky Full Adhesive Notes with each kid’s current weight, dated by last pediatrics appointment (or the last time I noticed they’d grown significantly per their constant fiddling around with my scale), plus any allergies they’ve got. Here’s a shot of that:

 

I use these Post-its EVERYWHERE in our house, by the way, and yes, the kids ARE color-coded. More on that to come, promise!

Anyway: this is a pretty great system, if I do say so myself — mostly because I can just show it to anyone who comes to watch the kids really quickly — and because it helps me compensate for my ridiculous Mommy-brain. Seriously: ask me when Gaga’ birthday is. Here’s what I can tell you — it’s either the 26th or the 18th. (God help me when she can read this stuff.)

Oh, and you wanna go see ANOTHER cool medicine cabinet trick? Check this cool thing my pal at SteelMyLunch sent my way:

 

This is now pinned — along with some other nifty shit — over at my Pinterest boards.

Have you got other medicine tips to share? FB me, Tweet me, or Pin me! I can’t get enough of this stuff, truly — so keep it coming, dear readers, keep it coming.

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