Arlington Fire Stations Open House!

Open House: Visit your local fire station!

All Arlington County fire stations will be open to the public Saturday, Oct. 11, from 10 - 4 in celebration of Fire Prevention Week. Bring the kids, climb into a fire truck, learn about fire safety, and more! Find your neighborhood fire station.

Enjoy!

A Lesson Learned...(mommy missed bedtime!)

This article cross-posted on DC Urban Moms.

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I learned an important lesson this week. My husband is a parent too.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. My husband is actually a great parent. A wonderful parent. He adores the kids and they adore him. But, after a year of intensive home renovations, it had gotten to the point where I felt like I was parenting solo. Many nights he would get home from work with a quick kiss for us and then disappear into the construction zone. Sometimes he would come back in for a quick dinner only to disappear again, sometimes he'd just pop his head back in for a goodnight kiss. Now, some of you may be thinking, what's the big deal? Allow me to respond: no daddy from the hours of 5pm to 8pm? Prime dinner, bath, and bed-time? With two toddlers? Do you now have teenagers and just not remember what 7pm is like for a 2 year old?

I know he didn't enjoy the disappearing act. It's not like he was off with "the guys." Poor guy doesn't even have "guys"! And it was all hard, physical labor that he was doing. But let me tell you, dinnertime, baths, wrestling wriggling babies into pyjamas, and getting them off to bed, well, that's hard physical labor too. In the end, though, the hardest part was knowing that he was missing out on it. I was the one who knew the songs. I knew the way to rock our son, the way to rub our daughter's back, how warm the bath needed to be and who got the pink bear and who got the blue bunny to snuggle. And on the rare evenings when daddy was too exhausted to work, the kids wanted their normal routine. They wanted mommy to get their milk, not daddy. Mommy to cut the dinosaur chicken, not daddy. He never has let on if that have bothered them, but I could only imagine how I would feel. But what could we do? The work, once begun, had to be completed. Our unfinished addition weighed heavier and heavier on our minds and finances.

Then, one day, it was done. Finished. After months and months--over a year of actual, ongoing construction--the floors were in and walls were painted and the toilets were flushable. So we moved into our new house, with a little pink bedroom for our girl and a little blue bedroom for our boy, and even, luxury of luxuries, a playroom! (Green.) Even better, the work was done. Free evenings stretched before us, evenings where we could all enjoy dinner together, play together, put the kids to bed together.

We have begun a new routine. After dinner we all head upstairs. We let the babies run around naked in the playroom, finally happy to have a room in our house warm enough to be naked in. I rock and cuddle our baby girl while daddy and our big boy lay on the bed in his new big boy bedroom, looking out the windows at all the neighbors' houses and making up stories. When I come in the room, I am most often told, "Go away mommy, daddy and I are busy talking!" Music to my ears! So we all lay down and talk a bit, and then eventually I rock our son and he goes happily into his crib.

Still, though, I am the master of the routine. I control the timing, when there's been enough naked running around, when it really is time to get in bed and say goodnight. Mommy still does the rocking. Until this week, when an evening commitment kept me later than anticipated; despite my promises to be home for bedtime, it was after 8:30 before I was home. In my head, I played out the scene: kids would be wired up from spending the evening with daddy, they wouldn't be in their pyjamas, they'd probably all be snuggled on the couch having a tickle fight or watching too much TV. And I was fine with that--it was my first evening away since our daughter, now almost one and a half, was born. I was prepared for the chaos. And then, to my surprise, the house was silent. Nary a peep. Figuring they were up in the playroom, and that daddy was just waiting for me to step in and save him, I headed upstairs. Silence. Lights off, doors shut. I checked the bathrooms, thinking that perhaps they were all watching daddy go potty. You know how fascinating that can be, and yet, no one. Then my husband, my dear, sainted husband, comes out of our daughter's bedroom, empty bottle in hand. Both the little angels were sound asleep. Mommy had entirely missed bedtime.

Mommy missed bedtime.

And, the world didn't end. No one even fussed very much. There was hardly even a perfunctory "Where's mommy?" from either of them. Daddy did it all, all by himself. Now, when we woke up the next morning they had the wrong bears and different blankets and not their usual pyjamas, and he hadn't raised the drop side of our son's crib. (Seriously, the boy is nearly three; if he had any desire to climb out of the crib, side dropped or no, he'd have done it long ago. He's never even tried when the side has been down. So I wasn't too worried.)

Now, did he love it? Well, he maybe doesn't want to make it the new routine, but he honestly didn't seemed too phased by the whole process. Although, secretly I think that he prefers that I be the director of bedtime. Still, it is a huge relief for me to know that he can handle the kids all on his own. (You may think I'm exaggerating again, but let me just tell you about a little incident when we were going to visit a family member in the hospital and I was struck with, shall we say, stomach problems. The kids were all ready to go, and I'm camping out in the bathroom, and he asks, "Should I take one of the kids with me?" Meaning, honey, you can't even get off the toilet, but can I leave both the kids with you? I told him that they all needed to go, and his horrified look was priceless. Well, priceless now. Then, doing some bodily harm was really the focus of my concentration.)

So, what did I learn? Come home late and see what has transpired? No, wait...force your husband to do more around the house, the lazy sot? No, not that either...ah, yes. Let your partner do it their way. As in everything else, if you want it done right, do it yourself; if you just want it done, gosh darn it, so you can sit down and read the paper from last week with a microwaved cup of coffee and a leftover vanilla wafer you dug out from inside the couch, let them do it however they want.

The author, did, in fact, enjoy her microwaved coffee, but swears that the leftover vanilla wafer was merely artistic license. She further categorically denies eating anything found in her couch.

For the many, or the few?

The pursuit of edible lunch, article in the Baltimore Sun from 1/19/2008, writes about the campaign by 6 middle school students to have better school lunch options available to their school and 56 other schools in Baltimore.

Reading about the quality of school lunches around the country smacks me up against my almost-daily dilemma: do I agitate for better lunches for all, or focus on making my kids' food as healthy as possible by preparing bagged lunches for them? Okay, my kids aren't even in school yet. But another debate raging in my home school district about shifting the boundaries for elementary schools has brought the concern to the forefront for me, and, I'm sure, for many others. How do we balance doing what is best for all with what we feel is best for our kids? How do we wear two hats; advocating for the good of those who perhaps don't have a strong advocate in their own home while balancing our strong--even biologically undeniable--drive to get the best for our own offspring?

I know, I know that there are those who will insist that by acting for the greater good we are doing what's best for our children; that they will grow up in a world that values everyone, that the grand karmic circle will continue to cycle around and all the good that we have sown will be reaped for them. I know you might be thinking this, and in many ways I do believe it. And yet, I can't bring myself to support something that isn't in their best interests. As I mentioned before, my babies are babies still; but I know that if these school boundary talks happen 5 years from now, you may be able to convince me that it's for the best, but you damn sure won't be able to stop me from insisting, as vocally and as often as necessary, that MY children should be the exceptions.

Take Action Against Dangerous Toys!

Allow me to jump on the "no lead paint!" bandwagon...

We've all heard the 80% statistic--that 80% of toys sold in the U.S. are made in China. After reading here about how the Consumer Product Safety Commission (the organization "charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction.") has only one full-time employee responsible for testing toys. No, seriously. Just one.

After reading just a few scary statistics, I zipped over the to the Consumer's Union Action Fund's handy automatic letter-writer to send an email to my House and Senate representatives. It was quick, painless, and I urge you to do the same! Click here to email your representatives.

Better School Food

Although my own kids are not yet school-age, I've always been interested in trying to figure out how to provide kids with healthier food at school. Perhaps because I remember all too well being 12 and using my lunch money to buy a cup of lemonade and two nutter-butters for lunch!

One organization, Better School Food, is working to bring healthier lunch options to school across the country. Below is their "Top 10" list of changes we should make to ensure that all kids have healthier options, and can make better choices, for food at school. The organization also has a Community Action Plan (PDF) with ample statistics about childhood obesity and other health problems associated with poor diet.

Top 10 List for Better School Food

1.	Eliminate All Products Containing Partially Hydrogenated Oils Trans fats increase harmful LDL cholesterol and decrease good cholesterol, which can contribute to heart disease.
2.	Eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has a high glycemic index and converts to fat more than any other sugar. It increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease, strokes, and cancer. Americans consumed on average 62.6 pounds of HFCS in 2001 according to the USDA. Many of the products on the market containing HFCS are geared towards children.
3.	Pay Attention to Portion Size Researchers have found that portion size matters as much as taste when it comes to overeating. A recent study showed that large packages and containers prompted people to eat more than the actual recommended serving size regardless of taste. These oversized packages can be especially confusing to children, who may not look at nutrition labels regarding varying portion sizes - especially worrisome because children and teenagers are getting a greater percentage of their calorie intake from snacks.
4.	Serve More Fresh Fruit & Vegetables Many U.S. school children are consuming more calories daily than needed, as well as choosing foods and snacks that are low in nutrients. In order to achieve normal growth and development of children and to reduce the risk of various chronic diseases, nutrient recommendations must be linked to keeping calories under control. With nearly 50% of the calories of children being consumed outside the home, it is imperative that schools offer nutrient-dense foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables in order to obtain the USDA daily recommendations.
5.	Support Local Farms / Set up Farm-to-School Programs Farm-to-school programs, through which locally grown foods are served and promoted, are beneficial for a number of reasons. Fruits and vegetables sourced locally are fresher, so they taste better, resulting in kids eating more of them. The purchase of locally-grown foods supports the local economy and strengthens the local food system. Farm-to-school programs allow students to learn about, as well as appreciate, the sources of the foods they eat and to understand the importance of local agriculture. Farm-to-school programs benefit the environment by cutting down on the amount of fossil fuels used to transport food from the farm to the consumer.
6.	Offer Vegetarian Options Daily As the quality of mass produced animal protein sources comes under scrutiny based on the amount of residual antibiotics, hormones, steroids and saturated fat content, vegetarian meals are wholesome options to be incorporated into school lunch on a rotating basis. Institutional foods, as purchased by many schools, may not always provide the most wholesome sources of animal protein. Vegetarian meals, not only wholesome and nutritious, also tend to be more economical, assisting the food budget.
7.	Serve More Whole Grains & Beans The body needs carbohydrates mainly for energy. The best sources of carbohydrates are whole grains because the body cannot digest them as quickly as highly processed carbohydrates. This keeps blood sugar and insulin levels from rising, then falling, too quickly. Better control of blood sugar and insulin can keep hunger at bay and may prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. Eating whole grains may also make kids feel more satisfied for a longer period of time.
8.	Discontinue Use of Poor Quality Oils Partially hydrogenated oils used for frying and food preparation, which are usually industrially processed oils such as soy, corn, cottonseed and canola, are derived from genetically modified food sources and extrapolated into oil using high heat and chemical processes, thus denaturing the oil and making it difficult to be utilized properly by the body. This phenomenon is linked to many diseases.
9.	Give Adequate Time for Students to Eat Lunch Students need adequate time to eat to meet their nutritional needs, which is essential for optimal student health and performance. Students who aren't rushed can relax, make healthier food choices, and enjoy their food more. Food served but not eaten does not contribute to nutritional health. Allowing enough time for students to eat can also prevent transient hunger that hinders attention and learning.
10.	Decrease Refined Carbohydrate Foods & Snacks Highly refined carbohydrates are rapidly absorbed into the body, much like ingesting simple sugars, resulting in a spike in glucose levels. This causes individuals to still feel hungry or to become hungrier sooner, only to consume even more food. This repetitive pattern is believed to contribute to the obesity epidemic. It also increases the risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

If I could add a #11 (or perhaps this should be #1): Drink WATER. Nothing else is as good for the body, not even milk or fruit juices, and yet too many kids--and adults--drink anything but water.

Informal Poll of TV Habits

Of late, the admittedly engaging theme songs to Little Einsteins and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse have gotten a lot of play in our house. Not only do I know all the words, I've even given command performances. We know all the characters by name, my son jumping up and down on the couch and shouting, "Donald! Daisy! Goofy! Minnie! Mickey! THAT'S ME!" in time with the music. He pats along with June, Quincy, Annie, and Leo like a pro. Even my hands-free headset has a name: Rocket, of course. (Pretty clever, I must say.)

So, when Lisa Guernsey wrote a New York Times Op-Ed about the Baby Einstein videos that claim to make your children smarter (more precisely, "our products are designed to encourage discovery and inspire new ways for parents and little ones to interact."), I was interested in finding out what other parents in my community were doing with the whole TV-and-children issue.

In my very informal poll of children's TV-watching habits among DC Metro area parents (all members of DCUM), I was sure that everyone else would have much better TV management skills than I did. As it turns out, we're all in much the same boat, which really should be no surprise. Although I anticipated that there would be more parents who have banned TV, I found that of the small sampling (~40) of respondents, they were pretty evenly split.

No TV at all	8
No TV until age 1	2
No TV until age 2	8
1-2 hrs/wk	3
Less than 1hr/day	5
About 1 hr/day	10
1-2 hrs/day	5

Shows most often watched include

• Blues Clues
• Wonder Pets
• Wiggles
• Jack's Music Show
• Little Einsteins
  
• Barney
• Thomas the Tank Engine
• Dora the Explorer
• Bear in the Big Blue House
• Caillou
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
• Baby Einstein videos
• HBO Special Classical Baby ("Winner of a Peabody Award and three Emmy® Awards and ingeniously designed to introduce young children to masterpieces of classical music, painting and dance, Classical Baby is a creative kaleidoscope of color, motion and music, played out in an accessible, comforting format.")

Channels:

• Noggin
• Nick JR
• PBS Kids
• Animal Planet

What's Wrong with TV?

Despite all the press about how bad TV watching is for language development, that wasn’t the primary concern cited (perhaps because it’s the most obvious one). What was mentioned by several parents was the desire to protect kids from advertising as well as from the content of TV shows.

We're in the "no TV at home at all" camp…we are trying very hard to keep him away from all of the heavy marketing/ advertising/ character-mindset associated with kid's shows. More than the TV stupor, we're trying to keep him away from the "I want this" whining that results from the mind numbing advertising prowess of these kid's marketing machines.

The main rule we have is that he does not watch TV alone in the room. One of us is there to point out things that we disagree with or are factually wrong to try to convey the idea of not passively accepting everything the TV tells him, and to skip the parts that he finds scary or bothersome.

One mom who felt that the TV watching was getting out of control (up to 3 hours a day) canceled their cable: It has made huge difference in our home...The battles are significantly reduced and I feel less overwhelmed by all the noise and chaos at home.

One note I found particularly insightful comment was from a mom who wondered what TV was taking the place of:

What I think about when I think about TV is, What are my kids NOT doing if they are watching TV? Not playing, not building, not practicing an instrument, not cooking, not looking at books (not fighting with each other!!)

When and Where?

The most common times for TV-watching were getting ready in the morning and preparing dinner in the evening. Some parents said that their children only watched DVDs in the car, or only watched at their grandparents’ house or friends’ houses.

Numerous people wrote about their disappointment that videos and TV are used at daycares, camps and at school.

I don't mind a VERY occasional use of a video (i.e., bad weather days or as a special treat), but in my mind, preschools or camps for children are not the place for TV watching. Good places don't need to resort to their use.

I have to confess, I was so surprised to find out that it was common for TV-watching to be a school activity! For young children, isn’t the point of pre-school that they are getting social interaction, learning experiences, new activities…heck, if I want them to watch TV, they can stay home and do that! I guess we should all be grateful they aren’t watching A Christmas Story like we did every December.

What's Good About TV?

One respondent thoughtfully noted:

It’s hard when we live in a world where we can't necessarily let our kids out to play without us either organizing a playdate or else just letting them roam the neighborhood for fear of abduction or danger. TV seems a much safer alternative.

I hadn't thought of TV-watching in quite this light, but it's so true. I know that when I was young we would always be somewhere up the street, with the neighborhood kids, in someone's yard or playing on the sidewalks in front of our houses. I'm sure my mom had at least a general idea of where we were and who we were with, but for me, the thought of letting my kids play outside without my eyes on them at all times is just too scary. Am I alone in this neurosis? Are there people--and places--out there who let their children roam the neighborhood?

Lessons Learned

In the end, I thought these two responses sum up both sides quite nicely:

We have limited time together, and none of us really want to spend it in front of a television.

I think this is yet another area of parenting where most of us have some "ideal" notion in our heads that we should be spending every waking moment being "perfect" parents (whatever that is) and stimulating/educating/spending "quality" time with our kids.

In our family, the TV is definitely a morning-rush and dinnertime activity. Since daddy is on morning duty, and I’m always so relieved that it’s not me that has to get everyone ready and out the door, I’m not even going to suggest that he leave the TV off then! (I know it’s only maybe 15-20 minutes of Baby Einstein or Mickey Mouse, anyway). Dinnertime is my purview, however…lately I’ve been setting up my toddler with his own bowls and spoon on a chair at the counter so he can mix and stir (and turn the lights on and off!) to his heart’s content. Our little one is usually demanding to be in the middle of the activity, so a doorway jumper keeps her active, contained, and happy. We all help mommy cook, we sing songs (last night it was 50 rounds of “I’m a Happy Helper!”), and we’re all together.

A huge thank you to everyone who responded to the poll!!

More Information:

American Academy of Pediatrics' Recommendations.

Georgetown University's Early Learning Project.

Lisa Guernsey, who wrote the New York Time Op-Ed that inspired the poll.

Happy Kids! (Or are they?)

The Associated Press and MTV conducted a poll of 1,280 people ages 13-24 and determined that kids love their parents. Okay, I over-simplify. But in response to the open-ended question, "What makes you happy?" the most common answer was their parents. What great news! Right?

Of course, what the AP article doesn't clearly state is that while 49% of teens said that their relationship with their family made them "very happy," a full 61% said that "listening to music" also made them "very happy." So, are they happier with music than their family?

Also glossed over is the statistic that 58% of those polled said that "the way things are in the world" made them either somewhat or very unhappy. Only 15% said they where somewhat or very happy with the state of the world. To me, that sounds like a lot of young adults who are dissatisfied with the world they soon will be inheriting...

One thing that is so frustrating with these types of polls is that they take a sampling (less than 1,300) of kids, ask them a bunch (100) of different questions and then someone somewhere along the line between the people conducting the research and the reporters reporting on it decides which "research" findings they want to publicize. And, folks, that's all we see--what someone else has decided is important. Now, as someone who works in education research, I fully understand that it's not always easy, possible, or even desirable to publish the full text of questions asked, how the responses are analyzed, or what conclusions can be drawn. But as a discerning consumer of information, this poll just leaves me wanting to know more. Who are these 1,280 kids? Are they truly a representative sample of kids across the U.S.? Good research practices would dictate that they are, but without more information, we just have to trust that this poll, and the news article written from it, is giving us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

As it happens, I know of a far superior research study into the true happiness of kids today that provides relevant, real-time data reporting personalized to your specific socio-economic, cultural, and geographic background: just ask them yourself. I hear that works wonders.




Graphic from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_on_re_us/youth_poll_happiness

The Boob Tube: What the experts say

Everyone knows that TV is the devil. It turns us and our children into mindless drones who can't play creatively, can't resist the myriad advertisements that interrupt our viewing, can't concentrate on any task for more than a few minutes. It is responsible for childhood obesity (particularly among low-income children), If it's so bad, why do so many of us watch so much of it? If it's so bad, then what does that say about all of us who grew up watching TV, and not the "educational" shows on PBS, Nick Jr., and Disney today, but McGyver, Nightrider and the Dukes of Hazzard?

In an article in Slate, The Benefits of Bozo: Proof that TV doesn't harm kids, the author talks about one key problem with all the research into how terrible TV is for kids:

Most studies of the impact of television, however, are seriously flawed. They compare kids who watch TV and kids who don't, when kids in those two groups live in very different environments...Because of their income advantage, the less-TV kids have all sorts of things going for them that have nothing to do with the impact of television.

Although, personally, I'm still on the fence about whether all research findings come down to socio-economic status (poverty being a topic for another day), this is an interesting point.

The moral of this story? All research is not created equal. Be very, very discerning about what you put your faith in, and be a smart consumer of information. In this, as in everything, read the labels!







Not surprisingly, the Turnoff TV organization has plenty of statistics on their website



"The heart of Johnson's argument is...that today's pop-culture consumer has to do more "cognitive work"--making snap decisions and coming up with long-term strategies in role-playing video games, for example, or mastering new virtual environments on the Internet-- than ever before. Johnson makes a compelling case that even today's least nutritional TV junk food–the Joe Millionaires and Survivors so commonly derided as evidence of America's cultural decline--is more complex and stimulating, in terms of plot complexity and the amount of external information viewers need to understand them, than the Love Boats and I Love Lucys that preceded it." Reviewed on Amazon.com. Reviewed by the New Yorker. About the book on Wikipedia.org.