“Oh, the Weather Outside is… Awesome!”
Isn’t it amazing how good weather puts EVERYBODY in a good mood?! Our thermometer read 66 degrees yesterday, we went to the park, we washed cars! It’s going to stay this nice all this week.
The weather affects everyone (obviously), yet ‘talking about the weather’ has a negative implication, like you had nothing to say to the person, so you just ‘talked about the weather’. But weather is important…
It is generally true that people who live in warm, sunny climates are happier.
After all, weather is like pizza– when it’s good, it’s GREAT 
Yes, I just compared weather to pizza… but can’t you really compare everything to pizza?
The DC Auto Show was Great
The DC Auto Show was great!
And taking Metro couldn’t have been easier.
If you have boys, consider taking them next year… we saw Diego, Spiderman and Ironman too!
The DC Auto Show This Weekend!
The DC Auto Show is this weekend! As a mother to a young son- this is comparable to DisneyWorld, right here in our own backyard.
Take Metro down to the convention center, and have fun! Kids under 6 get in FREE, and adults pay $12.
There is stuff for kids- with Dora, Diego and even Spiderman making appearances throughout the day!
So get up and get down there! We’ll be there, looking at the 700 cars and trucks…
I don’t know if my Little Guy is going to be able to stand it- he’s giddy about it already!
Remember to Drink… Your Water
A lot of people are trying to lose weight for their New Year’s Resolutions…
And when not trying to lose weight, the vast majority of people, especially women, are conscious of maintaining their weight, like myself.
**And for the people who eat and drink anything they want, all the time, and never gain weight, well, leave a comment and I’ll introduce you to each other, I think only a couple of you exist.**
With that said I was reminded the other day about how important it is to drink water…
I do not drink anything during the day except for tea and water; soda is empty calories. BUT, it is easy this time of year to continually sip nice warm tea or coffee, and then at the end of the day, realize that you are thirsty…
So- DRINK MORE WATER. If you are at home or in the car/SUV/minivan: have a glass or bottle of water on hand so you can sip it occasionally. Did you know that most Americans at any given time are dehydrated?
Drink some water. You’ll feel better. You’ll lose weight too.
Go ahead- drink!
Okay, I’m getting up to get a glass of water now…
When Wigs Went Out of Fashion, Was Everyone Like, ‘What Were We Thinking?’
When did wigs go out of fashion? And I’m talking about the white powdered wigs, not current wigs or hair–extentions… And more importantly, when they did go out of fashion and people were onto the next ‘fad’ or fashion trend –
Did people say to each other, ‘Oh my God, can you believe we wore WIGS ?!!’
Last night my husband had on the History Channel, as he always does, and he said to me,
“I wonder if people looked back at the generation before them that wore wigs and were aghast at the fashion.”
First of all, I felt like saying, “Who are you? Bring back my husband who doesn’t care about fashion… Is this Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
Then I thought about it and Googled it… and here you go:
In ancient times Egyptians wore wigs to shield their bald heads from the sun- that makes sense.
Then, wigs were revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one’s personal appearance. And that makes sense. There was also a lot of hair lice in those days so people would shave their heads to get rid of it- then wear a wig… DISGUSTING, but practical.
So, back to the question:
It’s funny to think about how people must have reflected on wig wearing…
I mean, I cringe when I think of the 80’s and what I wore: stirrup-pants anyone?
But wigs are crazy-worse that stirrup-pants.
But wigs were somewhat of a necessity of the time; so maybe people didn’t make fun of people before them.
Actually, I don’t think people started making fun of previous fashion trends until recently, as in the last 30 years, because PEOPLE DIDN’T HAVE TIME to make fun of fashion. People were growing their own food and working long hours and life was harder than now-a-days.
Just a thought.
It’s still funny to think about some young people a couple of hundred years ago sitting around saying, ‘Can you believe your mom wore a wig? How lame!’
Thinking of something to do… Go Bowling!
I love this upcoming week, the end-of-the-year, play-with-toys week. It’s lazy and fun and always a good time to do something new and a little special with your kids.
I just found a great destination to take your kids for a few hours –
My son, who turned 5 just over a week ago, had never been bowling, I hadn’t been since I was a kid.
But we went to try something new, and had a great time!
I had forgotten the nice thing about bowling: it’s not that hard
Strike! in Bethesda has ramps to help little ones roll their bowling balls, and puts up rails on lanes that have kids bowling in them so – NO GUTTER BALLS! Isn’t that brilliant?!
Like I said, we had a great time bowling and even had lunch there. They have tons of choices, good food and great prices.
And bowling a game is only $6.25.
Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, especially when it’s cold outside.
PS- does anyone know of a good duckpin bowling alley in the DC Metro area?
Just Another Reason Why I Love Mr. Rogers
(Do you think this looks like Mr. Rogers? Yeah, I’m thinking this doesn’t look like him either, but it was one of the pictures that came up when I entered- ‘sweater’ into Microsoft Free Clip Art and I thought the blue v-neck reminded me of Mr. Rogers… so go with me this time: that this is a picture of Mr. Rogers.)
To be serious, I just read the following quote from Fred Rogers about how important it is to nurture babies, and indirectly, how important mothers are:
“I believe that infants and babies whose mothers give them loving comfort whenever and however they can are truly the fortunate ones. I think they’re more likely to find life’s times of trouble manageable,
and I think they may also turn out to be the adults most able to pass loving concern along to the generations that follow after them.”
-Mr. Rogers
We’re doing the world’s most important work here ladies… and gents.
Not Busy Enough? Throw a Birthday Party!
Christmas is the 25th, Kwanzaa always starts on the 26th and Hanukkah starts the evening of the 21st this year. So no matter who you are, we’re all basically on the same schedule this year…
except for those of us who as a result of:
poor planning,
or a lack of planning,
missed due dates,
early births,
or just ‘seeing what would happen’… now have a child born this time of year.
I would not trade my son or the day he was born (December 18th) for anything in the world. It is a great honor and pleasure to be his mother….
Now, with that said: candles, candy canes, wreaths, Santa… Plus: balloons, confetti, birthday cakes, ice cream. It’s a lot.
This is a busy time of year for everyone, needless to say. But the hard part for moms with holiday birthdays to plan isn’t the organization part; moms are good at the ‘whole organization thing’.
It’s the COORDINATION and TIME part that makes this hard-
Coordinating when we are celebrating what, when to emphasize what, when we are decorating, when we have the kids party, when we have the family party…
Last year my son came up with the awesome tradition (I thought) of celebrating his birthday, on his birthday (December 18th), and THEN decorating for Christmas AFTER his birthday. We went out the morning of the 19th, got our tree, decorated and had a whole week to get excited for Christmas.
I blogged about this last year on DC Metro Moms and WAS PSYCHED.
Perfect I thought, we’ll always have a sweet, unique Christmas tradition that no decorations go up until the 19th and who cares, because it will be a great reminder of our wondrous Christmas when we brought home our Little Man.
And this is the unique way our family celebrates this season…
There’s just one problem that I’ve just been reminded of:
4-year-olds change their minds… a lot.
My son just asked me a couple of days ago when our tree will be going up. I told him we’ve been over this a bunch of times- the 19th, the morning after his birthday.
And here it comes: He wants to decorate before his birthday this year, he decided.
The only problem – I have at least 20 4-and-5-year-olds coming to our home for a birthday party on the afternoon of the 18th, and both sides of our family coming over for an evening birthday party on the 18th too-
I can’t fit a Christmas tree and all the decorations with an extra 20+ children, plus adults, plus a magician in my house.
I explained this to my Little Man and he’s fine with it. But I’m kicking myself for being almost too concerned about ‘making his birthday special’ that I’m not giving Christmas enough of a build-up.
Solution: next year we’ll have my Little Guy’s birthday party somewhere besides our home (although I love home birthday parties) and we’ll decorate for Christmas BEFORE his birthday…
unless he changes his mind again.
Post Script: I think I need to take this whole birthday thing year by year. And relax. I’m making my son’s birthday special, and that’s what’s important.
At least I’m used to this: my dad’s birthday occasionally falls on Easter, my mom’s birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving, my brother’s birthday is the day after Halloween and my mother-in-law’s birthday sometimes is on Mother’s Day.
Enjoy the Holidays and birthdays you are celebrating right now
An abbreviated version of this can be read over at DC Metro Moms Blog.
Has ‘Monopoly’ Gone Too Far?
Have you seen any commercials for toys lately? What a stupid, stupid question. Toys ARE CRAZY nowadays. I thank God my son is only 4 and has never heard of a Wii,
and has no interest in video games (because we don’t have any),
and still loves Playdough.
Yesterday I saw a commercial for Monopoly: Electronic Banking Edition.
Are you kidding me? No paper money, just debit cards and calculators and higher rents and higher prices.
No paper money?? The paper money was the thing that was so cool about Monopoly.
I played this game. We all did. They also have a World Version of Monopoly now and a Monopoly Town game that my son and I play (with a talking car, pretty cool, I think he only likes it because the car talks).
There are versions now of Monopoly incorporating: Disney princesses, SpongeBob and Transformers, just to name a few.
In short: Monopoly is a Monopoly. And that is just fine. It’s ‘old school’, it’s fun, it’s harmless…
Or I thought so until I saw the commercial for ‘faster and higher’ exchanges of credit:
“With Monopoly: Electronic Banking Edition”.
Do we really need to teach 8-year-olds about debit and credit cards and a paperless society?
That’s not rhetorical… I’m asking…
Maybe we do… but I just loved the old Monopoly where getting a $500 bill was SO COOL!
And the money was all different colors
My First Visit to a Urinal
On a recent afternoon my Little Man and I went to a rather upscale grocery store to get some very specific fruits (for a preschool project… long story, it’s not important).
As we wandered through the aisles, my son fascinated with all the unusual food, I was hit with the always-a-pleasure exclamation:
“Mommy, I have to go to the potty, REALLY BAD!” How did this happen? A moment ago he was fine. Now he was holding himself down there and wincing. Ugh. But we all know how little ones sometimes don’t bother to go when they first have the urge because other things are more important to little people than a basic human function like relieving one’s self.
“Okay, let’s look for a bathroom.” And around the next corner- awesome, a bathroom! As we quickly walked jogged to the women’s bathroom, a 20-something girl young woman bolted in front of us into the one-person room/bathroom, oblivious to the fact that a 4-year-old may not always be able to hold it as she has learned to do over her 2 decades on the planet. She saw us but figured she got there first.
Oh, how little she knows now, wait til she has kids!
So, a man working at the store saw this happen and quickly instructed us to go in the men’s bathroom, it’s just one room so, no problem. I quickly thanked him and we got in and locked the door…
My Little Guy gasped and started to giggle, he was looking at the urinal mounted on the wall and said, and I quote,
“Mommy! I love these things!” Um. Okay. And then he quickly pulled down his drawers and got up on his tip toes and relieved himself… smiling.
And then it hit me: I’ve never been in a men’s bathroom before. I looked around. Nice… same as ours, toilet, sink, mirror, paper towels, toilet paper, but with a urinal too.
“I just love the toilets on the wall!” He told me as he washed his hands in the sink.
Okay. Lesson learned. Note to self: males, no matter what age, like urinals.
It never occured to me that when he my husband takes him to the bathroom when we’re out that they go into the men’s bathroom and they have urinals in there, so that’s what he uses.
DUH.
And it never occurred to me that my 4-year-old son would have a preference for what kind of toilet he goes in.
… This has been just a random thought and observation from a boy-mom;
not having grown-up a boy myself, there are still things to learn about guys, although I am married to one too.
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