Four Million And One

There are four million mom bloggers in N. America. So, I'm blogger number four million and one and I'm convinced I have something to offer that's different than the other four million. Call me hopelessly optimistic or naive but connecting with just one...

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New Location for 4Mill+1

You can now find me at www.fourmillionandone.com....what can I say, I’m still new at this so bare with me. 

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Like most I'm disgusted by the Stanford rape case. I mean thoroughly, no words, disgusted. My hope is that the dialogue about rape culture continues to grow...and that we don't ever let Brock Turner forget who he is and what he did to that poor girl. Jail or no jail, the American public can sentence him to a lifetime of hell. In the meantime, check out this great article on teaching kids about rape culture.

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Because I Said So!

The other night I watched an episode of For Peete’s Sake on OWN and days later I found myself replaying a part of it over and over in my head. It’s the episode where Holly’s mom Dolores says the kids aren’t behaving and that they need some new parenting called “because I said so.” 

“Because I said so” parenting is when you ask your child to do something, they whine and moan, ask why, tell you what they’d rather do instead, get distracted, ask why again....and then you respond with “because I said so.” 

I used to hate to hear that from my parents when I was young. I thought it was cruel and insensitive to not explain why or discuss something with me. And I really thought, wait for it....that it was unfair. I vowed to never use that phrase when I became a parent but instead, I envisioned patiently explaining the myriad of reasons why I needed my children to get dressed, pick up their toys, brush their teeth, wash their hands, etc. 

In my young mind, the “because I said so” response offered too little information about why and ultimately left no room to negotiate which now that I’m a parent, I know is the point. I failed to understand that having to explain basic things countless times gets old, really fast. And so God created that lovely phrase -- “because I said so” -- and it saves everyone from mommy losing her cool while also making it clear that something needs to get done. 

Now, there are many professionals that feel that this type of authoritarian parenting has lost its power and place in today’s world. They say that this style isn’t constructive, doesn’t allow the child to think for themselves, or learn how to problem solve and consider options.  

But when it comes to discipline and your child is in that sweet spot in age where they are trying to figure out who holds the power and where they fit in (roughly 4 to 6 years-old), this style can be so helpful. It clearly establishes the pecking order in the home -- you are the child, I am the adult and you do as I say, not vice versa. If you don’t clarify and establish these roles with your child while they’re still young, God help you when they are teenagers! I’m not suggesting that at some point you shouldn’t sit down and explain things to your child but you shouldn’t have to do so each and every time you ask them to do something. 

Obviously I’m no trained expert on the topic -- just a regular mom who has realized that the old-school parenting of my mom’s generation had something going with the “because I said so” style.

Needless to say, you can forget that part when I vowed not to use the phrase -- I am totally a “because I said so” mom. 

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Seriously, take a look..let's find these missing children! BTW: who made national wine day the same day as national missing children's day?!? #nationalmissingchildrensday

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My life. (Kids, just joking 😜)...but seriously, happy national wine day! #nationalwineday

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Wishing this was my current view but instead, I am dealing with a very cranky, tired 4 year old.

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Now that I have your attention--get your boobies checked ladies! Early detection and prevention saves lives. (at Cedars-Sinai Saul & Joyce Brandman Breast Center)

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Quiet Noise

My children recently spent the night out with their Godparents, meaning, my husband and I enjoyed a blissful parenting respite. The house was quiet and I could actually hear birds chirping and the hum of the ceiling fan. It was amazing. 

And yet it’s not the same type of quiet as before having a family. I have the noise of having a family in my head, non-stop -- the noise switch got flipped for me the second I delivered and even when the kids spend the night out, my body has been trained and doesn’t enjoy the quiet the same way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have this type of quiet noise. It’s just different than before, in all of the toughest, and best, ways.

Peace and quiet is one of those things that I just didn’t think about having to give up with kids. I just didn’t consciously think about what it was going to mean and how that level of non-stop noise was going to impact me even when they were not around. You see, even when they are finally spending the night out, I spend way too much time thinking about them and missing them. I think about all the things I still need to do for them in preparation for an upcoming playdate or some such “things to do” item. WTF? I can’t wait to get a break from them and then when I do, I think and talk about them a lot. Guess this only means one thing -- I’m a mom. Or at least a really high-strong one. 

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This was us over spring break when hubby and Pop Pop were tossing my baby in the pool. 😧

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#1 Reason Why Your Child Won’t Make It To the Olympics

Last week a mommy friend was bragging, in a subtle way, about the fact that her daughter was just promoted to a gymnastics team. As a member of this team, her 7 year-old daughter had practice three times a week for three hours each practice. I listened and only hoped my expression didn’t reflect what I was thinking (which was WTF?)

My friend was so proud of her little girl, naturally, and went on to gloat about the instructor feedback -- if her daughter worked hard, she might even have a real shot of one day making the Olympic team. Insert conversation in my head -- is she serious? Does she not know the statistics around overuse of muscles and children specializing in one sport too early? Does she not know that most professional athletes and Olympians played multiple sports before specializing (giving them less injuries and stronger overall athletic ability). Does she not understand the business behind recruiting children to specialize?

The risks of injury are real and joining that year-round CLUB sport team or training for 8+ months of the year in one sport might be the fastest way to end a career before it really starts. Contrary to general public assumption, playing one sport too much, for too long, too early in life, is just not safe and it will most likely cause your child’s athletic career in said chosen sport to be shorter, not longer. 

I know people want to believe that their child is talented and that this talent is so unique that it must be harnessed and developed as soon as possible. And Lord knows I love the Olympics. To this day I still dream about it not being too late for me to somehow pick up an oar and join a rowing team or researching other sports for late bloomers. And sure I want my kids to be athletic -- it’s in the genes and sort of mandatory that they are at least very active. But how and when that happens are really key components. 

There seems to be growing attention, albeit slow, around the topic -- The Age of Single-Sport Athletes Endures Despite Detractors’ Suspicions shares:

“According to the preliminary findings, highly specialized athletes were more likely to report a history of knee or hip injuries blamed on overuse; participating in a single sport for more than eight months per year appeared to be an important factor in increased injury risk.”

This is a wonderful article with lots of valid points but for some reason the message is not resonating with parents, at least of small children. I think most parents in general read these types of articles and find them interesting but they don’t consider it applicable to them. And to be fair, very little has been discussed about the appropriate time to specialize. I surely don’t think it is 7. But is it 10? Is it after middle school? High school even? It must also depend on the sport -- recruiters for soccer and gymnastics start much younger than for volleyball or basketball. But isn’t there an athletic governing body that can provide some broad guidelines, perhaps in association with the American Pediatrics Association. Do these already exist and I just don’t know? 

If not, here’s the first guideline -- 

In general, parents should encourage children to play multiple sports for as long as possible. This will enhance their overall athletic ability and decrease injury due to overuse. 

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Visiting Urgent Care or the ER? Here are three MUST FOLLOW rules.

Since I last posted, ions ago, life happened in a whirlwind of nagging my kids, running to soccer games and karate, scheduling playdates, packing school lunches, kissing boo-boos, celebrating Mother’s Day...oh and a 24-hour saga involving my 4-year old and two urgent care visits, an evening in the emergency room, and finally a trip to a physician specialist. 

A few things became extremely apparent to me through all of that life happening...the biggest being the importance of advocating for your own health (or the health of dependent children) early in the diagnosis and treatment process. 

Avery fractured his elbow. After falling off a play structure and breaking his fall by landing on his arm/hand, we initially didn’t think he was hurt and started not to take him to urgent care. But at 5:45 pm, that’s exactly where we headed and learned he had “nursemaids elbow.” They however, wouldn’t do the maneuver to realign his elbow without an x-ray of the arm in case there was more damage. So we headed to the emergency room where the physician held the opposite perspective from the urgent care doctor -- he didn’t think an x-ray was immediately needed and that it was just nursemaids elbow (”Why get an x-ray if you don’t need it?”). After the initial examination, the ER doctor quickly realigned Avery’s elbow without discussion or pause, but with great pain to Avery. And the next day, there was still mild pain so we had to go back for an x-ray at another place where we got our final diagnosis of a fractured elbow and a cast. 

It was sort of a non-comedy of errors between physician facilities and doctors and it made it clear to me just how easily medical errors happen. Now the third leading cause of death in the US, medical errors happen (in my humble opinion) because of a hurried, non-communicative, chaotic healthcare system where the patient is not treated like an actual person. There is no greater reason why we need to speak up immediately and loudly whenever dealing with anything health related, especially in a healthcare facility. And that goes triple for when you have to speak up for a child. 

Too many times we defer to the physician, out of fear, out of the desire to just get the child better as fast as possible, because we don’t want to be labeled the pain in the a** mom, or some such excuse. But it’s too important. When I was with Avery last week in the emergency room I found myself not being vocal enough, fast enough. I assumed I would have more time to talk about diagnosis and treatment options with the ER doctor before he would make a unilateral decision and act. Lesson learned.

Three things to do when/if you have to take your child to a healthcare facility: 

Trust your instincts and don’t be afraid to make things crystal clear from the very start -- as in, the minute you walk into one of these places lay the ground rules out on the table (don’t wait for the doctor to lead the conversation).  

Be prepared to give the doctor a full accounting of what happened but also work in tidbits about who your child is -- are they afraid of doctors? How are they feeling about being there? What is your child into these days (soccer, cars, dolls, etc.)? Has the child taken any medicine or been treated before for a similar issue (and if so, when and how was he/she treated?) 

Most important, ask the physician to tell you what your options are BEFORE he/she does anything. You can’t assume they will give you that courtesy so ask for it so that you can make an informed decision for your loved one.  

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The Fine Line of Farts & Giggles

The good people over at AsapScience have finally dispelled an age-old question: Can You Outrun a Fart?

This is life changing information, for myriad reasons. But it raises a related issue for me as a mom. How and when do you get kids to understand the fine line between farts being funny and farts being gross and inappropriate? 

Last night just before bedtime my kids were “letting loose” and giggling the entire time. It was sort of a fart off if you will and boy were those jokers potent.  If they weren’t my own children I really would have thrown up in my mouth a little. But instead, I found their laughter contagious and didn’t give it too much thought. 

We’re at the stage, at least with my little one, where passing gas is a hoot (and very stinky, which makes it even more funny) but pretty soon, one of them is going to do it in public, and think it’s funny, and it won’t be. 

Nothing is worse than when you smell someone else’s fart. How many times have you been on an airplane or in an elevator when bam, someone let’s it go? You want to tear your nose off, cry or scream but instead, you suffer in silence (for the most part) because what else can you do? And yet when it’s your own fart or a loved ones, you tolerate it more easily, perhaps even laugh along with the loved one through the stench. 

I want to help the kids understand that while everyone passes gas and it’s a normal body function, it’s still something that is a potty related issue and therefore reserved for them, privately. But how do I help them learn this when someone decides to just let it go in an elevator, airplane, or another well populated place? How do I help them take it more serious and learn time and place when there seems to be so many adults that don’t know as much? 

Getting this message to stick has been a bit of a challenge--when they’re laughing nonstop over the funky air that just left their little bodies, it’s hard to take anything too serious. And I guess it doesn’t help much that when they do it at home, I’m right there along with them smiling and laughing. 

Perhaps adults are the ones that need to reconsider all of this. Perhaps we should all find a way to laugh a bit more, even when there’s a gross smelling fart from a stranger. We should take a cue from the little ones--speak up and acknowledge the elephart, make that elephant, in the room. Since we can’t outrun farts, we should own them and let laughter lead everyone off the ledge and make the feeling of wanting to throw up subside a bit. 

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Having a baby? Be Prepared to Be Scared. Of Everything.

My mother is, well, superwoman. She managed to have a successful career, marriage, AND raise three children so my “can I really have it all?” issues are even more personally compounded. That said, with different circumstances and in a different time, she was the exception, not the norm. 

My sister is equally a superwoman of a different sort. She’s a pediatrician who sold her private practice to work part-time in another doctors office so that she could be at home more with her kids. Then there are the powerhouse mothers on my husbands side -- all this to say, when we got pregnant, I thought the mothering thing would come easy. And it did, for the most part. Instincts kicked in, along with several around the clock calls to my sister for advice, and my husband and I got into a great mommy and daddy rhythm. 

But nobody prepared me for the elevated fear factor. I understandably went through the “what ifs” of having a baby--what if she swallows a small toy? What if she’s allergic to something or that vaccination causes an illness? What if she misses a major developmental milestone or something? What if there’s a tsunami in the middle of the night..what’s our escape plan? I worried and considered every possible thing imaginable and tried to anticipate and plan as best I could. 

I didn’t however, plan on becoming so afraid of other things---heights, amusement park rides, car rides, large crowds, etc. Before kids, I wasn’t a dare devil or anything, but I certainly wasn’t afraid to drive over a high bridge in the outside lane or didn’t ever worry about possibly driving too fast and having a car accident. 

With children, not only had my body changed, but also my fear factor indicator had changed. As a mother, I became concerned with my well being in ways that I didn’t before having kids. This makes sense on many levels, I get that. As a mother I also worried about the question, what if something happens to me!?!? What will my children do then?  

But the truth is, being a mommy has reminded me, in a somewhat brutal way, that these little beings are mine, but they’re not mine. I am blessed to be their mom, to be the vessel that brought them here and to be able to be with them each day, but their journeys, their decisions, their trials and tribulations, their talents and blessings, are theirs. I can’t take any of that on for them, no matter if it’s good or bad, but instead, can help them learn about faith, coping, love, gratitude, education, and the myriad of things they will need to become strong, healthy, and happy people. And God forbid something happen to me, I know the people I leave behind will equally do their best in my absence. 

I don’t know if any parent ever really gets to the point where they’re just like “whatever” about their children and the slew of things that might happen to them personally or to their children. In that sense, perhaps it’s about accepting life in a new state of (parenthood-based) fear? I’ve been told that the teenage years will truly test my worries in ways that I can’t fathom as the mom of two little ones so yes, perhaps it is about that new state. And perhaps it’s also time to start regularly meditating. 

April 13, 2016 

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Word.

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Clue: The Four Year Old, In My Bed, With a Toy Airplane

The four year old is Avery. He’s a yummy mix of my husband and me and such a well-spoken charmer for someone so little. But the four year old has developed a very bad habit of getting into our bed each night and it’s become a regular thing. It started one week when he wasn’t feeling so hot and then it just kept happening. A nightmare here or there, he grabs the toy he fell asleep with, usually a toy airplane, and we hear the pitter patter of his flat feet heading to our bed. Then three days ago, after waking up with his little cuteness next to me, he said that he needs “softer sheets” in order to stay asleep in his bed. I went out that day and got a feathertop covering to make his bed more like mommy and daddy’s, soft and comfy. He slept solid that night and my husband and I thought we were on to something, finally. We had solved the problem of the four year old, in our bed, with his toy airplane. After trying everything we could think of to get him to sleep in his own bed through the night (e.g. threats to bribes), we would finally sleep again consistently thanks to this new bed topping. Then last night happened -- he was back in our bed after waking at 1 am and an hour of trying to sleep with mommy lying next to him, in his bed. 

I know, I know. A lot of kids have the sleeping with mommy and daddy each night problem and in the grand scheme of things, he won’t be 16 years old and still coming to our bed, so perhaps I should just enjoy this moment in time. I’m torn, really. He’s such a cuddler and I truly love that he wants to snuggle up to me each night but it’s starting to take its toll. Sleep deprivation when you no longer have a small baby is just unusually cruel. At this point, I’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to sleep through the night consistently again and to have that taken away, is just wrong. As a result, I don’t sleep well, daddy doesn’t sleep well and on some occasions, the four year old doesn’t sleep as well -- we’re all messed up the next day and for days to come as the cycle continues. 

Tomorrow night I’m not going to give in and I’m going to put him back in his own bed (yeah, right). 

April 11, 2016

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Isn’t there an app for that?

For some stupid and naive reason, I always thought that once I became an adult, or rather, once I had a family and little beings that called me “mom,” I’d have life pretty much figured out. I would “have it all.” I would have, or be about to accomplish, all that I wanted to professionally and I would juggle mommy- and wifehood with ease and grace. Oh, and I would be in the best shape of my life (if nothing else because my family would keep me so busy that my active lifestyle would keep me fit and my desire to have my family eat healthily would equally be a benefit). Instead, somewhat the contrary has happened. 

I was on my way to living the professional dream and then bam, kids happened. First came Gigi, seven and a half years ago. Then her brother showed up three years later to equally fill my heart. And there’s also a husband involved, my partner on this journey. These three beings are my everything and the greatest blessings of my life. After fifteen years working in corporate and nonprofit public relations and marketing, that life stopped, and I became a stay-at-home mom and wife. I’m not in the best shape of my life either and don’t feel like I “have it all,” mostly because I haven’t figured out the professional side of my life, post family. 

Let me be clear. I am an excellent mother -- not perfect but if I had to toot my own horn about anything at this point in my life, it would be that my kids are happy, healthy, well-adjusted beings. So I can at least check that box in the “having it all” list. Then again, my kids are young...this is really just starting for me and is sure to be the most challenging and rewarding job to come. 

I’ve dibbled and dabbled in a few jobs, consulting here and there, since my career pretty much ended but the reality is work doesn’t feel the same for me after having kids because the sacrifice of time is too great. The things that interested me pre-family would never work post-family -- I want more time with them, I want more mental capacity to be with them and I don’t have the same patience for working with incompetent, lazy people in the workplace. And so, I am forced to switch gears and rediscover what else I’m good at, what else is interesting and motivating, professionally, that is family friendly. 

I know I’m not the first mom and wife to be in this position. It seems to be a universal phenomenon -- women around the world are torn by responsibility, most just trying to stay afloat with the hectic schedule of life and its many demands. But it’s this knowing that I’m not the first one to be in this place that has me stuck. How can we better learn from and support each other in this phase of life? Even when our experiences and backgrounds differ, in some form or fashion this notion of “who am I now” and “what do I want now” comes up. It’s difficult enough to figure out when it’s just you but throw in there the mix of a husband and children and the question seems infinitely more difficult to answer. 

But I’m not the first person to experience all of this -- this is a decades old struggle so again, why aren’t we further along as a culture, a country, a world? Isn’t there an app yet for this? Something that helps direct a sleep-deprived, overly stretched, multi-tasking mom with a daily roadmap that ensures blissful work/life balance? Perhaps something like the “FitForLife” app only instead of nutritional information it would provide specific action steps, timing figured out and proposed outcomes? Based on your personal input of daily activities, it would surmise -- if you want more time with your family and want to still contribute to society and make a living, then you should do “X” or “Y” by “Z.” 

Women are powerful beings, capable of unlimited potential and this has been an age-old issue for far too long. Surely we can crack this nut and figure something out so that more women don’t have to figure it out completely for themselves after they have a family (which is only the most blissful, stressful, busy time in a woman’s life).  

April 10, 2016