Silicon Valley Moms Blog

The secret to raising a responsible kid

I'm lucky to have that rarest of treasures: two of them---who do the stuff everyone wants their kids to do:

Not losing sweaters and jackets.

Getting school permissions slips signed and turned in on time.

Not forgetting lunchboxes at home  (okay,  just once or twice)

Now they’re older– and they’ve turned into two responsible adults.

They fill out their own forms and applications.

They handle their own finances.

They remember to write thank you notes without being reminded.

People who know my kids often ask me— what’s the secret?  And I always give a little Mona Lisa smile, taking full credit for accomplishing such a miracle.

Except there was no miracle.  And my accomplishment was mostly due to my secret weapon: cancer.  (Note to Parents: Don’t try this at home.)

My daughter was 11; my son had just turned 7.    Fighting cancer consumed all of my energy;   leaving little left over to fight my genetic tendency to be disorganized.

I had no choice—so I released---with great relief----my alter ego who’d been hiding all those years …..Slacker Mom.   And guess who picked up the slack.

Field Trips and the School Bus

My daughter and her Kindergarten class were going on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I was quite relaxed about this little adventure, but as the date of the field trip approached, I started to get nervous about the bus ride.  Do they have seat-belts and car-seats on the bus?  Wasn't there a recent bus accident in Florida, or was that last year?  Yes I was really thinking those thoughts.  I suddenly realized I had no control over this aspect of the trip.  Quietly I mentioned this to another mom in Margo's class.  She laughed, but admitted she too was struggling with the same thing.  Why no seat restraints on the bus for our precious cargo? 

Separating my twins -- What was I Thinking??

Several months ago I appeared in an SV Moms A Byte Out of Life video along with fellow twin moms Linda and Akemi and discussed the pros and cons of separating our twins in elementary school.  It has been almost 3 months now since Alfie and I sent our boys off into separate classrooms for their kindergarten year, and I'm happy to say things are going really well.  Each of them has their own special place they can call their own, where everybody knows their name.   They don't have to be compared to anyone else or be singled (or doubled?) out for their uncanny resemblance to each other; rather, they're appreciated as individuals.  They still share many of the same interests and friends, and it hasn't affected the bond between them at all.  All in all, it looks like both boys are happy and thriving on their separate schedules.

If only I could say the same for myself.  When we made the decision to separate them in elementary school, I did pause a minute to consider that separate classrooms meant separate workloads and schedules, but I nobly disregarded that as a factor in making our decision.  After all, our daughter is on her own schedule, so why shouldn't each of my sons be?   And now, much to my selfish chagrin, I've found that having twins in separate classrooms is making my life absolutely crazy! 

If My Family Stopped Eating We Would be RICH!

Have you taken a look at your grocery bill lately?  I mean have you really broken down all your monthly expenses to figure out where you are spending the bulk of your money?  Ya, well if you do - be prepared to be shocked. 

How I know this is we did, oh how we did and I swear I will never be the same again.  Just the cost of food alone, it was huge - and I don't even have that big of a family, two adults, two kids and two dogs.  I have less people in my household than most my friends and my family does not even eat that much - us Lentzner's are more grazers and snackers, than big hungry man eaters.  No lobster, no champagne, no fancy french caviar for us common folk.....just basic food - everyday regular food.

Sustainable Sustainable Living

Last summer at BlogHer I was invited to a lunch sponsored by Clorox Green Works. They had provided us with samples ahead of time to try out. At the lunch each table had a Clorox representative to answer any questions we might have about the products. I was sitting at a table of very nice bloggers, all from very different backgrounds. We ate our lunches peacefully engaged in friendly chit-chat, and then the Clorox rep opened the floor for questions.

There were two women at my table who were green "experts." Their blogs were focused on environmental issues and they were very well versed on the topic. They started asking technical questions about the products and were definitely trying to make a point about how “ungreen” the products were. Our Clorox rep was a nice PR girl who had only been working for the company for 2 weeks. She kept saying, “Good point, but I don’t know the answer to that…we’ll get the VP of Blahdeeblah over here in a moment to talk with you more.” As a former "PR girl" myself, I was feeling for this poor person.

Whose nest is it anyways?

I really dislike the term "empty nester." It conjures up images of a quasi grey haired couple who are looking out the window wistfully at the yard in which their children played. Of mothers who are clutching their kid's childhood pillowcase in a moment of melancholy. Ugh. Maybe I have watched too many "B' movies; I just don't like to have where we are in life reduced to a cliche.

I hear from "A" and "N" alot. Especially when they need money. (Some things are commonalities for us all - especially when it relates to money.) "A" is at university overseas, so the dreaded 2 a.m. phone calls are not so dreaded (still unpleasant-yes-but not dreaded) as I have learned that he often will forget he is in a different time zone. I still have enough of the drama to fill my life from afar when they are not here; the revolving door girlfriends, the zany roommate who moved in a girlfriend, two rabbits and birds, the Kafka-esque hostel. It is enough drama - just the right amount. Very unlike the rush in and rush out frenetic pace of their lives when here - jetting off from one friend's house to another - with school and work in between. "When will you be home?" was the constant refrain - with sudden jolts awake at 2 a.m. worrying about where on the freeway the car was stalled with them in it. The brain is not rational at 2 a.m. I do miss them. I miss the everyday back and forth of "Whatcha' up to?" and the color-oftentimes Day Glo - that their energy brought to the house. But I am now ready for a steady cerulean blue, interspersed with lime green kind of color to our lives.

The Rise of The Naughty Fairies

Everyone’s heard of the Tooth Fairy. Maybe even the Sugarplum Fairy, of Nutcracker fame. Our household is starting to crowd up with fairies of all sorts. But...does it have to be filled with only the good ones?

I swear I’m going to hurl rainbows if I have to enter the overly-simplistic, high fructose corn syrup world of fairy lit one more time (Rainbow Magic Fairies, and their seven million cousins, anyone?). After reading aloud nearly every series on the subject known to childdom, I’ve begun wishing for some of the amazing Brian Froud picture books of my youth, filled with creatures you’d never see inside a house (much less want to). They're the kind of fairies the ancient Britons used to invoke to scare their little ones into sticking close to home, the kind whose idea of fun is tormenting small children dumb enough to walk into a forest unaccompanied by a knowing adult. No, my little girls aren’t ready for that. Maybe not yet.

Crappy Crocker

Last week I cemented my reputation as Crappy Crocker, the Domestic Not-ess of baking. It started with an email from a nice mom who (I thought) was going to bake Halloween cookies for my daughter's class. She wanted to know how she could accommodate my daughter's gluten intolerance.

How nice, I thought. That day I bought a box of sugar cookie mix so I could give her some pre-made dough. I thought she was going to make one more cookie for my daughter, in a gluten free version.

When the nice mom and I talked at school the next day, we seemed to be talking past each other. I kept offering to bring her some dough in a baggie so she could make one more cookie. This was making her exasperated. I didn't get it. Finally, she ended the conversation by saying that she would just bring me the cookie cutters and that I would be making 24 cookies. In my entire life, I have never used cookie cutters. I happen to think that cookies in their normal round shapes taste just fine. And, I had no idea that her agenda was to get me to bake an entire batch for public consumption. Gulp. That was totally unclear in her email.

At the elementary school, I'd previously suffered abusive comments about my baking.

"I just wanted to let you know," a kindergartner scolded me a couple years ago, "the top of your cupcakes was good, but the bottom reeked."

This girl waited a full five minutes until I finished an adult conversation to tell me this.

Explaining the Ft. Hood Tragedy

Cross posted from our sister blog, DC Metro Moms Blog.

I grew up in a military family.  My father was a career Air Force officer, as was his father.  My brother joined the Army a few years after high school and served two tours in Bosnia before he got out.  Of course then he gave my mother a heart attach by turning around and joining the Ohio National Guard.  Thankfully, he returned from a tour in the Middle East late last year. My husband spent 20 years in the Navy - 3 on active duty and then 17 in the Navy Reserves.

I also happen to live in the Hampton Roads area of Southeast Virginia, home to one of the largest concentrations of military and veteran families in the country.  I'm actually hard pressed to think of a close friend in the area that isn't associated with the military.  

In my professional life, I'm the New Media Director for Blue Star Families, a non-partisan, non-profit dedicated to empowering and supporting military families.  My community, online and in "real" life, is the military community and my community is hurting right now.

We don't know what caused Major Nidal Hasan to open fire in a soldier readiness facility on the U.S. Army's largest facility.  I don't want to speculate.  Besides, the reason for Hasan's actions is largely irrelevant to the Ft. Hood families affected by the tragedy.  For them, and for many of us, the tragedy is incomprehensible. 

But what I do know is that military families across all of the services are stressed beyond belief.  While I no longer have to deal with the threat of activation and deployment, I've watched friend after friend try to hold things together for 6 months, a year or 18 months at a time, only to do it all over again a few months after a service member's return.  Deployment after deployment is hard on a family, particularly families with children.  And when a soldier, sailor or airman (or woman) comes home, nothing is immediately easy.  Families have to readjust, learn new routines, and all too frequently help a service member cope with injuries.  Families also deal with the unseen wounds of war such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and even secondary PTSD, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder that can affect care givers (such as spouses, nurses and doctors) constantly dealing with the trauma of others.

Read the rest of this post at the DC Metro Moms Blog.

Tips on Gratuity: Jump into it, or Around it?

We've been to a lot of birthday parties recently. People snicker and talk about "New Years Babies," but it is true. Our schedules are more booked now than they will be the rest of the school year or next summer. Many of the parties we've attended have been not in the person's home, but instead at a local bowling alley, pizza place, laser tag gig, or an "inflatable party zone." In the case of the latter, the entire party gets the run of a warehouse filled with slides, jumping pits, and other insanely fun things. (Insanely fun for the kids, just insane for the adults.)

All in all, these parties end up being worth their cost since there is no clean-before or clean-up afterward. My sons have had their parties at the same location several years counting. I know the drill. I even bring a basket of socks for party guests who forget so that they don't have to purchase the overpriced variety at the counter. But there is one thing that catches me off guard every time: the large box for gratuity.

The Waiting Room...it can be anywhere.

We arrive, sign in and wait.  I watch another mother with two children enter.  The speech therapist comes out and takes her older boy in for his time to play and practice better speech...her youngest wants to go too, "your turn is later in the week," she says.  She leaves to play with the younger child.  There is the other mother waiting with me in the room.  She is quiet, looking stressed, just like I am feeling.  Margo's occupational therapist arrives, and says, "OK Margo, its time to go play".  I send her off with an encouraging, "work hard have fun dear."  Now it is silent.  Two moms are sitting in the waiting room.  I am one of them, the other is new. 

Our eyes meet for a moment, a knowing smile is shared between us and I say something stupid..."I am here for the long haul."  With those simple words we start to talk about our long hauls.  The diagnosis for our children is different, most of the symptoms are very different too, yet there is similarity in their treatments and in our concerns.  I told the other mom how I was encouraged by the physical therapist when Margo was two and a half.  She kept telling me how Margo's brain was still so plastic at such an early age.  It meant her brain could develop new neural pathways for actions.  We both laughed at that use of word, 'plastic' to describe our little ones' brains.  Margo and I have been involved with physical therapy and now occupational therapy for over three years, more than half of her life to date.  And we come to this simple waiting room, so full of hope and fears.  At least this mom and I do, actually all the moms do.

At last my new friend tells me her name, Kate, and then she adds "You're right, it is a very long haul."  Her son is recently diagnosed as a high functioning autistic child. Mine is diagnosed with overall

Guys Get Cancer Too

It’s been kind of a rough year of cancer diagnoses for those close to me, and I was inspired by WhyMommy’s wonderful post about How to Help a Friend.  Many “chemo gift basket” ideas are very female centric, written for and by breast cancer survivors, but I didn’t find nearly as many online sources for men.

Building upon the gender neutral items like lotion and mints from the Chemo Chicks, here are some ideas that my friends brainstormed to help take care of both the guys and gals in our lives.

LIVESTRONG Survivorship Guidebook, which "provides information, resources and organizational tools to help survivors navigate through all phases of the cancer journey." The Lance Armstrong Foundation makes the book available for just the cost of shipping.

Entertainment during and after treatment: Science-fiction novels, action movies on DVD, sports magazines, The Dangerous Book for Boys.  One friend told me that the gift of the book Cryptonomicon kept him sane and occupied during a 48 hour bout of insomnia.

Halloween Candy Count Reaches Triple Digits

This year’s Halloween haul hit a new high for our family.  In an effort to minimize the intake, I knew I was going to have to act quickly.  I didn’t realize it was going to require a tactical assault.

Thinking I was awfully smart, I proposed a simple trade.  You give me 20 pieces of your candy and you can choose any book from Barnes & Noble.   It seemed fail-proof.  My 4-year old daughter gave me a sideways look, said “no thank you,” and promptly left the room. My 8-year old began negotiating.  He low-balled my offer – proposing 10 candies for a toy (no book).  I held strong … 20 and a book (no toy).  

I triumphantly accepted his candies and as I surveyed his stash, I realized that he completely bamboozled me!  He clearly was the king negotiator.  20 candies didn’t even make a dent in his pile, which was masterfully organized into Ziplock bags.  Ziplock bags!!!!  And, I wasn’t even on speaking terms with his sis who walked with her bucket in tact, choosing to forgo negotiations.

The F-Word

Fat. The ugliest word I know. Unfortunately, one I know all too well.

It took me years of therapy to get over the fact that I wasn't born thin. Session after session I'd sit with my wide thighs half-crossed and wonder why God hated me so much to give me the worst fate in the world: chubbiness.

Now, of course, nearly 40 and happily hanging around a size 8, I don't give a flying flip about fat or thin. I couldn't care less if I lost two pounds or gained two pounds. I'm just happy to be in the normal range. But, as monsters in closets come back to haunt us, my 6-year-old daughter is starting to notice body shapes. And care.