MamAnomolie

This is the time of year when another one of my anomolous tendencies reveals itself. Let me explain. I love the idea of simplicity parenting. All of us, myself included, have too much stuff. Jonathan and I joked before we even had kids when we saw how many toys some of our friend's kids had that we were going to send ours outside with a stick to play all day. Less stuff around promotes kids using their imagination. This is how I truly feel. AND I LOVE PRESENTS!!!! OK, there, I've said it.

Seriously, I love presents, specifically the opening of presents. This year, when Jonathan and I were deciding on our budget for Sophie's Chanukah and Christmas gifts, it sounded less like a conversation and more like two people negotiating a deal. I was the one trying to drive the price up, if you haven't already guessed.

My family has the rather unusual custom of celebrating Chanukah while we're all together for Thanksgiving. Every year we have to figure out, based on everyone's schedules, what night we open the gifts. If it's going to be later in the visit they always say, "Rachel? Is that alright with you? Can you wait that long?"

Let me point out here that I have nieces, 5-years-old and 10-years-old, who aren't as excited as I am. Let me also point out that recently the adults have all decided that we are only getting gifts for the kids. This in no way diminishes my enthusiasm. I love giving gifts. I love watching other people open gifts.

Right now Sophie is still too young to be able to anticipate and be excited about holidays and presents, but I know next year that will no longer be the case. I want to instill in her a thankfulness for family and the non-material things in life. I also want her to be empathetic towards others who are not as fortunate. But she's a sharp cookie, and I don't hide my feelings well...she's going to know how excited I am when we all open presents.

We had been prepping Sophie for Halloween for about a month. She knew that she was going to be a bee, and that bees say "buzz," and she tried her best at saying "trick-or-treat," which came out more like "teet teet." It got to the point once we reached late October that I could ask just about anything and her first answer would be, "A bee!" So, our plan was to go trick-or-treating at a few houses in the neighborhood and have her answer the door with us when trick-or-treaters came to our house. We also had a Halloween playdate planned in the afternoon. There was one thing we had not planned on...rain. This wasn't just a light drizzle, either. Halloween afternoon arrived along with a downpour.

If Sophie were older, she likely would have been upset that bad weather was threatening her Halloween experience. Sophie, however, did not mind the rain. In fact, the rain was by far Sophie's favorite part of Halloween (tasting chocolate for the first time later in the evening was a close second). A friend of mine had planned the afternoon playdate at the park, luckily one with a large shelter. There were activity stations, yummy Halloween goodies, and lots of other kids. Sophie was not interested in any of that. She wanted to play in the rain. For the first half of the get-together, we were the only ones not under the shelter. By the end of the afternoon, Sophie had found two fellow nature-lovers with brave mothers.

Recently I was writing in Sophie's journal and trying to describe how much she likes to explore and spend time outdoors. I didn't feel like my words were quite expressing the wonderful energy that is Sophie. I think these photos from our second Halloween illustrate it much better. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween and that if you didn't have good weather, you at least enjoyed the bad weather like we did!

I have lamented in years past about the lack of Chanukah items at Target. Aisle after aisle in the holiday section are devoted to Christmas wrapping, cards, decorations... anything you could want, but when I asked for the Chanukah paper, I was directed to a sparse endcap in the party section with low quality blue wrapping paper and a few gift tags. I know, I am not really a practicing Jew, yet I'm still offended when Chanukah is given such little attention.

This year, however, I was surprised and pleased by the Chanukah display I saw at Target this year. Yes, it's insane that today is Halloween and the display is already up, but the point is that we were given a whole endcap and half an aisle of Chankukah stuff! That is major compared to years past. It's not low quality, ugly stuff either. There was a cute wooden Noah's ark with wooden "lit" candles that would be great for allowing a small child to get into the experience. There was nice Chanukah wrapping paper, stickers and greeting cards.

There was even an Elmo's Little Dreidel book that I made the mistake of handing to Sophie. We almost had to add Chanukah goods to our last minute Halloween candy run. So, I just wanted to say thank you, Target! At least one person has noticed the change and appreciates it very much! Oh, and in case anybody is wondering, Chanukah is December 20-28 this year.

I wasn't this smart in my former life. Let me explain. I used to work in the natural resources/environmental health field. The people that surrounded me every day could identify wildflowers, were master composters and were well versed on the pollutants found in our groundwater.

Now I am a stay-at-home mom. The adults I am now surrounded by have come from many different fields. I hang out with former teachers, reading specialists, chemical engineers, vet techs...the list goes on. I sometimes forget that we don't all share a similar work background, and then something will happen that brings it sharply into focus. Recently, for example, I picked up a cicada at a play date and then identified a butterfly that flew past us. Everyone was impressed. I felt like a rock star.

It happened again recently at another play date when some of the moms were talking about their "new to them" cars recently purchased for their expanding families. Somebody lamented that they didn't get to enjoy that new car smell. "True," I said,"but it's not good for you, so there's another plus to buying used."

"It's not good for you?"
"What's not good for you?"
"The new car smell is bad?"

The comments sort of echoed in a circle around the room. Everyone was looking at me. Half of me felt like a rock star. The other half felt like one of those people who watches people eat something and then says, "Do you know what they put in that?"

So, here is the down low on that new car smell. I don't say this to point fingers at people (except perhaps car manufacturers), but rather as an opportunity to inform and perhaps empower ourselves as consumers. We assume that products are tested and deemed to be safe before they are offered in the marketplace, and that if they are found to be potentially harmful they would immediately be removed from the marketplace. This is, unfortunately, not the marketplace in which we live. We live in the marketplace of new car smells.


That smell comes from phthalates and PBDE's. Crazy words, lots of consonants in a row...here's what they mean. Phthalates are used to soften plastics. PBDEs (Polybrominated diphenyl ethers) are flame retardants. What you're smelling are these chemicals off-gassing from your car's interior. Phthalates can cause all sorts of health problems, but most notably are classified as reproductive toxicants and probable carciniogens. PBDEs impair learning, memory and behavior, even at low levels, in lab rats. They have been found in the breast milk of every woman who has ever been tested.

The Ecology Center, based in Ann Arbor, MI, has some great resources for learning more about the new car smell. They even give rankings for some of the best and worst cars on the market based on levels of toxic substances found in the vehicles.

I know, let's be honest, most of us have a long list of preferred features for a new car, and vehicle air quality is probably not on it. Even if you don't choose your car based on which one has the lowest level of new car smell, you can still reduce your exposure. Used cars are a great option since they have likely already offgassed. If you do get a new car, open the windows as much as you can to let fresh air circulate inside. Finally, heat tends to make the problem worse, so be sure to open the windows if your car has been sitting in the sun.

While I would love to say that the "new car smell" phenomenon is an anomaly, unfortunately, it's not. There are a lot of smells that many of us associate with good things - new car, perfume, our favorite soap - that are not good for us. Many of these smells are VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that can be harmful to our health. While it's not a fun topic to think about, as a consumer, and as a mother, I would rather be informed about the products and materials in my home and environment, and try to choose as wisely as I can.

If I really like a book, I tend to become quite attached to it. For me, finishing a good book is kind of like ending a relationship. That's why I'm chowing down on Halloween candy right now. I just broke up with Barbara Kingsolver. I just finished reading The Lacuna. It was the last novel of Ms. Kingsolver's that I had left to read. I basically devoured all of her fiction this summer and fall, so this breakup is particularly rough. We had a long relationship.

I started with Animal Dreams and was instantly hooked. I liked The Poisonwood Bible, devoured The Bean Trees and Pigs In Heaven, and wanted Prodigal Summer to last forever. The Lacuna was last. I have to admit, the subject matter was so out of my realm of knowledge that I was a little intimidated in the beginning. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, post-revolutionary Mexico, Leon Trotsky...but it sucked me in, and ended up, in all places, in Asheville, NC. It was my favorite, and I'm having a hard time letting go.

I'm moving on to Ms. Kingsolver's non-fiction and maybe some of her short stories and essays, but I only fall in love with novels, so now it's kind of like we're not dating, but still friends. That never really works, does it?

There have been so many things that I've been wanting to write about, but this week we're in serious need of some comic relief, so I've decided to share a Brian Regan clip instead. Of course, there is a story that goes along with it.

A few things are important to know for this story. The first is that Brian Regan is one of Jonathan's and my favorite comedians. We like him so much that if we find out that you have never heard of him and we're near a computer, we consider it our moral obligation to show you clips of his standup routines. He is absolutely hysterical. Really, if you don't watch the clip I've included in this post, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Another fact that's important to know for this story is that my husband Jonathan is the most even-keeled person that I know. He manages to stay calm and level-headed in situations where I would freak out or get angry. It's a quality that I admire and hope rubs off on me.

Having spent so much time with Jonathan, I have realized that in some extremely stressful situations he'll react inappropriately. Not inappropriately in an, "I can't believe you just said that" sort of way, but just in a way that doesn't quite fit the situation. It's probably something that most people wouldn't think twice about, but because I know him so well I've picked up on it.

I first noticed this when I was in labor with Sophie. We had just arrived at the hospital. My contractions were four minutes apart. Every time I had one my legs shook uncontrollably. I had just been told that, despite all of this, I was not dilated any more than I had been a week before. The nurse asks, "On a scale of one to ten with one being no pain and ten being having your arm cut off, how would you rate your pain?"

At this point Jonathan, who has been calmly holding my hand and telling me how great I'm doing, says, "Say eight! Say eight!" He then turns to the nurse and says, "It's a Brian Regan bit."

Here's what I wanted to say: "Seriously, right now quoting comedy skits seems appropriate? I'm in agony, and this woman has no idea who Brian Regan is (seriously, she had absolutely no sense of humor) and no idea what you're talking about. Plus, I was going to say eight, but now I can't because she'll think I'm joking."

Here's what I did say (actually it was really more of a whimper): "Seven."

No, really, it is a sick day. The thing is, sick days look completely different with kids. Sophie has the cold that has been going around, and I have some sort scaled down adult version. While I'm thankful that Sophie doesn't seem to feel that bad, that also means that I have to figure out things for us to do all day. Playdates are a no-go since we don't want to pass our germs around, but staying in the house all day makes us both bonkers. We tried a park and playground yesterday, but there were enough other kids there that I felt like half the time I was corralling her away from them. Today we went to one of our favorite spots - Historic Yates Mill County Park.

We didn't even explore very much of the park, but there was so much to experience. We enjoyed the color of the fall leaves and flowers, the texture of the lambs ear and the cattail leaves tickling our face, and the smell of rosemary and wild onion. Sophie loved feeling the wind blowing her hair and the trees all around us. We watched ants, snails, bees and butterflies. We picked up leaves, sticks, and berries. It was just what the doctor ordered for both of us!