Comfort Food

Lately it seems as though devastation is all around me and the most I've been able to do is provide minimal comfort in the form of food.

It all started about 3 weeks ago when one of my close friends was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. As if that isn't bad enough, she was 8 months pregnant at the time and so the doctors admitted her to the ICU so that they could monitor the baby's health as well as my friend's. She was in the hospital for 9 days, while her husband and 2 young boys were at home. To make matters worse, she wasn't even able to see her kids during her time in the hospital since ICU rules prohibit children on the floor. Her husband was understandably stressed out - and had just started a new job - and I offered to bring him a few dinners to help get him and the boys through the week. It was the least I could do to help out in a teeny tiny way. Thank goodness she's home now and both she and the baby are well.

Then the next week I learned that another one of my friends had to undergo surgery for oral cancer. She is my age and just had her third child about 3 months ago, and so this all came as a terrible surprise to me. I offered to bring her dinner and was so sad to find out that they had to remove a part of her tongue and 37 lymph nodes from her neck to ensure that the cancer was gone. Fortunately, her prognosis is great and her kids are all fine. But wait - there's more. Her husband was deployed to Iraq yesterday, leaving her to recover while caring for a preschooler, toddler and a newborn. So she packed up the family and is moving to Florida to stay with her in-laws for the next 6 months until her hubby returns home.

Just when I thought I had had enough heartbreak to last me awhile, 2 weeks ago - just a week after I had brought them a lasagna dinner to celebrate their new baby's arrival, we found out that our neighbor's baby had liver failure and had to have surgery. Did I mention that the baby is only 8 weeks old? It turns out that she doesn't have a gall bladder and had to undergo a complicated surgery to connect certain organs. Then she contracted an infection as a result of the surgery. She's still in the NICU and can hopefully return home soon.

Add in the news of the DC Metro tragedy (on my train line), Michael Jackson's sudden death and Farrah Fawcett's heartbreaking demise and it's been like there is a gray cloud hanging overheard these days.

So imagine my dismay when another friend of mine just called to say that it looks like she is going to become embroiled in a custody battle over her 4 year-old-daughter. While I am definitely counting my blessings, this is all getting to be more than my bleeding heart, and my love-filled kitchen, can handle.

Oh, My Nerves.

It's Super Tuesday folks. And already my nerves are shot. This is such a critical day at a critical time for our country.

We've gotta make the right choice.

Love It! Thursdays - Preempted...

I know, I know, it's Thursday. But since there is so much going on today, and with us generally, LIT is on hold...

In the meantime, head on over to DC Metro Moms Blog to read my most recent post about the latest hot issue in mommyland. It's also Testosterone Day at DCMMB so take a minute to check that out too.

Bullies In Our Backyards

Ok y'all, so I had to post something about this story. Something.

By now you’ve all heard about the incident that occurred at the University of Maryland a week ago. Apparently some students thought it would be funny (and/or intimidating) to hang a noose from a tree outside of the University’s Cultural Center. This hate crime no doubt stemmed from the tragic state of affairs currently playing out in Jena, Louisiana. And it’s really too outrageous and draining for me to summarize the Jena mess in this post, so if you haven’t already heard about it (which would be a shame in and of itself), please click here to find out more. Oh and while you're at it, don’t forget to read about the fliers that were distributed in Manassas,VA a couple of weeks ago... Are you nauseous yet?

Aside from my general disbelief that hate crimes are still being perpetrated in this day and age, I find that it even scarier for me, as a mother of two small children, to know that one day my kids are going to sent out into the world without me or my husband around to shield them from all of this madness. I mean, in the case of the Jena students – all they were doing was sticking up for themselves. Isn’t that what we teach our kids? To be confident and proud of who you are and to stand up for what you know is right? What if that was my child who decided that she wanted to sit where she wanted to sit at school without regard to her skin color, and with the permission of her teachers, and before she knew it, she was threatened, assaulted and eventually thrown in jail? I can’t even fathom it.

If you think about it, it’s really just a heightened form of bullying. My eldest daughter just started nursery school last week so thankfully we haven’t encountered the bullying issue just yet, but I’m sure some of you parents out there have. In fact, I know that the decision to homeschool for some parents comes, in part, from the fear of bullies at school. And bullying has become an epidemic in our country – just do a quick search on Google and you’ll find a jillion news stories, web sites and initiatives, like this one, on how to deal with it. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know that the problem won’t solve itself. There has to be a collective effort on the part of parents to educate their children on how to treat others; on the part of teachers to spot and discourage bullies in the classroom or on the playground; on the part of the school administration to develop zero-tolerance policies for bullying; and on the part of the justice system to do the same. And this effort needs to be applied across the board – from preschool to university to the workplace and beyond.

I’m just not sure what my part is as a parent raising young children – should I be teaching them to stand up for themselves…but not too much, for fear of retaliation? Should I teach them to just look the other way when they see someone else being bullied to avoid making trouble? What I am sure of is that we can't let this be the state of the world that we’re living in. We just can’t.

Because nobody likes a bully.

This entry is cross-posted on the DC Metro Moms Blog.

It's the End of the World As We Know It

Sheesh. What is the world coming to if Easy-Bake Ovens aren't safe anymore?

New Easy-Bake Oven Recall Following Partial Finger Amputation; Consumers
Urged to Return Toy Ovens

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Easy-Bake Ovens

Units: About 1 million

Manufacturer: Easy-Bake, a division of Hasbro, Inc., of Pawtucket, R.I

Hazard: Young children can insert their hands into the oven's front
opening, and get their hands or fingers caught, posing entrapment and
burn hazards.

Incidents/Injuries: Since the repair program announced in February,
Easy-Bake has received 249 reports of children getting their hands or
fingers caught in the oven's opening, including 77 reports of burns, 16
of which were reported as second and third-degree burns. Easy-Bake also
received one report of a serious burn that required a partial finger
amputation to a 5-year-old girl.

Description: The Easy-Bake Oven is a purple and pink plastic oven that
resembles a kitchen range with four burners on top and a front-loading
oven. "Easy Bake" is printed on the front of the oven. Model number
65805 and "Hasbro" are stamped into the plastic on the back of the oven.
This recall includes all units with the retrofit kit. The Easy-Bake Oven
is an electric toy and is not recommended for children under eight years
of age. Ovens sold before May 2006 are not included in this recall.

Sold at: Toys "R" Us, Wal-Mart, Target, KB Toys and other retailers
nationwide from May 2006 through July 2007 for about $25.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Caregivers should immediately take the recalled Easy-Bake Oven
away from children, and call Easy-Bake for instructions on how to return
the toy oven for a voucher towards the purchase of another Hasbro
product.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Easy-Bake at (800)
601-8418 anytime, or visit the firm's Web site at www.easybake.com

5 Days and Counting

So. I have never been the type of person that hasn't been able to sleep. For as long as I can remember, as soon as my head hits the pillow I am dead to the world. Don't get me wrong. Of course I've learned how to completely function without 1.5 hours of sleep because well, you know I had two babies and that's just part of the job description. But I have to say that ever since Giggles started sleeping through the night, and but for the occasional nocturnal interruption by Chatterbox, I've totally gotten used to getting a full night's rest. Until last week.


Last week was the bearer of some particularly stressful news. And no, it wasn't the news about poor old Paris having to tough it out without her Sidekick for 45 days - the bad news was that Nini is moving because she got the opportunity to purchase a single family home. And of course, ordinarily when someone buys a home you are elated for them and excited and supportive and you can't wait to visit with a stylish little housewarming gift from Pier 1. Ordinarily. Too bad for us, Nini is moving 26 miles away. So no matter which way you look at it, we have to find a new babysitter for our precious little gals. Oh and one more thing. She is moving on Saturday. Yes, yes, that's right - this coming Saturday. Which means we had a grand total of 2 weeks to find a new Nini, and folks that's just impossible.


And I know what you're thinking: "Why didn't she tell you sooner?" "Didn't you know she was house hunting?" And I will woefully answer you: "It's a long story having to do with the nature of her homebuyer's program blah blah blah" and "No." And really, after pulling all of my hair out and chewing my nails to the quick, I've accepted all of that and moved on. But then came the daunting task of trying to find a replacement.


Of course I immediately sent out a Panicked Working Mother Nanny Alert to every acquaintance I knew. My mommy group, my church family, my book club, heck, if you've sent me an email in the last 365 days, you probably got an email from me too. [Sorry "Л.Л. Красовицкий@aol.com" I know you speak Russian and probably are offering the greatest mortgage rates around, but would you be a doll and just check to see if you know anyone who knows a great nanny? m' kay, thanks!] And I hit all of the classifieds and message boards I could think of. Then came the emails, phone calls and interviews. And, OH YEAH, I've had to squeeze in 9-hour workdays, family time and entertaining an out-of-town guest in between all of that. So, I won't bore you with details of it all, but let me just say that the pickins' are slim out there folks. Between shady-looking home daycares, nannies who want a company car and stock options and those who can only communicate with you via hand gestures and their 6-year-old son as a translator, it's rough.


And then the guilt sets in. You know, the Working Mommy Guilt.


Which is the reason why I am up blogging at 5:00am. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I am completely stressed and now that we have exactly 3 days to find Mary Poppins, I am panicked. We finally found someone that we really liked and were very comfortable with, who was great with the girls and very personable. I exhaled. We agreed on her hours and rate over the weekend, informed all of our other prospects that we had found someone, and we invited her over for dinner last night. But she called to cancel at 4pm. Inhale. She found a family that was willing to pay her more $ for less hours. And so. It was all I could do not to burst into tears while holding the phone and nicely diced veggies in the other. In any event, that door closed and, by the way, I still have tons of chicken marinating in a lovely red wine vinegar marinade should any of you be interested.


Ironically, yesterday around 5pm, Nini called to inquire as to whether our offer that she come to our home to care for the kids was still on the table. She says that she is attached to the girls and would like to stay with them as she couldn't bear to have them be watched by complete strangers. And so, while this is good news, I can't help but worry. If we thought that 26 miles was too far to drive to take our girls to her, how can 26 miles not be too far for her to drive to come to us? Will she be on time? What if there's traffic? What about her school-aged kids? Hubby says I am worrying for nothing and I just need to thank God for intervening. And I am thankful, believe me. But I still can't sleep.

I'm working on the eating part though. Archway Molasses Cookies taste pretty good at 5am.

In case you were wondering.

Innocent Mistake or Gross Neglect?

Have you guys heard about the missing 4-year old girl from England? Her family was on vacation in Portugal and her parents left her and her 2-year old twin siblings alone in their hotel room while they went to dinner. [???] When they came back, she was gone and has been missing for over a month. Authorities think she has been kidnapped by an organized p*dophile network.

This story has me both brokenhearted and outraged.

Any thoughts?

IMPT! Evenflo Car Seat Recall

Is this your carseat? If so, it has been recalled for a safety hazard:

"When used as an infant carrier, the handle can unexpectedly release, causing the seat to rotate forward. When this happens, an infant inside the carrier can fall to the ground and suffer serious injuries."

Yikes! For more info, go here.