I want to talk about moving, not moving from my apartment, but rather moving my bedroom. I would like to exist in the back room of my apartment. It’s fabulous in every way. First of all, I wouldn’t have to disturb Wil while he is sleeping. Every time I want to get dressed or get something from my own bedroom I see this:
And each time I see him slumbering away, while I am chasing after a toddler, I want to kill him a little more.
But I know he has to sleep, he works the night shift and therefore he must sleep during the daytime hours.
Which leads me to my solution: We should move our bedroom to the back room of the apartment. It’s such a lovely room and it’s removed from the rest of the apartment so Wil could get some undistubed sleep! Our current bedroom could become an office and a dressing room (with dressers and a closet).
But let’s talk about the back room for a moment, shall we? The windows in the back room look out to this:
My parent’s garden, my safe haven.
There are a few problems:
Problem #1 The back room currently looks like this: That’s a huge problem. I’m still working with Dara, of Spatial Harmony, to de-clutter this room. That woman is a saint, I tell you. My friend Josina (who hired Dara to de-clutter her closet) and I talk about how wonderfully calm Dara is in the face of scary clutter.
Anyway, on to problem #2.
Problem #2 The ceiling may or may not be falling apart. See exhibits A and B below:
Problem #3 In order to fix the ceiling, we need lots of money. We do not have said money.
The solution: I’ve taken matters into my own hands, and started a for profit organization called: “Fix My Ceiling and Give Me Money.” Abbreviated into FMCAGMM.
If you would like to contribute to FMCAGMM, which would lead me to future joy and less resentment toward my boyfriend, please send me a check or money order. Sorry, no C.O.Ds.
For my mailing address, email oldschoolnewschoolmom@oldschoolnewschoolmom.com
We here at FMCAGMM also accept Paypal! Paypal to oldschoolnewschoolmom@oldschoolnewschoolmom.com.
Thank you in advance for your charitable donations!
When we were teenagers and I was just beginning to use tampons, my best friend Mint warned me about the dangers of regular store brand tampons. Standard tampons that you might purchase in a drugstore or supermarket contain bleach and (more specifically) the chemical dioxin. The bleached tampons containing dioxin (according to research studies) may cause cancer. Click here for more information.
I used the sea sponge tampon for years. They are 100% natural and harvested from the sea by divers!
I have to warn you, the reason I stopped using them (years ago) was that they were so comfortable that I forgot that I had one in and left it for two weeks after my period accidentally. Whoops! That experience disturbed me, but (upon reflection) I realized that this is the sign of a great product!
When I use ordinary tampons, I find them so uncomfortable that I’m constantly aware of their existence. The fact that I forgot about the sea sponge being in my body leads me to believe that it is a comfortable and body intuitive product.
It even comes with a pouch so you can put it in your bag and it’s protected when you’re traveling
I just ordered two packs of them. I am excited to begin using them again. But this time I’m going to remember to remove it!
So, what are you waiting for? Click on the sea sponge tampon below to get your own eco-friendly tampon!
When I was putzing around the internet the other day, I happened upon Heather’s blog It’s Twinsanity
First of all, “It’s Twinsanity” is a hilarious name for a blog. I was immediately intrigued. Turns out that Heather is a military wife and mom. She has quite a brood on her hands! I liked her blog and found her story really interesting. So I asked if I could interview her. She kindly obliged. Here is what she had to say: 1. Tell us about yourself! I’m an Army wife, a mother of 6, and a natural parenting advocate. I have 2 sets of identical twins and a husband deployed to Iraq. I’m also a homebirthing, homeschooling, breastfeeding mom who loves to read, write, paint, sing, and had lots of other interests before having 6 children in 5 years. 2. What did you do before you became a mom? Before I became a mom I was a retail manager in a department store. It was such a glamorous life, let me tell you. I don’t miss it at all. 3. How many kids do you have? Tell us about them!
I have 6 wonderful kids.
Matthew is 7 and he’s a smart, funny, challenging child. He is on the autism spectrum and he’s an amazing boy.
Joshua is 5 and he is sweet, generous, and loving. He’ll do anything to make others happy.
Leila and Sarah are 3 and they are identical twins. Leila is cautious, sensitive, and emotional. She’s the classic “girly girl.” Sarah is brave, adventurous, and loves to cause mischief.
Nathan and Ryan are almost 18 months old. They are both turning into little chatterboxes and they love to cause trouble.
4. What are three qualities you believe are essential to have as a mom?
I think it’s important for a mother to have unconditional love for her children, lots of patience, and a willingness to put her children’s needs above her own. Nobody is perfect, but fortunately our kids don’t need perfection. They just need to be loved!
5. How do you feel about being a military wife and mom? What are the advantages to this role and the challenges? There are days when I’m thoroughly disgusted with life as a military wife and mom. There are days when I’m too exhausted to be optimistic. It’s just reality. But there are far more days when I feel incredibly blessed, proud of my husband, and ready to tackle any challenge that comes my way.
6. When do the kids get to see their dad? My husband left in January 2009 for training. My kids saw him for 2 weeks in the spring, 2 months in the summer when we moved to Arizona temporarily, 2 weeks in the fall, and for 2 weeks when he came home for Christmas as a surprise. My husband is now in Iraq and we will not see him again at all until the end of the year. Hopefully we will be able to talk to him using a web cam soon so that the kids can see him that way.
7. What advice would you offer to moms-to-be? I am not sure that I’m qualified to be passing out advice, because I’m far from perfect! I have worked with a lot of moms-to-be through my roles as a doula and breastfeeding counselor. I encourage new moms to find their own groove when it comes to parenting. You’ll receive lots of unsolicited advice from well-meaning people. Just decide for yourself what you believe is best.
I’m not a typical “mainstream” mom in that I believe in homebirth, breastfeeding, and attachment parenting. It’s what has come naturally to me and I feel called to raise my children in this way. It’s not for everyone, and each mom needs to explore what is best for her family.
Ari’s Aunt Rosa gave us a small photo album that I could carry around in my purse. The purpose of this photo album is so that I can show off pictures of my son to others. The album includes pictures of Ari, me, Wilhelm, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Rosa and Uncle Jonathan and (his favorite relative of all time) Cousin Francesca. One of Ari’s new favorite activities is pointing people out in the album or asking who they are.
Velvet Verbosity hosts a weekly contest called the hundred word challenge. Bloggers write 100 words on a particular theme or “prompt.” Click the image below for a link to the 100 Word Challenge:
This week’s prompt is “Overall.” Here is my post:
Overall
By Sarah Fader
I tend to criticize myself, a lot. I think of what I could have done better, should have said, shouldn’t have eaten or shouldn’t have thought about someone. But today I am going to make a change. Today, I am going to look at myself overall. As a complete human being, I think I’m doing pretty well. Overall, I eat healthy foods including fresh vegetables and fruits. Overall, I am a good friend, I am kind to strangers, I love my son, I love my boyfriend (although he annoys me sometimes) overall I love him. Overall I love my life.
I want to record my dream from last night, before I forget it. I dreamed that I was subbing for Kindergarten at this fancy public school that housed a lot of yuppie parents. I entered the school and went to the cafeteria to pick the kids up. But when I got there, there were a bunch of kids standing at the entrance to the cafeteria, waiting to walk in.
I attempted to step through the cafeteria doors, but the kids (who were waiting) stopped me. “No no! You’re not allowed to go in there. There are too many people already in there. Only one person at a time is allowed in.”
I glanced into the cafeteria and there were a handful of teachers in there already as well as a few classes of kids waiting to be picked up and brought to their classrooms.
“But I’m a teacher,” I told the kids ” I’m allowed to go in there.”
The kids vehemently shook their heads as I cut through the sea of children and entered the cafeteria to get my class. When I got into the cafeteria, my class was gone. There was a stern looking man standing there.
“You’re not supposed to come in here!” He shouted at me. “But I’m a sub for kindergarten,” I said “I have to pick up my class!” “They’re already in the room.” He replied with the same stern expression.
Magically, I was transported beneath a ladder leading to a loft bed. At the top of the bed was the kindergarten class I was covering, and the permanent teacher.
“Hi!” She said. “Sorry about the confusion! Come on up.” With that she motioned to the ladder.
I placed my feet on the ladder to climb up. On each rung of the ladder were Polaroid pictures of each child in the kindergarten class. As I climbed the ladder I saw more and more children. I realized that I’d covered this class before.
When I got to the top of the ladder I saw the permanent teacher’s face and a few children engaged in collaborative play with blocks. Then I woke up!
The gym has always bored me. I’ve never had a chance to talk about how much I despise the gym…until now! Dr. Mommy’s Health Tips allowed me the chance to wax philosophical on how much I dislike the gym.
You all know how much I love Canada. Here is one more reason to love Canada, Bobs and Lolo. They are a fantastic two woman team that creates brilliant children’s music.
To hear Bobs and Lolo’s melodious and meaningful music, click here
I had the opportunity to ask Bobs and Lolo about themselves and their music. Here’s what they had to say:
1. What are your real names?
Our real names are Robyn Hardy (Bobs) and Lorraine Pond (Lolo).
2. What made you adopt “Bobs” and “Lolo”?
Bobs & Lolo were actually our nicknames in high school. Our friends and family called us ‘Bobs & Lolo’ long before the kidlets did! When we started writing and performing children’s music, our nicknames seemed more “kid-friendly” and a lot more fun than our given names. Now it feels weird to be called ‘Robyn’ and ‘Lorraine’ - even business associates (who don’t have kids!) refer to us as B&L!
3. How did you meet?
We first connected at a Girl Guide camp on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (Canada) when we were both around 8 years old. After a fun-filled weekend of campfire sing-alongs, silliness and laughter, our friendship was sealed! While we attended different elementary schools, we ended up filtering into the same high school (Dover Bay Secondary) in grade 9. Our friendship continued to grow from there and we began to singing together in the school choir as well as studying piano with the same music teacher. We also hit the courts together as power forward (Bobs) and shooting guard (Lolo) on the Dover Bay girls’ basketball team. Go Dolphins Go!
4. What inspired you to make music, and (more specifically) children’s music?
The Bobs & Lolo project really grew out of our friendship and a mutual passion for music and working with kids. Before we started our musical adventures, Robyn (Bobs) was teaching grades 4 and 5. Prior to teaching, Robyn completed a degree in linguistics at the University of Victoria and a Bachelor of Education at University of British Columbia (UBC). Lorraine (Lolo) previously worked in the fields of environmental education and non-profit fund development. Her academic background includes a Bachelor of Human Kinetics (Exercise Science) from UBC. As kids, we had both been involved in music and the arts, and it was something that we both value greatly in education. In fact, our first try at songwriting came out of a casual chat we shared about the value of using music as a teaching tool. We started brainstorming about what sort of themes and topics were important for today’s kids and “building connections to the natural world” was at the top of our list. We both had an interest in the environment and conservation and set a goal to figure out a way to inspire kids to care about the world around them through music, movement and make-believe. We haven’t looked back since!
5. How much do you love Canada?
We absolutely adore our home country of Canada - and it’s not just because of all the Olympic hype in our home city right now! We feel fortunate that our musical adventures have given us the opportunity to explore so much of our country…which happens to be a rather big piece of land! We’ve traveled through small towns on the west coast of BC - Bella Coola, Atlin and the Queen Charlotte Islands to name a few - to large cities like Toronto and all the way across to the province of Prince Edward Island on the east coast. We’ve also gone north into the Yukon Territories along with numerous stops in between, around and under. In the last year, the music videos featured on our On Your Feet DVD began airing on Treehouse TV, Canada’s only national television network completely dedicated to preschoolers. While the partnership with Treehouse is still relatively new, the TV exposure has already opened up new performance opportunities for us, and we’ve been able to slowly build our CD and DVD distribution beyond Western Canada. We’re hoping this is just the start, and we’ll be able to keep things go, go, growing in the upcoming years. We would love to perform in the US too. We’ve done a few shows in the Seattle area, but our travel south of the border has been quite limited to date. Fingers crossed that this will change as more opportunities come up down the road!
In the meantime, the great thing about the digital era is that we’re connecting with new families all around the world every day! Our music is available on Itunes and through various online retail partners and we’ve even posted some of our videos on YouTube. We’re also very active on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and we regularly blog about our travel adventures and noteworthy news items or fun finds. We definitely invite kids and parents to connect with us online through one (or more!) of these social media sites - we love the personal connection and it’s an extra treat when families send photos or share stories on how they are connecting with our music.
For information on how to reach Bobs and Lolo, their live show schedule, music and more, please visit www.bobsandlolo.com
Sarah Fader is a parenting blogger. In addition to OS/NS Mom, she blogs for The Huffington Post. She was featured on HuffPost Live talking about her viral article 3-Year-Olds are Assholes. Look out for her upcoming book on the topic!
She's been blogging since 2009. She has two beautiful children, Ari, 5 and Samara, 3. She was born and raised in New York City is a graduate of F.H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts as well as New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she studied theater and philosophy.
She has a background in vocational rehabilitation counseling. Sarah was raised reformed Jewish and is still searching for her true Jewish identity. Currently, Sarah writes full time and is a professional transcriber for reality television. She resides in Brooklyn with her kids and two cats.
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