I just checked out a new grocery store in our neighborhood and I was surprised to see several reserved parking spots.

This particular store has the usual spots for the employee of the month and the handicapped spots. However, it also had several reserved spots for pregnant women. I’ve seen this before, so I was only modestly surprised when I spotted the signs.

Another sign was posted on other reserved spots: this spot reserved for families with children. Wow!

As a mom of 5, I can tell you that I appreciate such courtesy. Not only do I have 5 children, but two of my children are legally blind. It is difficult at times to navigate parking lots with an infant, 2 blind teens, and 2 other children. In fact, I actually take parking lot issues into consideration when choosing stores at which to shop.

Some other things I consider are how crowded the store may be and how long it takes me to check out of the store! All of these things do make a difference in making your daily grind a little more bearable.

I purposely shop at the one pharmacy in town that has a drive thru for the sake of convenience as well. Since my children have many prescriptions which must be filled on a monthly basis, this option makes it a little less stressful for all of us.

I personally would LOVE to see check out lines that are solely to be used by parents of very young infants. I remember how frustrating it was to make the huge effort to get everyone out to do the grocery shopping in those early weeks of my son’s life only to find that you had to stand in a long line to check out. Of course, it either ran into nap or feeding time, which prompted the baby to have a meltdown.

Do you feel that reserved parking spots for pregnant women and parents with children are a good idea or a bad idea? Have you ever used a pharmacy drive thru in order to avoid having to take your children in and out of the vehicle?

The New York City Wine & Food Festival will be on October 9 to 12, 2008. And I’m glad to read it’s not only for gastronomists and wine connoisseurs. There’s also something for parents concerned about their children’s health. What’s more, one of my favorite authors will actually be there. On 12 October is the one-and-a-half hour session entitled Beyond Chicken Nuggets: How to Raise a Healthy Eater. Problems with picky eaters? Daily food wars? This session might help you.

No less than my idol Alice Walters will make an appearance. Aside from authoring various cookbooks, Alice is the inventor of the Edible Schoolyard, a special project in Berkeley where children learn foodstuff gardening in order to teach the fast food generation the real value of slow natural food. Alice was recently interviewed by the New York Times health columnist Tara Hope Parker (who is hosting this session, by the way) about this unique project.

Another culinary celebrity to appear is Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry Seinfeld, and author of “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.”

Then there is Rachael Ray, TV host and bestselling cookbook author.

All these three ladies have one thing in common – they are strong advocates of healthy diet for children and families.

Last but not least, childhood experts, doctors and scientists will also be part of the panel that can answer your questions.

What a shame that I live so far away. Anybody living in the area planning to go?

With Dr Ferber, Weisbluth and all the doctors who have written books telling parents all about the importance of independent sleeping, your grandma, your mom, and the enormous variety of cribs and mobiles and crib bedding sets available in retails stores across the nation, you could be forgiven for thinking that every baby in the world goes in a crib and co-sleeping families are few and far between.

In fact, some studies claim that 70% of parents have co-slept with their child for some or all of the night.

For anyone who’s co-sleeping and thinks she’s the only one, try this experiment: if you are at a playdate with other mom, admit you co-sleep. You might be surprised as to how many other moms do too. I can think of a lot of co-sleeping moms I know, and it’s not all the hippie granola stereotype moms – one is the ex-vice-president of a multinational company, another one is a dentist.

When my son was an infant, he woke up every hour to nurse. He started the night sleeping in a bassinet beside the bed, and by 4 a.m. he was in bed with me so I could get some sleep.

By 12 months, he was sleeping through the night. It was somewhat of a relief to have him sleep all night in his crib, although I did miss having the little wiggly fidgety thing in bed with me.

Then around the time he turned two, major changes happened in our family – a cross country move and his dad leaving the home. He refused to sleep in his crib. So he’s back in bed with me. It’s nice to have him back, although now things are settling down around here I’m planning to get a toddler bed and gently try to have him sleep in there.

So basically, I’ve been flexible about where my son sleeps, and adapted, depending on the circumstances.

So how do you decide what to do? There’s pros and cons of co-sleeping, and the correct place to put your baby to sleep is only something that you can decide. You, your partner, and your baby are the people who should decide where baby should sleep. Partly because it’s you being woken up at night, and partly because you are the one who knows you and your family best, and what is working or not working for you.

If you do decide to co-sleep, here’s a must-read list of safe sleeping practices for co-sleeping families.

Recently, I’ve found numerous articles about the new trend – you know, the large family ‘trend’. According to all the statistics, families with more than 2 children are increasing. Most of the articles site the 2004 study where 11 percent of US births in that year were to women who already had three children. This was up from 10 percent in 1995. Large families, it has been suggested, are the new status symbol.

Articles like these make me chuckle because I personally have five children. I am not a status symbol and I did not decide to have my children based upon current norms or because of what other people would think of me. In fact, after I crossed the ‘two child’ threshold, I noticed a distinct change in the attitudes of family and most of my friends when I’d announce subsequent pregnancies. What was I doing?

I love being a mom and I always wanted a big family. I never set out to have five children, it just sort of happened. As I look around me, I notice that yes, there are an ever increasing amount of large families, but most of those families, like ours, are blended families. ‘She’ has children and ‘he’ has children and then ‘they’ have a child of their own. If ’she’ has two, and ‘he’ has two, that’s four children right there! If ‘they’ have a child together, you have a family with five children.

Parenting a large brood is not for the faint hearted–even if you don’t factor in the obvious worries about the budge and the sheer amount of time and energy it takes to effectively parent a bunch of kids. Since we’ve moved to the southern USA, I don’t notice the distain and negative public sentiment directed towards mothers of large families that I noticed when we lived in the north. On any outing, it was almost a given that someone would approach me and spew some sort of negative comment at me. I actually had one ‘gentleman’ inform me that I needed to find myself a new hobby! I politely informed him that I was very happy with my hobby and saw no need to find a new one. It’s one thing for a journalist to define me as a status symbol. It’s another thing all together to be living that status out in real life. Having said this, would I change a thing about my life if I could do it all over again? Never. I consider myself blessed to be a mother of a large brood.

Are large families the new trend? A new status symbol? I would say no, there’s no ‘new’ trend and I know of no one who is thinking about having a large family because it’s fashionable. Absolutely no one. Instead, I would suggest that large families have never gone away – the media is just behind on the reality curve.

I was chatting with a grandmother who had five children. I asked her how she managed with five, and she said that it was easy raising them. “What’s your secret?” I asked. “Oh, I sent them all outside to play during the day, then they came home for their dinner.”

And if you talk to your grandmother, or great-grandmother, it’s likely she did something very similar with her kids. That was just what you did back then.

Can you imagine a modern mom doing that? Haven’t times changed? And Grandmothers don’t think it’s changed for the better.

Grandmothers are watching in horror as their children turn into over-ambitious, competitive parents with pampered, demanding offspring, according to a new report into how women’s experience of motherhood has changed over the generations.

Grandmothers are worried about their daughters trying to balance motherhood and work and their own lives, the pressure on their grandchildren to attend music classes and gym classes and yoga for babies, prepare a gourmet menu of homemade baby food every day, do exactly the right amount of tummy-time and encourage their babies to meet all their milestones on time – no, make that just a bit earlier than the other babies in their playgroup.

Professor Rachel Thomson, co-director of The Making Of Modern Motherhood report, a study of moms, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, found that

Grandmothers believed the range of choices available to their daughters not only turned mothering into a competition, but also undermined their daughters’ confidence in their ability to care for their children. ‘The gains offered by this story of progress were dwarfed by the losses in the grandmothers’ eyes,’ she said, ‘including the creation of demanding babies.’

Pick up any baby magazine and it’s full of the latest gadgets and gizmos that claim they will help your baby learn music, spelling, and make baby smarter and generally better.

And then there’s all the safety research. Bis-phenols in plastic? I have the BPA-free bottles for my baby, says one mom. Well, I use the glass bottles, say another. I have aluminum chemical free non-leaching bottles! says the third.

Local parenting magazines have adverts for all kinds of baby classes for even the youngest babies. When my son was a couple of months old, I called up about one class. The teacher told me that they “have a wonderful learning environment to teach the babies to roll over”.

What, we need classes to teach our babies how to roll over? (My son did manage to learn perfectly well without the class.) There seems to be a new product or service every day to teach your baby to do something that their mom, or older brothers and sisters would have traditionally taught them.

I think I like being a mom in 2008. I like all the options of classes, products and entertainment available to me and my son, I try not to fret when I see a younger child do something my son can’t do yet, and I think I’m well-educated enough about safety issues to make informed choices about how to parent my son. Even though it does make me worry when there’s a new recall or a new danger seemingly every day.

Would you rather have been a mother in simpler times, a generation or two ago?
Or it is better for moms and babies in today’s world with all the new benefits, but all the new stresses?

We live in America and this week we are visiting our families in the UK. We survived my in-laws, and now it’s my husband’s turn to visit his in-laws, we are now staying with my Mom and Dad.

Toddler finds a kindred spirit in my Dad. My Dad is the sort who can entertain a small child for hours with nothing more than a pile of shredded paper or his slippers and Toddler is entranced.

Toddler is the only baby in the family, so he has a lot of Nanas, Great Grandmas and Aunties. There’s a lot of people to see and names to remember, so Toddler simplifies it by calling everyone “Grandad”.

The grannies who come to visit sit round, and compare ailments, and try to out-brag each other, despite Toddler being everyone’s grandchild. Old habits are hard to break.

Greatgranny 1 – My eyes aren’t what they were, I can’t see a thing. Still he’s a handsome little man, isn’t he? Looks just like my son at his age, although without all that hair. I brought him that whatjamacallit over there, with the flashing lights. We never had those in my day.

(I think, Yeah, he has a mullet. So? He won’t wear a hat so it keeps his head warm. Anyway, I thought you couldn’t see. Thanks for the large plastic fire truck garage, but how on earth are we supposed to get it home on the plane?)

Greatgranny 2 – Yes, my shoulder is like that. I can’t get dressed without a whole tube of Bengay. I have so many photos of him now, my friends say what a handsome boy he is. And such a bright little thing, he can read books all by himself, did you know?

(Well, no, he can’t, but whatever. He does know letters though. My ultra-competitive aunt and sister are playing scrabble and Toddler comes up behind my sister and shouts out A! B! B! P! causing strategic loss of triple word score to my aunt.)

Etc.

It was lovely to see all my wonderful family. I’m so sad to leave but it’s time to go. I wish with all my heart I lived nearer to my family.

We board the plane back to the States. We get home uneventfully, and a few days later, we are all running on Central time again. Toddler, however, appears to be running on Eastern Samoan time. I think it’s time for a nap.

Toddler looks supremely worried to see two exuberant people with manic grins bearing down on him. It’s OK, I tell him, this is your Grandma and Granddad. They haven’t seen you for six months.

We’ve just got off the train to see my in-laws. They have come to the train station to meet us, and Toddler clearly doesn’t recognize them. Six months is a long time when you are not even two yet. Hugs and kisses are exchanged. Toddler has the expression of one who thinks all adults are seriously and worryingly weird, and clings onto my neck. I might be considered weird, but better the devil you know.

When we get to the Grandparent’s house, Toddler starts to look happier. They’ve laid on everything a toddler could possibly want, such as an almost completely un-childproofed house and lots of candy. They’ve also got him some lovely toys, but Toddler starts eyeing the fragile tchotchkies displayed at his eye level. Please don’t touch those, I say. So Toddler heads for the stairs. Stay down here and say hello to Grandma and Granddad, I say. Toddler has seen the candy. Toddler will do anything for candy, including sit on the laps of the weird, so everyone starts to get reacquainted.

The Grandparents have planned lots of excursions for Toddler. Toddler is jet lagged and really would prefer to chill out, which to a toddler means using Grandma’s porcelain shepherdesses as truck drivers, eating candy, and jumping in the muddy puddles in the backyard and eating candy. But muddy puddles do not provide good grandchild bragging stories to tell Grandparents friends, and the lifeblood of the Grandparent is to tell other grandparents how wonderful their grandchild is and how much fun they had when the grandchild visited them. If their grandparent friends took their grandchild to the zoo and the park and the mall, then they have to take theirs to the zoo and the park and the mall and the aquarium and buy them a hat shaped like a fish.

Grandparents exist to spoil their grandchildren. My in-laws have hardly seen our son since he was born so I can’t blame them at all for wanting to spoil him, and make the few days they have as perfect as they can. A few days of candy after every meal isn’t going to do him any harm, I tell myself, and hope fervently he’ll forget and not demand it at home. Toddlers love being out and about and Toddler had a lot of fun on all the outings, even if there was a little overtired grumpiness, and even though he would rather stomp in the zoo’s muddy puddles than pose for photos looking at the zebra.

We had an exhausting few days, but Toddler was very happy and so were the Grandparents, and Toddler decided Grandma and Granddad weren’t weirdos, and was very fond of them by the time we left, so all’s well.

Did he forget and not demand candy at home? Not a chance. Toddler’s memory may not be six months yet but it’s long enough to remember chocolate for breakfast a few days ago. At least Toddler decided to throw the fish hat in a particularly muddy puddle, so we could toss it in good consciousness.

In a package offered by congress and approved by President Bush to help the U.S. economy, approximately 117 million families will receive tax rebates that will hopefully give the country’s economy the stimulus it so desperately needs. Rebate checks will be between $600 and $1,200 and in some cases more depending on the amount of children within the family.The rebate breakdown is as follows: individuals will receive $600, working couples will receive $1,200, and couples with children will receive an additional $300 per child. The package will also help businesses. Business owners, including small business, will be able to increase the percentage amount of write offs for equipment and plant purchases.

The approved package gives a lower dollar amount in rebates to families, but includes almost 30 million families that would have been left out of the original package proposed. With the lower dollar amounts, more working families will be able to receive the rebate.

Although an exact date has not been specified as to when the checks will be printed and mailed, don’t expect a check within days. Congress is asking that it happen immediately, but since the stimulus package is not expected to go in front of President Bush until February 15, it looks to be like weeks before receiving your check.

Source:

Congressional Leaders Announce Rebates for 117 Million Families, ABC News

My husband and I are British, and we live in the Midwestern US with our toddler. All our families, including the in-laws, are back home in Britain, 3000 miles away. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? I’m not sure.

I have friends who’s entire family, and all the in-laws, live in a 50-mile radius. So convenient if you need a baby sitter, but perhaps too convenient for the in-laws to pop by whenever they please. So is having family close a good thing, or a bad thing? I’m not so sure about that either.

Currently, visiting family involves a long-haul flight with a small, grumpy passenger who enjoyed the first 15 seconds of the flight but now wants to do something else. Whizz around all the grannies, grandads, great-grannies, aunties etc who all have to see toddler since he’s the only baby in the whole family, and do long-haul flight back home. It’s a bit stressful.

And them visiting? My family visits for a week or two, every few months, that’s perfect. But my in-laws come once a year, and stay for a . I like my in-laws, they are very nice people, but after a while, with a month of in-laws yawning before me, I start wishing cockroaches would invade my house so they would just go home. But the bonus of that is, 11 straight months of no in-laws whatsoever, and no chance of them popping by for a coffee and staying all afternoon and making acerbic comments about the play-dough squished onto the couch or the toddler’s goldfish-only or banana-only or whatever it is this week diet.

I think I really wish my family was closer. I’d deal with my in-laws because I miss my mom, and my family, and it would make my husband happier, and we’d have people if there was an emergency, and our son would see more of his grandparents, who all adore him, and that’s what makes me most sad about living so far away.

I’m not sad this week, because in a few days off to Britain to see our families. One week of intense grandma and grandad and toddler fun, and mom and dad can sleep late, and toddler will be stuffed full of chocolate and be pushed on the swings far longer than mom’s stamina ever could, and be allowed to jump on the bed, and do all the stuff he can’t do at home. Yay!