From now on, find me (and I’ve moved all my previous content too) at workingmommie.wordpress.com. Same great content, different address.

Come on over. I’ve just posted something new there.

But that is not to be for this mommy/consultant. Children need to be fed and sent off to school, soccer, swimming. bed and the like. Client deadline demand I keep working, and my part time job demands that I go into the office. I spend most of my day alone in my office anyhow, so it’s not like I’m infecting others. But I really want a sick day.

I want to stay home and do nothing but lie on the couch and watch soap operas (are they still on anymore?). I want someone else to bring me chicken noodle soup and books to read. I want someone to take care of me.

But no, today I’m at the office, after getting the boys ready for school early, dropping them off then busing here. Then after work I have a training session I must attend for a client. If I’m lucky I’ll be home before 9. And tomorrow doesn’t seem like a day I can take off either.

Sometimes being a self-employed mommy stinks.

I guess this kind of playdate arranging is normal for the mommies who gather for pickup and drop off. But the only way to talk to me usually is to call or email me, so I am not part of this outside-the-classroom arranging.

So when I appeared today, a couple moms saw a chance to pounce, which is great. My kids would love these playdates. We don’t need them perhaps like other families, since my kids play at the aftercare program every day instead of playdates. But still, playdates are an important social interaction for kids this age. And unless I go out of my way to set things up for the weekend, they just don’t happen for my guys.

So happy to set up a couple playdates this morning, I am now worrying that the fact that I’m a working mom is seriously hurting my kids social life. Are they left out because I can’t do many playdates, or because I’m not at school to see the other mommies to set up casual playdates?

Another working mommy dilemma…

And mostly, I have been. I’ve pushed through the clouds of winter by rowing (before kids), then biking (this past year) through the winter. And whenever the sun came out, I revelled in it, and felt happy enough to not feel down when it wasn’t sunny.

But this year, I think I may have reached a breaking point. It feels like forever since I’ve even seen the sun. And it’s getting to me. Yes, we’ve had days without much rain, and yes, I’ve gotten outdoors, the kids have played outside, yadda yadda. But this year, my mood is starting to match the sky. I feel overburdened, a bit gloomy, I’m grumpy a lot and can’t remember the last time I had a good laugh. I’ve had enough.

I can’t stand the rain anymore (follow that link — it’s a great song!). Bring on the sun, and fast!

But my kids make all that hard. We walk to school regularly, and I often take a couple other boys who live along our walking route to save their parents the walk when I can. And so all the boys run ahead of me, only stopping to wait for me to cross the street, then running on ahead. Our last two blocks have no streets to cross, and I can’t keep up with the boys. So by the time we get to the school, they’re already inside.

The other day, I walked four boys in, two of mine and two neighbours. When I reached the school, I checked to make sure the neighbours both got to their classrooms, but both my boys were long gone, having run up the three flights to their floor without waiting for me. And of course that’s fine. I know they’re at school and safely where thy should be. But now there’s no point in me climbing the stairs to their floor, so I miss out on all the social stuff with the other mommies.

It’s great they get the exercize of running/walking to school, but I miss the chatting outside class that we used to have in kindergarten. Ah well…

I learned my numbers and my letters from them. I learned Spanish from them. And my favourite bit

was when the pie man was at the top of the steps to count to 9 and then fell down with all the pies.

But my kids don’t know Sesame Street well at all. They’ve heard of it, they’re mildly familiar with Oscar and Big Bird. But they didn’t grow up watching the show. They watched Dora and Bob the Builder. I’m not saying their current choices are bad (although now they’re into Ben 10 and a bunch of other stuff I like less). But they have so many choices of kids tv, that Sesame Street doesn’t even rate on their radar.

I am told that Sesame Street was started because lots of inner city kids were entering school without a basic knowledge of numbers or letters, and that kids who watched Sesame Street had a head start on kindergarten. It makes sense — it’s a big reason why most of us send our kids to preschool if we can afford to.

But in this day and age (yes, I know I sound like an old curmudgeon!), kids today have too many choices, and Sesame Street just doesn’t cut it for them as much. Which is a shame, since it’s still a great show. And okay, Mr. Hooper died (so sad!), but I hear Gordon and Susan are still there. And I bet Big Bird is still the only one who’s seen Mr. Snuffleupagus. After all, they’re still the people in my neighborhood.

I went to a big craft show last month with a friend on a Friday evening. It was so lovely for us to get away from husbands and kids and just have a grown-up night out. I don’t do enough of that.

The show had lots of homemade/artisan food, clothes, and especially jewelry. I don’t normally enjoy a lot of shopping (my personal mall tolerance is only 30 minutes before I go buggy!), so usually shop rather purposefully. But this show was all about strolling around and having fun looking and trying, and my friend was all about the jewelery. She wanted to try on every necklace and ring there!

Well, her jewelry enthusiasm rubbed off, and I got into the spirit and chose a couple baubles for myself. We both picked necklaces from one busy counter, Foxy Originals Jewelry. Apparantly they’re all the rage among the younger set, but to me they just had nice pieces at reasonable prices. So I bought a necklace, as did my friend. They packed it up in a pretty pink bag and I stuck it in my purse.

A few days later I was wearing the right colour for my new necklace to match, so I pulled it out of the pretty pink bag. But there was something wrong with the chain’s clasp. It wasn’t attached to the chain. I could still wear it, but the clasp could fall off and be lost very easily.

So I found Foxy’s website, and emailed them a photo of my chain, asking if there was something they could do. And here’s where the amazing customer service came in. I got an email back within a couple hours. They apologized, asked for my address so they could send me out a new chain. And to make it up to me, I should also chose anything else from their collection for them to send me as a free “I’m sorry” gift. Wow! So I did, and within a few days I was mailed a new chain and another necklace. No charge, no fuss, no complaining.

I was so impressed I wrote this post.

This year, I had to decide whether to add the H1N1 flu shot. There’s been so much press about H1N1, and everyone and their sports team has advice on how not to catch it. So I was planning to get the shot. And then I heard a tv interview that almost changed my mind.

You know how in BC we are so fond of hearing what the average man-on-the-street has to say about anything. Never mind the experts, we want public opinion. On everything! Anyhow, a tv news clip showed a mother saying she thought her kids would be better off getting H1N1, as it’s been mostly mild when it hits, and that way her kids would build natural resistance to it. Just like chicken pox.

I had chicken pox as a kid. Most of us did. But our kids now get a vaccine to prevent it instead. Remember chicken pox parties, where a group of kids would play together to catch chicken pox from the sick kid so everyone could get it over with? But now we don’t let kids get it anymore.

My kids had the chicken pox vaccine. And it always kind of bothered me that they didn’t develop a natural resistance to it. What if the vaccine isn’t effective for 50 years? We don’t know, since it hasn’t been around that long. Will my boys be susceptible to chicken box in half a decade?

So I thought again about whether the H1N1 vaccine was a good idea. And then I heard about the healthy 13-year-old boy in Ontario who died this week of H1N1. And I realized that every health official in the continent was telling me to get the vaccine.

So I got it. Because of my ashtma, I qualified in the first round, so I made an appointment at my doctor’s office and got both shots yesterday. Yes, I hate shots, and yes, I cried out (and nearly squeezed my son’s hand to pain!), but I got them both yesterday, one in each arm. And when my family qualifies in two weeks, they’ll get them too.

Will you get the shot?

But we get flu every winter. In fact, both my kids already had flu this month, just the old-fashioned kind, not the new-fangled H1N1. And people do get very sick and even die of the other flu strains out there. So they’re all serious, aren’t they?

Yesterday at soccer, my son’s team went over to greet their opponents after the game, and out of habit, hit the hands of the other kids — you know, hands out, walk in a row, hit hands as you pass. But the soccer association has told us not to do that. They say because of H1N1 the boys should bump elbows. And some parents saw the hand touching and freaked.

I think maybe the freaking was kind of overkill. Yes, we should be vigilant this flu season, and yes, if we’ve got sick kids, they should stay home, maybe even a day longer than we might have kept them home in another year. But kids will touch each other, especially in sports. Should we really be all that worried?

All year, I try to meter out the candy and chocolate in small doses. I think healthy, active kids like mine should have some sugar, but that it should be seen as a treat, not a daily priviledge. And of course I try to avoid the sugar rush before bedtime. So dessert is occasional, but not out of the question, and candy et al is allowed, but not always. A personal pet peeve has always been the birthday loot bag stuffed with candy and cheap plastic toys. I pride myself on trying to come up with creative alternatives every year. But that’s another blog post for another day.

As for Halloween, it gets harder to fight each year. As the boys get older, they stay out trick or treating longer and come home with more and more loot. So they each have a bag full of candy for the better part of November and some of December. How long do we let them keep dipping into it?

I’ve heard the theory that says you should let them eat all they want for a day or two, in the assumption that they’ll eat themselves sick and stop voluntarily. Then I read this article and decided we weren’t trying that this year.

I’ve always favoured the “Let’s Make a Deal” model. I let them eat some stuff Halloween night, then send them to bed. Eventually they sleep.  In the morning, we play our game. I come armed with lots and lots of healthy snacks, like fruit leather, raisins, pudding, granola bars, etc. They can each choose a limited number of things from their stash (last year it was 14 I think) to keep. After that, they trade their unhealthy food for my healthy alternatives. they like the game, they still end up with a bag of goodies, and I don’t feel quite as horrible about letting them eat out of the bags on a regular basis. And I give the candy away to either the food bank or my co-workers.

Last year we did the deal game, then also set a limit on how long the bags could last. I think we gave them one month, and as of December 1, we took it all away, eaten or not (lots of not).

All these strategies work to a point, but with my older son approaching 9, I wonder how long I can keep it up. The thrill of the trading game is bound to wear off soon.

What do you do about the Halloween candy?