High Maintenance Mom

Our kids recently attended a camp that required trash-free lunches. Although I generally pack trash-free lunches already, I wasn't happy with the plastic containers we were using so I decided to use the camp request as an opportunity to buy something that I has previously thought was too expensive. The Eco Friendly Laptop Lunch Bento Box makes packing lunches really fun. We bought the system without the carrying case and I'm now thinking we might buy the carrying case in the future. I have to admit, that the cute containers make it packing lunches more enjoyable for me and my kids really like the separate sections. The system also comes with a book that has lots of lunch suggestions. The Laptop Lunches website also has a lot of fun suggestions...

It's that special time again when those of us living in our type A communities rush around to schedule a summer's worth of activities for our kids. At $500 a week we feel nostalgic for the good old days when camp was more than a week long and kids played outside all day. N's preschool class from last year has organized a play date where we will all come with our camp research and plan our summers. Afterwards, I will send our schedule to several of B's friends to see what we can do. One of the parents I spoke with today told me of a camp where the kids are bused to a park where they can canoe. She referred to it as "Old School." In addition to preparing for camps, many of us are also scheduling school tours and going through the application process...

Tomorrow is our first day of kindergarten and I've been trying to prepare myself as well as secretly prepare B. We've been trying to schedule lots of unstructured play in between hair cuts, clothes shopping, and meeting new kids. N started his school last week - he's in the older preschool room and seems to be enjoying it. Below are some of the things we've done to prepare...

It's my favorite time of year again, Back-to-School time, when all stores find ways to tell us their products are necessary for the new school year. Now that B is entering kindergarten, I have a list of supplies to purchase including two types of crayola crayons (yes I am much more excited than B). In addition, I am purchasing iron-on labels for B's clothing. In the past I've written his name on clothing but the letters fade or run together making the name hard to read. Because B's school has a dress code, imagine 30 five year-olds all taking off their blue sweatshirts on the playground, I'd like something others can easily read...

A recent report, "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds," by the American Academy of Pediatrics promotes free play for kids and discusses how our current hurried lifestyles (too many activities) are hurting our kids instead of helping them. Unstructured play has been found to help kids reach important developmental milestones...

Back-to-School sales make August one of my favorite times of the year. My next favorite time could possibly be mid-September when all the school supplies are discounted even more. I love paper products and often want new notebooks, pens, pencils, and crayons for myself. Having kids, means that I get to participate in the Back-to-School frenzy, which appears to be much more fun with younger kids who don't need anything than older kids who have lists of specific items they are supposed to bring on the first day of school...

 

Congratulations to our two winners of the High Maintenance Mom / Whole Foods Back-to-School September giveaway!!

Our winners from Menlo Park, CA and Cheverly, MD won a Whole Foods green shopping bag full of these lunch items.

I am out-of-town all week and have been preparing the house for my departure. I think I went to the grocery store three times this weekend, did four loads of laundry, and four loads in the dishwasher. In the past, I've left lots of notes about what to eat for dinner or pack for lunches and when I return, I find moldy food in the same containers I had left them in. This week is a test of the Lunch Cheat Sheets. I'm filling them out along with where to find the food and hoping the food I bought this weekend is eaten...

Because I live so far away from my family, I try to keep my family up-to-date with cards and photobooks of my kids. My favorite program for creating cards, sending pictures, and digital scrapbooking is Shutterfly.com. There are lots of services out there but Shutterfly is one of the only ones that lets your friends view your images without having to register for an account and if anyone wants to purchase a picture, they can easily order prints...

For many, the beginning of the school year includes packing a lunch for the first time. Below is a helpful list of lunch items for different ages and a pdf of a "cheat sheet" for letting someone else pack a lunch for you. If you are packing for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, you will want to cut the food into small pieces and avoid choking hazard shapes such as a circular piece of hotdog (cut hotdogs into spears)...