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Disorganized Diva

July 28, 2011

Spoiler alert: There is a fabulous chance to win some amazing products at the end of this post……

I pride myself on cloaking my true disorganized life. Perhaps I am like a hoarder but for the disorganized? In terms of planning things, staying on top of trends or tracking the latest restaurant opening in DC, I am totally organized. I am ON IT. You better believe I was one of the first through the door at the Nordstrom Half-Yearly sale. I’d never lose track of that date. But when it comes to what lurks behind closed doors in my home? I suck.

Exhibit A: My kids playroom.

Can we even call this controlled chaos?

Somehow they still haven’t gotten the message that if they make the mess, they clean it up. When will this day arrive? Until then, I let it look like this until I can’t stand it anymore or they pull the following “Mommy, how about we go set up our grocery store in YOUR room.”

Uh huh. Because there is actually some open space in there. How about this instead: “How about you go clean up the disorganized chaos you created in YOUR playroom.”

Exhibit B: The inside of my kitchen drawers.

Am I shaming my self into doing better?

Note my failed attempt at organization in the top right hand corner – some kind of stupid holder for lids of Tupperware containers that seemed like it was a good idea when I was trolling the aisles at the Container Store. Probably some year on January 2 when I was totally committed to my New Years Resolution. Think I even know where the bottom of the Tupperware containers are that accompany those “organized” lids?

Exhibit C: My youngest’s winter clothes that she’s outgrown. Note I purchased the container from Target to store them. Note I moved the winter

At least this eyesore is in my basement.

clothes out of her room and down to the basement. Note they have remained in this kind of erratic pile since probably Memorial Day. Will I get to it before Labor Day? Doubtful.

Despite my failure as a home organizer and my secret wish to set on fire each and every Pottery Barn Kids and Land of Nod catalog that enters my home, unwelcome, and taunts me, mocks me and ridicules me as I look through the pages and wonder – WHO – WHO lives like this? And if you do and we are friends, I am declaring us non-friends until you do something about my house. Despite all of this, I still must keep track of the kids, the husband who is constantly on the road, the playdates, the docs appointments and soon enough Back to School Nights and our first PTA meeting. And the thing is, I like that kind of organization. The kind of organization I can write down.

Second confession of today: I DO NOT like to organize electronically. I’ve noticed the looks friends give me when we’re out and about, they ask for a free night for dinner or try to schedule a playdate, and I say, with my iPhone in hand, that I’ll check my calendar when I’m home and let them know.

Umm…..aren’t I holding my calendar, I see them thinking (did you know I am a mind reader? A disorganized one?)

I can’t stand keeping track of anything electronically, except email and celeb gossip.

So imagine my delight when my dear friend from grad school, who works for her family’s paper company, Blue Sky Home Series, sent me their new line of products that are now available in Target. Hello, she had me at paper. And then she really had me at Target, my home away from home. And then, in my final Jerry Maguire moment for today’s post, she really had me when I received the items and found this door hanger:

Do you love this as much as I do?

Ingenious! Goodbye worthless sticky note that falls off the door before I wake up the next morning and start packing the car and kids up for a long weekend. Hello sturdy door reminder that I can’t possibly not see as I am walking out the door. Dare me to leave the note in the adjacent photo for my husband next time we are packing up?

Turns out, Blue Sky conducted extensive interviews with Moms before developing this new line and the proof is in the pudding. These products are stylish, functional and affordable. I also really love the grocery shopping planner, with the needed items broken down by category in the store and magnetic strips on the back to hang on my fridge. My husband’s only complaint? They didn’t print the specific aisle where he could find these things.

My complaint? Perhaps he should go to the store more and then he’d know which aisle to find it….in his sleep……

So am I shamelessly plugging my friend’s products right now? Oh totally. But they are awesome, so I’d do it anyway. There are 14 products in the Blue Sky Home Series, all under $10, and all available at your local Target right now. The sampler packet I received also included the fabulous mousepad “Do Call Buy” organizer (I always need to buy something, right? Love having a reminder column for it) and the Weekly/Monthly Planner that also includes essential info pages and notes pages.

Love this grocery organizer

And lucky you, dear kittens, because you can enter for your chance to win a sampler of the Blue Sky Home Series…..all you need to do is subscribe to my blog or “Like” the Wired Momma Facebook page….and then send me an email just telling me you want to be enrolled in the give-away. Do this by Friday August 5. Entrants can also “Like” the Blue Sky Facebook page for additional chances at winning. I will notify the winners by Monday August 15 . Winners will be announced on the Wired Momma Facebook page. I’ll also tweet it out. Email me at monica.sakala@gmail.com

Bottom line: even a disorganized gal has to have some level of organization with the kids, right? And I’m not ashamed of my love for paper products…..call me old school.

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DC Parenting Blogger, Home Organization, Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Product Give-Away, Washington Mommy Blogger

Dutch Wonderland: A Review

June 28, 2011

As part of my ongoing series devoted to summer survival, I offer you below my old review of Dutch Wonderland (you’ll see it’s a bit old with the Jon and Kate reference…remember those days?). Quick summary: if you haven’t been, it’s definitely a great day trip or weekend trip with the young ones.

When first hearing of Dutch Wonderland, I had trouble believing it was a family amusement park instead of an, ahem, adult film. With a name like that, how is a gal not supposed to think it’s not a XXX peep show starring Dutch women? As it turns out, Dutch Wonderland is an amusement park built entirely for young children, including those as young as 1.5 or 2, nestled in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Being an organized and thorough gal (0bviously with a mind in the gutter), in prep for the trip, I quizzed everyone I knew that had already visited DW, thoroughly read the extensive DW web site and finally, I recorded the Jon & Kate episode where they spend the day at the amusement park. This show taped back when they were still feigning marital stability. I needed a visual of the site to make sure it wasn’t a dump.

Located just 2 hours from my house in Silver Spring (without traffic, 3.5 hours with traffic), Dutch Wonderland is a veritable preschooler oasis. Now, let’s be clear, today’s review has two parts: one part review of my kid, one part review of the amusement park. Unfortunately, the place earned the higher grade than my beloved 3 year old.

We spent the day at DW on a Friday in late July. Our rationale for not going on a weekend: it’s tough enough to keep a preschooler’s interest in general – how would we keep her interested while waiting in long lines for rides? Truthfully I have no idea if the lines are long and painful on a summer weekend but given its proximity to DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia – even just a few hours from New York City – it would be hard to imagine the lines aren’t painful on the weekends.

On the particular Friday we visited, the lines were really nothing to speak of. The park itself is beautifully landscaped and very clean. Even the bathrooms were clean and well stocked (and I am a huge bathroom snob). The park has a wide variety of rides depending on what appeals to your precious cherub but all the rides are age appropriate for young ones, including the roller coaster. In addition to a variety of rides, the park offers shows at scheduled times throughout the day, which are all posted on the DW web site. These shows are the perfect time to give your child some down time or escape from the heat or afternoon summer shower. We took in the Country Bears show under a shady tree and the Thomas the Train show under a big tent during a torrential down pour. If we’d had more time, we would have hit even more of the shows.

As it turned out, our daughter woke up on the wrong side of the bed on the day we visited DW and after several hours, rides, great shows, lunch and an ice cream treat, we were still shoving a good time down her throat. One questions every ounce of their being when they are spending $90 for 3 people to have fun, only to realize that it’s really not fun at all because of the unpredictable toddler mood. As a last ditch resort, we hit the water park side of DW, and her foul mood was washed away.

If only water parks instead of ice cream would lift my spirits.

The water park side of DW has several different areas of amusement depending on the age of your child and their comfort level with sprouting water. Don’t think I didn’t catch my husband having a water gun fight with some preteen boy and loving every minute of it. If I’d known this in advance, maybe I should have sent husband and daughter packing off to a water park closer to our home and just taken myself to the mall? Who knows, but the day turned for the better once we spent some time in the water park, and it became the enjoyable day I envisioned in my head prior to our arrival. Even our 8 month old would have had a great time in the DW water park.

Overall I’d highly recommend this as a day trip for families with younger kids. You’ll spend a wad of money as it costs $30 per person to enter the park, you cleverly have to exit through the gift shop, and there are food choices and brightly colored drinks, at every turn, each one a magnetic pull for the 3 year old who loves salt and sweets. That being said, it’s age appropriate, clean, beautifully landscaped, and a manageable distance for a day trip. Also, there are outlet stores conveniently located across the street from the amusement park.

One final note – make sure you read up on the rain policy – they give out free passes for readmission in the summer if it rains for more than an hour during your visit. We benefitted from lazy teens working the customer service area, as it was raining when we were about ready to leave, and they easily gave us the three free return passes though it hadn’t been raining for close to an hour.

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DC Day Trips with Kids, DC Parenting Blogger, Family Travel Tips, Husbands, Motherhood, Summer Survival with Kids, Traveling with Kids, Washington Mommy Blogger

Girls v. Boys….Be Honest

June 27, 2011

I have two little girls. I love having two little girls. And I have three sisters. Having so many women in the family leads to many comments and opinions – and it grates on my every last nerve. For me, it began with my second pregnancy after we decided to find out what we were having. With our first, we eagerly awaited the surprise in the delivery room and well, reality wasn’t quite what the fantasy was in my head: In the end, I was just so damn glad to get her out of me, that it was really anti-climatic whether she was a girl or a boy. The second time around, at that joyful 20 week sonogram when all I had to do was sit there moderately comfortably to learn the news, it was declared that we were having another little girl. Almost immediately after telling people the news, I would get these sorts of reactions:

“Oh, well, will you try for a third to get that boy?”

Umm. Well, it hadn’t occurred to me because I was too busy gestating my second baby just then. And further, was it 17th century China and no one alerted me to the time travel? Were we scorning the arrival of another girl-child because her strength would be inadequate in the fields to plow the earth?

My dad faced these comments constantly as the father of four girls, especially when my mom was pregnant the last time, commentary on how he must really be hoping for a boy. The truth was – he was psyched the last one was a girl because he knew what to expect, they had the clothes, etc etc. Oh and he’s also not a chauvinistic pig.

Though I should say I actually find the bulk of the offenders of the sexist comments to be other women.

And so, as my girls grow, my annoyance with this implication that somehow girls are less than boys has evolved from what I view as blatant sexism to an implication that girls are easier than boys:

“You are so lucky you have just girls, my boys wrestle and fight all day long, it is so physical and exhausting.”

You know, because apparently girls aren’t physical and don’t wrestle and fight.

“You are so lucky you have just girls, my boys eat all day long.”

Umm, well, actually, my girls eat all day long too and we are talking about 2 and 5-year-olds, not the 17-year-old captain of the football team, it’s what little kids do – they snack. Tell me, aren’t there moms of boys out there who have a more physical son than the other might be? And one child who eats more than the other? I have one girl who loves to color and draw and make animal parades though noteworthy – she has absolutely no interest in dressing up like a Princess. Then I have one that has been climbing since she could walk at 10 months, she loves to play with balls and trucks, she’s never met a mud pile that she didn’t delight in and she will tackle her older sister and wrestle her to the ground without any fear or regret. She is all action. And yet she’s the one who also likes to dress up in Princess clothes. Go figure.

I can’t help but wonder – aren’t these kids just who they are at this age – and shouldn’t we just keep our gender comments and assumptions to ourselves? Just as we should keep our comments on how a pregnant woman looks, to ourselves? Why must we comment?

Further stoking my annoyance, over the weekend I found myself reading in the NYT Economix blog that a new Gallup poll indicates that if they could have only one child, 40% of Americans would pick having a boy over having a girl. Turns out that Gallup has polled Americans 10 times on this same question since 1941 and the majority always pick a boy over a girl. Interestingly enough, totally contradicting my earlier claim that I think the offenders of these statements are women, is the evidence that it was male respondents who swayed the survey results, women generally answered that they didn’t have a preference.

Realizing that I’m jumping all over the map now – follow along – as I add this into the mix – how about the fact that if Prince William and Princess Catherine have a girl child and then have a son, the son would become King even though the daughter would be first born. I learned it’s called “male primogeniture” (Read: fancy Scrabble word for sexist and offensive).

And this antiquated law is still set in place in a monarchy led by a QUEEN. So newsflash to all the little girls out there – we might really hope that a woman runs for President and wins (so long as it’s not Sarah Palin), or runs for Prime Minister and wins (as did Margaret Thatcher) but yet we can’t entrust the monarchy to a first-born girl. Confused much? Can someone start giving me a warning before we keep jetting back in time?

So what’s the deal? Back to my own experience: Are many of the people asking the offending questions not to find out if I am concerned about carrying on the family name through a son but rather because they want to know if I’m hoping to experience the difference of having a boy? When moms of just boys make these blanket statements implying that girls are easier than boys, are they really just tired (like we all are) and don’t intend the latent sexist implication that girls aren’t physical? Were the men in the Gallup poll just more honest than the women, who actually might secretly be wishing for a little girl but realistically believe that all that matters is a healthy child, so the results of the 41 years of polling really are just meaningless? Will Kate really have a second born son who will supersede her first-born daughter (cause you know some gossip pub somewhere out there must be printing that rail-thin-probably-too-skinney-to-get-her-period Kate is already pregnant)?

And finally – in fairness – what kind of blanket statements do moms of just girls (like me) make that might annoy moms of just boys?

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Celebrities, DC Parenting Blogger, Girls v. Boys, Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Washington Mommy Blogger

Summer Travel Tips…”Vacation with Kids”

June 22, 2011

As part of the Wired Momma series featuring local DC mom experts, today’s topic is travel, as we stare down the July 4th holiday. We all can agree that traveling with kids, especially young ones, rarely qualifies as vacation. Often I’ve thought of it as “vacation.” Usually I have an entire staging area that consumes most of my bedroom, as I plan and organize for weeks leading up to the trip (do I maybe have a problem?). Today’s expert is the lovely Elizabeth Thorp, founder of Bethesda-based Poshbrood and mom to three girls. She’s here to offer us some invaluable tips on surviving summer vacation and give us some great ideas where to go, or where to have a “staycation” right here in DC.

Eizabeth has traveled extensively with her brood and is a lifestyle and travel writer for Momlogic and Huffington Post among other publications. Her company, Proshbrood, evolved out of her own frustration with a lack of resources to find non-Disney vacations. Being so well-traveled, she was already armed with a large dossier of current hotel reviews and with the urging of many friends who relied on her advice and reviews before traveling with their broods, Thorp decided to start her own site. Ultimately, Thorp realized that the best family properties are recommended by other moms and the bulk of family travel is planned by moms, women who are already grossly short on time. Poshbrood’s site caters to the time limitations of busy moms, her site is intuitive, clearly broken down by type of destination you are seeking, and she doesn’t waste your time with unwanted ads or pop-ups.

What services do you provide for families?

We’ve found that people easily spend hours online searching for hotels, exotic destinations, and kid-friendly resorts. Our site offers Poshbrood-tested and approved reviews of hotels, resorts, and villas with the discerning eye of a mom who likes style and luxury, even with the tykes in tow. Our reviews are snarky, irreverent, funny and honest. Did a kid puke all over the lobby of the Four Seasons? If so, we’ll tell you what matters most to parents: how the hotel staff responds. We also have experts in other countries and can access insider tips on kid-friendly activities and hot new attractions. Additionally, Poshbrood recently partnered with SmartTravel , a New York City based travel agency. Not only can we book your travel arrangements for free, from wheels up to car seat and car rentals, we can also secure discounts, complimentary upgrades and other perks, like early check-in, the panacea of travel perks for those traveling with babies or toddlers on nap schedules.

What is a hot tip for a nice family vacation, departing from the DC area?

DC notables like Claire Shipman and David Gregory travel to Round Hill in Montego Bay, Jamaica, with their families. You can travel to Montego Bay direct from BWI on AirTran. And what people don’t realize is, luxury is accessible, just not always during peak season. The villas in Round Hill, during low-season (beginning April 15) are affordable. If you share a four-bedroom house with another family and you have a full kitchen, it’s an affordable, but still luxurious, vacation. And the best part, no matter how many kids you have in tow, you can hire a trustworthy nanny for $10 an hour to watch the kids and enjoy some adult time.

The economy is still dragging, gas prices are soaring, so for families who are looking to stay close to home, what are your top “staycation” tips for DC area families?

One resort that many people don’t think about is the Omni Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania. Located about two hours from DC, the resort is newly remodeled, surprisingly affordable, the food impeccable and the service is on par with the Homestead or Greenbrier. The other place that surprised

The Thorp Poshbrood at Hotel Hershey

and delighted us was the Hotel Hershey: the rooms have just been redone, the staff extremely friendly and the onsite activities plentiful. Even if the park is closed, there is so much to do. If you want a true “staycation” in DC, then I’d suggest booking a room in the kid-friendly Kimpton Hotels, either the Helix or the Palomar . The rates are reasonable, they offer a free wine and champagne hour every day, free coffee, and bunk-bed suites for kids complete with a curtained bedroom area to give the parents some privacy.

As a seasoned traveler with three girls, what are your top tips for traveling with kids?
First I’d say that kids are like horses, they can smell fear. If you are anxious going into the trip, they are going to feed off your anxiety. So relax and head into it prepared. Always pack a ton of snacks, especially because you never know when or if the airline will offer any snacks, and a hungry kid is a cranky kid.

Second, unless you are Amish, pack electronics for entertainment. And as I’ve learned the hard-way, don’t leave husbands in charge of AV because they are likely to forget to charge the electronic devices, and then everyone’s angry.

Third, don’t forget about trains. Kids love trains and we so easily overlook them as a traveling option. My family lives in the Chicago-area and we’ll take the overnight train to Chicago over Thanksgiving. We avoid crowds and bad weather, the train leaves Union Station at 4pm and arrives in Chicago at 8am the next day. It’s really a fun experience for the whole family.

Update from Monica:

Continuing with the “staycation” theme, I recently heard from the Lorien Hotel in Alexandria, another local Kimpton property, that they are offering a special “Kids Camp Out” special. The hotel will provide tents and sleeping bags and the kids can camp out on the hotel terraces while the parents can enjoy some time to themselves in their rooms. The hotel is offering a special kids camping room service menu, including hot dogs, popcorn, s’mores and more. Use the code PCAMP if booking this special.

And I also recently learned that the Omni Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania is offering a similar form of luxurious camping (which frankly is my idea of camping). Billed as the “Family Glamping Get-Away” and available through Labor Day, the deal is good for a family of four and includes two hours of activities like fishing, a S’mores kit, but still the comforts of a luxurious room to sleep in. Again…my idea of camping.

Thanks to Elizabeth for giving us some great tips and be sure to sign up for Poshbrood’s free weekly newsletter for tips on smart family travel from this local mom and expert.

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Babes Around the Beltway, DC Moms Expert Series, DC Parenting Blogger, Family Travel Tips, Husbands, Motherhood, Summer Travel Tips, Traveling with Kids, Washington Mommy Blogger