urbanMamas Portland

Children in households across America roll their eyes when their parents say: "when I was your age, I never had a cell phone...", an introduction to a tyrade about how cell phone usage is a privilege, yadda, yadda, yadda.  (If you haven't already, perhaps it's worth visiting the post: "Kids & Cell Phones: yes? no? when? how?")

Our middle-schooler  has been using a cell phone since she started coming home alone afterschool last fall.  When no one else is home, she will go into the drawer where it is kept, retrieve the cell phone, and text us to let us know she is home.  She does not take the phone to school.  She is not allowed to use her phone to text/call friends during the week.

One day last week, my mid-day run in the neighborhood ended at her school, thinking we could run home together.  I waited for her outside of the bike cage.  As she turned the corner, I was surprised to see her fiddling with her phone as she walked toward me.  When whe finally looked up, she gave a start.  For a split second, she tried to hide the phone, but she knew there was no point.

We had a long talk with her that night about her usage, and she was so sad to think about how she defied us.  We agreed that she wouldn't have use of her phone at all for the next week.

It was a quiet weekend for the family.  There was plenty of down-time reading the new library books.  She was lying in her bed, reading, when I came into her room.  I said: "what are you doing?"  She responded: "Reading, what does it look like?"  Noting her tone of defensiveness, I asked: "where's your phone?"  She pointed to under her pillow.  From its depths, I removed the hot piece of equipment; its internal temperature signaled recent long usage.  I flicked it on and saw that she was mid-game, with thousands of points racked up.

I took the phone back and left her to finish her book.  Curious about the cell phone usage - and amazed that I hadn't been this curious previously - I went online to check our usage summary.  I was disappointed - but I suppose I wasn't too surprised - to see this:

Our bill typically ranges $70-80 for two phone lines.  Not only did I find out that our daughter had 1400+ text messages, there were also downloads and pay-per-MB fees.  My heart felt heavy.

Later in the day, we found that my husband's phone had been disconnected/suspended, due to the overage in fees as well as late pays.  (We have an ongoing payment set up, since we rarely have any cost overages)

In an effort to get his phone line reactivated, we spent a long while on the phone with an agent at our wireless phone company.  When the agent saw our text message overage, she said "wow" under her breath.  She was impressed.  Then, she said that, from the perspective of the mother of two teenagers, kids these days just use text to communicate about everything.  She said each of her kids average about 5,000 texts a month.  She also counseled us on a few options (for additional monthly fees, of course) that would allow us varying degrees of control of the account: we could susupend service at certain points of the day (from 8am to 3pm, and from 8pm to 8am), allow service only to specific phone numbers (parents, family, select friends), elect for automatic shut-off once maximums were reached (maximum text or data usage).  I suppose we do have many options to exercise control.

We are so new to all of this, and I am so curious how you and your tweens/teens have agreed upon boundaries for their cell phones.  Have you decided upon a maximum usage plan, then insisted upon their adherance?  Have you and they both compromised on an in-between plan?  What about parental controls: have you used these options, even incurring additional fees?  Any of these services worth the cost and control?

Whole Foods is giving away a sampling of some of the chocolates they carry and just in time for Valentine's Day! Leave a comment below (with your email address) and let us know: milk or dark?

The giveaway closes on Sunday and the winner will be able to pick up their yummy loot at the Fremont location.

photo Sarah Gilbert; guest post MaryJo Monroe

I have one child, who is now 6. When he was a toddler and I was a full-time stay-at-home mom just starting my consulting business, I used to look around my house at the end of the day with guilt and depression, noticing the pile of laundry that didn’t get folded, the dirty dishes still lying in the sink, the toys still sitting out on the floor. And I didn’t have the energy to do a thing about it. But here’s the clincher: The business I was starting was an organizing business. I am a professional organizer.

Professional organizers are supposed to be perfect, right? Everything is always put away, the house is always presentable, and there’s never a stray ANYTHING on the floor; isn’t that the expectation?

I had fallen prey to the mindset that creates so much stress and shame in us mamas. If you are a SAHM, this mindset tells us that because we are home all day and not out working at a paying job, our default job is to take care of the house  (in addition to minding children, running errands, cooking and planning the family’s social events). This mindset tells us it’s only fair, since our  partners are doing their part by bringing home the bacon. And, because it is our 'job", we should try hard to do a good job at it.  Is it too much to ask to keep the house kept up? How hard is it to fold towels and wipe up the counters?

Work-at-home-moms (WAHMs) and work-out-of-the-home-moms (WOHMs) experience this pressure to maintain the home with an added twist: After working at paying jobs all day, studies show that these women are still doing more housework at about 17 hours a week versus men’s 13 hours a week.  Multipe studies show that WAHMs and WOHMs are stressed out from trying to juggle housework, child rearing and their paying job.

When I first clicked on a link to TriMet's fare increase survey, I looked over the options with growing fear. Where was the choice that would give TriMet more revenue -- but not make my daily riding vastly more expensive? I'd be happy to pay, say, 40 cents more per ticket for my own ride, especially if I could get more (a longer transfer, maybe), or even buy day tickets if I had a great option for my family -- wouldn't it be great if an $8 ticket would allow one adult and all her children to ride for a whole day? This weekend, for instance, I had made plans to pick up one of Everett's friends, who lives more than six miles from us -- neither family has a car. We were going to meet at the intersection of our bus line and theirs, and I was going to return with four kids. This sort of time-consuming trip would be ok, I thought, if I didn't have to pay so much to bring her back home ($1.50 for each kid under today's rates = a lot for one four-mile bus ride. Each way).

The survey options didn't include anything like what I'd imagined. I entered my thoughts in the comments. "I'd like to see a *cheaper* ticket for kids!" I'd written with the kind of crazy optimism I have sometimes. "It would encourage more families to choose the bus instead of the car for short errands." Hahaha!

I saw the proposal today (most of the details were leaked a few days ago) and the commentary from TriMet is this: the agency does not believe in errands. Five percent of its ridership, it says, uses the bus for roundtrip errands of the sort that are the vast majority of my own bus use. (And, as far as I've observed, many other families in my neighborhood use the bus similarly -- to go to the library, to go to the play park, to go to Fred Meyer, to go to the doctor, home again, home again, jiggety jig.) Under the proposal, it would cost $11.60 for one parent and two children ages 7 to 17 to run an errand, no matter how short in duration or distance the trip was. My default trip is from my house near Holgate, on the 75 straight to Hawthorne -- about 1.6 miles -- to go to Powell's, or to Fred Meyer, or out for pizza. Now it's a gentle indulgence to take my three boys there, as it only costs $3.60 (my middle child is about to turn 7, in April, but he's free now). With these fare changes, it would be more like crazy financial misplanning -- $11.60. Sure, we could ride for the rest of the day, but we don't want nor need to.

Buying monthly passes for my family, excepting my husband (who's in Kuwait -- most families would have to factor two parents into these decisions), would cost somewhere around $160 a month. That's more than it would cost to insure and put gas in a beater car. I am firm and unyielding on my desire not to have a car -- we can usually choose the bike instead. But I am a very rare and stubborn bird.

Most families, given the choice between $11.60 errands or $160 monthly passes, would make the obvious choice: the car. Even if the car was uninsured or its tags had expired or was in imminent danger of breaking down (I know lots of low-income families who drive uninsured because they just can't scrape together the money -- it's a calculated risk that they're too stressed to really calculate). This proposal forces families on the road. I think it's bad for families; in my opinion, it's a call to families to stay off buses entirely; and ultimately it's bad for Portland, creating more congestion, forcing many low-income families into devil's bargains (the uninsured car or the $11.60 we don't have?), and probably decreasing revenue. I know my choice is pretty easy: we'll take the bike instead of the bus on short errands. Most families don't have that option and TriMet, for now, doesn't seem to care. (See the guest post I wrote for Taking the Lane before the options were revealed here.)

This sweet little board book is sure to captivate your little one. The San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio Public Library Foundation, and Trinity University Press are giving away copies to 5(!) of our readers!

Please leave a comment (with your email address) to be entered in the giveaway. The winner will be notified on Friday via email.

I've had it up to here (the writer draws a line with her finger somewhere above her hairline) with the Wall Street Journal headlines proclaiming the superiority of one parenting style followed by an entire culture. You'd think the editorial team was on the payroll of a publishing house (the writer begs forgiveness for her snark). They're certainly not nuanced or creative when they come to writing headlines.

Today, it's the French parents, who are superior, according to one head-shakingly inferior American ex-pat, Pamela Druckerman. It started when her daughter was just 18 months old and she, and her British husband, took the little girl to a French beach vacation. Quelle horreur! She just was so busy and ran all over the place. The other little French bébés sat there like little silent film starlets, eating fish and courgettes. What gives? She came up with a bunch of rules after "several years investigating French parenting":

• eat at regular mealtimes and only allow one snack, at 4 or 4:30 p.m. 
• remind them who's boss (In case you're wondering, YOU.)
• say please, thank you, hello and goodbye (the article actually says this is to "help them remember they aren't the only ones with feelings and needs")
• give scary looks
• say "no."

I have all sorts of reasons to roll my eyes about this. But I'll skip a take-down of the WSJ summary of Druckerman's distillation of all that French mamas do. Because I think that parenting is not a formula. It is not a matter of doing something that will work every time. We all have different children, different contexts for parenting decisions, different skills and areas in which we absolutely fail every time. There are only three things, in my opinion, a parent needs to create fantastic children (and despite my kids' considerable challenges, the majority of the time when we are out in public I get comments like, "your children are so adorable and well-behaved!" -- REALLY. No lie). Of course, it took me lots of Doing It Wrong and desperate, stressed-out trying on of Other People's Parenting Formulas to get here.

1. An environment that allows the children to feel safe and loved and to grow. I think this is where the French strategy comes in with its regular mealtimes. Yes: we all do better if we eat regular meals that are nutritionally complex, and if we don't fill up in mid-mornings on processed flour and bad fats and processed sugars and chemicals. The French society places a premium on eating deliciously-prepared whole foods. When my kids eat good breakfasts and on-time lunches and nutritionally-dense snacks at 4 p.m.; if they get a lot of exercise and plenty of rest; then I too could take them to a white-tablecloth dinner at 6:30 and have them behave so well you'd swear we were ordering in French.

It doesn't take a lot for my children to feel safe. Or -- it does -- lots of deep breaths and calm words from their parents. Few shouting matches. Confidence and happiness and a sense that nothing is the end of the world. The French have a huge leg up here, thanks to social support systems that 2/3 of Americans would call "Socialism" or worse. Short work weeks. Ample vacation time that French families actually take (as opposed to the U.S., where many workers infamously have to be forced to take what little vacation they have before it expires). As Druckerman writes, "Parents don't have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids." This sort of social support would have greatly impacted the mother I was six years ago. Today, the mother I am has forced the French system on herself (I quit my full-time job a few years ago; my husband joined the Army to get health insurance; we don't do pricey preschool).

My kids are also most secure and happy when they aren't rushing around. So we don't do music lessons or many sports or playdates. We do errands and the kids play. This is, evidently, French: "French parents want their kids to be stimulated, but not all the time. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves."

It's been awhile since we've organized an event of epic proportions and we have a feeling this is one of those events. Back in 2007, we held one our biggest clothing exchanges and it was where I befriended Brooke. Brooke had a special passion for the Goodwill Bins and a knack for seeing a diamond in the rough. So when the opportunity arose, she started the Just Between Friends franchise here in Portland. We have been so busy in the past few years rearing our third children and juggling work that community gatherings have been sparse. If you haven't been to one, here's your chance! We are teaming with Just Between Friends to host the clothing exchange of the year. 

You, yes you. All of you mamas are cordially invited to our next Naked Mamas gathering! Bring your gently used clothing, shoes and accessories to swap with other mamas. Any remaining items post-swap will be donated to a good cause. Please kindly leave the kids at home as this is your night to enjoy.  Come meet old friends, new friends, and bring home a fresh outfit for the wardrobe. Please RSVP in the comments as we are planning to provide some nibbles. 

When: Saturday, February 25th

Where: NoPo Lucky Lab, Party Room, 1700 N Killingsworth

Time: 7 pm

Sound Roots, a family run music school that provides lessons to kids and adults, is giving away a $50 gift credit! Please leave a comment below telling us how you would use the $50 and your email address (so we can contact you when you win). 

The ever lovely Melissa Tomeoni is giving away a mini boudoir in studio session and 2 5x7 portraits!

This package is valued at $195 and includes refreshments, 1 outfit and 20 minutes of photography time. The mini session yields 20 final images to order from and you will get 2 5x7's of your choice.

It's my favorite time of year to get all paper-y. Early February carries so much promise! I can't wait to come up with some combination of scissors, paints, hearts and paper that will perfectly demonstrate my kids' big, big hearts.

In 2010, for Truman, we cut up some of his old art work and made it into pretty little arrow/heart collages -- one of my all-time favorite combinations of a kid's art with a mama's execution. I was humming Jon Bon Jovi the whole time. Somehow this seemed festive!

Last year, for both Everett and Truman, I found a little envelope template and painstakingly (note: I find this pain fun -- endorphins? something!) printed out, cut and glued 40-some envelopes decorated with photos I'd taken. The boys got to pick between valentine heart candy and dragons, and then I had Everett draw some pictures of dragons with little funny sayings -- "I'm on fire for you, Valentine," and things like that -- and we scanned and printed a bunch of them.

Remembering at the last minute that children only love valentines if they're accompanied by candy, we ran to the store for mini chocolate bars to go alongside. This year, inspired by my Halloween epiphany, I'll be buying the organic lollipops. (I've done the math and, at less than 19 cents apiece, the organic lollipops are cheaper than the mini chocolate bars with the not-so-cruelty-free chocolate.)

Speaking of lollipops. If you too want a sweet homemade card that's not too difficult, you should check out Kristen Howerton's amazing idea. She calls it the "slacker mom" valentine, but really? She is no slacker! Four kids and valentines already done before January was out. And they're super sweet, with each kid posing with a closet rod (you could use a plastic pipe) in front of a chalkboard with the message, "Happy Valentine's Day, Love ___." The kid only has to write his or her name once -- and then the empty space above the closet rod is filled in with a real-life lollipop. Adorable.

I'd love to see your ideas about homemade valentines, or other heart-day crafts. What do you have planned?

(We've talked before about homemade vs. storebought valentines, if you want to add to that debate! And what do you do with your family for this day of love?)

Here’s the scoop for the weekend. For more ideas on what to do this weekend, check PDX Kids Calendar and the urbanMamas calendar page.

Head to Green Bean Books and join teacher, Kara, from Portland Early Learning Project, as she teaches beginning Spanish with interactive stories, songs, and games.  Best for little ones.  Friday at 11:15.   Free!

Free admission to the Children's Museum this Friday from 4 to 8!  Enjoy the exhibits, water features, railroad tracks and more free of charge.

Support Splendorporium and Art4Life Children's Gallery, a non-profit after school arts and culture program, as they open their latest Gallery show: The Pink Show.  Special guest: Rojo the Therapy Llama.  Friday from 7 to 9 on SE 21st near Powell.  Free!

Get ready for a Raptor Road Trip on Sauvie Island this Saturday from 9 to 2.  Enjoy guided bird viewing, meet live raptors up close and sharpen your hawk identification skills. Hot drinks and donuts are available in the morning to keep you warm while you breakfast with the birds.  $10/vehicle.

Grab your family for Coyote Night at Tryon Creek.  Learn about coyote adaptations, listen to coyote stories, make a storytelling plank hat, and go on an evening forest hike.  $6/person.  Saturday from 6:30-8:30.  Please preregister. 

B'nai B'rith Camp & The PJ Library invite you S’Mores in the City at MAC for an evening of "camp in town." Whether you are a veteran camper or exploring overnight camp for the first time, this evening is for you and your family. Geared towards families with children 6-12 years (PJ Library will host activity for younger ones). Please pre-register.  Saturday from 7-8:30. $10/family.

Check out an annual FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at either the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum or OMSI.  This year's challenge is called "Bowled Over" - participants will be required to lift, move, and place racquetballs in crates and then stack the crates with their robots.  At the Evergreen museum beginning at 9 ($5) and at OMSI at 10 (free, museum admission not included).

Also at OMSI - $2 discounted admission this Sunday from 9:30 to 5:30.

February is black history month.  Help celebrate by heading to the Central Library as it presents Black Composers of Oregon Past and Present on Sunday from 2 to 3:15.  This performance is geared toward older children/teens and adults.   

The Warehouse Café is hosting a Homebirth Family Social and Potluck on Sunday from 3 to 5.  Bring a potluck snack to share, come meet other home birth and birth center families, and learn how you can be involved in preserving out-of-hospital birth in Oregon! Also welcome are those planning and supporters of out of hospital birth.  Free!

And if this beautiful weather turns, you might want to check out one of the many amazing museums around town.  PDX Kids Calendar has put together this comprehensive list of all the kid-friendly museums in the Portland area.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Have fun out there! And don't forget to double-check event details by calling or checking the website of the venue, performer, or host organization.

This weekend, I had yet another experience with a family member in which my son's behavior was absolutely not tolerated... leading to the swift ending of our time together (yes, for the rest of my kids and me as well). I held back tears, just barely, in the moment while I got everyone ready to go as fast as humanly possible, feeling very much kicked out. OK: we were kicked out. There's no two ways about it. I kept wanting to cry for hours later, and would remember why only belatedly. This sticks with me.

I won't get into the details, but especially after passionately reading this article about how zero-tolerance policies have helped lead to our exploitative, cruel, racist and classist prison system -- and  after having suffered much painful familial isolation from a variety of in-laws and my own flesh and blood -- I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies. Even if behavior is intolerable, the people who deliver the behavior should be tolerated. Especially if we say we love them. (And why do people feel the need to say "I love you" while they're telling you they don't want be around you? Is that love? Isn't unconditional love... unconditional???)

I know many impartial observers might see this from a different light. But if a child -- or even an adult -- has a short outburst of socially unacceptable behavior following a period of sweetness, kindness and helpfulness, I feel that forgiveness and not "I will NOT allow that in my HOUSE get out now!" is in order. Honestly, I've seen a lot more patience to adult bad behavior than I have to my own child's; and this hurts deep, long and lasting. It's led me, at least, to evaluate my own responses to others' behavior, and to see the context and the intentions and the reasons first and put my foot down second (or never).

Is there anything you're zero tolerance about? Or have zero tolerance policies put your family and friends into black, hurting places? Do you think there is any place for zero tolerance in a loving social group?

I clicked on the link to a post about whether or not you should let your teen child's boyfriend or girlfriend sleep over expecting a point of view that was very much permissive agnostic (think: the parents caricatured by the media when most of us were teens) vs. strict values-based (think: Rick Santorum). But what I got was a very reasonable post I couldn't agree with more -- basically, that sexual activity is not caused or curtailed by letting two young people of the opposite sex in a room together. And we should spend a heck of a lot more time on our relationship with our child than on putting our foot down over proprieties handed down from our parents and their parents before them. (Peggy Sue Got Married was very much top-of-mind as I read.)

I think a point of view that wasn't very much present in conversations of 20 years ago was this one: well, what about the same-gender teens? Why can they sleep over? They could be having sex, too! And while it certainly doesn't have me rubbing my hands together planning how I'll cook breakfast together with my boys' girlfriends in seven or eight or 10 years, it does have me rethinking previously-held views about such things.

For now, I'd love to hear your thoughts on something that came up in the comments on that post: the time-honored "no closing your door," or, depending on the house design, "no going into the bedroom together" with a member of the opposite sex. In general, commenters agreed that it made for bad situations; those who were having sex were doing so in cars or other semi-public places, those who weren't still didn't feel welcome to hang out in a house with "surveillance." Is this a rule you've considered imposing on your children once they hit a certain age? Or is it already in place? I've made a sort of rule like this about a neighbor kid who comes over sometimes -- I need him where I can see him. It all comes down to trust, and I trust my oldest to tell me the truth about what's going on; I don't trust the neighbor kid (a certain experience with certain Google searches performed on my computer when I was washing the dishes...).

As Rebecca said when she posted the link, the part of the relationship you develop long before sex is an issue is what will, hopefully, be a much better deterrent from bad choices made behind closed doors or up on Mt. Tabor after the sun goes down on a hot August night (not that I'd know where a good spot might be) (no way not me). And that's more of this kind of thing. I hope, anyway!

Eversave, a local daily deal website, is giving away a wine tasting class at Wine Up! Wine Shop to one of our lucky readers!

Here’s the scoop for the weekend. For more ideas on what to do this weekend, check PDX Kids Calendar and the urbanMamas calendar page.

There are still lots of Chinese New Year activities going on around town to celebrate the Year of the Dragon.  PDX Kids Calendar did a good job gathering them here.

Penny the Puppeteer performs Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar at the Off Broadway Central Lutheran Church on Friday at 10:30.  Free coffee, tea, and stickers!  $5 each or 4 for $17. 

Free admission to the Portland Art Museum this Friday from 5 to 8!  Get to see all the museum has to offer without the admission fee.  

Head to the Troutdale Library from 3:30 to 5 for a free movie viewing of The Jackie Robinson Story.  Best for older kids and teens.

Here's hoping for some sun.  On Saturday from 9:30 to 12, head to the Smith and Bybee wetlands to see and learn about winter birds.  Best for ages 10 and up.  Advance registration required.  Free!

Come to the Scottish Rite Center between 11 and 4 on Sunday for Mochitsuki 2012.  Ring in the Year of the Dragon with traditional and contemporary Japanese activities (like arts & crafts to take home), entertainment (like Portland Taiko), and food.  $4-12.   

The Gregory Heights Library is hosting a Vietnamese Music Ensemble, which will play traditional music performed during the Harvest Moon Festival.  Saturday from 1 to 3.

Celebrate National Puzzle Day at the Gresham Library.  Design a landscape, family portrait, or anything else you’d like to take apart and put back together.  For teens.  Saturday from 1:30 to 3.  Free!  The celebration continues at the Holgate Library on Saturday from 2:30 to 4, and is intended for preschoolers through grade 5. 

Have you checked out the new Kindie Music venue Jam on Hawthorne?  This Saturday from 5 to 7 is your chance, as Mo Phillips gets down with his fun and zany tunes.

Join Portland Opera to Go! for a 50-minute, kid-friendly presentation of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.  At McMenamin's Edgefield on Sunday at 12.  Free!

The talented young musicians of the Portland Youth Philharmonic perform their Chamber Orchestra Concert at the Wieden & Kennedy Building on Sunday at 4.  $15-20. 

Hope this gives you some ideas. Have fun out there! And don't forget to double-check event details by calling or checking the website of the venue, performer, or host organization.

I've never been what you might call "great" at organization. I love to have organized spaces, I do -- I even enjoy the process of organization when, from time to time, I put my mind to nothing but. What I don't have much (ever) is the space and time to do that. I have an inspiring idea on how to organize something, or a fantastic open afternoon, or some great reason to get neat and clean (sadly, this is often "I want to take a picture and there is a mess in the background" -- but any port in the storm, right?).

Thank goodness for my youngest sister, Abby. She has been a babysitting rock for me through the years, and would regularly undergo spurts of amazing effort. I would come home from a run or a meeting to see something like the above scene: a transformed space, neatly labeled, using the supplies on hand, no more. This, a little free-pile bookshelf set on an awkward-shaped square table with little plastic boxes and a big plastic box, has been in use for over a year -- I just have to keep it organized. And the boys always know where to find everything.

My sister Abby had a baby this summer, and since then, I've been flying solo. Thank goodness for Asha and her organization chat a few days ago to keep me inspired. I've been trying for months (ok, over a year now) to get a huge pile of paper -- that grows all the time from two boys in school and many reams of writing group notes -- organized. She had the great idea of tackling the pile of papers for just 15 minutes at a time, setting a timer and planning to go back to it the next day. Boston Mama Christine Koh posted a link to this on Pinterest -- a pretty, pretty use for clipboards to organize children's art and papers.

Which comes to the topic of Pinterest. Lately, Pinterest is how I've been staying inspired to keep organized; although I've heard many lament that the site is nothing but eye candy for craft ideas (and none of them actually get done), I've slowly been incorporating the ideas into my to-do lists and -- ok, I'll be honest -- doing things just so I can take photos and pin them. Nothing gets me going like a little repinning!

How do you keep your house organized with all the papers and art supplies and toys? How do you stay inspired? If you, like me, just don't ever feel like you have the time to focus (and, when you do, the kids are busy totally annihilating another room of the house), how do you make it happen? Or do you just throw up your hands over periods of weeks (I'm ashamed to photograph my dining table) and let the mess prevail?

Also check out this huge list of organization resources -- which I haven't yet had time to click through. If I did, I wouldn't have time to keep the pile of papers under control!

At the turn of the year, we love to make resolutions.  Many might like to make resolutions of the health variety: I resolve to eat better, I resolve to exercise more, I resolve to lose weight.  A few weeks might go by, and our resolutions might slip.  In fact, over a third of resolutions are broken by the end of January.

Then, there is a twist.  On January 1st, the NYT ran an article discussing new studies in the realm of obesity: once obese, are we always obese?  Some studies show that we can get stuck in a fat trap, once fat.  Obese individuals who successfully lose weight will only regain all that weight (and more, possibly) in due time.

Depressing?  Yes.

What can we do about it?  Well.  There is much focus now on "upstream public health", tackling the root of the cause, preventing the fatness before we even enter (and get stuck) in the "fat trap".  This got us thinking about programs that affect our children, making sure that programs are designed to keep them active, to make sure they have access to healthy food, to help them be safe when active.

We live in a busy, complex world.  Our lives can be overwhelming.  How can make living a healthy lifestyle easy for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, etc in our modern world?  Our lives are complex, and the environments that shape our health behaviors are too.  Work, school, urban or rural infrastructure all of these these can attract us to or deter us from eating more fruits and vegetables and moderate exercise.  How can we make this utopia of walkable/bikable cities with access to affordable fresh produce for all a reality for all?  What do we, as parents, see to be barriers to that reality?  What do the experts think we can do to change?  What are your top priorities for change?  What do you do in your day-to-day life as small steps toward keeping the family healthful?

* Keep the conversation going at a screening & panel discussion of "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead", next Monday, January 23, 6-9pm at Living Room Theaters.  100% of proceeds of the $35 ticket go towards EcoTrust's Farm to School program.

Here’s the scoop for the weekend. For more ideas on what to do this weekend, check PDX Kids Calendar and the urbanMamas calendar page.

This Friday through Sunday from 10 to 4, the Oregon Zoo will open its Veterinary Medical Center to the public for tours.  Free with admission. 

Get artsy at a creative recycling and green crafts workshop at the Warehouse Café.  Suitable for all ages.  $5/child.   

The Community Music Center hosts its monthly Family Friday concert this Friday at 7:15.  Featured this month: Classical Revolution PDX.  Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5/person or $15/family.   

It’s Pirate Palooza at the Southwest Community Center this Saturday from 6 to 8!  Climb aboard the pirate ship for an evening of swashbuckling adventures!  $10 for the first child/$5 each additional day-of, or $8/$4 in advance.   

Save money, live healthier, and connect to valuable resources for sustainable living at the Fix-It Fair this Saturday from 8:30 to 2 at the Rosa Parks Elementary School.  

Listen to some African Storytelling by Massene Mboup.  Children ages 4 and up are invited to enjoy Massene's unique and charming storytelling style.  Saturday at 11 at the Lake Oswego Library.  Free! 

Kidical Mass's bike ride this month is an extra active one!  Meet at Westmoreland Park on Saturday at 1 before heading over to the Oaks Park Roller Rink for some roller skating.  The bike ride is free, admission to the rink is $5.25/person with an additional $1.50 skate rental fee.

It’s Chocolate Fest at the Convention Center this weekend!  Saturday from 11 to 6 and Sunday from 11 to 5, savor chocolate from the NW and beyond.  Some proceeds help support the World Forestry Center.  $7-10.

Portland Opera to Go presents Hansel & Gretel at the McMenamin's Grand Lodge Hotel.  Enjoy this lively 50-minute English adaptation of Engelbert Humperdinck's fairytale operate Hansel and Gretel.  The perfect way to introduce your little one to the world of opera.  Sunday at 12.  Free!

This Sunday get twice your kindie music fix.  Mr. Ben opens for Laura Veirs at the Village Ballroom.  Doors open at 3.  $5-10.

Remember shrinky dinks?  Reuse plastic containers and make quick and easy shrinky dink jewelry.  Appropriate for ages 4 to 104, but children ages 12 and under must be accompanied by a grownup.  Please click here to sign up.  Sunday at 1.  $5. 

Hope this gives you some ideas. Have fun out there! And don't forget to double-check event details by calling or checking the website of the venue, performer, or host organization.

I know my oldest has years to go before he hits the teen years, but I've felt for a while now that his behavioral struggles give me a window into who he will be as a teen -- he's got all the talking-back chops and punky authority questioning that any self-respecting teen boy would. Lucky me: I get to practice conversing with a teenager years before my time!

Sometimes I agonize over this (mostly when someone else is overhearing me and Everett in a tense debate over privileges and responsibilities, speckled tightly with the occasional bit of bad language). But thanks to some new research from the University of Virginia, I could just go ahead and embrace it. These debates with me now and in his teens will help him resist peer pressure among his friends and stand up to problems on the job. In other words, our arguments are lessons. According to NPR:

"[In the] study, 157 13-year-olds were videotaped describing their biggest disagreement with their parents. The most common arguments were over grades, chores, money and friends. The tape was then played for both parent and teen...

"[The researcher, Joseph P.] Allen interviewed the teens again at ages 15 and 16. "The teens who learned to be calm and confident and persuasive with their parents acted the same way when they were with their peers," he says. They were able to confidently disagree, saying 'no' when offered alcohol or drugs. In fact, they were 40 percent more likely to say 'no' than kids who didn't argue with their parents.

"For other kids, it was an entirely different story. "They would back down right away," says Allen, saying they felt it pointless to argue with their parents. This kind of passivity was taken directly into peer groups, where these teens were more likely to acquiesce when offered drugs or alcohol."

How you argue is important. If you "reward" children who develop a persuasive argument, bargaining thoughtfully instead of using begging, whining, threats or insults, you will teach them how to not just get along with other teens (and to stay clear of dangerous problems like drugs and binge drinking), but how to successfully manage relationships as an adult -- even and eventually, marriage.

I was, for once, proud of my parenting skills -- something I tell the boys every (sometimes many times a) day is to use their problem solving abilities to come up with a solution that doesn't involve physical aggression or anger. Now, this doesn't work very well between the boys many days, but I often see the persuasive kid show up for a really great and -- often -- even courteous! -- debate with me or another adult. And that's something to be proud of.