For a class project, Jacob and two of his classmates filmed, acted in, and edited this movie (though the instructor added the “special effects” later). He’s the one in red. isn’t he cute–and a good actor?

Following our move to Chicago from small-town Michigan almost a year ago, I admit there have been a few things that have dampened my urban enthusiasm just a tad. Things like sharing a teeny (teeny in my experience, anyway–for the city it’s quite spacious) backyard with several families. Trying to figure out an intimidating and huge school system. Street parking and the necessity of learning to parallel park. The fact that my window got smashed in in front of the Lincoln Park Zoo within two weeks of our moving here, and then the police caught a kid breaking into my minivan in front of my friend’s house in a very nice residential neighborhood just a few blocks from my home. (As I told the officer, there was nothing of value in the van, and the old-french-fries-and-musty-shoe smell the kid had to endure as he searched in vain for cash and valuables was punishment enough). And the much, much higher cost of living (mostly housing, oh, and sales taxes. And did I hear that Chicago’s sales tax just got raised AGAIN?) Sometimes it all gets to me a bit and I fantasize about running for the ‘burbs.

But I can’t deny that there are a lot of things I just love about living in the city, and since today was a really great, warm, summery day and put me in a fantastic mood, I’m feeling moved to share a few:

The diversity. In our local park, we see every imaginable skin color and hear the sounds of many different languages. We live in an area with many Orthodox Jewish families–so many that I’d say we are definitely in the religious minority. My boys’ best friends are Indian, Pakistani and Greek. I love that in less than a year the fact that many of the faces they see look different from themselves has all become totally normal and commonplace to my kids.

The architecture. At first the fact that I lived on a street where most of the buildings looked almost exactly the same was a bit unnerving to me. But now I love looking up and down the blocks and seeing row after row of brick two- and three-flats and bungalows. They are similar, which gives the neighborhood a really neat, uniform look, but they’ve all got their own special charm.

The people I meet. There are more people here, so maybe there’s just a bigger pool to draw from; but I have met more interesting new people in the past ten months than I probably had in the last five years. I made some great friends in Michigan, but I often went weeks without meeting anyone new. Now, I meet somebody new almost every day.

I’m the kind of person who tends to get restless after living anywhere for a little while, and I have a bad case of “grass is greener” syndrome–so it can be easy to overlook the stuff I love while pining away for what I wish I had. But everything is a tradeoff…and even though I’m definitely missing a few things about small-town life, for right now I’m feeling content and happy with my lot in life. Even if my “lot” is, by rural Michigan standards, barely the size of a respectable bedroom.

City girl or country girl? I may never decide once and for all, but at least I can learn to slow down and enjoy the stops I make along the way.

I wrote about our struggle with video game overkill and parental distraction back in February. And, while the seemingly never-ending dreary weather (Seriously? A blizzard on March 27, what-was-that-all-about, God?) made me, on some days, want to turn on the X-Box, climb under the covers and let the kids fend for themselves until it’s all over, I’m pleased to report we’ve made some progress. Here are a few things we’re doing differently ’round these parts:

1) Video games/computer games are only allowed on weekends or over school holidays, period. When school’s out for the summer it’ll go back to weekends only. Generally we are pretty busy one day each weekend, so the video games only really get used on the other day. This is working out great! Once the kids adjusted to the fact that they just can’t turn on the computer or games during the week, they just…stopped asking. No arguing or constant monitoring like there was when I tried imposing daily limits, and I’m much less resentful of the time they spend playing on the weekends because I know it won’t last all week. I decided to hold off on setting TV limits until I saw how they would react to having no video games, and interestingly, they didn’t just swap out one form of electronic entertainment for the other. They have a couple of shows they like to watch but for the most part they’ve been spending their time playing, talking, and drawing. Score one for mom!

2) We’ve implemented weekly date nights with the older kids. It wasn’t until I took Isaac out for pizza that I realized how long it had been since I’d actually sat down and had a conversation with him with zero interruptions or distractions from his siblings, work, or other goings-on. Date night doesn’t have to be anything fancy–sometimes I just take a kid grocery shopping with me; if there’s a little wiggle room in the budget we might go grab a bite to eat. More important is just the intention to give each parent some one-on-one time with each child separately. It’s amazing the stuff they’ll talk about when you get them alone, and how eager they are for a little undivided attention.

3) As for work-life balance, I had promised myself I was going to start shutting the computer off at 4 PM every day and spending the rest of the evening with the family, without fail. At that? I have failed miserably. I’ve had a bunch of deadlines, one after the other, and have stumbled across some interesting blogs and in general have just found myself spending way too much time on the internet, but I’m telling myself that part of it is that I’m feeling listless because of the crappy weather. Once it gets nicer out again, I plan on spending most of my time outside.

Actually, I’m looking out my window now and…it actually looks kind of sunny out there. I think it’s about time I put this away, got out the jackets and hats, and headed to the park. Later.

Thanks to Veronica for meme tagging me!

Here are the rules:
A. Post the rules at the beginning.

B. Answer the questions about yourself.

C. Tag 5 people and let them know in a comment on their blogs that they have been tagged.
Toni, Carrie, Annie, Jen, and Lauren.

What Was I Doing 10 Years Ago?It’s very hard to believe this, but ten years ago Jacob was almost six months old! Let’s see, I think we had just moved to Michigan from Nashville, TN, where we lived for about a year. Truthfully, I don’t remember a whole lot else about that time.

Snacks I Enjoy: Popcorn (homemade is best, but I’ll take Homestyle by Pop Secret in a pinch), chocolate (love Hershey’s Kisses and the caramel-filled Ghiardelli milk chocolate squares), brie and crackers with a little bit of something sweet like jam or fruit, chips and dip.

Five Things on my To-Do List Today: 1) Write a column (done!) 2) Finish a Q&A…due today 3) Okay, that’s all I’ve got. The kids are on spring break and we’re traveling this weekend–maybe I should pack? 4) think about how I really should be packing 5) forget packing until tomorrow and have a glass of wine instead.

Things I Would Do if I Became a Billionaire: Buy a house on Lake Michigan…somewhere, AND a condo downtown, pay off all debt, give each of my family members a buttload of money so we could all hang out together and go on vacations, and spend my time writing, hanging out with my family and lobbying for worthy causes.

Three Bad Habits: too much time online, NOT EXERCISING ENOUGH, procrastination

Five Places I Have Lived: all over Michigan, Minneapolis, MN, Nashville, TN, South Bend, IN, and Chicago.

Jobs I Have Had: Freelance writer (current, obviously), waitress at Steak N Shake (The paper cap–dear God, that was awful), Mary Kay lady (didn’t even wear makeup at the time–not sure how that happened), temp for health insurance company (had to re-route angry customers into a voicemail I knew was not being checked…over and over) and corn detasseler, when I was 14

Things People Don’t Know About Me: I can touch my nose with my tongue.

Please, read my latest post at Chicago Moms Blog.

And then if you feel the need, go ahead and yell at me. I can take it…I think.

this column is angry, but brilliant. (thanks for the link, Toni.)

My favorite line: Maybe what bothers me is how Carpe Diem Syndrome is just half of the game. Or a tenth. Hundredth. Because, the truth is, you could eat at every restaurant in the world and see every exotic wonderland and view a million great works of art and still be quite the miserable, spiritually vacant, neoconservative jackass with a world-class photo album and the soul of a cockroach. Ain’t it the truth?

His theory applies not just to life, but to parenting, too, doesn’t it? Because we can crank out kids with high GPAs and test scores, straight teeth, and flawless public behavior; we can take them to all the right classes and put them in the right enrichment activities and stock their bookshelves with the right titles and get them in the right preschool program; we can make sure they’ve been exposed to classical music and ethnic foods and art and exotic locales in their formative years; but if we don’t dig a little deeper, we can still raise “miserable, spiritually vacant jackasses with a world-class photo album and the soul of a cockroach.”

Along those lines, this week at largerfamilies.com we’re posing the question: If you could pick just one quality or trait for your children to possess (i.e. compassion, a sense of humor, honesty, etc) what would it be, and why? I’d love to hear which qualities make the top of YOUR personal wish list for your kids.

A recent article in Reason Magazine suggests that the reason people are having smaller families is that caring for kids is a big bummer. I posted about it over at largerfamilies.com this week and got some thought-provoking responses. What do you think? My column this week will address this issue in more depth, so look for it on Wednesday.

It’s…finally…over.

Well, in fourteen more hours, anyway.

I’m not a big fan of February in general, but this one, for a variety of reasons related to personal stuff, career stuff, and hideous weather, this has been the worst one I can remember in a long while. But hurrah! It’s almost over!

After you’re done dancing in your chair, head over to read my post at Largerfamilies.com. The topic: did you know that people who have lots of kids are “compulsive mothers”, trying to “fill a void inside” by rearing children? It’s true, because a highly speculative article about Angelina Jolie on ABCNEWS.com says so!

I was thinking about my Mom’s a Liar essay and the things I was told as a child, often in an off-hand, humorous manner, that I absolutely believed and still, to this day, have a hard time shaking off.

I’m not talking about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny here. I mean stuff like this:

“Your leg will get stuck there!” My mom said this to me, probably as a joke, as I was trying to put my foot behind my head one day. I believed her immediately and could never shake the worry even when I saw other people successfully get their feet from behind their head. Perhaps one day, one of my biggest regrets will be that I never put my foot behind my head when I was flexible enough to do it.

“If you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyeballs will fly out of the sockets.” I’m not even sure where I heard this one, but I’m still paranoid about it. Actually, maybe this one IS true? I don’t think I’ll test it.

“Sometimes people accidentally swallow their tongues when they sleep.” My brother said this to me when I was four years old, after we watched an episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not featuring a tongue-swallowing man. Sometimes I am still overcome with a moment of panic as I lay in bed at night that I might accidentally swallow my tongue as I sleep.

Got any of your own to share?

Since February is a short month, my Becoming Mothers group will be held tomorrow–Tuesday, February 19–at 1 PM rather than on the third Tuesday as usual. The next group is this Sunday, February 24, from 2:30 - 4:00. If you’re an expecting or new mom with a babe-in-arms, I’d love to see you there!