Silicon Valley Moms Blog

The Christmas Puppy

I said I would never do it. Although my husband has always wanted to get a dog, I am not a dog person. I had cats growing up, the independent and easy pet, but he's allergic. Since I am the one working from home (you know, the one with the super flexible and simple schedule - ha) and taking care of 99% the household duties, I have pulled rank and said No. No. No. No, we will not get a dog. We already have our hands full with three kids and both of us working and going crazy.

Enter, the almost-6-year-old, who adores dogs and cats and horses and...well, you get the idea. She plays kitty and puppy all the time and I mean, all the time. She plays, draws, dreams house pets. Guess what she asked Santa for Christmas this year? That's right, a "PUPE" (she is learning to write phonetically in kindergarten). There it was in black and white (or red, rather, with a cute, sad little drawing of a puppy right there under the words "Dear Santa, This year I have been NICE (circled). Please bring me a __PUPE__." Ha, that's cute, I thought, and filed it away in her kindergarten folder.

What is the deal with women's health care?

This last week has been busy in the area of women's healthcare. From the abortion coverage -ban language in the health care reform bill to the new guidelines for mammograms that were released (pap smears too), women are probably a little confused. Are our rights being valued? Are we being valued?

What brings it all home for me are the personal stories. My friend Susan writes in defense of mammograms on her blog Toddler Planet and tells her powerful story of learning about her inflammatory breast cancer through the Internet at a talk given to the American Cancer Society, reprinted on the blog she founded Mothers With Cancer.

As I read Susan's twitter feed on Tuesday morning, she was counting down the minutes until TV crew arrived at her house to interview her on the subject; I myself was headed to my yearly OB/GYN appointment, my main objective being to leave with an order for a mammogram and breast MRI. I am 36, but an MRI is recommended for women younger than 40 with risk factors - my risk factors? Chemotherapy and radiation to the chest 8 years ago when I battled Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Other risk factors can include, for instance, having a sister or mother who had breast cancer. I was fairly sure I would leave with the order - cancer in your health history can do that for you. But what if you aren't high risk? What to do? Wouldn't it be tragic to miss the early detection, which is so key for the survival of women with cancer?

What to tell kids about cancer?

Last night, my family and I participated, for the first time ever, in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night walk event in Palo Alto. As an 8-year survivor of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, I am thankful that organization such as LLS exists. LLS's Team in Training program was a great source of support for me during and after my treatment (Go Team!). As a mom, though, I struggle a bit with events like this. See, my kids don't know that I am a cancer survivor.

During treatment - a lovely combination of toxic chemo and radiation - my body was put into temporary menopause. The cocktail I received (ah...nitrogen mustard, love I loved seeing you come out on a tray, carried by a nurse in full body armor, only to be put directly into my veins) was actually designed to preserve my fertility. As a 28-year-old cancer patient (and newlywed), it was important to me and my husband to be able to come out the other side and have a chance at a family, provided I survived. Survival rates for Hodgkin's are actually quite good. At the time of my treatment, it was something like 97% survival. Perhaps it is more now. But what my doctors worried about was not necessarily the short-term effects (they thought I would survive), but the long-term effects. Would I be able to have a family? Will I develop breast or lung cancer or heart disease 20 years post-treatment, due to the beatings of chemo and radiation that saved my life?

Taking the plunge

Lately I've been feeling like I suddenly know what people are talking about when they refer to a mid-life crisis. My twins just started kindergarten and, while I still have a little one at home, the whole world has changed. It is a big adjustment - I feel like I did when I was a new mom and didn't know how to change a diaper. We are on the early riser schedule, having to be at school by 8:03, we have new vocabulary to learn (minimum days, free choice time, Thursday packets, quiet coyotes....the list goes on...), and, oh yeah, we have HOMEWORK in the second week of kindergarten.

In the midst of this big change for me and for the kids, I am also feeling my way through a change for my business. I'm not sure exactly what is going to happen yet, but I know that something is going to change. I am attending some entrepreneur events that are really enlightening...let's just say that a vision board is in progress.

Celebrating Jedi Training

My-5 year-old is really into Star Wars. No. Really. He says he is growing up to be a Jedi. And who can blame him? Jedis are pretty cool. Defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy, they use the force for defense, never for attack (that is straight from the Jedi training oath, by the way). We knew about Jedi training at Disneyland when we took a trip last year, but he was a bit young then at 4 years old. He did pick out a Jedi Training t-shirt and has been talking about it....since then.

This year, when we went for a family trip and for me to attend the Celebrate Mom's event put on by Macy's and Disney, he was ready. Well...sort of. Ben is not a big fan of the limelight sometimes. You just never know how it will go. When we arrived for the 3:30 show in Tomorrowland, he was pumped though. He jumped up and down, signifying his readiness for training. The show was really cool and really dramatic - the Jedis come out in hooded cloaks (think Obi-Wan Kenobi from the first Star Wars...well, the 4th Star Wars actually. Yes, I'm old school. Star Wars: A New Hope was the first movie I ever saw as a kid in the movie theaters). They are very serious, they scan the crowd for those strong in the force, select about 20 kids, invite them to don Padawan robes, and give them (training) light sabers. Sadly, Ben wasn't selected...but he was fine with it. He sat down and watched while the little Jedis were put through the moves with their light sabers. There was a "disturbance in the force," storm troopers came running out and the whole stage floor rose up to reveal Darth Vader and Darth Maul, who the kids then had to fight to complete their training. Pretty intimidating stuff. 

My-5 year-old is really into Star Wars. No. Really. He says he is growing up to be a Jedi. And who can blame him? Jedis are pretty cool. Defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy, they use the force for defense, never for attack (that is straight from the Jedi training oath, by the way). We knew about Jedi training at Disneyland when we took a trip last year, but he was a bit young then at 4 years old. He did pick out a Jedi Training t-shirt and has been talking about it....since then.

This year, when we went for a family trip and for me to attend the Celebrate Mom's event put on by Macy's and Disney, he was ready. Well...sort of. Ben is not a big fan of the limelight sometimes. You just never know how it will go. When we arrived for the 3:30 show in Tomorrowland, he was pumped though. He jumped up and down, signifying his readiness for training. The show was really cool and really dramatic - the Jedis come out in hooded cloaks (think Obi-Wan Kenobi from the first Star Wars...well, the 4th Star Wars actually. Yes, I'm old school. Star Wars: A New Hope was the first movie I ever saw as a kid in the movie theaters). They are very serious, they scan the crowd for those strong in the force, select about 20 kids, invite them to don Padawan robes, and give them (training) light sabers. Sadly, Ben wasn't selected...but he was fine with it. He sat down and watched while the little Jedis were put through the moves with their light sabers. There was a "disturbance in the force," storm troopers came running out and the whole stage floor rose up to reveal Darth Vader and Darth Maul, who the kids then had to fight to complete their training. Pretty intimidating stuff. 

A Sick Mommy Blogger Lie

Watch a video report of this story from ABC.

In the mommy blogger circles, many of us are sickened by the recent news of Beccah Beushausen, a blogger who was caught faking her baby's death. Aside from the disgust and pity I feel for Beushausen, it is extremely disappointing because, although in some senses I feel sorry for this woman who must be so messed up in order to do something like this, this kind of thing is so incredibly hurtful to those who are truly going through such awful tragedies. Perhaps these types of lies are inevitable in a virtual world, where readers must simply take things as truth without having much in the way of verification, where people are looking for and finding support, where anyone can hide behind a computer and pretend. And this site reportedly got a lot of hits. A lot of hits.

It brings me back to a sharp memory of

The Big Day: Graduation...from preschool

The big day is looming large. This Wednesday, my twins will graduate from preschool. I know it must seem so incredibly lame to be tearing up over this and to be thinking so much about the closure of their time at the school where circle time and peeing in the potty sometime seem to be the big challenges. But, really, those weren't the true challenges. It is amazing to see how much they have grown in the past 2 years at their school. And I have grown a lot as a parent too. So I get emotional - very quickly - when I make their memory book pages and their culmination projects. And when I think about them touring their outdoor school at Vasona Park this Wedensday and saying goodbye to their creek and their grouptime tree and their ball field and their snack and art tables and their bridge and their parking lot where they have all been playing Star Wars and picking flowers and chasing each other around with their backbacks on while us moms try to apply that last bit of subscreen.

You see, it has been a very special class, this one, the 4Day class at Explorer Preschool. It has been a unique experience, one that they will never have again. They have played and learned in nature, in the real world. They have put on a Nutcracker performance and a circus and have visited about 50 million museums and parks and taken hikes. They have studied bugs and butterflies and birds that live in their creek at Vasona. They have fallen down and tasted that creek water and gotten back up again. They have learned how to count to over 100 and all of their letters and how to write, and no they have never done a single worksheet or been drilled on anything. They have made such good friends. I have learned - and I keep learning, believe me it is a challenge with 3 kids under 5 years old - how to be a better parent, how to listen to them, how to encourage their independence, how to build a connection with them so that later in life they will trust me enough to come to me with their problems. I have been very lucky to experience preschool with them.

Mommy Bloggers' Liability for Product Reviews - Will It Cause a Chilling Effect?

Mommy bloggers are some of the most active participants in social marketing. Companies have been tapping into the social media power of mommy (and daddy) bloggers, because there is a certain authenticity and trusting relationship that develops between moms and their audiences...oh, and there is purchasing power too. After all, moms control the pursestrings in many households. It is not uncommon for marketers to reach out to moms in a very active way, sending them products for free to review and discuss - honestly and openly - on their blogs.

It is not news that social media - blogs, twitter, facebook - still lives in the real world and that defamation law and trademark rights and copyright protections and, yes, false advertising law still apply to these types of communicaitons. But there are many untested applications of law to social media. One of the newest facets of social media law is the consideration by the Federal Trade Commission of guidelines that would hold not only companies, but individual bloggers, liable for false statements made in connection with product reviews. There is a fear by advertisers that there will be a chilling effect on what bloggers write about products. And rightly so - false advertising is false advertising, wherever it takes place. However, don't forget that bloggers are very vocal. Writing is What. They. Do. I'm not so sure this business is going away. 

The Inevitable Birth Stories Discussion

Whenever a group of mothers get together, eventually the topic of childbirth comes up. I don't know what guys talk about as a group, especially in an overnight getaway type of situation - probably sports or Myth Busters and not the day his child was born - but for women, well, mothers, it inevitably comes around to our birth stories. Where your water broke and, before that, your obsession with grabbing a jar of pickles whenever you were at the grocery store so that, in the event that your water broke there in the frozen food aisle, you could accidentally drop the jar on the floor to avoid the embarrassment felt upon fluid gathering in a puddle at your feet. Not that you ever had the opportunity to do that, because your water broke, predictably, at home on your new white Pottery Barn (non-leather) couch, the one time, of course, that you neglected to put that towel down to protect it, just in case. How you had two failed induction attempts (pursued because your baby was so big), followed by a c-section, for which your husband was the one freaking out the night before, being squeemish and fearful of the sight of blood, while you - the one who was actually going to go under the knife and have the major surgery the next morning - calmed him down and then laughed when the nurses took one look at him, said "we've got one of those," and hailed a wheelchair...for HIM. Why all three of your babies - twins first who were born 9 weeks early and then a single baby who was on time, but born very ill with pulmonary hypertension - spent a month in the NICU and how you spent the dark nights during that month at home, pumping milk and, once the bottle was in the freezer for the day that your babies could actually drink that "liquid gold," calling the NICU night nurse and asking "how are they/is she doing?"

The Kindergarten Crazies

Just when I thought I had preschool all figured out, it is time to start over - my twins just turned 5 last week and will be headed to the big K next year. Kindergarten. It is the talk of my preschool class, my playgroup, my table at my twins club's moms holiday dinner last week...and it probably will be the big subject at my parent-teacher conference which is scheduled for tomorrow. Are they ready? Should I separate them or not? And, the main thing at this point, where will they go? Open houses, intra-district transfers, inter-district transfers, lotteries. I *think* my twins are ready.

But am I?