Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Central Air Conditioning: The Debate Heats Up

What do married couples argue about?  Most people would say money, sex, and housework without even thinking twice.  If the couple has kids, they might say the kids, or how to parent them.  For my husband and I, add a fifth issue:  air conditioning.

We renovated our bungalow and added a second floor to it five years ago.  By the time we got around to replacing the central heating system, there wasn't much money left.  We didn't want to tap any further into our home equity loan, so we decided to forgo the central air conditioning, even though we knew it would cost less if we had it done along with all the other work.  We knew that second floors get hotter than ground floors, but our ground floor is always so cool (it's raised and always has cool air circulating underneath the hardwood floors), so how bad could it be?

Road Frustration

I complain a lot when I drive.  About fellow drivers.  About the traffic. About the price of gas. About the idiots who threw their coke cups onto the side of the road.  My husband says I need to take it easy and chill out.  What he doesn't understand is that I am chilling out; beetching about driving is my preferred method of stress release, whatever the source; it's an indulgence just like chocolate ice cream (which I can't really eat while I'm driving anyway).

Today found me in a particularly bad mood, stressing driving through the morning rush hour to get my daughter to camp, going through my litany of road offenses like a bag of potato chips. Since my husband was at the office, I've  decided to vent to the blogosphere instead.  And rather than bore people by repeating the contents of the bad drivers post I did a couple of months ago, I've decided to focus today's complaints on the road itself: 

1)  Is the leftmost lane on the highway supposed to be the fast lane, or what?  Are drivers supposed to overtake on the left lanes, or any lane that happens to be free of cars?  Things become even more confusing when the left lane turns into a commuter lane; many is the evening my husband has come home pulling his hair out (what's left of it) because he sat behind a car on the commuter lane who was driving at a speed slower than all the rest of the non-commuter lanes.

Sanctimommy or Safetymommy?

I don't like Sanctimommies.  You know, the parent who knows, beyond a doubt, the best way to parent her kids and everyone else's -- even though she knows nothing about you or your situation -- and doesn't hesitate to let you know it.  Sanctimommy takes many forms.  She's young, old, male, female, parent, grandparent; she can even be childless.  She's everywhere.

There was the time when she stood in front of me at Costco and peered into my shopping cart.  Her eyes and her smile grew very big.  "Oh, did you know that my pediatrician told me those cough syrups are a waste of money?  They don't work anyway and it's just pumping more drugs into your kids.  I never buy them for mine." 

And there was the time I was commenting on the crown her daughter had made while we were waiting for our kids to come out of class:  "Hey, the kids made crowns today!  That looks just like the crown they give you at Burger King".  Her snide reply: "Well, now we know where you take your kids for dinner". 

No More Toys, even for the Big Boys

We've been lucky.  The recession hasn't hit our family directly, but in this uncertain job market, you never know who's going to be laid off next.  The last time my husband was laid off, two years ago, it took 3 months to find another one, and the money in our bank account dwindled to such low levels that I was on the verge of pulling my kids out of preschool.   I don't want that kind of stress again, so we've been living the frugal life in order to get our funds back to a level where we can survive another period of unemployment.  No more gym memberships, no ipods or Wii's for presents, no fancy data or internet mobile phone plans, no eating out.  While their classmates talk of trips to Hawaii or Disneyland or Mexico, my kids will be camping in the foothills of Palo Alto.  Same with the summer camps -- just swim lessons, and a session of summer school for the boys.  And it has worked:  we've got a healthier bank balance.  So what's my husband doing buying a $12,000 motorcycle? 

Alfie has been talking about getting a new bike for about a year now.  His current motorcycle is 8 years old and sees a lot of use and abuse during his daily commute.  But it's not like it's a junkheap, it's actually a gorgeous, classic Triumph Bonneville that he keeps in good shape.  It's just not the powerful, high-tech MotoGuzzi Breva 1200 Sport that he longs for.  I didn't think he was serious until he spent 4 hours at a dealer in Livermore and came back home with a verbal agreement to return with a checkbook as soon as the dealer could get his hands on a couple of accessories. 

Banning Junk Food

Banning junk food

Sometime in the last week of April, my eight-year-old looked down at her naked body and declared, matter-of-factly, "Mama, my tummy is too big!  How do I make it smaller?".  You gotta love eight-year olds.  No mincing words, no denials, no excuses, they just say it like it is.  The emperor has no clothes.  I think my tummy is too big.

My daughter is not fat -- at least that's what the doctor tells us.  She's in the 85th percentile for both height and weight, and her BMI is within normal range.  She's an active kid who takes ballet and jazz and skating.  But I can't deny that her tummy has been getting more prominent lately.  Her simple statement forced me to admit that I've become way too lax about the amount of junk food we've been eating. 

So I told her, just as matter-of-factly, "You know what, if you want to make your tummy smaller, how about we cut back on all the junk food we've been eating?  Tell you what:  I won't serve cookies or crackers or ice cream and stuff like that until my birthday".  

Getting Serious about Ice Skating

My daughter first stepped onto an ice rink at a birthday party 2 years ago;  she couldn't stand for more than 5 seconds, but she enjoyed it so much that we signed her up for lessons not long after. Since then it has become clear that my daughter's interest in skating isn't limited to gliding around an ice rink with her friends.  She has moved past struggling to stay upright, and onto spins, spirals and salchows.  Now she's at the stage where rented ice skates don't cut it anymore.  When many of her classmates drop out and the class size shrinks from twelve to three.  And everyone seems to have a private coach.  I've been talking with a few of the other moms with daughters in more advanced levels, and I've only found one girl who does not take private lessons.  The consensus seems to be, if your daughter is serious, if she wants to enter competitions, even small ones, she'll need a coach.

I'm no dummy.   I know that skating is an expensive sport -- private ice skating coaches charge $35 to $45 for a 30-minute lesson, not including ice time, and don't get me started on the expensive ice skates and costumes -- and it requires a lot of dedication from a very young age.  I've read Little Girls in Pretty Boxes and I know it's a high-pressure sport.  Even though I know skating is a serious sport that requires athleticism and grace, the competition aspect of skating, with the very young kids in glittery costumes and makeup, reminds me a bit too much of the beauty queen scene, of the Toddlers and Tiaras set with their pageant coaches and pushy parents.  I knew all this when The Pea started -- I just didn't want to go that route, and I didn't think we'd ever have to. 

Clothes make the girl

Bright pink socks with little yellow flowers.  That was the first thing that caught my eye as my daughter came downstairs the other morning, all dressed and ready to walk to school with me.  She was wearning turquoise capri leggings that ended about 6 inches above her ankle, leaving her calf-length socks visible in all their fuschia glory. I ventured tentatively, "You know, I don't think you're supposed to wear capri leggings with long socks".  Her response:  "Of course you are!  How else am I going to show off my socks?"

My daughter has always had a style all her own.  From the time she could talk, she would insist on different-colored socks ("Yellow!  Pink!").  I know most toddlers go through this stage, but at the ripe old age of eight, she still likes to combine her colors and styles in ways that remind me of Cyndi Lauper.  She thinks her hair looks better when it's uncombed ("tousled", she calls it).  And she can be extremely stubborn about wearing her favorite shirts, even when they no longer cover her belly button (giving her that high-waisted Steve Urkel look).  On the days she goes out looking like Dobby the Elf, I wonder if anyone is wondering, Who dressed that child?

Should we get into snow sports?

People all over the world are mourning actress Natasha Richardson's death.  It's difficult to believe that such a beautiful, vibrant, talented actress could be enjoying a holiday with her son one day, and gone the next.  And the tragic circumstances of her death - she fell and hit her head on the slopes during a beginning ski lesson -  have hit me hard because, coincidentally, we've been wondering whether we ought to give snow sports a shot.

Last weekend we went on our annual trip to Tahoe and Reno.  We're not a skiing family, but we always stop by small resorts like Soda Springs to sled and play in the snow.  The resort has a great deal for young first-time skiers and their nervous, non-skiing parents:  for $20, kids can borrow snow tubes or ski/snowboarding equipment, and they get access to a very gentle bunny slope.  There's no formal instruction, but there are always a couple of attendants who help the kids get started and offer tips to their parents to help their children along. 

To the Breastfeeding and Other Bad Drivers out there....

The breastfeeding, driving mom has certainly caught everyone's attention recently.  She makes Britney Spears' driving habits seem FAA-approved in comparison!  I won't go on about what a stupid thing she did; wittier minds than mine have already done that, and besides, what's the use?  She's totally unrepentant about it, so they might as well suspend her license and be done with it.

But I say, why stop with her?  There are so many other bad drivers deserving of a verbal spanking.  This bad weather seems to have drawn out everyone's worst driving habits -- and my worst moods.  Here's what I'd like to say to these people:

My car needs a makeover

Once upon a time, I thought cars were just vehicles that took people from point A to point B.  My parents changed their cars only when the cars fenders and gearboxes began falling off, and throughout college I drove around in a car as old as me.  I didn't care what I drove and what it looked like. 

Then along came my husband, and I blame him for turning me into a car snob.  He introduced me to the joys of German engineering and the thrill of accelerating around a corner behind the wheel of the Ultimate Driving Machine.  We drove around in his-and-hers silver BMW's which we took to the car wash every week.  We parked in wide corner spots, no matter how far we had to walk to get to the building, so the doors wouldn't get ding-ed.  When the twins came along, we succumbed to the necessity of a minivan -- but we bought the best-performing, safest model we could afford, and resolved to care for it just as though it were a BMW 7-series.