Mom in DCity

Subscribe and never miss a thing!

Hop On The Bus, Gus… Along With My 5 Year Old

by 2 Comments

You know that Paul Simon song, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover“?

Hop on the bus, Gus… no need to discuss much!

My parents used to sing it to me when I was little, growing up in Texas. I started riding the bus to school in second grade. And even before that, I rode the bus every summer to YMCA camp. There was a lot of bus riding going on, and that seemed to be a good theme song. Well, that and Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” but we’re talking about buses so that doesn’t apply.

Here in DC, where public transportation seems to be the norm for most adults– the thought of putting your kid on a school bus is a big deal for many parents.

Lira has been riding the bus to summer camp in McLean, Virginia for three weeks now. It’s a 30 minute ride each way.

A few Capitol Hill moms asked, at the end of the school year, what Lira would be doing this summer. And their responses were almost always the same– the camp sounded cool but McLean is too far to drive. And a bus??? Well, that was out of the question.

  • “You’re putting her on a bus? Across town?”
  • “Wow. More power too you. I don’t think I could put my kid on a bus.”
  • “Are you sure it’s safe?”

Dave’s mom was the worst, though:

  • “I just pray to God that bus doesn’t get into a wreck. Or get caught in traffic in the 100 degree heat.”

Um, yeah. Thanks, Nana. Is riding the bus really any worse then me driving her somewhere? Especially with my morning vodka habit (I should probably tell you I’m kidding). The scary part, for me, wasn’t so much safety; it was the thought of her being grown up enough to ride a bus without me. When did that happen?! [Read more…]

You Can Never Have Enough Sunscreen

by 3 Comments

We’ve been hitting record highs in DC all week, and I have the beginnings of a tan to prove it.

You may have heard of the debate about whether sunscreen is good or bad for you. It protects you from the sun. It’s made up of too many harsh chemicals.  Blah, blah, blah…

I haven’t really thought hard enough about this to have an opinion, but apparently Zana has:

Slathering it on

Zana votes yes to sunscreen. Lots of it. Applied all at once. She’s going to have an awesome farmers tan on her left leg, and I’m going to go broke buying sunscreen.

School Uniform Debate, a.k.a. You Have Too Much Free Time

by 8 Comments

As I was catching up on email this morning, something caught my eye– several emails on the elementary school list serve discussing school uniforms.

Let’s start with my overall stance on school uniforms. Here it is: who cares?!

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into the email. Lira goes to a DC Public Elementary School, where school uniforms are mandated by the District. Apparently, there was a survey earlier in the year (which I ignored) asking parents at her school how they felt about adding extra color options for the uniform shirts. Right now they’re white; the survey asked parents if they’d like the option of dressing their kids in navy or light blue as well. Now parents are asking about the results of the survey.

Last day of school

This is clearly an important issue because… well, because… yeahhhhh. Why are we even talking about this???

Is the issue up for a vote? Nope.

Will the results of this survey change things once way or another? Nope.

The only people I can think of who actually should care about any of this are Wal-Mart and Target, so they can stock up.

But as usual, my gauge of what’s important to parents on the Hill is way off. Apparently, there are some very strong opinions on both sides of this issue. [Read more…]

Top 10 Things You Can’t Do With a Gimpy Wrist

by Leave a Comment

It has been three months since my clumsy fall outside Lira’s school that caused me to break my wrist in two places. After two surgeries, five weeks with a cast and a few sessions of physical therapy (thank you, MedStar NRH!), I wish I could report that I’m back to normal… but I’m not.

I had no idea my wrist would be so stiff and need so much work. To give you an idea, I can turn my right wrist 90 degrees (as in, palm facing up) and my left wrist 35 degrees. That may sound awful (and it is), but it’s actually a big improvement from 12 degrees, which is where I started.

You don’t realize how much you use your left wrist until you can’t. Each day, I notice another thing that I can’t do, and all I can do is laugh about it.

Here are the top 10 things I can’t do with my gimpy wrist:

  1. Carry a pizza. I use the palm of my right hand with the back of my left hand, and it’s quite the balancing act.
  2. Open a jar of pickles, olives or pasta sauce. On those days that I try to make dinner before Dave gets home from work (and let’s be honest, they aren’t often), certain things are no longer on the menu.
  3. Cut corn on the cob. Are we noticing a theme? Either I only use my left wrist for food-related tasks or all I do is eat. Take a guess which one it is.
  4. Pick up my Kitchen Aid mixer.Another food tragedy, but this one is serious. Dave recently bought me a tangerine Kitchen Aid mixer as a late Christmas present and I can’t move it from one part of the kitchen to another. This may seem minor, but since it’s my favorite new toy and I’m testing to find exactly where I want it, it’s quite upsetting (do I want to mix my peanut butter cookies by the window or facing the dining room table??)

    My Love!
  5. Fix my hair. Did you know that you use two hands to dry, curl or straighten hair? I didn’t either! But, trust me, you do. And for those of you who’ve noticed me looking less coiffed lately, this is why. I even chopped off 5 inches in an attempt to make it more manageable. No such luck. [Read more…]

Baltimore: Why Do People Piss On Such a Charming City?

by 2 Comments

You may wonder if all I do is leave my family and party with my friends (since I just did that last weekend and am doing it again this weekend), but I actually think I did a pretty good job of balancing it out this time.

After picking up the girls after work and dropping them off at Nana’s house, I hopped on a MARC train to Baltimore. This is a very unimportant part of the story except for 2 points:

  1. My experience on MARC was about 100 times better than my ride on Amtrak last weekend–the one that turned into a sweaty, 9-hour ordeal.
  2. A stranger gave me $5, because I didn’t know I needed cash to ride the train, and told me not to worry about paying her back. Did you know that kind of thing still happened?! I didn’t.
I was in Baltimore to meet an old friend from college and go to Kaskade’s Freaks of Nature show. Don’t worry if you don’t know who Kaskade is. Most of my readers aren’t 18 wearing neon bootie shorts and half shirts, so you’re really not in the right demographic.
1. Don’t know this girl
2. Check out the half shirt behind us
Angela and I grabbed a quick bite at Alewife Public House (truffle mac ‘n cheese? yes, please!) and proceeded to 1st Mariner Marina for the show.
Pre-concert festivities
After a 3 hour techno trance, that left us covered in other people’s sweat and beer, we headed back to the hotel, forgot we were in our 30s, and decided that we needed to go out.
In a trance at Kaskade
We took a cab to Fells Point and ended up at a sketchy club called The Get Down (‘nuf said). We weren’t there long because it was late, but I managed to learn some important things before going to sleep:
  • cab drivers in Baltimore come up with their prices based on how they’re feeling that moment
  • regardless of how classy B-more is starting to look, it’s still very sketchy in most areas (thus the nicknames Bodymore and Murderland)
  • bathrooms aren’t really all that necessary when  you have alleys and trees (I’ve never witnessed so many people urinating in public in my life)
  • my hair does not look good after sweating, getting rained on, and then sweating again (who knew?!) [Read more…]