A Mom in Lodi

I don’t even have a school-aged child and I can already sense how hard it is going to be to pack sensible school lunches.

I still remember my mother meticulously cutting little carrot wedges to pair with my pickle loaf (click here if you don’t know what that is) and cheese sandwich for each school lunch. See, chips weren’t allowed in my house when I was younger. If I was lucky, I got a handful of the off-brand Wheat Thins thrown in occasionally.

What kinds of tips do you have in packing healthy lunches for your children? Share them here. Some parents of school-age children may thank you come Monday morning.

Some parents co-sleep with their babies (we never did) or as they become toddlers allow them to climb into bed with them in the mornings (mine’s too active for this sort of cuddle time).

My issue is the toys. They are taking over my queen-sized bed.

Now that he’s hit that climbing age, Sam likes to throw his little leg onto mommy and daddy’s bed and wiggle onto it. But not before he’s located every large-sized toy car, truck, or other wheeled variety and tossed it up there too (the photo at left is only a small collection).

Then, once he’s succeeded in climbing up, he plays with the vehicles. When it’s not a car kind of day, I’ve even been known to find balls or all sizes in my bed.

True story: The other night I rolled over to be greeted with a tennis ball in my back. While I can see the vehicles and safely remove them before catching some shut eye, the little green invader was hiding. Until 2 a.m.

Come to think of it, maybe it was my mini dauschund playing a trick on me with hopes I’d blame the baby?

If you’re a parent of a student on the modified traditional calendar, you already know today is the first day of fall break.

Fall break? I never remember getting one of those. We got two weeks off for Christmas (or for “winter break,” as it has become known) and a week off for Easter (again, “spring break” is the more common title).

What do kids do with all this free time? What about the parents? Do you like this schedule? If so, why? Better yet, tell us how you’re going to keep the kids busy for the next couple of weeks.

Have you already marked your calendar? October 5th is the day you and your family can visit downtown Lodi and make everyone happy.

Baby will enjoy being pushed in his stroller, while your toddler probably likes watching people and your pre-teen girl, buying stuff with someone else’s money (yours). With dozens of diverse booths of stuff to buy, some say the fall-time Lodi Street Faire is the perfect chance to get some early Christmas shopping done.

I think the best part is spending some uninterrupted time with the entire family (well, and maybe snagging a Lockeford Sausage without actually driving to Lockeford!).

I heard the Lodi High swim team was holding a gigantic yard sale Saturday in the school’s parking lot. Sounds like a great place to pick up clothes your little ones are sure to grow out of within the year or toys they’ll decide next week they don’t like.

In this economy, “why buy new” is my new motto. Happy hunting!

Ah, fall (well, almost). I love this season, but others aren’t so enamored. The slight weather swing from morning to afternoon has some scratching their heads.

I was having a casual conversation with my neighbor the other day and she shared with me her morning conundrum: how to dress her son when he leaves for school.

Morning temperatures in the Lodi area over the past week have hovered just around 55 degrees, but by the afternoon the mercury has risen close to 90 degrees. For those of you like me who can’t do math, that’s possibly more than a 30-degree swing.

I have to admit, on most mornings Sam and I don’t get out of the house much before the sun has begun to warm the land and much later than students have to be in their classroom seats, so I haven’t run into this minor problem.

Do you put your kids in pants and long-sleeves or shorts and make them carry a sweatshirt?

I wish I would have shared this sooner, but if you haven’t heard, Barnum & Bailey’s Ringling Brothers Circus is in Stockton this weekend and getting there is easy.

There are two show times today and two tomorrow, so you still have time to take the kids to see a real three-ring circus (aside from the one they may witness daily at your house). Go an hour before it starts, pick up you tickets at the box office and your family can enter early for an up close and personal view of the animals.

What are your favorite circus animals?

Although I’ve only been a mother for two years, I’ve already seen firsthand the difference in the genders. Not that I want to get into a philosophical debate, but I believe some traits of being a girl or being a boy are inherent from birth.

Samuel likes cuddling teddy bears, but if you put a stuffed animal and a toy truck in front of him, he’ll always go for the truck (and yes, I’ve tried it).

But the most interesting difference between genders I’ve found is how Samuel sees me differently from my husband. If you don’t know George, let me begin by telling you he’s a very hands-on daddy and has probably changed more dirty diapers than I. He has always been ready with kisses and hugs for Samuel and is the one who puts the baby to bed 99 percent of the time.

That said, when Samuel stubs his toe, it’s usually me he wants to kiss it better. Even if George is in the same room. Comparatively, if I try to roughhouse with him in the middle of the living room floor, he looks at me as if I’m crazy. All George has to do is sit on the ground and he’s attacked with some kind of wrestling move the little one has already learned.

Does he sense I’m more feminine and his father more masculine? It’s an interesting thing to witness firsthand. Have you had similar experiences with your young children?

The debate over plastics is on again, thanks to the release of a new report today. I normally don’t put much thought into these reports, figuring there are chemicals around us daily. How am I supposed to weed every single one out of mine and my family’s life?

But this one has an easy guideline for weeding out one thing: plastic containers with the number 7 printed on the bottom of them. According to the report, heating food in the microwave in them may contribute to heart disease and diabetes.

So, ever the curious journalist, I started to dig through that cupboard where the lids don’t match the containers, and out of the dozens of plastics I keep there, I found only one with the number 7 on it. It was one of those reusable Rubbermaid containers that can collapse, ironically, to save room in your cupboard.

I really like the container and use it when we picnic, so instead of throwing it away I’ve made a mental note not to cook food in it since that apparently releases the chemical in question.

So, go ahead, check out your cupboard. Tell me what you find.

As I’ve shared here before, I belong to a lot of e-mail lists. (I guess I had nothing better to do between the time I went on maternity leave and actually having my son that sign up on line.)

While most of them clutter my in box, some actually hold some savings. Take, for example, Walgreen’s. Every few weeks, the company e-mails me a printable coupon for $10 off a $40 purchase. If you have to buy a can of formula at $25, a small pack of diapers for $10 and baby wipes for $5, you’ve got it made!

I also regularly receive free shipping offers from everyone’s favorite toy store and because I recently gave my e-mail address to the folks over at K-Mart, they send me discount codes to enter following my on-line purchase (not that I’ve had the money lately to actually use them!).

Are there other company e-mails you’ve signed up for that paid off in discounts?