Below is a letter sent out on the mom’s yahoo group, FairfieldVedicCityIowaMomsGroup (at) yahoogroups.com. I thought others would be interested as well.

Fairfield is a great place to raise a family, I think we can all agree. We have many wonderful parks, playgrounds, trails and places for families to go in the warmer months. However, during the colder months or on those sweltering summer days there are few indoor options for our children.

A group of Fairfield mothers has formed an ad hoc group to establish an indoor playground for our community. If you would be interested in an indoor playground please email me at dawn.merydith (at) gmail.com with your name and address, how many children you have that would use the facility and their ages. Also, please let us know if you would be willing to pay a small fee to use it, if you would like to volunteer to establish the playground and if you would donate money to help create it.

Thank You,

Friends of Fairfield Park and Rec’s Indoor Playground

For months I’ve been resisting updating my car plates and drivers license: I enjoyed discussing Washington, Seattle, Bainbridge Island or the San Juan Islands with whomever was loading groceries into my car at Everybody’s. I also loved the random comments from strangers as I exited my car, “I lived in Seattle 20 years ago! Where are you from?!” It gave me the feeling that I was unique or dare I say, special.

Recently, in a yummy and hip Asian fusion restaurant in LA my family and I were asked where we were from. We said Iowa. At first I felt a twinge of embarrassment that accompany many small towners. Like somehow we don’t know good restaurants as well, or interesting art, or fun places to hang out. And while it is true that I don’t have the inside scoop on the new fun places to go in Seattle or any other city now; I do still have a lively palette, keen eye and spontaneous spirit. There is plenty to add to the world from this vantage point! The manager smiled genuinely, almost like she was comforted by our being from Iowa. “Well”, I thought, “there is nothing wrong with the stereotype that we are good nice people.” That can’t hurt.

It was time to make the change. And so after 10 months of driving our Volkswagen TDI around with Washington State plates, we finally replaced them with Iowa plates.

And besides, my novelty had worn off. There is only so many times that the Everybody’s staff can comment on Washington state: even if they have a daughter living there or have a house on the island. And I think that everyone in town who has a Washington Sate connection has talked to me by now. I haven’t been “outed” as a Washingtonian for over two months now!

Thanks to Sonos, my daughter has become very familiar with musicals like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. For weeks she’s been singing and dancing to the songs from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and even reciting lyrics in the car or store without any musical accompaniment.

She had never seen the movie so I finally rented it from Netflix. We watched it the other night and I realized I had not seen this movie in years.  The production quality was impressive for a 60s film, along with Dick Van Dyke’s talent. It is also 2 hours and 25 minutes long!  There was an intermission mid way through. A real intermission. On a DVD. We had to fast forward through the intermission (then paused it later to take a pee break).

I was trying to think of the last movie I saw in a theater that had an intermission. The only one I could think of was The Color Purple.

So I’m wondering:

1. Who has been to a movie (in a theater) with an intermission?
2. What was that movie(s)?
3. What is the most recent movie with an intermission?

You’ve probably seen this video about the guy at the University of Florida who got tasered after asking some direct questions at a political forum, where John Kerry was speaking. What’s making this video “viral”, seems to be the line at the end “Don’t Tase Me Bro”, and then him screaming “Ow ow ow” while being tasered.

However, what I find most shocking (couldn’t resist) about this video is the nature of the audience while he’s being taken away, not to mention John Kerry. The audience is completely apathetic, and some of them are laughing. What? It’s not concerning to anyone that a man is being wrestled away from the mic because he’s saying something uncomfortable or confrontational?

This epitomizes my perception of the state of America right now. It’s why we have had someone like George Bush in office for two consecutive terms. And don’t get me started about Kerry.

Andrew Meyer, the student who was tasered in the video, was arrested for disturbing the peace. Think about that. “Disturbing the peace.” We’ve got a war going on, and maybe another one soon.

I’ve been trying to find ways to make playtime more enjoyable for me as well as my daughter when we play together. My mind was growing numb from acting out the lives of the Calico Critters family of baby bunnies, squirrels and bears. So I latched onto my daughter’s interest in Thomas the Train, and got her a train set for her birthday. I even got extra track to allow for more exciting configurations other than the standard loop.

It’s great. The engines are battery powered, and the parts are large and durable enough for my daughter to enjoy. The set came with several cars, allowing you to haul everything from milk to logs to passengers. It wasn’t long before we were I was making up scenarios about hauling goods from location to location. Wood comes from the forest back to the factory to make lumber to build the new school. And just when I was thinking to myself, hmmm, I wonder if I am making these scenarios a little too dry for her, she introduced her own scenario that answered my question (as in yes I was).

Thomas the Train, and all his track, is now devoted to hauling the baby Calico Critters . . . wherever they wish to go. The train station is now the Calico Critters school, and the logs are now food. And of course the babies have plenty of milk with them (about 10,000 gallons). I now have my own little tiny loop, separate from the rest of track, to run my own train “around the pool”.

Works for me.

Parenting advice started flooding into my world the moment my wife announced we were having a baby. Most of that advice was total crap, but the one gem I heard most often from mothers whom I respected was, pick your battles. Of course this is the same advice I heard from my guy friends after I told them I was getting married. But I digress.

Pick your battles is brilliant advice and yet completely meaningless. Why? Because it’s advice to make a decision without any instructions on how to make that decision. Essentially, it’s someone pointing you in a general direction and it’s up to you to make your own route there.

It’s life advice. I accept the challenge and I mostly enjoy the journey and for that, it’s brilliant advice. But for now I’m going to focus on why it’s somewhat meaningless as advice.

Battle 1

It was a Saturday morning, and my daughter and I had plans to spend the day together running errands, playing at the park and eating out. I gave her the 5 minute warning that we were leaving, and that she needed to put on more than her underwear. She came out of her room with pastel flowered pants that were too short, worn over teal tights that were too long, an old hand me down pink and red nightgown with Strawberry Shortcake on the front, yellow socks, several barrettes in her hair, and a pair of Crocs.

She was proud of what she was wearing (that she had picked it out herself) and I could sense that it would be a struggle to get her to “change”. The only reason I wanted her to change was to save my own embarrassment. And did I really want to participate in conforming her? Ok so this is an easy one. Battle avoided because it was unnecessary as the issues were all mine. We had a great time together and I loosened up a bit.

Battle 2

This past Saturday, early evening. I’m in a hotel room in Kansas City with my daughter. My mother and wife are waiting downstairs to go out and eat. Again, I’m faced with a child picking out clothes to wear. This time she chooses a short sleeve shirt and pair of tights over . . . another pair of tights. Not only is it a ridiculous outfit, but it’s inappropriate for the weather. She’ll be cold outside from wearing a t-shirt and she’ll be hot in the restaurant wearing two pairs of tights.

So I’m looking at a struggle either in the hotel room or outside or in the car or in the restaurant. I decide that the lesson my daughter needs to learn is, style aside, to dress appropriately (as well as listen to her father). I picked my battle.

My daughter proceeded to run around the hotel room, tossing clothes, banging doors and screaming at the top of her lungs. I got a hold of her and dressed her myself, over the course of 20 minutes, using a combination of soft but stern words, a quick and useless spanking and various toddler oriented wrestling moves to get her into an appropriate set up clothes.

After I got her fully dressed, her screaming turned to a deep long sad sob. I opened the hotel door and invited her to join the family for dinner - battle over right? She exited the hotel room and then, using that mysterious toddler logic, she decided to throw herself down onto the hallway floor and started screaming and wailing again. Determined to win the battle, I tried to pick her up. She went limp, slid through my grip and threw herself (again) onto the hallway floor.

The nearest door opened and out popped the head of an older man who was in the middle of shaving. “What’s going on here?!” He demanded. Shouldn’t it be obvious I thought. Here is a small child, wailing on the floor, and here is an adult man, standing, exhausted and without expression, above the child. What more needs to be explained?

“Well”, I said, “my daughter is throwing a fit.”

“This has been going on for an hour!”

“I’m sorry for the noise. Do you have children?”

“Yes”

I pleaded, “well then I’m sure you can relate to my frustration right now.”
“My children never acted like that!”

At this point I really wanted to make some crack like, “looks like Alzheimers is setting in early.” But I decided to be nice.  “Well maybe you can give me some advice then,” I said.
“Yes, leave!” and with that he slammed the door.

Fuck! I should have used the Alzheimers line! I picked up Penelope, cradled her (firmly) so that her limp noodle technique was useless, and took her into the elevator. She continued screaming while a teenage girl looked on in horror. I walked across the crowded lobby, carrying a kicking and screaming child while everyone stopped and looked on. I made sure to walk a little slower than usual so that no one would think this was an abduction.

I got her outside and set her down in front of the car, where, unsurprisingly she dropped flat on the pavement and began rolling around, continuing here high pitched screaming. I stood there with my mother and wife, speechless. My mom asked, “what is she saying?” I realized that in the past hour, my daughter had been repeating a phrase over and over and over again. But between the sobbing voice and the screaming voice, I have no clue what she was saying. Hopefully it wasn’t something like, “Daddy I have a sharp thorn in my toe please remove it.” And this could have all been avoided.

Eventually I got her into the car, while my wife and I started arguing the point of actually going to a restaurant. Then we stood there some more, in a parking lot, silent, around a station wagen with the muffled sounds of a screaming child coming from within. I looked up and noticed that we were right outside the window of the man with Alzheimers. I expected DHS to show up any minute.

At some point I finally won the battle. My daughter was broken and announced with tears in her eyes that she had her shoes and coat on and was ready to go eat. She fell asleep in her car seat minutes later.

Someday I’m going to be the man poking his head out into the hall with the screaming child and father. And honestly, I have no advice for him. Maybe I’ll just say, “pick your battles” and then shut the door, and snicker for only me to hear.

I am in Kansas City doing my wifey duty of assisting my mother-in-law find an apartment. She is relocating from Phoenix.

After driving four hours while listening to my husband talk on his iPhone for work and at the SAME TIME talk to my four year old about Pippy Longstalkings, we pull in to find the hotel has no pool, the toilet does not flush, and we feared the sheets smelled worse than the room. After an hour at the desk and on the phone we manage to switch hotels (this is the one time it is a pain to go with Expedia).

By the time we make it to the Mexican restaurant I am really ready for a beer with my taco salad.

And the next day, after spending the day talking about the weather with my mother-in-law and hanging out for hours in a restaurant/shop that is the epitome of sensory overload, I was really ready for a glass a wine with my Italian food.

I expressed this sentiment and my mother-in-law asked, in that mother-in-law way, “do you drink everyday?” I managed to be nice. And for the record I don’t have a drink even weekly. AND did I have a drink? You bet I did.

Today I drove around with my mother-in-law and my daughter while my husband was off at a business meeting. We managed to get lost two times, eat at a sub-shop and shop at Super Target. While being asked again if I have ever shopped at Target and simultaneously asked if Hello Kitty had a sister, I thought about harry carey.

I am really ready for my bed but I don’t have that. I will settle for another drink at dinner. It will give my mother-in-law something to talk about other than the weather and Super Target.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Yoga. I’d love it a lot more if I wasn’t so lazy about exercising; but every once in a while I crawl out of bed and do a couple cat cows before breakfast. Oh! And I get the Gaiam catalog.

I actually did a full lotus on the airplane ride home from Burbank Friday (but that was totally involuntary).

Anyway - now I’ve seen it all. Trance Yoga! Apparently there are a) Yoga instructors in places like “California”, and b) clueless people with too much money in “California”. Together they produce the emerging market of Trance Yoga classes soon to sweep the nation. If there was ever a dance that didn’t require teaching, it would be trance . . . let me stop here and let the Trance Yoga people explain this new phenomenon:

This first one is like a segue on some bad lesbian porno.

This one is produced very well, but I can’t help but think “Jazzercise 2007″. The big difference being that Jazzercise required a more talent.

Has anyone else noticed that “HD” (as in high definition) is the new “X” (as in extreme) in terms of branding? It seemed like everywhere I went in California there were billboards and product branding touting HD.

I went to see the movie Superbad in this awesome state of the art theater in Burbank, and before the movie started there was a long Toshiba ad about the HD-DVD experience. The tagline was, “the look and sound of perfect”. The next day I was at a Fry’s Electronics store, and while I’m used to seeing little HD stickers on all the home theater gear, I laughed when I saw a pair of headphones that had an HD sticker on the box. What does it mean to have HD headphones?

At the Burbank airport ABC’s channel 7 is very focused on letting you know how HD they are.

Hmm, this isn’t looking very HD.

While having a picnic at a local park Saturday afternoon, I felt something on my leg. I reached under the picnic table and brushed something off my leg. I immediately tried to process the sensation of prickly hairs and the surprising weight of the something I had touched. As I filled with adrenaline, I looked under the picnic table to find the largest caterpillar I have ever seen.

I was pretty creeped out for a while, and my sandwich never really tasted the same after the incident. I finally took the caterpiller over to a nearby tree to spare future picnic’ers.