The Smart Domestic

True Stories of Semi-Competent Adults

Three great podcasts for kids

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headphones on colorful brick background with caption "three podcasts for kids"

We’ve recommended podcasts before on this blog, and lately I’ve added a few kid-friendly ones to my rotation.

I have a short commute to daycare in the mornings, so I sometimes opt for silence, NPR, or my own choice of music. These podcasts are a nice break when I’m sick of the same song requests from my kid. (I’d be happy to never hear the “finger family” songs ever again).

Here are three storytelling podcasts that my 4-year-old likes:

  1. Circle Round: These short stories are told with voice actors (including a few celebrities in the mix). They’re intended for ages 3 to 10, but my 20-month-old stays quiet for them too. Bonus: The website includes coloring pages for each of the episodes.
  2. Story Pirates: Kids submit original stories for this series, which includes a regular cast to embellish the works with songs and dialogue. The adult contributors often have big-deal comedy backgrounds, and my kids like the silly stories and songs.
  3. Storynory: This website has a huge collection of children’s stories in audio form, as well as some original stories. Most of the narrators have British accents, so I recommend this one if you like to feel *posh.*

What do you listen to when your kids are in the car? I’m always looking for new recommendations. 

Background image from Matthieu A on Unsplash. 

Travel tips for breastfeeding moms

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woman with suitcase, walking through airport terminal

Our friend Emily was disappointed in the resources she could find for business travel after having a baby. She’s sharing some recommendations for how to deal with traveling (and pumping breast milk), after thousands of miles traveled (and thousands of ounces pumped) over the last year. 

I am in sales, and I travel to visit clients one or two times per month, and have been doing so since my son was 3 months old. That’s 12 months of pumping on the road, and I have definitely encountered challenges along the way. I have learned many tips and tricks to making pumping as a traveling mom a bit easier. I hope that some of what I’ve learned can help fellow traveling-pumping moms meet their nursing goals, while also honoring their career obligations….

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How to make an emergency kit

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woman in bomb shelter with emergency supplies

After watching post-apocalyptic movies, my husband and I like to plot how we’d survive the end of the world. Would we have the supplies and wits to make it through a zombie apocalypse, a catastrophic flood, or disease outbreak? Where would we wait out the end of the contagion? How would we avoid (or fight off) undead hordes?

It’s unlikely that we’ll face a Hollywood-style end-of-days scenario, but I do try to prepare for more mundane natural disasters. Would we have enough drinking water if we had a water main break and needed to avoid our tap water for a day or two? Do we have enough flashlights or candles if our power goes out for a few hours? Could we listen to an emergency weather radio in those situations? Could we quickly assemble a “go bag” in case we had to evacuate our house for some reason?

I’m a big fan of ready.gov, the federal government’s website to help Americans prepare for emergencies. The site offers preparation advice for a variety of scenarios, from power outages and tornadoes (which are likely in my Midwestern town) to nuclear blasts and cyber attacks.

While I typically have canned food, granola bars, and band-aids, here are a few things that I try to keep replenished in our emergency supplies:

  • Pet food: We chronically run out of cat or dog food, so I *try* hard to remember that in an emergency, we’d want our dog and cats to have food too! Keep a few cans or Ziploc baggies of extra food (enough for a couple days at least!) stashed somewhere for your pets.
  • Food that your kids will eat: Sure, in an emergency, you’d tell your kids to eat whatever you had on hand. But wouldn’t it be easier if you had their favorite granola bars, some fruit snacks, or easy-to-make mac-and-cheese cups? (Yes.)  So I over-buy snacks and try to rotate the selection based on what my kid is into lately.
  • Lots of water: I’m enough of a crunchy-granola-type that I try not to buy bottled water. But what if our tap water was tainted? I bought a giant (empty) jug that will be great for camping or road trips, so we could fill up with fresh water; I also stocked up on a few gallons of bottled water in case of emergency.
  • Cash money: What if the power was out in your town, but you needed to buy gas, food, or water? Would you be able to pay with the cash in your wallet? I am terrible about keeping cash on me, but a lot of preparation advice suggests you should have at least a few hundred dollars stashed away for emergency scenarios.
  • Miscellaneous supplies that make me feel more prepared: An emergency weather radio; a battery-free flashlight (and other lighting options); a waterproof tarp; a pocket knife; mylar blankets; nylon cord; water-purification tablets… I’m not sure what I’ll do with most of this stuff, but at least I’m fairly prepared to go camping.

Do you have an emergency kit in your home? What would you recommend everyone stash away in case of natural disaster, power outage, or zombie apocalypse?

PS – Here’s how wealthy, Silicon Valley tech workers are prepping. And here’s how to survive nuclear fallout. Also, I just learned the term “gray man.”

 

Recommendation: Take a quick trip

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(woman on an airplane looking out window)

A few weeks ago, I took a mini-vacation for 36 hours. I skipped laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, work, and childcare. I read on the plane; I had a few long chats with old friends; I ate great meals; I meandered around Chicago with no obligations or commitments.

The catalyst for the trip was a Chicago event with author Roxane Gay, who read a few stories from her latest book and talked with essayist and critic Britt Julious. (I’m lucky to know Britt via a past job and follow her online.)

For this trip, the stars aligned with a discounted airline voucher, friends with flexible schedules, and a husband willing to take on a few extra hours of kid-duty in the middle of the week.

It was a blissful couple of days.

So I recommend you try to do the same for yourself, if at all possible.

  1. Call in some favors. Ask your partner for his/her blessing. Ask your parents (or your sister, or a close friend) to do daycare pick-up or babysit. Ask your boss for approval to take off a couple days. Cover your bases while you’re gone. Ask friends in the destination city if you can crash in their spare room for a night or two.
  2. Keep it short. This minimizes any guilt, disruption to others, or backlog of emails and real-life errands to deal with.
  3. Refill your tank. Do something you love and that makes you feel you. Literary events are one of my nerdy pleasures in life, so yes, I planned a trip around an author visit. But maybe you love sports? Go catch a game in a different city. If you like to wander around museums, find an interesting exhibit to visit. If you’re a foodie, create your own restaurant tour for a nearby city.
  4. Enjoy adult things. Long conversations with friends, with no interruptions from crying babies or wild toddlers. A glass of beer with dinner, which you devour while seated, at a table, served by someone else. I cannot overstate how glorious it is to enjoy adult pleasures with no children around, even if briefly.
  5. Ignore household tasks. It was so liberating not to cook, do laundry, feed anyone else, or walk the dog for 36 hours. Don’t even think about those things.

And here are my food recommendations for Chicago, based on this trip:

  1. Eat lunch at Lula Cafe in Logan Square.
  2. Snack at Revival Food Hall in the Loop. I had gelato from Black Dog.
  3. Drink coffee from Dark Matter Coffee or Intelligentsia (multiple locations).

Have you ever done a speed trip? (The New York Times has a whole series devoted to this idea.) Where would you go for a short trip away from home duties? 

 

How to raise readers

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My friend Hillary, who reads more than anyone I know, wrote about how she’s tried to create an environment that encourages her boys to be readers.

Here’s some of her thoughtful advice:

Read in front of your kids. Reading is what adults do. All adults. Men and women. Mike, before the boys were born, tended to read only before bed, but I asked him to make a point to read in front of the boys because I didn’t want them thinking books were something only women liked.

Read with your kids every single day. Yes, you’ll read board books, but read novels, too, sooner than you think. You need the entertainment and you’ll be surprised how interested they can be. Read Ferdinand and Where The Wild Things Are and I Want My Hat Back and The Book With No Pictures and keep reading them as you go on to Charlotte’s Web and The Hobbit and Wonder and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Read tidbits from your own books, when it makes sense. Read poems. Read news stories. Read cereal boxes. Read even when they won’t sit still. And when they don’t want to read to you and/or stop wanting to be read to — at age 9, our oldest has hit this milestone — then read together in companionable silence. We have a family reading hour most nights before bed. Sometimes I read aloud. Sometimes we all read silently. Either way, I think we all feel cozy and content and loved.

Read the full post on her site, and sign up for her newsletter, which is called “Make America Read Again.”

Image via the Library of Congress 

Happy birthday to The Smart Domestic!

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image of birthday cake with candles

A year ago, we launched The Smart Domestic. My goal was to create a place for honest conversations about modern adulthood, parenting tips and tricks, and smart perspectives from lots of interesting people.

I’m proud that the site has become a place to share stories about our lives and the perspectives of others navigating through the intersection of domesticity, career, personal, and play. We’ve talked about topics ranging from love and infertility to podcasts  and Netflix. And we’ve asked other women to share their stories with us. We celebrated coziness with hygge week, we explored what makes a house feel like home, we shared real talk about holidays and life, and we recommended our favorites things to to read, watch, and listen to. I’m grateful that our contributors have brought wit, honesty, insights, and recommendations, and I’ve made new friends by reading their stories and talking with them.

In the past 12 months, I’ve added a second boy to my family, and my co-blogger/BFF Leslie has gone back to work full-time. Now more than ever, I struggle to stay calm and balanced, while working full-time, raising two kids, keeping my house in order, and making time for my marriage, friendships, creativity, and leisure. But writing my stories (and hearing from other people sorting through life’s lessons) makes every moment I spend on this website worthwhile. I hope you feel the same way when you visit The Smart Domestic.

If you have a few minutes: I’d love to hear from readers. Have you had a favorite post? What would you like to read here? Share in the comments or join us on Facebook!

 Cake image by Stephanie McCabe via Unsplash

Decisions: Is my kid ready for kindergarten?

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Decisions is a series dedicated to the choices we make in our lives and the factors that led us to our given resolutions. We welcome guest posts to this series to hear about how you’ve tackled a life decision. Email your story ideas to thesmartdomestic@gmail.com.

By Andrea Rogers

In my day-to-day interactions with colleagues, I feel confident. I don’t know everything, but I do know a thing or two about communications, and I have assurance in my ability to make decisions and manage projects to completion.

So why is it that I often agonize over parenting decisions? I second-guess myself all the time and analyze the pros and cons of every big decision.

This is exactly what happened after a recent email from my daughter’s preschool. The topic? Kindergarten readiness.

Let me be clear, I’m not the type of mom who will blindly disagree with every bit of feedback about my children. And my 5-year-old daughter does, at times, behave “young” for her age. If I’m being introspective, a lot of that is probably my fault – I consciously wanted her to relish the carefree days before she started school. Maybe I’ve done too much for her at times.

So when this email came, I knew that it would not be positive feedback about my daughter’s kindergarten readiness. That was confirmed by a brief and frank conversation with the center director, who listed a few issues, mostly around temper tantrums and transitions. Also, my girl has never been a fan of circle time, and sitting still for that specific activity has not been her strong suit. There’s no disagreement that academically, she is ready for school in the fall. With a birthday in December, she’s old enough too.

So we set a meeting to discuss these issues. I agonized over this meeting for a solid eight days.

I endlessly discussed it with my partner in life and crime, Dave. After almost 10 years of marriage, he is well-versed in my anxieties and sensitivities. He also knows that I have to get it out of my system; if I don’t get it out by talking, it usually comes out anyway, in the worst ways. Night terrors, which I still suffer from in adulthood, often pop up during these stressful moments.

I sought advice from other moms, a friend who is a kindergarten teacher, and my best girlfriends who don’t have kids. I pored over countless internet articles about “redshirting” and its benefits and drawbacks. Everyone (and the reputable internet sources) had good advice. The general consensus? It will work out. And the fact that I’m so worried about it now (when kindergarten is not until next fall) is probably a good thing.

For the most part, the research says that kids who are a bit behind (either in maturity, academic ability, or both) catch up to their peers by first grade. And my teacher friend assured me that catching up in terms of maturity is often easier than catching up academically.

So why agonize over this decision? Why write this post? That’s a complicated question to answer, but if I’m being honest, it hurts me to think that my child is not 100 percent “up to snuff.” I’ve always loved that she is a “square peg,” but I know that being extraordinary can sometimes make life challenging. I don’t want her to struggle or to feel less than her classmates.

My decision? Redshirting is off the table. I can understand and respect others who choose differently for their children, but I’ve decided that holding her back will not help her progress. I don’t like the idea of her being a 19-and-a-½ year old senior in high school. I believe she’ll benefit from being surrounded by peers close to her own age.

This blog post is the final stage in my around the clock internal debate. I’m ready to let this one go, and I’m going into the meeting in a good place. I appreciate the feedback and any strategies the teachers might offer.

Dave and I know we will have to do our part to help her mature and do more things for herself between now and late August.

Coat zipping is our current project. Have you ever watched a kid try (but not really try) to zip a coat for 5 minutes when you need to be at work promptly at 8 a.m.? Let me tell you, that’s an exercise in letting go.

It’s also about supporting her, because no matter what, we are in her corner. And that means that when she gives her best effort, we eventually do zip that coat and tell her to try harder next time because we know she can, and will, do it.

This post originally appeared on Andrea’s blog, Mama Wears Combat Boots. You can follow her on Twitter @andrearogers.

How to start a documentary club

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Logo for We've Got Issues Doc Club

My friend Katie is inspired by the rich storytelling and social impact of great documentary films. But after watching them, she felt lost about how to make meaningful changes in her life. So she’s created an in-person and online club to explore documentaries and enact life changes (or social actions). She explains how it all got started, what they’ve watched so far, and how anyone can get involved or create their own chapter.

By Katie Scarlett Brandt 

The first time I tried to watch the documentary Food, Inc., I made it 20 minutes before I had to turn it off. If I kept watching, I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I first built my own mini-farm in the backyard, hunted down non-genetically modified seeds, and vowed never to shop at a grocery store again. But it was 10 p.m. So instead, I turned off the documentary, and lulled myself to sleep with Seinfeld reruns.

Almost a decade later, I still haven’t gone back to Food, Inc. But I deeply believe that documentaries matter. They showcase real people and unique voices. Some delve into topics that you’d never think to explore on your own. Others make complicated issues digestible.

However, documentaries also can be intensely overwhelming if you’re someone who wants to see changes in the world. So a few months ago, I made a plan with my friend Sam, who also loves documentaries. We didn’t want to skip seeing important films out of fear of feeling too overwhelmed or depressed, and we wanted to talk about and process what we watched. Not only that, but given the political climate, we wanted to find ways to take action based on what these documentaries would show us.

We formed a club, We’ve Got Issues Doc Society, which meets every other month. Our goals: Watch a documentary. Discuss. Take action. To facilitate the post-screening discussions, we invite people who work in whatever area that month’s documentary focuses on. Our February screening was an environmental film; the discussion leaders we invited work in biodiesel, environmental activism, and composting.

As a complement to those talks, we develop a resource list of books and articles to read, podcasts to listen to, other films to watch, thought leaders to follow, and actions to take to affect change.

Our group is based in Chicago, but we share each month’s movie and resource list with people who have started chapters in other places: California, Colorado, and Virginia. For access to our screening list and resource guides, join our Facebook group or email me. We’ll also share the guides here on The Smart Domestic.

Here’s what we’ve watched so far:

  • 13th—Filmmaker Ava DuVernay looks at the history of racial inequality in the United States and how that history continues to play out in the form of mass incarceration. (See the resource and action list.)
  • Before the Flood—Leonardo DiCaprio takes us on a trip around the world to see how climate change and the fossil fuel industry are devastating the planet (See the resource and action list.)

If you’ve got suggestions for documentaries, resources, or action items, reach out via comment or on Facebook. The next screening will be in April.

Katie Scarlett Brandt is a writer, editor, and digital media strategist. She’s based in Chicago; you can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or her website. 

A briefcase and a breast pump: Traveling as a working mom

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The Internet of Moms is rich with tips, hacks, well-worn advice, and know-it-alls on discussion boards. But when our friend Emily tried to find helpful resources for ongoing work travel after maternity leave, she was disappointed. She offered to share what she’s learned with The Smart Domestic. Today, we’re meeting her and hearing more about her transition from a travel-loving road warrior to a working mom juggling a briefcase and a breast pump.

By Emily McClimon

I’ve always loved to travel, so when I took a job five years ago that required 75 percent travel, it was a good fit. As the years passed, I changed roles to a position that took me on the road most weeks and even some weekends. I hit Delta’s highest medallion status twice in 18 months. My husband and I used rare vacations to visit tiny towns in France and remote beaches in the Virgin Islands, and I carried my road warrior title with pride.

Then, in a hotel for a work conference, two pink lines appeared on a white stick. I texted my best friend to confirm what I was seeing. Eager, anxious, anticipatory joy began to take hold. My husband and I were thrilled that our family would be changing.

He and I knew my work would need to change too. When I told my colleagues and my boss that I was expecting, I convinced myself (and them) that the travel would work out. Sure, I would have to cut back, but it would work because it had to.


At  five months pregnant I unexpectedly changed jobs, and the new role required less travel, but I would still need to get on a plane regularly to visit clients several states away.

Thinking back on it now, I probably wouldn’t have considered a job that didn’t have travel as part of the gig. As much of a pain as work travel can be, I like it. It’s not as glamorous as people may think. One Courtyard Marriott looks exactly like another, and you don’t often get to see the sights in a town because business rarely happens on a boardwalk or the beach. Yet it satiates my restlessness and propensity for boredom and has provided me opportunity to visit neat places I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise.

Anyway, when I took the new job, I told my new boss that yes, I understood there was some travel involved, and no, it didn’t bother me, and yes, of course it would work out. The thing was, these reassurances weren’t platitudes. I truly believed that work travel with a baby would be a bit of a challenge but certainly something that other moms do. It wouldn’t be that much of a change. Or so I thought.

I remember looking up stylish breast pump bags on Amazon, thinking that it would be nice if it matched my leather Coach briefcase. I pored over dimensions to be sure it would fit in an overhead compartment. I researched, then registered for, a breastmilk storage system that would allow my husband to warm the pouch directly from the freezer and just snap it into a bottle-like case, because not having to transfer milk into a bottle was certain to make my husband’s time alone with the baby while I traveled so much easier.

Bizarre as it may seem, I thought with a few small adjustments here or there, being a road-warrior mama would be more than doable. It could actually be easy.

Well.

I have come to believe that motherhood is an exercise in being okay with being wrong. It is also a blessing that one of motherhood’s greatest lessons is that of humility.

When my sweet, serious, wide-eyed son Graham arrived right on time in late May, everything in my life shifted. As my too-short maternity leave wound down, I began to feel a pit in my stomach even bigger than the one that was currently consuming my thoughts of returning to work. Not only was I going to have to go back to work while still only sleeping in 90-minute increments at night, I was going to have to get on a plane and sleep somewhere farther away from my baby than the 6-feet distance currently between my side of the bed and his Rock ‘n Play.

I was worried about so much, and had no idea what this next phase of life would look like or how it would logistically work.

I began to do what every modern mom does when faced with a question or challenge: I Googled. Usually Google is second only to Pinterest when it comes to the amount of overwhelming information a new mom can find on any given topic. However, during this 3 a.m. Googling session, I was surprised to find the opposite was true.

There were limited resources for working moms who regularly travel for work. I found a couple of articles about how to travel with a pump and expressed breastmilk and a few on how to travel with baby. The problem was that these were all framed as resources for the occasional trip or two that may come to pass, and offered little advice on how to make regular business travel work for a new mama and her family. There were countless articles on how to make the transition back to work smoother, but most of those writers urged new moms to remember that they would be seeing their littles in only a few short hours, advice I found only added insult to the broken-heartedness I was already experiencing. The working-pumping schedule templates online didn’t help much either because they, understandably, only took into account an 8-ish hour workday, a couple of pumping breaks, and only a day’s supply of milk to worry about storing.

In short, the few working mom resources I found were little help in preparing me to take on this new role as a working mom who would regularly have to be away from my baby, and would also need to pump while I was away.

It was then that the idea of a blog series began to form. I found it incredulous that in 2016, such little support was available for a mama in a role like mine, but I knew from meeting other women on the road that surely there were more of us who could benefit from sharing experiences about life on the road as a new mom.

After all, another one of the fundamental truths of motherhood I’ve come to believe is this: Motherhood is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and in these joy-filled, heartache-ridden, late-night, early-morning trenches, other moms can be our greatest support.

Emily McClimon is an account executive for an IT consulting firm, an aspiring cook, restless academic, dog-lover, lapsed journalist, avid reader, and traveling-working mom of an 8 month-old-son. Follow her on Twitter.

Maternity photos with dogs and books by Life Meaningful Photography; all others courtesy Emily McClimon

Hygge reads, kids edition: Children’s books for winter days

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By Leslie Kotzas

This past year, I’ve spent my days surrounded by the warmest images, the cutest creatures, and fluffiest monsters. Working in the children’s department of the public library in the company of beautiful picture books keeps me warm and cozy in the dark, gray winter. (Librarian plug: Stop by your local library and find a treasure to warm your heart!)

Before you jump to your feet and head out the door, let me share the ones that I’ve found delightful. They’ll make you laugh, make you weep, and make you snuggle under blankets!

Ada Twist, Scientist: This is a great rhyming book that promotes girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Ada gets into some interesting predicaments trying to prove her hypothesis. If you like this one, there are a few more that are just as good: Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer.

Ida Always: Grab your tissues, clutch your baby close, and let the tears flow. Two polar bears that live together in the zoo have to face the fact that Ida is dying. I could only read it once!

Cat Knit: Sometimes our friends change, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t friends. Get out your knitting needles and make a new friend for someone you love.

Nanette’s Baguette: This book rhymes the adventure of Nanette and her responsibility to bring home a baguette for her mother. Want to know what happens to that baguette?

The Messy Book: Do you have a little one that is a little messy? Want to show them that cleaning up isn’t so bad? Then this book is for you!

This is Not a Picture Book: Picture books are clearly the best. However, what about when books stop having pictures? Are they worth it? Check out this book and find out.

Gary: This books made me smile like a fool the whole way through. This pigeon who dreams of doing big things is given the chance despite his disability.

Ideas Are All Around: If the book above doesn’t pique your interest about writing, then follow the author through his books as he looks for ideas to write about.

A Beginner’s Guide to Bear Spotting: Bears are all around in the woods. Do you know what to do if you spot one? Check this one out quick! You’ll be needing this advice!

Miss Moon: Wise Words From A Dog Governess. You’ve got a dog. Find out what advice Miss Moon has to share!

Have anymore picture books you can’t get enough of? Need more recommendations? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook!