I Guess You Just Can't Take The City Out Of This Girl

While I am truly enjoying nature, up here in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, I am acutely aware of the fact that I will be a City Girl 'til I die. I love animals, the trees, greenery, lakes and streams, all the majesty of nature. It is important to my well-being, both mental and spiritual, to commune with nature. For me, nature is a huge physical reminder of the beauty of God. I am grateful to be out here for this mini-vacation. I really am.

However.

The "mall-culture" (yes, those are snotty quotation marks), and having to drive everywhere, and the lack of diversity in these neighborhoods, well, I'm starting to get an overwhelming sense of "get me back to the city quiiiiick!!!". Everyone keeps telling me that it's a much better place to raise a child in, but that's hogwash to me. The city is a fine place to raise children if you do a fine job raising them. Urban areas get a bad rap. Meth labs are a suburban phenomenon, you don't see them in Manhattan.

I'm not knocking suburbia, I know it has many benefits. There's something to be said for the lawns and backyards, actually knowing who lives next to you and Halloween Trick or Treating through a leaf-strewn neighborhood you feel comfortable letting your kids run through on their own. I get it. To each their own forms of happiness. I'm just saying that when I move out of Manhattan to give Theo a "better life" (there go those snotty quotation marks again), it'll probably only be to right across the Brooklyn Bridge.


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Ahhh, The Joy Of The Mini-Vacation!

My son has been gone since Friday afternoon. He's up at my Mom's house in PA, where I will join him tomorrow evening for a week of relaxation up by the pool. Being in the city sans child is, well, FABULOUS! I'm not saying that I don't miss him, because of course I do. I think about him all the time, but I know he's in great hands having a blast, and this single mom needs this time to myself like fish need water. So far, I've had a really good time just laying about and vegging out and doing NOTHING - gasp! What a luxury!

I also got to have a Girl's Night Out with my fellow divas, Meghan and Jill, out on a Saturday night, having a few cocktails and looking good. Well, the looking good part is kinda subjective because of course I would think we look good, but hey, here's a picture of us out on the town. You tell me what you think.


















We were giving the camera our very best Sex and the City poses - LOL! A good time was had by all.

Next up: poolside lounging. Ahh, the joy of the mini-vacation!

KaBOOM! and Kool-AID Play Days

Theo and I had the best time at an event organized by Beth Feldman over at Role Mommy to get the word out about KaBOOM! and Kool-AID Play Days.

KaBOOM! is a national non-profit that wants to promote the value of unstructured play in the lives of our children. Far too often the play spaces in our neighborhoods are in disrepair - or too far away from where children live. Sadly, parents are choosing to keep their children at home for many different reasons, which often leads to the physical danger of childhood obesity - or they overcompensate by loading their kids up with team sports, which allows for the mental and emotional deprivation of the lack of use of imagination through unstructured play. KaBOOM! invites you to plan Play Days for the children in your family, building, or neighborhood -- and to that end will provide you with a FREE Play Day Kit to help you get the ball rolling (or frisbee flying!).

Another great thing about the event was that Role Mommy arranged for the nation's leading child celebrity photographer, Jade Albert, to take photos of us with our little ones! What a treat! For those of you who know my baby boy, he is a very serious little dude who doesn't do much smiling for the camera. Poor, wonderful Jade had to take way more photos of us than she needed to take of the other families just to capture a smile or two, but what we ended up with was simply magical. Everyone there said the photo looked like it belonged on a magazine cover. What do you think?


Photo credit: Jade Albert (www.jadealbert.com)

Theo also had his first cameo appearance on Blog Talk Radio, which was also video-taped. You can see us here starting at 2 minutes, 9 seconds:

Role Mommy Presents a Family Play Day with Kool-Aid & KaBOOM! from Beth Feldman on Vimeo.

Couldn't you just eat him up???

Thanks, Beth -- this was truly a fun day for both Theo and me, and it not only provided us with a beautiful photo that I fully intend to use for my upcoming holiday cards :-) -- but it also exposed us to KaBOOM! and their initiative to bring back the joy and simplicity of childhood to our kids through the simple tool of good ol' fashioned play.

I Want To Help ShopRite Fight Hunger In Our Communities

For the past 10 years, the ShopRite Partners In Caring program has donated $2 million annually to local food banks - $20 million to date. In these deeply troubled economic times, there is more need for food assistance than ever in our communities -- will you help me to get the word out?

When you buy your groceries at ShopRite, look for the special ShopRite Partners In Caring shelf tag. The manufacturers of those products will make a donation to ShopRite Partners In Caring, which will help them to continue providing food to your local food banks. We are reading about more and more food banks that are having to turn hungry families away because their supplies have been exhausted -- let's help keep that from happening!

You can also make a tax-deductible donation to the ShopRite Partners In Caring Fund, either by mail or online. For more information about that, please go here: www.shopritepartnersincaring.org.

I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to help those that need us. Moms united can make miracles happen!

Keeping My Eyes On The Prize

When I was a teenager, they used to show us a heart-wrenching PBS Civil Rights program in my high school called "Eyes on the Prize". It was hard to see the images of African Americans being subjugated, brutalized, and even murdered. I often grew angry; angry at those long-ago racists, angry at people who would still choose to be racist, and even angry at my school for showing me such horrible images of pain and violence. I remember seeing the brutalized face of 14 year old Emmett Till as he lay in his casket and being filled with pain, anger and confusion. There seemed to be no reason for me to be shown these things - after all, it was 1989, nobody did things like that anymore.

Sadly, we know that is not true.

I don't mean to be morose and I certainly don't want to bum anybody out, but sometimes our own trials and tribulations, although they may be drastically less grave than the ones African Americans lived through pre- and during the Civil Rights era, well, sometimes our own pains can seem insurmountable. We can feel overwhelmed by the seemingly endless onslaught of issues in our lives. And it doesn't matter how big or how small -- they are ours and they hurt. But Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the many other freedom fighters of that time sang that they would keep their eyes on the prize no matter what, so help them God. And just look at what they did:



Even those that did not live to see it, especially them, they made this happen. Something that might never have happened without the masses keeping their eyes on the prize of Freedom. Freedom for all despite their color, religion, or anything else for that matter. Just basic, human Freedom. The Prize.

This too is my prize. Freedom from pain, from worry, from scarcity, from fear. Freedom from all of the things that keep me from the life I most want to live. Freedom from the things that hurt me and bind me. I'm keeping my eyes on the prize, and I will not stop until I am not only able to live a truly full, expressive, and greatly abundant life - but until I am able to support others in achieving that goal as well. A victory for one is a victory for all. I learned that in high school, watching that program through tears, a heavy heart, a hopeful mind and my eyes on the prize.