The 10 Dos and Donts of Airplane Etiquette

A writing prompt courtesy of Mama Kat. As someone who has had a number of flights under her belt (the longest being approximately 8,500 miles), I like to think of myself as somewhat of a seasoned air traveler. Here are some of my personal DOs and DON'Ts of airplane etiquette. These are just some general things, though I do plan to write another one geared specifically for parents of young children in the near future.

Ze plane! Ze plane!

1. If you're prone to gas while up in the air (AKA "jet bloat") DO take a Beano before take off. Sure, you can avoid spicy foods, carbonated beverages, and any other items that might cause you toot more often, but nothing saves you (and your seat mates) from your noxious ass fumes than some good old Beano.
2. Along those lines, if you're the type to take bathroom breaks often, DO request an aisle seat. It plain sucks for your seat mates if you're always getting up and asking to pass by. Better to avoid the question of giving the ass or crotch?
3. Speaking of ass or crotch, when getting up, try to use the back of your own seat to help push yourself up if necessary. DON'T grab the backs of the seats in the row in front of you, as you're essentially rocking their seat for them. Not a nice thing to do when they have not asked for it.
4. Before you recline your seat, DO check the seat behind you to make sure anyone seated there isn't leaning forward or has placed anything precarious (like a drink) on his or her tray. If the person does have his or her tray out with stuff on it. After you've checked, recline slowly.
5. DON'T be a jerk and push your seat back suddenly and forcefully without regard to the person behind you.
6. As much as possible, stay within your alloted space. DON'T hog a shared arm rest. You technically "paid" for half that arm rest, so use your half. (Doing so also makes it harder for your seat mate to hog it as well.)
7. This is simple, if you suffer from stinky feet, please DON'T take your shoes (and socks) off during the flight. Or at least take measures to avoid or minimize the stench.
8. If the person sitting next to you is a stranger, DON'T use your seat mate as a pillow. If you plan to nod off during the flight, bring your own neck pillow and/or use the pillow provided by the airline (if applicable). If you just met your seat mate, you have not known him or her long enough to use a free shoulder to prop your sleepy head on.
9. If your seat mate has headphones on, chances are, he or she doesn't want to talk to interact with you. Apart from a friendly nod or a brief greeting, DO respect his or her peace and privacy.
10. DO be courteous and polite, not just to your fellow passengers, but also to the flight staff. Like it or not, you guys are stuck together for the rest of the flight, and chances are, if you're nice to them, they will be nice to you. We really don't need any more Steven Slater stories propping up.

Paying Kids for Good Grades

I saw this post on The Stir last week and have been thinking about it since. The basic premise is: should kids be paid in cold, hard cash for good grades? While I'm many years away from even considering having to "bribe" my son into doing well in school, my personal answer to the question is WHY NOT?

Growing up, I was never paid for getting good grades. However, some time between elementary and middle school, my brother and I were paid for chores and other things around the house. Our parents offered them as incentives: remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste, get a nickel; make your bed, you earned a quarter; do the dishes, fifty cents! Thinking back, maybe the cash incentives helped set in my brain that these normal, everyday duties weren't only necessary, but not such horrible things to do after all — after all, in my current life as a domestic diva, I would probably feel incomplete if I didn't do these things. I like having a clean and clear sink free of dishes; I not only replace the toothpaste cap, but I make sure to squeeze from the bottom; my bed is always made. These are things that are on auto-pilot in my brain.

So back to cash for grades ... some commenters on the original post say that it leads kids to be materialistic or otherwise worship money, and that getting good grades should be all the reward they need. In a perfect world, yes, kids should want to do well in school because they realize it will only benefit them and their future. But we don't live in a perfect world. Sometimes, some kids need more or different kinds of motivation. (For me, I did so poorly my sophomore year in high school that I had to re-take some classes over the summer. That sucked. After that, I cleaned up my act.)

Does it lead kids to become more materialistic? I'm more concerned about all the products that are pushed onto kids these days. I'd rather have a kid who will say, "One day I want to make enough money so I can buy whatever I want," than a kid who expects me to just buy him the latest clothes and toys. Between seeing what other kids in school have and all the product advertising that we're surrounded by, how do we teach our kids the difference between need and want? I think what makes us a materialistic society is that too many parents have made it easy for their kids to accumulate (often unnecessary) things. Sure, some families can afford to buy whatever they want, but again, how much of it is necessary? How are we teaching our kids to value things? If they get everything they want without "working" for it, how is that going to help them out there in the big, bad world where, you know, most people do get paid for doing good work.

For my son, he will most definitely know that he cannot have things just because he wants them. While it's tough to say how much motivation he will need in school (or even with household chores), I have absolutely no problem with offering him opportunities to earn money. If he wants something that bad, then he can work for it, whether it's by doing extra chores or projects around the house or earning better grades. He won't just get paid for the hell of it, he's going to get paid so he can learn to save what he earned and (hopefully) put it to good use.

Down Time (Few and Far Between)

This week I feel like I've failed on my promise to write more. I have posts that have been stewing in my head, but I haven't been able to find time to sit down to write. Mostly because this was the first week my son was out of school, so I just haven't had much "free" time. Plus! Keeping him out and/or busy wears on me, so the only thing I've been wanting to do at the end of the day is play some Sudoku. Oh, and his regular sitter has also been out of town AND he only napped (I think) one or two days this past week.

Excuses, excuses!

That said, I wish there were easier ways to blog from my iPad. Writing is easy enough, but when I want to add photos, I feel slowed down by not having a mouse. I might have to give that a try though, since my iPad pretty much goes to bed with me. I'd take my laptop to bed, but it gets hot and the battery drains way too quickly. Also, more cumbersome than an iPad.

Health: Starting with myfitnesspal

I was doing well earlier this year. I really was! While I wasn't on any strict diets, I was working out regularly, having found love in Zumba. Then came a two-week trip to New York in June with my son to visit my family, and I just could find time to keep working out. (Rather, I kept finding excuses NOT to work out.)

After returning home from our trip, I just couldn't get back on the wagon. With the daily craziness that goes with rearing my son, plus other personal issues I was (am?) going through, the excuses just kept coming. I'm too tired. It's boring. My son's schedule is just not cooperating. I don't want to.

It's now almost September, and I've just been feeling BLAH. I know how much better I feel, inside and out, when I'm working out regularly. I don't even have that much weigh to lose, but I just need more help with keeping myself motivated to keep going. I was doing a lot of tracking on SparkPeople — and I love how they offer free apps for the iPhone and iPad — but I felt like I needed something new.

Enter myfitnesspal. Yes, it's another web site that lets you track your diet and exercise. What I think drew me into signing up was their iPhone app. What's different about theirs is that it has a built-in bar code scanner — when I ate my favorite low-calorie snack the other night, a pack of roasted seaweed from Trader Joe's, I was shocked that all its info came up when I scanned the bar code. Honestly, the ease of letting me do that with a specific package of food that's not available nation-wide, totally sold me. I almost shop exclusively at Trader Joe's, so being able to scan their items is a definite plus.

Oh, and yes, their service and apps are free! And they have mobile apps for Android, Blackberry, and Windows smart phones as well.

Their service also has some social networking features, where you can connect with friends who are also on there and share feeds & updates. This is also supposed to help motivate you to stay on track, but since I only have one friend on there at this time, I'm not quite getting the advantage of the features just yet.

Now that I'm tracking my food again, it's also time to put my sneakers back on. It's still difficult for me to get to my favorite Zumba class, but I still have the Wii version (which nearly killed me the other day because I've been so out of it). I also managed to get back on the elliptical machine at the gym today while my son took a tumbling class. I do hope to make the Zumba class tomorrow night, but if not, I plan on firing up the Wii at home.

So if you're also looking for an online diet and exercise tracker with a good mobile device companion, check out myfitnesspal. (And feel free to add me as a friend! My username is phoofy.) Also check them out on Twitter and Facebook.

Saturday Distractions

We had to get out of the house earlier, so we ended up at one of the local malls. I don't know how long these rides have been there, but they're new to us, and my little thrill-seeking was absolutely ECSTATIC about the "roller coaster" simulator.

Thankfully, he was appeased with two rounds. At a buck per ride, I really didn't want to spend more than $2 in one go. "You can ride again next time," I told him. To my surprise, he didn't fight me. (Of course, actually getting out of the mall was a whole other issue — one that involved plenty of stalling because he just had to "look" at this or that.)

Want: Aprons!

I've been cooking a lot this week, which reminded me once again that I have yet to find an apron that I love. The one I've been using the most lately is a half-apron I received from a friend; it belonged to her grandmother, and it's adorable. (I only wish I had a full-apron version of it!)

So tonight, distracted from my search for a superhero costume for my son on Etsy, I picked out a few that I like.

I Love Lucy inspired apron.

Yellow and strawberries.

Dandelion turquoise and red.

Gidget Lemon.

Rose toile and polka dots.

While I saw so many gorgeous ones, many of them (I thought) just don't seem ... practical? I suppose as "hostess aprons" they're meant to be worn while serving food instead of cooking, right? As someone who hardly entertains (other than my son, who could care less if I serve him while wearing sweats), I have no need for something I'd worry about getting dirty in the kitchen.

That said, maybe I should just get some chef's whites? (Oh look, they even come in pink!)

Cooking: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (with chocolate chips)

I didn't do any cooking today since we have plenty of leftovers in the fridge, but I felt an itch to bake something tonight. I got busy in the kitchen right after I put my son down early for bed (since he didn't nap today).

Late night baking.

This must be one of the easiest cookie recipes I've ever tried. In fact, it was so easy that I was worried it would come out tasting like cardboard. Thankfully, they came out quite yummy!

I have this giant bag of Coach's Oats in my pantry, so I wanted to see what it would be like in cookies. Since they're closer in texture to steel-cut oats than rolled oats, I think they gave the cookies a lighter crunch. The smaller pieces of oats, rather than flat blades of rolled oats, seem to mix in more uniformly with the batter, so you get an even, "oaty" texture all around. Does that even make sense? I guess I sometimes find that when using rolled oats, I get small chunks of oats mashed together in a cookie, while other parts of the cookie seem oat-free.

This might have to be my new go-to recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies. I'm already thinking of different ways to make them. Adding coconut flakes, using dried cranberries instead of raisins, peanut butter chips instead of chocolate, etc. Thank you, Jamie Oliver, for a super easy and yummy recipe!

The Last 3.5 Years Have Been a Lie!

According to Jessica Alba, that is, who was recently quoted as saying,

It feels like you're really officially, really truly a mother when you have two kids. One kid you're a mother for sure but two takes it to another level.

So for the last three and a half years, I haven't really officially, really truly been a mother. Damn it! I knew I could have kept going out to bars and following bands around the country, since, you know, my only child doesn't count as far as me being a full-time MOTHER.

Sheesh. Still, even though I agree with writer April Daniels that Alba's comment borders on the insensitive — after all, what does that say about women who want more than one child, but for one reason or another, can't? — I'll chalk it up to the idea that she's just ecstatic about her new family addition and wasn't intending on sounding like a high and mighty bitch.

As for me, yeah, I definitely identify myself really, officially, and truly as a mother. My only child and I are practically attached at the hip; of the approximately 95 hours he's awake each week, we're together for probably 89 of those hours. (I've gotten six hours "free" because of preschool, which will be upped to nine come September — yahoo!) In my case, there's no escaping the fact that I am a mother.

Cooking: Slow-Cooked Lime Chicken & Rice

I'm trying to use my slow-cooker more often these days since I like not having a lot of extra things to clean up at the end of the day. Slow-cooking allows me to prep things in the morning or even while my kid's napping — easier on my sanity to clean up then than at the end of the day when I have other things I need to do.

Tonight's dinner was a lime chicken and rice dish I found on allrecipes.com. I heeded the some of the user comments and made a few alterations by adding extra garlic and cilantro; and since I only have regular, non-instant rice on hand, I added a cup and a half of uncooked rice to the pot with about an hour left of cooking.

I was worried about the salt — on one hand, I love salt, but was afraid it might dry the chicken breast even more. (The chicken did seem a bit dry at the end, even without added salt while cooking.) I ended up adding several generous dashes of kosher salt at the end, just before serving, as well as extra chopped cilantro. My husband said it needed something else, so I gave his (second) serving a few pinches of red pepper flakes. I'll probably try this again another time, but perhaps with even more garlic and/or red pepper flakes.

Apps For Kids: Monkey Preschool Lunchbox

Opening screen.

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox, by New York-based game developer THUP, is a collection of seven educational mini games for preschool-aged kids. That said, my son has been enjoying the app since he was around two years old.

While far from a new title, this is, hands down, one of the best app purchases I have made. (It's only 99 cents!) My son has been playing with it since late 2009 when I first got it for my iPhone, even though he was still a little too young to understand what he was supposed to do. Regardless, he was immediately attracted to the crisp, colorful artwork and variety of interactivity. The music and voices were lively, not obnoxious — a perk for mom! Even now, at almost four years old, my son still loves to play with this app. Bonus points to THUP for making the app Universal, making it playable on our iPad without an additional purchase.

Colors game.

The seven mini games focus on matching, counting, puzzles, shapes, finding differences, letter recognition, and colors. Each game is quick, simple, and straight-forward. After starting the app and pressing the Play button, a random game starts immediately. You can't choose which game to play; they just cycle through one after another, in what seems like a random order. There's no menu or "home" button, and no settings button — it makes the app sound really basic, but when you have a young, curious child, sometimes the less options there are, the better the experience is.

The games are:

• Matching: flip over eight cards to match pairs of fruit.
• Counting: count the number of fruit on the screen.
• Puzzle: place four puzzle pieces to put the fruit back together.
• Shapes: find and touch a specific shape from the choices given.
• Differences: find and touch the fruit that is different from the rest.
• Letters: choose the fruit that starts with a specific letter.
• Colors: find and touch all the fruit corresponding to a specific color.

Counting game.

Each game screen has written instructions at the top of the page ("Count the fruit."), and voice instructions are given at the start ("This monkey wants six raspberries.").  The monkey responds to the child's action by either cheering for correct choices, or shaking its head for incorrect ones, as well as jumping for joy at the end of each game. After every three games, there is a "reward" page where the child gets to choose a virtual sticker to place on the screen before continuing on.

As I mentioned, this app was really easy for my son to pick up. Even at around two years old, he could easily "play" the counting game because all he had to do was touch each fruit and the app counted for/with him. It's been fun to watch him grow with this app for the last couple of years — I remember how he struggled a bit while placing the puzzle pieces in the right places because his hand-eye coordination was still very young — and now he just loves working on more complex puzzles and matching games. The sticker reward page is also a nice touch, since it helps give him incentive to play for a while and collect stickers.

Earn stickers!

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (iTunes link) definitely gets two thumbs up from both me and my son. The engaging yet uncomplicated gameplay, the good graphics, and the very low price makes this app a must-have for iParents with young children. For all the time my son has spent on this app, the 99 cents has been more than worth it!

Conversations With My Kid: Sick

My son's been sniffly all day, so tonight when he sneezed, I asked, "Are you sick?"

To which he replied, "No, I'm not sick. I'm happy!"

Cooking: Jamie Oliver's Sausage & Zucchini Carbonara

I finally tried out the Jamie Oliver iPad app last night to make dinner — Sausage and Zucchini Carbonara. (I joked to my husband that I wished we had the technology where a virtual Jamie Oliver would be standing right there in my kitchen while I cooked.)

Effort: mostly painless. The ingredients were easy to get (all from Trader Joe's), while prep and cleanup were easy to manage.

Result: Yum. The zucchini adds a nice, lighter compliment to the sausage and bacon. However, it's still a  fairly heavy dish. The cream and egg in the sauce, along with the pasta, sit quite heavily in your belly afterwards. I made the dish to serve four, and even though my husband took seconds last night, I think there are at least another two to three servings left.

Things To Do in LA With a Preschooler

This week marks the end of the summer session at my son's preschool. While he's only been going since the end of April, having him go twice a week for three hours at a time have been sanity savers. (I can finally do my groceries, Target runs, and even pedicures!)

The fall session doesn't start until the second week of September, so after this week, it's technically our "summer vacation." We're not planning on going anywhere (I've already taken him to New York in June), so I'm a bit anxious about what to do with him for the next several weeks. I'll miss my breaks, but I'm hoping our regular sitter can occasionally relieve me. After all, I've stayed home with him since he was born and before he started going to school — we can do it again! At least for a few weeks, right?

Thankfully, we still have some playdates with our moms group from Orange County (where we moved from last year). On top of that, he still has gym class and swim lessons Monday through Thursday afternoons. But what to do on those days he used to be in school and there aren't any playdates scheduled? Here's a list of my Top Things To Do in LA with a Preschooler:

1. Giggles N' Hugs at the Westfield Century City mall. It's $9 admission for each child, and they can play for as long as they please. Their indoor play area is great for kids my son's age (three and a half), because there's a slide, things to climb, a mini carousel, a play castle, video games, and more. Plus, they serve pretty good, mostly organic, food. (And now they even serve beer and wine!) My son also loves climbing the large "tree" right outside.
2. Family Fun days at Westfield Culver City. Totally free! These are on Tuesdays and Thursday each week, from 10am to 11am, at the Punctuation Station area right outside JC Penny. On Tuesdays, they usually have a guest performer who'll read stories, sing songs, and sometimes perform magic tricks. On Thursdays, it's story time followed by a craft activity. They also do raffle giveaways on both days for anything from free food to gifts from one of the mall shops. 
3. Aidan's Place Playground at the Westwood Park (1350 S. Sepulveda, just north of Ohio). Free! This is one of our favorite playgrounds because of the simple fact that, if you're like me and not a fan of kids covered in sand, it's mostly sand-free! There's actually a large sand area, but the play structures offers so many things for kids to do that I haven't had much trouble keeping my kid away from it.
4. Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier. Admission prices vary. This is a new discovery for us, but definitely thinking of hitting it up again before school starts. Thrill rides my son can go on that's just a few miles away? Yes, please! See my previous post about our trip there.
5. Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park. Admission prices vary. I'm hoping that by the end of August and beginning of September, the crowds will die down a bit. My son loves it here, more than Disney, because there are just more "thrill" rides he can go on. His favorites? Timberline Twister, Charlie Brown's Speedway, Lucy's Tugboat, Balloon Race, Log Peeler, Joe Cool's Gr8 Sk8, Rocky Road Trucking Company, Woodstock's Airmail, and Snoopy Bounce. We pretty much stay in Camp Snoopy, though we occasionally venture out to ride Hat Dance and Timber Mountain Log Ride. (All the other coasters are kind of a tease for my son; he so desperately wants to ride them, but I have to keep telling him that he needs to grow taller first.)
6. Zimmer Children's Museum at the ground floor of the Goldsmith Jewish Federation Center (6505 Wilshire Blvd.). Adult admission is $8, and $5 for kids 2-17; kids under 2 are free. Closed Mondays and Saturdays. This is also a recent discovery that my son loved. It's not a big place, especially when you're used to places like Pretend City in Irvine, but there's more than enough things to keep my son occupied. What I love about children's museums are all the hands-on and pretend play activities. At Zimmer, my son just loved the Corner Store and Cafe, as well as the water table, all on the lower level. On the ground floor, he definitely loved the Discovery Airplane; so much that he had a very hard time leaving it when it was time to go. 
7. Last, but not least, there's ... our pool. ;)

Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier

After our horrible evening last night, I felt like I needed to do something fun with my son today. He's a thrill ride enthusiast (at the tender age of three and a half), so I figured we could finally check out Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier.

We got there around 11:30am; enough time to go on a few rides before lunch. I parked right at the pier ($8 cash), then it was a short walk to the entrance to the park. I had purchased our tickets online before we left the house, but we still had to wait in line to pick up our wristbands. I highly recommend buying online before you go since they offer a discount; I paid $18.95 for an unlimited rides wristband for me (ages eight and over, $21.95 at the park), and $13.95 for another one for my son (ages seven and under, $15.95 at the park). Having never gone on the rides there before, at first I wasn't sure how many of the rides my son would actually be able to go on, but again, their web site provided some rides and height requirements information that I checked out beforehand. Alternatively, you can pay in cash as you go; each ride is either $5 or $3.

The main ticket booth was right next to the entrance to the West Coaster roller coaster, so of course my son wanted to jump on it first. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite meet the minimum height requirement yet, so we ended up on Sea Dragon, which was also right there. Needless to say, my son loved it! From there, we hit up Frog Hopper, Inkie's Wave Jumper, Sea Planes, Inkie's Pirate Ship, then Pacific Plunge before breaking for lunch. We walked over to the Pier and got some grub, and I was reminded of how aggressive the pigeons and sea gulls would get around food dropped on the floor. (A seagull almost crashed into teen a couple of tables away from us as it flew off with some prized crumbs.)

After lunch, I let my son go on the Sig Alert EV bumper cars ride. He had a blast trying to maneuver his car around; the round cars are controlled by two levers for each hand, without any pedals. Afterwards, we hopped on the solar-powered Pacific Wheel ferris wheel. That thing was huge! And it went way, way up into the air; half-way up, I was reminded of how I'm not really fond of ferris wheels. (I don't really mind heights, but stopping at 130 feet up while sitting in a slowly swaying car is a little unnerving for me.) You get some great views from up there though!

Next up was Inkie's Air Lift, followed by Inkie's Scrambler. I told my son that Scrambler was like Log Peeler at Knott's (which he loves), but bigger and faster. (I recommend that adults sit closest to the door; that way, the smaller rider smooshes into you, and not the other way around.) On our way out, we hit up Crazy Submarine, then finally Eurobungy (which was an additional $5 cash since it's not included in the unlimited rides wristband).

All in all, it was a fun outing. Including time for lunch and absolutely no games, we were out of there by 3:30pm, and the only ride we didn't go on was the roller coaster. We'll definitely visit again!

Check out their Facebook page for more information and chances to win free wristbands! And if you're on Twitter, you can also follow them @pacpark.

Anger Management

Yesterday was a rough day. I came out of it thinking that I need some anger management classes.

Or a therapist. Perhaps take up yoga?

After a silly argument (about getting him to drink out of a cup instead of using a straw), he grabbed a kitchen rug and threw it about on the floor. I sternly told him to put it back in it's place, which he ignored (twice), so I gave him an ultimatum: put the rug back or it's straight to bed.

He chose to go to bed.

I hauled him to his room, and as I changed him into his pajamas, I tried to tell him why I was angry. Then I saw him smirking. That took me over the edge. I got right into his face and started spewing some very angry words.

I don't think it was so much what I said, but he definitely felt the anger in my voice. Or maybe that's what I'm hoping for? He suddenly became visibly upset, and maybe deep down, that's what I was trying to get at: for him to take my frustration seriously. "NOT EVERYTHING IS A JOKE!" I said to him, through gritted teeth. He kept his head lowered, but I saw the tears. Part of me was convinced I went too far — I suddenly remembered an episode of Super Nanny where the dad would get right in the kids' faces to tell them what they did "wrong" — but part of me also knew that I while instilling fear into my kid isn't exactly the best way to go, I didn't know how else to make him listen.

We finished up with a trip to the potty, brushing his teeth, and washing his hands, and I tried to do these with him as calmly as I could. I tucked him into bed and tried, again, to calmly explain what had happened. (And again, I just can't tell from him if he understood one iota of what I was saying.) I closed the door to his room and felt the sudden urge to make a vow to work on my anger management.

Here We Go Again

I used to be an avid writer. Well, I suppose I still am, but in the last three years, I seem to have lost focus.

Why?

Because I spawned.

I'm not pointing fingers, but it's true. When my son was born in early 2008, parenting became my main focus in life. I jumped with both feet in, with nary a clue about what to do, and it's been an adventure, to say the least. I had been journaling and blogging online since 1999, so I knew I would also end up blogging about my new job. Which I did. Here, here, oh and even sometimes here.

Obviously, I couldn't focus.

What I quickly found out was there are a bajillion mom bloggers out there, and even though I was "one of them," I never felt comfortable where I was. I couldn't find my niche. And so, after some posts here and there, I gave up on a blog ... only to start another one shortly thereafter.

Writing is an itch I must constantly scratch. (How much or how little I care about actually having an audience is another matter.) So here I go again. Have I found my focus? My niche? Well, sort of. My topic of choice is still, of course, parenting. While I'm far from being an "expert" it's what I know most about at this point in my life. What I want is a home for my stories as a parent; the ups and downs, the good and the bad. You know that line from The Princess Bride, where the Man in Black says:

Life IS pain, your highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.

It's kind of been my motto about parenting. Yes, it can be glorious. But it can also be maddening. I swear NO ONE warned me about any of this before I got pregnant. Not that it would have changed my mind, but it would have been nice to have had someone tell me, "When your kid is two years old, sometimes they will just fall on the floor in hysterics all because you got on the wrong elevator."

And that's it. I hope to share our stories in the hopes that others may find them amusing, entertaining, or sometimes even enlightening.

Thanks for reading,

M