Neighborhood-Kids All Local. All for Kids. All the Time.

Joy is painfully shy - and first days are always the hardest. Aren't they for all of us? Day camp started this week, and I thought I did an OK job of preparation. We had a new "cool" bag, a new swimsuit, a new towel. Her name was written in everything. Lunch was all ready to go, with cheetos no less. We'd discussed where camp was going to be, who would be there, what the itinerary would be like... the more she knows ahead of time, the easier the transitions are.

We got there early Monday morning and sat on a bench so we could watch the kids and counselors while we scoped out the situation. Rock climbers over there. Wild boys over there. Oh, a group of shy looking girls hula hooping over there -- we eventually decided to introduce ourselves.

Everything seemed to be going OK, but then... I picked her up too early at the end of the day. The kids were all in the woods playing a hide-and-seek game, so a rowdy counselor had to call her name on the BULLHORN. Which basically describes Joy's worst nightmare. Then this morning, we were ONE MINUTE LATE getting to camp, and all the kids were sitting on the outdoor bleachers waiting for the morning skits to start. Facing us. As we were walking toward them. Which is actually probably worse than any nightmare she had thought of before, but she was too busy getting her little 7-year-old bottom into the bleachers to tell me what she thought of my scheduling abilities.

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Cross-posted from singlesupermama.com

How do you talk to your kids about tough topics like homelessness and charity?

We often pass people in our car who are holding cardboard signs, asking for change or jobs or food. For several years now, Joy has asked about this - and I honestly am at a bit of a loss when dealing with it. I really want her to become a giving and loving and charitable person. I want her to have empathy - but also to know when to have appropriate boundaries.

When she was five, we talked about people who don't have homes, and she asked why they don't just move in with us? It's a hard question to answer... why can't they live with us? Why aren't I trying harder to help people who are less fortunate than us? It's a good question, and one I wish I asked myself more often. I wish I had some better answers for us both.

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Cross-posted from singlesupermama.com

Yesterday I sent Clara to daycare without her shoes. When I picked her up, I idly wondered what they had done with her shoes... then I realized I never actually put them on her feet in the first place. But they'd been too kind to say anything (I think I may have had that crazy-mom look, you know the one).

And we forgot to brush Joy's teeth before school. So she learned about the magic properties of Tic Tacs (besides being only one calorie).

Then I left Clara's medicine out overnight. The one that says KEEP REFRIGERATED in bold black letters on the front.

I occasionally wonder where the parent police are, and why they haven't stopped by to at least give me a pink warning ticket? But so far I seem to be operating beneath their radar...

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Cross-posted from singlesupermama.com

My family, the family of my creation and generation, is a blended family if ever there was one. In fact, at a recent Stitch N' Bitch group, one woman mentioned having a unique family and my girlfriend said, "if you can top Syd's family, I will be amazed."

I have two daughters by different dads. One dad is remarried to a woman who I now count as one of my best friends. And his parents still have me and my girls over for dinner every other week, and they still treat me like family. They've virtually adopted my youngest daughter as a blood granddaughter, babysitting when I need extra help and showing up as the third set of grandparents to her birthday party. And both dads will happily watch both girls for me if I need help, without any question or weirdness - it's never the smallest issue. Joy doesn't know what the word "half-sister" means, Clara is just her sister, period.

I rarely give it much thought, until I run into a family who doesn't work this way. And then it makes me pause to think about why we are different. I think it's largely because we try to focus on the good things about one another. On mother's day, I wanted to be sure that Joy's step-mom was thoroughly included. And not in a token way as a "step" mom, but as a mom. Because as I told her, if Joy gets her period on the week she's at her dad's house, it's not going to matter that the child was not pushed out of her body seven years ago. It's going to be all her.

And as far as the dads go, things didn't work out for us in the relationship department. But I did great in the dad department. Both of them love their daughters above all else, and I wouldn't ask for any more than that, I am a lucky mom.

It's not perfect, and even as I write this, I am thinking about things in the back of my mind that I need to work harder at. But here's the bottom-line truth: I think that my girls benefit from having parents and grandparents that love them so much that they ultimately can set aside all the rest of the junk - even if some days it's just for appearances. What they know is that they have a whole "family" full of people (some of whom they may not be able to easily explain their technical relationship to) who love them dearly. And that makes me happier than I can say.

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Cross-posted from singlesupermama.com

I know it's not a unique experience to me; being a mom who is experiencing her own growing pains as she watches her little girl grow up. But it doesn't seem to make it any easier.

Just over one year ago, Joy started kindergarten. Each day brought new anxieties about how school would start and end, and what would happen in the middle. Either her dad or I would walk her all the way to her classroom, and wait inside the room until the first bell rang and the teacher arrived. She was often ready with the "class teddy bear" for Joy to hold. There were days that Joy cried during lunchtime, saying she just wanted her mom. I thought my heart was going to break then.

And now, she's almost done with first grade. I drop her off outside of school, where her friends are waiting for her. And this morning, she forgot to give me a kiss as she passed - she had already seen her group of 3 little girl friends by the bike stands and was running towards them as she hollered back, "LOVE YOU TOO, MOM!"

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Cross-posted from singlesupermama.com