DCUM Weblog

Too few people take the steps necessary to protect their health, their assets and their loved ones. When it comes to medical decisions, people mistakenly think that such matters only apply to the elderly or to those with known health problems. As an estate planning attorney, I have yet to speak with a parent that has a medical directive, which is also known as a living will, in place for their college age child.

This could be a disastrous oversight for children. When a child is younger than eighteen years old, they are a child under the law and their parents are empowered to act on the child’s behalf. Once the child turns eighteen, they have become an adult under the law and are now empowered to make his or her own decision. Parents mistakenly believe that when their child goes to college they will still be able to make medical and other important decisions for them. Under a law referred to as HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), a parent must get the consent of the child in order to make medical decisions for their child.

Maria and I have decided to shutdown the DC Urban Moms Mailing list. The mailing list was launched in 2002 and rapidly grew to be a popular resource for DC area parents, inspiring our successful website. However, in recent years use of the list has declined while the difficulty of dealing with the anti-spam policies of large email providers has increased. We've finally reached the point where the effort to maintain the list is greater than the benefits of doing so.

The very first email sent to the list was by our friend Sharon Winick on March 11, 2002. Sharon had conceived of the idea of arranging get-togethers for new moms. Sharon's initial efforts were so successful that keeping everyone informed about events became a bit of a challenge. We created a mailing list as an efficient means of distributing information about upcoming events. Sharon's second message announced the time and location of one of the group's periodic "Family Days".

I'm sorry that you are having a hard time. However, can you step back and see how arrogant you (likely) were when you started just a few weeks ago? DCPS attracts/recruits urban teaching 'veterans' who assume that they can do what DCPS teachers cannot accomplish. It drives me nuts. Every year I see you all start the year with smug attitudes and then bail. Turns out that this is a tough as hell place to teach.

This is my first year teaching ever. I wasn't smug at all. I didn't assume much. I wanted to teach here, because I grew up here. I received a crappy education. My teachers used to turn on a video and walk out of the room. I wasn't prepared for college. Somehow I made it anyway. I wanted to help people who look like me see a world outside of the bubble that they know. I'm not leaving because it's "tough as hell." This place is hell.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about the DC Urban Moms and Dads website is "what were the most memorable discussion?" That's not as easy of a question as you would think because I read so many posts each day that they all start to blur together after a while. Also, while there is sort of a cottage industry on DCUM of posting about old threads, I'm not actually a fan of that tendency. Nevertheless, here are a few threads that have made an impression on me for various reasons:

This board and I have been through a lot. This was a very short thread that most people probably didn't read and wouldn't remember if they did. But, I appreciated it because it illustrated how the website could have a positive impact on someone's life. It also validated our decision to move away from strictly parenting topics and to create forums on broader issues such as finance and relationships.

One of the ramifications of operating a high-profile parenting website is a constant stream of email about new parenting products or services. Many are interesting and things in which I think our users might be interested. Some are not. Then, there are a few, a very few, that just blow me away. Cheryl Zandt's idea for "Junior's Clubhouse" is one of those. Described as "a state-of-the-art indoor playground and movement studio for kids", when I saw what was planned for Junior's Clubhouse, my reaction was "heck with the kids, I want to play there".

Zandt has identified a location in the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood in downtown DC and drafted plans for a rainforest-themed play area divided between sections for babies and older kids (up to age 12). To raise funds for securing her lease, Zandt has been running a campaign on Fundable.

The Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center is an educational entity located at the Smithsonian Institution that provides full-time, part-time and weekend programs for children aged 3 months - 6 years.

Parents are important too.

Besides being an educator for the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, I am also a mom. And I know all too well, what it is like to be unsure of oneself as a parent. That is one of the reasons we have set up our programs at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center with the parent in mind. Another reason; YOU are your child’s first teacher. How you interact with your child can have a significant impact on their early development. So we want to help you develop skills that can be used in your everyday life. Whether it’s our weekend workshops or our two-day/week toddler program, Smithsonian Early Explorers, we make our museum visits about the family as a whole. Often we ask parents to lead simple activities in the galleries that could be used in other situations. For example, we might ask infant/toddler parents to find all the boats in a gallery space or simply describe an object. Preschooler families might be asked to create a story around an object or make a list of questions they have about an object. In both of these scenarios, we are encouraging independent thinking, literacy and providing time for you and your child to interact.

Any parent who has ever looked for child care knows how stressful and time consuming it is. That’s not surprising given that you’ll be entrusting your child to another person, often a complete stranger. About 44% of new mothers return to work within the first 3 months of giving birth and 64% return to work within the first year, thus requiring child care. Despite such high numbers, there are few child care resources made available to new moms and parents. So where do you look?

The hardest challenge is not knowing where to begin. Many turn to Google, or to friends living in their area. But every family is different and has its own specific needs, whether it’s budget, hours, teaching philosophy, or some other specific service they need for their child.

The following is a guest post from the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center (SEEC), a museum-based early childhood program for children aged 2 months - 6 years of age and offering workshops (http://www.si.edu/seec/community) for local families.

Today’s families embrace all that the DC metropolitan area has to offer. At any given time, there are festivals, classes and fun activities that cater to families. The Smithsonian, one of DC’s most encompassing (and completely free) resources, is no exception. Over the course of the last two decades, museums have begun to offer more programming for children and families. As the national spotlight has focused on the benefits of quality early childhood education, the Smithsonian is working hard to accommodate this audience in meaningful ways. The Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center or SEEC, as it is known, is nestled in the Smithsonian campus with locations at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History. Since 1988, SEEC has been incorporating museums into their early childhood curriculum and we are working with other Smithsonian staff, educators and parents across the globe to encourage early learning in museums.

The day before Smashburger’s December 11 opening in Bethesda, I was invited to a media preview event. In the interest of full disclosure, I can confirm that I am more than willing to blog in return for hamburgers. So, off I went to sample a number of Smashburger’s signature burgers and chicken sandwiches. If you are a burger aficionado — or simply burger-curious — I can highly recommend Smashburger.

Smashburger’s Stacie Lange — who did a great job of presenting each of the sandwiches to us — was frank in saying that Smashburger had identified the same market demand for “better burgers” that had been pioneered by Washington’s Five Guys chain. Despite a number of competitors including Z-Burger and Shake Shack, Lange believes the market is big enough for all of them. She also described what distinguishes Smashburger from the others.

I've been a bit remiss in following up my post about our experience with Rent a Coop's month-long backyard chicken experience. Part of that is because I've been distracted with other things and part is that the second half of the hens' visit wasn't particularly eventful. But, because there have been requests to update the original post, I thought I probably should get to it. The bottom line is that the month-long urban farming experience worked out well. We really enjoyed the chickens on a short-term basis. However, keeping chickens long-term would require a bit more infrastructure and is not something in which we are all interested.

We and our two hens fairly quickly settled into a routine. Each morning we would find one or two eggs in the pen. Once or twice a day, we would let the chickens out to range freely in our yard. The chickens identified their favorite places to forage, they became more comfortable with our dog (and she with them), and the hens became less a novelty and more like pets. We started to recognize the hen's personalities and they seemed to get to know us. When the chickens were free, they would often come to us and try to get some attention. If we could speak chicken, we probably could have had some nice conversations.