How are Mom’s Dealing With H1N1?

Last week President Obama declared the outbreak of swine flu a national emergency. While this is really a procedural move that will give health care facilties and various states more access to resources they may need to combat the outbreak, it’s scary nonetheless. We asked our MomConnect moms how they were dealing with the scare and found that over 60% of moms polled didn’t plan on getting their children vaccinated.
Here are the other H1N1 survey results:

Do you plan to have your children H1N1 vaccinated?

• Yes                                     16.67%
• No                                      61.11%
• I haven’t decided             22.22%
• We’ve already done it!             0%

Would you wear a face mask outside if you knew it would prevent the swine flu?

• Yes                                     70.00%
• No                                     30.00%

Would you attend Thanksgiving if an attending family member had the swine flu?

• Yes                                     18.75%
• No                                      81.25%
• I’m not sure                         0%

Do you think schools should close down if there are children who have been diagnosed with H1N1?

• Yes, even if it’s just 1 child                                      33.33%
• No, not at all                                                              16.67%
• Only if it’s a majority of kids who have been diagnosed             50.00%

Lots of moms have had plenty to say about H1N1 and whether or not they’re getting the vaccine along with a number of other concerns related to the virus on MomConnect. You can also check out one mom’s first hand account of being exposed on our post on the H1N1: Living With Swine Flu.

H1N1: Living With Swine Flu

A Few Swine Flu Necessities

Last week some of you may have read that I mentioned my family was sick with the flu, so we were going to have to wait until after everyone was better before we got flu shots. Well the day after I posted that we found out that the flu we had in our house was not just any flu, but H1N1.

That’s right, we’d been swine flued (I don’t know if that phrase will catch on, but I’m going to try and push it out there). The ugly flu going around here in my sleepy little suburb turned out to be the one and only H1N1. Now before you rush off to go wash your hands and disinfect your computer after reading something written by someone exposed to swine flu, relax.

I’ll tell you a little secret that we were made privy to by two different pediatricians in the last two weeks, the Swine Flu? Well, it’s just the Flu. Don’t go telling the media or anything though, because then they wouldn’t have anything to panic us about.

Seriously, it is a NASTY flu. My husband got sick (fever, vomiting, aches, etc.) on a Monday. My son came down with fever & aches on Wednesday. And my daughter pulled in the fever & vomiting on Friday.  Every 48 hours we had a new patient in our house.

Waiting in the Waiting Room for Doctor Visit #2

From what I understand, now, local doctors are not even testing for H1N1 because 99% of the flu cases where I live were coming back positive. The doctors we saw were very quick to stress that it was not that much different then the regular flu. The real danger was of course watching for Secondary infections. Which as it turned out did occur with all three members of my ailing family. My husband’s turned into pneumonia. And both kids had theirs turn into bronchial infections.

But, my son has had the flu in past years and it turned bronchial. It’s just how he rolls. So it was a complication we watch for anyway. And my husband, well he smokes. If you smoke, chances are any flu is going to take you down a little harder then someone who doesn’t. Whether it’s H1N1 or not. And my daughter, well they weren’t positive hers had turned bronchial, but they treated her for it anyway, which was fine with me.

My advice to you? If H1N1 is running rampant in your community stock up on soup and your favorite cold & flu medicine. And talk to your doctor or pediatrician to see what the H1N1 situation looks like in the area you live in. Think about the vaccine, if it’s still available. And don’t panic. If your kids do get sick, just take care of them and watch them close for any signs of it turning into something worse. For us it was a day or two of feeling better and then BOOM! The fever came back out of nowhere.

The most important thing to remember during this outbreak of H1N1 is that the ONLY person you should really be seeking advice from is YOUR doctor.

As for my family and me well everyone is on the mend and back at school and work. I never did get sick, though as I write this I have a bit of a head cold. But that’s ok. I’ve got a cupboard full of soup and some cold medicine sitting beside me on my desk. Because after all, it is flu season you know.

Meghan Harvey is the Community Manager for MomConnect & all though she has no actual medical expertise considers herself to be way more knowledgeable about H1N1 then she would like to be.

The Great Baby Einstein Refund Debacle

It wasn’t long after my son was born in 2003 that Disney’s Baby Einstein line-up became super popular. They were going to make my child smart and stimulate him in a way that I couldn’t. Or so they claimed. As cool as the marketing made the videos sound, I knew better. I’ve always been a very “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” kind of woman, and I took that mentality into motherhood with me.  I had read enough baby books and even taken a few early childhood development classes in high school to know that T.V., no matter what, can have some negative effects a child under two. So any video series that was targeted for younger than that made me roll my eyes.

But the idea that there was a video out there that could somehow stimulate my baby enough to make him smarter, well it did peek my curiosity. And after all the videos were stamped with Walt Disney seal of approval. So I ran out and picked one up to see what the fuss was about. The music was classical, which I already played for my infant on a regular basis, and the video was, well odd. Sure there were bright colors and moving objects, but nothing that led me to believe that my child would indeed be the youngest Nobel Prize winner for Astro physics or anything.

I put my baby in his favorite bouncy chair (yes we lived & died by the bouncy chair in our house) and pointed him towards the TV.  For about five minutes my infant was mesmerized. Then he was done. His eyes started to wander his feet started kicking and the bouncy chair started moving. He looked for me, looked for his binky, and refused to turn his attention toward the TV again. And that was the extent of our time with Baby Einstein. A big thumbs down in our book. And as my husband pointed out, “Well we could’ve saved $15 and made that ourselves!”

Baby Geniuses? Really?

My instinct was to stick with what the pediatrician and all the trusted baby books I had read told me, which was TV before age two was a no-no. I should probably admit that as my child got older he was granted far more TV time then I would ever admit in a public forum such as this, but as an infant his stimulation was kept to me reading and playing with him face to face. Lots of music and lots of playtime with the kids at daycare.

Now, a few years later, it seems Disney has decided that maybe those videos weren’t so great at making smart babies and that they should probably concur with what the previously mentioned studies has shown.

First of all, most of us didn’t really think these videos were going to make our babies smarter, did we? And most women who have children right now know that TV before the age of two is not really the best idea (though we all know in real life NO TV is a little ridiculous). We don’t always follow that advice, but we know that there have been enough studies to show it to be true.

So, why I do think the marketing for the Baby Einstein videos was exaggerated, they also offered a money back guarantee if you weren’t satisfied all along. I don’t know if Disney should shoulder the responsibility for people believing what they see on TV. That being said, I also think the fact that they are anyway is a testament to how much the company truly does care about their reputation and their consumers. Bravo Disney for taking responsibility and trying to make it right.

If you have a Baby Einstein DVD you’d like to return you can return up to four DVDs in any condition, with or without the cover, for a refund of $15.99 each. The instructions for returning the DVD’s are on the Baby Einstein website.

Meghan Harvey is the Community Manager for MomConnect and never cared for the Baby Einstein videos anyway. She and her two children do however standby their claim that Little Einstein’s on the other hand is one of the best kids shows EVER.

Is Halloween in or out this year?

Recently we asked Moms if this year’s economy will affect Halloween. According to MomConnect moms, Halloween is definitely still in! While moms are saying they are spending less this year, the average mom will be spending between $25-$50 on Halloween (this includes costumes and candy). Here are the survey results:

Will you spend more or less $$ this year on Halloween?

• I will spend more                                                             9.09%
• I will spend less                                                            45.45%
• I will spend the same as always                                    18.18%
• I haven’t thought about it!                                                27.27%

How much do you typically spend on Halloween?

• We don’t celebrate Halloween!                                    12.82%
• $0 – We make our costumes and don’t buy candy!            2.56%
• Under $25                                                                        20.51%
• Between $25 and $50                                              38.46%
• Between $50 and $100                                                20.51%
• Over $100                                                                        5.13%

Will you be going out this Halloween or spending it with the kids?

• It’s a Saturday – I’m going out!             0%
• Taking the kids trick-or-treating            70%
• Both the above                                    23.33%
• Hosting our own Halloween party            6.67%

Whatever your plans are when celebrating this year, please remember to be safe! Make sure you keep a close eye on the little ones and do a quick check of their candy before letting them go to town on their sweet bounty!

Happy Halloween!

Every Mom is a Working Mom

I have been formulating this blog post for almost two weeks now. Ever since the Washington Post published an article related to recent Census results regarding stay-at-home moms and the New York Times piece regarding the guilt of working moms. And of course there was the huge buzz surrounding Dr. Phil and the infamous “Mommy Wars” episode which showcased a few of my favorite mommy bloggers (Jessica Gottlieb and Heather Armstrong). Both articles created quite a debate both on the MomConnect Facebook Page and in a couple of threads in MomConnect forum.

The culmination of these recent articles and what I’ll just say was an embarrassing Dr. Phil episode, have got me in quite an uproar. You see I’ve been a working mom with an infant in daycare. I’ve been a SAHM, a daycare provider and have now found some peace as a WAHM. So moms, I’ve been there. And I have no doubt that each choice I made was the right choice for my family and me at the time. And NO ONE can ever tell me otherwise. No one can ever tell me I should feel guilty for any of the choices I’ve made. And quite frankly, I’m tired of other people talking about it.

The NYTimes piece discussed a survey that was done by the Pew Research Center. The poll found, when asked how they would rate themselves as a mother, that of the at-home mothers, 43 percent rated themselves 9 or 10, at the top of the scale, while 33 percent of working mothers did so. Basically showing that only 13 percent of working mothers think that they’re doing the best they can.

This survey couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. That same week the Washington Post printed an article talking about the recent results of a Census analysis of stay at home mothers (the first ever), which showed that stay-at-home-mothers tend to be younger, less educated and have lower family incomes.

There’s much more to both these articles, but I’m covering the gist. So the consensus is that if you’re a working mom you’re going to feel bad about yourself and be a bad mother. But if you’re at home then you’re young stupid and poor. Now this may not be exactly what these articles said, but isn’t it really what they’re feeding us?

Add to these pointless pieces of reporting the great Dr. Phil jumping on board to make more moms feel bad about themselves. Only this time it felt like the target was the stay-at-home moms. At any rate the episode created some nasty discussions between working moms and SAHM’s across the blogosphere. The reality about this episode is that it didn’t really talk about anything we moms need to hear. A great post was written on the blog PHD In Parenting that brought up some of the notable topics that were not discussed by Dr. Phil on the show.

My own personal opinion? We don’t need Dr. Phil to tell us it’s ok to work, we don’t need the Washington Post to tell us if we’re home we’re young & dumb, and we most certainly do not need the NYTimes telling us that if we’re at work we should feel guilty about it.

Ladies, there is no right answer. Some of us work or stay home because it’s our only choice. Some of us work or stay at home because it’s the choice we made. Either way, it’s ok. The most important thing we can do is stand together as moms and tell society and the media that we are moms and that’s all.

We are all in this together. And we are all doing the best we can in a bad economy, in a dangerous world, and with everyone watching us waiting for us to fail. Well, we’re not going to. Because we are going to work harder to support one another and the choices we make.

There should be no divide here. There should be no “mommy wars” and there should be no debate. Wherever you are today if you’re a mom and your child is loved and being taken care of, you’ve done your job and deserve a pat on the back.

I leave you with this simple message I posted to twitter.

Dear Dr. Phil, NYTimes, & Washington Post,

We don’t need your help. We’re doing just fine.

Thanks,

The Moms

Meghan Harvey can also be found blogging at Meg’s Idle Chatter.

Beat the Rainy Day Blues And Win a $50 Gift Card to Target

It’s that time of year again. The leaves are falling, the wind is blustering and the rain is coming down. As the dog days of summer come to an end many of us look forward to the end of sweltering hot days and the beginning of the cool rainy days of Fall and Winter. Until that first big storm hits and we remember… we have kids.

Enter our “Tell us your best indoor rainy day activity” contest!!

So we here at MomConnect want to take advantage of the great community we’ve built so far to pull together rainy-day activities from all of our MomConnect moms to create an eBook just for you! We want you to create the ultimate guide to keeping your kids busy with activities throughout the whole rainy season.

And when you take a minute to submit YOUR favorite indoor kid activity you’ll automatically be entered to win a $50 gift card to Target to help start building your rainy-day survival kit today! But even if you don’t pick up the gift card, you’ll still get a copy of the eBook just for participating.

What kind of ideas are we looking for?

We’re looking for indoor activity ideas that would help moms in every type of living situation imaginable. Ideas for:

• moms in an apartment and short on space
• moms without a lot of neighbors and play dates aren’t an option
• moms on a budget
• moms with three or more kids
• moms of only one or two
• boys & girls
• moms in the city
• moms in the suburbs or the country

You get the picture, now start brainstorming!

How to Enter:

1. Simply leave a comment on this blog post with your best indoor-activity idea (don’t forget to put what moms your idea will be most helpful for)
2. Include your MomConnect user name
3. Check back everyday to see if someone came up with something better than you.
4. Wait with baited breath for us to contact you.

Ok, so you don’t actually have to follow the last two rules, but you get the point. The contests starts today and we’ll keep taking entries through October 31 which is when we’ll turn off the comments on the blog. Then we’ll collect all of your ideas and put together the definitive rainy-day survival eBook for moms everywhere! We’ll choose one random commenter to receive a $50 Target gift card. But EVERYONE who contributes an idea to the eBook by leaving a comment will receive a completed copy of it! Just for contributing.

Good luck and let’s get those ideas rolling in & don’t forget to leave your MomConnect user name in your comment!

• Any ideas entered into this contest will be published into the MomConnect eBook. Your name & location will be listed along with your idea.

Breaking the Mean Girl Cycle

A recent study by Brigham Young University created quite some buzz when it announced that “Means Girls” start in preschool. Though I certainly found the study to be interesting, it was not anything I had not already discovered to be true in my own experiences with my children.

The study found that girls as young as four use aggressive social behavior to maintain dominance amongst their friends. The study found that girls in preschool were already demonstrating the kind of traits normally associated with older girls. These preschool age “mean girls” in the study were demonstrating a number of socially aggressive tactics when dealing with peers. Such as:

• Not allowing a specific child to play with the group.
• Demanding other children not play with a specific child.
• Threatening to not play with a child unless certain needs/demands are met.
• Refusing to listen to someone they are mad at (the aggressive children may even cover their ears).
• Even spreading malicious rumors & telling secrets.

Now my daughter was in a tiny tots program last year and will begin official Pre-K this year and I certainly found the things mentioned in the study to be true among the girls in my daughter’s class. I found it to be fascinating that in the first few weeks of class there was instantly a clan of “Queen Bees” in the class that dominated much of the play and conversations. My daughter’s reaction was even more fascinating. While I could see that the popular girls accepted her, she could easily take them or leave them. Sometimes I would watch her right in the middle of play with the popular girls and other times I’d see her playing by herself as happy as can be. When I’d ask her why she was by herself she’d simply reply “The other girls talk too much.”

I think for me, my biggest fear is not my daughter falling victim of the mean girls as she gets older, but that she’ll become one. And this is why I’ve already opened up dialogue, using the term “mean girls” with my daughter. There is a great book, Purplicious by Elizabeth & Victoria Kann.

Purplicious was a great way to open up dialogue between my young daughter and I about teasing between girls. I know that as a girl how my daughter views and values herself is extremely important. The self-worth I embed in her today will have huge impact on how she carries herself through her entire life. But what this study shows is that we should also be thinking seriously not just about how our girls view themselves but how those girls view and value each other.

Win a Gift Card to Halloween Mart!

Halloween is the most magical part of the fall season. I think it’s safe to say that most moms enjoy it as much as the kids do! The only damper on Halloween 2009? The cost.

Well mom’s, this is our time to shine. All of us have come up with creative ways to make Halloween totally spooktacular on a budget. Homemade decorations, homemade costumes, what’s your idea for saving money this Halloween?

How you can win!
Just share your “money-saving” Halloween tip with the MomConnect community on the following thread, How Much Do you Typically Spend on Halloween?
1.  Answer the Poll
2. Leave a comment (on that thread) with your idea for saving money this Halloween by October 16th.

Winning
MomConnect will help ease the burden of YOUR family’s Halloween costume shopping by giving away TWO $25 gift cards to Halloween Mart!. We’ll choose the most creative idea and then we’ll choose one random entry to receive the second gift certificate.

In order to participate you must follow these simple rules.

1. You must be a mom.
2. You must be a member of MomConnect (takes just a minute to become a member and reap the rewards of a great community of helpful moms at your finger tips…)
3. You must leave your comment by midnight October 16th.
4. Only one entry per person please!

Winners will be announced October 18th directly and via MomConnect’s weekly newsletter! Good luck!

Follow Halloween Mart on Twitter, @halloweenmart

Tips on Getting Your Kids to Read

One of the hot topics I’ve noticed lately among the moms I know at school, the moms I know online and the mom’s here on MomConnect is not a new one. In fact it’s no surprise as we enter the second month of the school year to hear moms asking the question, how do I get my child to read everyday? And even more importantly how do I get him or her to love reading?

Most schools ask that your child read 20 minutes a day as part of the daily homework routine. But when you’ve got a little one fighting the need to read that 20 minutes can begin to feel like an hour. And you may even start asking yourself the question, “What am I doing wrong?” Or even worse “Why does he hate to read?”

Well first of all, you’re not alone. As I mentioned, it’s been a pretty hot topic among the moms I know and threads keeping showing up on MomConnect with different variations of that same question. Both discussions, lovemylife0‘s,  how do I help my son learn to love reading and Lars‘s “Reading” had some really great advice!

Here are a few tips on getting your little one to read.

• Forget the 20 minutes: If he or she is really giving you a hard and reading time becomes about as fun as a trip to the dentist nix the 20 minutes! Though our school wants the kids to be reading to us for 20 minutes, I usually keep it between 10 to 15 minutes. This is just about what my reader can take.
• In the Beginning Forget What They’re Reading: I found that while trying to get my son in the habit of reading he did better with books he felt more comfortable with reading. While trying to establish a routine I found it easier to let him read what he wants. Once your child is in the habit then you can be a little pickier about what he or she is reading. But in the beginning just getting your child to sit down and read is the main goal.
• Hit the Library: Make regular trips to your local library. There is no other place on earth that demonstrates just how great reading can be than the library.
• Read to your Reader: Find some chapter books your child likes and make time for you to read to him or her each day. Try different series until you find some that gets your child fired up. And don’t be afraid to go old school! The Boxcar Children, The Littles, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys have all turned out to be just as loved by my kids as I loved them. The excitement of these books has really had an impact on my son and I can see the wheels turning & that love of reading finally beginning to grow.

Let Him Read What He Loves: Lunavox said, If he loves sports, have him read about sports, start off small give him a variety of different books about sports, magazines, and articles on the internet once he gets started and realizes how much he can learn from reading he might start wanting to do it all the time. Use the sports reading as a reward, if he reads the other one he can read this after.

Show Him How Much YOU Love it: JennferDavidGA said, Make sure he sees you and other important people in his life reading regularly. If people he looks up to love reading and he can see that he might want to enjoy it more.

Use a Reward System: Cgarcia737 suggested, Try a reward of some type for when he reads on his own, not because he “has” to. Something he really likes or wants, like maybe out to get an ice cream, or maybe a new comic book or something. I know that many times the comic books aren’t always overly appropriate, but some of them are rather sophisticated these days. Perhaps you could find one that has a topic or behaviors that aren’t too objectionable but that he might like.

If you try all these things and find that reading is still unbearable talk to your child’s teacher and see what she suggests and find out how your child is doing with reading in the classroom.

Stay positive and remember we’re all going through it!

“Me Time” For Mom

There are so many reasons why “me time” is important for us moms. And I am a true believer in the necessity of it for moms everywhere. That’s easy enough for me to say, but I’ll wholeheartedly admit that in the six and a half years I’ve been a mom I have not followed that advice very much at all. But now, since my kids are a little older, I am finally feeling a small shift in our household that is granting me a little more freedom.

My kids are six and four so though I still hear a lot of “mommy, mommy, mommy” much of the time, they aren’t as dependant on me as they were when they were a little younger. This is slowly granting me more freedom and more opportunities to take a little time for myself. While it’s still not much, but it’s getting there.

And it’s certainly a far cry from the early years of motherhood. You know, where you begin to feel like trips to the bathroom are your only chance for a little time to yourself. And even then it’s usually interrupted by the inevitable cry of a hungry infant or a toddler who MUST find their favorite hot wheel “RIGHT NOW.” A thread on MomConnect touched on just that this week, “Hate staying at Home.”  Goog really hit it home about how we all feel sometimes.

Last night I had the chance to go out with some fellow moms and lifelong friends. It’s not often we get to see each other, and when we do it’s usually one of the kids birthday parties and as any mom knows, you hardly get much time for visiting with old friends during a child’s birthday party.

It was good to see them and oh so important for my mommy soul. Who we were before we became moms is still who we are today. But sometimes a sink full of dirty dishes, a husband stressing over bills, and the never-ending tasks of mommyhood can shadow that person.

And that’s a shame because I truly believe that the more in tune we are to that “inner person” the better a mom we’ll be.

I spent my teen years very close with my girlfriends. We were loud, strong, outgoing and laughed all the time. We made each other feel strong and we were always there for each other. So now as a 30-something when I get the chance to spend time with them, it refreshes me and reminds me of the person I was when I was younger.

More importantly, it reminds that I’m still that person today. So after a carefree girls night out I always find myself laughing more with my kids. My patience increases and my tolerance for household chores and the other quirks of being a mom suddenly rises.

Moms tend to run out of gas. “Me time” or “girl time” with friends is a mom’s way of refilling the gas tank (so to speak).

So make sure you take a little time each month to refill your tank ladies. If you can get together with some friends, great. But it doesn’t matter what it is. A trip to Starbucks, a walk or run, whatever.  That may seem like a tall order for some of you newer moms out there or moms who still have babies attached at the hip who are feeling like you’ll never have me time again. Just ask mythreegirls who posed the question, How Do I Find Time For Myself? on the MomConnect site recently. The truth is it’s just not that easy to make time for yourself with a baby, but hang in there. It gets easier. It really truly does.