The Working Mom by Kay Luna

I’ve been trying to help Babycakes (18 months) become aware of when she has to go potty. So, we talk about it quite a bit.

But I didn’t know she really understood until today … in the middle of the bank.

She hunched down in the lobby of the bank, with staff and customers all around, and announced quite loudly, “MOMMY! Poop!”

And she really had. Anyone in a 5-mile radius must have known it.

I just smiled and said, “Oh, my goodness, you’re pooping. That’s wonderful! Thanks for telling us all.”

A few people (probably parents themselves) smiled knowingly. I quietly reminded myself that I’ve been through this stage before (with Child Number One), and will survive it again.

I then tapped into that parenting experience: I changed that nasty pantie on the backseat floorboard of my car …. just like I did many times about 16 years ago.

Does this bring back any (stinky) memories of parenthood for the rest of you out there???

Babycakes is the only kid who lives at my house right now, so I haven’t thought about plotting out a kid-friendly fire escape route and “family meeting place” yet. She’s only a toddler.

But maybe it’s never too early to teach kids about what to do in an emergency.

This story is about a 3-year-old girl who was able to dial 911 for her pregnant mother, who had fainted, after learning simple song lyrics that said, “911 green.” She picked up her mom’s Blackberry phone and pressed 911 and the green button, and was connected to dispatchers.

What a smart mom to take the time to teach her that!

Amazingly, this wasn’t the first time Madelyn had to call 911 for her mother, who has a medical condition. She learned of her condition a year ago, and taught the girl a song with the words, “green, green, green, green.”

That first time, Madelyn was able to use the cell phone and push the green “send” button, which connected her with the last person her mother talked to, telling that person that she needed help.

Definitely something to think about teaching our kids, huh?! Well, I guess I’ll have to wait until Babycakes knows her numbers and colors.

But don’t worry. With a mouth like mine, she already knows what a cell phone is! ha!

Hope you have a great weekend. I’ll be out of the office Monday and Tuesday, but will be looking forward to talking with you Wednesday.

Oh, the joys of your child learning how to talk … and then, the horror of what she ends up saying.

Babycakes (18 months old) is saying more and more words every day, which is very exciting for us. She now will repeat many simple words I say when I ask her, “Can you say … light? ball? fan? shirt? bed? bath?, etc.”

And she’s saying things, unsolicited, that I’ve never heard her say before. Like, last night, she held up her hand and said to my Mom, “Five?” She wanted her to give her “five.”

Well, also last night, my husband (love him!) was editing down video footage from my dance performance on Sunday (see the “Q-C Dancing with the Stars” blog for more info). We were watching him do this over his shoulder, and I was commenting about my dance partner, saying things like, “Nick was dancing with Melissa there,” etc.

So, out of the blue, Babycakes starts chanting, “Nick. Nick. Nick. Nick. Nick. Nick.”

First she chants the babysitter’s husband’s name relentlessly, and now, it’s “Nick. Nick. Nick!” Heck, we’re still waiting for her to say her own name!

And by the way, please don’t ask her to say “sit.” That word ALWAYS comes out badly.

In these tough economic times, how do some families afford to pay for daycare? Maybe they can’t.

I was just reading a post on another “mommy blog” that I love, called MotherTalkers, where writer tessajp commiserates about her mounting daycare costs. She has one child and another one on the way, and is not looking forward to a soon-to-come WEEKLY daycare bill of nearly $600. OUCH, OUCH, OUCH.

I’m not sure where she lives, but it’s not here, where my husband and I — and a majority of our friends — pay an average of $100 per week, give or take, per child for in-home daycare.

I think taking a baby to an actual daycare facility can be more expensive, but I’m not sure by how much.

How much does your family set aside for daycare expenses each week? When would it become not financially worth it to work?

The woman on MotherTalkers said even though her daycare bill is going to be unbelievably high after the birth of her second child, she said it still wouldn’t pay for her to quit her job and stay at home. Yikes.

My little Babycakes, who turned 18 months old on Saturday, is a dancer. I’m convinced of it.

She has been having so much fun watching me practice my big dance (which was last night — you can read about it on my other blog, “Q-C Dancing with the Stars). We have danced together over and over at home to the “Hard-Headed Woman” song I danced to in the contest.

And I took her with me to a couple of practices/dance rehearsals at Gianni’s studio and the Outing Club in Davenport.

When she got the OK sign from me, she would always run out to the dance floor and spin around … and then clap for herself! She even did “the lift” I did in the dance with my partner, Nick Stader. She looked so proud of herself.

Now that I have a little girl, I understand why parents sign their kids up for dance classes. It must be SO FUN to watch them spin around and smile.

How old (or young) should kids be to sign them up for their first dance classes?

Being a parent is expensive.

Thank goodness, we’re done buying baby formula at my house. But we’re still buying an endless supply of diapers and wipes, paying for daycare, buying food and “mook,” as Babycakes calls it … and so many other things to keep our family in a house with electricity and all the other things we’re used to.

But economic times are tough for just about everyone. We all must have noticed how much more everything costs now.

An Associated Press story talks about how people across the country are trying to penny-pinch by forgoing their daily $4 lattes, skipping restaurant meals and even filling up their own pop bottles at home instead of buying a new pop every day. One mother in the story says her family is going on more picnics, instead of making a day of it at Chuck E. Cheese.

This is something I need to work on. I’m still stuck in the mode of buying pop and snacks whenever I feel like it at work. On the weekends, I often go out to eat when I’m running errands instead of staying home for lunch first. And driving … I should try to cut down how many miles I spend on the road, but it’s hard to do, when I so much enjoy driving to see my family in my spare time.

How are you saving money lately? Have you changed your spending habits at all?

Do your kids have “security” toys or blankets — “lovies,” as my Mom calls them — that they carry around with them at all times?

My baby daughter has one: a Beanie Baby toy that looks like a turkey, except she insists that it’s a duck, and calls it such. She takes it to daycare every day, and I hear she won’t think of lying down for a nap without her “duck” resting in the pack-n-play with her.

She used to be this way with three little dollies we referred to as Sarah, Claudette and Natalie, but she seems to be over them.

I laughed out loud yesterday talking to my best friend about her little girl, who is 2. She insists on carrying around a certain kind of satiny little pillow, and she’s very particular about the texture and feel of the pillow. It must be a satin exterior, and the inside has to have those little stryofoam bead things in it.

They had a crisis at their house recently, when the girl was caught with scissors — horrible in itself. But worse for her Mom, she joked, was that the girl was caught cutting up the ONLY and LAST pillow of this kind that they owned!!!

And my friend can’t find these pillows anywhere.

Luckily, her daycare provider — who is very nice, too — happened to find one at her house. It had belonged to her now-teenaged son. It’s bright red, and says “DO NOT ENTER.”

My friend couldn’t stop laughing as she described her little girl, all dressed in pink on Father’s Day, walking into church Sunday, carrying that bright red pillow that says “DO NOT ENTER.” We hooted out loud as we thought about all that message might imply in that context.

What kind of things do your kids carry around? And when is a kid “too old” for parents to go along with such a habit?

I love my husband so much, for lots of reasons.

One of many reasons that come to mind: He loves my son, who was seven years old when we got married. That’s enough reason right there to be thankful forever.

And he gave me my beautiful baby daughter, who I yearned to have for years, and has completed our family perfectly. She brings us so much joy.

But that’s not all. I also love my husband for his serious, determined personality. When he sets his mind to something, he does it — and he gives it his all, plus 150 percent. I completely admire that in him, and wish I could be more that way … He’s very driven.

He’s funny, too. He has a dry sense of humor that is just hilarious to me (most of the time! Sometimes, I don’t know if he’s joking or not).

And some other random reasons: I love that he saves his pizza and pie crusts for me, because he knows I like it. I love that he mows the lawn in his “spare” time (he works constantly), even though he sneezes his head off, just so I don’t have to do it.

I love that he does his own laundry. (WILD APPLAUSE!).

I love that he worries about us so much, that he is willing to stay awake until 2 a.m., listening to the weather radio, making sure we aren’t about to be killed by a tornado … while an exhausted and stressed-out me can’t keep my eyes open … and so I (rudely, and I’m so sorry for it) fall back asleep, knowing he will keep us safe.

I LOVE that he is such a caring husband and father. In fact, I love him most when I see him sitting on the floor with our daughter, softly reading her one of her favorite books.

Happy Father’s Day to my Mr. Luna and the rest of the fathers out there. Have a great weekend.

This sounds too good to be true, but it’s for real.

(And thank goodness it is, because I NEED new books to read to Babycakes. She wants the same ones over, and over, and over, and over … Is it the same at your house?)

The United Way of the Quad-Cities area has partnered with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, and here’s what this means for you:

This program offers a FREE, absolutely no-cost book for your child, mailed to your address EVERY month from birth to their 5th birthday.

But there are rules:

1. Must be a resident of Scott or Rock Island counties

2. Submit an official registration form, completely filled out by parent or legal guardian.

3. Notify the United Way of the Quad-Cities Area any time your address changes. Books are mailed to the address listed on the registration form.

4. Read to your child.

The books will start arriving eight to 10 weeks after you register, and they will continue coming as long as your address is correct and you’re still living in one of those two counties.

Here’s where you can go for more information: http://imaginationlibrary.com/.

Long after I threw out all my old plastic baby bottles this spring, the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, is still in the news.

A Wall Street Journal story says government experts and lawmakers clashed at a hearing this week over the safety of the chemical used in lots of plastic products, but specifically of concern in baby bottles and sippy cups.

Apparently, they’re arguing because scientific studies that show possible health risks to babies “seemed not conclusive enough to meet the burden of proof required for a U.S. ban,” according to the story.

The big flap over BPA surfaced in April, and since then, many chain stores — including Wal-Mart and Toys R Us — have voluntarily pulled these products off the shelves.

Are you worried about BPA? Are the kids still using those old bottles and sippies at your house?

And by the way, YES, I’m ashamed to say Babycakes is STILL attached to her bottle. She’s 17 months old. She especially wants it when she’s sleepy, and I mean, she WANTS it. She will throw the sippy across the room when she’s especially desperate for a bottle of “mook,” as she calls it.

I’m working on it … It’s one of the first of many major battles I’ll wage with her during her childhood, I’m sure.