MAMAS family event Saturday

MAMAS is Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association of Seattle, a great group of lawyers trying to share ideas and network with an emphasis on work-life balance issues. The group has brown bag sessions and that sort of thing, but also gathers monthly with the kids to play and network. (Unfortunately, yes, it's for moms, not dads. Apparently. I could be wrong.) The next one is this coming Saturday:

MAMAS Moms and Kids Networking Event
When: Sat, May 3, 9am – 12pm
Where: The Children's Center at Burke Gilman Gardens, 5251 Sand Point Way NE, Building 5, Seattle, WA
Description: We invite you to attend MAMAS' next monthly mother attorney networking event. Mothers, children, and partners/helpers welcome. Admission is free, and food and beverages will be provided, thanks to our sponsor Williams Kastner.

Go play! If anyone decides to go, let me know how it went.

Sack lunch tyranny

Every morning I pack four lunches. Yes I do. I tell you, it's a glamorous life I lead. But here's the thing. After making approximately 1,000 lunches in the last year and a half (yes really), surprisingly enough, it's getting a little old. And not just for me. At first the kids liked PB&Js, and they liked chicken nuggets, and really, they'd eat pretty much anything. I'd slip little notes in there, draw pictures on their lunch bags, yada yada. But now they're surly, jaded 5- and 3-year-olds and they won't eat just any (well-rounded, nutritionally complete, homemade daily) meal. Nuggets, formerly the haute of cuisine, now are gross. Yogurt gives the little one a rash. Perfectly good fruit comes home uneaten.

Here's what I made the last two days, just to make PB&J more attractive:

Yes, these are numerous teeny tiny heart-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All part of the scheme to convince my 5-year-old to eat her lunch.

The scheme worked. But here's perhaps a more accurate picture:

Heart-shaped PB&J project aided by Fat Tire; note messy kitchen in background. Not pictured: Unread Torts 2 casebook.

In short, I need ideas. Anybody have sack lunch suggestions? What do you pack in your kids' lunches? Even if you don't pack lunches, got any ideas?

Maybe Baby Discussion Monday

Is law school the right time to have a baby?
Is it a bad idea to have a child as a new associate in a law firm?
What are the pros and cons of juggling law school with a baby in tow?
Join us for an informal discussion at 12:30 Monday, March 3, in room 207. We have two featured guests. One is a first-year associate at Davis Wright Tremaine who had a baby the summer before she started work at her firm. The other is a second-year associate at a smaller firm who had a baby during her 3L year.
Members of Parents Attending Law School who had babies during school also will be there to lend perspective. This discussion is open to everyone. Lunch will be provided. If you’re thinking of coming, please drop me a note so I can get an estimate of our food needs. Also email if you’d like to submit questions anonymously ahead of time. Send emails to Lisa Kremer, kremerl@...

Mothers Attorneys Mentoring Association of Seattle

MAMAS invite you to their next monthly attorney networking event on Sunday, March 2, 2008 from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at The Children’s Center at Burke Gilman Gardens, 5251 Sand Point Way NE, Building 5, Seattle, WA. Mothers, children, and partners/helpers are welcome! This event is FREE. Please RSVP by February 27, 2008 to Mavis Bates at mbates(((at)))kellerrohrback.com.

Diversions

It's getting toward the end of the quarter, papers are due, exams are coming. Time for distractions.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a link to the now-classic “Landlord” video with Will Ferrell. Caution: if you don’t like seeing 2-year-olds swear, you might not like it. Oh, come on, it’s totally worth it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/74

Here’s a mom’s version of the William Tell Overture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ati3k32-NXI

(thanks Mary Whisner)

And finally, this is just an amazing wildlife video. This is NOT funny, just amazing. It gets a bit grim about two minutes in, and then gets even grimmer, but the ending is great. It’s called the Battle at Kruger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

Daylight savings, or, I want my hours back

Prof. Calandrillo has published an argument for keeping daylight savings year-round. It's here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/338554_daylight07.html

He's absolutely right, though his reasons are all wrong. Biannual time changes are hideous. Spring, of course, is obviously a problem: we lose an hour of sleep. Fall, once upon a time, seemed like the better side of the coin, the cool side of the pillow, as it were. But NO! It turns out that when the time changes, the little darlings get up an hour EARLIER. What used to be a 7 a.m. wakeup is now a 6 a.m. wakeup. Logically, you would think that would mean that they would go to bed an hour earlier, yes? No! They do not.

I am not sure where my hour went, but I want to file an appeal. I'm with Prof. Calandrillo, though my reasons may differ. Come to think of it, he has kids....

Superbug!

Well, really, I wasn't particularly worried about the antibiotic-resistant superbug that's been floating around, although a Federal Way man just died of it, but I just ran across a fairly authoritative post on how to avoid catching Superbugs. It's by Nurse William, a blogger I've never heard of, but I like his attitude. Here's a sample of his advice:

ANY old soap is "antibacterial" when used correctly; All you have to do is make
LOTS of suds. Its the suds that make a soap antibacterial. "Really?" you ask.
"How so?" you ask. Well, settle down and I will tell you: Suds form micelles
around dirt and bacteria and lift them from the skin's surface to be rinsed away
to the black hell from whence they came.

The post is at http://nursewilliam.blogspot.com/2007/10/truth-about-mrsa-without-media-panic.html.

Toxic tots

Stasiu forwarded this link to an article regarding the stunningly high level of toxins that can accumulate in children's bodies:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/22/body.burden/index.html
Yeah, I'm headed for the organic section tonight.

Baby news

Emma Kagel Berry's son was born last night (Oct. 16), and Emma, Charley and son are doing well. I'll post more details as they arrive. Emma had an outrageously easy labor, according to Charley (where can I file an appeal regarding my own birth experiences?).

Congrats also to 2L Greg Albert, whose second daughter was born during the first week of classes. And to Peter Moreno, whose wife is expecting their second daughter. There are at least four other pregnant 2Ls and 3Ls out there due to give birth during the school year.

Christal Wood, 3L, had a lovely comment this morning:

Congrats, Papa Peter!...and congrats to Ashley, too, whose baby's gonna' have one smart mama! :-)And to everyone else with a degree in the oven.... A thought occurred to me recently while I was struggling with my own hectic schedule, and wondering at how anybody handles the elevated challenge of law school, while raising one or more small children (my kid's a teenager, and I can get away with limited supervision in exchange for a different set of challenges). As an "older" parent, I wanted to remind you what a gift you're giving your children to be taking this step; in modeling perseverance, in (hopefully) an improved and more stable way of life, in the knowledge that you'll inadvertently confer, and in the enhanced protection you'll be able to give them as they navigate their way into tomorrow's society, bound to be governed in some way by an increasingly complex rule of law.Congratulations to everybody for that--here's to you, I raise my coffee cup to you, as I write this, intolerably late for class. :-) Pax. -cw

Food Friday: fried rice

I don't like fried rice. Unless I make it. Using this recipe, or some variation thereof. This stuff is not only great -- and a family favorite -- but it heats up well as leftovers and it freezes well too. And it only uses one pan! But don't make it if you don't have Chinese pork, that's the magic ingredient. And the oyster sauce. Let me know if you have other variations I should try.

Fried Rice

1/2 c. oyster sauce
1 Tblsp. soy sauce (plus extra)
1 c. frozen peas
vegetable oil or peanut oil
mushrooms (shitake are best, but button or canned oyster work too)
two chicken breasts
flour
salt
two eggs
hunk of Chinese pork (try the deli section or the bacon section)
2 tsp. minced garlic
2 c. uncooked rice

Start cooking the rice. (If you cook the rice the night before, put in a plastic bag and hit with a wooden spoon to break up the chunks.)
Dump peas in a colander in the sink and spray with water for a minute or two to thaw.
In a small bowl, mix oyster sauce and one tablespoon of soy sauce; set aside.
Heat oil in large frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. When hot, add mushrooms. If you weren't able to get shitakes, add a few splashes of soy sauce to give your shrooms some flavor. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are limp. Pour mushrooms out of pan onto a plate.
While the mushrooms are cooking, chop raw chicken into bite sized pieces. Put a handful of flour into a plastic bag, add some salt, and dump in the chicken and shake until coated. Add more oil to the frying pan, let heat, and add chicken. Cook until lighly browned on all sides. Dump onto the plate.
Add a bit more oil and let heat. Lightly stir eggs and pour into frying pan. Let set for 1 minute, then stir and break up until just barely done. Dump onto the plate.
Add a bit more oil and let heat. Chop up Chinese pork into small pieces. Add garlic to frying pan; let cook 30 seconds. Add Chinese pork and peas. Cook 2-3 minutes until heated. Turn off heat.
Add cooked rice to pan.* Pour oyster sauce mixture over rice and stir. Add all other ingredients from the plate and stir.


Notes:
I haven't been able to find fresh shitakes for more than a year! It's driving me nuts. Dried shitakes creep me out for some reason. I've found that adding soy sauce to the mushrooms helps. The original recipe here called for Chinese sausage, which I haven't found, and I think chicken is a healthier alternative anyway.

You can cook the chicken however you want. This is how I've been doing it lately, and it's pretty good, though it takes a bit more time than just plain stir-frying. Easiest is poaching chicken the night before, throwing it in the fridge, and cutting it up cold and adding it with the pork. But that's no fun.

* If you are an overly accommodating, horribly indulgent parent like me, scoop out some of the rice and pork at this point to serve to your children. You're so nice, they don't deserve you.

Infant meds recalled

Looking for the short version of the recall of infant cold medicines? Here's the link to the announcement and the list of what was actually recalled:
http://www.chpa-info.org/ChpaPortal/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2007/10_11_07_CCMedicines.htm

My understanding is that the infant meds themselves aren't dangerous if properly used, but that there is a danger that parents/caregivers will accidentally give too much.

My cupboards have a lot of these drugs in them -- Tylenol Cold and Dimetapp in particular. They were recommended by our pediatrician. It is hard to know when a decongestant is actually working, though. I am a big fan of plain old Benadryl, Tylenol and Motrin (really, their cheap generic versions).

Help out a future parent

Hi PALS!

I've talked to some of you individually, but I'm putting out a general call for advice over the next few months. I'm a 2L, 18 weeks along with my first child (it's a boy!), due on March 11th. Since my husband and I are the first of our close group of friends to have kids, we'd welcome advice as we start planning for our first little one. Specifically, I have questions about

1) Doulas: Has anyone had one? We're giving birth at Swedish Medical Center, and have a great doctor, but we were wondering if a doula might be helpful. Our parents are coming into town around the birth date, but if the baby decides to come early, we might be on our own here.

2) Child care: We will probably need child care in the summer, when I go to work. Does anyone know of any great places that take infants or have suggestions on how to find/pick a nanny or nanny share?

3) Parenting support groups: What's worth doing? What's extra time that we don't have?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

Vanessa

The morning dash

The Wall Street Journal has a column about work-life balance called The Juggle. A recent column describes the morning get-to-school rush, and readers have chimed in with many tips describing how they make the mornings manageable. Some ideas might actually be useful: It didn't occur to me to tell my 5-year-old to make her own breakfast. We've gotten into a routine of just handing her an English muffin or whatever, especially since we're making breakfast for the toddler anyway. But perhaps I'm depriving her of a valuable opportunity to demonstrate independence and competence! Who knew.

Here's the story:
http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2007/09/28/the-morning-time-slip/

I try to make the mornings easier for my husband (who gets the kids up, dressed and fed most days) by setting out the kids' clothes and lunches before I leave. I may be depriving them the ability to choose their clothes, but I figure I'm also aiding marital harmony by reducing morning friction. Six/half dozen.

What do you do to make the mornings easier?

Food Friday: enchiladas

So I've been working on finding efficient recipes that don't take a lot of time or use up a lot of pots and pans (I hate washing pots and pans), and that both the kids and the grownups like. I make a lot of casseroles that I can have for lunch the next day too. Each morning before school I pack four lunches, so I'm always looking for shortcuts.

This is a quick recipe that won't win any prizes but it's fast, has few ingredients, and doesn't get too many dishes dirty in the preparation. If you try it out, let me know how it goes. And tell me what you'd serve as a side -- my biggest challenge is finding ways to get kids to eat veggies. We'd probably serve this with pineapple and broccoli.


Super-easy enchiladas

4 cooked skinless, boneless chicken breasts*
1 c. light sour cream
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese**
1 Tablespoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package flour or corn tortillas
1 can enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Shred or chop the chicken. Mix with sour cream, cheese, cumin, salt and pepper. Add other ingredients as desired (green peppers, cilantro, green onions, etc). Put two big spoonfuls of chicken mixture on a tortilla, roll up and put seam-side-down in a 9x13 pan. Repeat until you get through all the filling. Pour sauce over top. Bake 20 minutes, until heated through.

* For the chicken, you can use breasts, thighs, whatever, and cook by poaching, baking, whatever. Or you could shred a rotisserie chicken. Last time I made this I cut up raw chicken and cooked it on the stovetop, stir-fry style.

** I hate shredding cheese. If it's on sale I buy it shredded. Otherwise I buy the bulk sliced cheese at Costco and cut it into tiny little pieces, which is good enough for me. And a knife is easier to clean than a grater.


Got a recipe to share? Email me! I need stuff for future Food Fridays.

p.s. Yeah I know it's not Friday. I'm a day late. I had a meeting, I got distracted, yada yada.