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Every month, an invitation to our elementary school’s upcoming PTA meeting arrives in my inbox. It’s a nice touch, this clever use of modern technology to gently remind the slacker moms and dads among us of our parental obligations to sell wrapping paper and plan pancake breakfasts.

But every month, I still promptly hit the delete button.

For baseball diehards, it’s a long, dark, cold winter without the sun on your face, a St. Louis dog in hand and Mike Shannon on the radio. The 2012 baseball season is a distant memory, and spring training is still seven ice-covered weeks away.

However, Jackie and Me, a new production from Metro Theatre Company and Edison Theatre is keeping baseball in play this January and bringing kids face to face with the man who broke down barriers in stadiums across the U.S.

Through the power of a magical baseball card, Joey Stoshack, a young baseball fan, and the Metro Theater Company audience are transported back to 1947 on the day Jackie Robinson becomes the first black man to play for the major leagues.

When my first child turned out to be a girl, I was ecstatic. And while you might say that the whole “becoming a mother and falling head-over-heels in love with my daughter” was the cause of my ecstasy, I’m embarrassed to say that there was another factor involved:
 
The pretty pink outfits that you can only buy for little girls.    
 

At an event the other day, my friend – a new mom with a six-month-old – mentioned an upsetting trend at her office.

I've always wondered what kind of jerk parent would take their sick kids to a public place. Specifically a public place where there would be a bunch of other kids.

I tirelessly work day in and day out sanitizing shopping carts, administering vitamins and sacrificing virgin chickens to the gods of children's wellness all to drop them off at pre-school to see some kid with the creature from the green lagoon hanging out of his nose.

I mean, how selfish! Kids spread viruses faster than Lindsay Lohan at a... well... anything – and dropping a sick kid in the middle of a bunch of healthy ones just so you can have a little break just shows a total lack of respect for anyone and everything. Reckless.

Then there was last week.

The three weeks after Christmas are a sad, sad time for a TV fan. On the plus side, we’re no longer exposed to that creepy Folgers commercial where the brother and sister practically make out at their Christmas reunion. But on the downside, we’re limited to constant reruns and bowl games named after snack foods.

Cadan Christopher Frericks would have celebrated his fourth birthday Thanksgiving weekend. But on December 6, 2008, his mom and dad held him for the first and last time. He was only twelve days old when he died of a birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).
 

2012 has been a year of firsts for me. My first time hiking a trail – which I learned the hard way should not be done in flip-flops and a sundress. My first time camping – in a tent, at a campground so remote I didn’t even have cell service. Even my first time staying at a place with a word like “lodge” in the title.   
 

The other day I headed off to the craft store to finish off my Christmas gift list. My godson, a four-year-old budding Van Gogh, wanted some new art projects to work on.

When I entered, I was engulfed in a display of make-your-own headbands and jewelry, manicure sets and scrapbooks, vajazzlers and macramé thong kits. But what I didn’t see were kits ideal for those with XY chromosomes.

Sure, there were some awesome gender-neutral Crayola kits as well as a paint-your-own coffee mug, but I thought that was a little insensitive for a preschooler trying to kick his caffeine addiction.

Finally, behind a glitter-bomb-your-own-purse set, I uncovered a lowly wooden car kit – the only blue box in a sea of pink and purple.

I’m not the only one who has difficulty finding a specific gift for a child whose interests don’t fall into a stereotypical gender mold.

As a busy mom with a full-time job, I want to be able to access everything on my smartphone and other digital devices.

(It amazes me that I can't get grocery coupons for local chains delivered to my cell, like I can for Target, because the last thing you'll find me doing on a Sunday afternoon is clipping coupons. But I digress.)

So I was really excited this morning to find news of the new Saint Louis Science Center app in my inbox (on my phone, of course). The app was released today, and by 8 a.m. I had installed it on my iPhone via the app store (there's also a version for Andriod). Once I had explored the app, I learned It's easy to use, well organized, and that I can even follow the SLSC Twitter feed right from the app! (That last part may not appeal to everyone, but I think Mr. T. Rex's tweets are quite entertaining.)

There’s something about seeing the father of your children perched precariously atop an unstable ladder, steel blade rake in his outstretched arm as he swats at the air, still several feet away from a dangling strand of Christmas lights that you guilted him into hanging onto a 30-foot pine tree, that makes you truly appreciate the raw power you harness within your female body parts.

It’s almost scary.  

The holiday season is upon us here in St. Louis, which means that many St. Louis families are busy, busy, busy with shopping, decorating, and holiday gatherings.

Caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season? Don’t forget that our city offers many wonderful holiday traditions for families to enjoy, so gather your kids and take advantage of these fun and festive ways to celebrate the true magic of the holidays:

There’s nothing like destroying your child’s Christmas wishes that makes you feel like the meanest mom in the whole wide world.

If we're going to be perfectly honest here, I would guess that I spend roughly 25 seconds of every minute wondering whether or not my kids are normal. The other 35 seconds are usually dominated by wondering what I'm going to have for dessert.

You can call me crazy, but last night as I was hiding in the bathroom pretending like I was vomiting but really just trying to get a moment of peace as I surfed the web, I read an email from BabyCenter titled: “Is Your Baby Normal? Your Top 30 Questions Answered.”

Every year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, my husband starts to get twitchy. And, no surprise, his strange behavior almost always coincides with the day I dare to bring up the holidays looming ahead.

As soon as we start debating the intricacies of which relatives to visit when (or more accurately, which side of the family we’ve decided to piss off more this year), it becomes obvious that he’s ready to crack.

“I’m going to clean the deep fryers that day,” he told me recently, when I mentioned that we had yet to make plans for this year’s Thanksgiving. He was kidding, but still, a man who jokes about choosing a vat of deep fried fat over a day filled with family is a man who clearly would not agree that this is “the most wonderful time of the year.

What’s the Source of Our Holiday Stress?

As relaxing and joyful as the holidays are intended to be, the reality is that they often yield nothing but stress – especially for those of us knee-deep in the trenches of raising kids.  

We’re burdened by the expectation of creating a Pinterest-perfect holiday.  We’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of seasonal outings and activities we’re expected to participate in. And we struggle endlessly to balance the needs of our children with the demands of family members who routinely expect us to somehow be in twelve different places at once.  

Add in several inevitable choruses of “I didn’t raise my kids that way and they turned out fine,” and it’s no wonder that many of us would rather skip the holiday season entirely.

Unfortunately, as much as we may want to jump into a Charles Dickens’ novel and channel our inner Scrooge (or go clean deep fryers – pick your poison), we can’t escape the holidays, or the family obligations that go along with them. Hoping to actually enjoy spending time with your nearest and dearest this holiday season? Here are my top 6 suggestions for making it happen:

My kids are both serious carnivores. I can’t say that I blame, they come by it naturally. While I may serve dinners made of chickpeas and quinoa on a regular basis, I’m still at my happiest when scarfing down a Thickburger from Hardee’s (especially one that has been slathered in extra mayo).