Once a week, my daughter goes to dance class. Since the dance center she attends is closer to my parents’ house, I take the opportunity to head to their house after picking her up from school. We use this time to hang out with the abuelos and I get a chance to see my parents before it’s time for her dance class.

It’s become such a regular part of our weekly routine, that every Thursday when I pick up baby girl at school, she confirms, “Are we going to Abuela’s house?” On the rare occasion when something interferes with our plans, she gets disappointed. I do too, honestly. There’s something very comforting about knowing that each Thursday afternoon we get to see my parents. My mom and I talk, she feeds us as only your mom and an abuela can, and both baby boy and baby girl get the extra hugs and kisses from their grandparents.

For me, seeing the bond that my children have with my parents is especially precious because I never had such a relationship with one of my grandparents. I didn’t grow up near any of my grandparents – my paternal grandmother passed away long before I was born and the other three grandparents lived in New York City. While this is something that I certainly wish I had as a child, it’s something I’ve accepted for what it was. But, it does help me appreciate the special relationship my parents have with my kids. It helps me understand that it is important for them to visit their abuelos, to have sleep overs, and talk with them on a regular basis.

So, while it’s certainly not the only time we visit my parents, dance class day will continue to be a ritual. We will enjoy what the abuelos have to share with us and keep on nurturing the treasured connection such a relationship affords.

Did you have a special relationship with your grandparents?

Last weekend we had a friend of ours visiting from out of town. He has been a good friend of my husband for over 10 years and gets along great with the kids. Baby girl thinks he’s pretty funny and as is true with most people, she loves talking to him, which is fine by us.

Except, there are those times when the adults get to talking and are so heavily involved in their conversation that it’s hard to let the kids participate. When you’re friends with someone for over 10 years, this can be especially true, since you have plenty of memories and inside jokes. You can imagine there were a couple of instances where this happened while our friend was visiting.

The first night our friend visited, as I tucked baby girl into bed, she said, “Mommy, when people visit us or we visit them, I don’t really get to talk a lot.” I responded by reminding her that she did talk quite a bit and that she even played a game with our friend and read a book. I proceeded to tell her that when her dad and I were her age, things were worse. “We weren’t allowed to just come up and talk to the adults like you do. If they talked to us, then we’d respond, but it wasn’t like we just started conversations with them on our own. At least you get to do that!”

This was probably the worst thing I could have said at that moment because she started to cry saying, “That’s just not fair mommy!” I quickly told her that’s just the way it was and those were the rules, but that it’s not her rule. This didn’t help as she continued to cry repeating it wasn’t fair. I finally calmed her down by telling her it was a long time ago and that her daddy and I were over it, so she didn’t have to worry about it.

I left her room laughing, which was the same reaction my husband and our visitor had. It’s funny that even though she’s able to interact with adults in a manner significantly different to how my husband and I did as kids, she found it unnerving we couldn’t.

What is something from your childhood your children found surprising?

Photo by Catherine

ridawesome [rid-aw-suhm]: something really, really cool

Baby girl made up a new word. Ridawesome. It’s a combination of ridiculous and awesome and means something is really, really cool. Like, ridiculously awesome.  Get it?

She found out the way new words are created and added to the dictionary is by becoming popular and used by many. So, in an effort to get her new word used by a large amount of people, she asked me to spread the word here.

I think that’s pretty ridawesome, don’t you?

Photo by Jeff Kubina

What do you do to recover from those moments in parenting when you just lose it all? Those moments when the frustration, disappointment, and overall lack of positive energy leave you and you end up in a state of utter insanity with your kids?

I despise the person I become when frustration takes over. I lose patience, am ill-tempered, and lash out, making my daughter feel horrible in the process. It’s unfair to her. I can feel myself getting close to the point of losing it. Even though I try to avoid it, without a doubt, something always pushes me over the edge.

Normally, after I calm down, I sit and talk with her. I let her know that I don’t like acting that way. I apologize. I let her share how she feels and in turn explain how I felt. It’s all I know to do.

But, is it enough? Is an apology and quick conversation enough to recover from a major parenting fail? Especially if months later, it happens again?

I fear it’s not. I fear she’s going to end up in therapy if I have many more of those moments.

How do you prevent such moments? And, more so, when you have them, how do you recover from them? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Last month I attended a McDonald’s First Taste event in New York City. The event was designed for media and bloggers to be able to sample some new menu items, meet with key McDonald’s representatives, and speak with McDonald’s nutrition manager and chef. We also had the opportunity to speak with a registered dietitian who focuses on nutrition in the Latino community.

While our family is not against fast food and do occasionally eat it, we realize that we need to be careful with our choices and monitor how much and how often we eat fast food. Attending the McDonald’s First Taste event allowed me to learn more about the various choices McDonald’s offers that will make a visit to the restaurant a more balanced visit, food-wise. I also learned about the Bag a McMeal section of the McDonald’s website, where you can choose menu items to create a more-balanced meal and monitor the nutritional information. This is good if you’re wanting to choose lower-calorie or lower-fat options from the McDonald’s menu before heading to your local McDonald’s. It definitely gives you a good perspective on what you may have been eating thus far and how you can choose better options.

I spoke with both Julia Braun, McDonald’s nutrition manager, and Sylvia Melendez-Klinger, an independent registered dietitian who focuses on nutrition in the Hispanic community. Both ladies provided insightful information regarding the McDonald’s menu. Check out the videos below to learn some tips from Sylvia on putting together a meal that meets your calorie needs, plus her take on what the Latino community can do to make healthier eating choices.

Sylvia Melendez-Klinger on Creating a Balanced Meal at McDonald’s

Sylvia Melendez-Klinger on How Latinos Can Eat Healthier

I also took the opportunity to ask Julia Braun about marketing to children at McDonald’s. Hear her response regarding McDonald’s stance on responsible marketing to children.

Julia Braun on Marketing to Children at McDonald’s

A couple of the new menu items we sampled included a mango pineapple smoothie, an Asian salad McDonald’s is bringing back for a limited time, and new sauces for the Chicken McNuggets, including a ranch sauce which will please my daughter who dips pretty much everything into ranch dressing. Of course, McDonald’s wants you to try out some of their new menu items, so they’re offering a giveaway to ModernMami™ readers with a gift card so you can do just that. Remember to also give the Bag a McMeal site a try and see what meal combinations you can come up with. Sylvia provided some tips on how you can even keep your meals around the 500 calorie mark. What 500-600 calorie meals can you create for a better fast food meal choice?

McDonald’s Gift Bag Giveaway

One Three* readers will win a McDonald’s gift bag, which contains the following items:
*Update 6/11/11: I’ve been told by the PR company that I can giveaway three bags instead of just one!

• Tips and recipes from Chef Dan
• Lavender scented eye mask
• Pineapple scented candle
• Mango scented candle
• Notebook with pen
• Bamboo pen
• Balance bracelet
• $25 McDonald’s Arch Card

How to Enter

Required entry: If you’d like to enter this contest, simply leave a comment below telling us which McDonald’s 600-calorie (or less) meal combination you prefer.

Extra entries (optional):

Each of the following will count as 1 extra entry. You’ll need to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1. Follow @modernmami on twitter.
2. Tweet the following: Enter to win a McDonald’s gift bag & gift card from @modernmami! http://bit.ly/lKjQxv #mcdonalds #giveaway #contest
3. Receive post updates by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can do so either via email or through a RSS reader. Leave a comment saying you did so or are already a subscriber.
4. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
5. Like ModernMami™.com on Facebook.
6. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing the details of this contest. Be sure to include a link back to this post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. You must be 18 or older and have a valid U.S. address to enter. Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winners will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.) Winners will have 48 hours to respond and claim prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I attended the McDonald’s First Taste event courtesy of VPE PR and McDonald’s. All expenses paid. No compensation received.

Photo credits: McDonald’s

Want a quick and easy way to get your young children to clean up around the house? I tried this with my five-year-old today and I just know that any preschooler will enjoy it as much as she did. It absolutely adds an element of fun to cleaning and even more, gives them a challenge!

All I did was simply tell her, “Let’s see how much you can clean up in one minute! I’m going to count to 60 and you go around and see how much you can put away. Ready? Set? Go!” I then counted 60 seconds as she ran around the house picking up. She was so worried about the time that twice she passed by me and slowed down just enough to hear what number I was on. But, she definitely did more in that one minute than she would have done in five minutes had I just told her to clean up her stuff.

The best thing was that I too had fun. I went around picking up a few items myself, but enjoyed seeing her having fun with something that ordinarily would have been a boring task. She ran, she laughed the whole time, and she completed her task. It was a true win-win for both of us.

After she caught her breath, I suggested that next time we should see how much we could clean up in three minutes. She was all for it!

What games do you play with your children to make chores more fun?

When we moved to Florida from Puerto Rico, I was eight years old and already one month into third grade. I left behind the private Catholic school that had just begun to accept girls as students that year and came to a standard public school in the city of Orlando. My first day at this new school, I experienced what I believe to be my first encounter with racism.

It was during PE class and we were playing volleyball. I am not sure exactly how it happened or what caused it, but what I remember is that out of nowhere this little boy on the other side of the net screamed out to me, “Why don’t you just go back to Africa?” I remember clearly staring at him and wondering, “Why is he telling me to go to Africa? I’m from Puerto Rico!” It wouldn’t be until many years later that I would fully understand the meaning of what was said to me.

People often say things like “It’s hard to believe that in a year like 2011, we still have discrimination,” and ask my husband and I questions such as “Do you really feel discriminated against?” We’ve had discussions with friends explaining just how prevalent discrimination still is, even in 2011.

Reading The Headshake on Latinaish got me thinking about the various times either my husband or I have gotten looks. It tends to happen more when we’re together, than when I’m alone. Normally we get looks when we’re out and about shopping. It’s because they think we might steal something. Here’s how the scenario usually plays out.

As we enter a store, a sales clerk will typically greet us, though this isn’t always the case. We will begin to browse and will get the customary, “Can I help you with anything?” line. After we politely say, “No, thank you. We’re just looking,” the clerk doesn’t really ever leave. The majority of the time we are followed around, the clerk always keeping a few feet of distance between us. As we look around at other customers, though, they are not being watched so closely. Interestingly, this used to happen a lot more when my husband had his hair in dreads.

Now, I used to work in retail, particularly in shoe stores. I was given the training materials that say the best way to avoid theft was to greet each and every customer, alerting them to the fact that you are aware of their presence in the store. I also had to deal on several occasions with managers that would ask me to follow certain customers around the store – solely based on their appearance as they entered the store. So, I am all too familiar with the practice.

I don’t claim to have lived a hard life full of discrimination. By all means, that is definitely not true. I lived a rather sheltered life of living in the suburbs with a middle-class way of life. Compared to my husband’s youth, I have nothing to complain about, really. He has endured way more discrimination than I have. Yet, even with the sheltered youth I had, I was still greeted to the United States with a “why don’t you go back” attitude, literally.

What does this mean for my kids? They are both biracial, multicultural, and with different shades of brown. As I look around my daughter’s preK classroom, she is the only one with dark skin and one of two Latina girls in her class. There is another little girl whose mom is from China and the rest of the kids are White. While I know this is a reflection of the neighborhood we live in, I have to wonder how often she will be the “token” girl as she grows up. How will she be treated? Will she ever have to deal with someone telling her to “go back” even though there’s nowhere for her to go back to?

Other articles worth reading:

• Curly Hair is Beautiful Too! How Everyday Conversations Become Life Lessons in Our House.
• Brown is Not Enough
• I’m White, My Daughter is Latina, and I Buy Black Dolls

My mother has a photo of me from when I was about three or four years old. You can see the plastic-covered couches that were popular back in those days, especially in Latino households and throughout the Caribbean. In this photo, I am serving my abuelo his “cafe” in one of my plastic toy cups – we didn’t play “tea party” in Puerto Rico; coffee was what was served. Next to me is a Strawberry Shortcake stroller holding one of my dolls. I loved that stroller and only wish I still had it for my daughter to use now. What I remember most, though, is playing with my abuelo.

It’s interesting to see my daughter play the same types of games and even with some of the same toys I had. Like Strawberry Shortcake, so many of the toys from my childhood are back again! But, beyond the same toys making a comeback, there are games that never go out of style. You will always find little girls having tea parties. You can be sure they’ll always play pretend with their dolls and stuffed animals. The latest game my daughter plays in the mornings is to play teacher with her “classroom” full of stuffed animal students – a game I too used to play when I was little.

Through these games, we as parents are able to share more than just quality time with our children. We are sharing stories and memories of our own childhood. I think most kids enjoy hearing stories of mommy and daddy as little kids, my daughter included. In playing together and making play time family time, we’re all getting a dose of nostalgia. Most importantly, we are spending time together.

These are the moments that I am sure my daughter enjoys the most. Playing with mom and dad, hearing stories of how different, or not so different, play time was for mom and dad, and of course, creating her own memories she’ll one day share with others.

Today my baby girl turns five years old. That is a big deal. Five is (in my mind anyway) officially the age when kids turn into big (little) kids. That is, they are no longer babies, preschoolers, or whatever other term you use; they are now actual little kids. Which is why I wanted to be sure to properly celebrate her birthday this year, even though I knew I’d be 38+ weeks pregnant and our second child could arrive at any time. Thankfully, we were able to pull it off and our baby boy cooperated and waited to be born. His big sister was able to have her birthday party this past Saturday amongst many friends and family. Today, she gets a second celebration with her preschool classmates. She’s a happy five year old girl!

My husband and I thought it would be fun to ask our daughter some questions in order to get inside the mind of a five year old. After all, she’s been talking about turning five for a really long time and has set some pretty high expectations about it. She has been commenting for a few months now how she’ll be able to do this and that when she turns five: “I can’t do that now, because I’m only four. But, soon I’ll be five. Maybe I can do it then!”

So, this morning, we sat down and asked her these questions. Of course, in true kid form, when you try to record the answers and save the memory, is when they decide not to talk. She wasn’t as talkative this morning and did not provide very detailed answers as I know she would have normally, but nevertheless, here are her thoughts:

1. Do you think turning 5 years old will change what you do each day? No.
2. What do you want to be when you grow up? A baby doctor.
3. Why are you excited about turning 5? Because, I’m turning 5 and tomorrow the baby’s coming out!
4. How long did you wait to turn 5? Like, almost 100 years. I wish every day was my birthday.
5. Anything special you want to tell me about turning 5? I’m excited about being a big sister for the baby.

We plan to ask some of the same questions next year and see how the answers differ. Hopefully, we’ll be able to build a nice scrapbook for her of each year’s answers, so that when she gets older she can read through it.

What humorous moments or thoughts have your children shared with you?

This post is part of a paid campaign.

The normal fall activities that you are probably accustomed to doing with your kids are not ones I’ve ever done. The pumpkin or apple picking, hayrides, and leaf raking are things I did not grow up doing nor have I done them since becoming an adult. A couple of reasons probably contribute to this: I’ve always lived in places with tropical weather (Puerto Rico and Florida) and they are not customs traditional to the Puerto Rican culture.

Since neither Puerto Rico nor Florida have a true change of season when autumn arrives, not many trees really shed leaves for us to rake. I can’t really remember the last time I’ve had to rake leaves. It was probably many many years ago. Some of the other fall activities are ones that my family never did. Now that I have a family of my own, perhaps in the coming years we’ll participate in apple picking or browsing a pumpkin patch. I’m sure our baby girl and soon-to-be baby boy will eventually hear of these traditions and ask for them to be introduced into our families. And so, traditions and cultures evolve.

Still, even without such activities, fall does allow for more outside time in Florida. The intense heat begins to die down and we even get some days that include a nice breeze. We definitely get to enjoy more time at the park, local amusement parks, and just taking a walk by one of the many lakes nearby.

Of course, when you have a busy schedule every week, full of work and school, you sometimes have to make the time to go play and have fun. We try hard to make weekends fun. There are definitely those weekends where we need to concentrate on errands or housework, but even then, we try to make at least one fun outing in between the chores. For example, we may clean up around the house in the morning, then take the afternoon and head to the park for baby girl to run around and play on the playground.

Living in Orlando, we’re of course lucky to also live close to many amusement parks. Our family holds annual passes to one of the parks, so we can often head out for a day (or half-day) of fun – especially now that the weather will be more bearable.

We may not do traditional fall activities, yet, but we still manage to have fun and have time together as a family to play. Maybe this year we’ll check out a pumpkin patch and see how we like it.

How do you make time for play and what are some of your favorite fall activities?

Disclosure: I am a Shout Brand Ambassador through a compensated Mom Bloggers Club member program. This post was written in conjunction with the program, but all opinions and thoughts are original.

Shout wants you to know: Shout knows play is so much more than fun and games. Studies show that unstructured play helps kids build fundamental skills like problem solving, coping, and conflict resolution. In other words: play is how kids become happy, healthy adults. Fall has arrived with crisp, cool air and new reasons to go out and play. So, let your kids take that rewarding jump into a pile of leaves. Take at trip to the park and watch their imaginations run free. The one thing you won’t do is worry about their clothes; play should get messy and Shout can help.