In Like a Lion...

March in my house came in like a lion, and then settled in as the king of the jungle.  Work was insane, with overnight trips, long days, stressful under the microscope-type meetings, and a very unpleasant layoff cloud over the whole scene.  Home was even more insane, as my husband started a new job that required 14 hour days, usually starting at 2 or 3 am.  On Saturdays, if we were lucky, we got to see each other over shared dishwashing and laundry.  It got to the point where the little one would look from me, to my husband, and back again, as if she were amazed that we were both in the same place at the same time.  My laptop computer died, and with it any updates to this blog.  And then, in the last days of this horrid month, while I was hundreds of miles away, my husband broke his hand AND my daughter mysteriously stopped walking.  Fun times.    

April is shaping up to be a much better month, despite the fact that the atmosphere at work won’t be getting any better (more on that later).  About an hour before I left work to take the little one to the doctor, she decided that life was better when you could run and jump- and she was miraculously cured.   I still took her to the doctor, who declared that the little one probably had hurt her leg at some point and then became ultra-cautious about using it again.  The husband will be having hand surgery in the next couple of weeks.  I am grateful that his injury was not more serious and he is embarrassed that he is not as quick and agile as he used to be.  And, I am not sure what I did to deserve this, but he presented me this morning with the Swatch Watch I had in high school!  Such a sweet gift.  No matter what is going on in life, my husband makes me feel special. 

We are also celebrating the little one’s 2^nd birthday this month!  I look at her every day, and marvel at how much she has grown.  She is totally brilliant- she knows her numbers and most of her letters.  She also reacts to Elmo like those love-crazed girls fainting over the Beatles.  What is it about that little red high-pitched voice monster that makes the kiddies go so wild?  Whoever did the market research that produced him is a very rich person.   We are having the birthday at La Table Exquise , which if you didn’t know, rents out their space for events and provides catering for very reasonable prices.  For our family events, this is a life saver, because our 2 bedroom apartment can barely hold ten people. 

Despite the seemingly better attitude of the month of April, one situation that won’t be getting better anytime soon is work.  I work in the public sector, and we are continually being asked to do more with less.  The next few months will be extremely stressful, as we are facing a reduced state budget, as well as a reduction in manpower.  What really stinks is that these budget cuts are affecting both my work and neighborhood.   Many services that our neighborhood has come to rely on will be reduced or cut altogether.  In February, readers of this blog recommended that parents looking for a playgroup could attend a story hour at Macon Library on Mondays.  Unfortunately, it seems that this story hour will be discontinued due to budget cuts.  It seems that unless the City can be convinced otherwise, the Macon Library will be closing on Mondays.  Fellow parents on the yahoo groups Stuyvesant Heights Parents and BedStuy Kids have been discussing how to save the story hour.  There is an online petition that residents can fill out to protest the cuts to library services at http://bpl.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/speakup/. Please fill it out, and let our elected officials know how what may seem to be a small program would affect the quality of life for you and your little ones.  Perhaps we can all work together in April and the coming months to seek out other areas where we can mitigate the effects of these budget cuts in Bed Stuy.  I have a couple of areas in mind….watch for more frequent postings this month as I get back into my groove with the new computer.

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties...Please Stay Tuned

My laptop has officially given up the ghost, gone to a better place, entered the eternal reboot.....died.

I do have an app on my phone that allows me to post to the blog, but it is extremely tedious and annoying to do so.
That means that at least for the next few weeks, I will probably only be able to post on Saturdays :(.  The negotiation for access to my husband's computer should be interesting....

I will have a new post this Saturday...see you then!

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining OR How You Can Overthrow the Supermarket in the name of Community!

Cloud:  Anyone who had lived in any part of New York City that has been called "transitional", or the 'hood understands that there is a definite lack of good food options.  In fact, Bedford Stuyvesant has been labeled a "food desert" by the United Stated Department of Agriculture.  But now it seems lack of options is not the only problem.  People who can least afford it may be being overcharged for the food they can get.
According to an article in the New York Post, grocery stores in Brooklyn have been fined for "a slew of consumer violations, including overcharging, faulty scales and failing to properly mark merchandise".  Unfortunately for the residents of Bedford Stuyvesant, the Fulton Super Foodtown in Restoration Plaza is one of the most fined grocery stores in New York City.  The supermarket ranked twelve on the list of the 25 most fined supermarkets for consumer violations, with $3,850 in fines for the period between June 2009 and June 2010.

Bedford Stuyvesant residents literally cannot afford supermarkets that have such a disregard for their community.  Based on my own experiences with supermarkets in the Bronx and now in Brooklyn, I believe that supermarkets in poor or working class neighborhoods sell customers produce that spoils quicker.  My husband and I decided while living in the Bronx that we would only buy dry goods that were on sale in the local supermarket, and we traveled outside the neighborhood for meat and produce.  But now it seems that these supermarkets are taking advantage of people who cannot travel outside the neighborhood and comparison shop, like senior citizens or people on fixed incomes.  Disgusting.

Silver Lining:  The supermarket chains may not care, but our residents do!  One of the most exciting parts about living in Brooklyn is the current vibe centered on local food source development.  We have options beyond the supermarkets that are healthier and less expensive:

• Bed Stuy Farm Share  From their website: "The Bed-Stuy Farm Share delivers fresh vegetables, fruit, and eggs from local farmers straight to Bed-Stuy once a week for 22 weeks out of the year, starting in June".
• Greene Hill Food Coop  From their website: "We are a food co-operative based in the vicinity of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed Stuy and Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Our mission is to provide fresh, nutritious food at affordable prices. We are a 100% working co-op – all members contribute several hours of work each month. In return, we build a strong sense of community, and enjoy prices which are significantly lower than for-profit grocery stores".
• Hattie Carthan Community Market  From their website:  "The Hattie Carthan Community Farmers Market is a volunteer based and led community revitalization project in Central Brooklyn NYC . Within the last six years alone, our garden has expanded its food security/environmental justice programming in order to advance community resilience to the issues of food insecurity and health disparities evident in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood by adding nutrition awareness and food security workshops, wellbeing workshops, intergenerational community councils, an international food and film festival which attracted well over three hundred community residents last year and cooking demonstrations with youth and senior populations". 

I am really excited about these options!  The husband and I are going to save our gas money and get involved with these wonderful organizations.  The best part is, I will feel confident that I am paying the right price for great food.

Do you have any great neighborhood food resources?  Leave a comment, and we can build a list.

Park Your Car 15 feet from the hydrant OR pay $300 to the City of New York!

I plan to post again today, but in the interest of providing a community service:  Make sure that you park your car 15 feet away from the hydrant!

This is damn near impossible to do in our neighborhood, but you need to make the effort.  My husband and I have been routinely parking between 7 and 15 feet away from the hydrant on our block for the six months, with no issues.  Yesterday, we woke up and no car.....it had been towed!  Four hours and $300 later, we have our car back.

Obviously, rules are rules....I am not posting this to argue whether 15 feet is necessary.  Fire trucks need access, end of story.  I just want to make sure no one gets caught like us.

Things that keep me up at night: The Slippery Slopes of Parenting

Can't sleep?  It could be as a result of the double espresso you downed at 5pm to get energy for playing with the little one after a long day at work.   OR it could be that as an aware Brooklyn parent, there are a lot of things on your mind.  About once a week, I am going to write about things that keep me up at night as a working parent in Bedford Stuyvesant.  Why not share the insomnia?  Here is my first post in the "Things that Keep Me up at Night" series.

The Slippery Slopes of Parenting

The list of things to worry about as a parent is ever-expanding.  For example, take the issue of preschool.  How can you make sure your tot is getting socialized in time for preschool?  How can you make sure that you choose the best preschool?  How are you going to afford the high cost of preschool? How can you make sure that your little one even has a space in any preschool, since you poo-pooed the idea of starting the process before she was even born? 

Welcome to a Slippery Slope of parenting.  No one told me about the Slippery Slope phenomena when they were giving me new parent advice.  The term "slippery slope" is most commonly used to refer to things like losses in personal freedom, or an increase in military size.  The idea being that once you give a little on either of these things, you will have in fact started your fast descent into Really Bad Stuff. 

There are two types of Slippery Slopes in parenthood.  The first type refers to the seemingly harmless thought that pops into your head regarding some future plan that you have for your little one...that suddenly puts you into a tailspin (see preschool example above) downward towards Stressville.  We'll call this the "Slippery Slope to Parent Paranoia".  The second type refers to an action that you take with your little one, a mostly unconscious decision to allow a certain behavior- and six months later, you are pulling out your hair trying to break a bad habit in your child that you created.  We'll call this the "It's Your Fault that Sweet Baby is Becoming Demon Spawn Slippery Slope".

Probably the worst part of either of these two types of parenting "slopes" is the fact that they require constant vigilance on the part of the parent...and this is very tiresome.  As you may have guessed, I have tangoed with both types of slope this week, and I am not sure where I stand on either at the moment.  On the "Slippery Slope to Parent Paranoia", I have the benefit of real fatigue and lack of time.  It's hard to obsess endlessly when you can't keep your eyes open past 9pm.  And really, who has the time to have a nervous breakdown?  The constant vigilance comes in making sure that I remind myself what really matters.  I know that at the end of the day all my daughter cares about is whether we had fun today, and whether her mommy and daddy give her equal numbers of hugs and kisses.  95% of the time, I can talk myself down from the ledge.  And even the other 5% of the time, I never jump.

The real biatch is the "It's Your Fault that Sweet Baby is Becoming Demon Spawn" Slippery Slope.  This one is the gift that keeps on giving.  Equal parts fatigue, guilt, contradictory parenting advice, and just plain confusion mix to create a lethal cocktail that has you drawing lines in the sand one moment, and throwing rules out the window the next.  And it's about a 50/50 chance that your parenting decisions will either have no consequence, or consequences that are far reaching.  Right now, my sweet baby is a Terrible Two.  Like clockwork, about 20 minutes after I enter the door from work, she throws an enormous temper tantrum- never ever about the same thing.  I have searched the Internet high and low for solutions and talked to my parents and in-laws.  But two facts remain: 1) I don't want her to think this behavior is acceptable, and 2) I am really, really tired after work, and I don't feel like fighting her.  This is where the constant vigilance comes in.  I have to be ready to enforce the ground rules when I come home from work.  95% of the time, I can rise to the occasion.  But the other 5%? 

Hopefully a 95% quality investment yields OK results with both of these slippery slopes.  But as you may have figured out, it is the other 5% that keeps me up at night.

Can't think of anything but those DONUTS!

Good evening!  It's Sunday night, and everything is alright.  I just came from a  friend's baby shower, and once again, I feel like Brooklyn and Bedford Stuyvesant are home to some of the most genuine and welcoming people on earth.  I don't think that is an overstatement either.  And it was great to celebrate a new neighbor :)

On the food front, the New York Times cited Dough as one of a crop of new donut shops around the city.  The pictures in this article make me drool, and the little one looked over my shoulder as I read and said "yummy in my tummy!"- her idea of a ringing endorsement.   They have NUTELLA-FILLED DONUTS!  If you look at the banner on my blog, you will see that my blog is supposed to be about parenting, food and community engagement.  The idea was to take the little one, and get a read on which restaraunts in the neighborhood are kid-friendly AND have great food.  The weather has severely cramped my ability to get out with the little one and start this portion of the blog.  But starting next week, I will start my kid-reviews of the local eateries.  If there are particular restaurants that you would like to know about, please let me know in the comments. 

Sung Bin Park over at Bed Stuy Patch has a great article on the search for daycare.  Ms. Park discusses her process for finding daycare for her child.  She says that although she did a lot of research, her best information came from having conversations with parents at the playground. Could we have a virtual playground here, and chat about Bed Stuy's great daycare options?  Where does your child spend most of his/her day?  How did you come to make those arrangements? 


In other news, I was sad to hear that one of our longest shop owners is calling it quits.  Joe Long, owner of Birdel's Records closed his doors on Friday, according to the New York Times.  Birdel's Records was one of a dwindling number of vinyl record stores in New York City, and had been in operation since 1944.  I wish we could landmark businesses.    Are there any long-closed Bedford Stuyvesant stores that you wish could have been frozen in time?

Finally, let's get interactive people.  I started this blog to spark conversations, and to provide a forum for Bed Stuy parents/residents to share their thoughts.  That is why at the end of each little paragraph, I have asked for your thoughts- give'm to me!

People to see, places to go, not enough time!

It's been more than a week since my last post, and I have a lot to write about.  Ideally I would have updated my blog at least twice since last Tuesday- but life has a way of intervening to screw up your plans.  Suffice it to say, the working part of the working mom was extremely busy last week.  And at the end of the week, I had to say enough, and retreat.  More on that later.

Last Wednesday, there was a jam-packed Landmark Preservation Commission meeting at Restoration Plaza, with over 400 residents showing interest in the process for landmarking Bed Stuy.  In what may have been the biggest shocker to me, this meeting was just the beginning of an extremely long and involved process for three out of the four proposed landmark districts.  In order to landmark a neighborhood, the LMC needs to at minimum gauge the support of the community for the effort and create a report on the historical features and significance of the proposed area.  Seems simple, but both of these activities take a long time.  The LMC gauges community support by working with the local community board, and holding several meetings with the residents whose homes will be affected by the landmarking.  More surprising to me was the length of time it will take to create the report that will provide the basis for the LMC's final decision.  Prior to the LMC vote, LMC staff photograph and create a narrative for each building within the proposed district.  And Bed Stuy has a whopping 8,000 buildings that are potentially part of the proposed districts.  Check out this map of the four proposed areas. When a resident asked the LMC Executive Director Kate Daly how long it may take for Bedford Corners, Stuyvesant East, and Stuyvesant North to become landmarked, she replied, "under 60 years", with a smile and then an explanation of the workload associated with cataloguing the buildings of Bed Stuy.  The Stuyvesant Heights extension had already been "calendared" by the LMC, and if all goes according to plan, this district will be landmarked in the next year.  So, clearly Bed Stuy residents will be discussing landmarking for quite a while.  For a complete rundown of the meeting particulars, check out this article in Bed Stuy Patch.

I am really glad that I attended the meeting.  But because we needed some unforseen house repairs done, and the husband began a job with crazy hours, and because the little one (being advanced) has hit the terrible twos hard -  I really couldn't afford to take the time and I ended up playing catch up all week.  But as it so often happens when you have a family and a job and personal interests, this is not the exception, its the rule.  What has really been bugging me lately about this negotiation of time between family, job, and personal interests is that you cannot forsee from week to week how the different portions of your life will interact with each other.  You can be the most organized person in the world, and still not be able to do everything you need to do each week--forget what you want to do. By the way, full disclosure- I am far from the most organized person in the world, so you can imagine how messy my life can get.   I try to mentally give myself a pass on certain things that don't get done on weeks like these.  But the compromising sucks.  How do you all deal with it?  I will tell you what I did- I ran home to my mommy :) and took a break.  I am the luckiest girl in the world to be able to live in Bed Stuy, and have family to visit in rural Virginia.

Finally, some good news to report on the playgroup front.  Thanks to a reader/member of the Stuyvesant Heights Parents Group on Yahoo, it looks like we might be able to have a play group meet at La Table Exquise on Saturday mornings.  I have an appointment to talk with Chef Sebastien tomorrow to talk through the logistics.  I will post the details later this week.