Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sunday Sound Out

OK another comment.......more like a question, that address, is your PO Box address still OK?? I have stuff here to send you....... - nutralady2001
Sure, you can still use my old address and it will be forwarded to my new one. :)

It is sad that no one from Mississippi has sent you what you need for this map project. Therefore, I’m gonna go for it. What is it that you need? I’m actually from Pearl a suburb of Jackson, MS but I promise to mail whatever is needed from the downtown Jackson post office. I hope that will suffice. - Robin
That would be great! Just a postcard or note telling a little about your town is all we need. You can send it here:
Dawn Meehan
836 S. Arlington Heights Rd.
Suite 230
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007


I have never understood why one would take cereal or crackers or whatever out of the original container to put it in Tupperware? - my3boys
Ahhh, that's easy. By putting my food into those Tupperware containers, I save a ton of space. Think of your average box of cereal or crackers or whatever. The top half of the box is just air. By taking the food out of the packaging and putting it into an appropriately sized TW container, I save a few inches of space on every item in my pantry. Also, it keeps food fresher longer. Especially in the summer here(or in warm, humid climates)crackers go stale in a couple hours after opening the package. By keeping them in airtight containers, they stay fresh and crispy for weeks. Also, they keep critters out. Bugs are as attracted to the glue and packaging as they are the food. You won't have to worry about ants, assorted bugs, or heaven forbid you have Suburban Correspondent's on-going mice saga! You really wouldn't want to find mouse droppings in your cocoa krispies.
Wow! Can you tell I used to sell this stuff?


Do you find girls better behaved than boys are? - Carissa
ROFL!!!!!!!!! I find this question hilarious. In fact, I have a section in my book on this very topic!

What a neat birthday. Just curious, is Joe just naturally becoming more thoughtful and creative or do you think the pressure of knowing the world will learn about it on your blog has helped him to delve deeper into his creative and thoughtful self? :) - Sherry
Bingo! ;)

Does the editing irritate you, or do you enjoy making changes to your writing? As a writer, it drives me crazy to have someone tell me to fix something or change my work, so I don't think I could ever do a book. - Raising Country Kids
I don't like being told what to write, so I don't think I could ever write for a newspaper or magazine, but my book is a different matter. I kinda like making changes to my book. Of course, I love my editor and she's really nice about making suggestions so that probably has something to do with it. And I'm not just saying this because I know she reads my blog. Really. :D

Btw, I graduated from Fremd. I am really interested in seeing the video of you from Writer's Week. I had no idea you'd be there otherwise I would have come to see you. I live 5 min away. ;) Anyway, I cant wait to see the video! - Amanda
I still can't figure out how to get it from my sister's video camera to my computer. Sorry. :(

Am I the only one who thought...omg...what if he (or you) had accidentally let go [of the balloons with the earrings]?!? - Anonymous
LOL! Nope, Joe thought the same thing as he was holding them outside!

So ... how did he get the box into the balloon? - Elisabeth
Umm, he put the box in the part of the balloon that opens.

Can you please tell me how to see your older posts??? - JV
Look along the right column and, under the title "Old Stuff", go ahead and click whatever month you'd like to read.

Please tell me you are not that calm during tantrums... - Meredith
I think the word is "numb", not "calm".

Well now I am in official grandma worry mode. My grandson turned 2 right after Brooklyn did and he doesn't talk in sentences like she does. - Megryansmom
Don't worry about it. Brooklyn's a little ahead of most 2 year olds, I think. she says full sentences really clearly, but not all of my kids were early talkers. In fact, Lexi didn't speak English until she was three. She spoke "Lexinese" and had 3 years of speech therapy because of it. They all develop in different areas at their own speed.

If that is the height of her terrible twos, wow you are lucky. Did the other 5 have the "terrible twos"? - Mabunny
I'm pretty sure Savannah, Lexi, and Jackson never threw fits. They were very easy going babies. Clay never went through "terrible twos". If I told him "No, don't smear yogurt on the TV", he didn't throw himself down on the floor and scream and cry. Oh no. He'd simply look at me as if to say, "What-ever", and then he moved on to bigger and better things, like throwing Matchbox cars into the toilet. If I'm remembering correctly, Austin was the biggest tantrum thrower of them all. And Brooklyn is my only whiner.

Hi Dawn, I was wondering how potty training goes at your house? Did the girls catch on better then the boys? - anonymous
Ah, the joys of potty training!

Oh, and a question for you, Dawn. I have to make a decision about whether or not to send my son to kindergarten next year (he misses the cutoff by just a bit but academically is doing what he needs to do in kindergarten). Did you have any kids at/near/past the cutoff date for kindergarten? If so, what were your rationales for sending/not sending and how did they work out? I so don't want to do the wrong thing for my kid (granted, what parent DOES?). - Michelle
First of all, I don't think there is any way to ensure you don't do the wrong thing for your kid. No matter how much we agonize over it, we're bound to make mistakes. That's the bad news. The good news is that it probably won't matter in the long run anyway.
Jackson just made the cut-off for kindergarten here. After talking with many parents and teachers, I opted to hold him back a year. I couldn't find a single person who said, "I wish I had sent him!" I did, however, find numerous people who said, "Holding him back was the best thing I ever did," or "I wish I'd held him back." I personally went with that. Plus, although Jackson was/is a smart kid, I wasn't sure he was ready emotionally/behaviorally for kindergarten.


Also growing up in the South has made me appreciate things that DO NOT drawl. I love your accent! - Cayla
I don't have an accent, silly!

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

The West
The Inland North
Boston
North Central
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz


Thanks for the quiz, Irishmama!

Hey Dawn! Two things...how do you keep your kids socks separated and sorted properly? - Lauren
They just don't wear socks.

Here's a SSO question: how do you color Easter eggs at your house? With just my 4-yr-old, and 1-yr-old trying to help too much, it was stressful. Do you end up with six dozen colored eggs? - Amy
Yep! I boil 10 or so eggs per kid, so they each have several to decorate. And yes, we usually end up throwing a few out.

Anywho, maybe this'll get me a SSO question (yeah, because you KNOW it's already a contest). If you were to have another kid (and no sarcastic comment from you please :P it's hypothetical), and most likely a boy, can you think of a city you'd like to use as a name? - Sara
I'm confused and don't know how to answer since you told me it can't be sarcastic! Actually, we liked the names Dallas, Houston, and Branson for a boy. And we liked Charlotte and Abilene for a girl.

Dawn, how do you deal with "real" tantrums?Do you leave them to it (providing they are in a safe place)? Or do you try to talk to/rationalise with them? - Kia
LOL! "Rationalizing with a child" is an oxymoron.

Question for you. You have comment moderation enabled... does moderating take a lot of time and do you have to delete very many comments each week? - Sherry
Nah, it doesn't take me long to read the comments and no, for the most part, I only delete duplicates. For some reason, there are always a couple people who leave 2-4 identical comments.

I just noticed something, and a question occurred to me...does Savannah ever feel left out because she is the only one of your children whose name doesn't end in an "N"? (or the "in," "on," or "yn" sound, which are all very similar)? Or does that make her special when you holler all their names out the back door? And before you ask, yes, I do think too much.Laura
Well, she was fine until she read your comment!
Just kidding. Actually, I seriously thought about naming Brooklyn, Abilene (Abby), for that very reason. Savannah just looked at me like I was stupid when I asked her if it bothered her. I guess not.

You'll probably get quite a few comments with the same question, but what candies can you give the kids while the family is on the diet? Angela
I just give them carrot sticks and tell them that it's candy.

Where do you buy candy without additives? - BoufMom9
I can get several things at the grocery store actually. Sunspire makes Sundrops and they're just like M&Ms. Trader Joe's makes yummy peanut butter cups that have no artificial stuff. You can get stuff online at Squirrel's Nest too. They can have many varieties of Ghirdelli chocolate as well.

I'm not sure if you've really posted about it before but if not, can you post a little more about this diet you have your kids on? :) - Domestic Spaz
Surely. I'm doing the Feingold diet with them. I started it primarily for Jackson to help with his ADHD, but it's benefiting Clay (and probably all of us) too. I've found that it works for us if we follow it to a T. It's good because it's nothing too weird or restrictive. It's simply taking out artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and such. However, there are drawbacks too. It's very difficult to eat out. Cooking is more time consuming, it's more expensive to buy whole natural foods, and (in our case anyway) if the kids slip up and have one little thing with artificial junk in it, they totally spaz out. Still, in my opinion, it doesn't hurt to try it out. Eating healthier can only help, right?

Take care and hope you had a great weekend. Hope Joe and the kids come back with all limbs in tact. - Mabunny
Funny you should say this. All their limbs were intact, but Austin and Savannah have the worst sunburn I've ever seen. Their poor faces were so swollen this morning, they could hardly open their eyes. :(

26 comments:

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

My two cents on the boy/girl behavior thing is that boys are harder up front, but girls are harder as teenagers. And we're talking about degrees of hard here; nobody is "easy."

April said...

I usually do not comment since you have so many but, mmmm Trader Joe's peanut butter cups! My favorite!

Anonymous said...

Very interesting Sunday Sound Out!

I really liked your advice about waiting to enroll in kindergarten. I worked in an elementary school before staying home with my son and agree that many parents usually wished they had waited a year.

Also, I'm a speech-language pathologist, so I wanted to tell Megryansmom that if you ever have concerns about your child's/grandchild's speech, call your local school district and request a free speech/language evaluation for them.

And speaking of the diamond earrings in the balloon flying off... Anyone else hear about the guy who was going to propose and the balloon with his $12,000 engagement ring flew out of his hand, never to be found? Holy smokes!

Anonymous said...

Hi Dawn!
This is my first time posting, but I read your blog everyday. I live in Las Vegas and every Sunday when I read your blog, I think that I need to send in a postcard, but I always forget. In case I never do I just wanted to tell your son that we have the same name, although mine is spelt with a y (Austyn). Have you guys ever met another Austin/Austyn?

Anonymous said...

About the "how do you sort socks" question . . . I use Sock Locks (www.sock-locks.com). I don't know what I would do without them. They save me HOURS each month because I no longer have to sort socks!

rachel
langanland.blogspot.com

Kikilia said...

Maybe you've already answered this- but why did you name all of your kids after U.S. cities?

Just curious.

Queen Elaine said...

HA! I thought of your balloon story when I read this

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL1490261220080314

Nat said...

Check this out!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080314/od_nm/engagement_dc

Anonymous said...

Speaking of balloons getting away:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080314/od_nm/engagement_dc%3B_ylt%3DAmT2RDZkvRLnNAwZ2HMhqqSs0NUE

Anonymous said...

I'd never noticed the "on" (and "in" and "yn") thing at the ends of your kids' names. Kind of neat, though, since I realized after my third child that I was doing the same thing - Jayson, Dustin, and Braeden. Now I need to have two or three more kids so I can finish out the vowel thing. I have "on," "in," and "en"... now I need an "an," an "un," and maybe a "yn" (cuz of that darned 'sometimes y' thing). I'm thinking Krystan (after my sister who passed away in a car accident in 2000) if I ever have a daughter, but I've already run out of boy's names...

larene said...

I was reading in our local paper today that Chicago colors their river green to celebrate St. Patricks Day.
How do they do that?
That would save you from having to color your fish for dinner with koolaid, just go fishing.

debi9kids said...

Thanks for answering about the additive free candy. Unfortunately, no Trader Joes here in S. NJ. UGH! But, I will try that store you listed.
We cut out giving the family any foods with high fructose corn syrup and that has had a big impact on my son who has ADHD also. (but we've been doing everything homemade. Lots of fun when you have this many kids!)

Anonymous said...

Question for next Sunday (or sooner, if you get a chance): I teach high school English, and I was wondering if I could use your original eBay Pokemon story as an example for my freshman Autobiographical Event unit (i.e. how to write a real story in a way that makes the reader actually want to continue reading instead of hitting herself in the head with a hammer). I know someone asked you way back at the beginning of the school year about using that story in a classroom, but I didn't want to be presumptuous that permission for her meant permission for me. Thanks in advance for your consideration!

Laura

Mystii said...

Hey Dawn, I hadn't given much thought to the diet you have your kids on until I read about Clay eating Easter candy. Then a few things just flew into my head. Have you heard of Vita-Mix? It's a blender but more than just a blender. It's a way to get plenty of fruits, vegetables and natural foods into your diet quickly and tastefully. Last weekend I made a chicken potato soup (with onions, garlic and a few spices) in about 5 minutes. The chicken was leftover from a previous meal and I microwaved the potatoes to get them softened. It was an incredible soup and so very easy to make. Absolutely no additives at all. I do the same each more when I make breakfast smoothies. A handful of grapes, about 6 fresh strawberries, and apple sliced in half, orange (with just the orange skin peeled off but the white left on) slice in half, a banana, some frozen pineapple slices (sliced myself LOL), frozen cantaloupe slices, and either a 1/2 cup of low-fat milk or low-fat yogurt. Sometimes I'll add just a bit of honey if it needs sweetening. It's a wonderful meal in a glass, no additives at all. If you're interested in taking a look at what you can do with this wonderful kitchen appliance, take a look at www.vitamix.com (no, I don't work for them either LOL. I just LOVE what the addition of a Vita-Mix to my kitchen has done to my family's diet!)

Maybe when I'm not so wordy, I'll come back and tell you about my frappacino drink that has three servings of vegetables in it (and no one can tell there are any LOL!)

((hugs)) and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Mystii said...

Oh and something else - do you take your kids to see the Chicago river once it's been dyed green? That was a sight I'll never forget!

AND I VOTED FOR YOU!! (all four categories)

Michelle said...

Speaking of jewelry in balloons....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080314/od_nm/engagement_dc;_ylt=Au2c0dnbBCgQDhNdXno3vCEDW7oF

Anonymous said...

Here's a question for the next SSO:

What kind of things did YOU do as a kid? When I read about the crazy things yours come up with, I have to wonder where they got it from.

Molly said...

SSO question...

Is your book available for presale yet?

If not, when will it be avaiable?

Thanks!

Michelle said...

OMG, Mysti -- the Vitamix! I know of only one other person who "gets" the Vitamix, and he and I are threatening to tour the country doing demos. Needless to say, neither of us are allowed near the Vitamix people. It really is as great as she says!

Dawn, I hope you know how good you have it with three of your six being "easy" babies/kids. Neither of mine is really easy, although Mister Man is definitely easier than Little Miss. If she'd been the firstborn, she may have been the only! You definitely have more patience than I do, and I'm constantly impressed by it!

Michelle
www.honestandtruly.blogspot.com

mommeeof10 said...

Matching socks is easy! Buy each size of socks in unusual colors. My big girls have pastel and bright colors, the school aged boys have harry potter socks, my 5 yr old has starwars socks and the 2little ones have whatever. Hubby owns the only mens dress socks in the house. I pull the clean socks out of the laundry when I sort it, throw the socks in the basket for the owner and have them match their own. I only match hubbies, mine and the little kids.

Kit said...

I took the accent quiz, and supposedly I have a "midland" accent too- but when I travel anywhere outside of the South, people tell me I have a Southern accent! It's just more neutral than a true drawl.

Good advice about kindegarten, I think.

It's funny, but without meaning to my husband and I ended up naming all our three boys with names ending in "n", too. There's Simon, Griffin and Julian. It was unintentional, but it does sound nice.

Wow, Brooklyn's fussing is SO much nicer than my 2-yr old's tantrums! Today was an adventure; more than once I counted to ten while staring at the ceiling and praying, "Lord, have MERCY on me!" He is a terror, yet he is also the sweetest of my 2 preschoolers! Funny how that happens.

Lisa @ Crazy Adventures in Parenting said...

I have 5 children and we're a Feingold family as well! I'm so happy to find another mom to many:) Please to make your acquaintance!

Anonymous said...

I will try to send y'all a card from Tupelo, MS! We are the birthplace of Elvis, so I know I can find a cool Elvis post card for ya! :)

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, but that sock thing?! I see that as something right up your alley (detect any sarcasm here?)

I don't mean anything mean against the people who use them, but I would love to see you explaining to your kids about how they have to put their socks (that they don't wear!) into a little holder, how long before all the holders disappear, and best of all, what other creative uses your children could come up with for them.

My kids' socks have different color 'Hanes' writing on the bottoms.

Thanks for the laughs.

Anonymous said...

I saw a comment about this somewhere in there, and I have a question about it. How the HECK do you get an 11 yr old, almost 12, to pee in the toilet bowl. Not on it, not in front of it, not all the way around it (don't ask me about that one, I honestly don't know) but in the bowl. One of my hugest pet peeves, and I can't find a way to break him of it. I make him clean the bathroom every week, but that doesn't help either :).

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting that "American Accent" quiz. It was completely accurate for me. I was expecting a "regional" answer, like your "Midland" result, and was surprised that it correctly chose the city of Philadelphia. I am going to pass that quiz on to my friends. Thanks again.

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