Browsing all posts in March, 2009.

Easter Outfits for Little Ones

Easter Sunday/season has got to be the time when a BirminghamMom gets to see all her childhood hours spent playing with baby dolls ”spring” to life. If you were the type who loved sweet dresses, ribbons, and bonnets, this is your moment. You get to dress your little ones up in the quintessential southern uniforms of john-johns and knee socks for boys or [...]

No Shame in the Thrifty Game

When it comes to the price/value continuum, not all moms think alike.
An old bunco buddy confessed years ago that her family didn’t eat leftovers since she considered them “used food.”
“Even spaghetti casserole? Even leftover pizza?” I had to ask.
“You name it, we only eat it once,” she said. For this reason she had mastered the art of [...]

Make Your Own Baby Food for One-Third the Cost of Store Bought

Every new mom imagines getting her young child off to a healthy start by providing the best possible diet and encouraging a life-long love of vegetables. Many of us begin with the ambition of eating better ourselves and even making our own baby food so we know exactly what he or she is eating (until we get behind schedule and [...]

Counseling Resources for Women and Children

Last Friday I was loading purchases into my trunk at Target when a woman with a stroller and two young children approached me. “We’ve been staying at homeless shelters the last few days,” she said sweetly, “and I’m trying to sell this jewelry I’ve made to earn some money.” She held out a small box full of earrings and [...]

Summer Camp Schedule Planner/Tracker

It’s time to be making plans for what the kids will do during the summer. If you’re cobbling together a summer schedule to include half-day camps, sports or special interests, and overnight camps (including grandma’s house), it can be a challenge just to keep up with who is supposed to be where.
Super organized BirminghamMom Jeanne has two boys who [...]

Remonogram Clothing for Consignment and Hand-Me-Downs

Southerners love monograms, and children’s clothes are particularly good candidates for initials and names in all sorts of fonts. You may have thought customizing an outfit through monograms would preclude your ever handing it down to another child or selling it through consignment, but this isn’t so.
1. The first option is to remove the stitches alltogether. [...]

Hope for Finding Lost Loveys

Inside most kids’ diaper bags or atop most kids’ beds is the one thing that the child has chosen as his attachment object or “lovey”, the single item between him and an all-out, come-apart fit. Unlike most any other precious object you may treasure, this one is rarest of all because it is almost impossible to replace. The touch and even the smell may be [...]

Spring Break Tacky Tourist Tour

Last year when gas prices were narrowing all our Spring Break travels, BirminghamMom Lisa decided to embark on a tour of an otherwise unlikely destination: Alabama. With three kids (ages 9,7, and 5) out of school, her husband worked while Lisa took the week off to shuttle her brood to a different spot almost every day, never requiring a hotel stay.
Every [...]

Spring Style Tips for BirminghamMoms

A Saturday spent shuttling kids from place to place, waiting through dance class or ball practice, and running errands all the way home isn’t glamorous stuff. Yet even if it is essential to be comfortable for a full range of activities, none of us wants to cross the line into frumpy. (Isn’t there some cosmic law that dictates you will run into [...]

“We” Have a Pronoun Problem

“We need to be saving money.”
“We should eat at home instead of going out.”
“Why do we need a cleaning service?”
Heard any of these in your household lately? Of course we agree that we need to be particular with our spending, especially nowadays. But let’s dig a little deeper. Who is the “we” in your house? Is anyone other than you schlepping that cart up and [...]