Christina, Author at A Mommy Story

Mar 7, 2013

Columbus: Are You Ready To HOOFit in 2013? (Giveaway!)

Not that you can tell from today’s weather (hello, SNOW!), but Spring is nearly here! While I love the snow, I’m looking forward to warmer temperatures and being able to go outside for walks and runs again.

I’ve been using my treadmill for most of this winter, and I’m ready to get out for some fresh air. I did a LOT of walking at Disney and really appreciated the change of walking for the purpose of seeing things, instead of staring at my wall as I walked in the same place.

I recently found out that OhioHealth is once again partnering with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium for another series of HOOFit walks this year. I joined in on some of them last year, and I can tell you it’s a creative idea to get in some exercise in a fun, family-friendly way.

And meet some wild new friends.

This is how it works: come to the Columbus Zoo on any of the HOOFit walk days at the start time and join in on a guided walk through one area of the zoo with a zoo guide and an OhioHealth physician leading a discussion on a specific health topic. You can ask questions of the physician, or just enjoy the walk and the health facts and tips as you stroll among the animals.

It may sound like a strange mix, discussing animals and our health, but from my experience last year it works well. Going to the zoo with little kids is something many of us already do, right? So we might as well learn a little more about how to keep our families healthy while we’re there. It’s a multi-tasking win.

Here’s the schedule for this year’s HOOFit walks:

March 14 – Wellness and Prevention
April 25 – Stroke Prevention
May 23 – Cancer Prevention
June 20 – Sports Medicine
July 25 – Spine Health (Neuroscience and Orthopedics)
August 29 – Women’s Heart and Vascular Health
September 26 – Cold weather wellness

There’s a topic for nearly everyone in that list. All walks except for the March and September walks will begin at 9:30am. The March and September walks will start at 10:30am. There’s no requirement to RSVP for the walk, but it’s still helpful for them to get an attendance estimate by joining the event on their Facebook page.

HOOFit is totally free with your paid Columbus Zoo admission. It’s packed full of information and usually a decent amount of fun, too. Kids are welcome, strollers are welcome…all ages and skill levels can appreciate this event. (If you’re expecting a power walk, however, you might be disappointed.)

Want to join in on a HOOFit event? I’ve got a four pack of Columbus Zoo single-day admission tickets to give away to one reader. Obviously you need to be in the Columbus area or planning to travel here to enter. (I swear I’ll have giveaways for non-Ohio folks soon!)

To enter: just leave a comment below telling me your favorite animal to see at the zoo. Easy-peasy. Be sure to leave a way for me to contact you if you’re the winner. One entry per person.

Giveaway is open until Monday, March 11 at noon. At that point I’ll select a winner at random and email you with details on getting your tickets.

Good luck, and I hope to see some of you out at the zoo this year!

Full disclosure: I received no compensation for this giveaway, as my family has a Columbus Zoo membership. I just think it’s a fun way to get in some exercise and promote healthy living.

Filed Under: giveaways, healthy living, local fun ·

Mar 5, 2013

The Most Magical Place on Earth

By Christina ·

I was somewhat quiet in the social media world last week, and with good reason. After months of planning, saving and waiting, we packed up the kids and drove to Florida so our daughters could have their first experience at Walt Disney World.

It was the first time we’ve been on a week-long vacation as a family, and the first full week of vacation I’ve had in nine years. Aaron and I had spent a day of our honeymoon at the Magic Kingdom, then for our one year anniversary we spent a week at the Disney World Resorts. The second trip wasn’t quite as much fun as we expected because I was newly pregnant with Cordy at the time, and spent the entire trip with morning sickness (24/7 sickness, really). I was unable to eat anything and generally had no energy to do much.

Back then we had dreamed of coming back to Disney for our 10th anniversary, and bringing any children we had with us. So last year, around our 9th anniversary, we discussed it and decided we’d try to make it a reality for 2013. Our anniversary is in March, but the pitfalls of getting married during spring break is that you can’t travel anywhere warm for anniversary trips without crowds and higher vacation fees. But the end of February was close enough.

This time we stayed at Port Orleans – Riverside in one of their new Royal rooms.

This was the building our room was in.

The rooms are decorated as if Princess Tiana had made the room up for the other Disney Princesses, including a note on the table welcoming her royal friends to stay with her. There are hidden elements of all of the princesses in the room, from Cinderella’s mice and Aurora’s three fairies in the border along the top of the walls, to Ariel’s fork and pipe (dinglehopper & snarfblat) in the shower curtain design, and even the sink faucets looked like the genie’s lamp from Aladdin.

The cool part was the hidden surprise in the bed headboards. Pressing a button gave us a magical fireworks lightshow in the headboard – it’s no surprise that the kids wanted to press the button several times every day.

Sleeping under the LED fireworks.

We visited all four parks while we were there, with two days spent in Magic Kingdom. Seeing the dropped-jaw looks of amazement from our daughters as they saw Cinderella’s Castle for the first time and met their first characters made tears come to my eyes. To them, this was a dream come true.

The castle lights up in different colors at night.

The rides were also a hit for all of us. Thanks to a special card we got for Cordy (more on that in the next post), it was possible to ride every ride we wanted to without Cordy having an anxiety attack from standing in a long, tightly-packed line.

There were a few rides Cordy refused to ride, and a few that we coaxed her onto and then she refused to ride again. Cordy’s experience of Disney World was mostly what we expected it to be: she didn’t want to leave home, then she was anxious about every new experience once we were there and didn’t want to leave the hotel room each day, and then at the end she didn’t want to leave Disney. “I don’t want to…” was most often heard from her during the entire trip, but we expected this.

On the bus to Hollywood Studios – Cordy loved riding the bus and the monorail.

Because of her autism, she’s an awful grump about doing anything new, which means she complains and whines throughout the entire experience, then tells us later that she liked (most of) it. It’s a good thing we have some understanding of how her brain works and know how to compensate, or otherwise we would have felt like this was a horrible trip for her. She did have a few moments where she felt safe with a new experience and really enjoyed herself. And of course we went back to the rides she liked as much as we could so she could really enjoy them the second time, now that she knew what to expect.

Finally! A hat big enough for Cordy’s head!

Mira, on the other hand, threw herself fully into Disney with the force of a five-year-old typhoon. She was determined to see and do it all, and even if her feet hurt she wouldn’t complain for fear of leaving the park early. She had an agenda of what she wanted to accomplish, including rides she wanted to go on and characters she wanted to meet. Other than riding Space Mountain (which we convinced her was probably too intense for her) she checked off everything on her list and then some. As we rode the bus back to the resort each night, she usually leaned against me and fell asleep fast.

Mira LOVED meeting Stitch. They’re two of a kind.

Whenever anyone asked her what her favorite part of Disney was so far, she always replied, “Everything!!” And I’m fairly certain she meant it, two exclamation points included. She loved everything about Disney World. Even if she did figure out that the characters were people in costumes. When we met Cinderella at the Magic Kingdom on Thursday, I joked that we’d see her in less than an hour in her castle for dinner. Mira gave me the “are you serious?” look and said, “Or maybe it’ll just be another Cinderella.”

During the fireworks, Tinkerbell flew out of the top of the castle directly over us. I pointed to her and said to the kids, “Look! Tink is flying past us!” and Mira then responded, “I think she’s really using a zipline.” Despite her clever mind, Mira was still willing to put aside her rational thoughts to fully enjoy each character meeting, though.

I have no idea what secrets they were sharing.

As for Aaron and I, it was fun to experience Disney as parents. I went to Disney as a child, and we went together before we had kids, but this was our first trip seeing it through their eyes. It was definitely more exhausting, and we were at the mercy of their wake up times and energy levels, but it was still a fantastic experience.

My mom and aunt were also along on the trip (they stayed off-site and spent most of the week seeing other places in Orlando) and they watched the kids for us for two evenings so we could have a nice dinner and spend some time riding rides together without the kids. It was a good balance of time with and without the kids.

We topped off the trip on our last night there with dinner in Cinderella’s Castle with the princesses. What better way to end our vacation than by seeing the inside of the castle and visiting with the princesses one last time? I had my own surprise for everyone, too. In the weeks before our vacation, I had secretly ordered a custom cake to be delivered at dinner that night.

Sorry for the dark photo – it was dark in the room at that point.

It was gluten-free for Aaron, with a design that was reminiscent of our wedding cake and a flavor that matched one of the tiers of our wedding cake. It was so gorgeous no one wanted to cut into it! A tenth anniversary cake in the castle at Disney World – perfect end to the week, no?

The morning that we started for home, there were tears from all of us. No one wanted to leave. Before we had even left our resort, Mira had already started asking when we could come back again. We agreed we didn’t want to wait another ten years to come back, and that maybe we could begin slowly setting money aside for a repeat trip in a few years. (Once we finish paying off this one!)

I know there are many people who are cynical about Disney, but I can’t help getting caught up in the magic. Yes, it’s all designed to get you to spend money, but I never feel cheated in handing it over. It always feels like we got our money’s worth and then some. Disney works very hard at providing a unique experience that goes above and beyond any standard theme park, and for us they were completely successful.

It was a magical vacation.

More to come on what attractions we liked best and recommendations if you’re planning your own trip. I wish Disney had invited me to write about our trip, but this wasn’t sponsored at all, as my Visa card can attest. We really love Disney that much.

Filed Under: family time, love, memories ·

Feb 28, 2013

Recycling Your Old Technology

By Christina ·

In cleaning out the clutter in my bedroom last week, I found a few items that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Buried in a box of cables was my old Handspring Visor, along with the Palm device I used when I was in nursing school.

The reason those once expensive pieces of technology were gathering dust in a box? One of them no longer worked, the other was simply obsolete after I purchased my first iPhone. And to be honest, any handheld device was obsolete to me after the iPhone.

The devices of techie years past.

Those items were once very useful to me, but as technology has advanced, they’ve gone the way of the cassette tape and camcorder. And as much as I love all things tech and geeky, I really do need to learn to let some of them go when they’ve outlived their usefulness.

I’ve had luck in sending some old technology to new homes through garage sales and passing them on to others (my mom inherits my older iPhones), but some devices no longer work or just aren’t even worth making the effort to sell them.

Electronic device trash is (not surprisingly) the fastest growing form of waste on the planet. Throwing away old tech isn’t a smart move, but our city recycling won’t accept electronic devices in our recycling bins. There’s a local shop that recycles old TVs and computers, but you have to pay a fee to dispose of anything. That makes it hard to not clutter up landfills with plastic and computer bits that could be put to better use.

I recently found out about Best Buy’s electronics recycling program, and I’ve already made good use of it. You can bring your old technology to any U.S. Best Buy store where they will safely and responsibly dispose of it for free.

It doesn’t matter if it’s your grandmother’s old 1960’s TV or a new iPhone 5 that your child sent through the washing machine – aside from a few exceptions (that vary by state), they’ll take it all, including computers, audio equipment, TVs, and even fans and vacuum cleaners. Best Buy recycles 387 pounds of electronics per minute – more than any other store in the industry.

My experience was super easy. I took three items (the limit per day in Ohio) to my local Best Buy, asked where to drop them off, and then handed them over to a Best Buy employee.

It turns out that my iPod Nano, which still works well, could be traded in for a Best Buy gift card instead of recycled – bonus money! The Handspring and the camera were not in great shape and so were sent off to be recycled. Any pieces that can be reused for other products will be salvaged, and any hazardous materials in the devices will be properly disposed of. Best of all, I didn’t have to pay a thing to do it.

It feels good to finally have a place to get rid of the old devices adding to the clutter in my house. I had held onto the handheld devices for so long mostly because I didn’t know how to get rid of them without throwing them in the trash. Now that I know where to recycle electronics for free, I’ll be bringing more of my devices to Best Buy.

And if you’re in the market for replacements for your recycled devices, Best Buy also carries a line of Energy Star certified products to help promote energy efficiency, too.

You can find out more about the Best Buy recycling program, and what your state’s Best Buy stores accept, by visiting their website.

Do you recycle your old technology, or do you still have old devices collecting dust in your house, too? Please tell me I’m not alone in having electronic device corpses hidden in closets!

Disclosure: The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

Filed Under: geek paradise, home, reviews, sponsored ·

Feb 19, 2013

Weekends Aren’t As Much Fun As They Used To Be

By Christina ·

I remember loving three-day weekends when I was younger. As a kid, it felt like a nearly endless time of playing, with no schedules to keep, staying up late, and plenty of time to watch cartoons.

Even once I was in the working world, a three-day weekend meant an extra long weekend of fun, relaxation and sleep. Sometimes we’d go on a trip somewhere, but most of the time it was just extra time to be lazy, hang out with friends, and have a TV-watching marathon.

Or take a long afternoon nap, like this bear at the zoo.

I occasionally miss those days.

Now weekends in general are “chore and errand catch-up days” and a three-day weekend is a challenge to get as much accomplished as possible while also fending off children who may say they like weekends, but in reality prefer the structure and routine of the weekdays. I can only be their cruise director for so long before I’m out of ideas. Sadly, “let’s fold and put away the towels” isn’t a game they enjoy all that much.

The past three days involved little extra sleep or fun. There was lots of cleaning to be done that we can never seem to get to during the week. Lots of laundry, too. Haircuts for the kids. And grocery shopping. See all of the FUN we’re having?

Then we put new tires on one of our cars in preparation for our upcoming anniversary trip. Both of our cars need new tires, but only one gets the prize at the moment. (Tires are EXPENSIVE!)

You know that little trick they tell you to check tread depth, where you stick a penny into the tread upside-down, and if all of Abe Lincoln’s head is showing it’s too shallow? You could probably have seen his top hat with our tread, should he have been wearing one. It’s no wonder that the tires had trouble gripping the road, even on clear, dry days.

We know how to live it up on long weekends, yo.

And if all of that wasn’t excitement enough, our Saturday ended with a bang. No really, it was a loud bang as our garage door opener broke it’s hinge and the part that runs along the ceiling came crashing down into our garage as I tried to raise the door. One part shattered, with pieces found everywhere, including wedged into the door hinges.

Even though it was a holiday, garage door repairmen are available on Presidents’ Day. So Monday was spent waiting for the garage to be repaired. $135 later, we have a working garage door again.

At this point I think I’m ready to trade in my adult membership card for a weekend of acting goofy with friends and sleeping until noon.

How was your three-day weekend? (Or regular weekend for those of you outside of the US?)

Filed Under: daily life, family time, growing up, holidays, home ·

Feb 13, 2013

Nightmares Feeding On Mom Anxiety

By Christina ·

Do you ever have those dreams that are so real that you wake up startled, disoriented, and trying to determine if it actually happened or if now, awake in your bed, is the true reality?

Now what about nightmares?

My sleep was disturbingly interrupted by one of those nightmares this morning. This one was worse than many because it didn’t involve any danger to me, but instead to one of my children. And unlike other bad dreams where I can wake and realize any danger was highly unlikely and improbable, this one involved a very real scenario that left me shaken and unable to go back to sleep.

In my nightmare, Mira died. It was a very life-like situation: she wasn’t with us (I can’t remember if she was at school or with family) and she choked on a bit of hot dog. The horrific scene played out where we received the news, and then planned her funeral. I remember sobbing that I’d never hug her again or see that impish smile. I tortured myself with “what if?” – what if she had been with me that day, what if she had only picked a different food or someone had cut up the hot dog better for her, or what if I had never encouraged her to like hot dogs? I remember walking into her room and seeing her favorite stuffed animals on the bed, and I was overcome with grief.

And then I woke up.

Terrifying, right? It took me several minutes to calm my breathing, wipe the tears out of my eyes and realize I could hear Mira arguing with her sister downstairs, perfectly healthy, perfectly alive. My mind was still on fire with the false memories from the dream, trying to push them aside and write them off as fears conjured into a hellish scenario for my brain to process.

The half hour remaining before my alarm went off was useless. I tried to go back to sleep, in the hope that more sleep would erase the lingering images from my mind, but the danger had been laid out for me and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I needed to do to prevent this from becoming a reality. After all, I had just bought hot dogs for Mira at the grocery last week after she asked for them – was this some warning, or just my mind arranging a random collection of thoughts and memories then taken to the extreme end?

I do occasionally worry about Mira choking. The kid is a talker – an excessive talker – and that includes while she’s eating. I’m often reminding her to chew and swallow, then talk. How easy would it be for her to accidentally inhale a piece of food?

And the concept of choking is one I’m personally familiar with. When I was five or six, my babysitter had given me some of the candy orange slices as a treat. (You know, the thick, sugared gummy-jelly wedges?) I was so happy to get them that I inhaled them. Literally.

I ate the first two without any trouble as I looked out the back door, trying to finish them so I could go out to play, but when I popped the third one into my mouth, it accidentally slid too far back and got stuck. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t yell for help. I remember the confusion and then the panic as I tried to cough or swallow to dislodge the candy. My babysitter was two rooms away and I didn’t think I could make it to her.

I walked from the kitchen to the living room, starting to hit myself in the chest, begging my lungs to work as I became light-headed. I remember stumbling over the rug (her rug had tripped me on many better days as well) and landing with my chest on the arm of the couch. And that did it – the candy popped up enough for me to cough it out. My throat burned as I gasped for air.

My experience could have ended far worse, and to this day I still won’t go near orange slices candy. I know Mira has trouble focusing on any single task, so I guess it’s only natural that I’d have a nightmare about her choking.

The hard part now is getting the nightmare out of my mind. As parents, we only have so much control over our children and we can’t guarantee their safety 100% of the time. Letting a child out of your site, even for a moment, is trusting that you’ve surrounded your child with the safest possible world and the best teaching, and that they’ll remember what you’ve taught them.

But there is no absolute safety. There are always risk, accidents you have no control over, and dwelling on all of the what if’s will only zap all of the joy out of being a parent.

When I came downstairs this morning, I sat on the couch next to Mira and she immediately threw her arms around me and said “I love you, mommy.” I pulled her close to me as she nuzzled her face into my neck, and hugged her tight.

That was my restart for the day. Instead of thinking about possible danger, I’m choosing to focus on the great moments I have with my kids. Because if something bad should ever happen to any of us, I want to know that our days were filled with love and happiness.

If anything, the nightmare was a good reminder to notice the little moments of joy in each day.