100,000 Playspaces in 100 days for an amazing cause!!!

KaBOOM!, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding and creating play spaces within walking distance for every child, has embarked on a nationwide mission to help communities build playspaces. This proves critical for those many children living in neighborhoods without playgrounds or playspaces, or unable to use existing ones because of rundown conditions or dangerous neighborhoods.

For anyone who has children or even knows children, knows how important it is to have safe, fun, and exciting playspaces for them. Having a place to run around and just be a kid is how kids not only get exercise and release some of their energy, but it is how they learn a lot as well. I remember as a kid heading down to the park where I learned to play baseball and basketball, meet other kids, go roller skating and so many other things. It also gave me a chance to play and be safe while laughing and enjoying myself. I want the same for my son, as I know you all do.

KaBOOM! believes that play has a purpose and unstructured play in particular helps make children happier, fitter, smarter, more socially adept and creative. So how can we help make this a reality for kids in less fortunate neighborhoods?

Mom Central has teamed up with KaBOOM! to help map online 100,000 playspaces in 100 days. You can enter your own Playspace here at MOM CENTRAL’s KaBOOM! PAGE WHERE YOU CAN ADD YOUR OWN PLAYSPACE!!

Here’s what counts as a playspace: a playground, field, a skate park, roller hockey rink, lake, dog park, community center, basketball court or ice rink – any place where kids can engage in unstructured play for free or a nominal fee. A playspace listing on KaBOOM! consists of an address or cross street and a description, one photo and one rating.

It is so easy to do… in fact, in just a few minutes I entered one of the many playspaces I know.. and KaBOOM! makes it even easier because they have a bulk uploader for those like me who have a ton of different playspaces available to enter!

For every play space entered into the KaBOOM! database on behalf of the Mom Central team, $1 will be donated to Jumpstart, a non-profit that brings at-risk preschool children and caring adults together to improve literacy. It’s something to feel doubly good about!

Not to mention, we all stand to benefit as all the playspaces with their photos and ratings will be available to us as we go on road trips to new places where we need to get out and let the kids run around. It also helps in our own areas to find places we may not have heard about yet! Whether you are looking for places to play while at Grandma’s house, or you are searching for new areas in your own backyard, this is an excellent way for us all to find some of the best playspaces in the country!!!

Truly, if you have just a few minutes to spare, and a need to not only raise money but to make sure that everyone knows what a great playspace you have in your area, please go To MOM CENTRAL’s KaBOOM! PAGE AND ADD YOUR OWN PLAYSPACE!!

Made it through Day 1 without killing anyone, although I can’t say that it didn’t cross my mind a few times. It is hard… don’t let anyone tell you differently! But I made it… so that is what counts. So far I think day 2 sucks even more if that is even possible. I can totally understand why people give up – I can’t tell you how many times I had keys in my hand ready to go to the store to get a pack of cigarettes… it was sheer willpower that stopped me each time. Let’s just hope I can get through another day because I’m pretty damn sick and tired of it already. The withdrawal symptoms are insane – it’s like PMS times a million. Crying, jitters, the overwhelming feeling of anger, and the feeling that you have to do something but you don’t know what. This is with plenty of nicorette lozenges mind you… I can’t imagine going cold turkey. Seriously. I’m going to try to keep busy by heading over to my son’s school and having lunch with him and then doing some window shopping or something. Just something to break up the routine.

Ugh. I need serious willpower today.

Now that I have finally upgraded to the new blogger – yeah, about time right! Well, quite frankly I was just not willing to change my template, but I finally did. Ok, I didn’t but Zoe at Chic and Sassy Designs had this great template for Christmas that she is giving away for free by the way which propelled me into a new realm of Blogger. Now I have my labels and everything! She even updated my previous fall template which I’m going to use after we’re done with Christmas… now, if she can only update my beach theme I would love her forever – but I won’t bother her with that quite yet :-). But really, even if she doesn’t read this I love her anyhow – she has been most kind to me and my love of her templates!

Anyhow, now that I can actually use labels I’m going to start a whole new subject for my blog. I won’t use it everyday or even every week, but eventually I’m going to compile it all into a book that I will write for my son. It’s called Chats with Matt. Now, of course that isn’t the name, but for now, it is the name until I figure out another one. So, here is my first “official” post titled Chats With Matt.

Matt – “Where does Santa live?”
Me – “He lives in a place called the North Pole”
Matt – “Is that in Rhode Island?”
Me – “No honey, that is somewhere really cold. I think it is in Antarctica”
Matt – “Where is that?”
Me – “It is another continent. We have 7 continents, we live in North America.”
Matt – “Can we go to ‘Antica’?”
Me – “No, it is way too cold there, no one can live there but Santa.”
Matt – “How does he go outside then if it is too cold?”
Me – “Well, he wears his big coat, hat and gloves. And he only goes out when he has to leave to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls.”
Matt – (Wearing a very shocked expression) “But how can he get out? Won’t he freeze? How can he deliver presents when it is too cold? Mommy, I don’t want Santa to be cold.” (Insert crying here)
Me – “No honey, it’s only cold for other people, not for Santa. He won’t freeze – he only leaves one day.”
Matt – “He brings all the presents in ONE day?”
Me – “I think Spongebob is on, do you want to watch tv?”

Someone needs to explain to me what to say to this child. I’m not in the habit of lying which is generally what I’m doing. Granted, I know it is all for the greater good, because lets face it, I think all children should believe in the “magic” of Santa. But seriously, I am not good at this at all! I had the kid thinking Santa would freeze to death, lol.

Well, it looks like I’m back :-) Aren’t you the lucky ones? Just teasing – but I know deep down you missed me (okay, I’m HOPING you missed me, lol). I got back late last night so I still have lots of emails to read, and tons of blogs to visit, so I’ll be trying to get to all of that today.

So, I know you are all dying to hear about my trip, and it was good – all up till about Sunday. It was going fine – they usual really. Let me recap the highlights shall I?

Day 1 – Arrive very late and went to bed on a wooden slab my mother-in-law calls a bed. I swear to god I thought I had broken my back every single day that I woke up. Picture this – I’m excited to jump into bed only to jump and feel like every bone in my back has broken into tiny pieces. The bed didn’t move at all – the mattress was hard as a rock.

Day 2 – Played endless amounts of games with my son and his grandma. Got everything ready for Thanksgiving. I did get to go out to my favorite bar McCormack’s – played pool and drank to my hearts content all while visiting the same bar flies that have been sitting on their stools since I started going there 6 years ago. I had a great time!

Day 3 – Ate – LOTS! Thanksgiving was great as always, lots of people, and lots of noise.

Day 4 – Went to my favorite casino only to find out it had gone through a huge renovation and didn’t have any of my favorite games :( I lost a good chunk of money so I went home and played cards with the family and extended family that came over.

Day 5 – Saturday was boring boring boring, so I napped a lot and ate lots of leftovers.

Day 6 – This is the day that brought the entire vacation to an end. My mother-in-law got rushed to the hospital for pneumonia which she didn’t know she had. She couldn’t breathe and was very dizzy. She is almost 70 years old so we were quite concerned about her. I didn’t get to watch my Patriots game because of everything that was going on, but I heard they won which made me feel a little better :)

Day 7 – visited her in the hospital and made sure she had everything she needed. She’ll be in there till at least this Friday if not longer. I was going to leave this day but they needed me to stay because there was no one to take care of everything at home.

Day 8 – I left and arrived home late last night.

Gosh – that itinerary just sounds so boring doesn’t it?! I guess my MIL going into the hospital brought down any fun we had previously had on vacation. You sort of forget all the great people you saw, or the restaurants I ate at that are my absolute favorites, and everything else I did, because we were so worried about her. I didn’t want to leave with her still in the hospital, but I really didn’t have a choice. She needs peace and quiet when she comes home, and I needed to sleep in a bed that wasn’t going to make me go numb in the middle of the night. So, that about does it – yeah, I know, I promise tomorrow I’ll be a little more upbeat and tell you some of the good stuff about the trip! And I have pictures :-)

Let’s see, I arrived at 12:30am and I went straight to bed after the hi’s and hello’s and then up again at 9:30am and at the library by 11:00am. That has to be some sort of record for Internet withdrawal right? Yeah, I was crazed to check my mail this morning – I don’t even know why! But anyhow, the ride although very long, was great. Matthew was the perfect child that any parent would want. He never complained, never had a breakdown, never even had to pee unless I was stopping. I’m so lucky because we ran into a lot of traffic! All total it took us about 15 1/2 hours with a stop for lunch and bathroom breaks.

I stopped in New York to see my biological son Corey. What a handsome boy he has turned into. He is 13 now, and shaving! He is thin and works out, and looks great. He even added me to Facebook! So anyone who is on my friends list on Facebook can check him out – he is gorgeous! And that is totally not a mom being proud kind of thing, lol. He had gotten braces 2 days ago so he was complaining about that (as all kids do!) but he was so great. He seemed comfortable with me which I always worry about, but all in all it went wonderfully. I only wish I had more time to spend with him since I rarely get to see him. Often that is my fault, but living in North Carolina and him in New York, we just don’t get the chance very often. So, it was fabulous to see him!

I’m already freezing my ass off here! Holy shit, I woke up and went outside for a cigarette and I just about turned around to walk back inside!! Crazy how acclimated I already am to North Carolina weather!

I guess I’m excited to be here – at least all these exclamation points would say that I’m in – what is with that??!!

Anyhow – I’ll be back Friday to say hi – I thought I could hold old longer, but let’s face it…

I am EC and i’m addicted to the computer!

Well, I’m almost finished packing for tomorrow. I’m heading out early early tomorrow morning to drive my ass 14 hours to Rhode Island :-) So, I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!! I wish I had thought about this earlier – I would have had guest posters but alas, my brain hasn’t been working while I get ready to go.

My birthday is on Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – so I won’t even be able to properly celebrate it with my friends which totally bums me out. But I will be able to pop into my local bar – McCormack’s – which I LOVE. And I’ll get to see my friend Rob which is way cool. But still I’m a little bummed to be away from home I guess. Which is funny because that used to be my home, but not so much anymore. Anyhow – I’m rambling when I should be packing, cleaning, getting everything ready.

So I’ll try and stop by a library while I’m there to say hi to everyone, because goodness knows I’ll probably be bored out of my mind, lol. After about 2 days I get antsy :-)

So, everyone have a great Thanksgiving! Eat some turkey and stuffing for me :-)

If there is one thing that I need more than anything else in the entire world, it is a reliable babysitter! I have basically never had to “hire” anyone because I’ve always had my mom around or while we were in Rhode Island, we had my in-laws which were great about babysitting. Now though my mom has been working 60+ hours and honestly can’t find the energy to watch my very active 4 year old. I haven’t even asked because our Friday conversations always start out with “Wait to you hear about my week” LOL – yeah if that isn’t a way to say she can’t wait him I don’t know what is. I mean seriously, if I can’t handle him after a day – how can I expect her to, LOL.

So, I’ve been on a mad search for a babysitter – just someone that I can call so that I can go out and not worry about driving somewhere the next morning to pick him up. I’ve never had a babysitter that actually came to my house – I always have to get up at some ungodly hour of like 9am the next morning :-) Hey – you know I’m not a morning person!! So, I tried Craigslist, but seriously people, who are these girls. I read this one ad – will work 4 u – what is that? I mean you do have to “better ones” but really, it could be some girl that is posing as a babysitter and when she shows up I leave and they steal my child. Granted, that could happen anywhere, but for some reason Craigslist allows the “crazies” to come out a little more.

So, I’ve decided to go with a professional service. I actually found one too which I’m really excited about. It’s called Care.com. I looked up my zip code and there are a ton of babysitters!! Wooohooo! That way I can mix and match, LOL. I don’t know why, but I feel like it is a little safer because you have to “join” and so forth. Does that sounds strange? LOL – I just want to know I’m safe and this definitely has the look of being safer. It would have been nice to find this 3 years ago when I moved here, LOL. But so I’m going to try it out. It’s cool because they check the days they are available so if I want to go shopping for Christmas I can hire one girl, and a different girl for evenings. I don’t know, it just seems like something I would want. I’m nervous!! Does anyone else feel this way about hiring babysitters? Wait, I’m sure you do – but how do you get over that? I guess this is as good of a start as any! So, I contacted a few girls and hopefully it’ll work out. I’m just excited that I found a place like Care.com – I honestly did not know that they existed!

OH I forgot to tell you, that for anyone who is interested there is a free 3 month subscription – even better! You can find it HERE