What's the matter with Kansas?

Hey folks, I'm Jenny, and I'm new here at Midwest Parents. Well, I'm not new to being a parent in the midwest, of course, I've been doing that for the better part of ten years.
Ten years.
OMG you guys I'm about to have a ten year old. Hold Me.

Ahem, sorry. Anyway, Glad to be on board. A little about me:

• I have two sons - age seven and almost TEN. (breathe.)

• I live in Kansas, in suburban Kansas City. Yes, most people do in fact think that Kansas City is in Missouri, and this is true, however we are one of those weird places where the "Greater Kansas City Area" actually spans two states, like 6 counties and umpteen cities. When I was a little girl growing up here, you could call across the state line, from one area code in Kansas to an area code on the Missouri side, without having to dial the area code first. And we had party lines! Remember party lines? You could call into some random number and get on the line with some random kid from some other random part of town and have a chat, a conversation, a talk. It was kind of like, oh I don't know, Twitter: The Analog Version.

• I drive a minivan. It is full of soccer balls, smelly cleats, and half empty water bottles that probably have bacteria growing under the lid. There may be a stray french fry or two under a seat, along with a missing arm to a Iron Man 2 Happy Meal toy. It does not, however, have one of those 3-D stickers on the back that looks like a small soccer ball broke the glass and got lodged there. Those are so five minutes ago. Now everyone seems to have those white outlined people stickers that used to be reserved for Calvin (as in, Calvin & Hobbes) peeing on Jeff Gordon's Nascar number. But I don't have one of those either.

• I do, however, have a license plate that says MAYHEM. I think that's fairly self-explanatory.

• I have a husband. He is busy. Right now, he's in Australia, for work.
  

• I don't mind him going to Australia for work, because every mile he flies across the ocean gets me closer to a free ticket to Maui. Fly Baby, Fly.

• I have a dog, he's a black standard poodle, named Max. He is younger than both my kids, and much more rotten. I'm not sure how that happened, I used to be good at training dogs. Then I had kids, and three years ago instead of having another baby, I got myself a dog.
  

• I do work outside the home, which you can totally tell if you were to ever actually visit my home, except every other Tuesday when a really nice man comes and cleans it for me. Then its nice for about five minutes, or until the school bus comes around the block. If you'd like to come by on one of these Tuesdays, between 3:30pm when the house cleaner is done and 3:45 when the monsters exit the bus, I'd be glad to show you around. Otherwise, just know that its gross, and that I really don't care much. No, you can't eat off my floors. But I don't really think anyone wants to do that anyway, so why keep them clean?

• Anyway, back to my working? I work at our church, I'm in charge of children's and youth ministries. I spent many years on the corporate track, albeit in a flexible environment, and trust me, this is much better.

So that's me, in a nutshell. My regular blog, which I've had for five and a half years, is called We're Not in Kansas Anymore, Toto. Yes, I know, I am actually in Kansas, but I started the blog because we were moving to San Diego, California, as a way to keep my family and friends up on what we were doing out there. Getting a lot of sand in every orifice of our bodies, turns out, is what we were doing out there. And we loved it. But we came home.

And so here we are.

I Thought I Could Live A Lot Of Places. Here, Wasn't One Of Them

When I was younger and more naïve, when I was attending college in the Northeast and considering how I’d make my way in the world, and when I was much more certain about how things ought to be done, I often said this to my friends:  “I could live a lot of places.  I’d live on either coast, or even in Texas.  I just wouldn’t want to live in the middle.  I mean, why would you?”

You can all pause now, and have a nice, hearty laugh at my expense.

Because although I started my grown-up life in Connecticut, moved out to San Francisco and then on up to Seattle, we all know that since that time I have landed squarely in the middle.  It’s like I was dropped here.  Just plunked down one steamy June day, and left to simmer.

It was temporary, of course.  Four years, maybe five and then we’d get on with it.  We’d head to Boston or Philly or somewhere like that and start our real life.  We’d reunite with old friends and make new ones.  First, we just had to get through a few years “out here.”

But slowly and surely our roots went down and our kids shot up and somehow ten years has gone by and, still, here we are.  We’re no longer newcomers.  We’re not temporarily misplaced East Coasters, although I admit to still feeling that way on occasion.  Here, where we came for a few short years, we now have some very close friends and lots of fun and funny acquaintances.  We have commitments.  We have bible study groups, and book clubs, and I, for one, have my Ladies Who Lunch.  We’re involved with our kids’ schools and our church.  Somewhere along the way, the middle has become as much our home as anywhere else once was.

It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it?

We wonder, now and then, what will happen next, when our boys really grow up and get a life of their own.  Will they stay?  Will we?  But the thing we’ve learned, I think, is that in the end, it isn’t the place that matters.  Friends and fun and laughter and tears and life are anywhere.  They’re everywhere.  You just have to stay long enough to experience and embrace them.

photo credit:  Daniel Voyager

GUEST BLOGGER: FADKOG: Dorothy had it right, and this is where I hang my hat

Our next guest blogger is known as FADKOG, which stands for For a Different Kind of Girl. I discovered FADKOG on Twitter and her tweets, as well as her blog are hilariously funny. Please welcome her!

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When my family moved to the Iowa town I grew up in, my world was a three-block radius. It was the circle around which I'd ride my bike for hours, where neighborhood kids would meet to play kick ball until dark, and where, every Wednesday, I'd endure every feasible weather condition or barking dog to deliver the weekly advertising circular. Those three blocks represented the place I felt safest (despite the vicious dogs) and most welcomed. It was a short journey from my block - the filling in the neighborhood sandwich between the other two blocks - to school or the convenience store we'd visit on late summer afternoons to purchase orange snow cones, but it felt vast.

Aside from time spent in college and several years working as the editor of a community newspaper, I've never truly ventured very far from those three blocks. Today, I'm raising my own family a mere two minutes - though sometimes it can take three depending on the occasional confused motorist who pauses uncomfortably long at the five-way stop sign up the road - from the front door of my present home to that of my childhood home.

Unlike the other places I've lived, I've always felt at home where I now reside. Always. Although my hometown - which often dominates the top of any "Fastest Growing Communities in the Nation" lists - is vastly different from the place I remember growing up, when I say I'm from here, it feels familiar, and to me, familiar means comfortable. Three big-name grocery stores dot the landscape where, years ago, residents had a difficult time supporting even one small, family-owned market. The library, which once operated from a tiny room in the back of an equally tiny city hall building, now host programming in a large facility with a parking lot that is always full.

Today, more houses are cropping up on what was once sustainable farm land than actual crops, and just when I think developers can't possibly come up with any new names for a multi-dwelling subdivision, up pops a Painted Woods or Something That Always Ends With The Word 'Pointe With An E.' Trying to give directions to someone unfamiliar with my hometown is virtually impossible for me because there are so many new streets and so many new names for them that I'm almost as lost as they are. If it's not part of the "old part of town," (which is what the area I grew up in is referred to now), I'm sorry. Good luck on your journey!

Yet it still feels like home.

My youngest son is finishing his first grade year in the same building where I attended elementary school, and though countless revisions have been made to it, walking through it is like zapping through a time warp and there's the kindergarten classroom where we incubated chicken eggs in the spring. Except now it's the computer lab! My oldest son, a middle school student, plays basketball in the same gymnasium where I ran laps as a student, only when I was a student in that particular building, I was attending high school and preparing to graduate with a class of 62 students I'd been going to school with since kindergarten. When my sixth grader graduates in 2015, he'll be crossing the stage with more than 600 classmates who filter into our district from the surrounding suburbs. Very few of them will have known each other from the days when they were learning how to write their names and navigate the vast hallways of a new building.

This is home.

From time to time, I'll drive around my hometown, and in my mind, I can distinctly see the games we played on the streets I'm driving on. There's the house where my best friend and I sat on the front steps and talked about the boys who traveled in packs on mopeds and played basketball in the driveway over there each night after dinner. On this street is the house we'd all meet at when the sun went down and we'd sit outside on the patio, watching movies on a tiny television that had been dragged outside.

When I take my boys to the park, it's the same park where I barreled my orange Huffy 10-speed down the hills. When we get there, the boys will swing on the same set of squeaky swings my best friend and I used to cut through the air on. I'll sometimes mention these memories to my sons, both as a means of connecting my life with their respective childhoods, and perhaps planting the idea that it's important to remember where we came from. I don't know that their goals will keep them near me here, but I hope no matter where they go, no matter what fancy named subdivision they may one day live in, they feel the sense of home I'm struck by when they think of what is now our shared hometown.

The Elegant Tar-shjay Boo-tique

I’d like to say that I shop at Target because I’m supporting my state’s economy. I’m not sure how all that stuff works though when stores go national when they started in one state (which, I suppose is how they all have to start, right?) do they still pay state taxes to Minnesota or do they pay taxes in every state? Ah, who am I kidding? I really don’t care.

I shop at Target because it is a mere 3-minute drive from my home and that is saying something. Before Target, Best Buy and about 20 other stores opened just down the highway from us it was a major undertaking to go just pick up something at the store. The nearest store was a grueling 10-minute drive away, which was an awfully long drive for the girl who used to live less than 5 minutes from pretty much anywhere.

But this is a little misleading. I live in a city that is 100,000 strong yet still has a very small-town atmosphere. Even today with the city expanding by leaps and bounds (even with the economy such as it is) it generally takes no more than 20-minutes to get anywhere in the city even from the opposite end.* It is stranger to not run into anyone you know at any given store than to run into an acquaintance. It is not unheard of to run into more than one friend during a Target run.

It is only at Target that I have had men (and only men) who I do not know offer to take my cart in for me after I have loaded my purchases into my car.

It is at Target that my son ate ice melt and I had to fill out my first “incident report”. It is at Target that both of my older children have had major meltdowns, necessitating me carrying two crying, flailing children out under each arm while very, very pregnant. That day made me seriously question my parenting abilities let me tell you.

I’m fairly certain that the Baby thinks that Target is our second home.

But Target has afforded me some great deals as well. I’ve gotten things like a s’mores maker for $3 and a kid’s baseball glove for $4.95. Target clearance, hit at just the right time, is a truly wonderful thing.

However I can’t help but think it would be cheaper for our family if I just went in to Target once a week and threw cash in the air, then walked back out. It’s those darn Tollhouse cookies.

*Even if I could say even even more times, even though I could not think of even one other way to say what I wanted to say. Even.

Guest Post: Midwest Transplant

Our second guest blogger here at MP is the fabulous Cathy who blogs at Mayberry Mom and The Full Mommy, and also runs a site devoted to family fitness. She has two kids including a son she really does call Opie. I've always loved her blog name since I stumbled upon her site and seem to hear whistling in my head when I read the title for some reason...

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My husband and I went to college, separately, in Philadelphia. We met in New York City, where we both lived and worked for more than 10 years after college. Our first home was a two-bedroom condo in an urban neighborhood just across the Hudson River from Manhattan Island. Our first child was born at NYU Medical Center. We even adopted our dog from a shelter in a fairly seedy neighborhood in New Jersey.

So five years ago, when we announced to friends, neighbors, and colleagues that we were moving to a small town in Wisconsin of which they’d never heard, they all thought we were 100% crazy. What about restaurants? Culture? Shopping? Temperatures above 10 degrees?

There are actually restaurants in the Midwest, we assured them. Theaters, too. And a season we like to call “summer.” Most importantly, there was a roomy, charming, old house that cost the same as the selling price on our apartment. There were jobs that required a zero- to 10-minute commute, instead of a 60- to 90-minute one. There was a community, with neighbors that would know us and our kids. There was a park across the street, and a community pool around the corner, and a lovely library a few blocks away. There were decent public schools and child care centers.

It was a trade we were happy to make, and we’re still glad we did (although at this point in the year, the winter? Kind of a drag). Yes, we miss living in the city sometimes. We especially miss the friends and family we left behind. But as parents of young children, we weren’t exactly painting the Big Apple red every night. Dining out often and seeing the latest shows and exhibits didn’t fit into our schedule, let alone our budget.

And guess what? The performing arts center located 10 miles from our Midwestern home gets all the traveling Broadway shows (not to mention the cheesy kids’ ones too). We’ve discovered some good restaurants and a lot more time to enjoy them.

Above all that, we have the community we hadn’t quite found in New York, where our friends and family were scattered across the five boroughs and the surrounding states. Here we have neighbors who drop what they’re doing to chat with our kids or care for them if we’re in a pinch. We have friends who drop off meals during times of crisis. We have teachers and doctors and shopkeepers who really know us. We have sturgeon, for goodness sake!

I think we’re going to stay a while longer.

Guest Post: O Chambana, Will You Cry For Me?

We are asking some of our favorite Midwestern bloggers to write a guest post here at Midwest Parents! To start things off we asked the very busy and very popular Mrs. Chicken who writes at Chicken and Cheese (among other places). She agreed to write a post even though she has a very active daughter and a 6-month-old son and writes for about a gagillion different places. If you haven't read her work before (really? who hasn't?) you're really missing out.

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I have an uneasy relationship with the Midwest.

A Northerner by birth, I spent most of my life on the shoreline: first in the Great Lakes industrial city in which I grew up, later along the Thames, when my family lived as expatriates in London, and finally, as a young adult attending college in Boston.

Water is a huge part of my life. The ocean beckons me every summer, to Cape Cod where I've spent every July since I was just 8 years old.

When my husband called me from the flat lands of Illinois one February afternoon and told me we would soon be living in a college town two hours south of Chicago, my first reaction was panic.

I'd long since returned to the city of my youth. It was where I wed, buried my father and birthed my first child.

It was home.

My father's death just a little less than two years earlier caused my roots to grow even more firmly into that hilly ground. I couldn't bear the idea of being so far from his grave, from the water that gave him so much joy.

I did not want to leave.

But marriage carries obligations, and my husband put forth a compelling argument: if we go, he said, our future will be brighter in the long term.

So we sold our 100-year-old Dutch Colonial—bought just a scant nine months earlier—and set out for the prairie, and our new life.

It was shocking how flat the topography is here. For days I drove the same small, circuitous route from hotel to mall to new suburban development, aching for trees and rolling hills and the shimmering blue of Lake Ontario.

Longing for the familiar, I unpacked all our worldly goods and watched as strangers painted our daughter's room the precise shade of pink that adorned her walls back East. I arranged her crib bumpers and decided where to put the coffeemaker, waiting for my mother and sister to wing her back to me, after watching the girl for the seven days it took to move to Chambana.

O, Chambana.

Our first months here were hard, harder even than the first days in a foreign country. I was adrift, tethered only to the baby and the strangers inside my computer, whose blogs and emails helped me make it through that first horrible year.

Winter was the worst. The baby gave up her nap and together we fussed and fretted our way through the short days, eyes seared from the glaring brown of the decimated cornfield behind our house. Every day I waited for the locks to click, announcing the arrival of my husband.

We flew at him, us girls, clamoring for his reassurances, his strength, his kisses.

Oh, we were lonely.

Slowly, surely, the winter waned and summer arrived, our first in the bare patch of grass outside our backyard. I counted days like sheep, until at last, the time came to depart for the water once again.

We spent three weeks at the oceanside that year, days filled with sunshine and the scent of lemons on a salty wind. But as our time there waned, the baby who'd become a girl in the 12 months of our Midwestern life begged to go home.

"Are we going to go back to Mybana?" she asked me. "I want to go to Mybana."

And so it came to be that her home was mine, as well.

Two years have passed since that fateful afternoon by the sea, when my daughter looked at me with hazel eyes and asked to go home.

My house is now as familiar as my own skin, cheerful yellow kitchen and shoddy carpentry, crooked door frames and a new nursery, bright green this time. Hopeful holly bushes line our front stoop, poking out of freshly dug beds. A Big Wheel stands at the ready, eager for a spring rider.

And this August, when the cornfield is as green and undulating as a deep ocean, we will leave Chambana for parts unknown. As it stands now, we will stay in the middle of this great country of ours, headed north this time.

North, to a land of lakes and greenery, a land notorious for punishing winters and liberal summers.

We will leave behind the physical shell of our life here in the Midwest, but will take with us memories that cannot be undone by geography: our daughter's first school days, my new career as a freelance writer, my husband's shiny new degree, and the happy smile of our second-born, a native Chambanan.

Chambana and I have not always agreed, but trust me when I say my tears for this place—this strange, frustrating, wonderful place—will be very real indeed.

There's No Place Like Home?

Because my husband is a real-life farmer, his "busy season" at work lasts from March through November. This makes summer-vacation planning quite difficult. IF it rains a lot and IF he's caught up on things and IF there's nothing on the calendar, he MIGHT consider a last-minute weekend trip somewhere, but actually planning a good-old two-week family vacation is out of the question.

I don't give up easily, however. My sister moved to Ohio three years ago, and with a new baby in her house this spring, we were eager to go visit. Thus, we decided to take our "summer" vacation over Christmas break.

Ohio was our original destination, but once we looked at the map, we realized how close Columbus is to a lot of things on the east coast. (And yes, I realize that "close" is a relative term. Another 8 hours on top of a 17-hour trip to a midwesterner is not such a big deal. 8 hours to someone who lives on the East Coast is much more daunting.)

We went to Columbus, and then continued on to Philadelphia to see all the things that normal families visit on summer vacations. We even went to New York to see the Statue of Liberty since it was "only" another 2 hours away. (Truth be told, though, in true rural-Minnesota-I-don't-like-crowds-or-traffic fashion, we parked on the New Jersey side rather than attempting to drive in New York City.)

We were gone for 17 days and covered 3725 miles, giving us the opportunity to see a lot of the country and meet a lot of new people.

Before we left, we'd hear comments like "My brother used to live in Pennsylvania, but it's just not the same as the Midwest, so he came back here." At the church we visited near Philadelphia, we were told that most of their members hail from the Midwest and return there the first chance they get.

So what is it that makes the Midwest so appealing to one who grew up there? Do people from other parts of the country say the same thing? "I just couldn't wait to move home to Texas," or "The Pacific Northwest is where my heart will always be." Is it just because home is where your heart is, or is there really something special about where we live, with our fields of corn and soybeans, our "Minnesota nice" and wide open spaces with "the Cities" not too far away, our good work ethic and family values and wide-open spaces?

I don't know. We found people all along our journey friendly and helpful, polite and considerate. We saw beautiful countrysides and pieces of history, six-lane highways and winding back roads, just like we have here.

Still, after enjoying the trip and seeing many new things, it was good to be home again.

What do you think? Is there really something special about the Midwest? Or do we just love it because it's what we know the best?


If you've ever wondered what it would be like to travel halfway across the country with a minivan full of kids in the middle of winter, my blog has all the details.

In The Mood

One of the big redeeming qualities of life in the Midwest is that there is a fair chance to have a traditional “white” Christmas.

The red kettles appear shortly after Halloween and the stores follow suit with their holiday decorations popping up on shelves soon after that. If you listen, you’ll hear the people grumbling, “it’s not even Thanksgiving” as they scowl at the greenery and baubles. It is nearly impossible to get into the holiday mode until the turkey has lulled us all into a coma on Thanksgiving.

Even then sometimes you’ll hear people murmuring about it not feeling like Christmas until there is snow on the ground. We all want the white Christmas, and then we want the snow gone by New Year’s thankyouverymuch.

I have occasion to get into the holiday spirit sooner than most as I decorate a tree (or, this year, two trees) for a charity fundraiser. We pick our themes, adorn our trees and display them at the civic center during the week of Thanksgiving. The kids are always spellbound when they enter the transformed ballroom. Even in my most bah-humbug of years, the festival of trees lifts my spirit and reminds me of the real spirit of Christmas, snow or no snow.

10 Reasons to Visit Minnesota

• The Mall of America – With the indoor theme park, Lego play place and an aquarium along with all the shops there is plenty to do and see in just one destination. And—no tax on clothes.
• Fall foliage and crisp but not cold autumn days that let you get out your comfy sweaters. (most of the time)
• LARK toys and the hand-carved wooden carousel – it’s art you can ride! Also, it’s cheap. $1 a ride over 3 years old.
• Quaint accents – yeah, you betcha.
• Paul Bunyan – you can find him in Brainerd and Bemidji. You can also find his wife, Lucette, in Hackensack.
• A higher chance you’ll find nice people who will help you even if they don’t work at the store.
• Duluth—there are so many interesting things in Duluth to look at and visit, including (but not limited to) the shipyards, a train museum with a children’s museum in the same building, and Lake Superior.
• Laura Ingalls Wilder historical sites— admit it, you loved Little House on the Prairie too.
• Spam Museum.
• Me.

It's Not So Much The Heat

The thing about living in Minnesota is the weather. It’s very changeable. Pretty much everyone who lives here for any length of time will say “oh I love the change of seasons.”

Except sometimes the seasons change daily. Just a couple of weeks ago it was 63 degrees on a Monday, then 73 degrees on Tuesday. By that Friday the mercury had reached 80 degrees.

It’s hard to know how to dress your kids each day. Let’s face it, the weather forecasters are really just guessing most of the time. It’s a crapshoot whether they’ll be accurate or not. Even if they are accurate, Mother Nature has that way of making it autumn one day and throwing a little more summer in the next. This year my city seems to have missed out on summer. The mercury did not climb to 90 degrees even once.

So, how to dress the kids? Layers I guess.

The mornings have been hovering around 50 degrees, so it’s too cool to send them without jackets, and by the time school lets out, they’re feeling warm in jeans. No matter which way I try to err, it’s almost always the wrong choice.

Not that I mind the return to warm weather. I actually prefer the heat over freezing my butt off, but the yo-yoing temperatures tend to mess with a person.

Maybe we all need to carry a change of clothes with us so we can switch to match the weather.

A Reason for a Wienie

K, D and I went to a local grocery store yesterday afternoon to see the Wienermobile. (M was at school...first day!) K wouldn't stand by the big dog alone and would only consent if I said D would be in the photo too.
Although we went for a hot dog lunch and a glimpse of the goofy Wienermobile, we also went for a less frivolous reason.

Ann Peterson is a mom, like me, but she has four kids. A six-year-old and 2 1/2-year-old triplets. She was at the grocery store today. She sat quietly with her family and took in the hubbub that surrounded the giant hot dog. Her eyes were proud.

Ann Peterson sat in a wheel chair. Just seven months ago she was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a neurological condition that affects the nerves that control voluntary muscles. Ann's muscles are deteriorating. Her speech is being affected.

The family needs to modify their home to accommodate a power wheelchair. They also need a vehicle that will do the same.

That's what brought us to the Wienermobile. Those hot dogs they were selling were for Ann.

There were many people who came out to help Ann and her family. This photo only shows the beginning of a long line. But even if all of those people bought a $1 hot dog, there would not be nearly enough to pay for these things that Ann and her family need.

As I stood nearby Ann, urging K to eat his hot dog, I thought about how I would feel if I were in her chair at a benefit for me. I assume I'd feel gratitude, but also humbled.

My heart breaks for her kids.

If you're so inclined, you can help the Peterson family with a donation:

Peterson Benefit fund:
- Using PayPal: annbenefit@gmail.com-

By Mail: THINK Bank
Ann Peterson Benefit Account
ATTN: Nicole Ganrude
25 2nd St SW
Rochester, MN 55902
OR
Peoples State Bank
400 Division St
Millville, MN 55957

You can read more about the Peterson family and other upcoming fundraisers here. There is also a beautiful photo of the family.

Where Have all the Manners Gone?

Here in the Midwest, perhaps in Minnesota particularly, we’re known for being “nice.” Part of being nice, in my opinion, includes having good manners though.

I don’t know what’s happened to having good, old-fashioned, manners but they are certainly lacking in my city.

Since when is it okay to let a very obviously pregnant woman with one or two kids in tow hold the door open for multiple people who don’t bother to even look at her, let alone say “thank you?”

It is also common for me to say “thank you” to the store clerk who rings up my purchases, to which he or she will often reply “you’re welcome” if he or she says anything at all.

Have you been in a restaurant and the man at the next table is using less-than polite language? I have. And I have yet to figure out what the profanity adds to the story. I admit this bothers me more when I have my kids with me, but honestly, it’s not pleasant to listen to any time.

I can’t even count all the times that I’ve been at a stop sign and waiting patiently for a pedestrian to cross the street when someone behind me honks. Really? Apparently I’m to run down another human being so that the person in the car behind me doesn’t have to sit at a stop sign for more than a minute.

Just think how much more pleasant life would be if people were expected to act civilly again. There have been many great things that have happened over the years, like electricity and cars and the right for the minority vote but there has also been a moral decline in society. It’s just not seen as necessary to be a nice person anymore. If you’re nice, you’re weak.
But really those who are still nice are the truly strong ones.

Soybeans: A Kid's Delicacy

There must have been a time in my toddler years when I looked out at the fields growing around our small Midwestern town and said, "What are they growing?" Soon, I'm sure I tired of hearing the same thing, "field corn," and "soy beans," and stopped asking. The fields around my town were never growing something fun like "Popcorn," or the kind of corn you used for Corn Flakes. I couldn't point to a single item in the grocery store and say, "this came from where I live!"

The plants that grew in the fertile soils were primarily used to make something else. Field corn was used to fatten pigs and livestock. Soybeans were processed by extracting the oil, and the de-fatted soy was used for animal feed. A bit of this was also used for filler in processed food; probably the same food that was served in my school's cafeteria.

As I sat in the backseat of the car, there was never a field more boring to look at than one full of soybeans. Short little plants that didn't even get tall enough to make a maze.

Still, the farmers around my town grew a lot of soybeans. They dotted almost every field across our landscape. And not once did one of my aunts pick a pile of soybeans and boil them for dinner. Sure, they harvested plenty of tomatoes, cabbages, green beans and "sweet corn," but not once would they eat the lowly soy bean. Perhaps because it was fed to the pigs, the soy bean had little respect to the Midwestern farmhouse wife. Still the soybean was revered for other reasons; primarily because of the cash the crop generated.

I can't remember the first time a steaming bowl of soybeans was served to me in a white-linen-tablecloth restaurant, but I do remember instantly falling in love with the taste of this delectable vegetable. There, it was not called a soybean, of course. It was the oriental vegetable served in sushi restaurants, Edamame, (beans on branches). As I ran the shell of each pod along my teeth, and pushed out the beans, I kept thinking that this amazing delicious bean had been growing outside in the fields for as long as I can remember, and it had been completely ignored all my life. Still, I later learned, that the farmers around my home were growing field soybeans, much different than Edamame; Edamame, of course, is sweeter.



Still, fields full of Edamame are somewhat of a rarity in the Midwest. Because of the vegetable's evolving popularity, this is slowing changing. Soybeans are a complete protein, also full of calcium, magnesium and potassium. This could be the answer to my kid's finicky-eating problem. Thankfully, when I served a bowl of these green beans, to the boys, they ate up the soybeans like it was popcorn.

The first time I fixed them for my Mom, I was nursing a baby, and she ended up taking over in the kitchen. My Mom had mastered the fine art of cooking a green bean to perfection. As a child, I used to eat serving after serving of her green beans. Yet, I didn't have a chance to stop her before she boiled the soybeans until they were too gray (like green beans) and covered them with butter (no no). I explained, "Mom, you don't eat the shell.. they just need salt."

By far my funniest moment with soybeans was when I announced our new-found dietary delicacy to an Uncle who has been growing them for most of his life: "We put a bowl of soy beans on the table at least twice a week." His mouth dropped, and he just looked at me, waiting for me to finish. "They're really good," I said. "You should try 'em some time."

So, to any of you who have driven past fields of soy beans (although it was likely the "field variety"), and have yet to taste them, here's how to cook them. They could be the answer to the problem of getting your kids to eat their vegetables:

• If no field of soybeans is close by, you can buy a frozen bag of Edamame at the grocery store. (Check the organic section.)
  
• Place the soybeans in a pan of boiling water for about 3 to 5 minutes.
• Drain, and sprinkle with dashes of salt.
  
• Shell with your teeth and pop into your mouth.

Wordy wordy wordy

Words are funny things. Either there are several words that mean pretty much the same thing, or there are several meanings for a word or phrase. Or sometimes there isn’t just the right word or phrase to convey what we want to say.

That’s part of the allure for writers I suppose.

For my mom, a couch or sofa will always be a davenport no matter how often I tease her about it.

In the South, a carbonated beverage will always be a Coke, regardless of the flavor or brand that is being offered. In the East, the same beverage is a soda. In the Midwest, it is a pop (and you will get strange looks if you call it a soda).

I once got into an argument with a boyfriend over the correct pronunciation of the word “cement.” He was from southern Illinois, and had a Southern accent, which I found interesting since Illinois isn’t really Southern to me. He insisted that it was pronounced “see-ment” with a long e. I assured him that it was pronounced, well, cement. You know, “sa-ment.” Why this was worth arguing over, I’ll never know, but of course I had to be right.

The fickle nature of words that appeals to the writer has less appeal for parents.

If my nephews ask to do something and get the answer “we’ll see” they will respond dejectedly “that means no.” If my kids get the same response they will say “yay!” because they will usually get what they asked for.

My kids also choose to make "no" mean something more like "maybe" or "you can do it if your mom doesn't see you." Is that just my kids that do that? I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re not alone in this.

When they were toddlers I remember joking with my brother that our kids thought that the word “no” meant, “just do it faster.”

“Stop,” to my kids, means, “stop in a few minutes when mom starts yelling.”

I’m not sure where that word filter comes from, but I suspect, as usual, that it started with my actions. I’m wishy-washy when I should be firm and consistent. Or I over-react when I could be wishy-washy. I’m confused by what I mean half the time myself.

Is it just me?


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Ohio: In or Out?

So one day, a few weeks ago, I happen to be reading through my blogroll, when I come across Cool Zebras. Heather is starting a new blog, and she’s looking for writers! What a neat coincidence – I’m looking for more places to write!

But her blog is going to focus on Midwestern parents. And I live just outside of Cincinnati. So this begs the never-ending (in my house, at least) question: is Ohio part of the Midwest?

I emailed Heather to see what she thought – after all, it’s her new blog. Interestingly enough, she said that in her opinion, Ohio was part of the Midwest, but her husband disagreed. What do you know? That’s the same split decision we reached at my house!

My husband thinks that I could have been a reference librarian. At various points in our life together, he has affectionately referred to me as his Little Dictionary, his Little Thesaurus, and his Little Encyclopedia. However: never, not even once, has he ruffled my hair and called me his Little Atlas.

I will admit it: I am geographically stunted. My development in most other academic areas progressed without incident. I learned to read at an early age and I still adore reading. I don’t have a love affair with math, but I made decent grades and I remember enough to balance my checkbook and add fractions for seam allowances when I sew. I have a crazy memory for spelling and grammar and early childhood development. But hey, Michelle, what’s the capitol of Montana? Ummmm…..

For Father’s Day last year, I bought a neat set of magnets that form a map of the United States for Chris. It’s been a long-running joke that if I do, indeed, end up homeschooling our not-quite-two-year-old… well, Daddy will just handle the Geography lessons, alright? And I’m okay with that.

But getting back to my story. Here we were: Heather wanted other moms to write with her on MP, and I wanted a place to write. Two women believing that Ohio counted – and two men thinking that it didn’t. The time had come: I googled it. Guess what I found out?

Multiple resources that say Ohio is IN! (And, for the record, so are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Some sources added Kentucky to the list, and others left it out but included Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.)

You know what this means, don’t you? Yeah, okay, of course: it means that I get to write here at Midwest Parents! That’s all well and good. But the biggest lesson we learned? The wives were right, and the husbands were wrong. And no matter where you live, that’s a good thing to remember.