Find things to do for kids & families in Schenectady, Albany, & Troy.

Random header image... Refresh for more!

St. Sophia’s Greek Festival, Lupine Fest at Albany Pine Bush, Niska-Day, the Little Mermaid Jr., Bike Rodeo, and More This Weekend

by Katie

Hey everyone. I was trying to decide what to write about, and then I remembered it’s Thursday, so I’ve just got the listings for you.

Here’s this week’s KidsOutAndAbout.com newsletter. Come to think of it, we’ve also got a running list of Memorial Day Parades and Summer Camps.  And here’s what’s up this weekend.

Multiple Days:

Friday, May 17th:

Saturday, May 18th:

Sunday, May 19th:

Twitt

May 16, 2013   No Comments

Slow Cooker Meals

by Katie

Our schedule continues to be crazy, especially at dinnertime, so I’ve been trying a bunch of new slow cooker recipes. I thought I’d share some links.

The clear winner among our new recipes was this Chickpeas in Curried Coconut Broth recipe from Oxmoor House on the My Recipes site.

Image from Oxmoor House & myrecipes.com

Image from Oxmoor House & myrecipes.com

 

In fact, our only problem with it was that it didn’t make enough for everyone to get leftovers the next day. I’ll absolutely double it next time. This one was spicy, and when I first tried it, I thought it might be too spicy, but mixing it with rice made it perfect, and all four of us liked it. We are so doubling it next time. Wait, I said that already, didn’t I?

I also tried Slow-Cooker Asian Pork With Snow Peas, Red Peppers, and Soba Noodles from Real Simple. Cute W and I liked this one, but both girls turned up their noses with this one. They didn’t even want to eat the noodles. The one thing I liked was that the pork tasted like pork I’ve eaten at Chinese restaurants, something I’d never achieved, but between the girls’ lack of enthusiasm and the extra work at the end (cooking noodles and the veggies separately), this one isn’t a do-over for us.

M’s favorite of our new recipes was a  Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken by Food.com. It doesn’t win the healthful award, but it was a surprisingly unique flavor–tasty, tasty.  We followed the advice in the comments and added mushrooms and some white wine, and at the end I threw in a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

M was out the night that we tried Slow Cooker Cuban Braised Beef and Peppers from Real Simple, but the rest of us thought that it was worthy of a do-over. The only criticism, from all of us, was that it was a bit bland. Next time we’ll add a couple more peppers that are spicy.  Instead of rice, we ate these with corn tortillas for a change from some of the other sides.

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili from All You on the My Recipes site was a final surprise hit. Everyone ate it happily, and it’s super-healthful. I took a shortcut and used that frozen pre-cubed squash (I’d also done a ton of chopped onions earlier in the week) to make it a little easier.

Really, it was a pretty successful Slow Cooker Initiative. I thought I’d have some more patter, but I’m too sleepy for chatter tonight.

 

 

Twitt

May 15, 2013   2 Comments

Girl Drama

by Katie

I mentioned recently that M is going through some social turbulence these days, but I just didn’t have the energy to figure out how to explain it in a way that protects her privacy but gives a little insight into my current mom issue. First of all, I have to take a moment to express my deep gratitude to the Universe that my life is this good. Both of my children are healthy and happy, they’re doing fine in school, they (mostly) behave themselves, and they have friends. It is only because our lives are going along so smoothly (knock on wood!) that I can pay any attention whatsoever to my 5th grader’s social life.  And in fact I’m increasingly thinking that my best bet is to stop paying attention.

Among M’s friends, there’s been quite a bit of shifting and realigning over the past few months. M has inherited Cute W’s lack of social anxiety, so she doesn’t seem particularly concerned about any of this. But I get the sense that there could be both hurt feelings and anxiety among the girls, and the moms. It’s awkward for us mamas. We’re friendly, and we’re used to carpooling, coordinating plans, and signing up for camps together. Now all of that’s become tricky as the daughters and their relationships are evolving. Personally, I’m not worried about M being bullied (she’s tough), but I do fret about her being unkind or standing by while girls are getting their feelings hurt, either because of divided loyalties or because she’s oblivious (like–ahem!–her father can sometimes be). But knowing too much isn’t helpful, because I don’t have too much control over anything anyway. But I hear plenty of news from the moms who get more information than I do. It feels like a stark contrast from how things worked back in the old days when I was in elementary school. Back then my mom was concerned that I stopped asking friends over for a year or so, but she had no idea about the details. Which were, basically, that Jodi B. had declared me her best friend and asked me to say it back, and when I told her that I didn’t want to rank my friends, she shunned me and told all of the lemmings in our group of friends to shun me, too. If asked thirty years ago, I could have explained it in a 45-page document. So I had to depend on compassionate random acquaintances to allow me to sit on the fringes of their lunch tables for a year or so, but I settled in with another crowd eventually.

I’m beginning to think that 5th grade social dynamics feels a lot like going to that gymnastics meet where J didn’t even score a participation ribbon. It was excruciating to watch, but she got through it, and my fretting didn’t help. So I’ve told myself that I just need to stay out of it. I mean, seriously, what would have happened if my mom had taken on Jodi and her friends (and all of their mothers) to negotiate on my behalf? It probably just would have caused additional angst and humiliation on my part. Or, if anything my mom did helped us to remain friends, I’m sure she would have been sorry if she’d known that she’d helped keep me in the clique that was doing drugs and giving boys blowjobs within a couple of years. Which sounds crazy, because I can’t imagine any of these cutey-patooties going the way of the Jodi B. crowd. But just like my mom didn’t know my friends as well as I did, I don’t know M’s friends as well as she does.

Of course the intellectual idea that I should stay out of it all is easier said than done.  I’m curious about anything that happens with M. I’m constantly hungry for information, and she feeds me so little! Plus, there are even studies that show that gossip can function for good in moderating behavior. If there are girls doing things like making up fake messaging accounts in others girls’ names, I want to know about it, if only to remind my daughter that that kind of behavior is not acceptable. But while chatting with the mamas about what’s happening lately, it’s hard not to slide into outright diplomacy efforts, justifying my daughter’s position in the latest brouhaha. Which is just ridiculous.  I mean, I have heard myself saying things where I’m like, “Katie, get a hold of yourself and shut up already. ” So I’ve told M I’m going to try to resist the mom chatter unless I hear about something specific she’s done that needs to be addressed, and I’m not going to ask for details on her social life unless she’s got something she wants to share (she’s not big into sharing). The only stipulations were that I always want her to be kind no matter who her friends are, and if she notices that any girl is consistently sad or receiving abuse, I want her to let me know so that I can pass the information on to that girl’s parents.

We’ll see how it goes. Probably more than a year ago I made some random joking remark that was the sort of thing one of her friends might say, and she was fine, but as soon as it was out of my mouth, I thought, “That was a screw-up.” Because she doesn’t need another joking friend, and she doesn’t need someone who’s emotionally involved in her daily social life. She needs her mom to be an oasis from all of that. So I’m going to do my best to take a step back, and I checked out Queen Bees and Wannabees (Rosalind Wiseman) with the hope that a little solid advice will help me avoid future screw-ups. Or at least reduce their number.

You know, I’d been worried about middle school because I always think of it as fraught with social peril, but we seem to have moved into the social peril phase, anyway. So now I’m hoping that the prospect of some new friendships will be good for my daughter and all the girls.

Am I being insanely optimistic?

Maybe.

But I’m definitely grateful that I’m not turning 11. It seems exhausting.

Twitt

May 14, 2013   7 Comments

What’s Up This Week

by Katie

I had a relaxing Mother’s Day. The girls know that breakfast in bed is not what this mama wants. Instead, I am encouraged to sleep in. But I did have a surprise waiting for me:

IMG_3246

During the day, the girls helped me to pot a bunch of succulents. My plan is to put them on top of the cabinet in the new bathroom. My original “artistic vision”  was a long terra cotta something-or-other, but I couldn’t find one, so I went with some dip bowls from Target with some rocks for drainage at the bottom. Hopefully they’ll work.

IMG_3244

And we ended the day with Indian food and a show:

IMG_3245

 

I hope that you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Here’s what’s up this week:

Multiple Days:

Monday, May 13th:

Tuesday, May 14th:

Wednesday, May 15th:

Thursday, May 16th:

Friday, May 17th:

Twitt

May 12, 2013   No Comments

A Poem for Mother’s Day

by Katie

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve been saving up this awesome poem for the occasion ever since I heard it, gosh, months ago.  And if you all already knew it, well, you should have told me. Because it’s a new favorite. It’s “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins.

If that one leaves you craving more and you have some Serenity Time, check out his “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl.” And before long you might get so sucked in that you’ll just have to read a whole bunch of Billy Collins poems.

If you’re a new-ish reader, here’s a list of other Mother’s Day links that I’ve shared in years gone by:

Enjoy the day.

Twitt

May 11, 2013   1 Comment

A Bunch of Links For You

by Katie

I spent most of the day socializing and playing outside. Tennis in the morning, lots of phone calls, and then much of our after school time at the playground. I was pretty much completely unproductive. Like, two business calls and some raking in the yard, dishes. That’s about it. But I’m all caught up with some friends and relatives, so that’s good, yes?

The bathroom is still a work in progress. Walls are done and being painted, roof has been put in so that the carpenter ants won’t come back to live with us, and the tile in the shower is set. It’s lookin’ good, baby! Pictures soon. Tomorrow J’s got a gymnastics meet and M’s got a soccer tournament, so we’ll be busy. I’ve got another list of links for you.

Here’s a bunch of photos of what a week of groceries looks like around the world. So interesting!

Here’s a story about a high school girl who won a coding competition by creating a way to avoid spoilers on Twitter. She was only female to present her idea in the competition among about 80 guys, many of them professionals.

Sophie would like to make strong the new skinny. I’m in.

My Grinnell College alumni magazine talked about the blog Pile of Babies. And it is very funny.

Christine Grossloh wonders if American parents have got it all backwards. It’s not a rhetorical question and alas, the answer is yes.

A friend has a kid competing in Future Problem Solving Program International. I’d never heard of it, but it sounds super-cool.

If you, like me, have been intermittently uneasy and fretful ever since Allie from Hyperbole and a Half posted about her struggle with depression and then pretty much dropped out of the internet for a year and a half, you’ll be glad to know that she’s finally posting again. She is more wonderful than ever, trying to explain depression to those of us who are lucky enough not to suffer from it.

Kid President has a message for moms everywhere:

 

Twitt

May 10, 2013   No Comments

Tulip Festival and Mother’s Day and More, Of Course

by Katie

I’m sending this out early in part because I hope those of you who remember me talking about my neighbor Mary will send out any prayers or positive energy for her. She is really struggling with her health. Thank you.

Multiple Days:

Friday, May 10th:

Saturday, May 11th:

Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12th:

Twitt

May 9, 2013   No Comments

Life at Home

by Katie

IMG_3164

Truly, have you ever seen such a streak of amazing weather before in Upstate New York? Day after day of sunshine and mild temperatures and trees and flowers unfurling. It’s an embarrassment of riches. I hate that I’m spending time inside tidying up closets or folding laundry, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. I hope you’re all enjoying it and getting outside.

We’re doing well and super-busy at our house. Cute W’s away on business, but he’s coming home tonight and will be happy to be finished with it, as well as a couple of volunteer obligations.

M won a Sandra G. Morley Physical Education Student Leadership Award, an award we’d never heard of prior to learning the good news. It’s from the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (also, completely new to me). Last night J and I joined friends for the ride to the presentation at HVCC, where we saw the latest in tween spring fashion with 5th and 8th graders from all over the Capital District who also received the award, chosen by their school gym teachers. It was not as long as I’d feared, and we ran into various other parents we knew, so it was fun exchanging compliments about how awesome each others’ kids are. Funny how we parents never get tired of hearing that. Of course, M told me that a friend who seems every bit as athletic and full of good sportsmanship as our winners hadn’t received the award, a particular blow because she actually had heard of the award and had attended the presentation ceremony years before when her older sister won. Which made me telescope forward 3 years and begin fretting in advance that M would win a second time (she’ll be in 8th grade) and J would be passed over (she’ll be in 5th grade), causing heartbreak. Because I can find a storm cloud within the most sumptuous and delightful of silver linings. So, cross your fingers for 3 years from now. M’s going through all sorts of social turbulence right now, but it’s probably a separate post’s worth. If I dare. She’s fine, really, or seems to be.

J is always coming up with something nutty and fun. She had a book report due, and she decided to create a giant dice game so that she could ask kids in the class to throw the die and then she’d describe the setting or the characters or whatever landed face-up. Another day she cut out shapes and taped them to wooden blocks or suspended them from chopsticks to create a shadow puppet theater. The shadow tree she made was awesome. Then the other day she noticed how hot the pavement was, so she conducted an experiment: she laid a thin sliver, a larger piece, and a thick chunk of cheese out onto our driveway, then took copious notes on their rates of melting and other observations (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).

Everyone ready for Mother’s Day? Doing anything fun? I’ve been saving a poem to share with you. No, it’s not mine.

Speaking of sharing, here’s a lovely article about high school students helping out a classmate for their teacher’s brilliant idea of a school project.

 

 

 

Twitt

May 7, 2013   3 Comments

Baby Animal Days, Mothers Day Crafting, Tulip Festival, Super WHY!, and More This Week

by Katie

It was one of those weekends that was more exhausting than a week. But can you believe this streak of glorious weather? I hope everyone remembered their sunscreen! Here’s what’s up this week:

Multiple Days:

Monday, May 6th:

Tuesday, May 7th:

Wednesday, May 8th:

Thursday, May 9th:

Friday, May 10th:

 

 

 

 

Twitt

May 5, 2013   No Comments

You Won’t Believe What Happened to Me Today

by Katie

Were you wondering how that spot on NewsChannel 13 Live at Noon went today?  Well, let me tell you.

I’d had a bit of a bumpy start day before yesterday when I went to pick up a prop at Kulak’s Nursery & Landscaping. They’re doing these classes on how to do a miniature or fairy garden, which is a lovely gift idea for Mother’s Day, right? My segment was supposed to be about craft projects and places to go to celebrate Mother’s Day, so when I saw their listing on KidsOutAndAbout.com, I thought: 1) they always have such gorgeous little garden arrangements displayed, and 2) they’re conveniently located between me and J’s gymnastics, and 3) those folks at WNYT love props. So I called to ask, and they said, why yes, they’d be happy to loan me something. Excellent. I arrived to pick it up a few minutes before closing, and here’s what they had prepared for me:

IMG_3127

Holy crap. Is that thing adorable or what? It was far more fabulous and elaborate than what I had seen, but of course it makes sense that this is what they’d loan me, because how can you not want to report to Kulak’s immediately, surrender your credit card, and buy out the store with fairy paraphernalia? I mean, who wouldn’t? But I was a little intimidated, especially when they mentioned that they were a little concerned about the box they had to hold it. I put it in the car and headed for home.

And as I pulled out of their driveway, the entire thing flopped over. Dirt everywhere, plants abused. Take a moment, please, to clap your hands, because I totally owe it to the fairy world. I panicked and drove right back. I was mortified, and I wanted to just reassemble it, but I didn’t know how careful they’d been about the design. The actual designer of the garden wasn’t there, but the other folks were very nice and helped me put it back together. I still feel bad because as wonderful as it is, it was even better when I first got it. Here it is, closer up:

IMG_3128

I drove home well below the speed limit, clutching the little wheelbarrow whenever I wasn’t actively shifting. Phew.

Afterwards I tried to remind myself not to completely freak out about something like that. I always admire how Deb, my KOA publisher, is super Zen-like when things go wrong. I start spinning like a top and she says, “None of our babies are in the hospital, so life is good. Really, nothing we’re doing is life-or-death.” I, on the other hand, would prefer for things to go perfectly all the time, so I start freaking out about, for example, tennis club. But whatever. I resolved to be more “chill” in future crap-storms.

But the Universe provided me with an opportunity quicker than I expected.

Cut to this morning. After attending J’s “Barnyard Moosical” at school, I headed home to groom myself and lay out my props.

IMG_3122

We were going to talk about several crafts, then places to go and do crafts. I set the props on my dining room table and schpieled about them to myself as practice. Along with the vases (I really love the small pastel one), I added Mod Podge and tissues so that I could continue crafting on-camera, and there are a few lovely little charms and a chain from a craft shop, and I added a pair of scissors, because I find that getting the plant out of its pot is often the toughest part for kids. You can see more pictures in the article on KidsOutAndAbout.com. It was getting close to time to go, and after the recent Fairy Tipping Fiasco, I was super-concerned about ensuring that I’d get to the studio safely. So I pulled out extra boxes and cut one carefully to accommodate the wheelbarrow, and then I packed the other cardboard box with all of the other supplies, and I propped them so that the vases wouldn’t clink and the plant wouldn’t topple. I headed out front to the car (we’ve been parking on the street because of the construction), but when I went to put the box in the car, it was hot-like-summer. And I had my pretty plant to worry about, so instead, I set the box down right next to the front passenger door, then went inside to gather up the last of my things (and put on mascara, which you know I hardly ever do)!

When I headed out, gingerly carrying the fairy wheelbarrow, about 5–and definitely less than 10–minutes later, I was slightly ahead of schedule and feeling pretty good.

And then I realized that my other box of props was gone.

Gone.

Not moved.

Gone, like, disappeared.

I yelled. A neighbor asked if everything was okay, and when I told her the problem, she said, “Oh, the garbage truck just came by.”

Alright, so, what are the chances that they would come in that ten-minutes-tops interval? Also, I have placed the soccer ball approximately where the box was for re-enactment purposes. Observe:

IMG_3125

Would you automatically assume a box here was trash? Or would you possibly look twice at it, and seeing a lovely vase and a gorgeous plant and a perfectly good pair of scissors and some jewelry, either leave it or ask someone? Because IT WAS NOT TRASH. I suppose it’s possible that someone was “curb shopping,” and I do leave items on my curb for people to claim. But when I do, they’re not hidden by a car and they have a sign that says “Free.” This was not free.

Okay, enough ranting. So, let’s assess the situation. I needed to leave within ten minutes to be on time for a live taping of a segment about crafts and I had no crafts. Time to find my Inner Mellow and, as Cute W says (cutely), “work the problem.”

Vases:  I’ve mentioned that this is a great craft because you probably have leftover vases from flower deliveries cluttering a cabinet. And I did. I still had tissue paper, and I hunted down some Elmer’s to replace the Mod Podge. I threw those in a box.

Jewelry: I ransacked my own and J’s jewelry boxes to look for pieces that were somewhat like what I’d seen at craft stores. I had one small spool of crafting wire. I threw necklaces and wire in a box.

Plant: Okay, I forgot about this, jumped in the car and started the engine, and then I remembered. Showing no mercy to the flora, I dug up a forget-me-not that I’d planted last week, found a presentable pot, and put them together. There was no time to secure it, so the poor thing rolled around in the box for the whole drive.

Then I peeled out, knocking into the garbage can my way. I only realized once I was on the highway that I’d accidentally folded my rear-view mirror in, and I ended up half-blind to the right until I got to a safe spot to stop and fix it.

When I arrived at the studio I told them what happened and started to decoupage the vase right there. There was also an adorable little girl visiting, so of course I had to show her the fairy garden. The staff helped me disassemble my necklaces, and I used what I could.

Then there was breaking news, and my segment was cut down from 3 to 2 minutes! That’s a lot of freaking out for a mere 2 minutes!  Except that I did not freak out. I used this as a personal growth opportunity, found my Inner Serenity, and spent most of the drive to the studio laughing to myself that pulling this off proves that I am Fifty  Shades of Awesome.

And when I was done, I felt even better. I was so flustered that I couldn’t find my camera, so I took a terribly fuzzy photo with my phone, just to prove it all happened. Here’s the prop table with Subrina Dhammi in the background. Except you can’t even see her with all the lights:

IMAG0002_COVER

 

And it turns out that we’ve got the segment available online, too.

 

Twitt

May 3, 2013   3 Comments

← Previous Entries