Quadsville

As your “Savvy Saver” columnist, I’m always on the lookout for ways to help you save money. If you’re interested in learning more about the “Cash for Clunkers” program, which I wrote about last week, jot this down on your calendar.

WHAT: “Cash for Clunkers” informational session, followed by Q & A time

WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 29

WHERE: Lindquist Ford, 3950 Middle Road, Bettendorf

MORE INFO: Staff from Lindquist Ford will present information about the new federal “Cash for Clunkers” program, which is geared to rev up auto sales and get old gas-guzzling vehicles off the streets. Qualifying vehicles could be eligible for up to $4,500 in trade-in discounts when customers buy new fuel-efficient models.

Those who attend are encouraged to bring vehicle information, registration and insurance cards to check if their vehicles qualify. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

For more information, call (563) 449-9001.                      

For once, it’s ME, not the toddler-daughter, who is kicking and screaming.

I’m putting up quite a fight in my mind. How could it be that I’ll be turning 35 this Friday?

I know. Some of you are laughing at me. Maybe you’re younger and you’re thinking, “What the heck?! I’d be crying, too.”

Or maybe you’re older and you’re thinking, “What is she complaining about? She’s just a baby.”

Well, I’m not quite there yet. I’m more in the feeling-like-crying phase right now. Ha!

Why is this bothering me so much? I don’t remember feeling really shaken by a birthday since my 25th. My 30th was a milestone, but a fun one, because all of my best girl friends took turns throwing amazingly big parties for each other (complete with scrapbooks created by one of our best party-planning friends). We all looked forward to taking our turn in the birthday throne, so to speak.

But this time? Not so much.

We haven’t had any best-friend-birthday parties this year. One by one, as we’ve all reached 35, we’ve barely mentioned our birthdays to each other.

Several of us have little ones at home again, so we’re busy. But we’ve never been too busy for a party … until now. I guess it’s because no one really feels like whooping it up for 35.

What’s worse: I’m facing all these reminders about the passage of time.

My husband and I just attended his 20th high school reunion last month. My firstborn baby is going to turn 18 — as in YEARS old, not months – in early September. I looked around at a recent family gathering and suddenly realized I’m not one of the younger adults anymore. I’m one of the “middle-aged” relatives. GAWD.

A recent perusal of friends’ photos on Facebook was the clincher. One of the guys who friended me this week is someone I haven’t seen in about 15 years … and I wouldn’t have recognized him anymore. I wonder if he would have recognized me.

One good thing: Most of the time, I still feel young … and that’s half the battle, right?! Maybe?

Help! Any words of wisdom? Advice?  Personal affirmations … like “I’m OK, you’re OK?” (Hahahahahaha!!!!)

We had quite the weekend, starting with …

1.) Quad-City Times Bix 7 festivities: Just like her big brother did a long time ago, my Babycakes experienced her first Junior Bix event on Friday night. How did it go?

Well, first, she asked, “What’s the Mix?” LOL!

I explained all about the runners, and how she would be running with the other 2-year-olds and how fun it would be. She thought it sounded “like a great idea,” she told me.

But when we got here, and she saw the huge crowds and the sun was in her eyes and she was hot and hungry and kept asking, “When can we have hot dogs?” …. well, it just wasn’t like she imagined.

She decided she didn’t want to run. Actually, she didn’t want to walk, either. She just wanted hot dogs. And a popsicle.

So, I carried her over the finish line, and we searched out the food. That’s when she really started having fun.

2.) Surprise anniversary party: My sisters and brother and I all threw a surprise anniversary party for our Dad and his wonderful wife on Saturday. And they were definitely very surprised! Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. We even had some friends come with guitars, a tambourine and harmonica and sing for several hours outside my brother’s farmhouse, which is completely surrounded by cornfields. It was really cool.

Babycakes thought the best part was playing outside with her cousins all day (we have the sun-kissed faces to prove it) and eating cake. 

3) A new (to her) tricycle: I’m happy to report that my recent failed yard sale hunts — where I didn’t find a cheap tricycle for my daughter — were worth it, after all.

I wrote about my failed hunt in my “Savvy Saver” column, which runs on Mondays. And the wife of my colleague, David Burke, read it. Bless her heart, she told David that they ought to give their now-teenage daughter’s old tricycle to Babycakes. So, they did.

David says they gave their daughter the little red beauty — complete with a bell — when she was 2. Now, it fits my daughter perfectly. She’s still getting the hang of how to pedal. It’s going to take a lot more practice, but she’s on her way. She has played with that tricycle every day since we got it. Yay! Thanks again, Burke family.

What’s going on at your house?

I can hardly resist back-to-school shopping … and I don’t even have any kids at home who need school supplies, at this point in my life.

But those deals!!!!  I just suddenly want to go out and buy glue and paper and crayons, all because they’re like 6-cents each or some other ridiculously cheap price. But some things a kid might need to go back to school aren’t cheap at all.

With the economy the way it is, we’re wondering if people are shopping for back-to-school things like they have in the past. Are you spending less this year? Or are you shopping like you always have? 

Are you willing to talk to a reporter about it? If you’re interested in helping us out with a story we’re working on about this, please contact business reporter Doug Schorpp at dschorpp@qctimes.com or call him at (563) 383-2292.

There really IS such a thing as a free lunch … at least, there is today!

Thanks to the amazing Twitter tool, we have heard Panchero’s will be handing out 100 free burritos today, starting at 11:45 a.m., at the corner of Brady and 2nd streets in Davenport. 

Will you be there?

If so, you’ll probably see my friend, Melissa Coulter, who is going for a free-meal-record today. She already ate a free breakfast at Chick-Fil-A, which apparently has “free breakfast Thursdays.” She says they give away a breakfast item from 6:30-10:30 a.m. every Thursday. Today, she ate a free Chik-Fil-A biscuit, and she said it was “SO GOOD.”

Let me know if you take advantage of these freebies. I’ll be speaking at a YWCA of the Quad-Cities event over the lunch hour today, so I’ll miss out on the burritos — but that’s OK. The YWCA and its programs (specifically, the Rock Island High School daycare center, which I”ll be talking about) are worth it. 

Talk to you soon!

My daughter loves books. She loves singing and dancing. She loves pink.

So, I thought this was a no-brainer. I figured she would love the musical “Pinkalicious,” based on a children’s book series, playing now at Circa 21 in Rock Island.

And she did, I found out Saturday … but not until after the performance, a short timeout in the theater lobby, a little meltdown in the restroom and a long nap. Ah, yes. Did I mention she’s 2? HAHA!

It’s my fault, really. I waited too long to get tickets (which are only $8 each, by the way! Very affordable), and the Saturday morning show was sold out. so, we took the tickets that were available for the afternoon show … right during prime nap time.

I thought if I could just get her a snack, maybe the excitement of the theater would mesmorize her. And it did.

When the lights went down, and the actors came out on stage, she stopped wriggling around like a melting stick of butter, trying to slide underneath the table. Instead, she sat up, quiet and wide-eyed. And she stayed that way for the whole hour-long performance.

Ask either one of her grandmas, who went with us, and they’ll agree: Her transformation was a beautiful thing.

When the musical was over, she was very tired and cranky. But later, after she had napped, she began talking about Pinkalicious in grand detail. She even had noticed a piece of tape on the actress’ face, which held the microphone to her cheek.

“I love Pinkalicious,” she told me. “She can come to my house, if she wants to.”

She also declared that she liked the stage, and all the singing and dancing. Yay!

I’m guessing that was the first of many theater performances we’ll be going to in the coming years. Maybe this has even sparked her interest in performing someday! You just never know.

What’s new in your world?

Holding my little girl tightly against my chest, with our cheeks pressed together, we stood quietly together at dusk in our front yard.

“Do you see those lightning bugs?” I asked her, pointing into the woods.

Flashes of light appeared and disappeared, over and over again, as we watched.

The wind blew softly in our long hair.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

“Oh, they're just flying,” I said.

We fell quiet again, watching. We stood that way for several minutes.

Then, I kissed her forehead, and said, “Someday, I'm going to say to you, `Remember that night in summer, when you were little, and we stood outside in the yard and watched lightning bugs?'

“You might not remember it,” I said. “But I will.”

I promise.

****************

This Hepatitis A scare is NEVER good to hear about– but especially not when you feel like you spend half of your life in public restrooms with a toddler!!! Medical warnings all say that yucky stuff such as Hep A are transmitted most commonly by people who do not wash their hands properly after using the restroom … and you know that toddlers find it very hard not to want to touch everything they see (so why not touch things in a public toilet?!).

I’m constantly saying, “Let’s not touch anything. Hold your hands together  just like this,” as I position her hands in front of her.  Sometimes, it works. Then, we go and wash our hands.

For the record,  I think we went back and forth into the bathroom at a restaurant in Rock Island a total of 122.5 times last night alone. God help me.

What’s new with you?

Where can kids eat free in the Quad-Cities?

We want to compile a list of all kinds of local places — not just the big chains, but the mom-and-pop restaurants, too – that do this, so we all can save a little money and still take the family out to eat once in a while.

If you know of such a place, please e-mail me at kluna@qctimes.com. I need the name of the restaurant, the address, and which night kids can eat free there … plus the phone number of the restaurant, if you have it.

When we get a big enough list, I’ll share it with all of you.

Thanks for the great idea, Erin and Heidi (hello there, ladies!).

Thank you so much for the outpouring of suggestions, tips and reassurances about my Babycakes’ stumbling over her words.

It sounds like a lot of you have dealt with this when your kids were little, and most of them just naturally grew out of it. That’s very reassuring, and I want to thank you all — especially those who reached out for the first time on this blog — to give me some comfort.

We really paid close attention to her speech over the weekend, and realized she isn’t doing it in every sentence. Sometimes, it’s really not too bad. So, I’m going to take your advice, take a deep breath and relax about it for a while.

While we were worrying, she was footloose and fancy-free this weekend, playing with two friends about her age, who spent a couple of days with us at our house (along with their parents and the baby — Julia Elise — who I wrote about in a previous post). We had a very nice time.

Miss Babycakes hung out most of Sunday in her new sand box, telling me several times that she was “at the beach.” At one point, she even extended her legs, pointed her toes and told me, “Look at my long legs!” HA!

AND … What’s with kids going crazy when they see a stage? OK, what’s with OUR kid going crazy when she sees a stage?!

My husband and I shook our heads and laughed all throughout our visit Sunday to a neighborhood restaurant, where there’s a stage set up in the corner of the place. During the daytime, no bands were using the stage … but it was like a magnet to all the children in the restaurant.

Babycakes ran up on the stage, wobbling around and bobbing her head and swishing her hips … and hugging children she randomly met up there. HA! It was so funny!

At one point, my husband asked me, “When does a person go from THAT to THIS?,” meaning his serious demeanor (the opposite of her I-don’t-care-who-watches-me-I’m-gonna-dance attitude). “When do you lose that?”

Laughing, I said, “I don’t think I ever did lose it!” He had to agree! Ha!

It came of the blue one night, about two weeks ago. It struck me right away.

My daughter (2 1/2 years old) was having trouble getting her words out. She was stammering, in just about every sentence she spoke.

“Maybe she’s tired?” I thought, as my worried eyes met my husbands’.

“Oh, gosh,” I said, knowing the answer wouldn’t be that simple — and that this problem wasn’t going to go away quickly.

She’s still doing it. Stuttering. I hate to even write about it, because I feel like I’m pointing out something that shouldn’t be made into a big deal at this point.

I asked her daycare provider to pay close attention to our daughter’s  speech. She says she notices it now and then, but it’s not alarming.

She says she’s seen it in her own son, when he was about Babycakes’ age, and was told it’s a sign of intelligence. She says it can happen when a kid thinks faster than he or she can speak.

I guess I worry because my oldest child — who will turn 18 this fall — also stuttered mildly when he was little, although, I don’t remember it starting this young. It might have, though. That was a long time ago.

He attended speech therapy in first grade and we learned to always remind him to use “slow, easy speech.”  His slight tendency to get caught up on words resolved itself fairly quickly, and he didn’t attend therapy anymore after he entered 2nd grade. Now, he can out-talk the best of us!

But I’m still worried about Babycakes. Nothing pivotal has happened in her life: no sudden disruptions, no schedule changes, no incidents at daycare or home or anywhere else that we know about. She seems to hear everything fine. No illnesses.

We don’t want a perfect package of a little girl, wrapped up in a bow. We just want our little Babycakes, tantrums and sweet hugs and all. Her speech doesn’t have to sound exactly like everyone else’s. I just want to make sure she continues to be the confident little firecracker she’s been for so long.

It’s just so strange, because Babycakes’  speech has been incredible up until now (I thank all the books we’ve read and all the talking I’ve done with her since she was born). She’s been using a wide vocabulary and speaking in full sentences for a long time.

If it doesn’t seem to get any better, I am going to call our pediatrician’s office and ask what they might recommend to help her.

Has anyone else experienced this with their kids? What did you do?

If you were to ask my 2 1/2-year-old daughter about the 4th of July, she would happily tell you, “I like fireworks!”

But I would have to add she only likes them from very far away.

We skipped the fireworks on the 3rd, because I didn’t feel the greatest. I did a lot of lying on the bathroom floor instead.

But I felt just fine the next day, so we went to my family’s tiny hometown south of the Quad-Cities for festivities there. We had planned to go to “the old school track” to watch the fireworks there, but it wasn’t quite dusk yet. So, we watched some do-it-yourself fireworks from my Dad’s backyard instead.

That didn’t go over well with Babycakes. She cried and kept saying, “No mo!!! No mo!!! I want to go in the house!!!”

So, we did. And we called off going to watch the fireworks.

Luckily, we could see them plain as day from my Dad’s front porch, so we all stood in the dark (with Babycakes wrapped in a blanket), watching the big display from there. And she started to like it, commenting on the colors. Green was her favorite.

So, we did end up seeing fireworks — just not in the way I had planned. But that’s OK. There’s always next year.

How did your holiday weekend go?

This is random, but wanted to let you know as soon as I heard.

It looks like Kmart is going to offer double-coupon days starting Sunday, July 5, and running through July 11.

Participating stores will double manufacturer’s coupons up to $2 (which means if you have a $2 off coupon from a manufacturer, it will be valued at $4 off at the checkout).

I went online, and it appears our Quad-City stores will be participating — but here’s where you can look to make sure: kmart.shoplocal.com.

This is a rare treat in our area. I called around to a lot of our local chain stores about a month ago, asking if they offer regular double-coupon days, and none of them did.

If any of you take advantage of this, please e-mail or post later what kind of deal you were able to score by doubling your coupons. Enjoy!

Where have I dropped the ball since having my daughter two years ago? My own fitness.

Exercise is always on my to-do list, but I always have an excuse why it’s inconvenient or can’t get done. Usually this revolves around my daughter — “Who will take care of her? I’ve been at work all day — I don’t want to leave her again,” etc.

Been there?

Well, I’m discovering that there are things adults can do to work out AND hang with their children at the same time. Think basketball games in the driveway, roller skating, kickball, walks around the neighborhood.

What do YOU do with your kids? I’m writing a story about this for our Health page, and need your ideas and input. Do you know of any Mom/Dad-and-kiddo fitness classes? Any and all ideas are welcomed.

You can post here or e-mail me at kluna@qctimes.com. Thanks!

We haven’t seen fireworks for the 4th of July since my daughter was 6 months old.

That was the year I decided that the baby was going to be acclimated into all our usual family traditions, including going to watch the fireworks with friends.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

She was just a baby, and she was scared to death.  It was incredibly loud where we were sitting at Camden Park in Milan. Fireworks debris was falling from the sky, right around our spot.

We ran for the car, dodging the debris, with Babycakes bawling and my husband and I bickering, because I was the one who had insisted we go to the fireworks — even though he had warned me she was too little to enjoy it.

Then, we got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, trying to get out of the park. It was a nightmare.

So, last summer, when she was 1 1/2 years old, we didn’t even attempt it. We celebrated with family and friends during the day, but bailed and went home before dusk.

Now,  I think it’s time to try it again.

A few nights ago, I told my girl that 4th of July is coming up, telling her it’s the birthday of the country where we live. I told her about fireworks, and how they will boom really loud, but they leave behind beautiful colors and shapes in the sky.

“Do you want to see some fireworks this year?” I asked.

“Yes, Mommy!,” she said.

So, my  husband brought out a sparkler and lit it, and she watched it, but still seemed a little leery. I kept telling her the real fireworks would be really LOUD, and she nodded her head yes, like she understood.

We’ll see how it works out this weekend.

I’m thinking about bringing ear plugs for her, just in case the booms bother her when the time comes. Do you have any other tips for me? (Other than park close to the exit … Haha!)