This morning after Munchkin and I waved goodbye to Monkey, we headed to the park. Yesterday's blustery weather had thrown me off and left me feeling cold so today Munchkin and I were toastily zipped into jackets. Monkey's bus was only a few feet away when Munchkin started to pull at her sleeves and protest. I rolled them up, hoping that would soothe her, but instead, she immediately tore off her jacket. I tried, repeatedly, to put the jacket back on her but she expertly dodged me and ran off to tear into the playground.

There I was, with my long sleeved shirt, jacket and jeans, while she ran around in her dress and leggings. Up and down she went but no matter how cold her hands were, she refused to put her jacket on until we left the park, exhausted. 

In general, I trust my children to tell me when they're hot or cold and I try not to force them to wear extra gear. Monkey usually choses to wear clothes appropriate for the temperature outdoors. Munchkin is a different story. Ever since she sprinted around the swimming pool locker room naked while Monkey chattered under a towel, I've noticed she's a bit more hot-blooded. (Or hardheaded? The jury is still out.) This morning, her hands were cold but even as I tried to warm them up, she shrugged me off to climb on up the jungle gym. 

I don't have too much shame about being the mother who lets her kid wear mismatched clothes and run barefoot at the park (Munchkin is Houdini-like with her ability to remove shoes at Hussain Bolt-speeds), but Munchkin's propensity to remove outer layers makes me a little uncomfortable for a few reasons:  1) I think that if I'm cold, then she must be cold too, but since my lovely mother gets cold about 10 degrees before I do, I've started to doubt myself and that logic.  2) She's actually cold. Sometimes her hands are cold so I know she must be feeling chilly. 3) I don't want to be that mother screaming, "Put your jacket on, I'm freezing!!" while chasing after my kid with her jacket. Don't get me wrong, if it's below freezing, I'll tackle Munchkin to get that jacket on her, but I'm not sure I should use the "tackling toddlers technique" when it's only 50 degrees out. 

The next few months will be interesting as the temperatures change--and vacillate--frequently. I'm not sure what my strategy will be, but if you see a tantruming toddler wearing a jacket, you'll know which tactic I chose. 

What is your strategy for dealing with weather-related clothing issues?
Vote on which method makes me a Good Mom or Bad Mom in the newly designed poll here!

When I first moved to New York City I moved into my furnished apartment with nothing but two suitcases. Five months later, I was able to move to my new place with a cab ride and plants on my lap. Now, 13 years later, it would take a huge moving van to get me out of here and I blame Ikea. 

It started when I got a television back in 2003. I'm pretty sure I was the only person working at NBC without a TV so my colleagues took it upon themselves to present me with a gift card to Best Buy. The TV soon needed a TV stand and all the books that I was no longer reading while I watched TV needed shelves to perch on. Off I went to Ikea to buy a huge TV stand-combo that would surely leave my apartment looking tidy and neat. However, I soon realized that, through no fault of my television, my tiny closet couldn't contain my clothes anymore, so off I went to Ikea again for a wardrobe. It was then I had to admit that I worshiped at the altar of Ikea. 

I don't know how Ikea does it, but they seem to predict your every need, whether it be for measuring cups or coffee cups; futons or photo frames.  Ikea has affordable and durable gadgets for items you could use every day and somehow seduces you to buy things you wish you used regularly. 

This infatuation with Ikea only increased after I got married (my husband is also an Ikea aficionado) and had kids. My friend and fellow parent and I used to go to Ikea, ostensibly for household items or toys, but mostly because they had a kiddie play area and secretly addictive ingredients in their meatballs. I can't recall the number of times I escaped unscathed from the furniture section only to be assailed by the pastry brush I had to have and the photo boxes I'd surely need as soon as I organized my photos. 

Recently, I returned to Ikea to buy Monkey a twin bed so that Munchkin could move into his toddler bed. I researched bunk beds, daybeds, and all sorts of arrangements, but alas, Ikea not only had the best and most affordable option--a kiddie loft bed--it had my heart. Ikea, I wish I knew how to quit you, but I don't. 

There are a lot of things I remember from 9/11/01. I was living in NYC and rushing to my job in NBC's Television Stations Division. I remember what I wore and my plan to go running after work with a colleague. Then I remember that all my trivial concerns went out the window as I first heard the news that the North Tower had burst into flames. My colleagues and I watched the coverage from a different network on each of the five televisions in my Executive Vice President's office. Then we'd turn around and see the reality facing us as we looked out the window overlooking southern Manhattan.

I remember assuming that the first plane hit the North Tower by accident. I remember seeing black smoke pouring out of the building, and cursing humanity for building structures unreachable by fire truck ladders. After the South Tower was hit, I remember being unsure whether I should evacuate the building and wondering whether it was safer to get home above ground or underground. I remember deciding to heed my colleagues's call from WNBC when he asked for help writing for WNBC's website. Off I went to the 7th floor thinking that surely it'd be easier to evacuate from there then it would have been from my now-desolate 26th floor. I spent the first days writing news posts, learning to spell "Osama bin Laden" as the news of his responsibility floated from desk to desk. 

But what I remember most, besides the smoke in the air and the shock of seeing NYC crumble before me, was my days putting up pictures of missing people. After being bombarded by phone calls and emails asking for pictures of the missing to put up, the news director, Diane Doctor, decided we should take on the task that no other network was tackling. Soon we were flooded with thousands of pictures with names, sometimes Social Security numbers and one phone number listed after another just in case. Over and over again, I'd receive the same photo from a concerned husband, an aunt and a cousin. I learned of spouses, siblings and pairs of parents and their grown children working for the same company, both missing. There were older executives and young adults that had vanished. Newlyweds and the newly hired. Bus boys and CEOs had vanished in the same instant. Neither money nor job title had protected any of the victims and it made me cringe at my own trivial financial concerns. 

I'd moved to New York City only 17 months before 9/11 and I didn't think I'd know anyone in the towers, much less on the planes. However, I soon learned that Jim Gartenberg, my alumnae club's kind and friendly president had died in the towers, but only after calling a news station to calmly describe the situation and saying his goodbyes to his family. It was to have been his last day at work. Then I got a call saying that my friend Debbie Welsh, a fellow alto in my church choir, had been the lead flight attendant in the flight which crashed in Pennsylvania. She was vibrant, funny and liked to regale me with the story of her almost getting arrested in Bolivia and now she was gone.

My lesson from that sunny Tuesday is that I am lucky to have survived that day physically unscathed. Emotionally, it was a bit tougher to recover. I wasn't scared about staying in NYC, but it was odd juggling singing at Debbie's memorial and celebrating my niece's 2nd birthday the next day. I was grateful that my sister and her husband had left their jobs in the buildings neighboring the World Trade Center, but didn't know how to cope with the loss of my friends. Unlike people who had worked downtown, I had an office and job to return to, but after seven days of posting pictures of people I knew had died, I burst into tears in front of my boss. I went back down to the newsroom though and finished the job because family members had already told me how grateful they were to have their loved ones picture up for the world to see just in case. They had hope where I had none. 

Maybe, just maybe, that's how people in war-torn countries survive. When their houses are bombed and when their families are taken away in the middle of the night, maybe they have hope that things will change and they will be better. Even though we had just survived something horrific, I could understand that we were lucky that acts of terrorism didn't strike the US daily, like they did in thousands of other countries. 

The spirit of my fellow New Yorkers the evening of 9/11 was somber, but united. I learned that we could all come together. After all, we were all in this--whatever this was--together. People were kinder, gentler and spoke more softly those next few weeks. For me, 9/11 confirmed that there was true evil in this world. I always knew there were bad people, but never had evil come so close to me and touched me so deeply. But 9/11 also confirmed there were good people everywhere. People came from all over the country to help firefighters, doctors and families that needed a hand. New Yorkers gave each other rides and a couch to stay on. For a few days, weeks and months, every New Yorker and many Americans could be counted on for a shoulder to cry on. When I ran the NYC Marathon two months later, people flew in from all over the world to run it, despite the risk of flying and being in New York. 

Twelve years later, as I try to raise my children to feel safe in an unpredictable world, I hope that they too possess the courage, love and hope that was vividly on display on 9/11. In the meantime, I remember both the innocence and the people we lost that day and value every lesson that 9/11 revealed.