Cut Zazie Some Slack

I eat out a lot. With friends, with family, and sometimes with my daughter. In fact we have a lunch date somewhere in the city about once a week, so I'm pretty accustomed to dealing with kiddie behavior in restaurants. And I get annoyed by kids in restaurants all the time, including my own. There's been more than one occasion when I've taken my own precious little girl out of an eating establishment because she was fussy or cranky or just ready to go. 

Mia at Zazie back when she only had a few teeth!!  She still powered through their bread basket like a champ.

Local restauranteur Jennifer Bennett of Zazie ran into some kids last night that drove her to cranky Facebook posting. Sadly she didn't consider how her words would be received to the legions that wait in long lines, often with kids, to dine at her restaurant in Cole Valley. I'm a long-time fan—Zazie was one of the first restaurants my best friend took me to when I moved to San Francisco five years ago. 

I always noticed how the staff seemed so helpful when diners with kids came in, so when Mia came along it was naturally among our preferred places to eat. It was close to our old Upper Haight apartment, on weekday afternoons there's never a wait and that sunny back patio is a lovely place for a mama to catch up with friends, to get out and feel connected to the world beyond their baby. 

We went several times together and Zazie was naturally one of my early Mama's Guide reviews. On one visit Mia dropped her Sophie and a waiter snatched it up, rinsed it off and handed it back to her before I could move. That level of attentiveness and kindness doesn't just happen. It has to be embedded into the culture of a place. We eat out a lot and I rarely see the consistency toward kids that I've seen at Zazie, and which is why I'm willing to let this incident slide. 

When this "news" broke on my Facebook feed I was dining out for a friend's birthday at Drake's Dealership in Oakland. On the outdoor patio couples, friends and families ate together, including a big group with a squirrely toddler and a little baby. The toddler ran around and fell down and cried and jumped back up and ran some more. Everyone passed the baby around until she fell asleep in her mama's arms. It was comforting that we could all celebrate our separate joys and enjoy the same space. Despite what internet commenters would have us believe, kids have a place at restaurants like everyone else. We can debate the timing or the space or the parenting necessary once they're there, but our community includes children and some of them will be in restaurants. You may never see or hear them. They might bug the hell out of you. But they'll be there at some point and you will live.

The initial reaction was shock that Bennett did not want kids in Zazie anymore. A day later we now know that she was expressing sentiments based on her own experience dining out and not based on anything in her own restaurant. Her mistake was the Facebook post, which is not an uncommon mistake for people to make these days, but given Zazie's appearances in national news this summer for recent move to a no-tip structure I expected more media savvy. If she was a waitress at Chuck E. Cheese she might be fired for her opinion. But since she's at one of the most popular and stroller friendly restaurants in the city, she'll survive this and so will Zazie.

It's Anniversary Time!

Happy anniversary to me! A year ago this month I put up my first post on this site. After thinking about it, noodling the idea over with parents, friends and family, I hired a designer, bought the domain, and got to work. I had no idea where I'd end up even a month, let alone a year later, and here we are! 

What an amazing year its been. I've had some incredible experiences thanks to Mama's Guide. One of the most memorable was walking into a restaurant I already loved and encountering the manager—he'd read my reviews and got legitimately excited that I was there to review his restaurant!

With my co-pilot and our precious cargo heading to Alcatraz!

To those folks who think San Francisco isn't for kids, or that believe children shouldn't dine out (or should stick to chain restaurants), I hope this space gives you an alternative look at what life with children is all about if you haven't experienced it for yourself. Cities that are safe and comfortable for children tend to be that way for everyone, and if you say you don't want to hear crying babies (which, trust me, no one does), I'll raise you a public cell phone conversation or drunken chatter as equally annoying.  

Most of all, I've loved spending the last year exploring San Francisco with Mia, who has grown into my favorite dining companion. To all the waitresses and waiters who've played with her, bussers who practiced high fives with her greasy baby hands, and chefs who've come out of the kitchen and talked to us about your kids or sent out something special for us to eat, I thank you. You've made us a truly happy mama and baby!

There are several things you may notice about this site. For one, I don't post negative reviews. Why? Because my goal is to find and highlight places families should visit, or products and services that I actually love and use. There is more than enough negativity on the net, especially where reviews are concerned. I also don't get upset about restaurants that don't welcome children. I agree wholeheartedly that there are plenty of places where kids should not be, for a variety of reasons, and luckily there are plenty of places where they are welcomed with open arms. That's my focus.

And then just in time for my first anniversary, the awesome new parent's social network Parenthoods (created by two mamas in SF) honored me with a feature on their blog. If you're raising kids in the city and not using Parenthoods, come join in the fun! Go download it and then come back and finish reading. 

Where do I go from here? Keep reviewing and growing! I'm always on the hunt for new places to visit around San Francisco, and later this year we're taking Mama's Guide on the road, reviewing the best in stroller friendly restaurants in a city year you. If you have ideas/suggestions/recommendations, please give me a shout here or on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We use them all :)

To all the parents (and family and friends) who've joined our adventures for the past year, thank you, thank you, thank you, for reading and sharing, and most of all for taking your kids out in San Francisco or wherever you live!

A Suitcase Full of Fireworks

July 4th is definitely my favorite holiday. My younger brother's birthday is July 3rd, so Independence Day was always a celebration in my house. One of my strongest childhood memories is running down a country road on the 4th in Buttonwillow, California, where we lived when I was a kid. My entire family (which is a lot of people on my mom and dad's sides) gathered at our house to celebrate my brother's birthday AND the massive fireworks show my parents promised.

#148419904 / gettyimages.com

My mom was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and near her family home is a fireworks factory. Back in the 80s (aka before the TSA was on the scene) my mom took an extra suitcase with us to Oklahoma. Turns out that extra bag was stuffed with fireworks of every kind imaginable to bring back home.

I'm not just talking sparklers here-these were fancy bottle rockets in all colors. Roman candles that sounded like cannons when they exploded. Whistling Pete's that pierced your eardrums along with their light shower—my running memory is actually of me trying to get away from a Pete my slightly older cousin had taken the base off of, lit, and threw in the air. I was convinced it was chasing me.

July 4th 2013 at Duboce Park! Chubby cheeks galore.

Thanks to that suitcase full of fireworks we had mega shows for years in the country. We lived across from and next to huge cotton fields, the same ones my parents and grandparents picked when they were young, and later bought themselves when they'd saved enough money. So the danger was, um, minimal?

My mom died last May, a few months after Mia was born. In going through her estate we found we'd inherited some of the farmland that was the site of those fireworks shows. And when my sister and I were cleaning up her house I stumbled across a bag full of—you guessed it—fireworks. I thought that stash from the 80s had to be long gone, but it turned out my mom had saved some. It was a great  reminder of my mom's spirit, especially at a time when I had so many dreams and plans for my family, and so many fears around executing them. Mom wasn't a daredevil by any means, but she did take risks. This was a woman who smuggled rubles out of the USSR in her Afro in the 60s. And then there's the whole flying with fireworks thing.

For the past few years I've missed out on July 4th fireworks. Two years ago I was in my first trimester and fell asleep at a sadly early hour, and last year I had a little baby to nurse to sleep. So this year we're making up for it, hanging with family for a block party BBQ and (legal) fireworks show. Wherever you are today, happy July 4th to you and yours, and may you have great fireworks today and everyday!

7 Reasons Nursing Gets Better With Age

The age I refer to in the headline is your child's, of course! I feel like my own aging process speeds up or slows down depending on what’s going on with the my daughter—when she is smiling time stands still, and when she’s unhappy or unhealthy it feels like I’m in a race against the clock to get her well again. But our little ones are on a constant upward trajectory, and now that we've hit sixteen months (wow!)  I can say our nursing adventure is getting better for so many reasons. What you don’t often hear is that nursing is hard, but it can and does get easier with time! I didn’t know what to expect when all this started, but I am glad I stuck with it, for at least these seven reasons:

Here we are last week on a flight from Washington DC. Nursing is also great for soothing cranky kiddies on airplanes!

1. I see my child’s development from a different angle. Time at the breast is valuable for so much for more than just nutrition. I taught my daughter how to high five while nursing. We play peekaboo, explore each other’s faces and hair, and read stories together. Babies don't do much when they're small, but at a certain point it feels like they hit an exponential development spurt, and in close proximity at the breast is a great time to continue the learning.
2. No gear required. When she was little, getting the latch right took a small miracle almost every time. Is her head even with the nipple? Is her little body balanced on the Boppy just so? And what about me—is everything I need within arms reach? A pillow under my arm so it won't fall asleep halfway through and ruin that latch I fought so hard to achieve? But now that she's older all of that is done. I haven't seen the Boppy in months! Now she can climb into my lap on her own, get comfy and get latched with almost no help from me. I've even been laying on the couch when she’s walked over, nursed while standing, and gone back to playing.
3. I can say no. I breastfed exclusively in the beginning, so when she got hungry, I nursed. But now that she’s older and getting plenty of nourishment from solids, I can comfortably say no to a nursing session. During a recent East Coast trip M. wanted to nurse in the middle of dinner with friends.  She climbed in my lap and assumed the position. I wasn't even wearing a nursing bra (yay), and I didn't want to miss out on such valuable catch-up time, so I gave her some apple slices instead. And guess what? SHE WAS FINE.
4. My breasts have stabilized. Another reason I could say no is because I no longer live in fear of the dreaded leak. I was the one who was always stuffing my bra with those puffy pads and never knew when a leak would spring up (like while reading an obituary at a funeral? Yep, that was me. The pictures are great :/) In the early weeks and months, developing a stable milk supply left my breasts in a constant state of expand-retract-leak. As time passed all that disappeared.
5. Breast milk is great for so many toddler issues. Having breast milk on hand has also been great as she’s gotten older, because the more she moves around the more scratches pop up without warning. A few drops of breast milk is the perfect salve for a lot of those little dings (and a host of other things like diaper rash, gooey eyes, etc.) I've also noticed that while she may pick up a sniffle now that we spend more time at the playground, she recovers quickly.
6. It’s SO much faster. Our nursing sessions these days are just a few minutes at a time, a few times a day. It's like a little coffee break. I remember early on making a time-based list of things I thought I could accomplish once I was ready to start working at home. I was right for about 5 minutes, mostly because I didn't factor in nearly enough time for nursing. Even in later months, it still took up so much time. But now, its gone from a six-course dinner to fast food.
7. It keeps her close, just a little bit longer. The changes in my daughter from day one until now are the definition of mind-blowing. I remember my husband and I waiting for her first smile or to roll over, and now we need track shoes to keep up with her. I love having that time every day that is just ours, even if it only lasts for a few moments. It will be over before I know it and I’m so blessed to have it now!

So those are my reasons—if you're still nursing a toddler or older, what are yours? If you're new to nursing, what are your thoughts so far?