Downtown Ellicott City (The Baltimore Sun) 

If you recall, Money Magazine recently ranked Ellicott City, along with Columbia, as the No. 2 best small urban area to live in.

Now, Kiplinger.com says Ellicott City is one of the top 10 cities for raising families.  

It says:

It's just 20 minutes from downtown Baltimore (with its Inner Harbor/Aquarium complex) and 50 minutes from the nation's capital. Yet the schools are better, the neighborhoods safer, and the cost of living slightly lower than many suburbs in this region. Howard County boasts one of Maryland's top school districts. 

It also cites Ellicott City's high average family income, solid wage growth and 67 nearby parks. However, the magazine also notes high housing costs and the traffic-congested commute to Baltimore and Washington.

I recently moved to Ellicott City, close to its historic downtown, and I have to say that it's been a great place for young families.

But these lists can be pretty subjective. What do you think of this latest ranking? What else does Ellicott City offer? And what other places in the Baltimore region are great for raising families?

Chime in, parents.
 

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Best of lists
        

(The Baltimore Sun) 

Liz Atwood discusses proper school attire in this week's Tween Tuesday:

The first day of school, my fourth grader was up early and ready to go. I had gone to the gym to exercise and when I came back, I found out he had picked out his clothes for the day—a T-shirt two sizes too small and a pair of red shorts he had worn most of the summer.

I immediately vetoed his selection. I stressed the importance of “dressing for success” and explained the difference between play clothes, church clothes and work clothes. School was his work and he needed to dress like it.

He resisted at first, arguing that he wasn't going to look like a geek. But I guess he saw I wasn’t going to give in on this one and he agreed to change.

I know that mothers of girls sometimes worry that their daughters are dressing too provocatively. As a mother of boys, I might not have to worry about that, but boys also need to recognize what is appropriate and inappropriate dress.

How is the school year going so far in your house? Have you had to override any of your tween's sartorial decisions?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Teens
        

There seems to be a baby boom in our area. The culprit? The massive snow storms that hit the Baltimore region earlier this year.

If you recall, my colleague Jill Rosen was looking for mothers-to-be due in September or November who suspect their bundle of joy is a blizzard baby on this blog.

She writes about the snow baby boom in today's paper:

Hospitals are gearing up to prepare for an autumn boom, booking sonogram appointments has become tricky, parent education classes are full and expectant mothers are fighting for mat space at baby yoga.

OK, I know there are skeptics out there, but don't tell that to Dr. Judith Rossiter, head of obstetrics at St. Joseph Medical Center. She says women started coming in for their first-trimester sonograms in April and the hospital had trouble handing the rush.

The hospital has seen a 14 percent hike in ultrasounds since then. Rossiter attributes the baby boom to the snow storms.  

"Absolutely — no question in my mind," the doctor says. "People were stuck — and for a long time. I'm going to leave the rest to the imagination. Dot. Dot. Dot."

Jill also talked to three couples, including Shelley Curreri, a 29-year-old court clerk from Halethorpe, who's expecting twin boys.

At Aberdeen Proving Ground, Curreri's husband, Sam, who works there as an electrician, is just one of three men whose wives are due within days of each other in November.

"They all put two and two together," she says. "It's the blizzard."

Congrats to all the expectant parents!

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers
        

(The Baltimore Sun) 

Monday was little J.'s first day of day care. To commemorate the occasion, I put him in one of his cutest outfits and took pictures.

That got me thinking about back-to-school rituals as a new school year begins. Some schools in the area have already started.

How do you get your children and family ready for a new school year? Do you go on a trip each year before school starts to enjoy the last days of summer? Do you share a special meal the night before the first day of school?

Share your story here.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: School's In
        

Liz Atwood talks about her boys getting enough sleep in this week's Tween Tuesday:

The countdown to the new school year has started. My boys are frantically trying to finish their summer reading assignments and I’m desperately trying to get them back into a reasonable bedtime routine. As they grow older, this gets harder. I miss the days when they were babies and I could put them to bed at 8 p.m. and they would sleep until 7 the next morning.

Now it’s a miracle of they go to bed at 10, especially the teen-ager who wants to stay up watching football games, movies and late-night comedy shows. That doesn’t even factor in the time he spends looking at his iPod before he falls to sleep.

Lack of sleep is a chronic problem for tweens and teens, health experts say. And sleep deprivation leads to all sorts of problems, including poor school performance and bad tempers. Parents of tweens and teens know their kids already seem like a keg of dynamite ready to explode at the smallest spark. Failing to get enough sleep just exasperates those problems.

According to kidshealth.org, kids 10-12 need a little over nine hours of sleep per night. Teens need 8.5- 9.5 hours a night. Next week, my older son starts high school and the bus will arrive at 7:15 a.m. Even though he can dress and eat quickly, he will have to be up before 7 a.m. For a kid who has grown used to sleeping until almost noon, this first week is going to be rough.

Do you have any suggestions for how to get the older kids to bed on time?
 

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Teens
        

Breastfeeding in public can be a tricky ordeal. But did you know that in Maryland a mother has the right to breastfeed wherever she goes with the child?

A few weeks ago, The Baltimore Sun got a call from Michael Sonn, who was visiting family in Maryland with his wife, Kathleen, 11-year-old daughter Marina and 2-year-old Martin. They are from California.

Michael was upset at what he called an infringement on his wife's breastfeeding right during a trip to Six Flags America amusement park in Prince George's County.

While Michael was taking a bathroom break, Kathleen said she was nursing Martin under a shaded area at the park when a security guard approached her and told her to cover up.

Kathleen said she objected to that idea because it was a particularly hot day and she had never had a problem breastfeeding in public.  

According to Kathleen, the guard told her that she would have to leave the park if she didn't comply.  

Although she was upset, Kathleen said she stopped nursing and decided that the family would stay because it was Marina's first trip to an amusement park.

"I didn't want to ruin the whole day for her," said Kathleen, who's a licensed midwife.  

(A side note: Interesting enough, August is National Breastfeeding Month.)

Julia Filz, a spokeswoman at Six Flags, said there might have been some miscommunication.

"At no point was she ever told the choice was cover up or leave. It's outside the letter of the law," she said.

Filz says employees are trained to know mothers could breastfeed wherever they feel most comfortable at the park. On request, the park has private rooms where mothers could nurse their children, according to Filz. 

One thing that's clear is the state law:

-- A mother may breastfeed her child in any public or private location in which the mother and child are authorized to be.
-- A person may not restrict or limit the right of a mother to breastfeed her child.

Have you had difficulty breastfeeding in public?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers
        

It’s coming up on nine months since the Baltimore region was socked by a series of blizzards. Some hospitals are reporting an increase in expectant mothers.

My colleague Jill Rosen is looking to talk to mothers-to-be due in September or November who suspect that their impending bundle of joy is a blizzard baby.

She'd love to talk to folks who are pretty darn sure they’ve got a blizzard baby. Or, people who think the whole blizzard/blackout baby phenomenon is an urban myth.

Contact Jill at jill.rosen@baltsun.com. She needs to speak with people by Tuesday.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers
        

It's Sarah K.K., back to take on the ga-ga-goo-goo set for Toddler Thursday:

A few months ago, I posted asking for advice about flying cross-country with a newly mobile toddler and got lots of helpful hints.

Well, I'm back and asking for more.

Next week, I'm flying with my now-2-year-old -- by ourselves. Thankfully, it's a shorter -- and nonstop -- flight, and I've got some strategies already. But you were all so helpful last time, I figured I'd ask for some updates. 

My flight plan goes like this:

-- A carseat and cot have already been ordered, shipped and delivered to my parents' house, so we don't have to bring any of that bulky stuff with us. I considered an umbrella stroller, too, but I decided to keep the kiddo contained and bring our smallish stroller with us to gate-check.

-- The MagnaDoodle worked magic on keeping Isaac entertained, and it is still one of his favorite things to play with when we go out to dinner or are stuck in the waiting room at the doctor's office. 

-- I'm going to download a couple of (silent) toddler-friendly apps for my iPhone because he loooooves that thing. We have a portable DVD player, but I'm also going to be carrying on some camera equipment, so I'm trying to keep everything else unbulky, so the iPhone it is.

-- Add couple of new books, couple of snacks, favorite blankies, changes of clothes for both of us to the usual diaper-bag load, I think we'll be good.

But what am I forgetting?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Toddler Thursday
        

McDonald's Mighty Kids Meal, consisting of a double cheeseburger, french fries and chocolate milk, has topped a list of the most unhealthy fast-food kids meals complied by dietitians at the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.  

The group said the McDonald's kids meal has 840 calories and 37 grams of fat.  

The group analyzed the content of fast-food meals marketed to children. It ranked the top five meals with high levels of fat, cholesterol and sodium.

The rest of the list, in order:

Wendy's Kids Meal (chicken sandwich, fries and chocolate Frosty) : 770 calories, 34 grams of fat

KFC Kids Meal (popcorn chicken, potato wedges, string cheese and soda): 800 calories, 1,800 milligrams of sodium

A&W Kids Meal (cheeseburger, fries and soda): 780 calories, 9 grams of saturated fat

Burger King's BK Kids (breakfast muffin sandwich meal): 95 milligrams of cholesterol

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: Food and Recipes
        

The number of adoptions in Maryland has grown almost 20 percent during the past three years, according to Gov. Martin O'Malley who made the announcement at a press conference this morning.

Citing reforms in the state's child welfare system for the progress, O'Malley said about 8,760 children have been placed with guardians, adoptive families or reunited with their parents.  

Check out reporter Raven Hill's expanded story tomorrow.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Adoption
        

 Associated Press

Little J. is still several years away from kindergarten. But the way school supply lists are growing, I wonder if he will be asked to bring his own desk. (I'm only half kidding here.)

With the recession tightening already-squeezed budgets, schools are asking students to bring items that go beyond notebooks and pencils, according to The New York Times. One elementary school in Moody, Ala. asked parents to bring:

Two double rolls of paper towels, three packages of Clorox wipes, three boxes of baby wipes, two boxes of garbage bags, liquid soap, Kleenex and Ziplocs.

Wooh. That's quite a list.

As the school supply list grows, spending is climbing as well. The National Retail Federation says the average family will spend $606.40 this year on clothes, shoes, supplies and electronics. That's compared with $548.72 last year.  

Spending on apparel will take up the majority of consumers' budgets with the average family of school-aged kids expected to spend $225.47 on jeans, shirts and other types of clothing. Running the gamut from laptops and net books to smart phones and MP3 players, parents are expected to spend an average of $181.60 on their children's electronic or computer-related school needs. Families will also spend an average of $102.93 on shoes and $96.39 on school supplies.

What unusual items have you encountered on your child's school supply list? What else are you buying for your children?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: School's In
        

Here's the latest installment of Tween Tuesday by Liz Atwood, who muses about summer baseball:

It’s been another disappointing season for Baltimore Orioles fans, with the team spending all summer at the bottom of the league. Attendance is down as well, with an average of just 21,723 fans turning out for each game, according to The Sports Network.

Twice this season, attendance at Camden Yards dropped below 10,000. I’ll have to admit, I’m one of those to blame. I’ve never been a huge sports fan, but I always enjoyed taking in a few baseball games each summer. When my older son was five or six, we took him to his first baseball game and he loved playing when he was younger.

But now summer is almost over and there are just a few more weeks left in the season and we haven’t been to a game this year. In fact, I’m ashamed to say, we’ve never taken our 9-year-old to an Orioles game, although he has been to see the Baysox. Is that heresy?

Is there some kind of punishment meted out to parents for raising a boy in Baltimore without ever taking him to see a baseball game? One reason we haven’t gone is that he isn’t that interested in baseball, preferring instead soccer, basketball and football.

Of course, if we took him to see a game, maybe he would become more interested in the sport. Then again, with the way the season is going, maybe not.

How about you? Are you going to as many games as before with your kids?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Sports, Teens
        

That's according to Men's Health magazine, who ranked Baltimore as the third most unsafe city in the U.S. to raise a child.

My colleague, Andrea Walker, blogs about the ranking at Picture of Health.  

The magazine determined its rankings by looking at five factors: accidental death rates, the number of car seat inspection locations per child, sex offenders per capita, the percentage of abused children protected from further abuse, and the strength of bike helmet and child restraint laws.

Baltimore ranked 98th for accidental deaths, 72nd for car-seat inspections, 75th for sex offenders and 73rd for abused children protection. The city received an overall grade of F. The unsafest city was Jacksonville, FL, and the safest was Madison, Wis.

I find rankings of all kinds very subjective, but I'm sure it doesn't help with the city's image.

What do you think? What other factors should be considered?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Child Safety
        

(Getty Images) 

Tickets for Bieber's Sept. 5 performance at the Maryland State Fair is sold out. But American Advertising Federation of Baltimore is auctioning off four tickets on ebay.

The bidding starts at $225 and the auction ends Aug. 21. The federation says all proceeds will benefit the group's College Scholarship Fund, which awards money to students pursuing a degree in one or more advertising disciplines.

How much are you willing to pay for Justin Bieber tickets?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Music
        

 (Staff photo/Barbara Haddock Taylor) Hampstead Hill Academy food manager Gwendolyn Moore prepares the cafeteria line for "Meatless Monday," a new feature for Baltimore city schools.

These days, school cafeteria food is not all pizza, hamburger and sloppy joes. Many schools are offering organic produce, vegetarian meals and other healthier alternatives.

My colleague John-John Williams IV reports that some Maryland schools are pushing for and have achieved more nutritious options even as the nation's schools have adopted the strictest health standards in history.

Some like Centennial Lane Elementary in Ellicott City have introduced more healthful snacks to students instead of the sweets and other treats. Baltimore City has adopted "Meatless Mondays" and has shifted to an effort to serve locally grown organic food. In Baltimore County, a parent group is pushing for more healthful foods. And nationally, the country's first lady is leading an effort to get children to eat more fruits, vegetables and low-fat foods.

John-John reports that the Howard County school system has one of the strictest nutrition standards in the country.

In 2006, the school board approved a food and wellness policy that eliminated the sale and distribution of food and beverages deemed to be of minimal nutritional value during the school day. It also prohibited the sale of soda at the primary-grade level and limited the amount of soda sold in vending machines at secondary schools.

As students prepare to go back to school in a few weeks, what else would you like to see in your child's cafeteria menu?

Are you satisfied with what schools are serving? What other changes do you think schools should make when it comes to nutrition?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Food and Recipes, School's In
        

I was browsing through Parenting magazine today when I noticed a babyGap ad featuring skinny jeans.

And as timing would have it, The Wall Street Journal has written about retailers introducing the fashion trend for the smallest consumers. The headline is hilarious: "Do These Jeans Make My Diaper Look Big?"

Skinny jeans are form-fitting, skim through the thighs and knees and even more so through the calves and ankles. As you could imagine, not everyone -- I'm talking adults here -- could pull off this look.

Besides Gap, which is selling skinny jeans for babies as small as zero to three months old, the WSJ notes American Eagle Outfitters' 77Kids and Little 77 Divisions to Levi's are getting into the mix.

I have to admit that the skinny jeans looked super cute on the girl Gap model, who's three years old. I'm not sure if it would look as equally cute on boys, though.

Obviously, the demand is there as parents are picking up the look for their kids. And as Mark Breitbard, executive vice president of GapKids and babyGap, told the WSJ:

"People tend to put their kids first. They'll pass on something for themselves to make sure their kids are still looked after."

Is it too much for you? Would you or have you bought skinny jeans for your baby or toddler?

Vote here:

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers
        

 Hi, folks, it's Sarah K.K., back with another installment of Toddler Thursday.

First off, sorry for my absence the past couple of weeks. It's been seriously crazy in the Toddler Thursday household, and I apologize.

Overall, I would say that I am not the most graceful girl in town. I'm definitely more toward the klutz end of the spectrum for sure.

But every so often, the synapses fire appropriately and I pull off what feels like some kind of feat.

The most historic such moment was a few years ago when, at Arundel Mills, my husband and I were sitting at a rickety two-person table, and it started to tip over, taking an almost-full large cup of soda with it. And I stuck my arm out and grabbed the soda out of midair. I didn't even recognize myself, and I waited for my husband to marvel along with me. But he just laughed. Even though it was his soda I saved.

Yesterday morning I had another such moment, and I felt like Ninja Mommy. My 2-year-old and I were about to get into my car so I could take him to daycare, and our feet got all tangled up. (He unfortunately has inherited my klutzy ways. Or else, you know, he's just 2 and doesn't have the equilibrium thing down just yet. Anyway!) He started to fall backward, and his head was going to hit the adjacent car, maybe even the edge of the wheel well. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I somehow saw this, processed it, untangled our feet, turned around and crouched down in time to catch his head before he hit the car. 

Whoa. Who was that? I almost felt like flexing, after I got past my relief that the little guy hadn't hit his head.

Share your Ninja Mommy or Daddy moments below. 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Toddler Thursday
        

More parents are considering this option for their children to "encourage their mental, social and physical development," columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes in the The Wall Street Journal.

More children are being held back a grade because they have failed standardized tests, fueled in some places by the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law.

Now, however, being held back a grade is considered less of a stigma by parents who see their kids struggling or performing at average levels and think repeating a grade would put them closer to the top of their class, school officials say. Some believe an extra year of maturity would help kids who are lagging behind their classmates socially.

There are pros and cons to this approach, and research is not clear on whether students benefit from being held back, according to the article.

I'm sure it's hard for any parent to consider holding back a child, but at the end of the day, you have to consider what's best for her or him.

Have you wrestled with this dilemma? If so, how did you make your decision?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: School's In
        

Baltimore Sun columnist and Garden Variety blogger Susan Reimer is looking for parents who have created a cool homework space for their kids for a story on the subject.

If you have such a space, please contact Susan at susan.reimer@baltsun.com

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: School's In
        

E. and I are frantically searching for child care for baby J., who's nearly eight months old now. And we're running out of time.

After my six-month maternity leave, E. was able to take some time off from work to watch J., while grandparents have stepped up during emergencies.

But we could no longer rely on stop-gap measures. Finding affordable and safe child care has not been an easy process.

Of course, it didn't help that we waited until I returned to work to look for child care options. Up until that point, I had no idea that finding infant child care in particular would be nearly impossible. Who knew that you should put your child on a day care wait list as soon as you know you're expecting?

I wish that was something that my doctor -- or anyone for that matter -- told me along with diet, exercise and other pregnancy advice.

That got me thinking about what other things I should know now that would save me from grieve later on.

What advice would you give your younger parent-self? What do you wish you had known then that you know now as a parent?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Child Care
        

Baltimore is launching a new public awareness campaign to tell parents that babies should sleep alone on their backs in a crib, as my colleague Meredith Cohn reports today.

The B'More for Healthy Babies project will feature real moms who have lost their children. Their stories will be featured on billboards and on radio spots as well as on video to be shown in maternity wards.

One mother, Dearea Matthews, who will be involved in the project, lost Charlie on Dec. 29. He slept in bed with his parents, just as his two siblings had done and as other members of his extended family had done with their parents.

Although many moms here and elsewhere believe in co-sleeping for convenience and safety reasons, Meredith notes that 27 infant deaths last year in Baltimore were tied to unsafe sleeping practices.

Babies who are not alone in a crib can be crushed by a sleeping parent or sibling, or suffocated by blankets or toys. On their bellies they can also more easily choke. Charlie's death remains unexplained, but health officials say sudden infant death syndrome, formerly known as crib death, is far less likely to happen to babies properly positioned for sleeping.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Child Safety
        

Liz Atwood talks about kids returning to school in a few weeks in this week's Tween Tuesday.

I don’t know about you, but I dread the thought of another school year about to begin. Yes, I know, there’s some comfort in getting back to the routine, but I do not relish the thought of being the homework enforcer or the report card monitor.

School seems harder for my boys than it was for me. I liked school and was a good student. My sons, especially the 9-year-old, dislike the rigidity of sitting still in a classroom. So I was intrigued by a recent article in The Washington Post that noted schools are increasingly gravitating toward single-sex classrooms. Some researchers have found, and most parents probably would agree, that girls and boys learn differently.

But whether they need different approaches in the classroom is a matter of debate. Personally, I would like to enroll my boys in a single-sex classroom if it were available at our public school.

What about you?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: School's In, Teens
        

Your child is OK even if you decide to work during the first year of his or her life.

A new study examining maternal employment and the impact on a child's development has gotten a lot of ink from The New York Times, The Washington Post and other media in the last few days.

According to the NYT:

The study showed that, over all, children whose mothers went back to full-time work within the first 12 months after birth performed worse on a series of cognitive tests. But there there were big exceptions: the study also found that children whose mothers improved the family income significantly, or selected high quality child care, or remained sensitive to their children did not have any cognitive setbacks when compared with children of stay-at-home mothers.

The study was conducted by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Wen-Jui Han, and Jane Waldfogel at Columbia University's Teacher's College and School of Social Work. The researchers examined data on 1,364 children collected by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. 

The study's conclusions may come as a relief for many working moms, including myself, who are still debating whether to work or stay at home.

It should be noted that the same researchers published a study in 2002 showing that maternal employment during the child's first year hampered child development, according to the Washington Post.

"We can say now, from this study, what we couldn't say before: There's a slight risk, and here's the three things that you, Mom, can do to make a difference," said Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, the lead author. "This particular research has a positive message for mothers that the earlier research didn't."

What do you think of the research? Does this new research help alleviate some of your working-mom guilt?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Guilty-Mom polls, Workplace
        

Despite the recession, child care costs continue to climb, according to a new report released this week by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

The Arlington, Va.-based group found that the average cost for center-based child care for an infant exceeds the average annual amount that families spend on food in every region of the U.S.

Parents who choose child care in a center or a family child care home must pay a significant part of their income for this care. Low- and middle-income parents have limited access to affordable, quality care.

Among the report's findings:

• Since 2000, the cost of child care has increased twice as fast as the median income of families with children.
• In 25 states, the increase in the cost of infant care in a center far exceeded the rate of inflation.
• The average increase among all states in the cost of care for a 4-year-old in a center exceeded the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile, the report notes that unemployment is up among women with children.

The report provides average costs of child care in 2009 for infants, 4-year-olds and school-age children in centers and family child care homes in every state.

In Maryland, the average center-based child care cost was $12,367 for infants, $8,088 for 4-year-olds and $4,825 for school-aged children. For family child care, the average cost was $8,767; $7,063; and $4,401, respectively.

Do the costs seem too high, too low? Is affordable, quality child care still out of reach for most parents?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Child Care
        

Stop by Target, Wal-mart or your favorite department store and you’re likely to see that summer is over. While we still have a few more weeks until school begins again, already the stores are ready for the back-to-school shoppers and the papers are filled with ads for notebooks, glue sticks and new clothes.

According to a recent report from the National Retail Federation, the average American family will spend $606.40 on clothes, shoes, supplies and electronics, compared to $548.72 last year. The federation says the increase is due to necessity: the kids have outgrown the clothes and backpacks that they might have reused last year.

I am postponing back-to-school shopping as long as I can. I know that I risk not having the choices I would have if I shopped earlier (ever notice how those marble notebooks fly off the shelves?), but somehow I am just not ready to get back in the school routine. When I do, I can’t imagine I’ll be spending close to the NRF’s average. But then again, I have boys and they don’t seem to need as many clothes as girls.

How about you? Have you started your back-to-school shopping yet? How much do you expect to spend?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: School's In