I have been dreading September 2011 for years; the start of both my kids being in school five days a week. How would I handle getting two kids ready in the morning? Packing two lunches? Dealing with two sets of homework, not to mention the endless school paperwork that gets sent home with them? Physically transporting them to school? And what about pickup? If I started my son part-time, that would mean two separate pickup times. Last year was an absolute nightmare. Getting my daughter out of bed involved turning on her favorite show, Strawberry Shortcake, at 7 a.m. and waiting for the …

You never know where you are going when you get that 6 p.m. call from the modeling agency. Your child has been requested for a go see, are you available? My kids consistently get called to three locations that are obviously full-time photo studios, complete with catered lunch and Moulton Brown hand cream in the bathroom. The rest? One-time visits to rickety West Village buildings that make me feel like a contender on American Gladiators. Last week, I arrived at a tiny apartment building. According to the posted signs, you had to buzz up to the third floor and then hold your child's hand …

It's been a packed toddler festival season in Hoboken. Starting with the OLG Funfest in June, Hoboken has a myriad of kid-friendly outdoor activities throughout the summer. The Fun & Fit Day, Movies under the Stars and the Italian Festival are just a few of the ways to while away a warm summer afternoon. The fall Arts & Music Festival marks the end of the true festival season. Sure, we still have the Ragamuffin Day Parade to look forward to, but I can't get a sausage and pepper sandwich there. Instead, I dodge stiltwalkers and battle crowds of teenagers on Washington Street for the endless …

Hoboken just got a little closer to the suburbs. Last spring, I went onto the City of Hoboken's online registration portal to register my kids for the summer session of Art in the Park and randomly discovered my daughter was also eligible for peewee soccer. I signed her up, paid the $25 fee on my credit card and promptly forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I started getting emails from Nicole Appice, the soccer coach for my daughter's team. She pointed us to the team's schedule online and scheduled practices to begin half an hour before each game. I waited until the day of the first game …

On September 11, 2001, my husband and I were a childless married couple living on the twentieth floor of a landmark building in Brooklyn Heights, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. I got a phone call from my husband moments after the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, back when everyone thought it was a small commuter plane that had a terrible accident. I was working from home that day, so I turned on the TV in the background. And then the second plane hit the south tower and I knew it had to be a terrorist attack. I rushed across the hall to my neighbor's apartment…

Last May, I made a panicky phone call to my son's preschool asking what would happen if he was not potty-trained in September. They told me it was okay to have accidents but that I would have to be honest with them about his training level. I said, "I am. He's not trained at all." Something clicked this summer and in the space of one weekend, my son was potty trained. I wish I could say I had some special trick, but all that happened was I took his diaper off and let him run around naked. He freaked out and clutched himself when he had the urge to go but made it to the potty every time. …

My kids will be starting preschool and kindergarten in Hoboken next week. That means we need school supplies and clothes for the new school year. It's really hard to guess clothing sizes since my daughter grows approximately twice as fast as my son. My daughter is also picky about her clothes, identifying certain wardrobe items as school clothes and refusing to wear them at other times (makes holiday dressup difficult when the cute Peter Pan collared tops are off-limits). I try to stock up on clothing in two sizes; my five year old currently wears a size seven, so I am buying short and long-…

Last winter, I wrote about how the Great Blizzard of 2010 caught me off guard, which led to me putting together a disaster kit in the event of blizzards, blackout and hurricanes. Guess what? I forgot to include earthquakes in the list. One of the side benefits of having a completely childproof house is that it is also earthquake-proof. L-brackets secure all my bookshelves and tall furniture to the walls with L brackets, so nothing fell over during Tuesday's quake. However, that event was an excellent wakeup call for disaster preparation. I didn't realize quite how quickly I would need my …

Last week, the kids and I strolled on boardwalks in balmy sea air, examined jellyfish stranded by the waves, collected seashells and rocks for collages, and dug endless sandcastles. All under the shade of enormous palm trees. Where were we? Less than an hour from Hoboken at the Jersey Shore. I have lived in the NYC area for my entire life, but I was stunned to discover that the Jersey Shore has everything from public beaches teeming with boardwalk stalls and and crab shacks all the way to a high-end luxury hotel where our every need was taken care of before we even anticipated it. Our week …

Every day I meet moms in Hoboken who tell me I am some kind of superwoman because I have two toddlers and a entrepreneurial business. I'm not. I'm just a regular Hoboken mom struggling to balance work and family life. Women my age were told that we could have it all. We were taught to study hard and get good educations so we could have careers and then families. Hillary Clinton's generation fought hard so Generation X could have equal opportunities at work. And we can have it all; just not at the same time. Tina Fey recently highlighted the conundrum faced by many American women; that our …

Being pregnant in Hoboken means worrying about traffic. The vast majority of the time it takes me less than half an hour to get into Manhattan. The PATH train to 33rd Street (with a stroller-friendly elevator) and the ferry are fast, clean, reliable and convenient. I also have the option of driving since my station wagon is available 24/7 in our deeded indoor parking spot right outside the lobby door. To my family, transportation in and around Hoboken is simply a delight. Except during rush hour. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had nightmare visions of getting stuck in the Holland …

Over the last three years, my husband and I have been gradually introducing our children to the water. We enrolled our daughter in a swim class at Stevens when she was eighteen months old, which was an abject failure; she spent the entire time clinging in terror to her dad and crying about the water being too cold. Discouraged, we put swim lessons on the back burner until the kids were older. When we moved to our current apartment in South West Hoboken, the first thing that jumped out at me about the location was its proximity to the Sky Club Fitness pool. At ages three and one, maybe it was …

Bringing home a newborn is like Christmas morning. Between the newness of being a parent and the intense wristband security at the hospital, you get the distinct impression that your baby is a precious commodity. One of my cousins once said to me, "I can't believe we get to keep him!" in reference to her newborn son. The first month is a euphoric time of getting to know the new family member, before the effects of long-term sleep deprivation really set in. And then the medical bills arrive. We have health insurance through my husband's employer. We had quite good health insurance when my …

Life is full of surprises, but never more so than when I walk out of the house with two toddlers in tow. Explosive diaper? Random rainstorm? Unplanned trip to a sand pit? Skinned knee? These are all items that I have unexpectedly had to deal with during outings with my kids. My double stroller looks like a survival base camp for a Boy Scouts training exercise. Windbreakers, healthy non-perishable snacks and drinks (raisins, freeze-dried pears, organic low-sodium pretzels and apple juice), first aid kit, laundry scoops for surprise sand trips, extra water tucked into the undercarriage. But the…

The Fourth of July weekend was a time of firsts for my kids. At ages three and four-and-a-half, they are finally old enough to sit through a movie and stay up past bedtime. I was seriously tempted to take my daughter to see Tangled this spring for her first movie experience but knew there was no way my son would sit through two hours of watching a girl comb her hair. The next toddler blockbuster was Cars 2, and our entire family has been waiting with eager anticipation for the launch date of June 24th. Opening weekend is typically very crowded, so we waited until the holiday weekend to bring …

Raising kids in Hoboken just got a lot better. We have visited Pier C park three times since it officially opened over Memorial Day weekend, and I can unequivocally say it was worth the long wait. There have been some amazing playgrounds opening up recently in NYC like Imagination Playground; Pier C is on par with the best of them. Also? It is geared toward older children; just in time for those of us whose kids were starting to outgrow the playground equipment in Hoboken's existing parks. The playground equipment is seriously challenging. As a former elite national athlete, even I was taken …

Over the last four years, I have cobbled together child care from daycare, babysitters and family members. I arrange for one full day each week to attend business meetings and focus on intense work projects, and then grab two-hour stretches during the rest of the week. Most of my work gets done in the middle of the night. My marketing consulting business has grown up with my children; as the kids get older and more manageable, my work demands increase proportionately (basically, I never have any free time). Having a third child will reset the clock to zero; if I want to continue to work at my…

My daughter grows incredibly quickly. At age four, she wears size seven clothing. I recently went through her closets and culled outgrown items, taking 12 bags to the Salvation Army and one of unworn designer clothes to K.C. Kids Hoboken. The annual Hoboken Citywide Yard Sale came at an opportune time to fill all that closet space. I loaded up our double stroller with my younger child and a big garbage bag. With the ongoing bedbug epidemic, you can never be too careful when it comes to purchasing pre-owned clothes. My plan was to quarantine my yard sale finds in the garbage bag and put it all…

Having a third child means hiring full-time child care for the first time in my life. The last time I contemplated the logistics and costs of hiring full-time care, it caused one of the greatest existential crises of my life. I wound up abandoning a 10-year corporate career and staying home because that was the best solution for our family. I have learned several things from my experiences with my two older children: Get on daycare waitlists as soon as I conceive.The Hoboken daycare waitlists for infants are typically over a year long. How that is physically possible when a pregnancy lasts …

Throughout our ten years as Hoboken residents, my family has changed from being a pair  childless renters with a dog, to homeowners with a dog, then homeowners with a dog and two infants crammed into a two-bedroom, and finally ending up as a family of four in a four-bedroom apartment (sadly minus our beloved dog). This is the point where most people would stay put, both with their family size and living situation, but I always like to explore my options. There comes a point after the arrival of each child where you wake up one day and realize, life is manageable. You have your childcare …