Seattle Mom Blogs

Weve had a lot of changes at our house lately. First, my sister-in-law Rachel, who was in Seattle for the summer helping us take care of Elanor, left to go back to college. She took her car with her, of course, leaving us officially carless once more.

Second, when Rachel left, I was able to quit my job, so Im now staying home and taking care of Elanor.

With both of these changes, my bus riding habits have also changed pretty significantly. No longer do I primarily ride the commuting or express buses. Instead, Im riding lots of different buses, and all during the middle of the day.

Its a really different experience, for sure, riding the local routes of the express buses I used to ride. The demographic makeup of the express buses versus the local routes is very different. Instead of being filled with commuters with laptop bags slung over their shoulders and insulated coffee mugs in hand, reading the newspaper or magazines like The Economist, the daytime buses are filled with a much wider range of people. There are a lot of students, especially on the 17, which serves Seattle Pacific University. There are a lot more people riding with reduced fare permits, a lot more elderly people, a lot more people who look a bit rough around the edges.

If Im blunt, the main difference seems to be that those on commuter buses are people who have made a choice to ride the bus because its easier to get downtown, or its cheaper than paying for parking, or its better for the environment. And on the daytime buses, there tends to be a much higher percentage of people who ride the bus because they dont have a choice; its their only way to get around.

There are pluses and minuses to each sort of ride. The commuter buses tend to be quiet (which can be both a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether or not Elanor is with me). The daytime buses tend to be emptier, which is nice when I have Elanor and a bunch of stuff.

People are much chattier on the daytime buses, which annoys me sometimes, since Im used to the unspoken rules of the express bus, which includes the rule that people dont talk, and if you do talk, its done quietly so as not to disturb anyone else. When we ride the local routes, that rule doesnt usually apply, especially if Elanor is with me. Lots of people tend to talk to me about her, always asking how old she is, and a lot of the time, commenting on how cute she is.

When Im by myself, I can usually avoid talking to people by just not making eye contact, but when Elanor is with me, she usually makes eye contact with anyone and everyone, so I wind up talking to more people than I usually would. Thats not necessarily a bad thing; for the most part, people are nice and how cute Elanor is. (And how can I argue with that?) Plus, most people have a filter so they stop talking if I dont feel like prolonging the conversation.

Ive had to adjust my expectations and remember that its okay to talk to people on the bus, that Im not on a commuter bus and no one expects me (or Elanor, for that matter) to be quiet.

Im working on how to deal with the stroller rule. (Which, incidentally, I cannot find in writing anywhere on Metro’s website or in any of their printed materials I’ve seen. Interesting.) I bought a smaller stroller a few weeks ago, and since Ive been at home during the day, Ive tried bringing it on the bus with me several times when weve gone out to run errands.

About half the time, Ive been asked to take Elanor out. About half of those times, the driver asks me to fold the stroller, too. And the other half of the time, the driver doesnt say anything, and Im able to leave Elanor in the stroller. (This is really nice especially when weve been shopping. Holding a diaper bag, a shopping bag, and trying to fold stroller by myself on a moving bus all while holding a baby is not easy. Its enough that if were only going a couple of miles and we have the time, I just walk instead of having to deal with the hassle of getting on and off the bus.)

One driver told me that the reason he asks people to fold the stroller is that if he gets caught letting someone leave their kid in, he can get in trouble, which doesnt surprise me.

I dont know. I certainly dont want to get anyone in trouble, but I really appreciate it when drivers dont make me fold it. If I set the brakes, and set the stroller between my legs as well as hold onto it, its pretty secure. And if were on some of the newer articulated buses, its even better, because the seats right behind the handicapped ones have more legroom than the rest, and the space is just enough to fit the stroller in.

For now, Im just trying to work around the rule. I only bring the stroller when I really have to, and otherwise just try to use the Ergo. Its not a perfect system, obviously, but were figuring it out. Its just one of the many tradeoffs inherent in our carless lifestyle.

Coming soon: a post about my involvement with a Metro Transit Rider Advisory Panel. Yes, Im a transit geek. I know. I’m okay with that.

While riding the #17 earlier this week, I saw two different parents handle the same situation how to take a stroller on the bus very differently.

I can’t seem to find an official stroller policy on Metro’s website, although from what I’ve heard from drivers, the policy is that the child must be removed from the stroller and the stroller folded up while it is on the bus.

Um, yeah. Not so much. Any parent knows how much of a challenge that can be, especially with an older baby or toddler who is of the age that they want to move around a lot. My guess is that this is a pretty big obstacle to riding the bus with kids: you need the stroller for wherever you are going (the zoo, Pike Place Market, the Ballard Locks) but getting the kids and the stuff and the folded-up stroller all on the bus just isn’t workable.

I tried taking the bus with the stroller for the first time last week. The logistics werewell, overwhelming, and I spent way too much time in the days leading up to our outing trying to figure out how it would work.

Heres how it went down. I had the stroller and the diaper bag, and I brought the Ergo carrier with me. So, I put Elanor in the Ergo when we got to the bus stop, then folded up the stroller in advance and had the diaper bag sitting next to the folded-up stroller, ready to grab when the bus arrived. (I hate sitting at a stop forever waiting for someone who is getting on the bus to gather his or her things; I so did not want to be that person.)

Surprisingly, people were helpful as I was trying to heft the stroller up the stairs and onto the bus while wrangling the diaper bag with Elanor in the Ergo. Thats what saved us, having her contained in a carrier. If I hadn’t brought the Ergo, it would have been a lot more difficult.

As it was, we were able to get situated and get everything stowed with a minimum of fuss, and the rest of the trip was uneventful.

At the end of the trip, the bus driver got off with me for her break, and we talked about how incongruous it is that strollers have to be folded up and stowed and that people in wheelchairs and little old ladies with their wheeled grocery carts are allowed to get on the bus without question.

The driver said that the reason behind not allowing kids in strollers is that its a safety issue; they dont want strollers with kids rolling all over the bus. And that makes sense to me, but as the driver said, she didnt know why they didnt allow strollers to be strapped in like wheelchairs. I completely agree why not?

Aside: I get the whole ADA thing and the reason why wheelchairs have to be allowed on; that makes sense. It just seems like if you are going to allow wheelchairs, then you might as well allow strollers too; the equipment to handle wheeled vehicles is already in place, so whats the problem?

But back to my original point. I saw two other moms with strollers on the bus this week; both were on the #17. They handled the stroller situation very differently from one another.

One mom just flat out told the driver that she had too much stuff stowed in the stroller and she wasnt unpacking it, and that shed just park it in the handicapped spot on the bus. The driver rolled his eyes and sighed (along with most of the passengers) and then did as she had essentially ordered him.

So in the middle of a crowded bus that was already running late, the mom got on with her giant Bob stroller in tow, fastened it in, and got her daughter out, forcing an elderly tourist couple to switch seats in the process.

It was all kind of awkward, and as much as Im in favor of letting strollers be on the bus, something about the way the mom just sort of bullied her way on really rubbed me the wrong way. She wasnt even apologetic, as I probably would have been. She just did it, no apologies, as if it was her right. On second thought, maybe thats not such a bad thing, even if it made for a mighty awkward atmosphere on the bus.

The second mom had such a small baby that the baby was still in an infant car seat, which was hooked into the stroller.

The bus driver said, You know youre going to have to fold that stroller up.

She said, with a sigh, Yeah, I know.

So she lugged the stroller on, unhooked the car seat, gave it to her mom to hold, then folded up the stroller and stuck it under the seat.

It was a non-event, quite the opposite of the other mom who just barreled her way on the bus, stroller in tow. I felt bad for the second mom mom; she had such a small baby and the driver was still making her fold up the stroller. I know when Elanor was still really small and I was recovering from having a c-section, there would have been no way I could have managed that.

Up until recently, we havent used our stroller much because of this very issue. We use it for walks in the neighborhood or to walk to the grocery store or the coffee shop, but if we ride the bus we usually just wear Elanor in the Ergo because its much easier than dealing with the stroller, even if it would be nice to have the stroller once we get wherever we are going.

As she gets older, though, I know well have to face this situation more often. One thing well have to do is buy a smaller stroller that folds up easily. (Our current stroller is great for walks around the neighborhood, but its big and doesnt fold well.) Im not sure what else can make the process easier, other than bringing a carrier or sling to put her in while we are on the bus itself.

Have any of you encountered the stroller-bus dilemma? Does it keep you from riding the bus more often? Do you ride anyway and just work around it? If so, what do you do? Do you have any ideas for how parents can make it easier on themselves or how Metro could help in making it easier?

Read more of Kathleens writing on her personal blog. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for Carless in Seattle, email kathleen (at) seattlemomblogs.com.

Hi there!

So, it’s been quite a while since I last posted anything. And normally I wouldn’t go into one of those “Oh-I’ve-been-so-busy-please-forgive-me-I-still-love-you-Interwebs” tirades…but I’m going to, so I apologize in advance.

Some of you know that the past six weeks or so have been rough for me. On May 13, (which happens to be not only my birthday but that of the fabulous Isabel, my friend and fellow SMB columnist) my husband woke up to hear me gasping for breath, not breathing, and turning blue. He called 911, and my mother-in-law, who happened to be in town visiting, did CPR on me for the three or four minutes before the paramedics arrived.

Turns out, I had an episode of what the doctors call ventricular fibrillation, and went into heart failure. Thank God my husband was home and my mother-in-law was visiting, or else the outcome would have been entirely different, and I wouldn’t be here today, writing this post.

So, anyway, I spent about two weeks in two different hospitals, in part recovering from the incident itself and in part recovering from surgery as the doctors implanted a defibrillator in my chest, so that if this ever happens again, it will shock my heart back into functioning.

The doctors are attributing the cause to something called Peripartum Cardiomyopathy, which is defined as heart failure in the last month of pregnancy or within the first five months postpartum. According to Wikipedia, “PPCM is a diagnosis of exclusion, wherein patients have no prior history of heart disease and there are no other known possible causes of heart failure.”

Basically, although they can identify what it is, the doctors have no idea why it happens, which is scary.

But anyway, my excuses for not posting now made, you can read more about all of this stuff on my personal blog. On to more exciting (or at least more relevant to my column) topics.

I have to confess that since this happened, for the most part we haven’t been carless. We’ve had a slew of family visiting from Portland, and most of them have brought their cars, so we have had the very great luxury of being able to hop in the car and go…well, wherever we need or want to go whenever the fancy strikes us.

When we did happen to be carless for a few weeks after this happened, it basically meant we were housebound, because I’ve been in no condition to be busing it everywhere. (Which, by the way, was driving me slowly crazy; I am not a person who likes just sitting at home so being stuck there has been hard.)

Anyway, now my husband Brett’s sister Rachel is here for the summer to help us, and she has her car here.

Of course Brett and I have had good intentions to leave her car parked, to continue taking the bus, ordering our groceries online, riding the bus to church, work, etc. — for the most part, to continue our carless lifestyle.

But…well…it’s hard! The temptation to just jump in the car and go wherever we want or need to go without having to check a bus schedule or wait around for a bus or rush to catch a bus is so irresistable. It’s so much easier. And I feel guilty for that, even though I know that right now I really need to take it easy, and that includes not trekking all over Seattle on the bus with a baby strapped to my chest, carrying a diaper bag.

At least Rachel’s stay with her car is temporary, so in a couple of months, we’ll be back to our carless life. I hope by then I’ll be more in a position health-wise where we can continue to be carless.

I’ll leave you with a picture that I took quite a while ago (in late April, I think) at the intersection of 22nd Ave. NW and NW 56th Street in Ballard. I didn’t put the sticker on the sign, but I wish I had. I love it!

If you can’t quite read the rest of the sticker, it says, “DRIVING / Start: Walking! Biking! Using Public Transport!”

Now that’s my kind of bumper sticker.

Also, does it strike anyone else as ironic that it’s essentially a bumper sticker (you know, for a car) that is advocating to do away with cars? Hah. I guess that is why it’s on a stop sign and not on a bumper…

Anyway, to sum up: I’m back, blogging, and not quite carless. It should be an interesting summer, I think, with gas prices at record highs and rising every day and the temptation to drive everywhere looming large. I’ll keep you all posted as we navigate these murky waters of being not-quite-carless anymore.

Read more of Kathleens writing at http://shinelikestars.blogspot.com. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for Carless in Seattle, email .

A while back, when I posted on my own blog about not having a car, Rachel asked me, “OK, I want to know how you spent several hours running errands if you are breastfeeding, and you don’t have a car. I am jealous you were able to do it.”

Basically, I just nurse in public. Most of the places we go on errands have somewhere to sit, at the very least. The two grocery stores we go to both have coffee shops attached, so I can sit there and nurse if need be, which I’ve done several times. Places like Target and Fred Meyer have the best option: fitting rooms. And then there’s Nordstrom, which is the gold standard of places to nurse while out and about, with their well-equipped mother’s rooms that include comfy couches and a changing table.

So, the answer is that usually I just find a place I can sit down and do what I need to do. I don’t even always use a blanket; depending on what I’m wearing and where I’m sitting, there’s not a ton you can see anyway.

My strategy for restaurants is that if we get a choice about where to sit, I always pick the seat that is next to the wall and hopefully in a corner. That way I can most likely nurse without anyone even seeing what I’m doing.

That said, I’ve had two experiences lately that weren’t quite as easy, and involved much more overt nursing in public. One was at our favorite Indian restaurant a few weeks ago. Elanor was really fussy and wouldn’t calm down any other way, so I knew I’d have to nurse her. Thankfully, I had her in the Ergo and I was able to get her latched on while she was still in it, which was lovely! I was hands-free so I could still eat, she was snuggled up and eating, and the carrier itself did most of the work of keeping me from flashing the entire restaurant providing privacy.

The second experience was this past week. We had gone to see a friend’s art show and were, consequently, out much later than normal. Elanor was fussy, it was past her bedtime, and she needed to eat, but we were on the bus. So I made the choice to take care of what she needed and just nursed her from the Whole Foods on Westlake to Ballard.

I’ve been wondering when we’d come to that point of me feeding her on the bus; I knew it was inevitable at some point, and I’d been nervous about it. Honestly, though, it was totally uneventful. Brett was sitting next to me, so he provided privacy toward the aisle, and there was no one sitting behind us. I don’t think anyone even realized what I was doing.

I probably wouldn’t nurse on a crowded bus sitting next to someone I didn’t know, but under the circumstances of the other night, it was totally fine — anti-climactic, even, given that it was something I’d worried about for a few months. It’s just one more experience under my belt as a carless mama.

Read more of Kathleens writingat http://shinelikestars.blogspot.com. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for Carless in Seattle, email kathleen(at)seattlemomblogs(dot)com.

Thanks to all of you for your comments on my post last week! It is definitely a very deliberate choice to do without a car, and while I think that for many people, it’s an option that could work with some do-ablelifestyle changes, it’s not a choice that would work for everyone. So, that said,it’s great that several of you are working to reduce how much you use a car. Every little bit helps, and I’m excited to hear more about what people are doing to reduce their gas bill and help the planet!

And now, on to a new topic…

I had an experience on the bus this morning that was probably one of the more absurd and hilarious things I’ve encountered in my years of riding the bus.

I ride the 17 express to and from work, and I get on just a few stops after the beginning of the route, up on Sunset Hill. It’s usually a very quiet anduneventful ride. People listen to their iPods, or read, or stare off into the distance during the roughly 30-minute trip.

From my stop, we head down the hill toward the Locks and are supposed to make a left on Market Street.

The driver this morning, however, was new. His problems began when he didn’t make the left onto Market Street, and was halfway through the intersection before he realized that he’d missed the turn. If he continued to go straight, he’d miss an entire bus stop of people who were standing there waiting, watching the sceneunfold.

So, he did what any logical person would do, andstarted to back up so that he could attempt tomake the turnturn.

His next problem was that we were in one of the big articulated buses (bendy buses, I liked to call them as a child) so backing up in a straight line wasn’t exactly a simple task.

But he began to back up, and despite having to contend with the rotation of theback half of the bus, it seemed like he’d be able to make the turn and we’d soon be on our way.

Well, his problems multiplied tenfold whenhe stopped backing up too soon. It was apparent as soon as he began to turn left that we weren’t going to make the turn.

Which left us stuck in the middle of the intersection, wedged across itin a vee shape and unable to move, with another bus waiting to turn right onto the street we were blocking and cars waiting to turn as well.

The driver of the other bus and the driver of our bus had a pow-wow in the middle of the street, trying to figure out what to do.

Meanwhile, it had been at least five minutes since we tried to back up and we were still sitting there, blocking traffic.

Finally, the driver just motioned to the people waiting at the stop nearby and had them get on while we were in the middle of the intersection. Then he was able to back up a wee bit more, just enough to get the room to turn back the other way so we could keep going straight, and we were able to get on our way.

I felt bad for the driver; clearly he didn’t know the route well. Then when he tried to correct It wasn’t a big deal to me — despite sitting there for quite a while, we still got downtown before 8 a.m. so I wasn’t late. More than anything, it was just a humorous situation, sitting there on the bus and looking out the window at the drivers trying to figure out how to manouever the bus so that we could actually move again without hitting any cars, trees, or buildings.

It made me realize two things: one, I amso glad I am not a bus driver, and two, a mundane morning commute on the bus can become quite an adventure when you least expect it.

Read more of Kathleen’s writingat http://shinelikestars.blogspot.com. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for “Carless in Seattle,” email kathleen(at)seattlemomblogs(dot)com.

My husband Brett and I are countercultural in a lot of ways that are, I think, sometimes frustrating, sometimes endearing, and sometimes just plain incomprehensible to our families and our friends.

A lot of the things we do that may seem a little different to some people in other areas of the country are really relatively normal here in Seattle: we have a compost bucket on our kitchen counter (with the corresponding compost pile out back), we get really geeked out when we can recycle more than we throw away, we try to avoid high fructose corn syrup and other processed foods, we are using cloth diapers and cloth wipes with our two-month-old daughter Elanor, I don’t eat meat, we drink soy milk…this list could go on for quite some time.

In fact, we were commenting to each other how hippie we felt on Sunday as we were making our way to the Ballard Farmer’s Market while wearing our baby and carrying our reusable grocery bag made from 80% recycled material in which we put our local produce, cheese, and meat.

Some of the things we do are not so normal in Seattle: we go to church regularly, we had a baby at the relatively young ages of 26 (me) and 25 (him), and we want to try to get to the point where I can be a stay-at-home-mom, at least a part-time one, at some point in our lives.

And some of the things we do are not so normal in most American cities. The top one on this list is that we don’t own a car.

When either of us mentions that fact to someone, responses range from a calm, “Really! That’s interesting; why?” to a somewhat horrified, “WHAT?! Are you kidding me?! How do you survive?! I could never live without my car!! You mean you actually take the bus?”

The decision to do without a car was first made for us about three weeks before our wedding back in July 2003, when I was in a car accident (yes, my fault, I’m ashamed to admit) and totaled my car. At the time, I was in the process of moving to Brett’s apartment in Belltown. Since we both worked downtown at the time and had a pretty good idea we’d be moving to Maine within six months (we spent almost three years there while Brett was in school), we reasoned we had no need for a car, so we used the money from the insurance for some wedding and moving expenses and never looked back. In fact, we loved not having a car. We walked everywhere, and took the bus when we needed to. It was wonderful. Yes, it required some forethought in terms of getting around, but all in all, our world was pretty confined to Belltown and downtown, so we were content without a car.

Until we got to Maine, that is.

It’s pretty darn near impossible to do without a car in Maine; only the very, very, very poor and the homeless are carless. The way the area around Portland is configured combined with the snow and frigid temperatures, plus the lack of any workable bus system makes it almost impossible to do the simplest of tasks, like go to the grocery store, unless you have a car.

So, despite having severe misgivings, and despite not having the room in our budget, we broke down and got a very cheap hand-me-down car from some friends about six months after arriving. That car lasted less than a year, at which time we found ourselves taking out a loan and buying a more reliable car.

When we decided to move back to Seattle in the spring of 2006, we knew with 100% certainty that we did NOT want a car, so we sold the car we’d bought while we were in Maine and got ourselves re-acclimated to living without a car. Our reasons are many:

• It’s better for the environment — need I elaborate?
• It’s better for us — we walk more, and stay in shape better. I am convinced that a good deal of the weight I gained in Maine was partly because I wasn’t walking. (I was too busy huddled next to the oven in an effort to stay warm, making — and then eating — pies and cakes and cookies and such.)
• It’s cheaper — Um, hello, $3.50 per gallon? No, thank you! I’ll admit that a large part of my love of doing without a car is selfish, and stems directly from the extra money we have in our budget every month to pay down debt, save, or do fun things. Not only that, but without having a car, I am much less inclined to make random trips to places like Target, where I will just spend lots of money on things we don’t really need.
• It’s less hassle — No car = no breakdowns = no unexpected $800 brake jobs = a happier Brett and Kathleen
• It’s less stress — we both HATE driving. It’s so stressful. I’d much rather sit back and let someone else do it while I chill and talk (see the next bullet) or read (see the second bullet).
• We spend more time together — We have had some wonderful conversations while waiting for the bus and riding the bus together.
• It allows us time to unwind — I love being able to read or knit or listen to my iPod during my commute to and from downtown every day.

Since about a month before Elanor was born on January 14 until about six weeks ago, we had the luxury of having a car, which we borrowed from Brett’s family. And, yes, it was really nice to have when I was nine months pregnant and trying to get to and from work every day. It was especially nice to have when I went into labor at 1 a.m. and we had to go to the hospital. It was also nice to have during my recovery from having a c-section.

So I’ll be honest and say that it was tough to give it back to Brett’s family, and I was a little nervous about not having it anymore. That feeling wasn’t helped by his parents’ urging us to just keep the car indefinitely — a very tempting offer, to be sure.

Thus far, taking the bus with Elanor has been relatively easy. I just pop her in the Moby Wrap and, for the most part, she is content. There have been a few moments where she’s started crying, but she calms pretty easily so it hasn’t been too bad. And even though she peed all over herself while we were rushing to get out the door to catch a bus to a doctor’s appointment last week, we still made it without missing the bus.

Once their horror wears off, a lot of the the questions people ask us have to do with practical things, like, “How in the world do you get groceries?” Thankfully, that task is made much easier by the fact that Safeway delivers now. Yes, it does cost money, ranging from $9.95 to $12.95, depending on the delivery window you pick and whether or not it is during peak hours, but we figure that $12.95 is cheaper than owning a car.

What it all boils down to is making choices and planning ahead.

We choose to live where we do in Ballard because it’s within two blocks of one major bus line and seven blocks of three more. Those buses provide us access to most everything we need — church, work, shopping, friends, etc.

We choose to adopt a pace of life that is less frenetic and more deliberate. A trip to a friend’s house in another part of town requires a lot of planning ahead and a lot of patience, since it will probably take twice as long to get there on the bus as it would to drive. This is especially true if we have to go east, because of the way the bus routes run, but that’s a topic for another day.

We have to plan ahead a lot more, in all areas of life. We can’t just stop at the store on the way home from work. Instead, we meal plan for the week and do our shopping together on the weekends at the Farmer’s Market or online.

Sure, it’s a little more work to live this way, but to us, the benefits I listed above more than compensate for the frustrations we encounter as a result of our decision.

I hope that as she grows older, Elanor will appreciate our lack of a car. Oh, who am I kidding, she’ll probably just think that her parents are crazy.