Gina Parsons' writing samples

Here are links to a few of the articles that I have written recently:

One of my favorites -- a business/feature article about a record and antique store:

http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/news/article_36a1e06c-b7f9-5b97-84c1-a04891e6cf0e.html



A feature article about a family-owned meat farm:
http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/life/article_e96506ac-a89d-5c50-abab-5124ccc5e1e8.html

A feature article about a family-owned vegetable farm:
http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/news/article_409a4b7a-d91b-5c7a-87d1-591cd2ab6961.html


An article about a Special Education program:
http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/education/article_dc9a68f4-2b9d-5bda-98ab-94fdfcec9031.html

Two articles in the most recent issue of St. Louis Kids magazine:

An article of tips to help children sleep better is on page 22.
An article about helping to ensure the best possible first-time overnight camping experience is on page 46.

http://www.stlouiskidsmagazine.com/files/issues/6-1/index.html

Appreciating what I have

Ever since they hit the TV screen, I have disliked the reality shows that follow people around in their daily lives. The ones where we watch people going about their regular daily routines. I’ve never been able to watch more than 10 minutes of shows like “Jon (and now just) Kate plus 8.” And I didn’t even know who Jessica Simpson was until her show with her ex was cancelled.
But a few weeks ago for lack of anything better on TV, I clicked on the reality show “Guiliana and Bill.” I figured I would watch a few minutes, just enough to confirm that it was a waste of time, and move on. But after I watched a few minutes, I couldn't stop watching. I giggled when Guliani stepped into a display bathtub in a kitchen and bath store and asked, “No one’s watching, right?” I wanted the cameraman to answer, “No, you’re alone. Just a few thousand national TV watchers’ll see you.”
At the store, Guiliana hooked up with a kitchen designer. It was great fun to watch Bill freak when the designer suggested they paint the new kitchen cabinets. Bill said it would cost $50,000 to do that. (Those are some well-paid painters. I’d gladly paint the cabinets for a mere $40,000). After that, Guiliana backed off from the idea, so common sense prevailed and she lowered some of her grandiose plans.
I watched most of the show, and enjoyed it. The next week, I watched as Guiliana took her gawky-looking 13-year-old niece to a modeling agency in NYC. Again, I kept waiting for the moment when I wouldn’t be able to stand watching anymore. But the moment never came. Instead, I found myself liking both Bill and Guiliana. I especially liked when Bill pointed out that Guiliana was trying to relive her own modeling dreams through her niece. G denied it, but I think it was on target. But gotta admit, it’s what I would do if in Guiliana’s shoes and able to help some youngster that I loved.
In the next episode I watched, Guiliana was working through her feelings about a miscarriage she’d had. She and Bill seemed out of sync with dealing with the loss and she went to a therapist to talk about it. I felt bad for her. By the end I think they were dealing with it better.
And in the next episode that I saw, Guiliana had to plan a baby shower for a friend of hers. We learn that the friend’s baby was due within a week of the baby Guiliana lost. Although it was hard, Guiliana planned a wonderful party. She made a touching speech to her friend about how happy she was for her friend. And at the end of the show, Guiliana admitted that she hoped the next baby shower would be her own.
The next episode I saw, Guiliana underwent IVF. We of course were right in there with her as the procedure done. Guiliana’s Italian parents and Bill’s mother were in the waiting room, to divert our attention. (I think it's funny that the camera was in the procedure room, but not the grandparents.)
G and B were so hopeful that this time they would have a baby to help fill their enormous home. But unfortunately, at the end of the episode, two weeks after the procedure, we learn that G was not pregnant. She cried, and I (and I’m sure many others) cried with her.
Seeing this made me feel so fortunate. I have never had a problem getting pregnant. I have two wonderful, amazing children and can’t imagine what life would be like without them. And I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trying to have a baby but not be able to.
Bill and Guiliana seem to have it all. Wealth. Fame. Book deals. Yet, even with all of our financial fallbacks this past few years, I wouldn’t trade places with them.
After watching this show, I hugged Lindsay a little closer before putting her to bed.

Here, Lindsay swings on a pony tire swing at Daniel's Farm in St. Peters.

This fall and last fall we have gone to two different pumpkin farms -- Thies Farm in Maryland Heights and Daniel's Farm in St. Peters. Which is better? That's a matter for debate.

First, I'll talk about Thies. I've gone to this farm at least once every year since Skyler was little. It's gotten bigger and better each year. This year it boasts two large slides that both children and adults can slide down. The stairs for the slides, especially for the taller one, are pretty narrow. Lindsay and I had to wait several minutes on the stairs of the larger slide. With people above us, and people below, and reckless kids wanting to go around us up and down, I was worried we would fall.

There are ziplines that look like so much fun, but are for kids only. It offers a pirate ship for kids to play in. There are two haybale mazes, both of which are pitch black, yet only one bale high, so extremely hard for adults to crawl and squeeze through. If your little one wants to go through, better bring a flashlight for him/her. (And be prepared to squeeze in and fetch 'em if they get stuck).

One of the haybale mazes goes up to a haybale tower. I've never been up there, but last year Don and Skyler went and both said it was hard to navigate. There are a few tire swings of different types.

Lindsay loved the obstacle course the most this year. It starts with a tightrope walk, then children weave their way through haybales to a couple of slides. There's also a pole for kids to slide down. Lindsay went through the obstacle course three times on our visit. She was pretty timid the first time, but I helped her through. The second time she was much more confident, and by the third time -- look out, here she comes! So it's a great confidence booster, which is a wonderful thing in any outing. We went to this farm on a warm (upper 80s) Saturday and waited about 20 minutes to go on the tractor ride. The tractor ride is included in admission and takes you through the fields. It's fun to see food growing but I would have liked to hear the narration. From our spot in the last wagon, all we could hear was "Garble, garble, garble, brocolli, garble, garble...etc.).

Lindsay and I enjoyed seeing the baby farm animals. There is a straw maze, and navigating it can be tricky. This year we didn't enter.

All in all, Thies Farm is a fun way to spend a fall day. However, I think the admission price is too high for adults. It's $5.50 for children 14 and under, $3.50 for adults. Other than watching your children play, there's not much for adults to do, so not a great value in my book.

Now to Daniel's Farm on Jungerman Road in St. Peters.

This farm has a nice mix of stuff to do for everyone. And it's even good if it's rainy and cold, as some of the activities are covered.

We went there last week with my mom and had a great time. There are adult-sized hay bale mazes to walk through with your child. A nice petting zoo with baby and smaller animals. Outside there are lots of tire swings, and plenty of tire spinners (don't know their official name). There's a little trailer that has a cute display of Halloween miniature train sets. We had fun looking at that. There is a fort, and several tube slides. All of us (mom, Lindsay and I) went down the tube slides. Access to the slides is easy. Nice broad stairs (with no line) on the fort tube slide, and a gentle hill up to the other slides. We all squeezed ourselves onto the barrel tractor ride -- and had a blast. The driver took us to a vacant area then did fast circles. It was like a tame roller coaster. I preferred it over the slow ride through the fields at Thies.

In a large greenhouse, they had several large boxes filled with dry corn for kids to play in. Lindsay spent a lot of time trying to build a castle out of the corn. There also was an area with pedal tractors. Lindsay enjoyed riding one of those. So I really like this farm a lot.

And it's a great value. Children are $5, adults $2, and I had a coupon for free adult with paid kid. The coupon can be printed from their website. The tractor ride was $2 for Lindsay, free for adults (I guess they think most adults won't go on it -- mom and I dispelled that notion!).

Both farms have their own offerings of fall fun, and I think at least one trip to each every fall is the way to go. But if we go to one again this year, it's going to be to Daniel's.

Sizing up infant clothing

Here's a photo of my Lindsay when she was crawling (probably 9 months old or so). She's wearing an outfit that buttons at the bottom, which meant it didn't ride up and show her belly while she crawled.

My younger sister had a baby in May, and she recently mentioned in her baby’s blog that her baby (now 4 ½ months old) is already wearing 6-month-size outfits. I want to assure her that baby Ivy is perfectly normal.
I have four years of experience working in children’s clothing store and can’t resist sharing my knowledge.
So here is

My Infant Clothing Size Primer.
Children’s sizes work something like this: In infant sizes (3 months up to 24 months), babies generally wear the clothes size that is twice the child’s actual age. So, the average 4-month-old wears a 6- to 9-month-old outfit; the average 6-month-old wears a 12 month size; a 9-month-old wears an 18 month size and so on. Between 12 months and 18 months, most babies are wearing 24 month size clothes.
A 24 month size and a 2T are generally about the same size as each other.

However, the infant sizes and the toddler sizes (2T-4 or 5T) are usually different styles, allowing for the differences between a baby and a toddler.

Infant clothes are generally one-piece outfits rather than two-piece. The one-piece design keeps the clothes from riding up when the baby is being carried or is crawling on the floor. Around 12 months (of course, it’s a couple months earlier for some babies, and a few months later for others), babies start to walk. At that point, they are able to wear separates easier – a shirt and a pair of pants for example. You don’t have to worry about the clothes riding up, thus, clothes in the toddler sizes are usually two piece outfits rather than one piece.
So there, in a nutshell, are the basics of infant clothing sizes.

McDonald's Happy Meal toys: The great quest

Ah, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. Sometimes I’m like a kid and get into the quest for a certain McD’s toy.
But mostly I curse them. Usually the toys are characters my kids don’t like and the toys end up lying around the house until I toss them away.
But a few weeks ago, Lindsay and I were on a mission. I took her to McD’s as a special treat when Don and Skyler were out of town. The girl toys were cute, detailed little Madame Alexander dolls. Lindsay looked at the dolls in the display case and decided she wanted the Cinderella doll. But of course, when she looked in her Happy Meal bag, that’s not the doll she got.
Two days later she wanted McD’s again. I didn’t want McD’s, but I knew she really wanted the Cinderella doll and darn it if I don’t want to fulfill her wishes if possible. So I stopped and got her a Happy Meal (and we took it home so I could heat something up for myself). Again, no Cinderella doll. Not even when we asked if they had one.
A week or so ago Don got her a Happy Meal. Again, no Cinderella doll.
Now I wasn’t going to go all crazy like over getting her the doll, like I did several years ago when my son was young and we wanted the West Highland terrier Artlist Collection McD’s toy. For the month or so that they had the promotion, he and I (and me by myself) bought and ate many Happy Meals. We ended up with a bunch of Labradors and golden retrievers – which are still all over the house because they’re way too cute to toss out. We finally ended up getting the Westie about a year later, when we ordered Happy Meals and were surprised to find a Westie in each of the bags. I guess they just had it lying around?
Anyway, yesterday, Lindsay and I ended up at McD’s again. I immediately went into “Quest for Cinderella mode” and asked if they had any Cinderella dolls left. (They didn’t).
But Lindsay didn’t seem to care. She was perfectly happy with the Strawberry Shortcake doll that came with the meal, and she didn’t mention Cinderella once. And even more importantly, she didn’t look at the display of Strawberry Shortcake dolls and decide that she had to have one of them. Maybe we can eat somewhere besides McD’s for a while.

Band night!

Last night was band night at Fort Zumwalt East High School. Skyler's middle school band got to play with the high school band during the half-time show at the football game.

We had such a great time! I loved watching the cheerleaders and dancers do their routines, and it was fun to get into the spirit and excitement of the game (which our team won, 40-18!).

Lindsay had a fun time dancing around and cheering too -- although she was ready to go home and go to bed after the half-time show was over.

Skyler and the bands did a wonderful job. Skyler was the first person to march onto the field in his row, and he led them on a straight path to their mark.

Extreme makeover: Arch edition

Pictured at left: Skyler and I stand on the riverboat dock below the Arch about six years ago.

I just finished reading an article in the Post-Dispatch about a competition for making over the St. Louis riverfront and Arch grounds.
There are five different design companies vying for the redesign job. The idea is to make people want to go to the riverfront and Arch and stay a while.
Most of the design ideas were, to say the least, out of the box. One features glass-enclosed gondolas soaring over the river from the Missouri side to the Illinois side. At least two include outdoor live entertainment venues – one is floating. Another wants to remove a viewing area on the Illinois side and build something else. It’s a viewing area that just opened last year. And it had cost $5 million to build.
I think it’s wonderful that the city seems serious about changes. The Arch area definitely needs improvement. And if we’re pondering it, we might as well think really really big.
But I have to wonder if all their imaginative ideas are really necessary. Do we really need another outdoor entertainment venue? There’s no word of who would be entertaining at the proposed venues. I guess it would just be there in case someone wanted to entertain outside in a public venue. And glass gondolas soaring over the river? Really? Basically it’s the same concept as going up to the Arch, except you’re going to the other side of the river.
So here are my suggestions for improving the riverfront – for making it a place tourists will enjoy, and that locals will want to visit too.
First, the design companies all got one thing right. We gotta connect the Arch grounds with the rest of the city. It’s crazy that you can’t walk from the Arch to Kiener Plaza, the Old Courthouse, the hotels, etc.
So my proposal is pretty much the same as the designers: Put a cap over the highway, which would allow people to go from the Arch grounds, to all the stuff in the city.
In my plan, the cap would be pretty big. I envision something that would extend north to allow people to walk from the Dome after a football game to Laclede’s Landing for a drink.
An outdoor ice rink when weather permits would be fun too. At least one of the designs included that. Picturesque lakes with water-spouting sculptures and fountains would be nice also.
I would also like to see some outdoor vendors, selling food and souvenirs. What’s a tourist attraction if you can’t buy a hotdog and a cheap T-shirt from outdoor vendors? People who wanted to run vending businesses would have to apply, and meet stringent regulations.
Now, I’ll turn my attention to the museum under the Arch. It’s a total redo.
For starters, it needs light. Sure it’s underground, but does it have to look like you’re walking into a bomb shelter? My plan would add skylights to the museum, and people walking on the ground above would be able to walk on those skylights and see into the museum from above. Cool.
And take all the dead stuffed animals out of there. Ditto for the creepy talking animatronic historic people. Instead, put in interactive displays that show people what westward expansion was like.
Let people prepare for the expedition with Lewis and Clark. Show people what we did and didn't know about the land before Lewis and Clark journeyed west.
Bring in a couple of Conestoga wagons that people can get in and pretend to drive. Put up displays of what all people would need to take on their journey, and let them figure out how to get it all into the wagon. Show them how treacherous making the westward journey was by giving each person a card with the name of an actual settler on it. At the end of the display, the visitor finds out how their settler fared, and if the person even survived the journey.
Next, you gotta address food. Currently the museum has no restaurant. Get hungry while you’re visiting the Arch? You can leave the museum and hike to Laclede’s Landing, or you can go to the riverfront and eat stale cheese-covered nachos from a little snack bar. Ridiculous. The museum begs for a restaurant and/or a sandwich place.
I’m a fan of the riverboats, so I wouldn’t change much of that, except to make it more of a learning experience – include more history information during the ride.
Yes, compared with the grand ideas the design companies came up with, mine are simplistic. But very often, simple is best.