With a rambunctious 2-year-old boy at home, and a baby on the way, my husband, Alex, and I rarely get time alone. If we do venture out on the weekend, with grandma filling in as babysitter, it’s usually to grab a quick bite, which typically ends up being El Vaquero, to satiate my husband’s obsession with Mexican food. When chef Aaron Lawson of Final Cut allowed us to sample new menu options, we jumped at the opportunity. This would not be our typical date night.

Dining at one of the best steakhouses in the area required that I actually apply makeup and blow dry my hair for a change (neither easy tasks with Dexter running around), but I managed to finish looking somewhat put-together. Finding something to wear with my growing belly proved a difficult task, one that almost ended in hormonal tears, but I rallied and found something passable. Alex, of course, came home from work, threw on some different clothes and looked dashing,  ready to go within 5 minutes – one of the advantages to not having hair (or a pregnant belly).

The Hollywood-themed decor of Final Cut set the atmosphere for our first fancy date night in months, and our knowledgeable waiter, Craig, extolled the merits of Chef Lawson’s menu with such mouth-watering description that we had a difficult time determining our choices. We went with his recommendations: pork belly appetizer, goat cheese spinach salad, wagyu top cap ribeye with hand-cut fries, and rock lobster tail with roasted mushrooms. The wagyu steak with bone marrow crust was the best either of us had ever tasted, and the lobster had a delicious sweetness to it that made it incomparable to any lobster we had eaten before. The portions were generous–definitely enough to take home for the kid(s)–but, unfortunately, our picky 2-year-old does not yet share our discerning tastes.

We were having so much fun savoring our food, observing other diners (we’re nosey), and talking without interruption that we didn’t want the night to end so, despite our full bellies, we ordered dessert (cheesecake and creme brulee) and French-pressed coffee (decaf, of course). While it wasn’t our anniversary or any special event, the unbelievable food and fine dining experience made us feel as if it were. We will certainly be returning, although maybe not until baby #2 makes an appearance and I can also enjoy a fancy Manhattan. 

Final Cut is located in the Hollywood Casino, 1968 Miami St. 
Hours are 5-9pm Monday-Thursday, 5-10pm Friday-Saturday, 4-9pm Sunday
419-661-5381 | hollywoodcasinotoledo.com/Dining/Final%20Cut 

Every year, as the leaves begin to turn color and the sound of school busses fill the air again, I force myself to face the daunting task of cleaning out my kids’ closets. It has become sort of a back-to-school tradition. Actually, tradition might not be the right word, maybe more of a seasonal ritual, or perhaps even a sacrificial offering of my peace and energy to the angry closet gods.

My older two daughters do a decent job on their own. They usually work together to determine a hand-me-down system where clothes seamlessly transfer from Mikayla’s wardrobe into Macie’s. But from Macie to Mylee there is a sizing gap. Therefore we send clothes to a cousin who is sized perfectly between them. As she outgrows the clothes, she returns them for Mylee, along with her own outgrown clothes. Great system, right?

It is a great system –until we try to cram everything into Mylee’s closet. As the youngest child, Mylee got the smallest bedroom (the “guest room”, until we learned we were getting a long-term, little sister type, 18-year-plus kind of “guest”) so her closet is small, especially small for a hand-me-down princess.

In addition to two older sisters and a cousin, we get clothes handed down from a friend with three daughters, so maybe Mylee is more of a hand-me-down queen than a princess. It is quite the endeavor to sort through all the clothes and decide what to keep and what to donate. The boxes of potential Mylee clothes accumulate until I set aside a day to go through everything. Sounds easy enough, just another mom task, but this particular task involves a stubborn queen who has a sincere disdain for trying on clothes.

Home Shopping

I tried to make it fun this year by turning my living room into a store. She pushed her plastic shopping cart through the piles of shirts, pants, pajamas and shoes. As she selected clothes to try on, I pretended to be the ever-helpful sales associate telling her how cute it looked or pointing out a stain or missing button suggesting she pass on the item. We did this happily for about an hour, forcefully for another half-an-hour, and then the whining began.

“I don’t want to do this anymore mom.”

“I know Mylee, but we have to figure out what to keep.

“Moooooooom just keep it all!”

“There isn’t enough room in your closet Mylee.”

“Then, I don’t care, get rid of it all!”

I put my foot down with, “Mylee some of this stuff is from Justice!” Of course she couldn’t argue with that reasoning and reluctantly returned for another round, but we abandoned playing store as the battle of  “are we done yets?” and “come on, just a little bit longers” ensued.

I fought a good fight, but in the end she ran off to play and I was left to take inventory of the store by myself. But as I sorted through the piles, I picked up items that triggered fond memories. I remembered a seven-year-old version of my 12-year-old Macie promising to clean her room if I bought this Jonas Brothers shirt. I sniffed a cute plaid button down shirt that my sophomore, Mikayla, wore for her second grade school picture, for the slightest scent of her childhood. I held up Macie’s favorite jean skirt and remembered her trying to convince me it fit. I hugged the shirt Mikayla had on when she came to the hospital to meet her baby sister, Mylee.

As I sat alone among the piles of clothes my leftover frustration of dealing with the hand-me-down queen’s attitude turned to nostalgia and gratitude for these piles of clothes that  traveled through my little trio of girls. While I can’t fit every article of clothing in the closet, I can, fortunately, fit every memory made in those clothes in my heart.

The Parent Institute of Lourdes University was founded to bring about research and policy change on equipping parents to raise their children. The Institute also strives to put parents back at the forefront of their children’s lives and parental importance in a child’s education, health, behavior, and life as a whole.

Retired Juvenile Court Judge, Andy Devine, has been instrumental in setting the building blocks for the Parent Institute. Devine was born in 1921 when high expectations were placed on parents and they were given the primary task of raising their children. According to Devine, over the last few decades there has been a shift in thinking to deemphasize the role of the parents and place the burden of raising children on the “village.”

Oftentimes when a child has an educational, behavioral, health, or abuse issue; the parents can get lost in the shuffle of teachers, specialists, nurses, social services, and/or criminal justice. Service workers from the various institutions take over, and the parents don’t know what to do to help the child or they kind of take a back seat.

Beginning this fall at Lourdes University, all students majoring in social work, nursing, or education will be required to take a course on the importance of parents in their children’s lives and how to make parents a part of various situations with their children. This course was developed by the Parent Institute, and is surprisingly unique. Most degree programs in these areas, do not even mention parents or their role.

Devine believes that it takes a village to raise the parents who raise the child. He would like to see various service workers be equipped to teach parents how to help their children in different life situations. After serving in the juvenile court system for 28 years, he knows that if you don’t educate and change parents, then the kids won’t change either.

In June of this year, The Parent Institute invited various service providers in to brainstorm and get their thoughts on what they feel the parents’ role is in a child’s life. He’s hoping to do more discussions like this, to streamline training for parents amongst various institutions. It’s easier to get the community involved in helping parents before the courts have to get involved.

Devine ultimately wants parents to be recognized as heroes and to be celebrated because it’s a hard job.