Gearhead Mom

Why?

Why doesn’t Target carry Diego underwear for girls? Why, Target? Why?

Martha + Snoop

OK, how could I have missed this yesterday?
Two of my all time favorites together making mashed potatoes. It’s brilliant.

You must watch.

Project Dollhouse: The Art of Donation

Sy and I were chosen by Learning Curve to test and review the Caring Corners Mrs. Goodbee Talking Dollhouse. Caring Corners explains that the Mrs. Goodbee Talking Dollhouse nurtures and inspires positive behavior every day. With twelve adorable rooms to explore and plenty of interactive surprises, there are endless opportunities to practice caring, sharing, and preparing for important, age-appropriate responsibilities. 

Since the toy promotes sharing and good deeds (there is even a Good Deeds Garden), they also sent us one to donate to a family or organization. So I explained to Sy that we were going to give away a toy to a family who had no toys, a concept my lucky girl had never thought of before. Apparently our conversation sunk in on some level, because when I opened up our dollhouse for her, she said, “Mommy. I have too much toys. Please put it away.” So, in the spirit of giving things away, Sy and I sent it off to my co-writer, Jenny M, for her children to play with the house and review it. (Review coming next week.)

In the meantime, I’ll just tell you about our donation adventure. I have to say, Sy’s reaction got this mama a little bit misty-eyed.

Who Has Seen the New Motrin Ad?

Interesting dialogue here about it.

And now Motrin has apologized and taken it down.

Leftover Halloween Candy? My Sister Has Ideas

This is probably a day late and a dollar short, but my sister and I were discussing what the hell to do with leftover Halloween candy today and she had some good ideas.

My sister’s pal Chris allows her kids to taste-test the candy. On Halloween night she lets ‘em take a test bite of as many pieces of candy as they can handle. If they don’t like it, they can move onto the next piece. Yes, they make themselves sick, but it’s over before it started. Half opened/eaten candy gets tossed out at the end of the binge.

Save all the random Red Vines, Lemonheads and M&Ms for your holiday gingerbread house. Because really, no one can eat that many Lemonheads and you have to buy all that stuff a month later for the cookie mansion anyway. Save yourself a trip to the store. If I did this I’d have to hide it from myself because I’m pretty sure I CAN eat that many Lemonheads. My tongue hurts just thinking about it.

3 Reasons

I have three reasons for no real post today.

1) Facebook. I usually write a review while pumping in the wee hours, but not last night. No, last night I spent catching up on the lives of my childhood friends. Oh Facebook, the penultimate time suck.

2) There is gum in the dryer and it keeps getting all over the clean clothes. Any free time I have should be s pent looking for the goo-be-gone. No comment on how it got there or which person had gum in her pocket.

3) My totally fabulous little baby just let out his first full fledged chuckle. The whole family was there to hear it. I almost cried. So now Sy and I are going to dance around and generally make fools of ourselves to see if he’ll do it again.

Happy Friday!!

Google Ads

I know there are a lot of google political ads going on my sidebar here.
I do not run a political blog.
I apologize and will try to block the remainder of them.
Thanks!

And Let the Onslaught Begin

Good morning. I’m having server issues so I’ll keep this brief before I get kicked off again.

Ah. November. Falling leaves, cooling weather, pumpkin recipes…and the massive marketing onslaught of Christmas.

Sy and I went shopping yesterday to try to pick up some good deals on Halloween decorations for next year. I don’t know why I was so shocked that I could barely find any since all the aisles were already jammed to the gills with Santas. Sy was truly disappointed that I wouldn’t pick up the four pack of chocolate Santas for her. I had to remind her that we did, in fact, have a bowl of candy waiting for us back at home. What happened to November? It’s like it got removed from the calendar by all the bigwigs in marketing.

Ah well. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em - I’ll start working on superb picks for holiday gifts this week. Luckily my email inbox has been overflowing with fabulous products and projects, mostly created by moms. I can’t wait to share them with you. If you have anything you’d like reviewed, please comment or email me. Between myself and my posse of reviewers, we’ll most likely be able to help you out.

Sleep Deprivation, Thy Name Is Missy

You know, having a newborn isn’t all that hard the second time around. It’s his big sister who keeps me up all night. She woke up in the middle of the night last week so she could “have some special mommy time.” At 3:00 a.m., aint nothin’ special about it, kid.

Don’t forget to enter the Paper Shouts contest. $50.00 worth of goodies, just in time for the holidays!

Twitter Tweet Tweet

If I were to Twitter, a day of my tweets would probably look a lot like this (every day):

2:34 a.m.: Man, this breast pump is a barracuda.
6:19 a.m.: Are they both awake? For the day??
8:54 a.m.: Baby G really doesn’t like his carseat.
9:25 a.m.: Wow, that was a lot of spit up on one of my only three shirts. I’ll just go change.
9:27 a.m.: Oh! Oh! Oh! Where the *#$@%^ are the burp cloths? That one was projectile. And there goes the second shirt. Might as well change him, too.
9:40 a.m.: Oh good, as soon as I changed Baby G, you guessed it - EXPLOSIVE DIAPER.
10:30 a.m.: I just knocked over a 16 ounce tumbler of water all over my bed. Guess it’s time to wash the bedding.
12:00 p.m.: Don’t tell anyone I just ate Spaghettios for lunch. They were organic. That makes it alright, right?
12:55 p.m.: I wonder if anyone will notice that I have spit up all over my shirt at preschool pick up.
2:34 p.m.: In an upset, both children are asleep at the same time.
2:37 p.m.: So glad I jinxed that.
4:04 p.m.: Wet laundry still in heap in hallway. Spaghettio bowl in sink. Not sure where 3 year old is. Maybe in hallway under the heap?
5:00 p.m.: Look, Sy! Chicken dogs and mac and cheese, again!
6:00 p.m.: I can actually feel my brain cells oozing out of my ears.

Makes you want to run out and get a newborn, doesn’t it? At the very least, a Twitter account?

Squirrel Thievery

Does anyone else have Squirrels of Doom who devour your Halloween pumpkins before your very eyes?

This happened last year, too. I thought some mean-spirited folks were punking us and stealing our pumpkins until one day as I was standing on my front steps, kablam! A miniature pumpkin fell, half-eaten, from the pear tree above me. A pissed off looking squirrel showed his furry face through the leaves, came hauling ass down the tree, retrieved what he clearly felt was rightfully his and disappeared again. I was stunned. So this year when the first one disappeared I only had to look UP for the culprits. Sy and I decided to go with the ol’ “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach and ponied up a few more pumpkins for the general squirrel larder. To date, the little buzzards have gone through almost an entire sugar pumpkin and half of the eleven pounder we bought just for them just two days ago. They even eat the stem (or the “pole” as Sy calls it). We also witnessed them decimating the remainder of the cherry tomatoes.

We’re keeping the carving pumpkins inside until All Hallow’s Eve, thank you very much. I think I just heard a squirrel burp.

Awesome

Wow. What a great weekend. I mean really terrific. I think the highpoint was when Sy catapulted herself out of the new double stroller (to be reviewed) because it was TOO SCARY, MOMMY. Then she hauled ass around the corner as Roger chased her while yelling, “I DON’T WANT TO
GO HOME! I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME.  I WANT TV!!!”

Solid. I’m quite sure our neighbors think we are Fantastic Parents.

Fer Is Funny

Brain, Child is looking for a cartoon caption. You come up with the best caption, they’ll print it in their next issue. I happen to think Fer’s suggestion is damn funny. But I’m biased; I like what she writes pretty much all the time.

Have a great weekend!

Down Syndrome Awareness Month

Happy Friday everyone.
Today’s post is written by my good friend Shauna, aunt to the fabulous Baby B, pictured above.

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month and in honor of this, many mothers are taking the The 2nd Annual 31 for 21 Challenge.  During the month of October they will try to blog every day to raise awareness of Down Syndrome.

Newly being a part of this community, it is astounding to me how so many moms have used blogging to reach out to the world as advocate for their children and demystify Downs.  I’ve learned so much from - and feel so grateful to - these many moms and have loved getting to know their amazing kids.

Here are a few blogs I’d like to share with you.

christinamolin
jennifergrafgroneberg
bridgets-light
mdbeau
babymatthew
blessingsandglory

Above is a photo of my nephew, Baby B. This is what Downs looks like. Just a beautiful baby that is full of joy and bringing that to his family every day.

Thank you for sharing that with us, Shauna!

Gone Fishing

Happy Thursday.

I’ll be back on Monday with some new reviews. Have a great rest of week and weekend.