Alive in Wonderland

A Comic Strip: The Tooth Fairy

 
  

   

  

     

   

  

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For more about my mommy life head over to OC Family and read my blog there.  

Today: Getting Schooled by Homework.

Meh...Otter, Gopher, Beaver...all my knowledge of animal life comes from cartoons. 

 
 

Be like me. Wait! Scratch that.

 

This is a photo of my daughter and me.  We both love our Converse. 

I wrote a story to go along with  the script over on my blog at  OC Family. 

 

Best Shot Monday: Tiny Moments

The very wonderful Tracey Clark asks us for our Best Shot Monday this week,"What tiny moments make up our lives?" For me, the little moments with my kids are the most precious. The little looks.  The little giggles. The little moments of glory. 

I love this photo of Ben...er, um, I mean Batman. Look at those eyelashes! I know, it's hard to act tough when you have hordes of women swooning and envious of your lashes, but he tries.  

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On another note about boys,  I don't care if the book says Max came home because he was hungry, I know he really comes home because he misses his mom.  But, I'm letting Max stick to his story.  I get it.  It's important to be tough.

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Today I'm listening to The Smiths  "There is a light that never goes out." 

Dear Baby Einstein: Keep the cash!

“Hi, I’m Julie Clark, founder of The Baby Einstein Company…” 

More women have gotten naked to the sound of Julie’s voice than to the sound of Barry White, Marvin Gaye and Steve Perry’s voice combined. Why? That's how every Baby Einstein video begins and it has been the cue for a lot of moms that it's now time to take a shower. I would pop in Baby Mozart or Baby Beethoven just to get a break from my little bundle of joy and get squeaky clean, not because I really believed my kid would grow up to be genius because she watched it. 

Last week Disney, who bought the Baby Einstein brand from Julie Clark in 2001, is offering a refund to consumers of the video series because—surprise—it won’t make your baby smarter. The FTC says this in their statement, “There’s no credible evidence that screen media can educate infants.” 

Yeah, we kinda knew that already FTC, but have you ever gone four weeks without shaving your legs or eight hours without talking to another adult? I thought not…I liked Baby Einstein and used it strictly for the thrill of being clean. It was a benefit to me to not look like a swamp monster when my husband came home from work. That was the value. Give us moms a little credit here FTC, “educating infants” wasn’t the goal here, Sillies.  

I suppose the alternative to Baby Einstein would have been letting my baby stare out the window for 20 minutes or play with my hair dryer and bobby pins until I was done freshening up, but, to be honest, I kinda liked those little puppets and the music of Baby Einstein served as the soundtrack to my little respite from momminess. 

It’s not like I plopped my baby in front of the tube for hours on end (well, there was that one day…) and thought I was doing her a solid by giving her a jump start on her education: Moving her well ahead of her diaper-clad friends. I always knew it was just a distraction, a little amusement for her while mommy "got ready."

Compared to the other “screen media” like Barney and The Wiggles, Baby Einstein was bearable to watch and the music was…well, classical. The only thing that annoyed me about the video series was the fact that I didn’t think of it myself, market it, and sell it to Disney for millions. 

So, you might have clued in, I won’t be cashing in on Disney’s offer to refund my money. In fact, I want to give a BIG shout out to Disney and especially Julie Clark for keeping me clean and (occasionally) coifed during the baby years—Thanks! Oh, and Julie, if you ever put out your own CD, please do a duet with Steve Perry, women around the nation will go wild for it! 

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This was written for my blog at OC Family. Head on over there to see what you're missing.

I'm up and writing at OC Family

 

I've got my first couple of posts up and running at OC Family. My column is also out in the print issue. If you can't get your hands on an OC Family Magazine, here it is: "You're Soooo Orange County."

You can click over and read my "Post Halloween Ritual" on my blog there as well. If you're still grousing about a bad deal you got from a Nov 1st candy trade with an older sibling years ago, you'll be happy to know, you're not the only one.  Go read...

 

Hello OC Family

(Photos by the lovely Dana Sipper)

So, what am I going to do now?  

I've accepted a position at Churm Media as  lead blogger for OC Family.  That means four times a week you can find me there talking about mom stuff, non-mom stuff, and of course, the occasional post about roller skating, Lip Smackers, and Ducks hockey.   Irresistible, no? 

The very idea of representing O.C. Moms at OC Family made me swoon, but the best part about the job was choosing 14 other O.C. Mom Bloggers to join me there on the web site.  The thought of all of us there ranting, opinionizing (it's not a word, don't bother looking it up), and giving our suggestions for the best things to do in O.C. makes my toes tingle (but that might just be the mini-margarita kicking in). 

Go ahead and bookmark ocfamily.com now, I'll wait.............or become a friend on Facebook....... and look for all of us to go live there on Nov. 1st.  Also, keep an eye out for my column, Alive in Wonderland, in the November issue.   I just turned it in today and if you think I didn't mention OC Family's Mom Bloggers' ambitions of World Domination, you're sadly mistaken.  Don't we look fierce? 

Photos by the lovely Dana Sipper. 

Emily's Locks of Love challenge

It was a day almost a year in the making--the day my eight-year-old daughter, Emily, was going to get her hair chopped off for Locks of Love. She orginally got the idea when she saw George Parros, of the Anaheim Ducks, cut off his long black hair for charity. Though she wanted to do it with him this winter (read that story here), the morning drama and the heat of the season got to be too much for her. She got it cut off and donated her hair this summer to Locks of Love.

I think it was harder on me than her. I was surprised I was so nervous about it. As we drove to the "salon" I felt nostalgic looking at her long locks and worried a little about what lay ahead. I remember too clearly the hair fiascos in my own past--frizzy perms,misguided asymmetrical bobs, and hair made orange by Sun-in. I worried for about half the drive, then I started to think about the moms whose daughters have cancer. How their worries and fears leap far past my frivolous concerns. And once again, I was surprised by my own pettiness. (When does that stop happening?) I snapped out of it and pulled out my camera.

Emily was unwavering and chatty through the entire thing. She proudly held up her ponytail to the camera and eagerly shoved it into the baggy. I have to admit, that ponytail was a little creepy, like carrying one of her limbs around in a ziplock. You don't realize how much your hair is a part of you until you see it severed and lonely through plastic. I guess that's all the more reason to support Locks of Love. Kids with cancer have already lost so much, this was a minor sacrifice in comparison.

Now Emily is asking all her friends to join her to grow their hair out for next year. She already has two friends on board and is hoping that this post will get more friends to participate. Email me at suzbroughton@yahoo.com if your daughter is inspired.  Maybe we can do a Locks of Love party when it's time to get it lopped off...

We just meant to scare them a little, not scar them for life

Art work available on Etsy.

Chalk this one up to "one of those things you can laugh about with your kids later." Like WAAAY later. My husband, Larry, and I were just thinking of a creative way to get our kids to brush their teeth for two minutes. We had tried it all; toothbrushes that play "High School Musical" songs, cute little timers, threats, and, the old standard, blatant bribes. 

Then we thought, "What about scaring the living daylights out of them?" Kidding. We didn't plan on doing that, but that's what happened. One night last week after the usual hassle / battle at the basin, Larry decided to show the kids what will happen if they don't brush their teeth twice a day for two minutes -- implementing the scare 'em straight method. Where did he go for this kind of propaganda? Why YouTube, of course. 

He found this lovely video of the foulest teeth you'll ever see, ever. So we plopped them down in front of my computer and let them watch this video (right before bed, mind you). I am warning you, this is D.isgusting with a capital "D."

 Watch it at your own risk. 

I know! It's like the dental version of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Gross, right? Yea, our kids thought so too. Mission accomplished. They scurried to the bathroom practically tripping over each other to get to their toothbrushes. But when we went to put them to bed, Emily, our eight-year-old, was crying, obviously traumatized by the whole thing.  

We both took turns sitting up and talking with her until she fell asleep. Larry and I both kept shooting each other the "Oops" look as we passed each other in the hallway, switching shifts. The next morning Emily asked that we never speak of "that video" again. Done. It's in the vault...but, she has brushed her teeth for two minutes ever since.

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This is the video I remember from the '70s Saturday morning cartoon era.

Time for Timer

   

Totally agree. This would have have been a far better choice.

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This was something I wrote for MomCrush, but never posted here.  I'm home with a sick kid today, so thought it would be a good day for repost.  But, just as a follow-up, Emily saw I was coping this post and said, "Mommy! You promised! Never again!"  

Who is this person pushing the Pringles on my kids?

After spending a week at my mom and dad's house with my family I was overcome with one, albeit  immature,  feeling: NO FAIR!!!

The first morning my mom had already prepared the breakfast table with every sweet delight that was banned from my house growing up -- Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes,  enough sugar cereal to fuel a 5- and 8-year-old through more than a morning's worth of tantrums and meltdowns.

I know the topics of  "Grandparents spoil their grandkids" and "Why do my kids get the foods I never got as a kid?" have been done to death, but this is a little different, because, frankly, it's happening to me.

In my family growing up, my mom filled the kitchen with the healthiest food the '70s had to offer: Roman Meal bread (instead of Wonder Bread), grape juice from concentrate (instead of soda), Red "Delicious" Apples (instead of fruit cups), Triskets (instead of chips), and, the worst travesty of all, Laura Scudder's Peanut Butter (instead of, you know, peanut butter). Laura Scudder's is the kind that has the oil sitting on the top that you have to stir in like some kind of cruel science experiment.  It's thick and pasty and there is zero chance of not ripping your bread to pieces when spreading it. My mom has  even admitted that she used to put wheat germ in our brownies as a "fiber booster." What kind of twisted ...

All this was done in the name of eating healthy, and to this day I think I have pretty good eating habits because of it (my man-food habit aside). I'm grateful to her for her efforts, and even though as a kid it seemed like my friends were eating Pop Tarts, Pop Rocks and Sugar Pops for breakfast, I knew she did it because she loved us.

So, I just want to know, who is this woman pushing the Pringles on my kids and what has she done with my mom?

My mom has taken on legendary spoiling status among our friends.  We get requests to tell the same stories over and over again. Like once, after seeing Disney on Ice at The Honda Center, my mom bought Emily, my daughter, cotton candy on the way out the door after a whole parade of special treats during the show.  When I protested, my mom shrugged it off and justified it saying cotton candy was "mostly air." Mostly Air!  She's a legend.  This is the sort of thing only a grandmother who is completely head over heels in love with her grandchild would say.

Which leads me to my husband and my stance on the whole subject -- my own personal feeling of  injustice aside -- we think it's wonderful.  Our kids are lucky to have a grandma and gramps who love them and spoil them rotten. So many of my friends have lost one or both of their parents already, or their kids' grandparents can't be bothered with them, or  they live too far away to see them.

It's not like they have no control at all. My parents require our kids treat them and each other with respect.  They make them say "please" and "thank you" and they look after them like hawks, but they just can't help but be spoiled by them -- and that's OK.

That our kids have grandparents that fill them with sugar, let them jump up and down on the couch, and even encourage them to bring frogs into the bathtub is all counted as a blessing in our minds.  It also helps if they're the ones who are watching them when all this is happening, not us ... oh, it's an advantage if we have at least one day of "Grandma-detox" before school, piano lessons, or basically having to bring our kids out in public.

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Random Posts from MomCrush, my blog at The OC Register:

✺ We just meant to scare them a little, not scar them for life.

✺ ...and then, I felt like a cougar.

Be a fan of MomCrush on Facebook.

What nickname do you have for your son?

My son has an older sister, so it's the natural order of things that he would get some hand-me-downs: helmets, videos, and sometimes, sadly, girlie things. Not princess outfits or Angelina Ballarina backpacks, nothing like that, but he did get stuck with his sister's nickname. It was the endearment that was tip-top on my mind. 

The name had just become a habit, "Please come here, BABYDOLL." It would easily flow from my lips when I would drop him off at preschool, "Have a good day, BABYDOLL." I used it all the time -- everyday. 

Then, one day on the way to school he said, "Mom, could you not call me BABYDOLL? Not with my friends there." How could I have done this to him? Duh! Yes, don't call a boy BABYDOLL. This should be obvious. It's like a double insult, "baby," only like the worse thing you could call a preschooler and "doll." Do I really need to point out the travesty of calling a young boy "doll?" I mean, it's not like I dressed him in heels and a tiara, but, BABYDOLL! Boy image suicide. 

I knew I had to make things right for him. 

So I let him choose his new name. After going through our options -- Little Man, Dude, Blue Power Ranger -- he came up with Dinosaur. He wanted me to call him Dinosaur instead of Babydoll. It was a little bulky for a nickname, but Dinosaur it was. 

Everywhere we went, he was my Dinosaur, and it made people smile in line at Trader Joe's and strangers join in at the park, "Hey Dinosaur, you're going to fall off there if you're not careful." It was fun, but I missed calling him Babydoll, just a little. 

Then one day, as I was driving him home, I accidentally let it slip -- Babydoll. "Oh, gosh, Dinosaur, I'm so sorry." He was understanding and said, "It's okay, you can call me Babydoll sometimes, I miss that." (Yea!) He then quickly made sure to put in one stipulation, "... just not in front of my friends." Deal.

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Could our summer be more random?

My kids have been out of school for one week now. It has been a random, unorganized, fun, and exhausting week.

I will use this photo collage as a visual aid to demonstrate what happens when you have no plan in place when summer hits. So far, this is what our summer has consisted of:

1.) Cherry on Top, have you been here yet? Just don't, because once you do, your desire for this special treat will become a driving force in your life, all other things will revolve around how you can end up there. We even had it for lunch one day.

2.) Spending time with friends.

3.) Staying out until the street lights come on.

4.) Educating my daughter about the awesomeness of Lip Smackers--Watermelon.

5.) Searching the perfect Lemon Drop Martini

6.) Reba. My kids are obsessed with watching the reruns on Lifetime. I have zero idea what the appeal is to a five and eight-year old, but it's a welcome change from Sponge Bob.

7.) Previewing the new summer shows at Disneyland and participating in the press junket (including interviewing Alice in Wonderland). Staying up to the wee hours of the morning editing and writing about all the fun.

8.) Roller Skating. Roller Skating. Roller Skating.

Yea, it's been a pretty good week. But, I still feel like I should have some kind of action plan. Do you have a plan for the summer? Can we wing the entire summer? Watch me try...

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Become a fan of Orange County Daily Photo on Facebook. Seven OC Photographers. One photo a day.

Are you an OC Blogger? Join BlogCrush! Our next meet-up is June 27th at Wahoo's in the Irvine Spectrum.

Here's hoping some of it got through

I tried.  

My family and I like to go to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Newport Beach. On Saturday night, after we polished off our spumoni ice cream, my daughter and I stopped by the bathroom before we headed out to go roller skating and watch the sunset on the boardwalk. 

When we walked in to the tiny bathroom, we were met with satin dresses, heavily hairsprayed up-dos with crunchy curls, and sequins heels--they were Prom Night revelers. The four girls weren't in the bathroom to take care of business, just to primp and grouse. 

"OMG! I look like a giant, a monster!" said the red-dressed girl looking into the oversized gilded mirror. 

"No you don't!" snapped the purple-dressed girl, "GWAWL! This dress is stabbing me in the ribs! I hate it!" she whined, as she shoved her hand all the way down the front of her dress for relief. 

"I wish my boyfriend would say ONE thing to me. I mean, I like totally bought his ticket and everything, at LEAST he could say I look pretty! OMG! Look how fat and awful I look!" howled the green-dressed girl. 

"Shut up! Look at my hair! I should have never trusted the chick who did my hair. She said 'do you trust me?' and I should have had her 'do it like the picture I brought in,'" reflected the purple-dressed girl as she reapplied her lip gloss. 

"Oh you NEVER trust them! Did you see there wasn't anything but bottled water in the limo?! OMG! I mean, seriously, not even a Coke or anything!" complained the green-dressed one, who held the bottom of her dress under her chin as she pulled up her pantyhose. 

It went on and on like this for the whole time we were in there. Like a really bad, after-school special version of "Sex and the City." (Sponsored by Wet Seal and Kotex.) 

Emily, my eight-year-old was mesmerized by them. She just stood there staring. I had to prod her along at each step--wash your hands, turn on the water, rub them together, use soap, dry them on a towel--she couldn't take her eyes off them. 

When we got outside and started lacing up, I began to give her my analysis of the girls, trying to pick out the life lesson in the experience, "It's sad that those girls were out on their very special night and all they did was complain," I said, as I searched for Em's knee pads in her bag.  

"I think some girls think it's part of being a girl--being a grown-up girl-- to pick  apart everything, to gripe. They think it's cute or sophisticated, or something, like on TV. But you know it's not, right?" I said, really reaching for that deeper lesson. 

"Yeah, I know," she agreed. 

Oh, yeah, she's obviously getting it I think. 

"It's so unattractive to be negative.  You really look your best when you're positive and polite," I laid it on, thinking now I'm really teaching her some good stuff.

"Um, hmm," Emily agreed strapping on her helmet. 

"All they did was put themselves down, moan about the limo, and complain about their boyfriends. How do you think their boyfriends felt?" I said to her,  as she stood up, trying to steady herself on her skates. "You see how they didn't appreciate anything, they weren't very grateful," I continued, driving the point home.

"I get it,  I mean, they should be grateful they even HAVE a boyfriend!" She said, then she skated off down the boardwalk.

Wait...Here's to hoping some of it got through.

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This was written for my blog at the OC Register, MomCrush. 

And, if you live in Orange County, the post I wrote about the Butterfly Release is in print today in The OC Register. 

Is there anything cooler than a five-year-old boy?

Ben: I was running so fast at school!

Me: Really?

Ben: Yeah, you know when you run so fast and smoke comes out the back of your shoes?

Me: Yes, that IS fast.

Ben: All my friends behind me were coughing and coughing because of all the smoke.

Me: Oh, my. You are a fast runner.

Ben: Yeah, really, really fast.

Mensa Mamma

I just can't control myself -- helping my second grader with her homework makes me feel like a genius. Well, maybe not a genius, but at bit like Alex Trebek at a Spelling Bee. "I'm sorry [cue pity face], the correct answer is t-r-o-U-b-l-e." Then I like to show off a little by using it in a sentence, "You're really having TROUBLE with that word, aren't you?" 

I realize this feeling will only last as long as her times tables are under "10" and her spelling words are two syllables or less. I'm already struggling with finding the Theme Sentence in a paragraph -- suspect this is a moving target created by spiteful English teacher -- and also the Jurassic period is turning into a buzzkill for me. 

Sadly, there were even a couple of times in first grade when she's had to correct me, "Mommy, I don't think that is the right hat for the fireman. I think it's the red pointy one." Just testing her. I knew that. (Yellow hat= constructions worker. Yellow hat= construction worker ...) 

So, when I feel I'm losing my intellectual edge, I breakout the "telling time" worksheets and I'm brilliant again: even I know when it's 5:45 p.m. So for right now, I'm taking advantage of the little I.Q. stroke I'm getting by helping my daughter with her homework ... so pathetic, I know.

Not a single Peep

I started to panic a little when I walked into Target this morning to get things for my kids' baskets and there weren't any Peeps in the $1 section. "Must be back in the seasonal section," I tried to reassure myself. But, no! Target was completely out by 10 am, Saturday morning. They had legions of them two days ago--all lined up like an army in some weird, psychedelic PBS kids' show. But today, not one little solider was there. 

I personally don't like Peeps. They fall into the same category as Candy Corn in my opinion. Blah! (I did a whole video about how I don't like Candy Corn.) But, I was desperate to get some them for my daughter, Emily. She loves those day-glo, gooey chicks. She expects them in her basket every year.

When I got home from Target I immediately alerted everyone on my Facebook MomCrush Fan Page that there wasn't a Peep to be had in all of Orange County. One friend suggested maybe they've all been used for art in this Washington Posts' "Peep Show" contest. So funny. 

Must. Find. Peeps. 

I then spent over an hour-and-a-half going from store to store Peep hunting. I went to Ralphs, Pavillions, Big Lots. Nothing! I even ran into a friend as I was going into RiteAid and she was coming out. She had read my status on Facebook and when she saw me frantically approaching she immediately started shaking her head and shouted, "No Peeps in there, Suz." 

Arrr! Why am I such a procrastinator!!

 I ended up telling Emily that I heard on the news that the Easter Bunny ran out of Peeps while in Scotland and so he doesn't have any to give to the American kids. I then quickly reminded her that we have Disneyland and they don't. Which seemed to help. I can only hope that the friends she sees at church tomorrow don't have stories of Peeps in their baskets.

Happy Easter!

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Kind of related stories

Lessons in parenting: lying to your kids.

The awfully funny truth.

Nothing like a five-year-old boy

Ben: I was running at school so fast!  

Me: Really.

Ben: Yeah, you know when you run so fast and smoke comes out the back of your shoes?

Me: Yes, that IS fast.

Ben: All my friends behind me were coughing and coughing because of all the smoke.

Me: Oh, my.  You are a fast runner.

Ben: Yeah, really fast.

Rats and ducks and a good cause, oh my!

Illustration by the Amanda Kindregan.

My seven-year-old daughter, Emily, started to grow her hair out about a year ago to donate to Locks of Love . But, once she saw "nice tough guy" George Parros of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team getting annual hair cut for Childhood Leukemia Foundation's (CLF)  Hugs -U- Wear Program she changed her mind and wants to get it chopped off with him-- "with a Duck."

But, right now the only animal that can be associated with her hair is a rat, as in rat's nest. Her hair is about four inches short of the twelve inch requirement so, if we don't kill each other before that time, she has about six to eight months to go. 

Sensing the animosity?  You're so clever.

From what  I can tell, this is what she does from the time I ask her to go take a shower until the time she is standing in front of me with dagger brush in hand asking me to start the war that has become brushing out her hair.

    1. Get undressed. Get in shower.

    2. Shampoo with homemade shampoo made of: 1 part Elmer's glue , 1 part egg  yolk, 1 part silly putty. 

3. Completely shun conditioner as if it were an oatmeal raisin cookie.  

4. Get out of shower. Dry hair by rubbing it between two pieces of sandpaper.

5. Plug in electric mixer. Turn it on.  Run through hair on "puree" setting.

6. Spritz with melted surf board wax.

7. Host fight between a hedgehog and ferret on top of head.

8. Adopt surly attitude. Hunch shoulders to ears. Glue fingers to top of head. Find mom and hand her dagger brush. 

Sometimes, when we've had a particularly brutal hair brushing session we go to CLF's website and look at THIS  and we're good until the next shower.

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Super Funny Mom Posts From Around 

The Momblogosphere (totally made that word up.):

Nik of Prose and Converse 'ilarious post about taking her kids to the market after work: Promptly negating any good karma earned.

Foolery's cliffnoted tale of making cookies for her daughter's class : Cookies for Sparky's kindergarten class.

Suz of Day by Day...My Life as a Busy Bee's spit-take-able story: I should write a parenting book or maybe just a pamphlet. 

So-So has been axed and other Disneyland news

 

It's been a tough week for the invisible people in our family. There's no way to sugarcoat this so I'm just going to come right out and tell you: So-So was fired from The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland for being "too scary." 

You'd think that being a frightening ghost who says "WhooWhoo HaaHaa" to the little kids would make him an asset to his employers. But, when you swoop down and pick up a little boy and fly him all over The Haunted Mansion and leave him at The Magic Shop on Main Street without telling his parents that's where he should be collected, well, you get your pink slip pretty fast.  

So-So has quickly recovered and now has an office job in Costa Mesa. He's the boss, but no one knows exactly what he does.  It has something that for sure involves making lots of copies and using a stapler. So, yep, he's a working hack now. A stuffed shirt.  In this economy he was lucky to find anything at all.

Coco, So-So's dog, broke his leg last Thursday and spent the entire day at the veterinarian. When he got home we realized he couldn't jump up onto the ceiling fan, where he sleeps. I volunteered to give him a boost, but Ben just laughed and said, "Mommy, Coco is too heavy for YOU." So Ben had to hoist him up using two swords and marshmallow shooter. 

The next head-spinning development is that Knock-Knock, So-So's brother, is now a girl. I didn't want to ask too many questions, so I just let that one go... 

If you haven't the slightest idea what I'm talking about, you can click on these stories below to fill you in on So-So, my son's invisible friend.

A friend you can't see is a friend indeed 

The Ghost in him

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In more positive Disneyland news, my family and I have been invited for a sneak peek at the "new magic" of It's a Small World. That means we will be one of the first people to ride the updated attraction before it opens to the public on February 6th.

 Go ahead. Pretend like you're happy for me (while deep down you are aflame with envy).  Leave comments saying how you hope I have a good time.  I know you mean, "I hope one of the can-can girls kicks you in the shin. "

Always with the advice...

Attention Mom Bloggers:

Roxanne Hack, Web Editor at The OC Register, has put out the call for you to send her your "Parenting Tips," which she will then post on The OC Register's Mom Blog.

So, think of something really good --smarmy, silly, serious, satirical-- and she will link back to your blog.  What? You really like new visitors to your blog?  How unlike a Mom Blogger.  Next your going to tell me you like lots of comments...

For a little linkage, send your tips to Roxanne  at ocmoms@ocregister.com.  

This picture is of Em and I in Palm Springs.  You have to get creative when you're a Mom Blogger who doesn't post pictures of her kids. We agreed this one was just obscured enough to share. 

I think it's the quintessential photo a Mom Blogger puts her child up to do. "Stand here. No down more. Look into this rim of the car.  This is the rim--the shinning thing.  Now smile at the rim.  Turn your head a little. Good Job." 

So the tip here might be: Always encourage your kids to smile into the rims of cars, but only if they aren't moving. 

When things aren't just things

I think the hardest lessons to teach our kids are the ones we haven't quite learned ourselves. This became plain to me when I pitched a fit over all the THINGS my kids had and announced that after Christmas we were going to give a painful amount of their things away. They cried at the thought and started to frantically list all the items they didn't want included on the give away list. Their rooms, closets, drawers, and even pockets are filled with stuff. 

Too much clutter makes me anxious and I started to feel guilty that my kids have so much, when so many kids in the world have so little. "They're just things," I assured them. "They don't matter that much." My husband and I tell our kids all the time, "Some kids don't have anything." And try as they might, this concept is just too hard for our Irvine-raised kids to fully understand. 

We sponsor children in Africa and read their letters to our kids. We donate to families in need living in Orange County. And yes, it makes them sad to think of a little girl who doesn't have even one doll, but do they really get it? Charity is a hard concept for a child, it doesn't seem to come to them naturally. 

Fueled by the guilt and an urge to tidy up, I started to put my urge to purge into action. When my daughter, Em, was at her grandma's house, I tackle the insane amount of stuff that filled her room. I gleefully tossed broken fast food toys, dried up pens, and books half chewed-up by the dog without a thought. I happily stuffed bags with shoes, pjs, and Polly Pockets for the Goodwill with ease. But then I got to the harder things--the stuffed animals. 

My seven-year-old daughter's stuffed animals are like her children. She's grown up with some of them. They have come on vacation with us, comforted her in the ER, and accompanied her on her first day of school. How can I give any of them away? With the exception of Webkinz-- which hold zero sentimental value with me--I'm attached to nearly all of my daughter's stuffed animals. 

How can I give away Sad Molly, named because of her sad smile? Or Bark Dog? Or Baby Bark Dog? Not Madonna! Certainly not Jewel, named after her favorite musician. Her Aunt Jana gave her Chili, and her Grandma, Bella Bunny. Poodlina just stared at me with those big, black plastic eyes as if pleading me not to pick her and shove her into the bag. How can I? 

I remember Em wrapping her in my son's receiving blanket to "practice having a little brother." **sniff**sniff** Should I keep them all? With all the lecturing about kids who are less fortunate than us and about how stuff isn't the most important thing in life, I'm holding on tightly to these things--to stuff. The very thing I just ranted on about right before Christmas I'm clinging on to today. 

 guess I haven't learned my own lesson because I neatly lined-up her entire crew on her bed and they are now waiting patiently for her to get home. I suppose sometimes things aren't just things. Other random things from me:

• Songs from the 70's rewritten after the artists had kids
• 10 things mommy wishes she could stop doing
• Breaking News: Irvine mom admits she can't afford something