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Hey. We’re having some technical difficulties over here. If you email me in the next couple of days at my daringyoungmom.com address, your email will be lost in a vortex of time and space where it will party with its friends, never actually making it to an inbox of any kind. Then I will appear to be a jerk for ignoring your oh-so-important communication. I will not be a jerk, but as you know, things are not always as they seem. So if you have an urgent message for me, please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you from another email account which I choose not to publish on the internet.

I think I’m mostly done with all my shopping. Today I shipped out all my gifts to far-off family and friends, for the first time ever not caring about how fast they went out because I planned far enough ahead. Hate me if you will, it’s a good year. And I braved “the winter” to go the post office. I swear to you my tires spun out a bit. I’m all kinds of daring and wintery in the winter we’re having these days.

So are you done? If not and even if you are, I’m gonna give you a few gift ideas. Some I have purchased. Some I plan to purchase. Some I wish someone would purchase for me. Enjoy.

Flip Notes

These little notebooks are nearly perfect. They’re cute and housed in a stylish little metal cover that protects the refillable notepaper inside. The pen holds them closed but when you pull it out, a little spring pops the book open. They come in tons of colors, for all the big boys and girls on your list. I love mine and have given several of them as gifts this year.

Mini Maglites
These mini-mini Maglights caught my eye when a friend’s baby was playing with one in church. They use 2 AAA batteries so they’re lighter than the regular mini-Mag but more powerful than the teeny pocket mag. I think they’re small and light enough to fit nicely in a purse, making them a great gift for your lady friends.

Wooden Legos — AKA “Interlocking Blocks”
I love so many things from Nova Natural but these may be my favorite new toy. I love them because they’re so versatile. The kids make the most amazing things with them, my favorite ever being a series of replicas of battleships from Star Wars with the darkest wood block taking on the role of “Dark Vader”.


Man Cards
These cards are made by a small company who wanted to provide a note card a thoughtful guy wouldn’t feel wimpish using. This has been a problem in our house. Dan will want to write a thank you note and all I have are these sissy girly cards he wouldn’t deign to touch. So I was glad when they sent me a sample for review. I liked them quite a bit but the real test came when Dan needed to write a thank-you card recently and he asked, “Hey, can I use one of those, um, Man Cards you got in the mail.” I’d call that a success.

Inchbug Labels
These are the best for kids. We’ve switched our water bottles over to Sigg and other stainless steel bottles and I hate to write the kids’ names on them with marker but also hate the idea of losing one or getting theirs mixed up with a friends. So when I saw a friend using these at a preschool field trip, I flipped out and ordered them almost immediately. They’re a flexible rubber band with your kid’s name engraved on them to keep track of sippy cups, water bottles and cups in general. You can use them at school, on cups at parties or if you’re Magoo, you can wear them all around the house as bracelets so your mother can never find them when she needs them.

Original Jewelry
I got my mother some of these last year and she loved them. The artist fashions his creations from old silverware. They’re one of the most beautiful forms of recycling I’ve ever seen.

Gingerbread T-Shirt

I love this gingerbread T-shirt from Target. It’s cheap. It’s cute. What more could you want?

This is Me Journal
A while back I reviewed this kids journal and just had to give it one last shout out. It’s wonderful and when the fill it out, it’s a treasure. I think every kid should have one of these… every year.

Magnetic Poetry
I think ever college dorm I ever lived in had these little babies hanging on the fridge, mostly the Shakespeare set. We were English snobs like that. Now that I’m a grown-up mommy, I’m really excited about the First Words version of Magnetic Poetry. I bought it for Laylee to practice reading and writing new and exciting sentences but I think Dan and I have used the set more.


Trader Joes Soaps
Trader Joes has these amazing soaps for a little over $3 a piece. They smell yummy, give a great lather, are completely natural and non-toxic and both my parents mentioned to me separately how much they liked them when they were staying with me recently. Let me repeat. My dad came up to me and commented on how much he liked these soaps. Yeah. They’re that good. Oh, they’re not available online.

Purses from Endless.com
If you’re completely stuck for something to get her (or yourself), rushed for time and loaded with money, go to Endless.com and get her a nice new handbag. The selection is enormous and there’s always free overnight shipping so you can get what you want fast.

Zen Alarm Clock
I read about this clock in Sophie Uliano’s book, Gorgeously Green and I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the idea of waking to the gentle sound of a Tibetan bell chiming. Listen to the description from their website:

“The Zen Alarm Clock’s long-resonating Tibetan bell-like chime makes waking up a beautiful experience ”” its progressive chimes begin your day with grace. When the Clock’s alarm is triggered, the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off (see the chime progression graph, below). As they become more frequent, the gentle chimes will always wake you up ”” your body really doesn’t need to be awakened harshly, with a Zen Clock you’re awakened more gradually and thus more naturally.”

On the site, you can listen to the chimes and pick the tone that’s most pleasing to you. Aaaahhhhh. When next I have a spare $120 lying around, I’m buying myself the digital E Tone model in walnut.

Have you any good gift ideas to share?

Boogies are a big thing around these parts. Everybody’s got ’em, and for most of the winter, there’s some crazy drama that goes on in the parenting community over which type and amount of boogies are acceptable in social situations, and which should resign a child to quarantine-leper status. [Click here to finish reading this post at Parenting.com]

Since our first year of marriage, Dan and I have never gotten a real tree. We have a great tree stand and I have a great love of fresh trees with all their smells and messes and fire hazards. And although Dan loves me and would humor my choice of tree whatever it was, I’ve opted for fake because we normally spend a good chunk of the holidays out of town visiting family.

This year we decided to try having out first Christmas at home, just the 4 of us, an island in a sea of holiday festivity, missing our families but trying to make our own magic. And I decided that this was the year. It had finally come. We’d pull out the 10 pound Costco tree stand, head down the street to the tree farm and saw us down a live one.

On Monday night after Dan got home from work, we drove out of town to a little farm I’d had my eye on and almost drove right past it because apparently tree farms in the country do not stay open all night. Little tree farms in the country do not have lights and inflatable animatronic reindeer riding motorcycles. All they actually have are trees, saws and an old guy, an old guy who apparently shuts the whole operation down when it gets dark for legal reasons.

When I went back with the kids the next day, he explained that saws shown in the above picture with the sign that looks as if it were painted with blood are not safe when used by small children or by adults in the dark of night. So he generally closes down at 4:30 and goes home, I’m assuming to his wife Martha. He was an impossibly cute old man and if he doesn’t have a wife named Martha waiting at home with fresh biscuits and a hearty meal, it’s not because he doesn’t deserve one.

As we walked through the rows and rows of greenery, it became evident that they did not have one perfect tree, they had several of them, spaced equidistant from each other across the several acre farm. I would have been happy with nearly any tree. Magoo would have been happy with a cookie and a piggy-back ride back to the car for more cookies. But Laylee would not be so easily pleased. She eventually settled on one of two trees which were located on either end of the farm. So we trudged back and forth looking at them, comparing their merits and eventually asking the cute old man to help us saw it down. Apparently my intense athletic training has not afforded me any new muscles because I might as well have been attempting to saw that thing down with a plastic spoon for all the difference my efforts were making.

The man pointed out that the trees were a little muddy because his entire farm had been under water when the valley flooded last month. He advised me to hose it down before taking it into my house.

As we drove home, little rivers of mud trickled down the windows of the van. Standing in the driveway I rolled the massive tree down from the roof rack and drug it awkwardly over to the side of the house where I began hosing it down. Every needle on the bottom half of the tree was coated with mud. There was grass and other flood debris tangled in the branches. I pulled off a slug and thought longingly of my tacky $20 fake tree sitting peacefully muck and vermin-free, weighing considerably less than 300 lbs in its box in the garage.

When I thought I’d finished scrubbing it down, I carried it to the front porch and realized it was at least a foot too tall so I got out our saw and began rubbing it firmly against the trunk of the tree and making no impact. I regretted the decision we had passively made every day of our lives not to purchase a chain saw.

Then I got an idea. I ran upstairs and got the giant hatchet we keep under our dresser in case an earthquake ever causes our door to jam closed in the night and we need to hack our way out and I started pounding the literal heck out of that tree. Heck was flying everywhere and I really enjoyed myself. It only took about an hour. I hope my kids don’t mind waiting that long for me to save them in the event of a quake.

I picked the tree up, setting its mangled gimpy stump on the ground, quite proud of myself and held it upright to get a good look at my handiwork. The tree was the right height but was still dripping with mud.

So I drug it out front and hosed it off again, this time scrubbing each branch and needle with my fingernails. I later heard that my neighbors were watching this whole process from their windows in fascination, trying to guess what I was doing. Was it some strange religious tree cleansing ritual? Was I a total germaphobe? They came to the conclusion that I’d come up with some fabulous way of prolonging the life of the tree and that they’d been doing it wrong for years.

Natasha about busted a gut laughing when I told her I was just trying to de-mud/de-slug the thing before taking it inside.

But now it’s up and it’s beautiful. When Laylee saw it all aglow, all decorated, she said, “Oh MOM! It’s so lovely. It’s the most beautiful tree in the world. It’s almost as good as a FAKE tree!”

I’ve been faking it for a while. I was still faking it when I wrote my post for Parenting this week but as of yesterday the bug has bitten me and I’m starting to feel it.

“It’s oddly comforting. I don’t have to feel like supermom all the time. Sometimes I can just put on the cape and shlump around in it until it fits again.”

Click to read more at Parenting.com

Sometimes I think I AM this conversation. I’ve watched this sketch about 300 times and I think it’s time I shared it. There is very little in this world that’s funnier to me than this:

We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year and somehow lured most of Dan’s family up from Utah for a visit. It was a lot of fun. We went shopping, ate until we nearly ruptured, went and saw that one movie and played games, lots of games.

As I was playing with Dan’s sister, KayLynn, I started to notice things and I didn’t need google to tell me that something wasn’t right. We were playing a speed card game that she’d never tried before and she was clobbering everyone. She was impossibly fast and strong. Her bowl of ice cream was pale white and ice cold.

So I shot her a dirty look.

“Say it,” she taunted me.

I gave her the look again.

“Say it out loud.”

“Card shark,” I whispered, shivering.

She asked me if I was afraid. I said I was only afraid of losing to her. And I did. Badly.

This spider monkey will think twice before she teaches that masochistic lion any new card games. I mean. As if I could outrun her at Canasta. As if I could fight her off with her mad shuffling and dealing skills.

I’m honestly not sure if she’s the hero or the bad guy but when her face sparkles in the sunlight, she is beautiful.

I know, right?

And the winner is Liz, commenter number 173 who was lovin’ on the Winthrop boots.

For the rest of you, you can buy to your heart’s content at the Keen store with free shipping when you use the code DARINGMOM through December 18th.

Happy shopping and look for more giveaways soon. Like maybe later today.

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As we walked into church on Sunday, my friend Carmen said, “Wow. You should really get that girl some tap dancing lessons.” And she’s right, because then not only could I publish her childhood details online but I could possibly make some dough by selling her into showbiz.

And regardless of the Lohan-esque horrors that brings to mind, I think she would be pretty darn cute tapping it away on the silver screen as her curls bounced fiercely up and down. She doesn’t have dimples, but I’m sure there’s some sort of surgery for that.

If you know Laylee at all, you can guess that she was quite pleased with this latest hair care masterpiece. When I suggested we put in her hearing aids before leaving the house, she balked, “I don’t want to mess up my curls.”

“Medical devices before beauty.” That’s what I always say. Some people attribute that quote to Confucius or Coco Chanel but I’m pretty sure I said it first.

When we got home from church, she created this self portrait.

I think it’s pretty good but in my opinion, she didn’t spend nearly enough time shading her upper lip.

I’ve got a fun and scientific post up at Parenting that may help you get your kids to bed a little easier.