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***And the winner is ANGIE K, commenter number 40! Congrats. I’ll get the last giveaway up sometime Friday. ***

I had a couple of new games sent to me to review on the site. But I’ve decided that rather than writing up a review, I’ll just pass them on to you. Here’s what the manufacturer has to say about them:

Rubik’s Revolutionâ„¢ – the first electronic era follow up to the #1 selling Rubik’s® Cube. One of the hottest games in recent memory, Rubik’s Revolution was named 2008 “Game of the Year” by the Toy Industry Association. The dynamic, electronic cube tests both speed and smarts with six built-in games that feature voice, lights and sound effects. With multiple levels to unlock, the new interactive cube challenges both your mind and dexterity, offering exciting multi-player gaming the whole family will love. Ages 5-105

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? – Do you think you’ve got the smarts to compete on the hit TV series? Prove it with this electronic touch screen game featuring 13 subjects with more than 2,500 questions. Partner up with classmates and use the “cheat” option to try to win one million dollars. Pocket-sized and fully portable, this illuminated, easy-to-read and simple-to-use touch screen includes volume control and a cool pencil stylus. Ages 8+.

If you’re looking for a free Christmas gift, leave a comment on this post and perhaps the random integer gods will smile upon you. I’ll draw a winner for both games Thursday night at 9pm and put up one more giveaway. It’s a fun one.

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

***The Winner is Steph from Diapers and Divinity. Yay. I like her and Random.org likes her too apparently.***

Laylee is loving everything ballet. She loves the shoes, the tutus, the music, the finger positions and even the little fakey twittering giggle that apparently ballerinas must make as they flit about.





We had tried putting her in a class when she was 3ish and it was fun but not in the same way as it’s fun right now. Now ballet is life and she wants nothing more than to dance like the big ballerinas when she grows up, preferably next week.

So I was excited when I heard from Stephanie Troeller, one of the mom masterminds behind Prima Princessa, a series of ballet videos for young girls. I love moms who come up with a good idea and follow through with it and I love Laylee and Laylee loves ballet so the triangle of mutual love was complete when Stephanie sent me a copy of her movie in the mail.

The DVD they sent me was Swan Lake. It features a Cliffs Notes version of Swan Lake as performed by the Paris Opera Ballet as narrated by a squeaky-voiced cartoon ballerina fairy. Although the voice is annoying, the scripting is decent and she gives a succinct telling of the story that young audiences can grasp. The dancing is beautiful and the play is broken up into acts. Between each act are teaching segments that show skilled young students from the School of American Ballet followed by preschool girls practicing the various moves as seen in Swan Lake.

There’s a bit of Baby Mozart-esque montage that goes on to reinforce the various movements but for the most part it sticks to dancing, the part we like the best. I was a little worried that Laylee wouldn’t like it because the preschool girls were too young for her. She’s 5. But it turns out she LOVES the preschool dancers because she’s “SO MUCH BETTER THAN THEM.” And sweet and humble too.

In the video she sees where she was, where she hopes to be someday soon and where she will be in her wildest dreams.

It’s fun, she loves it with a passionate love and uses it to guide her drills of various moves she’s learning in class. I actually think it’s played a significant part in her dance improvement.

To top it all off, I have a copy for one of you. If any of you have a little girl in your life who’s just aching to be a ballerina, I guarantee she’ll love this video so even if you don’t win, consider buying it for a Christmas gift.

To enter this giveaway, go to their website at www.primaprincessa.com and watch the DVD clip. Then come back here and tell me what your little ballerina would like most about the video. If there’s a clear winner for the best response of EVER, I’ll give the DVD to that commenter. If I’m torn, I’ll just choose a random winner. Enter by Tuesday night at 9pm PST, when I’ll be announcing another fun giveaway.

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

I’m having a bit of a rough time. I just had a great visit with my parents, although I wish they’d never left, and for some reason I’ve been struggling really hard these past few days.

I have a new post up at Parenting about my mommy and next week I plan to do some giveaways to boost my mood. If you want to tell me a joke or a fun anecdote related to fluffy bunnies or cute baby chicks, I’d be much obliged.

To get the party started, how cute are these pirates?

I’ve got a Halloween post up at Parenting.

Things may be a bit sparse over here for the next few days. We’ve got company in town and we’ll be too busy having fun to write about it. Peace.

Tearing down politicians seems to be a favorite pastime in this country. I don’t remember things always being so vicious. At what point did we stop thinking of public servants as people and start using them as punching bags to absorb all of our pent up angst and rage?

I am definitely not planning on naming any of my future children or pets after George W. Bush but neither am I going to spend my life blaming all the world’s problems on him or finding ways to berate and mock him. It’s super cool right now to rip on Bush, to find a reason, any reason to be negative about him.

I think it all started with legitimate concerns about his policies and actions as president. Then it snowballed into something ugly, a disrespectful free-for-all of personal attacks. It makes me sad to see so many people so bitter and angry.

Now I’m all for debate, discussion, thoughtful criticism and even intelligent satire. We owe it to ourselves, our children and our leaders to keep them on their toes, to ask hard questions, debate policy and vote our consciences. But I think we’d be better off if we maintained a level of honor, civility and respect.

In the current election people seem to either passionately support one of the candidates or think they’re both a disappointment. I hear frequent talk about choosing “the lesser of two evils”, a ballooning pessimism and cynicism overtaking political discourse.

And I think, “What the chicken?!”

In this presidential race we have 2 men who I believe are good people, sincere in their desire to make positive change in this country. I don’t agree with either of them completely on how to accomplish that. Neither do I think I could do any better nor would I want to take on that kind of responsibility, especially in these tough economic times.

So I say, “Hooray for a free country where we get to choose between two impassioned, intelligent, honorable people to lead us.” (Yes I know there are other people running for president besides Obama and McCain but I’m referring to candidates who have a snowball’s chance of winning this election.) I would just encourage everyone to take a breath and practice some Pollyanna-style politics this November. Look at the good you think each candidate could accomplish and choose who you think could do the most good, not “lesser of two evils.”

In that spirit, I’d like you to leave comments today with positive things about either or all of the major presidential candidates and their running mates. Come on. I know you can do it.

*Any comments that Pollyanna wouldn’t approve will be deleted for this post. I want to keep it positive.*

I wasn’t perfect in my goal this week not to multitask during meals. It’s amazing how HARD it is. The hardness of the goal to simply sit and eat meals with my family 3 times a day made me realize how much I need to keep working on it. Because really. If my life is as simple and balanced as I’d like it to be, that shouldn’t be difficult.

Along with these weekly goals, I’ve been drastically cutting back on my personal activities, giving up some good things that I really enjoy in order to have time to just breathe and live and be with my family. It’s been hard to let go of some of these pet projects but as each thing drops away, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, even when the thing I was doing was a really good thing. Being involved in too many good things makes it hard to enjoy any of them.

Dare to Simplify Week 3 — Fast Quick Speedy Meals of Quickness
This week write down a list of your favorite quick dinner meals to make in a pinch when you don’t have anything planned, you don’t have time to make what you had planned or you find that you’re missing one key ingredient from the recipe you wanted to make.

This should be a list of meals for which you generally have most of the ingredients available without a trip to the store. It can include things like waffles, scrambled eggs and refried beans on toast. (I made that last one up just now. Could you tell?) Then next week come back and share your ideas in the comments section.

I find that when I’m desperate for a quick meal, I can’t think of anything so I’d like to post this list of fast ideas inside my kitchen cupboard to look at when we’re in a rush.

Dan went with me to my spin class this morning. I tend to call it a “spinning class” but have come to realize that sounds like we’re making yarn or turning straw into gold when actually what we do is pedal a bike that doesn’t go anywhere while wiping sweat from our brows, moaning and congratulating ourselves on our growing awesomeness. I don’t think he particularly enjoyed himself but now he knows a bit more about what I’m doing and he called me an athlete at least 3 times so it was a good morning. The best 5am date we’ve ever had.

The house is still clean following a mad rush of cleanliness that preceded my hosting a PTA board meeting. I love the clean but am a bit sick of listening to my own nagging voice . (more on my struggle not to become a Spotless Wench at Parenting.com)

For the most part I don’t nag too loudly but the tone of nagging is almost as obnoxious as the tone of whining. So I’m going to try and change to a tone of gentle reminder and rely more heavily on the new chore chart.

I stole the card idea from Jessica and modified it to suit my style (or lack thereof) and the materials I already had on hand. For some reason I have an insane amount of denim in stock out in my garage. Oooo. Maybe I shouldn’t have let that slip. I don’t want to attract every strung-out denim junkie in town, low on their supply and jonesin’ for some jean fabric.

So I tried to make the cards look as much like my house as possible and Laylee was super impressed. Just because I DON’T color 24/7 doesn’t mean I CAN’T. I’m a woman of many hidden talents and also hidden markers that all still have their lids.


On days when I have specific chores I need the kids to do, I assign them but on more flexible days I let them assign their own. I find that they actually do more work and do it more cheerfully if they feel like they’re in control of what they’re doing. I like to give them the illusion of control as much as I can.

The denim pockets are tied onto an IKEA white board which I then screwed into the wall.

When the kids finish one of their chores, they flip the card over and when they’re all flipped over, they turn over the card with their name on it. The back says “ALL DONE” indicating that they are more than partially done. Kind of like “ALL NEW” episodes on NBC which are created without reusing any footage from previous episodes. Not even a bit. ALL NEW.

They vacuum with a mini stick vac or carpet sweeper. They wipe the dirt around, rather than actually cleaning anything. They “do laundry” by helping me sort the clothes and move piles from one spot to another. They feel very useful and they’re learning.

I find that they take my pictures very seriously. Magoo will now only pray like this.

And insists that everyone else follow suit and do it LIKE THE PICTURE! I was hesitant to make prayer a chore in the first place but decided it might be helpful to give them a little reminder. When I went to draw the hands, I found that intertwining fingers were beyond my capabilities. Now for Magoo it’s flat hands or he will have none of it.

I know he’s begun doing his chores when I hear him in the living room shouting up to the heavens, “I yank thee for my bed and my big ducks and my friend River and my sister!”

I’ll be saying a special prayer of “yanks” when we get to a point where their cleaning actually helps make my life easier. It can’t be long now.

There’s something about the word “salad” that my kids totally hate. I think it must be the “L” in the middle. “L”s are for losers. For a while I tricked them by calling it “leaves and sauce” and they would happily dip their leaves and munch away, one or two leaves per meal, leaving behind any other stuff that happened to stow away on the leaves, stuff like tomatoes and cukes. For a long time I thought they’d grow to love it but it’s been years and if anything they’ve grown more salaphobic.

Recently my friend Jill sent me a link to Cynthia Lair’s cooking blog, Cookus Interruptus. I was excited to check it out because Cynthia Lair is the author of my current favorite cook book, Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods
. If you’re trying to make healthy food choices for your family, I beseech you to go out today and buy this book. It is a wealth of information and great recipes. It’s where I learned to cook all kinds of crazy grains and vegetables and a lot of normal ones too in new ways. She’s a teacher at Bastyr University and writes on a very down-to-earth level with a glossary of cooking terms and ingredients in the back of her book that explains what certain sauces and spices look like and where you’d typically find them in the grocery store. LOVE. IT.

But I love her new blog even more. Who knew that she was a great chef, teacher, writer and comedian?

Seriously the site is awesome. It’s an instructional cooking video blog with humor, great information and fabulous simple recipes. Dan and I have whiled away many minutes (the videos are short) watching Cynthia and her crazy improv comedian “family members” cook up delicious nutritious whole foods, even some of my favorite recipes from her book.

After watching one video about picky eaters, I became inspired to invent what I like to call Tiny Salad™. It involves dirtying every small bowl in the house but it’s worth it for the amount of vegetables it causes my kids to consume of their own free will and choice.

I fill each bowl with a different salad topping chopped very finely, grated carrots, tiny minced tomatoes, minced squash, minced cucumbers, finely shredded lettuce or spinach, minced apple chunks, whatever I have in the produce drawer. I put little bowls full of “sauce” on the table with spoons in each bowl and let the kids build their own salads. It’s okay. You can say it. It sounds like a glorified salad bar. But it’s not because there’s no sneeze glass, it’s arranged in a bunch, not a line and you can dish your plate while sitting down.

The kids love it and make really fun creative salads and — GET THIS — eat them!

Check out Cynthia’s blog. I know you’ll like it. Because everyone thinks and feels exactly like me. Because I am a right type of person with a great knowledgeable rightness about me.

Oh, and Beth recently wrote about something similar to Tiny Salad™ called “Fun Bites” but she doesn’t put a trademark symbol after the title so you probably don’t want to click over there and read about it.

I feel that if my mom were dead right now, her ghost would be cackling at me as I type this. She’s alive so she’ll have to wait until I hit “publish” to laugh at me from her computer room in Montana.

A note to my darling pork-loin-loving children,

I love you dearly but do not share that same level of affection with your personal effects, many of which are doomed to meet an untimely end very shortly.

What do you think happens to a piece of trash if you throw it on the floor instead of in the trash can? Do you think your coat will magically hang itself because that would be wicked cool but I have yet to find a brand of coat that will do that? You seem surprised and annoyed when I pull you away from your latest playtime activity to come downstairs and pick up your ever-loving blessed markers off the floor when I’ve told you ten times not to leave them there. Are you surprised that I noticed they were there, annoyed that I expect you to clean them or are you just surprised to find out that you still have markers when I most likely should have just tossed them after reminder number 6 and annoyed that you’re not tall enough to ride all the cool rides at Disneyland?

In conclusion and to sum up, there’s a place for pretty much everything. Wouldn’t it feel good to put everything in its place?

Love always,
Your Daring Growing-Older-With-Every-Plastic-Knight-She-Picks-Up Mom

I used to wonder what my mom’s problem was that she cared so much about me leaving ONE THING ON THE GROUND. I now know what her problem was. I know it intimately. It’s not the ONE THING. It’s the one thing FOUR MILLION TIMES each day. It’s the one thing IN THE ROOM I’VE JUST FINISHED CLEANING. It’s the one thing and ALL ITS FRIENDS AND OFFSPRING.

There may be a lot of one things ending up in a Puget Sound area landfill this week.

Lately Laylee’s been all about making goals. This Saturday she woke up with a whole diet and fitness regimen planned out. She would eat 2 bananas cut up with a knife, 2 apples sliced with the apple slicer and several glasses of water. She would then do back exercises in her exercise spot under the stairs and check her back to see how strong it was getting.

After completing her exercises, she told me that although she knows they are not “real” exercises, she’s pretty sure they worked because she got all sweaty. When I told her she’d better put her sweaty clothes in the hamper she said, “No. It’s okay. I just stuck them under my pillow to dry out so I can wear them again tomorrow.” I’m not sure if this action stemmed from a desire to save me work cleaning the clothes, a desire to save the planet by using less water and power or the fact that the outfit is pink and sassy and a gift from her grammy.

They’re in the wash even now. The wash that never ends. The wash that is sucking the life from my very soul. But I digress.

She told me that her entire Saturday fitness routine was to make her back strong like a real ballerina. She cannot WAIT to be a real ballerina and as she twitches and flails her way adorably through ballet class each week, she asks me if she’s ready for point shoes. Not yet honey. As long as the other moms are gasping and saying, “Oh MY!” each time it’s your turn to pirouette across the floor, you’re probably not ready, but I really really like you.

I’m glad she has a goal though and she is getting better.

Today my chest congestion was back so I skipped my workout and slept in late. As I headed down the stairs, I found Laylee waiting by the front door. She was all dressed down to her socks, shoes and jacket. She was wearing her backpack which she’d already loaded with her water, folder and a Laylee-esque snack.

“Wow,” I said, “You’re ready early.”

“I know. I made a goal last night not to get late slips anymore so I woke up really early and got all ready.” She squinched her face and gave me a double thumbs-up. Oh my word she’s such a KEENER! And do I love it? Yes I do.

I got myself and Magoo dressed, fed them breakfast (for which she took her backpack off) and went to grab my keys when she asked me, “Hey mom. Can I add something to my snack that I wanted to ask you about?”

“Sure.”

“I want a piece of pork tenderloin. It’s okay. I can just eat it cold from my bag.”

So her kindergarten snack today consisted of a bag of peanuts, a slab of cold pork and a tub full of dry cereal. She dressed herself. Her back is strong. I think I’ll keep her.