Have you seen one of the latest Wells Fargo ads about their saving program? It stars a lovely kindergarten teacher, possibly 1st grade. Doesn’t matter really. She’s a teacher of small kiddos. She’s talking about needing to save money in order to buy her classroom art supplies. Like a good bank, Wells Fargo is there to help her.

What is wrong with this picture?!?

I don’t mean to get up on my high horse or anything but seriously! Wells Fargo, get a grip!

YES. There is no money in school budgets for art class. (IMO, that’s a crime because art can teach you anything! Fractions? Hello woodworking. Chemistry? Umm, painting, photography, ceramics. I could go on but you get the picture.)

YES. Teachers don’t get paid nearly enough. Well, they do loaf around all summer, twiddling their thumbs and eating bon bons, so no, clearly they shouldn’t make a living wage. Add to that, they deal with children for only 3/4 of a day. I mean, how hard is it to wipe someone’s butt, tame the tantrums, negotiate classroom peace, oh AND actually teach something to our future leaders? Seriously, teachers, you should be paying us parents for the privilege…

So part of me actually is happy Wells Fargo shined a little light on that skeleton in our public policy closet. But. Don’t you think you’d be doing more good as a bank by helping to create an “art fund” or a “classroom activities” fund or anything else that puts you, as a major corporation, in the drivers seat of dealing with the problem and not as an enabler, putting band-aids on the poor teachers?

I’m not talking about anything big, either. I mean, what if the bank made it all local? At a local branch you can drop in a dollar at the bank and they’ll match it. Even $100 could be raised for a local school. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter how it all falls out.

What matters is that Wells Fargo’s message of being a bank who cares rings hollow with this ad and it bums me out every time I see it.

Have you seen it? Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill here?

photo credit: prayitno

I can’t resist.

When is the last time you had a conversation centered around small things and not the big, honking pachyderm in the room? It hasn’t happened to me in a while, but maybe I wouldn’t know because I’d be in denial.

Hmmmm.

Next time that happens, though, I’m gonna think of this guy.

photo credit: David Blackwell.

What’s happening in the bookstore near you, y’all?

I love the googly-eyes on the second book that peeks out of the shelf.

Ahh, the joy of a real book. And a good editor;) And to have this much time on my hands to create something like this.

Image and video credit: crazedadman

Why oh why do we do such Christmas nonsense?

This is why advent calendars are a terrible idea for toddlers: impulse control. Or lack of it!

So I scoured the web to find a lovely advent calendar idea. I found oh so many! Have you noticed how many moms out there are johnny on the spot with crafting gorgeous homemade things? The pressure!

But my favorite, actually, came from my daughter’s preschool teacher. Hers is less a calendar and more of a treasure surprise. It’s fairly easy, too. You take a walnut, crack it in half and empty out the shell (yummy to eat in the process!). Then you hide a treasure inside and hot glue it down on a fat ribbon (that’s a picture of it up top). You do one shell for each day and the kiddos open them up and get a little treat.

I painted my walnut shells gold. To figure out what to hide, I have a poem that talks about the 4 candles of advent (for the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas) with a corresponding wonder or inhabitant of the earth: minerals, plants, animals and humans. So, for the first week I hid pretty rocks, or “crystals” inside. I even found a tiny plastic container that had a cork top that I used to represent gas. Then leaves and tiny flowers. You get the idea.

I couldn’t wait for them to open the tiny penguin figurine I found at the store. So cute! Oh, and the itty bitty butterfly charms! Couldn’t wait! Ahem. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak.

Oh, was I proud of myself. I mean, I can be crafty, but this was GOOD! (Yes my kids are tiny – 4 and 2 – so much of this was/is lost on them, but still).

So on to the mishap.

You can guess, right?

Well, the first night as I lit the candle and watched my older daughter’s eyes POP out of her head with excitement at this new tradition, I told her the rules. Open one a night. Only one. All the way till Christmas. The advent calendars lived on the mantle and only Mommy or Daddy can get them down.

Mmmm-hmmm.

On the second night, when she opened the pink crystal, well, she started scheming in that brain of hers. As soon as we left her alone for a few minutes, she toddled over to the mantle, built her own step stool – out of stacked pillows, a lunch box, the bathroom stool, you name it. Anything to get her high enough.

Once those fingers got around the walnut-lined ribbons, did they ever get to work. EVERY. WALNUT. OPENED. Hers AND her sister’s.

“What did you do?!?!?!?”

Sigh. I can’t even get into how pissed I was, how heart broken because I really wanted to experience her experiencing it. The big ‘reveal.’ Dammit!

Well, punishment ensued. The sister got to keep opening – after I re-created the whole thing of course. Tantrums. Screaming. Whining.

I tell you all of this because I really did wonder what the hell I was doing this all for. Memories? Traditions? Bah humbug. It seemed like so much work for what? Chaos.

Christmas is so damn hard, isn’t it? Even the best intentions, the best laid plans can go awry. But it’s all – the bad and the good – information. Information on raising conscientious children. Or not.

Maybe the bigger lesson for me is to enjoy the process. The result is what it is. I had more fun thinking about little treasures I could hide, little wonders of the world I could tuck into walnuts that I should not have put so much of my hopes and expectations onto my daughter.

Of course she wanted to open them ALL. She’s 4! But I’m the one who is 40. I can cut that ribbon and hand her a walnut every night. Just one and then hide the rest. And it’ll all work out fine as we march closer to Christmas. Right! Right?

photo credit: Modern Home Modern Baby

Your first thought, when you hear the word “bud” may or may not be a flower, but these new diapers from Diaper Buds do, in fact, bloom like little budding flowers when you open them. Designed to take up less space in your bag, the diapers are vacuum-packed so that they are 70% smaller than regular diapers.

Cool – but do they work?

Yep. I put it to the test and it performed with nary a leak. I even poured a full glass of water in one, just to see how much liquid it could, in fact, hold because I don’t want to steer you wrong. I can’t be recommending things that just don’t work. But these do!

I know, it’s hard to switch from trusted brands, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to something like diapers – I practically buy them on auto-pilot. Now, I still use my Earth’s Best diapers at home because I like them and I have more room to store them. Diaper Buds are for on the go.

One of the selling points for these diaper buds, aside from being space savers, is that they are actually cleaner. How many times have I pulled out a diaper (that somehow escaped my handy-dandy diaper carrier, I don’t know how) filled with bottom-of-the bag grime on them? And to wrap my baby’s bottom in that – gross!

With these – no worries because it comes sealed in a nifty plastic pack. Well, you do still have to worry about disposing of it after it’s soiled, but that’s a different can of worms, isn’t it?

Anyway, you can get Diaper Buds online in sizes 2-5. And, the company is offering free shipping until the end of September. Thanks to Diaper Buds for sending me a few samples to try out! Honestly, they’ve come in quite handy.

I’m so kicking myself right now. I heard about Tiffany’s new Leather collection and, just for fun, thought I’d check it out. It’s not like I’ll be buying a Tiffany’s anything right about now, least of all a leather handbag. But what harm would a look-see do?

First of all, the new Tiffany’s leather is sumptuous. Classic, like you’d think it would be. OK, maybe it’s not all studded and tricked out like the current fashion, but the line is beautiful and timeless and it still has plenty of visual interest. As I was perusing the bags, I saw the Laurelton top handled bag in ring lizard with an exterior flap pocket. My heart raced a bit and I think I even let a small gasp escape my lips.

I HAD THIS EXACT BAG! Had, being the operative word in that sentence…hence the gasp.

Over 20 years ago my grandmother was cleaning out her closet and gave me THIS BAG. Not Tiffany’s but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t exactly like this, flap exterior pocket and everything! The handle was missing and the lining was torn, but still.

Lucky you, you might think? Well, yes if I had KEPT IT.

Now I’m thinking, “how could you?!?” In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about that bag. But, in my defense I was a teenager (OK, maybe a little older than a teenager, but teenager sounds more acceptable), and not at all into vintage things. Plus, I was on the cusp of moving and didn’t think I needed to keep it.

Boy was I wrong. I don’t have many regrets in life, but this is surely one of them.

Just think, with a little TLC I could have transformed that bag from a little rough around the edges to Tiffany’s brilliance. If I had 20+ years of patience, that is.

It means what you think it means. The Chicago Sun Times columnist, Mary Mitchell, coined this new phrase and, not surprisingly, kicked up a hornets nest. Here’s her definition:

Ghetto parenting is cursing around, and at, a child.

Ghetto parenting is brawling with your man or your woman in front of your child.

Ghetto parenting is letting your child roam the streets until somebody else’s mother has to tell the child to go home.

Ghetto parenting is putting your child off on friends and relatives because you want to hang out in the street.

Ghetto parenting is getting so hooked on substances that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has to remove your children and place them with strangers.

I must say, that one can take away the “sound bite” of what Ghetto parenting is and think simply that this woman was being sensational for coining this new term. However, as I read her piece about the back story of a murderer, I was taken in by her underlying need to change a system that failed a young boy and his family.

Of course, that system happens to be a reality of living in a ghetto, though it seems as if ghetto parenting is without borders, meaning that even people who do not live in ghettos can be guilty of it.

At first I snickered at the term. I thought of how insulting it is, but also how true it can be. Sadly, the behavior is there, regardless what the words used to describe it are. And that’s the heartbreaking truth to the story.

If Mary Mitchell’s dust-up results in not only a dialog but some solutions to the plague of neglectful parenting that is rampant in our society, then I back her 100%.

photo credit: fabbio

Not that I have time to go to yoga, but these “yoga” clothes by Sarah Reilly are designed to take you through your whole day. Actually, I don’t think they are all yoga clothes, just inspired by a yoga practice.

I particularly love the bone shirt – so witty and yet it makes me want to stand up straighter. I wonder if it would have the same effect if I was wearing the shirt and couldn’t see the pattern?

Anyway, see the whole collection for yourself. I think I could live in these clothes!

It’s kinda strange that a shop that touts being “Forever 21″ would come out with a line of maternity clothes, but they did! They call it “Love 21 Maternity” and the line features the same stylish, inexpensive clothes as their non-preggo collection.

Unfortunately for me, I learned of Love 21 Maternity about a year too late. But, now that I know, I’m letting you know, so you I can live vicariously through your shopping spree.

If you’re pregnant or about to become pregnant, you have to have to have to check this out. While they don’t have the most styles to choose from, they make up for that with their ridiculously low prices.

Forever 21′s maternity shirts – like the one up top – are stylin’. While horizontal stripes may shout out, “hey, look how wide I am,” I think they work with a baby bump. Hell, I’ve even got a few horizontal striped shirts for my post baby self, wide body be damned.

I love these boot-cut jeans for $13!!! Sure, for this price the jeans might not last long, but you don’t need them to. Believe it or not, the pregnancy does end, so why pay a lot for pants you won’t need in a few months?

Hope you find some great looking clothes for your belly!

You may have seen that there is talk about IVF children having an increased incidence of cancer. Don’t fret – the Swedish researchers who were studying cancer rates in children born through in vitro fertilization found that there isn’t necessarily a link between the manner of conception and childhood cancer.

The researchers did think that there could, in fact, be a correlation between the traits in the parents that caused infertility and the increased cancer risk in their progeny. However, the risks are still very low.

The study is pretty interesting. While I didn’t have to turn to IVF (a friend once lovingly described me as a “fertile Myrtle”), I have many friends who were blessed with kids after having trouble conceiving a la mother nature. That’s why the study caught my eye. If you didn’t see the article, here is a link to the AP story.

photo credit: maessive

Did you know that the United States (via the Consumer Products Safety Commission) has not updated its crib safety standards since 1982? Well, that’s all changing as of yesterday when the CSPC decided to ban drop side cribs and overhaul the crib standard recommendations. Business Week just published a good article on it. Here’s a recap:

Drop cribs (where one side moves on rails making access to your baby easier) can trap the baby, causing suffocation and strangulation risks. Pottery Barn voluntarily recalled about 82,000 cribs that have been sold between since 1999. The complete list of recalled cribs is quite long – you can check it out here to see if you own one.

The cribs’ drop-sides can detach when hardware breaks, creating a space into which the baby can become entrapped, which can lead to suffocation.

Another problem with drop cribs: a child can fall out of the crib when hardware breaks. And, it’s not just breakage that causes problems. Drop side incidents occur due to incorrect assembly and with age-related wear and tear.

According to the CSPC post on the Pottery Barn recall, the agency and Pottery Barn Kids have received 36 reports of drop sides that have malfunctioned or detached, resulting in seven minor injuries when children fell out of the cribs or got their legs caught between the mattress and the drop side. One child even trapped their head between the drop side and crib mattress, though was freed without injury (thank goodness!).

Other similar recalls include LaJobi Inc., owned by Kid Brands Inc.; Bexco Enterprises Inc.’s Million Dollar Baby unit; Jardine Enterprise Ltd.; Simmons Juvenile Products, and Child Craft Industries Inc.

Also, and I think this is worth checking out, The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association has started a crib-safety initiative and is offering consumer information on its website. There’s a list of manufacturers and downloadable guides to safe sleep on the site, too.

It looks like the new rules about cribs, drop sided and otherwise, won’t be out for some time – probably by the end of the year. In the meantime, the CPSC is recommending that people stop using all drop sided cribs.

photo credit: Pottery Barn Kids

At about the time my first daughter was learning to walk, I was itching to buy her a Radio Flyer Wagon. To me, it screamed childhood in a baseball and apple pie sort of way. There’s just something about Radio Flyers!

I just heard that Radio Flyer was putting together a mosaic of photographs that feature their wagons…not quite sure what they are getting out of it, but how cool!

Adding your photo to the Radio Flyer mosaic is simple: just go to their site and upload your shot. It gets automatically added to the interactive mosaic. Then the tricky part is mousing over the mosaic to find your photo, but I guess that’s part of the fun.

I, myself, have a pic of my girl in her Radio Flyer that I’ll post – just because. What about you – do you have any good pics of your little one in a Radio Flyer, and if so, are you gonna participate?

One of my nightmares: walking around a part of town I don’t know well and having my little one say she has to potty RIGHT NOW. Sit or Squat to the rescue!

Believe me, if the above scenario hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. I carry a Baby Bjorn potty in the car so we have one wherever we are, but I don’t go so far as to carry one with me when we get out of the car. I have to draw the line somewhere.

But I still have to know where a bathroom is when the time comes. That’s why the Sit or Squat website is so brilliant…it allows you to find a bathroom anywhere in the world. They have cataloged the exact location of 89,376 toilets and counting.

The world is a pretty big place, but apparently Sit or Squat has the skinny on all the toilets out there. And, if you know of one that they don’t yet lust, you can tell them. They have a place for you to enter a toilet location. Or, if you tend to enjoy bathroom humor, they have a community page just for you.

The best part is that the service is also available as an app for your phone and if you always have your phone on you then you’ll always know where to go potty.

God, I wish I had this when I was pregnant because when you gotta go when you’re preggers, you gotta go!