We redecorated Z's room

Z is over the moon with excitement for her updated, less "babyish" room. She'd still like a bigger (read double or bunk) bed, but that's not going to happen. What I do still want to find is a mirror for the wall between her wardrobe and the door and new knobs for her wardrobe. In the meantime, we're both thrilled with the new rug, wall decals and throw pillows.

Making these changes in Z's room did have one unintended consequence: the first serious bout of sibling rivalry on A's part. She desperately wants to have a "big bed, new sheets and a rug... like Z." We're working on it.

The night we lost the cat

Oscar is a people cat. When I'm putting A to bed he's right outside her door, one paw reaching underneath. When I'm reading Z a bedtime chapter, he's on her bed, drowning out my words with his purr. After both children are asleep he comes downstairs, runs around like a maniac for a few minutes and then curls up on Josh's lap. At meals he's trying to jump on the table. When someone's in the tub he's on the edge.

He likes to be with us. So when he didn't appear for Z's bedtime story or come down to the living room at 8:30, we worried a little. Had he gotten locked in the bathroom or a closet? Josh and I went through the house opening cabinet doors, shaking the treat can and calling "here kitty, kitty, kitty." I'd opened the door to the enclosed front porch once and we checked it repeatedly, even though I was quite sure he hadn't slipped by me.

After half an hour of looking, I wondered if maybe our 8 month old kitten had made it to the porch and somehow escaped to the great outdoors. I put on my winter gear and walked the neighborhood, calling "Here Oscar, here kitty, kitty, kitty." My stomach tightened as I imagined breaking the news to the kids in the morning, as I planned an email to the block list and mentally designed signs to post up and down the street.

I returned empty-handed and Josh decided to go out and look. But then, just as he'd slipped on his coat, there was Oscar, on our living room cabinet. He looked, for all the world, like he'd just woken up from a deep sleep. But the mystery remains... where?!?

A very domestic day

Today, between watching CNN.com's breathless coverage of the earthquake in Chile and the tsunami that wasn't in Hawaii, I finished knitting Z's scarf (a ruffled rib knit using Misti Alpaca Chunky, for those who care about that kind of thing), shopped both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and cooked up a storm. I had one of Z's friends over in the morning, transformed taco night leftovers into taco salads for lunch, baked my weekly batch of granola, cooked lemon chicken and roasted cauliflower for dinner (for guests, no less!) and whipped up a batch of ginger spice cookies to bring to the Montessori school open house tomorrow.

Could there be a more fitting end to the day that reading Z a chapter of Little House on the Prairie? Well, aside from putting on an apron and pearls, perhaps.

Edited to add a picture of Z modeling her new scarf

A reader needs a dictionary

Now that Z is plowing through a chapter book a day (Judy Moody and these stupid fairy books are her favs), I figured she could use a dictionary. Her teacher recommended one with a lot of pictures.

Z immediately started leafing through her first reference book and wrote this note:

The reverse side reads "Words I naw" and lists L-words she knows.

Social media for (grand)moms

Everyone's talking about how moms own the social networks, but you know social media's made the mainstream when Grandma is LinkedIn and using Facebook to school a bagel company on how to maintain a modicum of Jewish cred.

Time for Mom to move to Oak Park, where she'll be 2 blocks from a Bruegger's egg or everything bagel and 1 1/2 miles from the super-authentic options at The Onion Roll.

Fantasizing about family in town

My mother is messing with me. She asked me to check out a couple of vintage condos here in Oak Park and reignited my hope that she and her husband will move here--at least part time. (I say reignited because she had me looking at condos at the height of the housing bubble and nothing came of it.)

One of the properties was a winner, a well-priced 3 bedroom unit in the historic Decker building that boasted all the original tile, bathroom fixtures and kitchen cabinets. Plus some squishy carpeting and hideous old lady furnishings.

Hello, look at the sink faucet handles? Have you ever seen these outside of the movies?

Honestly, I don't know how serious my mom is about moving close by, but I spent all weekend fantasizing about weekly family dinners and kid-Grandma sleepovers. I dreamed of meeting up with Mom at the Farmers Market and taking in concerts in the park. I imagined her joining us at Z's preschool graduation picnic, meeting us at Temple and picking Z up from swim camp. And yes, I fantasized about that holy grail of family in town: free babysitting.

It's a potty party!

As an established mom blogger, I get invited to a lot of daytime events. I miss 99% of them because I'm working, but since the invitation I received to the Huggies Pull-Ups Potty Party turned out to be for an open event, I sent Josh. He was tickled to be welcomed by the Edelman folks as Mr. Marketing Mommy and reported back that it was a well-run show, what with Ralph Covert from Ralph's World singing a potty dance song, free tutus and boas for the little girls, face painting and caricatures. His only gripes: A spent too much time scowling on the dance floor and too many of the snacks contained HFCS.

I'm guessing event staffers won't be sporting these tees at the gym.

She doesn't look too upset here. Perhaps cause she's a pottying champ.

Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like"

Neither Josh nor I can get enough of this new, truly brilliant Old Spice commercial. My favorite line, "What I have is an oyster with to two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds."

Just what every new mom wants: a sex book

It's been about 9 months since any new babies arrived in my life, with the last two being my sister Eleanor's son and my friend Kim's daughter. This after nonstop baby deliveries for 5 years. That's changing, what with a fellow preschool parent and colleague giving birth to girls in the past week and six more babies due to arrive to people I know by summer.

And I'm oh-so slightly tempted to buy some of those first-time parents a copy of Kirsten Chase's book, The Mominatrix's Guide to Sex: A No-Surrender Advice Book for Naughty Moms, if only because she tells you what your girlfriends might neglect to about post-partum sex. About what childbirth does to your lovely ladybits and how that might affect your (now virtually nonexistent) sex life.

I mean, I really would have liked someone to tell me not to bother having sex right after the 6 week recovery period because that is not nearly enough time to do the kegels required to restore a baggy va-ja-ja to its previous state. Kristen (who I've met, fully clothed and very normal-like) covers sex from pregnancy (hot!) to new mamahood (not!). She then talks moms through a slow-but-steady return to sexy, gives tips for keeping your kids occupied during mommy and daddy's "naps" and cranks up the kink in the book's final chapters with information on family-friendly sex toys and a few other subjects that made me blush.

This post is a part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group book club. We received copies of the book for free.

Stonyfield Farms and the case for organic

One of the best perks of being a blogger--oh, ever--was the invitation I received to have lunch at local celebrity chef Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill with Stonyfield Farms CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg last week. We enjoyed an amazing high-end Mexican meal and there was a lot of food for thought, too, as we discussed organic vs. hormone-free milk, consumer demand for organics, the movie Food, Inc., and the slow-but-steady embrace of organic by "evil" big corporations like Walmart, Coca-Cola and Kellogg's. Hirshberg doesn't feel there's much to be gained by keeping organic small, crunchy and far outside the mainstream. He'd much rather see demand for organics increase so that a) the price can come down and even more people will convert and b) the animals, land and water will benefit.

His most urgent call is for campaign finance reform, as government subsidies for corn, soybeans and the like keep industrial food prices unnaturally low (especially for factory-farmed meat and eggs), but I was also impressed by his compelling case for organic dairy products (what Stonyfield Farms sells). I wrote about it for the Chicago Moms Blog.

While I am conscious about the food choices my family makes--choosing whole, recognizable foods and avoiding processed and most prepared foods--I've been somewhat slower to go organic.

I've got a good job, but I'm the sole breadwinner in our family and we need to stick to a budget. We've cut back on our meat consumption so that we can afford to buy organic, humanely-raised meat, but I have a hard time justifying paying $6.00 for a gallon of organic milk when I can buy hormone-free for as little as $1.99. I've been especially troubled by the notion of paying a premium for organic milk when those so-called organic cows are being kept indoors in what amounts to factory farm feed lots. (Horizon Organic, I'm looking at you.)

Now that's changing. The USDA just imposed new standards for organic milk, requiring that those cows have access to pasture grasses. As you can probably tell from the bucolic images on the front of many milk cartons, cows are supposed to graze on grasses. Chowing down on corn in a feedlot makes cows gassy and prone to infections. And a gassy cow burps methane into the atmosphere, which adds to our greenhouse gas problem.

So I'm considering biting the bullet and switching to organic milk. As a member of the middle class, I can probably ultimately afford it. But thanks to a conversation I had with Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg and a few other Chicago bloggers, I'm realizing that by choosing organic, I'm not just ensuringmy kids are ingesting fewer antibiotics and pesticide residues, I'm ultimately making organic more affordable for all families. According to Gary, if the share of organic grows from 3 or 4% of the marketplace to 10%, he will be able to achieve the efficiencies of scale necessary to dramatically reduce the premium on his organic dairy products. As the price comes down, more buyers will make the switch, making organic more affordable still.

That's good for the organic farmers. Good for organic companies like Stonyfield Farms. And good for all of us.

Oh hell, no

I finally answered the D.C. area robo-survey that's been dialing my cell phone for days. It went like this...

"Do you plan to vote in the November elections?" Yes

"Do you consider yourself a tea party patriot?" No

"Do you have a favorable opinion of Governor Sarah Palin?" No

"Are you male?" No

"Are you over 50 years of age?" No

"Have you ever contributed to a political party, religious organization, church group..." Yes

Happy Valentine's Day

All I want for Valentine's Day is a quiet moment to enjoy the Ugly Truffles I bought last weekend with a cup of cappuccino from our Nespresso machine.

I'm getting 45 minutes of peace and quiet right now as A's asleep and Z's upstairs reading yet another beginner chapter book (hurray for reading skills!).

The silence is welcome after this action-packed week. Monday: Hebrew class. Tuesday: neighbors over for dinner and the surprise birthday cake I whipped up for Josh. Wednesday: 3 hour preschool board meeting. Thursday: blogger lunch at Frontera Grill with Stonyfield Farms CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg and Josh's birthday dinner at Gaetano's. Friday: stayed up too late watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Saturday morning: Tot Shabbat, Whole Foods, a local Winter Farmer's Market and the Lincoln Elementary Carnival. It's only 2pm and all I want to to with the rest of my day is organize the basement playroom.

A birthday surprise

Most of you will be reading this post on Thursday, February 11. Otherwise known as Josh Klein's 35th birthday. Since he'll be hanging out with A all day and both kids all afternoon, his day will not resemble the picture at the right.

However, I'll be taking him out to eat at Gaetano's to celebrate, and he knows that. His gift, which he also knows about, is a meal at Topolobampo. I couldn't get a reservation until late March, but this way he gets a celebratory meal and a "foodie present," to be redeemed later.

But back to the birthday surprise. You see, I baked and frosted a cake while having our neighbors and their 3 kids for BBQ pulled pork sandwiches on Tuesday evening. And even though I was able to get a head start because Josh was driving through 6-8 inches of snow to pick up Oscar from his neutering surgery at the Anti-Cruelty Society, I still had to cook the icing and frost the layer cake right under his nose. With 7 kids running riot through the house. (I made the Caramel Cake from The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook. And it was delicious.) Josh was speechless. Partly, I think, because he couldn't figure out how on earth I could bake a cake so fast and partly because it wasn't his birthday yet. I think I've stumbled upon some kind of secret birthday surprise strategy here.

Recipe week: My semi-famous salad dressing

As I child, I was blissfully unaware of bottled salad dressings. My mom always made her own and I loved it so much I'd beg for the dregs from the daily salad bowl so I could drink it straight up. Although I love salt & vinegar potato chips, I think my tastes are a bit more refined now and I'm happy to report I no longer drink vinaigrette.

This oil and vinegar combination--which I've gotten more compliments on than a lifetime of cute shoes--still bears some resemblance to Mom's, but it's been informed by Martha Stewart and Mark Bittman as well. Grab yourself an old jam or mustard jar (we save them and store everything from salad dressing to nuts, candy and dried fruit in them) and come play.

Peel 1 or 2 garlic cloves, slice them in half lengthwise, and place them in your jar. Then fill it 1/4 full with extra virgin olive oil. Add a nearly equal quantity of corn or canola oil until your jar is 1/2 full. Pour in unfiltered apple cider vinegar until your jar is about 2/3 to 3/4 full. There should be approximately 2 times as much oil as there is vinegar. If you like a touch of sweetness or want to lower the fat content of your dressing, now is the time to splash in a tablespoon or two of apple cider or juice. Add 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, a few shakes each of salt, freshly ground black pepper, dried oregano and celery seed. Put the top on and shake vigorously until the all ingredients are combined.

We pour this salad dressing over salads, which usually contain some combination of dark leafy greens; carrots; tomatoes (in season); pear, apple, grape or strawberry slices; sunflower seeds or pistachios; and crumbled feta or blue cheese.

Earlier in Recipe Week

Homemade Mac & Cheese

Healthy, Yummy Pancakes

M&M Brownies

It's never to early to plan your next birthday party

With 9 months to go, Z's already planning her 6th birthday party. I'm glad to see she's putting her sick day to good use.

Recipe Week: Homemade Mac & Cheese

I only get to visit my sister about once a year, but every time I've ever visited her, she's asked me to make macaroni & cheese. This is also the comfort food I make and deliver to new moms. And last night I brought half of it to a "Super Bowl" party (we didn't actually watch the game) and put the other half in my chest freezer for enjoyment later this month. I've made my mac and cheese so many times I can't remember the last time I consulted a cook book. That said, I'm sure this recipe owes something to the Joy of Cooking.

Ingredients

1 lb elbow noodles or pasta shells

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tsp each mustard powder, paprika

2 cups milk

Up to 4 tbsp cream cheese (optional, but worth it)

1 lb sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

optional: fresh bread crumbs, seasoned salt and garlic powder

Fill a large pot with salted water and bring to a boil. When the water is at a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook until barely al dente. Meanwhile, melt the butter over medium-high heat until foamy. Whisk in the flour and cook for a minute or two. Add spices and whisk in the milk. Cook, whisking frequently until the milk mixture thickens (this can take a while). Once it's thickened, turn off the flame and stir in the cream cheese, if using, and all but 1/3 cup of the shredded cheddar cheese. Stir until melted. Drain the cooked pasta and combine with the cheese sauce. Pour into a greased 9X12 inch pan or two smaller casserole dishes. Top with shredded cheese and breadcrumbs, seasoned salt and garlic powder, if desired. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Earlier in Recipe Week

Healthy, Yummy Pancakes

M&M Brownies

Chocolate, chocolate and M&M brownies

Together with friends, we spent the morning at the Morton Arboretum, which was luring folks to its snowy, cold gardens with something truly sweet: chocolate. After exploring the Candy Walk, a real-life Candy Land game in the Children's Garden, we headed indoors to the Chocolate Expo inside the Visitor Center. Every table was offering free samples, and I sampled them all--pretzels dipped in melted chocolate, full-sized artesianal chocolates, chocolate and Swiss cheese paninis, chocolate balsamic vinegar and chocolate lava cakes. We even purchased a genuine Belgian waffle and a box of ugly truffles.

After sampling so many delicious chocolates, it was probably wrong of me to have an M&M brownie when I got home. To make amends, I'll share my recipe with you. It is my go-to from scratch recipe as it can be made with ingredients I always have on hand. It's adapted from the Hershey's Cocoa Powder Brownies, and a wee bit naughty as you know Hershey's would never advocate enhancing their recipe with a Mars product! Speaking of Mars, some of the tastiest samples were from Dove Chocolate Discoveries, a home shopping party outfit. Although I've attended a few, I've always shied away from hosting anything that smacks of Tupperware, but I have to admit in this case I'm tempted.

M&M Brownies

Ingredients

1 stick butter, melted

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup M&Ms

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8 inch square pan with foil and grease the foil. With a wooden spoon, combine the butter, sugar and vanilla. Stir in the eggs. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients, ending with the salt. Add the dry mixture to the butter and egg mixture and stir well. Add the M&Ms and stir once more. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25-28 minutes. Cool before pulling out the foil-bottomed brownies and cut into small squares.

Previously on Recipe Week: Healthy, Yummy Pancakes

Recipe Week: Healthy, yummy pancakes

It's been quite a while since I've posted any recipes, so I'm going to make this recipe week. I'll post some of my favorite, go-to recipes for all to enjoy. First up, I've finally perfected our weekend pancake recipe (originally based on the Joy of Cooking's Basic Pancakes), increasing its wholesomeness without detracting from its deliciousness.

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp ground flaxseed

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups 1% or 2% milk

3 tbsp canola oil

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

Up to 3/4 cup frozen organic wild blueberries

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then whisk together the milk, oil, eggs and vanilla in a smaller bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk to combine. Preheat your pan or griddle, having sprayed it first with a Pam-like spray. Add the blueberries right before you ladle out your pancakes. I usually make a few smaller, blueberry-free pancakes for the girls and then add blueberries and make big, frying pan-sized griddle cakes for the grown-ups. This batter is on the thin side, so they cook fairly quickly over medium to medium-high heat and you won't have to worry about raw middles. As you cook, transfer done pancakes to a plate in a warm oven. Serve with real maple syrup.

Top 10 memories from Akumal

We got back from our 8 day trip to Akumal late Tuesday night thanks to a Mexicana airline screwup (they changed our flight from 2:45 to 5:35pm without bothering to inform us). With two overtired, junk food-fueled kiddos for traveling companions, our trip back most definitely does not make this top 10 list.

10. Getting a mani-pedi at the open air "Budha Spa," which would more accurately titled the Massage Hut. Frosted pink was probably the least offensive of the 5 polishes offered me, but that doesn't mean I like it. Z and A, however, thought the color was beautiful. My nails look okay, but the hand and leg massages plus 1 hour and 45 minutes of silence? Blissful.

9. Lunch on the beach at the Lol-Ha Snack Bar. I was fully expecting our day without my mom and Rick (who were on a bus tour to Chichen-Itza) would be stressful, but our kids were delightful from breakfast to bedtime, playing with us, each other, and the twin 6 year olds from Salt Lake City who moved into the condo next door. While our two angels devoured their hot dogs, Josh and I had the best shrimp and fish tacos.

8. Every meal we ate at the Super Chomak Loncheria. This counter outside the overpriced grocery store serves the best Mexican food you can buy wearing just a swimsuit and a towel.

7. Lunch in Playa del Carmen. Josh and I left the girls with their doting grandparents and headed north to Playa for a couple hours of shopping and eating. We started with dessert, Mayan drinking chocolate and a brownie at Ah Cacao, before having a healthy lunch of fresh-squeezed juice and fish sandwiches at 100% Natural. We read each other tacky tee shirt slogans ("I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll take a look" and "Take me drunk, I'm home" come to mind) and wondered how so many shops can sell the exact same tourist crap. While I comparison shopped for silver earrings, Josh got offered the chance to buy some "nose candy" by a street entrepreneur.

6. Snorkeling in Yal-ku lagoon. This really is as close as you'll ever get to swimming in a tropical fish tank. Josh and I took turns checking out the brightly colored fish with our rented snorkel and keeping the girls (who were wearing water wings) from getting pulled out to sea by an unusually strong current. Although we didn't go on the same day, the Italian restaurant (and small hotel) Que Onda is right next door to Yal-ku. If you're ever in Akumal, it's worth stopping there for their house made linguine, which is served with a variety of different sauces in a charming courtyard garden. We were lucky the restaurant has a gravel floor as A peed on it while wearing a sundress and no one was the wiser.

5. Reading The Book Thief, which was on loan from a co-worker. Oh. My. G-d. I couldn't put it down. Really, one of the best books I've ever read. If I had to choose between bringing this book and touring the ruins of Tulum for the third time (see wind-whipped family photo above), I'd choose reading. Hands down.

4. Discovering how much fun our kids can have with limited toys. We bought a few canisters of Play-Doh, some markers, a few sand toys and a bottle of bubble juice at the Super Walmart in Playa. That, plus the two Happy Meal My Little Pony toys we'd brought with us kept our girls (and Z's new friends Hannah and Emma) happily diverted for days. Of course, all you have to do is give A a plastic grocery sack and she'll "pack" it with random household items and play airport until she decides she'd rather play doctor instead. (Incidentally, her opening line for doctor is always "You so brave."

3. Watching Z and A play kissy-fish, a game of their own invention, which involves the two of them swimming into each other and kissing each other repeatedly on the mouth.

2. Dinner alone with Josh. On our second night in Akumal, we let my mom and Rick babysit and we walked down the beach to La Lunita, a romantic little restaurant we remembered being really good. It must have been an off night in the kitchen, as I was served a Sangria that was as sour as limeade and a poblano pepper stuffed with a giant wad of mozzarella and dried oregano that tasted like nothing so much as Domino's pizza cheese and catnip. We figured they couldn't mess up dessert, but someone had the bright idea to top a lime and cheese frozen pie (kind of Key Lime pie-y) with peanut butter drizzle. It was weird, but any oceanfront dinner date with free babysitting is going to score high in my book.

1. Hidden Worlds. Our one big touristy splurge was Ultimate Adventure packages to the cenote/eco-adventure park Hidden Worlds, where we got to ride the first-ever skycycle over the jungle (more challenging with a child between your legs), fly down a zip line and rappel into a ceynote, and snorkel/float through underground freshwater caverns where we saw stalactites and stalagmites, bats, spiders and a baby scorpion. There were probably fewer than 30 tourists in the entire park, which is huge, so we enjoyed lots of one-on-one attention from the guides.

Thanks, Mom for renting the condo, making coffee every morning and encouraging us to eat every last scrap of food in the refrigerator. Thanks Rick for being a doting grandfather (and jungle gym) to my children. Thank you Josh for putting the girls to bed as often as you did and for brushing the sand off your feet before climbing into our bed. And thank you to my kids for exclaiming "I'm having so much fun!" as often as you did.

In Akumal

I'm writing this on my Blackberry, so I'm going to make it brief. Highlights so far include our daytrip to Hidden Worlds and watching the kids play with each other, my Mom and Rick. Leaving something to be desired: Z's refusal to eat most foods (barring junk) and A's proclivity for waking up at 5am. Tomorrow Mom and Rick are bussing it to inland ruins, so will be a foursome all day.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

Posting is going to be light. We're leaving for Mexico early tomorrow morning. We're heading back to Akumal with my mom and stepdad. Akumal is a small town south of Cancun, on the ocean between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. We went there in early 2006 and 2007, and last time we visited, I was 3 months pregnant with A.

This time there's nothing between me and an ice cold margarita. Or a zip line, for that matter.

No more snacks!

I confess, I snack. Typically I have a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit mid-morning and another around 3pm. I think it is perfectly normal--and acceptable--to have a little something (preferably healthy) to tide oneself over between meals, provided, of course, that those meals aren't too hearty.

Unfortunately, my kids do not share my sense of moderation.

If they had their way, all meals would be replaced by snacks. Crinkly wrappers, cheesy crackers, little bowls of pretzels and Goldfish and Cheerios and M&Ms--these are their bite-sized tastes of heaven. They expect snacks at a playdate and demand snacks at the park. They're hungry for snacks after school and again after gymnastics practice. They want snacks in the car and snacks on the plane and snacks in front of the TV... And they want juice boxes and water bottles and milk in a sippy cup!

Can we moms band together and give this snacking thing a rest? Cars didn't used to come with cup holders. Toddlers used to manage between mealtimes without the self-serve convenience of a Snack Trap. We got water at the water fountain and snacks (if we were lucky) at snack time. There was an era before Clif Z bars and 100 calorie packs and McDonald's Snack Wraps and demands on parents to provide snacks for 90 minute events.

I'm not trying to be a Scrooge here, I'm just finding that--thanks to rampant snacking--my kids simply aren't all that hungry at lunch and dinnertime. So we're cutting way back on the snacks, only offering fruits and veggies and the occasional cheese, cracker and nut plate. And what do you know? Even our picky eater eats dinner when she's hungry.

Now if I can only figure out a polite way to ask our neighbor not to ply her with her Doritos...

Originally posted to the Chicago Moms Blog

I'm speaking at the Youth and Family Marketing Mega Event

Once again, my professional experience as a marketer and my (increasingly less) unique perspective as a mom blogger have converged and won me a speaking engagement. This time I'm talking about "The Love Affair between Marketers and Mom Bloggers: From Romance to Reality" at the Youth & Family Marketing Mega Event, which will be at the Hotel Sax in Chicago May 10-12.

How exactly am I supposed to prepare a presentation on a subject that's evolving every minute? Well, I'm going to start by providing the audience of khaki-pants-wearing brand managers with a brief history of the sometimes graceful (Leapfrog and Graco jump to mind) and more often awkward (Nestle, Motrin) middle school dance between mom bloggers and brands.

I want to get people thinking about who's leading us across this crowded dance floor. Is it the global corporations, who can wine and dine a stay-at-home mom, getting her to pimp their product in exchange for a box of frozen meals? Or is it the influential mommyblogger, who can bring an appliance manufacturer to its knees over a couple of angry tweets? How do the new FTC regulations come into play? Is the FTC an effective chaperone, or it it just moving the hanky-panky from the wide-open blogosphere to late night Twitter parties?

What does the future of marketing to and with mom bloggers hold? Will there be a retreat from blogger retreats? Could contests and giveaways go away? Will the stream of poorly-targeted "Dear Blogger" spam-pitches ever abate?

Can we look forward to an era when marketers and mom bloggers can work together in a way that both fosters connections among a community of moms and helps marketers deliver solutions that moms want to buy? Will more marketers hire moms to bringing their authentic voice to brand sites? Will the moms who jumped on the blogging bandwagon for free stuff abandon their sites when the freebie train leaves town, or will they focus their blogs on their passions and build an audience of fellow moms of toddlers, crafters, Crock-Potters or working mothers?

I've got a lot to share, but I have so much more yet to learn. Please, please drop me a line if you've got a case study or tidbit you'd like to share. I'll be sure to thank and link to all. Also, if you'd like to attend this conference or the concurrent Life Stage Marketing Summit, you can save 20% using these codes: FAMILY2010AK and LIFESTAGE2010AK.

Being sick sucks

But being a sick mom really, really sucks.

I don't need to bore you with the details (I polished off a box of Theraflu, half a bottle of Nyquil and a box of tissues!), but the good news is I'm on the mend.

Both of my nostrils have regained function and the only remnant of my illness is the nice, wet rattle in my chest, which is not unlike the cough you'd hear from an alcoholic, chain-smoking "resident" of Lower Wacker Drive.

Parent-Child Night

A was suffering from a stomach bug yesterday, so we called off our babysitter and Josh stayed home with her while I accompanied Z to school for one of the most hotly anticipated evenings of her young life, Parent-Child Night. As usual, she was thrilled to demonstrate all the new skills she's gained.

She started off tracing, coloring and labeling a map of North America, which really isn't all that impressive when you compare it to the maps of South America, the United States and Australia that she's been bringing home for a year.

We moved on to one of her favorite Montessori activities, tasting. She made me taste saline, her "favorite," and I gagged.

Then it was division,

and tonal bells.

We celebrated her progress with ice cream at the Brown Cow.

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Last year's Parent-Child Night

Oak Park kids eat free deals

This post has been updated. Click here to read updated post.

It's been nearly 3 years since I wrote my post on kid-friendly dining destinations in (or near) Oak Park. We're still frequenting a lot of those places, getting pizza, seafood salad and gelato at Freddy's, diner fare at the Depot and big bowls of pasta with free salads and cheap wine at Jimmy's Place. Since then, Pompei closed and Bar Louie went downhill fast. We gained a Five Guys (woo-hoo!) and Sushi Sen, a great spot for Japanese food, opened just a block from our house. But this post isn't about my favorite restaurants. It's about finding those kids eat free deals that make dining with young children worthwhile. As of today, all of these deals appear to be current. But that doesn't mean a restaurant can't cancel the offer whenever they wish. And yes, I included Denny's. Never been there, but I'll give the place props for offering free food to families two times a week.

Monday

Flat Top Grill

726 Lake Street, Oak Park

Francesca's Fiore

7407 W Madison Street, Forest Park

Fuego Loco

722 Lake Street, Oak Park

Healy's Westside

7321 Madison, Forest Park

Tuesday

Denny's (4-10pm)

711 North Harlem, Oak Park

Wednesday

Avenue Ale House

825 S Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park

Thursday

Trattoria 225, 225 Harrison Street, Oak Park

Saturday

Denny's (4-10pm)

711 North Harlem, Oak Park

1/15/10: I just learned that Blue Max (26 Lathrop Ave., Forest Park) offers $3 kids meals ($1 drink) every day--no adult purchase necessary.

Sing a song at bedtime

A and I have established a rock-solid bedtime routine, and she loves it so much she won't let me budge from it. We start by picking her clothes for the next day and laying them out on the floor. She then hands me each piece and I help her put them on. Yes, I am admitting here that my daughter wears her clothes to bed. She doesn't like jammies and I don't mind having her dressed when she wakes up. And heck, it's not like she's wearing tights or jeans--virtually all her clothes are soft jersey knits.

Once she's dressed, she crawls onto my lap and we read two library books. She likes to have her sister sitting on the table next to the chair, but sometimes Z heads elsewhere to hear Daddy read her a chapter from the Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events book series.

After two books, A slides off my lap and uses the potty, "earning" herself a third book me a little piece of mind. A stopped wearing Pull-Ups to bed a couple of months ago. About two weeks after we purchased an 88 count box of them, conveniently enough. She doesn't have accidents, but most nights she wakes up somewhere between midnight and 3am to pee. Since she's still in a crib and can't climb onto the toilet alone, her potty trips require one of us to get out of bed and escort her.

Our third book must be either a collection of 4 Maisy stories or Dr. Seuss's Go Dog Go, both of which she can recite from memory. Then A grabs her paci from the crib and turns off her table lamp. "Sing songs," she says as she snuggles against my neck.

Our song singing ritual began shortly before her 2nd birthday, when she asked me to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and her sister every night before bed. We've since dropped "Happy Birthday" and bulldozed our way through every goddamn song I know. "Ba-ba Black Sheep," "London Bridge is Falling Down," and "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" get old after, oh, about 60 sings, so I'm combing the dusty corners of my brain for the lyrics (or hell, at least the chorus) to "America the Beautiful," "Eleanor Rigby," "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," "Oklahoma!" and "The Cat's in the Cradle." And while A always insists I end with a quick medley of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Bim-Bom" (in Hebrew) and "Rock-a-bye Baby," I need more songs. This bedtime ritual works and I'm pretty sure A's not going to let me get away with dropping the songs any time soon, so I need more material. At least until I get assigned my Torah portion. Then maybe I can subject her to that.

Photo by big sister Z

Sledding for the very first time

The girls found sledding to be a little more intense than they'd imagined. But we put our new Radio Flyer red metal disc sled (purchased on holiday clearance from Land of Nod) to good use. And check out Z's adorable new down jacket, which was on sale at Lands End for only $19.99.

Z lost her first tooth

After a morning birthday party at Pump It Up and an afternoon sledding adventure with the family, I can't say I was too surprised when Z lost her tooth at Tri-Star Gymnastics' family playtime. The tiny tooth got lost on the gymnasium bathroom floor, but Z doesn't care. "The tooth fairy will see my gap while I'm smiling in my sleep and know I lost a tooth."

Date night dinner at OTOM

Last night Josh and I booked a babysitter and had dinner at OTOM, the less expensive, less adventurous sibling to MOTO. MOTO and OTOM are right down the block from Publican, scene of our 10th anniversary date and one of my favorite meals of all time.

The interior was sleek, the service down-to-earth and the food was amazing. Josh shared his garlicky duck egg drop soup with me and I had the vegetable plate, which featured 6 veggie-heavy mini-dishes, including a friend green tomato, a bowl of a pea-flecked risotto dish, asparagus and pomegranate salad, fried tofu, sauteed broccoli rabe on a shrimp chip and fried cream cheese won tons in a sweet and sour sauce. I ate every bite and still had room to share the chilled chocolate dome with Josh. It took all my self-control to keep from picking up the plate and licking it clean.

When the check came, Josh guessed it would be close to $90, but it was only $51 before tip--thanks in part to a $10 discount from Ala Card Chicago--but also due to our not indulging in one of their famous, yet pricey, cocktails.

Still feeling a little culinarily inspired, we picked our meals for the upcoming week and I baked a loaf of bread. Tomorrow we may make the drive to Hearty for brunch as I have a $50 gift certificate sitting on my fridge.

Hey, hey it's an office

For the first time in my professional life, I have an honest-to-goodness office. The kind with a window and a door. Yes this milestone came 2 years after I quit pumping at work (when it would have been really convenient), but I am thrilled nonetheless.

While my quarters are among the smallest on the 2oth floor, it is well situated. The southern exposure keeps it warm and its proximity to the "kitchen" means I get to see all of my colleagues (and smell their microwaved lunches) all day long.

I am also approximately 20 paces from the (all-you-can-drink) Barq's root beer fountain. Not sure yet if this counts as a good thing.

Now I need to shop for some large-but-inexpensive art for the 8X10 foot empty white wall I face...

The Tooth Fairy is coming, the Tooth Fairy is coming

I discovered Z's first wobbly tooth on Sunday night as I was flossing her teeth, and on Tuesday I sat her down for this quick interview about tooth fairy. She's created her own myth that I can only guess is fed by what other kids have told her and her own imagination.

In preparation for the tooth's eventual trip under her pillow, I asked my Facebook friends what the tooth fairy's going rate is these days. Apparently a dollar (preferably a gold one) is the preferred currency. I'm glad my friends don't live in Silicon Valley.

Brunch for HOW many?

It was in the doldrums of mid-December, after defending my decision to axe holiday cards from my to-do list, that I decided to host a New Year's brunch open house. I dimly recall my mom opening our home for this kind of event a few times while I was growing up, and visions of bagels, coffeecake and steaming cups of coffee filled my head as I entered the details into Evite.

Ah yes, the Evite invite list. Assuming a good portion of my friends would be traveling, hung-over or otherwise occupied on New Year's, I invited a lot of people. I figured I'd be lucky to get a 50% response rate.

The first two RSVPs arrived in the next hours. Both regrets. I started to regret sending out the invite. What if no one came? What if I ended up being the giant loser who invites a bunch of people to brunch and ends up sitting in the living room alone, sadly nibbling fruit salad?

I ended up with the opposite problem. Having largely ignored Evite while traveling over Christmas break, I logged in three days before the event to find 64 yeses and 15 maybes. By New Year's Eve the total we were up 69 yeses. Panic set in. I live in a small, 1100 square foot house. I've never had more than 25 people over at one time, let alone 69 people, half of whom would be children!

My husband, not exactly the soothing, sympathetic type by nature, wasn't reassuring. He basically told me I was nuts to invite more than a handful of our closest friends and that this was a dilemma of my own devising. My next door neighbor sympathized with my plight and offered her basement for spillover of any "big kids." She also handed me her three largest serving bowls and advised me to simplify my menu offering and maximize each item's quantity.

I spent New Year's Eve day at Trader Joe's, buying bagels, orange juice and clementines in bulk. I defrosted a banana bread, baked muffins and prepared a spinach and cheese strata and french toast that could be popped in the oven before our guests arrive. I rearranged our furniture, bringing in additional chairs, while Josh hauled up the 42-cup coffee urn I'd found at a yard sale last summer and got to work grinding 2 1/2 cups of coffee. All the while I was telling myself it will be okay.. it's an open house...people will come and go.

And you know what? It was better than okay. It was great. Somewhere between 50 and 60 people actually showed up and while it was a little crowded, loud and chaotic at its peak (with about 10 families of 4), our guests did come and go in waves. Since many people arrived with food or drink in hand, we had more than enough to eat and only ran out of coffee at 1:30, a full hour and a half after the party's scheduled end time.

In the end I'm glad I overextended myself a little bit. After all, I can't think of a better way to spend a sub-zero New Year's Day than with a few dozen of my best friends and neighbors.

Dr. Ornish offers personal advice for my picky eater

Last month Parent Bloggers Network invited its members to submit a question about healthy eating to Dr. Dean Ornish. He selected a few to answer on video and mine was among those chosen! Here is my question:

My 5 year old has been a picky eater since toddlerhood, but her food aversions are getting worse, not better, as she ages. She refuses to eat any fresh fruit save bananas and any vegetables except for peas and cooked tomatoes (in sauce). Dried and dehydrated fruits are acceptable. She used to eat beef, chicken, salmon and shrimp, but now she'll only nibble on chicken--and only sometimes. I feel like she survives on lactose-free milk, Grape-Nuts, cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese and pizza. She's a skinny kid, but she grew a few inches over the summer. She's physically very active and extremely bright, doing second grade reading and math at her Montessori preschool.

What should I do to encourage a broader palate without starting a food fight? We've stopped preparing separate dinners and she'd rather eat a piece of bread or a bowl of peas than try most of our meals. She's a stubborn kid.

While I wait for her to embrace a wider range of healthy foods, is there anything else I can do aside from giving her a daily kids multivitamin to ensure she gets enough nutrients?

And here is his answer:

Many of Dr. Ornish's ideas make sense--so much so that we're already doing them-- things like cooking with Z, taking the girls to farmers markets and not pressuring them to eat at meals. I was, however, intrigued by his suggestion to supplement her diet with omega-3s like fish oil. Josh and I both take flaxseed oil, but I hadn't considered offering to the kids since I wasn't sure what a kid's dose would look like. I add ground flaxseed to homemade pancakes and bread, but perhaps I'll look for liquid fish oil and figure out a way to mix it into her food. Does anyone have any experience with that?

Disclosure: Since my question was selected, I'm supposed to receive a copy of Dr. Ornish's latest book, some products from Mars and a $50 Spafinder gift card.

2009: A year in review

In January we visited my mom and stepdad and I came back to work only to watch my former Ogilvy colleagues announce their joblessness on Facebook.

We endured the sights and screams of a local indoor water park and I went to Las Vegas by myself twice in February and March, first for a work-related convention and then to speak on a panel of mombloggers.

Josh and I flew to New York City for a friend's wedding and ate our way across Manhattan, and a few weeks later Josh and Z took a daddy-daughter trip to visit his sister in Leeds, England.

April highlights included my first ever clothing swap party, Bring Your Kids to Work day and another trip to the Big Apple, this time to start planning P&G's Team USA Olympic sponsorship.

In May A claimed Stella for her BFF (they're still thick as thieves). We celebrated Mother's Day with an unnecessary overnight at Starved Rock State Park, delighted in the reopening of our local playground and rocked out at the WSMS 2oth Anniversary block party.

June brought me to the sexiest strip mall nightclub in Dallas and to the local pool, where I inavertently took a bath in baby shit. I turned 33 and Z became a reader--at the tender age of 4!

In July Josh and I celebrated our 10th anniversary and A's second birthday. I answered pointed questions from Z about human reproduction and spoke with a Channel 2 reporter about the blogola and the mommybloggers who accept it. (You can find the televised interview here.)

We road-tripped it to Omaha, Nebraska for a family reunion in August, where I learned I'm related to the Omaha Steaks people and A potty trained herself. We also did a little local tourism, spending a day on the beach on Chicago's lakefront and enjoying one last trip to Kiddieland before the beloved, old-time theme park closed for good.

Z started her third and final year at WSMS in September, doing a full day (8:30-2:30) of academics. Having mastered reading over the summer break, she quickly accelerated into learning parts of speech (the kid can identify nouns, verbs, prepositions and the like!), mathematics and geography. She also started an extracurricular art class, which she's really enjoyed.

October brought multiple Halloween costume changes, H1N1 vaccines for the kids and the mini kitchen remodel we'd been dreaming of since we moved here in 2003, while November featured Z's fifth birthday party (an almost-sleepover hosted at home) and our long-anticipated trip to Australia. It was a bittersweet time for pet ownership as well; we said goodbye to Silver and Tallulah and brought home a new, kid-loving kitten, Oscar.

In December I flew to Los Angeles to do research and took the family East to see our relatives (and try on my wedding dress). In one busy week, I attended two holiday parties, interviewed the creator Yummie Tummie, jumped up and down on the glass ledge on the top of Willis Tower and saw three movies--The Princess and the Frog, Up in the Air and Avatar.

Still reading? Then you get to hear about my New Year's brunch. The one that 64 people RSVPed for. More than 50, but less than 60 showed up for bagels, mimosa, fruit, muffins, spinach strata and overnight French toast, but it was actually completely manageable. Fun, even. I just may make this an annual event!

Looking back on this year-end summary, I'm realizing I spent a fair amount of time on airplanes and in airports--and I'm not even including three overnight trips to Cincinnati.

Photo taken by Z 2 days ago

My New Year's Resolutions

I know, I know. It's so cliche. But writing my New Year's resolutions on my blog, for all to see, means one of you can help hold me accountable. So here goes. Laugh away. I'm even starting with exercise.

1. Improve my physical fitness by getting to the gym twice a week. At least once I will either take a class or spend 20 minutes on the treadmill, doing interval training. I had been seriously slacking off this past month and a half, but Josh joined the Y and the fact that he's getting in shape is serious inspiration for me. Roawr.

2. Maximize productivity by closing my Internet browser for at least 2 hours while at work. This is hard because my work requires a lot of online time. But I am also way too easily distracted by blogs, Twitter, personal emails and the news.

3. Be a better wife and mother. To that end, I'll aim to take each member of my family on some kind of solo date/outing each month. (I'm stealing this one from Andrea.)

4. Take advantage of my sister and her family's summer trip to the U.S. to plan one heck of a road trip and family reunion.

5. Survive New Year's Day. I invited a bunch of friends to our house for New Year's brunch not really thinking that most would be in town and accept and, oh yeah, they all have families. Turns out 69 people have RSVPed yes. That's not counting the maybes. Holy shit, I'm going to need to buy a lot of orange juice. And bagels. And toilet paper.

But enough with the panic. What about last year's resolution to spend less money? I said we would put off purchasing a new dining room table and chairs and forgo the mini kitchen remodel I wanted. I also said our plans for a 10th anniversary trip would be scaled back or scuttled altogether. We indeed went without the dining room furniture and anniversary celebration (we had dinner at Publican), but we only waited until November to get our kitchen done, but I don't regret spending our hard-earned cash on new counters, backsplash and sink.

Do you do New Year's resolutions? Care to share?

On waking up in a puddle of piss

After a lovely--if a little whirlwind--trip back East, we arrived home on Sunday afternoon. Oscar, our new kitten, was hungry but happy to see us. I noticed our cat sitter hadn't picked up the cash I'd left on the counter and I panicked momentarily, thinking perhaps she hadn't come at all. But the litter boxes were relatively clean, the mail inside, sidewalk somewhat shoveled and Oscar wasn't starving.

Just then my Blackberry starts buzzing. It's Paula. "Oh good, you're back. I was so worried!" She races to tell me she's lost my house key and couldn't get in to feed Oscar that morning. She'd even had her mom (a well-known Oak Park family practice doctor) call some of our neighbors to see if they had a copy of our key.

I reassure Paula that Oscar's okay, she can come get her payment whenever and not to worry about the key. But that drama was small potatoes compared to what we were in for a few hours later.

Sunday night A wakes up, as she has been since campaigning to go Pull-Up free, at midnight. I take her to the potty, and then back to her crib. She hollers bloody murder, and after about half an hour of it, we bring her to our bed. She demands water, hogs the pillows and covers and kicks me in the face repeatedly. After a few stern warnings, Josh tells her the party's over and deposits her back in her crib. Hysterical crying commences and goes on for two bloody hours. At some point I close our door to minimize the damage to my eardrums and psyche.

Trapping Oscar inside.

Exhausted from the midnight battles, I sleep like the dead and don't hear the cat meowing and scratching at our door. Josh apparently does, but figures Oscar probably just wants to be fed.

Around 5:40, Josh wakes me up. "Um, I think Oscar might have..." I shift and find myself in the middle of a warm wet spot. How can A have wet the bed, I wonder, didn't we put her back in her room? Josh continues, "I think Oscar pooped in our room somewhere."

I dawns on me that the zoo like smell and the warm spot are probably connected and we start stripping our bed. The piss has soaked through our down comforter, sheets and mattress pad, but the mattress is still dry.

The good news is that our "dry clean or professionally launder" comforter comes our spotless and odor-free after a vinegar-enhanced trip through the washer and extended stay in the dryer (with a tennis ball). The bad news is that our room still smells. I sprinkle the carpet with baking powder, light candles and still the odor remains. I'm sniffing the mattress, wondering if somehow the cat piss has infected it when Josh discovers a giant cat turd in my walk-in closet. Gross, but at least he laid waste to my old Crocs instead of my new boots. And once that mess was cleaned up, the bedroom was fresh as a G-d damn daisy.

And we learned our lesson. Never keep a kitten from his litter box. And quit reinforcing A's bad habit of "sleeping in the big bed with Mama." Operation tough love began last night.


He didn't mean to be bad...

10 years later--and the wedding dress fits

While the rest of America was unwrapping Snuggies and drinking hot cocoa, Josh and I drove the girls from Arlington, VA to West Chester, PA, home of my in-laws and resting place of my wedding dress, which I hadn't tried on in 10 1/2 years.

Chicago's best photo-op

While I've had brunch (and enjoyed the views) on top of the John Hancock Building a couple of times, until Monday I'd never been to the top of the Sears--nay, the Willis--Tower. Its taller, but due to its South Loop location, less glamorous than its Mag Mile skyscraping cousin.

But thanks to a tweetup organized by Kim Moldofsky, my whole family got to take in Chicago from 103 stories up. We were treated to free entry, oversized cookies, VIP line-jumping and unlimited photo-ops on the Skydeck Ledge, a brilliant example of tourist catnip if there ever was one.

Josh and I weren't scared. Z was a little cautious at first. And A wouldn't put her feet down anywhere near the glass.

The Princess and the Frog

I took Z to see a matinee of Disney's first hand-drawn animated feature in a bajillion years and cried through the whole damn movie. Yes, I was PMSing. But my tears weren't entirely fueled by hormones.

I cried for patriotism. I've never seen a fundamentally American fairy tale before. The Princess and the Frog manages to capture the food, music, religion and culture of New Orleans without veering too far into caricature.

I cried for civil rights. I'm not the mother of a Black girl, but if I was I'd be so glad there was finally a Disney Princess who looked like my child. It may sound trivial, but this shit matters.

I cried for women's lib. Tiana comes from humble beginnings and marries a prince, but she achieves her dream of owning her own restaurant through combination of luck, moxie and a whole lot of double shifts.

I cried for values. The triumph of good over evil is no stranger to Disney movies, but The Princess and the Frog emphasized so many of the values I hold dear: family bonds, empathy, thrift, hard work, acceptance of people's differences, friendship and the power of music to bring people together.

Finally, I cried for artistry. In a world filled with horrifying bad animation, The Princess and the Frog is beautifully drawn and features a fantastic soundtrack. Keep your eyes peeled for the art-deco style fantasy and spooky, hyper-hypnotic voodoo sequences.

Z's take: It was better than Cinderella. But not better than The Little Mermaid.

Cold weather fashion tips from the creator of Yummie Tummie

It's not every day (or ever, really) that I get the chance to hang out with a fashion designer to the stars, but sometimes mommyblogging has its benefits, and last week I had the honor of meeting Heather Thomson, founder of Yummie Tummie. YT, for those uninitiated (aka those who didn't attend BlogHer 09), is a line of shapewear and fashion basics that promise to slim flabby mummy tummies and make you look thinner and more toned without all those pesky sit-ups. And Heather, in addition to being the designer and founder of the company, is a fellow working mom to two children about the same age as mine. When I sat down with her on Friday after our company holiday party, she was looking forward to heading home after a busy week on the road and regretted she would be missing sundown on the first night of Chanukah.

Yummie Tummie got its start shortly after Heather gave birth to her first child. She was looking for something to hold in her post-partum jiggle but was astonished by the ugly, ill-fitting garments in the fusty, old-fashioned shapewear department. She was so disappointed by what she'd bought she ripped them up and patched the stretchy fabric together to sew a tank top for herself. She liked it so much she went to a fabric store and made more tank tops in black, pink, nude and white. Now Yummie Tummie sells dozens of control tops, bottoms, slips, and lingerie. Heather even confessed her body shaping teddie has helped women ashamed of their bellies turn the lights back on in the bedroom.

I actually bought a Yummie Tummie tank early this year, and while it's really well constructed and battles back my muffin top, I wasn't totally sold on it. It crept up when not tucked into my pants or tights and I just wasn't convinced it was sucking in $62.00 worth of flab.

Turns out I was wearing the wrong size. With a quick up and down glance, Heather pronounced me a small and hello, my new small tank feels much, much more snug. It holds onto my hips and really sucks in my gut. I think it even make me stand up taller. I wore it under a belted purple sweater to a couple of holiday parties on Saturday and 5 people told me I looked like I'd lost weight! (I haven't.)

So the Yummie Tummie works, but it's not worth it if you're hiding under jeans, a hoodie and a down parka, right? I needed to pick Heather's brain for stylish, flattering looks for those of us facing a long winter of sub-zero temps. Heather recommended dressing monochromatically and spending money on a couple of coats and a wardrobe of cold weather accessories. She suggested navy or cream hats and gloves for dressier occasions and pairing funky striped gloves with jeans. Matching my mittens to my clothes and boots never even occurred to me before! She also showed me how you can vary your look without buying anything new; grabbing her own gray hat, she demonstrated all the different ways you can style a simple fold-over skullcap. She added that scarves are great accessories that can be worn lots of different ways while also keeping you warm outdoors and in.

Heather also stressed the importance of choosing a warm coat that's not overly bulky and complimented me my fitted black Lands End down coat. She told me I should try belting it and I did so today, giving myself a bit more of a waist with the addition of a wide, elastic and pleather belt I picked up at Forever 21.

You can get more cold-weather fashion tips from Already Pretty, a fashion blogger from Minneapolis. Check out this post on layering without lumps.

Also in this picture, a hat from Etsy, gloves from H&M, a scarf from Loehmann's, jeans from Forever 21 and my new Frye boots

Disclosure: I received a free Yummie Tummie tank top during my interview with Heather

Magnetic poetry for kids and Frye boots for me

Thanks to the grandparent largess, we haven't bought our kids more than one or two Chanukah presents a piece. But I couldn't resist getting my budding wordsmith her first magnetic poetry kit.

In related news, I got an awesome Chanukah gift from Josh--Frye boots! He knew I'd been lusting after them and surprised me with a pair he's ordered from Amazon. Unfortunately he picked a tall chocolate brown pair with a square toe. I already have tall brown boots I love and I so don't love the square toe. Oh, and they weren't very comfortable either.

I felt guilty for not loving such a thoughtful, generous gift, but I couldn't fathom keeping a pair of pricey, pinchy boots that I wouldn't wear enough to justify the cost. Josh, good sport as always, told me to walk over to Nordstrom at lunch and find a pair I liked better.

I picked out these and--with Josh's blessing--bought them (we're returning the others). I think I must have made my salesman's week. He kept saying "Thank you. Thank you." with such emphasis, passion and relief in his voice that I started thinking his commission on my purchase might have really made a difference in his take home pay that day.

Which got me thinking. Usually I buy shoes online. I try them on at home and send back the ones that don't work. (And why not? Return shipping is typically free.) I wonder if there's a growing segment of frugalistas out there trying on shoes at Nordstrom and walking out of the store empty-handed only to make their purchase online. And I'll admit, if Frye boots were available at a sizable discount online, I might have tried this dirty little trick myself.

You won't be getting a holiday card from me

Unless you are my daughter's teacher, daycare provider or named Marge (there are two of them), don't count on a festive envelope from the House of Klein. In the interest of saving trees, postage and my sanity, I'm cutting out holiday cards this year. Anyone hungry for a photo of my kids or an update on our lives knows exactly where they can find one.

I enjoy getting cards (or any personal snail mail, really), so I know I'll be feeling more guilty with every envelope's arrival. But it won't weaken my resolve. I'm not updating my address book, stressing about finding the perfect picture of our two kids or signing our names until I'm weak in the wrist. I'm not licking envelopes, affixing stamps or inserting year-end letters detailing 12 months of salary freezes, freelance furloughs and our nonetheless fabulous trip to Australia.

New to this blog and want the highlights? Here it is: A got pottytrained and Z learned to read.

Happy Chanukah!