I don't know where my friend finds these great photos that she keeps forwarding me:

P.S. - That baby is really pulling on that man's ears, looks painful. At least they're in the desert and the leaky diaper could cool him off but the ears......OMG!

Our worst leaky diaper situation was at a wedding. Lily was only 15 months old. All the family were taking turns holding her and suddenly her diaper leaked on the maid of honor. She put Lily down and then we saw it! The stain! Right on the front of her dress. I didn't say a word and neither did anyone else. Luckily, she didn't even notice (she was a little drunk) until it had dried into a phantom stain.

What's your worst leaky diaper story? Let us know, we've all been there my friend.

Our local Christmas Crazy House......Martha Stewart Would Have A Field Day With This One

Where do these people find the time for this?! This Christmas brought to you by General Electric.

There’s something about the holiday spirit that encourages even the Scrooges among us to break loose of a little extra cash to light up our homes and yards with Christmas lights. One or two strands of lights and/or the occasional fake reindeer is about what everyone seems to be doing these days (our house has both a Menorah and a reindeer light in the window). But there's always that one family that seems to go mad with the lights.

Above is a house that's infamous in our neighborhood because not only is their home lit up like a runway but they have an outdoor speaker system that plays continuous holiday tunes all night! Just shoot me. I'd hate to be their neighbor. Oh and yes, most of those lights are flashing, I'm having a seizure just writing this.

The issue of child discipline has popped into the news again, this time in the form of a bill, proposed by 61-year-old nurse Kathleen Wolf, that would make spanking illegal in Massachusetts.

The State Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 1999 that parents could spank their children, as long as it doesn't cause bodily harm. However, according to CBS, State legislator Jay Kaufman said the bill was less about spanking and more about when people cross the line and abuse their children.

For many parents, this brings up two issues: should the government get involved in the way people parent and should spanking be considered abuse?

Landismom has a post up asking about what we're all reading. After checking out The Very Important Books everyone in the comments is reading, I'm a bit embarrassed to be participating, but here goes....

Okay, I left you hanging in my last post about The Hawk Incident, so here goes. You think you had some wild and crazy visitors over the long Thanksgiving weekend? Try this one on for size.

Last Saturday as my daughter and I were getting into the car in our driveway, Ms. Nature Girl herself stops, cocks her head, and asks, “Did you hear that, Mom?” I did hear some kind of cawing noise but because we were late for an appointment in NYC, my response was something like, “Yeah, now let’s move it.” An hour later, I got a call on my cell from The Hubby, who informed me that a hawk had crashed through our (closed) kitchen window. Yup, you read that right. The Hubby was upstairs minding his own business with our two ferocious watchdogs/pampered pooches, when he heard an earsplitting crash. Running down to investigate, he found the hawk trapped in our adjoining family room, frantically searching for a way out and wreaking havoc in both rooms. Resourceful guy that he is, my husband opened a pair of French doors to the backyard and shooed him out.

Bubandpie tagged me for this meme, but I'm really trying to avoid doing memes at my other site, so I figured I'd do it here, instead (plus, I need an entry for this week. Nablopomo is killing me I tell you, killing me!)

So, Seven Random Things About Me:

Lately, there seems to be a lot of buzz about sneaking veggies into kids’ diets. But maybe parents don’t have to be so covert.

A University of Minnesota study found that serving healthy, nutritional school lunches does not lead to a decline in sales nor do they cost more to produce. This contradicts previous studies that found students prefer fatty foods and that healthier meals cost more to make.

Instead of serving hot dogs, the kitchens served turkey hot dogs. Instead of spending more money on processed foods, they bought cheaper nutritional foods and used the extra money to cover higher labor costs.

So it looks like kids are more willing than we thought to chow down on healthy lunches. What do you think? Would your kid eat a healthier school lunch?

Catherine, aka Her Bad Mother is having just about the worst day a pregnant woman could possibly have.

I'm pretty sure she could use your thoughts and prayers, so please, head on over and show her some love.

As I write this, the long Thanksgiving weekend is coming to a close. Sitting in traffic going to the big family dinner gave me plenty of time for reflection, so below please find my very own What I am Thankful For List:

1. My college student bringing home only two gigantic stuffed laundry bags and not, say, the entire combined wardrobes of all his frat brothers.
2. Individual family iPods for the barely moving parking lot-like trip to Turkey Dinner.
3. My refrigerator being a No Tempting Leftovers Zone, thanks to my passing the hosting duties to my sister for the first time in five years.
4. My successful avoidance of any place of commerce on Black Friday thanks to the miracle of the Internet.
5. That I wasn't home on Saturday morning when a hawk crashed through our (closed) kitchen window. Yup, you read that right. To be continued...the whole incident deserves its own separate future post.

One of Lily's favorite authors is Eric Carle. If you leave in or near NYC or plan on visiting NYC for the holidays, definitely leave time for the Holiday Lights display at the Bronx Zoo. Seeing the lights is one of our annual holiday traditions.

This year, in the Butterfly Garden, there is a wonderful display of lighted, iconographic images from Eric Carle's masterpiece "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." It's definitely worth the cost of admission for your toddlers, pre-schoolers and kindergartners. (If you visit often it's worth becoming a member, in just two trips for a family of four to any zoo or the aquarium in NYC it pays for itself.) They were all running around like mad, screaming with excitement, "I love that book" and "That's my favorite". Just another way to get them excited about books....which is unusual for a holiday lighting display.

I used to have a teeshirt that read: "Caution. Does Not Play Well With Others." I say "used to" not because I suddenly realized that the shirt was utterly inaccurate and did not describe me at all (I was, after all, once given a lifetime ban to a certain moms messageboard in my area), but because one of the sad truths of your children growing up on you is that, once they learn how to read, you have to put away the teeshirts with inappropriate sayings. Not that I had many to put away (although I do miss my "Boys are stupid; throw rocks at them" shirt) since I don't usually buy things with writing or logos on them, but that shirt was different. That shirt was fun and perfect and summed me up in seven small words. You see, I don't play well with others.

I know, you're shocked, given that I'm the single mom blogger here and all, but it's true. I'm the person who will opt out of the group assignment, preferring to go it alone rather than be forced to work as part of a random team (I'd make a terrible Wonder Pet). I've never had a roommate because, quite honestly, I don't want to share my spaceor listen to someone else's opinion about the shower curtain. It all comes from the rather potent combination of growing up as the only girl in a family of five kids--and therefore not required to do the same amount of sharing as the others--and being "the smart kid" all through school, I think. Whatever caused this little personality quirk, the fact remains that I like to do my own thing in my own space.

All of this is a round about way of saying, "I'm leaving iVillage."

It's 11:47 and the child who was so deathly ill this morning that she couldn't possibly be expected to go to school has somehow made a miraculous recovery. The same pathetic little girl who lounged listlessly on the couch as the school bus left without her, whispering requests for juice and Arthur is now up dancing around the livingroom, trying to master the mashed potato. And me? I've got a wicked case of deja vu. It's like Junior Kindergarten, all over again.

Diva Girl used to routinely be "too sick to go to school" in JK, only to undergo a miraculous recovery as soon as she was safely ensconced at Grandma's house and no longer in danger of being forced to endure the horrors of finger painting and circle time. While playing sick is a time honoured school tradition, most kids don't usually start perfecting their technique in Kindergarten. Diva Girl? Well, let's just say she's the only kid I have ever met who could successfully out Ferris Ferris Bueller, and before her fourth birthday no less.

I love Thanksgiving. With no gift-giving to drain the imagination and bank account, no clever costumes to come up with, and no heavy duty decorating to stress over, it comes close to being my all-time favorite. Any holiday that combines lots of food with lots of family and is celebrated by every American of every conceivable race, religion, and ethnicity has my vote.

But this year, I have even more than usual to be thankful for. Not only will my immediate family all be gathered under one roof, and (most of) my extended family around one dinner table, for a change, that dinner table will not mine. To which I say: yippee! Don’t get me wrong. There’s something very cozy about gathering the clan and close friends at our house. There’s also something very messy and tiring about it, too. The huge food shop. The exhaustive prep. The endless cooking. The colossal clean-up. You know what I mean.

My parents, who spend much of their active retirement researching our family genealogy, always take some time during our Thanksgiving gatherings to present their latest family-tree findings. Thanks to their travels, their curiosity about the past and their genealogy software, we leave our dinner with ancestor charts, old photos and new stories to share about the latest historical branches on the Jones/Cain family tree.

So when I heard about Freedom’s Feast, I could relate. Incorporating some history -- whether it's your family's or your country's -- into your holiday celebration, has its benefits. The elders talk about the past, the young ones absorb it all, and you're left with a rich family experience. If you need some help this year, Freedom's Feast, an activity program founded by a mom and designed for the dinner table, with fun historical facts, songs and more, will help you organize and give meaning to your gathering.

Leave a comment and let me know how you plan to celebrate -- and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

School! It seems like everyone hates it! I used to fake having Epileptic seizures just to get out of it...complete with urinating in my uniform. I always go all out, I never do anything half *ss. My cousin used to take a mixture of eggs, sausage pieces, (it was Europe sausage was always readily available), add food coloring and pretend to throw it up. She was my hero!

She showed me one day how she did it and I was amazed. She would keep a bottle of it by her bed and then scream out, "Oh my god!" She'd then run to the toilet and throw it in splashing it everywhere to add to the effect and voila....no school. My aunt fell for it every time. She would sell it like Dick Cheney does Halliburton Contracts to our current administration. To this day my aunt thinks my cousin suffers from some mysterious digestive disorder.

My next door neighbor, Brian, used to fake a head injury. He'd fall down the stairs and then quickly hide in a dark bathroom for a few minutes. He'd then run to his mother and tell her I just hit my head. She'd look at his pupils, see that they were dilated and get all nervous and run him to the emergency room. She fell for this three times (she was a soft touch) until upon the third time just by chance they saw the same doctor in the ER and being a father of five he was wise to Brian's scheme.

All this proves one thing - kids in the seventies were a lot more creative. Less stuff, less television and more playing outside does make a difference.

This is the first year that my mother-in-law is hosting Thanksgiving. Due to the incredibly mind numbing dysfunction of my immediate family, my sister won't be hosting the dinner the day of but two days later in order to escape the tension that Thursday. Fun.

I'm just going to try and make you laugh this year with some jokes. I'll spare you all the melodrama (I'm sure you've got your own) that is encircling my family once again. This train makes all the stops.....especially dysfunction junction.

Here's one toy that won't be recalled from China. There's nothing Lily loves more than visiting her grandparents. They have a great big back yard with many trees so making huge piles of leaves and jumping in them is one of her favorite pastimes. It's just hard to get her to make that initial leap because we're so paranoid of leaf piles. You see we live in the city, Brooklyn to be exact, and many lazy, inconsiderate dog owners and walkers use piles of leaves to disguise dog poop. It's disgusting. If you think that's bad you should see what it's like after the first snow thaws.........ggggrrrroooosssss.

Were you the kid who loved books so much that she just couldn't go to sleep without finishing "one more chapter pleeease, Mom?" Did you ever savor those last few pages of a great novel in your own little reading room -- under the covers with a flashlight? Well, it seems that fewer and fewer kids are like you were... and it's showing in the test scores.

A new study from the National Endowment for the Arts reveals that the percentage of young people who read for fun is on the decline. And so are reading test scores. But children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score better on reading tests than infrequent readers.

Computer games, the Internet and television can take some of the blame for the decline in pleasure reading. But every mom who ever read by flashlight knows there's nothing quite like a great book. So, leave a comment and tell me: What do you do to encourage pleasure reading at home? (And don't miss James Patterson's take on a topic close to his heart!)

Chatting about our kids, some of who are working on leaving the nest—a real work in progress, that—my friend Alyssa offered up this maternal bon mot: “The bigger your kids, the bigger the problems, but the less you can do about them.” To which I say, “Ain’t that the truth.”

I’d heard the “bigger kids, bigger problems” saying before, but “the less you can do about them” part was new to me. And really hit home. Sure, the issues becoming bigger—getting the baby off the bottle becomes getting the Kindergartener hooked on reading and morphs yet again to getting the teen off a different kind of bottle—I got that.

You know, sometimes it’s not actually the product that needs to be recalled, it’s the parents. Because, if the recent Bumbo recall is any indication, there are clearly some defective parents out there.

"We are a couple in our 30s looking for a baby to call our own. If you know of anyone looking for a home for their child, contact me at..."

I see ads like this from time to time, in the backs of magazines or sometimes in the classifieds section of the campus newspaper. I usually ignore them, save for a fleeting thought of how heartbreaking it must be to be reduced to running an ad in the want ads to complete your family. Today, however, I had not one ounce of sympathy to spare for the woman who wrote these words. I wasn't indifferent, disinterested, and vaguely saddened when I came across this message; I was shocked, offended, and angry.

What's so different about this ad? It was posted on a single mothers message board. Because of course a place where single moms gather to support each other as they raise their children alone is absolutely the best place to look for a new baby of your very own. Obviously, there must be a bunch to spare there, right?

I posted several weeks ago that we're in the process of adopting a child. Not necessarily a baby, but an older child - the ripe old age of 2 to 7 years. I've not been posting about the process because at this point, we're in the major paperwork phase. If you've ever tried or succeeded at adoption you know the routine. The countless applications and repetitive forms make the financial aide applications for college look like a mere warm up. As it should be. You're trying to get another person not a car for crying out loud. They should check out every orefice of prospective parents both financially and personally.....I'm not kidding on that one.

We're trying to adopt a child from this country because believe it or not, we have children here that need adopting too. Adopt US Kids No need to run off to Africa or some other foreign land. Sorry Madonna. We have orphans here too.

I know 40 year old people who are not great at sharing (see Exhibit A) that's why I always go out of my way to explain nicely to children how to share.

We were in the park today after school and one of the little boys' nanny brought him a ball to play with. It was general dismissal time from our local elementary so the park was packed with screaming kids, not a great time to bring a toy when you don't want to share. In all fairness, the little boy couldn't have been more than 3 so it's safe to say that sharing isn't his favorite thing and I didn't expect it to be considering his age. Heck, sharing is something all kids have a problem with. But three-nagers and sharing don't mix...at least from my experience. So not surprisingly, he absolutely lost it every time an older child came by and kicked the ball away from him.....

Uh oh. According to the latest media hoopla (most recently, a “60 Minutes” broadcast), it turns out that:
1) I am the mom of two Millennials (kids born between 1980 and 1995) and
2) The new threshold for their “adulthood” is about 26.

Yup. You read that right. 26. Thank all the “you are so special” hogwash our precious progenies were bombarded with at school and home. (The "60 Minutes" broadcast even casts blame on kindly 'ol Mister Rogers.) “You can do anything.” “You are special just because you’re you!” Turns out some of these special, special kids are hitting college and the workplace not necessarily equipped to put in the extra mile and/or deal with frustration or (heaven forbid!) a little failure.

The good thing about all this delayed adulthood? Thanks to the magic of revisionist math, 40 is the new 30, 50 the new 40, etc., etc. Now that I like!

PS: Researchers say there are about 80 million Millennials. Do you know or share DNA, last names, and/or addresses with any of 'em? If so, what’s your take on all this?

This week is Children's Book Week, and we can't think of a better way to celebrate than by introducing our newest iVillage blogger. Best-selling author James Patterson is here to share his passion for reading and his tips for parents who want to develop that passion in their kids. Check out The Fine Art of Pageturning -- and leave your comments for James.

And be sure to celebrate Children's Book Week at home by trying a suggestion or two from The Children's Book Council:
•At dinner, encourage each family member to describe their favorite book.
•Take a family trip to the library or bookstore, and pick out a few new books to bring home.
•Work with your child and friends to develop a play based on a scene from their favorite book. Invite everyone over to watch the production!
•Write a story based on favorite book characters. Work together as a family to develop plot ideas.
•After dinner, instead of watching TV, read aloud to each other.

Happy reading!

Does slacking off in the cleaning department help kids from developing food allergies? Maybe, says the cover article, “Kids and the Growing Food Allergy Threat,” of the November 6th issue of Time magazine.

Let me get some things straight from the get-go before we go any further here: 1) We’re not talking about living in squalor or 2) blaming the rise in kids’ allergies on anyone, especially their parents. But one interesting theory advanced in this article, the so-called “hygiene hypothesis,” has me wondering if raising my own children in a less than pristine, dog-filled home might have actually been good for ‘em (the kids) and not a negative (as the popular, clucking mother-in-law theory goes).