Now time out for a little shameless offspring-promotion here.

Live in the NY-metro area and looking for a great live theater experience for kids three and up—but don’t want to watch your little ones squirm through a couple of hours of high-priced entertainment? Check out a professional production of the original children's musical “THE BUTTONHOLE BANDIT: AN INTERGALACTIC MUSICAL FANTASY” at NYC’s Looking Glass Theatre, 422 West 57th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues). It's creative, inexpensive, and just one delightful hour of pure fun.

And while you’re at it? Catch a rising professional singer/actress, my daughter Nikki Yarnell, making her New York City stage debut as Brellaya the mermaid.

Performances are on: Saturday, March 29th @ 12 and 2PM; Sunday, March 30th @ 2 and 4PM; Saturday, April 5th @ 12 and 2PM; Sunday, April 6th @ 2 and 4PM. Tickets are available at the door or through or Ovation Tix: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/881 or by calling Ovation Tix at (866) 811-4111. Use the promotional code “spacebandit” for $12 adult tickets.   

Hope to see you there! If you do come by, identify yourself as a Daily Mom reader to receive a special mermaid autograph and hug for your little theater-goers! Cheers from this (reluctant but proud) stage mom

Once upon a time, there was a married couple. They were going through a rough patch in their relationship. He fooled around. And she fooled around. But they worked it out and went on to live happily ever after.

The above tale would be pretty unremarkable except that it was shared at a press conference held the day after that husband was sworn in as governor of New York. And that the vacancy he was filling came about because the previous occupant had fooled around on his wife—and ended up paying dearly for the pleasure. 

I get what Governor Paterson was doing—and actually don’t disagree with his strategy of airing out one’s own dirty laundry before someone else has a chance to. It’s just…do we need or want to know the specifics of every public figure’s sex life? Personally, I really don’t care what anyone’s doing behind closed doors, whether their last name is Spitzer or Paterson or Spears. It’s all, Too Much Information. Pretty please, can we stop the public confessions now? 

Stop the presses. As of this very moment, my daughter and I are actually in agreement about something—that In the Heights, the new Broadway show we saw the other night, is fantastic. This phenomenon happens about every millennium or so, so if I were you, I’d order tickets and start planning a visit to the Big Apple NOW. 

After a smashing Off-Broadway run, In the Heights opened on Broadway on March 9—and continues to attract unbelievable buzz from audiences and critics alike. Called the new Rent, it’s a joyful and at times poignant look at life in the vibrant Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City. We laughed, we cried (okay, I cried), and we were blown away by its music and choreography. Kudos to 20-something Lin-Manuel Miranda, who conceived, wrote the music and lyrics for, and stars in the show—it actually grew out of a project he started working on his sophomore year in college. Now that was time and tuition was well spent! 

Whew! I guess Heather Mills is one single mom who won’t have to worry about putting fish and chips on the table. Now that’s a relief. Turns out the ex-wife of Beatle Paul McCartney walked away yesterday with a cool $48.6 million (I can’t even attempt to write that out in decimals; too many zeros) court-ordered divorce settlement—plus an additional $70,000 annually to help support the couple’s four-year-old daughter Beatrice.

Mills, who had initially asked for a whopping $250 million, was happy yet still a bit miffed, complaining that the paltry amount of the settlement would mean than little Beatrice would have to “travel B class when her father travels A class.” It’s widely acknowledged that the living standard of newly-divorced women and their kids can drop dramatically, while that of their ex-spouse actually rises. But somehow, I don’t think this scenario qualifies.

In fact, it’s been calculated that Mills walked away with around $34,000 for every day of her brief four-year marriage. A good gig if you can get it—and live with yourself afterwards. And hardly a hard day’s night.

As we New Yorkers of every race, creed, and religious and ethnic background say (think “Oh boy!” for a rough translation): 

OY! And here in now former-governor Eliot Spitzer’s home state, we have lots to oy about.

In case your local news outlets aren’t running the Spitzer scandal 24/7 like ours are, our tough crusader on corruption (some would say “holier-than-thou”) governor has just crashed and burned, resigning over allegations that he repeatedly patronized a “high class” prostitution ring. In addition to the obviously illegal act of paying a prostitute, he is alleged to have broken other laws involving the manipulation of funds and transporting someone over state lines for the purposes of engaging in paid sex (he funded a rendez-vous in Washington, DC with his New York-based “friend”). The details are still emerging but oh, boy! they don’t sound good.

So, first comes shock and disbelief.

Then comes sadness and compassion for the family (Spitzer has three teenaged daughters. Do I have to say more?)

And then, inevitably, comes the tsk, tsk, tsk’ing about “So what’s up with the wife?”

Spitzer’s wife, Silda, by all accounts a smart (she’s an Ivy League educated attorney), compassionate (she founded a non-profit that serves children), and yes, attractive woman, is coming under fire for “standing by her man” at news conferences after the scandal broke, in yet just another insidious twist on the old “When in doubt, blame the (fill-in-the-blank here): mom, wife, victim, etc.” adage.

My own favorite child-raising philosophy:

The job of a parent is to give one’s children roots to grow…and wings to fly.

It’s something I think about most everyday, and try to remember when I'm tempted to clip my own kids’ wings. What personal parenting credo speaks to you?

Last night I tried to make a quick stop at my local supermarket for a few essentials (milk, People mag, and some Chunky Monkey) on the way home from work. I say tried because I ended up getting stuck behind a creeping-along-at-a-snail's-pace car as it entered the packed parking lot and proceeded to crawl along, moving in fits and starts, looking for a parking space.

Okay, Laurie, relax. It’s probably some cute little old lady, extra-cautious type out to score her essentials: milk, People mag, and Geritol. Just be patient, I chided myself. I ended up parking next to Grams, then stole a look to my left to get a visual and see if she needed a little help getting out of her car. Turns out Grammy was a 30-something soccer mom type, yak, yak, yaking on the cell she held in one hand as she used two fingers on the other to steer her car into a parking spot that was w-a-a-a-y to close to comfort to mine.

Call me cranky but: give me break. If you absolutely must drive and chat (“Really? Poindexter aced that exam! And after it was over, he went on to score the winning basket at that afternoon’s game!”), get a hands-free thingy or just pull over to the side of the road. (Never mind that it’s illegal to drive and talk on a handheld cell in the great state of New York and elsewhere.)

Last I saw of my little-old-lady-turned-cell-phone-junkie, she was yakking away in the produce section and using those same two fingers on her other hand to steer a shopping cart w-a-a-a-y too close to comfort to a precariously stacked pyramid of grapefruits. Me? I headed to the freezer section to snatch up my ice cream and cool off.

It’s often the little things that mean so much. In my case, the hubby’s recent purchase of wireless TV earphones might just have saved our marriage. This means that when I’m reading in bed at night, and he’s watching the 10:00 pm news on TV but with his headphones on, I don’t hear a thing. Nada. Zilch. Nothing about what’s going on in the world or our corner of it. Reading before bed is my time to chill out. (I’m up on what's going on. I just don’t want to fall asleep to it.)

So what techno gizmo has changed your life?