GIVEAWAY: Rosie Pope's Must Have Beach Bag For Kids (Ends 7/14)

I've spent enough time in the world of parenting writing, that nothing should shake me. Especially when you add in where I live: the Catskills, home to the stars who skip the Hamptons and head straight for "normal" for their kids. But after a season of watching Rosie Pope's Bravo show, Pregnant in Heels, for my day job, I couldn't help it. I got an email in my inbox from The Children's Place touting how the maternity concierge to Manhattan's chi chi mamas is a fan of their towel buddy bags.

OK, enter uber dork mom. Did I mention I'm all over these bags? I got one last year for my kid for swim lessons because they are exactly what the name describes . . . a towel that folds into a bag, so it can be slung around a kid's shoulders like a backpack. GENIUS.

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Pixar's Brave: A Mother's Love Affair

My apologies to my friends, my family, my readers, but unless Pixar moves up its release date for Brave by about, oh, 12 months, you're going to be hearing a lot about the first girl-centric movie out of Disney's computer animation wing for awhile.

I wrote about my reaction to the trailer over at The Stir over the weekend, and I expected to get slammed. One because the nature of the Internet is that people read what they want, not what is there, but also because what I said was a tad bit controversial. To say that Disney has given mothers of girls a fair amount, that mothers of girls can be a tad bit greedy is . . . controversial. I won't rehash it. Go read it. It was heartfelt (and my bosses will love you for reading it).

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How to Scare the Neighbors Away in Two Easy Steps

It's about 5:30, maybe 6 p.m. when the alarm sounds. "Adam," she shrieks. "Adam is here!"

Adam. Our UPS man. And my 6-year-old's "boyfriend." Point of fact, he is not a pedophile (should I repeat that in bold?). He has not done anything to put himself in this position. Anything but bring packages, loads of packages (I am a blogging mom after all) to the house where a boy crazy little girl lives. So there's that. It's like dangling candy in front of a baby, I suppose, only he gets paid for it, and it's totes legal.

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Etiquette Lessons Straight from the 'Cars 2' Red Carpet

How many of us wake up for work in the morning thinking "today I will learn the proper way to walk the red carpet?" Anyone? Come on, show of hands? 

Ah, the fabulous life I lead when I'm not sitting on my couch, hunched over my laptop, diet Pepsi bottle to my right, 70 pounds of lap dog to my left. Yes, folks, I actually got out of my house. 

And when this blogger gets out of her house, she GETS OUT OF THE HOUSE. 

No jaunt to Jeffersonville for me. 

No ma'am. I woke up at the crack of dawn, climbed into my daddy's truck, and hauled my hiney for the airport for my first airplane ride since I was 15. And wouldn't you know it, I ran into a Sullivan County-ite sharing the first leg of my journey? But that's another column. 

I was LA-bound. 

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Cars 2 + LEGOs = Match Made in Kid-Dom

If my friend T didn't love me, she'd hate me. At her son's 7th birthday party a few weeks back, every time the boy opened a box of LEGOs, I started yelling, "T, look, it's LEGOs! Yipee!" Yes, she hates LEGOs. And yes, I'm still friends with her. What can I tell you? We've known each other since fourth grade? I can't abandon her now?

The fact is, I haven't a met a LEGO in my life I haven't liked. Growing up on a rural back road, with no cable (really), where the concept of public transportation was the stuff you read about in books, or better yet, built out of bricks, you learned to choose your entertainment wisely. Stuff that you would solve easily, tire of quickly, was better left behind. And that left LEGOs.

And so it was appropriate that when I was leaving for Los Angeles for my day job to cover the world premiere of Cars 2 on Disney's dime that an offer from Disney Consumer Products for my daughter to play with a portion of the accompanying Cars 2 LEGO line fall into my lap.

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Food for Kids Is Not What You Expect

If you go into pregnancy expecting to feed your kids EXACTLY what you eat, well, don't feel bad. You're EXACTLY like me. I'm a vegetarian (yeah, freak) married to a meat and potatoes dude (ahem, freakier). And you had better bet we laid some pretty crazy bets on what kinda kid we'd create.

So fast forward almost 6 years (sooooob), and guess who won?

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On Father's Day, I'm Glad My Husband's 'Gay'

It's a joke in our ultra-liberal household that my husband is gay. I shop at Border's. He shops at Bloomie's. He has more "product" in our bathroom than my daughter and myself combined.

You get the point. We jest. We live in a nation that is uncomfortable with a man who is comfortable with looking good, smelling good, and liking girls all at once.

But joke or not, it's on Father's Day that I'm most grateful that the father of my daughter is a man who isn't afraid to indulge in his inner princess, that he's COMFORTABLE with this joking, for his little princess. He's a man who has been known to sport a pink fingernail or two for the sake of experimentation, a man who has taken her declaration that she will be a fashion model when she grows up to mean "let her wear what she wants each day, because she needs to figure out what works for her."

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Bring Back My Global Warming -- It's June

I have been adamantly refusing to turn my heat on these past few days. It's not because I'm not cold.

No, I sit, huddled like I always envisioned the teeming masses must have decades ago, when I learned about them in grade school. Only instead of crouched at the gates of Ellis Island, I'm on my couch, pitiful with a blanket pulled up to my chin, a hooded sweatshirt up over my head.

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The Great Mystery of Why My Husband is Still Alive

You hear a lot about how opposites attract, don't you? Democrat marries Republican . . . only to implode. Yankees fan marries, shudder, Red Sox fan only to . . . well, you know.

So here it is. Where I kick all y'all's ass. I've been married 10 1/2 years and we are are:

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Gnomeo & Juliet Blu-Ray/DVD Giveaway Winners!

They say all good things must come to an end, but sometimes it's the end that end that's the REALLY good thing, right? And so it is with the gnome-tastic Gnomeo & Juliet Blu-Ray/DVD giveaway courtesy of Touchestone Pictures. It's close to entries, but that means two people won.

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Striking up Friendships on the Work Playground

Continuing the flow of getting old Inside Outs from the newspaper up on here! Enjoy one from June 2010!

By some scientists' count, we change friends on an average of seven years.

I can hear all the parents of kids running with the bad crowd breathing a giant sigh of relief.

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Calico Critters Giveaway: Ends 6/8

It's one of those little bits of wisdom that comes only with years of parenting. The best toys are the ones that your kids are still collecting years after they get the first one. Sure, they love everything the first day they get it. But it's the stuff they're still playing with six months, eight months, two years later that is the real gold.

And so it is with Calico Critters in our house. Confession: I was terrified of letting them in at first. They're TINY. Lots of teeny weeny pieces to lose, right? Bitty bits to step on (think the dreaded LEGO foot). But then I heard they were phthalate-free. And I saw how gosh darn cute they were . . . and well, you know how it happens y'all. Fast forward two years and here we are. Coordinating with Calico Critters to give away a set for Inside Out readers.

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