Big Kid

Photo from Andrea on PoppytalkWhat happened when artist dad Aye Jay Morano sent his third grade son Cohen's water color paintings out to several, very cool street artists, graffiti writers, and children's illustrators for collaborative alterations?

This incredibly cool-looking and happy-making book The Rest Is Up To You, that's what (thanks, Andrea for sharing this over on Poppytalk).

I haven't read Kelly Corrigan's bestselling memoir The Middle Place, but I know several people who loved it. In this video she made to promote her new book, Lift (see the long version; it's totally worth the click), Kelly talks briefly about the vulnerability of raising two daughters.

And yes, now I have a mighty crush on her open and intimate fierceness as a mom.

Photo from Mighty Girl

Let it be known that I detest goody bags at kids' birthday parties. They're little bags full of crap that will soon end up in your vacuum cleaner and down in your floor vents until the end of time.

flickr: Photo by Manish Bansal

Ugh, head lice. If the thought of sticking your fingers in your kid's louse-ridden hair gives you the heebie jeebies, I'm right there with you sister. But we may not even have to think about it anymore!

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine says lathering up the kids' head with a lice-fighting shampoo could be replaced with a simple pill.

My 7-year-old is becoming a stronger reader every week. However, I keep waiting for him to hit that moment of complete reading bliss. I do know that his willingness to read on his own drastically improved when we got him a reading lamp -- the above Minnen Wall/Reading Lamp ($7.99) from IKEA -- and mounted it on the wall next to his top bunk bed.

Here are a bunch of simple but cool bedside reading lights for kids — elementary age on up to teen -- and they all come in under $35!

Photo by honeybee69

Recently in the meat aisle, my 5 year old daughter asked me where the chicken we cook for dinner comes from. "Well, from chickens," I said.

I could see her suburban brain working as she tried to connect the dots from the orange feathered bird at the petting zoo to the shiny pink slices underneath the plastic wrap. I explain more: "People raise the birds and kill them for meat. We eat meat, that's how it's done."

How food gets to our plates is a day to day reality. Would I take my 5 year old to a slaughterhouse? No. But when children ask about stuff like this, I believe they deserve an honest answer, even if it takes them a little time to ... ahem ... digest.

That's what Andrea Charman thought, too, but look what happened to her.

Photo by rumsey823

I always blamed the reason I can't add 2 plus 2 or balance my checkbook on the right brain/left brain thing, that because I am a girl, I'm stronger on the creative and intuitive side of the brain than the logical, rational one.

That's what we're always told, right? That boys are better in math and girls are better in language arts?

A new study suggests that female teachers who are anxious about math themselves might be to blame ... unintentionally, but still.

I'm glad I didn't give myself too difficult of a resolution this year, because I've been a tad slow getting going. But I'm happy to say that I've sort of completed Step One of my 2010 Resolution to Be a Better Public School Mom: Getting organized.

I finally got my husband to hang my paper organizer in my kitchen last weekend. That was a major feat in and of itself. See the picture I took at right. (Next time, clear the cereal boxes and clutter off the counter first, Slob.)

I'm planning to use this for all of my son's important school papers and homework. But already that plan is going awry. I took a look inside my great new school organizer last night ...