 Over in TV Moms land (you know, my TV Moms column) we're spicing things up a little bit for some Friday fun. This past week we played a little game of Name That TV Mom on my TV moms Facebook page - TV Moms: The good. The bad. The crazy. and turned it into a battle between the page and the TVMoms101 Twitter followers. Well, I had so much fun with that, that I decided to turn it into a weekly series for the column. Today, Friday, August 12, 2011 gave us our first puzzle: Name That TV Mom - Can you solve the puzzle? As the weeks go on and I find my groove in this you can expect things to get a little more challenging and for this blog to play an accompanying role in this party. Meaning you'll be able to come here for bonus hints and clues. So, I invite you to head on over to the wonderful and lovely land of TV moms and hop on board solving the puzzle of this week's very first mystery mama. Thanks for playing! Stay tuned...
 On August 6, 2011, what would have been Lucille Ball's 100th birthday there are celebrations and remembrances occurring across the web and television. For my part, I've dedicated a few of my recent articles in my TV Moms column to the incredible lady of a million laughs. You can take a trip down memory lane, remembering the episode Lucy Hires an English Tutor or get information on the Hallmark Channel 48-hour I Love Lucy marathon as well as TCM's Lucille Ball movie marathon. Also check in at my Facebook page: TV Moms: The good. The bad. The crazy. as we celebrate Lucille Ball's birthday with our favorite I Love Lucy quotes and moments. I Love Lucy might have been well before my time, but there's something incredibly special about this lady that has transcended across time. Thanks for stopping in, stay tuned...
 Okay, so it's not the new adventures of Winnie the Pooh, but it is the new adventures of me...This picture is just cuter. Now that August is nearly upon us, I'm thinking it's time to share my latest news in writing land. You might have noticed that in the last month or so I've been focusing primarily on my TV Moms Examiner column and less and less on my Billings Early Childhood/Parenting things. There's a reason for that. Earlier this month I met with the founder of the local magazine I regularly submit articles to and starting in August I'll be taking on a more active role on their website. I'll be doing some blogging about various parenting topics for them, and I'm excited to see where this will take me. This doesn't mean that I'm totally abandoning my Billings Examiner column, but odds are you'll only see the occasional article published there from here on out. I'll of course keep you posted on where and how you can keep up with me on the Simply Family website once everything gets up and running. Also in the land of random, but awesome: in July I had received an e-mail about a scavenger hunt that DoSomething.org was putting on with the suggestion that it might be a good tie-in for my TV Moms column. I definitely agreed and this exchange turned out to be a beautiful God-incidence in the making. Working on an upcoming piece for a magazine, the person who e-mailed me turned out to be the perfect source. She was incredible in answering my questions and it was just all around amazing. When I can let you know a little more about that, I totally will. Until then...Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
 “Just tell me the truth,” is a phrase any parent anywhere will at more than one point utter to their children. Yet when the child you’re saying this to is a mere 3 or 4 years old, you realize you’re not quite sure how to define “being honest” to him. On top of that, you have a dawning realization that this is a crucial moment in your parenting journey. It’s no longer just about fulfilling basic needs and oohing and ahhing over this sweet baby, but helping to shape the person your child is going to become. (Gulp).So that begs the question, how do you explain the concept of truth and honesty to a toddler/preschooler?
If you'd like the answer to that question, I direct you to my latest article. The truth about teaching honesty to kids. I vividly recall the first time I had a conversation with my daughter, urging her to tell me the truth. For the most part she's an extremely cautious girl and this translates into almost every area of her life, including things that have the potential to get her in trouble. However, in this instance the 'kid' beat out the 'caution.' She had colored on her closet doors. Wanting to give her the chance to tell me the truth, I asked her if she had done this. I could see the wheels turning as she weighed the consequences of admitting she had done this versus pretending she had no idea how those crazy scribbles had wound up on her closet door. She tried to talk her away around it at first claiming ignorance...You know, in the way a 4-year-old might. At that point I was throwing around this unknown word, "truth" at her. "I just want you to tell me the truth honey. I won't be mad if you tell me the truth. I just want to know what happened and then we can talk about what to do." She still wasn't quite sure what road she wanted to take, but eventually told me what happened. We had ourselves a nice conversation and she got the task of attempting to clean it up, but it left me thinking...How do you explain truth and honesty to kids in a way that makes sense. Obviously it's something that needs to be taught, but how...Only after I saw an episode of Special Agent Oso, which talked about breaking down honesty in three simple steps did I dust off this thought and decide to put it into an article. So there you have it, our first venture into truth telling and honesty and what led to a breakdown of keeping it real for your kids in having these conversations.
 When I was in college I went through a whole series of different majors before finding the right fit. After all those missteps, I found my home in the Human Services field. My first internship was for an agency whose mission was Child Abuse Prevention. That first internship and subsequently, my first job in my field, was a real eye opener. I had genuinely lived a fairly sheltered life, and it was heartbreaking to see the results of abuse shattering the perfect innocence of a child. Even more so knowing there were children resting on that imperfect bubble - where you know their life is being touched in some way by abuse or neglect, but not enough to substantiate and bring in the help their family needed. Too many children fall through the cracks. April is the month designated to raise awareness and provide people with tools to help in the fight to prevent child abuse. In March I started my coverage on raising awareness with an article about preventing child sexual abuse. This topic in particular is one I feel like we, as parents, need to start talking and keeping talking about with our children. The statistics I uncovered while doing the research were terrifying. It might not be a comfortable conversation to have with our children, but it's one we have to have. To kick off the month I wrote a piece about how we can all be a part of the solution. There are things we can do that might seem small, but if it has the potential to make a difference in the life of a child...Why wouldn't we do it? Additionally, I'll also link you to a piece I did in 2010 that will provide you with suggestions about volunteering or donating to specific organizations. I have a few other things planned for the month including a guide to any activities going on locally for Child Abuse Prevention Month. Ironically, when we were at the library last week, the book I checked out was about the impact child sexual abuse has on one family. I really hadn't looked at what the book was about; I grabbed it because it's an author I really enjoy and hadn't read the book yet. So look for a review to come on that book some time this month. If you want to show your support for this cause, consider donning a blue ribbon, as that's the symbol for Child Abuse Prevention.
On Examiner.com there's this nifty little discussion feature, which I haven't used up until now. But tonight I finally decided to roll the dice and see what kind of a response I could get on what can only be described as a hot-button topic in the parenting world. To spank, or not to spank? This one question can stir up emotions like no other. Odds are, even if you aren't a parent, you've probably developed strong opinions about it one way or another. If that's the case, then I invite you to participate in that discussion: http://www.examiner.com/billings/discuss/to-spank-or-not-to-spankThe plan is to publish an article some time in April weighing both sides of this issue. If you're uncomfortable sharing your thoughts, but you'd like to participate, please feel free to e-mail me. As always, if you don't want your name shared, that's completely your call, and I will maintain your anonymity. I look forward to the discussion, see you there!
Jinxed is the parent who even dares to think, "We've sure been healthy this winter. How lucky are we...Crap, no, I didn't just think that, knock on wood..." *sigh* Too late. Such is my life this past week. It had actually looked to be a fairly decent week writing wise, but life had another plan in store. On Wednesday my girl had a bit of a cough, but nothing to really raise any red flags...Or so I thought. By the end of the day she had a raging fever - and by raging I mean the highest fever she's had in her four years of life. 103 plus. On top of that, shortly after going to bed for the night the poor girl experienced some unfortunate digestive pyrotechnics. I think it's safe to say that no one actually enjoys the process of throwing up - it's upsetting, yet my poor baby was melting down over the fact that "only babies have accidents." Oh kiddo. Not even close. After this first incident I knew we were in for a long night and indeed we were. I should say here that Ask-a-Nurse just might be one of the greatest inventions ever. I'm panicking over the 103+ temperature, ready to dash her to the emergency room, if need be, but the kind nurse talked me back off the ledge. Rather than going into a long and detailed account of the rest of our sleepless night, I'll just say that a phone call was made to my parents at one in the morning and multiple loads of laundry were done throughout the night. As I mentioned above, I had all kinds of plans for the writing that would get done this week - I was going to be on top of things, darn it! Alas life had a different plan. Every time I sat down to work, the ladybug needed some snuggles or assistance of some kind or another. And at the end of the day, which hat tops the pile? Mom or Writer? No question there, Mom all the way. Plus, who in their right mind would turn down snuggle time from a normally active 4-year-old?The following days haven't been any more productive, though I did finally manage to get something pulled together today and that was more a 'have to' than anything since today is National Genealogy Day and I had already been gathering quotes and statements for the article, so I couldn't just let it pass me by. Fortunately, for most of the day Miss Abby seemed to be rebounding...You know, except for the cough that seems to have bombarded her full force now that everything else is simmering down. Ugh. Poor kid. Kind of breaks your heart when your kid's constant refrain is either, "It hurts" or "Why I gotta be sick, mama?" So for now this mama is praying for a healthy baby (she's still my baby) and hopefully a more productive coming week. Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for me, I applied for another online writing job...I'm hoping. P.S. The article for Genealogy Day is essentially a celebration of grandparents. My favorite quote used in the article is: "Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation." -Lois Wyse To weigh in on why grandparents are so special, go to Celebrating grandparents on National Genealogy Day.
As you may or may not know, back in October I added a Family Night series to my Early Childhood/Parenting column. As you can imagine, I've started to build quite a little library of family night ideas and it seemed like it would be beneficial to my readers to provide an index of those articles. So, if ever you're in need of some inspiration for family night ideas, you will no longer have to rack your brain or attempt to scroll through the pages of my articles to find, "that one that's just on the tip of your brain..." Instead, you can just go to, Family Night: A reader's guide. The index will be updated as new articles are published. If you ever have a Family Night idea that you'd like to see featured in this particular series, you know the drill, shoot me an e-mail or you can always look me up on Facebook. Enjoy your family!
 Seriously, where are Max and Ruby's parents? In case the title gave your heart a bit of a hiccup we're talking about Nick Jr.' s children's cartoon, Max and Ruby. Everybody okay? Good, let's move on.
Ever since I was introduced to this cartoon (one that my daughter inexplicably really enjoys) the same question has plagued me. Where the...are Max and Ruby's parents?
It was only a matter of time before this particular question became fodder for my Fun Friday series. I'll have you know, that time is here. Here and now. While I (and we) never successfully managed to discover a concrete answer to that question, I relished coming up with possible answers. I also managed to persuade a few lovelies to contribute their theories. I invite you to do the same.
So, with no further ado, why don't you head on over to Fun Friday: Where are Max and Ruby's parents? and see what you come up with.
Just a short and sweet post to let you know that Barnes & Noble is taking part in Read Across America by offering some pretty great deals and discounts in the children's section. However, you'll want to get on this sooner rather than later since the deals are only good until this Sunday, March 6, 2011. For links to the coupons and more information Read Across America, check out this article.
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