outside the (toy) box

Dear Santa-

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, but I went through this whole disillusionment thing when I found out that you didn’t exist.  Life had no meaning.  My parents had been lying to me and when I uncovered the sham and started to grieve for you, then bam bam bam down came the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny too.  It was Read the complete Post.

We’re all snowed in here in Northeast City. I love it (I will only feel this way today - the rest of the winter will be piss and moan city, so enjoy my positivity while it lasts)!  Thing 1’s preschool is coming to campus today to go sledding. I’m so excited, I wore my fleece. I’m going to surprise her and join in!  Workday sledding! SQUEEEE!

This will take away from my blogging work that I do so diligently at my desk all day, but I wanted to point to a few things that are pretty interesting…

First, CCFC and Lisa at Corp Babysitter are all over Webkinz for adding ads to their website, on the sly.  Bastards!  We’ve discussed the need for ad free virtual worlds here before, so this is an important update.  CCFC lets you email Ganz and tell them that they are scumbags. I highly suggest you do so - it takes 2 secs.  Izzy, you’re the VW queen - comments, new ad free ideas to add?

Second, I’m intrigued by the person who seems to accuse Lisa of being a communist when she recommends an alternative to the Scholastic Book Fair (New readers? Scholastic = bad.  Venting on this Here and Here.).  Check out this little exchange in the comments from Corp. Babysitter.  Read the complete Post.

So, we did the Thanksgiving thing and it was great.  The kids had a ball and I almost had the great pleasure of winning the family poker tournament (only to lose to my dastardly husband who used my 87 year old aunt as distraction).  At least we’re keeping it in the family.

At any rate, I realized that this year blogging (well, reading blogs, which I like far more than posting) is very very high on my list of things for which I feel thankful, probably higher than it should be, but that’s another story that involves a dull tale of woe about  Read the complete Post.

Subarctic Mama (with her superhuman ability to tolerate pain) and Redstar (the statistical anomoly) have memed me - I finally feel like a real blogger.  I am to share 7 weird and random facts about myself.  Others’ weird and random facts have fascinated me (check out Marjorie and Tracee) – so I’m excited to participate.

1. I rode in Al Gore’s motorcade to one of the presidential debates in 2000.  I was in there with a couple journalists and a secret service agent.  They wanted me to tell my favorite dirty joke Read the complete Post.

Okey doke. I had been thinking about how infrequently I mention Thing 2 on this blog and how you probably all think I am a neglectful, uncaring mother incapable of loving her baby.  So, I was going to post a little memo about how much I adore him (I do, I do, I do - it’s SICK how much I love that baby) and all his adorable quirks (he has a intense hair fetish and likes to pull my eyelashes while we snuggle), and how I am actually very focused on him for a number of reasons (e.g., not the least of which is that he has “THE Read the complete Post.

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is having their annual summit in Boston in April. 

The topic is sexualization of children(read as BRATZ et al - that image above is of Bratz Babyz, btw - I know my dd always wore a LOT of liquid eyeliner when she was part of the under 1 set.) Read the complete Post.

Well, since I was the proud winner of a gift from Stewgad, I am required by blogging good karma law to make the same offer to you all…

I hereby promise to send some sort of tangible, physical gift before the end of this calendar year to the first 5 commenters on this post.  In light of my desire to not consume Read the complete Post.