Pregnancy~The Top Ten Things Not Even Your Mama Tells you There are books a million about what you are supposed to do while pregnant. But there is so much information that is withheld from all of the books.It's like a really cruel game and we all just like to watch the new person learn as they go. But not me,I'll tell you what your mama won't. Pregnant women; your smelling powers will become so heightened that you will be able to smell a cookie baking 30 miles away.Unfortunately, no one ever tell you that you will also be able to smell food burning in a wok in China, body odor from a homeless man laying out in the sun wearing his winter parka on a 100 degree day,your husband's dirty socks downstairs and dog shit from the humane society on the other side of town. Pregnancy~Top ten things not even your mama told you Photo courtesy of Google Mama; your morning sickness will actually be all day sickness; culminating in an all out, earth shattering, mind breaking alternating marathon of explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting brought on by whatever may have happened to blow your direction that day.The White Castle burger that you had to have yesterday can quickly become the catalyst for simultaneous mass exodus of the bodily fluid kind. Thank God nothing like this happens on the birthing table. Mom; your skin will become so dry from hormones that your feet will itch to the point that you will literally rip flesh to quench the itch. That no amount of hydration, moisturizing or wishful thinking and praying will EVER bring your feet back from the grasp of the dry Sahara hell that is the new status quo of your feet. Mommy; The Linea Nigra is actually a landing strip so your husband can find his way back into the pregnant promised land, because, let's face it, there comes time in pregnancy where those "vivid" dreams and our own devices are all we are left with. A little point in the right direction never hurt anybody. Mother; your once beautiful and pert bosoms, will be replaced with over indulged,filled to capacity milk bags with what looks like a road map made of bulging blue veins. And that your sweet little pinky tip, glass cutting nipples will be replaced with flat saucers that look like a bulls-eye..and will NEVER revert back to their previous glory ( without the help of surgery). Mum; your labia will become so engorged with blood, that when you give birth your nether regions will look like Goldie Hawn's over injected collagen fish mouth in the First Wive's Club. Mami; the same outrageous hormonal highs and lows that make you smack a random passer by for looking at your baby bump will be the very same that make you cry when fly lands on your shoulder. Momma; you may have flatulence of the skunk killing kind. So horribly pungent and uncontrollable that you may get yourself barred from any women's functions that you previously belonged to. The Junior League does not appreciate those sorts of donations. Ma; your pregnancy glow is actually increased blood flow causing you to sweat like a fat whore in church. And that the increased hormones that cause the glow also bring with it increased susceptibility to acne (of the face, back & ass variety), increased cervical fluid ( the kind that could cause an unsuspecting pregnant woman to slip right off her stool if she weren't wearing her appropriated parachute pregnancy panties), hair growth in unsuspecting parts ( bearded lady , anyone?), and constipation ( talk about insult to injury) Mumsy; all the meticulous and copious amounts of time that you have spent over the years "landscaping" probably the very source of your pregnancy will become, at 9 months pregnant , non existent. That which once resembled the topiary of the Tuileries will no be more akin to an abandoned outhouse.And we all say that we are going to make our husbands shave us...and none of us actually ever do. There are more, many more, but I feel I have scared the first time mothers sufficiently for now.Happy procreating and remember, there is a 98% chance that you will vomit and or poop on the birthing table.

6 secrets I learned at makeup artist school, By Sharon Yi, TotalBeauty.com - You could say that I have a love/hate relationship with makeup. Some days I enjoy playing with all the different colors and get excited when my smoky eye turns out perfectly. But then there are those days when my liner refuses to go on straight, my bronzer makes me look like an Asian Snookie, or my lashes refuse to curl. That's when I want to toss my makeup bag out my bathroom window. Read more: http://thelook.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/10/10098289-6-secrets-i-learned-at-makeup-artist-school

Decrease Stress, Increase Productivity http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/decrease-stress-increase-productivity-.html

After tallying the total number of points scored by each team during the four challenges this year - Easter, summer, Halloween and the winter holidays - our judges have reported the results and named a grand prize winner! The overall year-end honors go to the talented ladies of Team Phoenix! Congratulations to Ashley, Wendy, Jacquilyn and Kristyn! ALL of our teams went above and beyond time after time this year. Great job, ladies, and thanks for everything! Happy New Year!!!

Worth it or not: A shopping Guide SmartMoney.com - We've all been there, standing in the aisle of a store, spending way too much time weighing the small differences between two similar products. Will the more expensive umbrella really perform better? When it comes to a laptop bag, is $120 too much, too little, or just right? Here's some help. Each month, SmartMoney Magazine looks at sets of two similar consumer products, and assesses the better buy. This year, we looked at a wide variety of goods, including blenders, deep fryers and Digital SLR cameras. To aid in your holiday shopping, here are seven suggestions: http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/family-money/worth-it-or-not-a-shopping-guide/

Why we need to let kids be creative By Carolina A. Miranda, Parenting.com It's a brisk winter morning in New York City and a class of bubbly preschoolers have burst into Room 5 of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School for a period of free play. Amid an explosion of drawing, coloring, and play-dough kneading, Maxine, 3, and Harper, 4, two towheaded girls in pink skirts, are building a tower out of colorful wood blocks. Their structure, however, is top-heavy, and it begins to wobble. The pair stops and scrutinizes their work. Harper dismantles the tower and starts to rebuild. "Let's put it like this," she tells Maxine, using the biggest blocks to create a solid foundation. Up the tower goes again, this time standing firmly on a solid base. This may not seem like a remarkable activity -- kids build stuff and pull it apart on a daily basis. But what Harper did in revising her construction methods was to engage a two-step thought process known as "divergent thinking." First, her mind flipped through her knowledge on the geometry of blocks (cubes are sturdy; cones, not so much). Then it generated new ideas for how she might use them (place large cubes at the bottom, instead of on top). Divergent thinking is key to problem solving and is the backbone of creativity -- understanding what is, and then imagining the possibilities of what could be. The word "creativity," in our society, tends to be applied to artistic endeavors. But divergent thinking is an essential part of everyday life, whether it's navigating office politics or devising a new social-media network. When a toddler figures out that he can climb a strategically placed chair to reach a cookie on the kitchen counter, he has engaged in highly creative problem solving (to the chagrin of his parents). "We all have creative potential," says Mark Runco, Ph.D., director of the University of Georgia's Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development. "Our job as parents and teachers is to help kids fulfill it." Whether that potential is being fulfilled is another story entirely. Kyung Hee Kim, Ph.D., an educational psychologist at the College of William & Mary, in Virginia, has spent the past decade poring over the creativity scores of more than 300,000 American K-12 students. The news is not good: "Creativity scores have significantly decreased since 1990," she says. Moreover, "creativity scores for kindergartners through third-graders decreased the most, and those from the fourth through sixth grades decreased by the next largest amount." Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/living/let-kids-be-creative-p/index.html?hpt=hp_bn8

Hi, I'm Momwich - I've been a mommy blogger since my gorgeous daughters were 6 and 2... fast forward a few years and several thousand dollars in girl scout fees, cheer uniforms and orthodontics and they're now 16 and 12 - and I'm still blogging about my parenting fails :) http://www.momwich.net

My mom had me write thank-you notes for each and every gift on my birthday and Christmas. I still do it. It makes a big impression with me when I get a thank-you note, too! ______ Go retro: Teach the kids how to write thank-you notes By Devin White, The (Shreveport, La.) Times Now that Christmas has come and gone and all the presents have been opened, let the kids to take a short break from the toys and gadgets to show their gift-givers a little appreciation. According to Cynthia Hightower-Jenkins, specialist in etiquette in business and protocol, writing and sending thank-you notes teaches children gratitude and proper etiquette. But the key to success starts at a young age. "I think that's something children should do the moment they start receiving gifts and have any verbalization whatsoever," she said. "Even if the kid is 3 years old and can't write, the parents can write the note and ask the kid to scribble something on there." Patsy Taylor, of Bossier City, La., began teaching her twin sons, Jonathan and Jarrett, 12, to write and send thank-you notes when they were in kindergarten. Not only did Taylor want to make this a habit for her children, she also used the opportunity to improve her children's writing and critical thinking skills. "We don't have family that live here. They all live out of town, on both sides of our family, so they send presents for different occasions," she said. "I said 'rather than a phone call, let's send something that they can remember, and it'll be a nice memento of them that our relatives can keep throughout the years.' " Taylor's children are in middle school now, but she says they've kept up the practice of writing and sending thank-you cards. "One reason it's important is because it helps people know that you actually care for them," Jarrett said. "They can also keep it for memories." Jonathan said when he writes the notes, he always includes something he loves about the gift. "It's so you can let those people know how much you appreciate those gifts," he said. Read more: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011-12-27/Go-retro-Teach-the-kids-how-to-write-thank-you-notes/52240568/1

This fall will be my first attempt at homeschooling my preschooler. Been prepping the "classroom" and making numerous supply trips to Staples and OfficeMax. I'm really excited!

Here's one I know has probably NEVER been complained about before....... Dear House, will you please either clean yourself or start throwing things at the people who defile you?! Oh, but not me. You can't throw things at me because I've been picking you up for years!! I've earned the right to defile you if I want to!

"They Shot Him, Papa!": Finding Smarter Ways to Talk to Kids About Diversity David Valdes Greenwood Teaching children about diversity can be a tricky proposition. In the "No Child Left Behind" era, so much time is devoted to preparing students for test-taking that old school subjects like good citizenship, social behavior, and community values may get short shrift. (There is, after all, no standardized test for "plays well with others.") Multiculturalism -- so widely emphasized in the Marlo Thomas 70's -- often ends up limited to theme days and special projects. When my daughter was in Kindergarten, the subject of diversity did not arise in her class until Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This is how we found out that they were talking about race: over dinner, she announced that Martin Luther King Jr. wanted people with white skin and brown skin to be friends but people got mad so they shot him. While that is not an inaccurate summary of the history involved, it does pretty much foreground the assassination and diminish the rest of his accomplishments. It's a little depressing to think that the legacy of Dr. King's life could be boiled down into "Equality will get you killed." Obviously, race murder was not the subject we'd expected to be discussing when we asked "How was school, honey?" so we probed to find out what else she had learned. All she could remember was that people have different skin colors and that some people really don't like people with brown skin. As a mixed race girl in a school 95% white, this was not a small thing to ponder. This theme continued all week at school, with her classmates making paints to match their own skin colors, which I assume was meant to be empowering, but which only cemented the notion of pigment being key. I was volunteering in class that week and was asked to make a rainbow using the skin colors labeled by student name; I counter-proposed and suggested a collage, with all the colors mixed. Both ideas are ways of saying "we're all in this together" but the second approach moved away from any kind of spectrum in which similar colors would be closest to each other. Click the link to continue reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-valdes-greenwood/talking-to-kids-about-diversity_b_1193801.html?ncid=webmail11

Congrats to the Eggo Grand Prize winners! Once they're posted here, I'll be sure to tweet.

Here is my post about the Wish4Snow! http://frostedfingers.com/2010/11/77kids-memorial/

Who doesn't love The Beatles? Their songs are now available with the click of a button. http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2010-11-24-beatlesales_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

'Unschooling' Gaining Popularity, Allows Children Alternative Learning Tools By LEANNE ITALIE http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/unschooling-gaining-popul_n_940770.html -- School's never out for 14-year-old Zoe Bentley. Nor is it ever in. The perky teen from Tucson, Ariz., explores what she likes, when she likes as deeply as she chooses every day of the year. As an "unschooler," Zoe is untethered from the demands of traditional, compulsory education. That means, at the moment, she's checking out the redwoods of California with her family, tinkering with her website and looking forward to making her next video on her favorite subject, exogeology, the study of geology on other planets. "I love seeing the history of an area," Zoe said. "Maybe a volcano erupted and grew taller over time, or wind eroded rock into sand dunes, or a meteor hit the ground and made a crater. Finding out how these and other formations formed is something I just really like." Zoe's cheer: "Exogeology rocks!" Unschooling has been around for several decades, but advocates say there has been an uptick as more families turn to home-schooling overall. Reliable data is hard to come by, but estimates of children and teens home-schooled in the U.S. range from 1.5 million to 2 million. Of those, as many as one-third could be considered unschoolers like Zoe, meaning their parents are "facilitators," available with materials and other resources, rather than topdown "teachers." There's no fixed curriculum, course schedule or attempt to mimic traditional classrooms. Unless, of course, their children ask for those things. click the link above to continue reading!

Many of these mistakes are my pet peeves!!! ____ 7 Spelling and Grammar Errors that Make You Look Dumb Don’t let these easy-to-fix spelling and grammar mistakes make you look unprofessional. By: Leslie Ayres, The Real Job Search Guru Many brilliant people have some communication weak spots. Unfortunately, the reality is that written communication is a big part of business, and how you write reflects on you. Poor spelling and grammar can destroy a professional image in an instant. Even if your job doesn't require much business writing, you'll still have emails to send and notes to write. And if you're looking for a job, your cover letters and resumes will likely mean the difference between getting the interview or not. Bad grammar and spelling make a bad impression. Don't let yourself lose an opportunity over a simple spelling or grammar mistake. Here are seven simple grammatical errors that I see consistently in emails, cover letters and resumes. Tip: Make yourself a little card cheat sheet and keep it in your wallet for easy reference. You're / Your The apostrophe means it's a contraction of two words; "you're" is the short version of "you are" (the "a" is dropped), so if your sentence makes sense if you say "you are," then you're good to use you're. "Your" means it belongs to you, it's yours. * You're = if you mean "you are" then use the apostrophe * Your = belonging to you You're going to love your new job! It's / Its This one is confusing, because generally, in addition to being used in contractions, an apostrophe indicates ownership, as in "Dad's new car." But, "it's" is actually the short version of "it is" or "it has." "Its" with no apostrophe means belonging to it. * It's = it is * Its = belonging to it It's important to remember to bring your telephone and its extra battery. They're / Their / There "They're" is a contraction of "they are." "Their" means belonging to them. "There" refers to a place (notice that the word "here" is part of it, which is also a place – so if it says here and there, it's a place). There = a place * They're = they are * Their = belonging to them They're going to miss their teachers when they leave there. Loose / Lose These spellings really don't make much sense, so you just have to remember them. "Loose" is the opposite of tight, and rhymes with goose. "Lose" is the opposite of win, and rhymes with booze. (To show how unpredictable English is, compare another pair of words, "choose" and "chose," which are spelled the same except the initial sound, but pronounced differently. No wonder so many people get it wrong!) * Loose = it's not tight, it's loosey goosey * Lose= "don't lose the hose for the rose" is a way to remember the same spelling but a different pronunciation I never thought I could lose so much weight; now my pants are all loose! Lead / Led Another common but glaring error. "Lead" means you're doing it in the present, and rhymes with deed. "Led" is the past tense of lead, and rhymes with sled. So you can "lead" your current organization, but you "led" the people in your previous job. * Lead = present tense, rhymes with deed * Led = past tense, rhymes with sled My goal is to lead this team to success, just as I led my past teams into winning award after award. A lot / Alot / Allot First the bad news: there is no such word as "alot." "A lot" refers to quantity, and "allot" means to distribute or parcel out. There is a lot of confusion about this one, so I'm going to allot ten minutes to review these rules of grammar. Between you and I This one is widely misused, even by TV news anchors who should know better. In English, we use a different pronoun depending on whether it's the subject or the object of the sentence: I/me, she/her, he/him, they/them. This becomes second nature for us and we rarely make mistakes with the glaring exception of when we have to choose between "you and I" or "you and me." Grammar Girl does a far better job of explaining this than I, but suffice to say that "between you and I" is never correct, and although it is becoming more common, it's kind of like saying "him did a great job." It is glaringly incorrect. The easy rule of thumb is to replace the "you and I" or "you and me" with either "we" or "us" and you'll quickly see which form is right. If "us" works, then use "you and me" and if "we" works, then use "you and I." Between you and me (us), here are the secrets to how you and I (we) can learn to write better. Master these common errors and you'll remove some of the mistakes and red flags that make you look like you have no idea how to speak. Read the article: http://work.lifegoesstrong.com/7-spelling-and-grammar-errors-make-you-look-dumb?utm_source=OB_work&obref=obnetwork