I Willingly Choose A Lemon

Two summers ago, I got close enough to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, Vermont to justify the drive to their Scoop Shop. It was there that I ate heaven on a spoon: Lemon Meringue Ice Cream. This creamy lemon ice cream had a tangy lemony twist, fluffy meringue swirls & pie crust pieces mushed inside. There was only one problem: it was only available at the Scoop Shop and I recently learned that this flavor has been retired.

(moment of silence)

Oh, sure, I see that their new Key Lime Pie flavor is basically the same thing, but there is only one problem: it's lime. If I want lemon, lime isn't going to cut it.

But, then, last month I tried something that could scratch my itch. The kids and I were at the BlogHer Boston gathering at Susan's home. Friendly's had been kind enough to supply us with enough ice cream for a serious binge.

But I only had eyes for one thing: Friendly's Lemonade Roll.

First, Del's Lemonade? The absolutely best, yummiest frozen lemonade, right from my hometown of Rhode Island. Plus, the roll is ALL lemon: lemon sherbet inside, lemon ice cream on the outside, with little lemon flavored "bursts" inside the sherbet.

Be still my puckered little heart.

I cannot believe I could hold myself to only one piece. I'd like Friendly's to sell single slices of this in the supermarket because I'm afraid to bring a whole one home----it won't make it the night.

No, I couldn't even blame him if it was all gone. He's all about the chocolate.

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This post was written because I have the munchies and really want a Lemonade Roll. Friendly's did not ask me to write this post, nor did anyone promise to send me Lemonade Rolls if I wrote this. I just wanted to spread the news so that Friendly's doesn't get any dumb ideas and "retire" this flavor.

Win Some Hot Wheels From All Modern Baby

Just looking at the home page of All Modern Baby makes my uterus hurt.



Don't worry, I'm not planning to have a fourth child (we've moved on to consider a dependent of the canine variety), but I sure don't mind spending a few minutes wandering the virtual aisles of this huge online store which carries all the hippest products like Stokke Sleepi, the Bugaboo Bee stroller, P'Kolino's Book Buggee and Skip Hop's diaper bags.



I'd like to know why I didn't know about such awesome-looking baby items ten years ago when I was wandering that "big box" store trying to decide between the insulting teddy-bear fabric or the boring plaid patterns for my soon-to-be daughter. Just take a look at how times have changed: All Modern Baby's list of brands is like a who's who in the world of cool baby products.


All Modern Baby is part of the huge online retailer CSN stores who own a dizzying number of shopping sites: there are over two dozen sites beginning with the letter "A" alone!. (I've ordered from CSN stores before; we got our very neat and useful hall unit from All Modern Furniture).

The only thing I could say is lacking on this site is a baby registry. Because, if there is anything more fun than shopping for a new baby, it is telling other people what you'd like them to buy for your new baby. Plus, it helps limit the number of teddy-bear festooned items you have to open at the baby shower.

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For my beloved readers, I have an adorable Italtrike 10" tricycle to give away. I had the opportunity to see Italtrike's line of kid vehicles at Toy Fair earlier this year, and they make some neat-looking wheels. I love the classic look of this tricycle which reminds me of the one I rode back in the day.



With a value of $96, this tricycle would be a perfect first bike for little ones between 18 months and 3 years.

To enter to win, just leave a comment to this post telling me what product you most covet on All Modern Baby. This contest will be open through Monday, July 13th at midnight, EST. One winner will be chosen at random from all the entries. Be sure to leave an email address so that I can contact you if you win. One entry per person.

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This post was written for All Modern Baby in order to give away the Italtrike to a reader. I was not compensated outside of the giveaway. Why'd I do it? For the good karma, baby, the good karma.


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Congratulations to Amy of Doobleh-Vay for winning the Italtrike from All Modern Baby!

If A Boy Goes In The Woods, Does It Still Count As Potty Training?

I once received this morsel of parenting advice from an acquaintance who potty trained her child before 2:

"You can potty train them young, and put up with accidents all over your house, or you can wait until their older, and deal with diapers longer".

To me, this was a no-brainer: you mean I can either have a pee-soaked couch or not?

So, yeah, none of my kids were out of diapers more than a couple of months before their 3rd birthday. My oldest went from diapers, to Pull-Ups, to nothing, day and night, within a couple of weeks.

My middle was a bit more of a challenge because she has "I don't have to pee" syndrome which makes a child wait until the moment of no return. Even now, at six, I have to tell her to go to the bathroom when I see her doing a sort of spastic Irish jig.

Then I got ready to potty train my last child, my son.

Oy.

We skipped past his 2nd birthday and watched the 3rd pass us by with absolutely no interest in potty training. It didn't matter if he were in diapers, pull-ups or au naturel, there was no "oops!" reaction if he went in his pants. And so I put cotton balls in my ears when my mom came over, ignored questions of "how OLD is he?" when changing his diaper in public, and prayed to the potty gods that he'd decide to get out of diapers before he started growing hair on his chin.

I was calm until we reached the summer before his fourth birthday in mid-September. FOUR was looming (as was a Disney World trip), and I was starting to sweat.

My mother, my poor mother, tried everything with him too. She just couldn't believe he didn't want to get out of diapers. But, my son has a stubborn streak in him a mile wide and wasn't going to budge.

So, she proposed he do the one thing all men seem to love to do: pee outside.

"Come and water my flowers!", she'd say cheerfully when we came to visit, totally ignoring the fact that this was completely out of character for her.

But, he did it! He LOVED peeing outside. Back at my house, he'd jump up and say, "I PEE OUTSIDE!" and I'd open the door and watch him run to the back of our yard, the thankfully wooded and private part of our property. My only concern was that if he didn't start using indoor plumbing soon, he was in for one tough winter.

Then one day, as he walked back from his potty session, I noticed something different. His shorts were in his hand. His gait looked. . .uncomfortable, as if he was dirty. I knew what he had done and ran to get the baby wipes.

While I cleaned him off, I explained that while it was ok for little boys to pee in the woods, it was definitely not easy or clean to do the other. He understood and never tried that again.

That experience also left him with about 25 mosquito bites along his bum and legs, further solidifying in his head that he would NEVER try that again.

About two weeks after that, he decided that indoor plumbing was a nice invention and never looked back.

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This post was written as part of a blog blast for Parent Bloggers Network to introduce Pull-Ups' Potty Project, a series of webisodes following the real life potty training adventures of six families. Fortunately for you, I am pretty certain that not one of these families is using the "go pee on my flowers" method of potty training.

Five PBN bloggers who participate in this blog blast will be chosen at random to win a Flip Video Camera.

This View Sees The Past and The Future

My best view is a place and a feeling all wrapped up into one.



It is a real place: a pond in Massachusetts where my grandmother lived just a few feet from the banks in her small one-bedroom house. I learned a lot of things here as a child: how a bullfrog sounds, what a sewing needle is (later learned these are really called damsel flies), how to dive, steer a canoe and know when a boy was flirting with me.



After my grandmother died, I moved into her small house and made it my own, a single working girl with her two cats, who wasn't afraid of the pitch-black nights, or the moon reflecting on the water, or the howling winds in a storm. In the summer, I'd wake up at 6am and swim before getting dressed, boarding a subway and making my way into the Boston noise. The feel of the pond would be on my skin all day, like a wonderful secret no one else knew.

When I had moved away to live with my future husband, my parents sold their home on the other side of the state and moved into this same home on the pond. I was married on the banks of the pond, overlooking that lovely water.



I brought my children there for their first summer swims, and now they are the ones who beg to feed the fish, to swim just a little longer, to look for baby turtles, just like I did so many years ago.



My grandmother, her brother, my father. . .they all lived here and are gone. But, they really aren't, not as long as I can still look out at the pond.

So, yes, it is a place. But it is also a feeling that I can summon at a moment's notice. It's a feeling of family, of friendship, of time's passing and the knowledge that I will always be a part of this place, and this view, long after I too am gone.



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This post, written along the theme of "My Best View", was written for Parent Bloggers Network to introduce Windex's new All-in-One glass cleaning tool.

How to schedule house cleaning

When I first became a "stay-at-home" mom, I realized that one thing I hated more than anything was trying to cram an entire day of housecleaning into one day. But, when I tried to do a "little here/little there", it was way too haphazard.

So, I did what I always do and made a list (lists are my tried-and-true way to feel in control). The list consisted of all the parts of the house that needed to be cleaned every week. I then made a weekly schedule for when things would get done. This is how my schedule looked:

Monday: dust & vacuum second floor
Tuesday: clean kitchen and first floor bathroom, including mop floors
Wednesday: clean upstairs bathrooms
Thursday: change cat's litter box, sweep basement steps and put out trash
Friday: dust & vacuum first floor
Saturday: wash towels
Sunday: wash sheets

Laundry happened almost daily, as needed. Every night before bed, I'd straighten out the house and the kids had to help pick up their toys. And, if I missed a day, I doubled up the next.

This all worked very nicely for years (at least five) until my husband went back to school, I started working part time and the kids' schedules got busier. And, so I decided to change my cleaning schedule to reflect my crazier lifestyle without having to compromise on the cleanliness of my home.






I hired a housecleaner.

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This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network to promote Pledge Multi-Surface Cleaner's $5000 Sweepstakes. You could win $5000 toward a Multi-Suface Home Makeover or one of 30 Pledge Prize Packs.

Why We Could Use Our Own Chickens

For most people, the week after Easter means day after day of egg salad to use up all the hard-boiled eggs.

Not here though. We go through eggs like water.

First, my husband: he takes two hard-boiled eggs to work every day for breakfast. He was working through our brightly colored Easter eggs before we even got to the holiday.

And, my two girls: they can put down 2-3 eggs in a sitting, just peeled with salt, or quickly mashed up in a sandwich (don't worry, my eight year old has a cholesterol count to envy).

So, I'd offer up a recipe for our favorite egg salad (although it really is just mayo and mustard), or some other clever way to use eggs, but there aren't any eggs left in my fridge.

Thankfully, I'm picking up four dozen today from my friend who has chickens. Yes, four dozen. That should last us a couple weeks, I hope.

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This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network to promote the American Egg Board's website of great recipes, ideas and nutritional info about the humble egg. And, did you know that the week after Easter is Egg Salad Week? So, get cracking! (ha!)

You-Tubing With The Kids

Need to kill a little time with the kiddos today? Here are some of my favorite kids' music videos on You Tube.

Don't blame me if they want to watch them ten times in a row.

(If you like the bands, check out the reviews I've written on Cool Mom Picks -- links provided below).

First is one of the fiercest kids videos I've ever seen from Portland, Oregon's Captain Bogg & Salty. "Pieces of 8ight" is a great intro to pirate for your little buccaneer and is found on an earlier album, Pegleg Tango.




Their latest batch of pirate goodness is found on their new CD, Emphatical Piratical.

If you'd prefer a little authentic hip-hop without worrying about any booty-shaking, check out Secret Agent 23 Skidoo's Gotta Be Me.



You may even spot his little girl Saki rapping alongside her dad. His new CD is Easy.

Next up is one of those You-Tubers you may have heard before since his "Hamster on a Piano" video has been emailed to just about everyone on the planet. And while I can't listen to that song more than once a month, Parry Gripp's latest CD Do You Like Waffles? is pure goofy fun. Here is the video that goes along with the song:



He's got a ton of stuff on You Tube and on his own website but not all of it is on the CD and isn't all necessarily for kids. This may make your head explode (I'm sorry):



My 8-year-old Belly just ohmigod, totally loves this one:




Finally, a little sweeter and less frenetic, there is Casper Babypants' "The Island Hop" which has my kids drawing faces on their fingers immediately after watching.




Casper Babypants' debut CD is Here I Am!.