Blissdom Review

 

I just got back the Blissdom 2010 conference and my hat goes off to Allison Worthington, Barbara Jones and Paula Bruno. It was everything I hoped for and more.

Here My Eight Blissdom Highlights:

1. Opening Keynote Speaker Kevin Carroll was the best motivational speaker I've ever heard. He kept me riveted in my seat for an hour. I highly recommend you check out his blog and books.
2. Finally met some of the mom bloggers I work with on Snackpicks in person. They all are impressive, intelligent and just amazing women: Mercedes of Common Sense With Money, Renee of Cutie Booty Cakes and Marie of Makes and Takes
3. Great Swag including a cute Lands End Tote, Bliss Facial, CoverGirl makeup, and some serious coupons.
4. Harry Conick Jr. and his band put on a very fun and intimate performance, just for us ladies. 
5. Wendy Scherer, Final Keynote speaker and Partner at The Social Studies Group, let me pick her brain while we waited for Harry to perform. Thank you Wendy!
6. The opportunity to meet and spend time with Manic Mommie, Erin Kane. I've been a listener Manic Mommies since my son was born 2 years ago and it was super fun to dish about all the past episodes and get to know Erin on a personal level.
7. Learned a ton from informative panels about FTC guidelines, how to increase traffic to blogs, and how to create a community.
8. Met a bunch of intelligent, supportive and clever woman bloggers in person after reading their blogs and tweets for years.

$uper Bowl = The Big Game

I'm having a lot of fun managing the Creative and Editorial direction for Kellogg's Snackpicks.com. When it came time to create a $uper Bowl guide with recipes, menus, party tips, etc. I was reminded that Kellogg's is not an official sponsor of the $uper Bowl, and I couldn't use that name, I had to refer to it as "The Big Game."

"What?," I thought to myself,  "Nobody will know what we're talking about." But then I starting looking around and noticed "The Big Game" is the unofficial name that all marketers (that aren't official sponsors of the $uper Bowl) have adopted.

See below for some examples showing how "The Big Game" is being marketed. Then check out what I've done on Snackpicks.com to get around this hurdle.

 

Crate and Barrel

FoodNetwork.com

Hebrew National

 

Target

I'm impressed with their "Two big dates to love" campaign. It gets around the challenge of marketing both The Big Game and Valentine's Day separately when they are so close together on the calendar.

I don't have room to show the whole image here but you can check it out at Target.com and in stores.

 

Publix

 

Epicurious

They actually write the "unmentionable"...maybe they are an official sponsor. I need to verify.

Now check out what I've done on Snackpicks.com to get around this hurdle. Enjoy the recipes (I love the guacamole dip. I think it's so clever.) and the party tips shouldn't be missed.

Super Easy Birthday Parties at Day Care

My son will be two next week and after a the catastrophe of his first birthday party, I vowed to go minimal this year. No party. Then, just cupcakes at school. Then maybe a goodie bag, balloons? music? And as time grew near I started feeling guilty for not doing a "party". Am I bad mom because I'm not renting out a jumpy place or music class in his honor? And then I was saved from my guilt.

My saving grace was the director of my son's school. She's accredited in Early Education, wise and an expert for many, many years in making young children feel special.

Here were her suggestions:

• Set the stage to let the little ones know that something special is happening with decorations like a banner, fun plates and a tablecloth.
• She encouraged bringing fruit for a snack. And asked that I not bring anything sugary, like cake or cupcakes. However, if I wanted something cakey to bring mini muffins.
• Read your child's favorite book to their classmates and/or bring in your child's photo album or photo book to share their story with his friends.
• She reminded me that the most important thing would be to make the birthday boy feel special and celebrated and she's found having the parent(s) at school for snack time, setting the stage with decorations and reading a story in their honor makes them feel really special.
•  I asked about goodie bags and she discourage that. There's no need.

She shook her head when talking about how parents go through so much time, energy and money to have a big birthday party and the children are to over stimulated to enjoy themselves.

A final piece of advice she gave me: The rule of thumb for the number of children to be invited to your child's birthday parties is equal to their age. Mentally that's what they can best handle and enjoy. So, for the first birthday, no friends. Just them. For their second birthday, your child + one friend =2. And so on.  I love that rule. It makes things much easier.

So, for all you working moms with children in day care, I hope this helps. If you have any additional ideas, please share. I plan on taking some photos and sharing them with the other parents. And then I'm going to call it a day. A very special day ;)

Best Todder iphone Apps

The iphone is my savior when traveling with my toddler or when we are in the waiting room at the doctor's office. Here are our favorites:

1. Wheels on the Bus

Ages: 1+  |  Cost: $0.99

This app brings all toddlers favorite song to life. Children can make the wheels spin, doors open, wind shield wipers swish, plus much more than what you'd expect from the traditional song verses. The application has the option for different music styles including the ability for you to record your child singing. Also try Old MacDonald which is very similar.

 

2. Peekaboo Barn

Ages: 1+  |  Cost: $1.99

Super cute app! Inside a bouncing barn are farm animals hiding inside. Your toddler is to guess the animal by the sounds that they make. When the barn is touched it opens up to reveal the animal. Then it zooms in for a close up and the word appears and is announced. My son is fascinated by this app. I wish they had more than eight animals but my son doesn't mind, he just wants to play it again and again. Check out the super cute sequence when you've guessed all the animals.

3. Zoo Box

Ages: 1+  |  Cost: $0.99

Turn your iphone upside down, then back up to hear one of 36 different animal sounds and accompanying picture.

4. My First Words: Animals

Ages: 2+  |  Cost: $0.99

Children drag letters to make words. Letters are pronounced when touch. Great for letter recognition.

5. Giraffe's Matching Zoo

Ages: 2+  |  Cost: Free

Fun "Memory" style matching game with animal noises

 

6. Talking Carl

Cost: $0.99  |  Ages: 1+

This app has the best graphics I've seen among all iphone apps and keeps children of all ages fascinated. Pinch, tickle, poke and talk to Carl. He'll respond and even mimic your toddlers voice.

7. Preschool Adventure 

Ages: 2+  |  Cost: $0.99

Six simple activities for parents to play with their young toddlers and preschoolers. Including Shapes, numbers, sounds, matching, body parts and colors.

8. Tozzle

Ages: 2+  |  Cost: $1.99

Keeps toddlers entertained with this 20 different puzzle games. Teaches shape recognition.

The Van Halen "No Brown M&Ms" Story

Did you ever hear the story about Van Halen being so outrageously demanding that their contracts required a bowl of M&Ms being present backstage-with all the brown M&Ms picked out or else the show would be canceled?

Well, get this, it's true. Yes, completely true and they even canceled a show in Colorado because of David Lee Roth found a brown M&M.

Now, granted I may be a bit biased being that back in 8th grade I won tickets to see Roth in concert--thank you, 96 WTIC FM, but I'm impressed by the M&M clause. It's pretty brilliant.

Roth explains the rationale in his memoir, Crazy From the Heat, "Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with nine 18 wheeler trucks, full of gear where the standard was three trucks, max...The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so many human beings to make it function," So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be Article 126, the no brown M&M in the bowl,... we'd line-check the entire production.  Guaranteed you'd run into a problem." In Colorado, where they cancelled the show, the band found that the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and that the staging would have fallen through the arena.

I first heard this story a few months back on an episode of This American Life and found it fascinating, considering how infamous and misunderstood the story had become over the years. Then last week, I read about it in The Week and thought you'd find it interesting too.

Great Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Recently I was catching up with my friend Tara and she told me "I can't wait to get home and read. I'm reading a really great book." Instantly I had book envy (I'm such a nerd) and asked her what she was reading. It was The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Tara was right, it's so good.

The novel features two black housekeepers, Aibileen and Minny, who work for white families in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early '60s. The story takes off when a privileged white woman named Skeeter Phelan returns home from college. Skeeter wants to write a book about black maids's experience working for white families. And she questions why black woman can't use the family bathroom and yet are trusted to raise that same family's children.

Apparently Tara and I aren't the only ones that love this book, recently Michelle Norris of All Things Considered interviewed Stockett. Here's how she opened the interview: We're going to spend some time now talking about a book I can't seem to escape. For months, women have called or emailed me or approached me in the frozen food aisle - no kidding - saying that they needed to talk about a novel called "The Help." It seems to be a conversation starter, compelling white women to seek out conversations with black women about race and privilege.

Stockett, the first-time author,  is from Mississippi and grew up with a black maid or "domestic". The woman's name was Demetrie. She had a separate bathroom that to this day, Stockett has never entered. It creeps me out to think how recently black woman were treated this way. We have a black president, but still a long way to go for equality.

In that interview Stockett claims her family treated Demetrie like a "queen" which I find hard to believe considering "[we] expected her to use a separate bathroom, [and] to use separate utensils." Regardless, the two black woman characters she created are realistic and lovable heroines that I find myself thinking throughout the day. And I don't want it to end. What will I read next? 

Suggestions needed, please post your favorite books.

Flight of the Conchords: It's Business Time

These guys are hilarious.