Want your kid to have an advantage in the job market? Of course you do. I suspect few of us parents truly WANT our spawn to be in a perpetual state of Failure to Launch Syndrome. After all, our kids have got to grow up, leave their childhood bedrooms, and get a life of their own sometime, right? Playing World of Warcraft 24/7 in your boxers with Mom and Dad relaxing in twin La-Z-Boy recliners downstairs only gets you so far when you’re 30.

That’s why we parents have to plan smart. And plan now. To kick our kids out of the country, where they’ll get a hella education and magically become way more employable.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this awesome infographic. And while you’re eyeballing the cool retro travel feel, consider this statistic: 74% of employers said that studying abroad made prospective employees (that’s your kid and mine) more attractive when evaluating junior-level job candidates. Put that in your organic artisanal biodynamic grass-fed shade-grown pipe and smoke it.
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Not to go all Grinchy on you, but I think it’s time for some serious change with the leaving-cookies-for-Santa thing. Let’s organize something, shall we? A new movement. I am pretty sure it will catch on. Occupy Cookie Plate. OCP for short.

I can see OCP now…eight tiny reindeer chained together in solidarity, shaking their tiny hooves at The Man. Squads of elves with their mouths symbolically duct-taped closed. Hand-painted signs hung from every fireplace mantle: “We are the 99% fat free.”

Santa’s plate of cookies has to go. Five ironclad reasons why:

1. Unwanted Cookies Are Unhappy Cookies. And unhappy cookies just don’t taste good. No one wants cookies at 2am. Trust me. After “sampling” the foil-wrapped chocolate balls that fill the bottoms of stockings and after two weeks consumption of stray raw cookie dough bits, the last thing anyone wants is a cookie.

2. Grubby Sticky Fingerprints. Mmm, you know the ones I mean. Yum, right? The slightly majorly squashed sad cookie that sensitive children feel compelled to deem special, like a dying Charlie Brown Christmas tree/firetrap, because sensitive children know in their hearts that Santa is kind and sensitive just like they are and will appreciate all the extra love that went into the making of that cookie. Yeah, that cookie. The sad squashed grubby ones taste better than the Martha-Stewart-Perfection ones, right?

Um, no. Especially not at 2am. Not even to Santa. Next.

3. Santa’s Freshman 15. Every freaking YEAR that guy puts on weight. What is UP with that?? Help a guy out, will you? I think he’d much rather have a nice glass of Zinfandel.

4. Cookie Fatigue. Or just plain fatigue. The kind that comes from weeks of late-night wrapping the gifts that bred in the closet since August and now stand in a mound as tall as a small elf. Cookie Fatigue + Elves makes cookies taste bad. Everyone knows this. What tastes way better is a roast beef sandwich.

5. Morning Comes Way Too Early. Especially when you’ve been up until 2 sneaking downstairs with the gifts that bred in the closet since August and now have turned into a gift-moat that surrounds the Christmas tree and that no one can get close enough to the tree now to plug the lights in. That is definitely when cookies just don’t do it.

No, what Santa really wants is a massage. And two weeks in Hawaii. I am pretty sure that Occupy Cookie Plate can get him that.

For all the years my kids lived with me, I sucked at holidays. I did them wrong. Totally wrong.

Wait. Actually, no, that’s not right. I did not suck. I rocked the holidays. I was Martha freaking Stewart. Stabbing out my eyeballs with a glue gun to the tune of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

If I had to do it over I would do holidays differently. I know exactly how it would go down. I would only need to change one thing. If I had known this at the time — that changing just  ONE FREAKING THING  would make all the difference and would turn a stress-filled eye-stabbing wine-gulping gray-hair-creating holiday into glittery chocolate-covered elf sparkles, than I would probably be a gazillionaire by now.

But since I am not a gazillionaire, and instead I am selling off the toys of my expensive past-life road bike hobby to pay rent, I will let you in on my secret to a rocking holiday.
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The other day I ran across this post on GeekDad about the five best toys of all time. And I agree — GeekDad’s five toys rock. Totally.

But the list is way too short. Five toys? Come on. Kids today want variety! Even my Luddite friends’ kids have more than five toys. So I’ve expanded GeekDad’s list and added five more awesome toys that stand the test of time. Ten toys should be enough for any kid.

Stick, Box. String, Cardboard Tube, and Dirt. Top Toys #1 - 5. Found in every kid’s toy box. And now I bring you…

6. Hand.

The good: Most kids have one. Often two. Hand is difficult to lose, since it usually comes pre-equipped with every child.

Uses: Hand is versatile. It wiggles. Two fingers become people who can walk, jump and dance. Hand can also create shadow puppets. Make music by repeatedly striking another Hand (if one is equipped). Hand can be a bird. Make shapes. Plug holes in dikes. Spell the alphabet. Hand is also a useful add-on to other toys not detailed here, like Body. It becomes Claw, for example, or Wings.

The not-so-good: Hand seems to lend itself to causing  collateral damage and squawking when combined with Sibling.

7. Rock.

The good: Rock is available all over the planet. Often small enough to be portable, Rock can be carried in pockets. One Rock is often interchangeable for another, since they often look alike. Rock comes in many colors, sizes and shapes. Appearance changes when wet. Rock can be combined with Hand and another Rock to make smaller Rocks.

Uses: Counting. Carrying in pockets. Collecting. Creating worlds for lizards. Marking locations of buried treasure.

The not-so-good: Rock, when combined with Hand, Throwing, and Sibling, can lead to disastrous results. Same when combined with Window.

8. Water.

The good: Readily accessible. Cleans up easily. Dries invisibly on most clothing articles. Malleable; changes form and shape with simple temperature fluctuations.

Uses: Can be easily combined with Boat, Stick, or Rock for endless hours of entertainment. Pourable. In winter, becomes Snow, a toy with many additional uses. In summer, becomes Lake and Pond, good for total immersion. Splashable. Can also actually be used to wash things, like Hand.

The not-so-good: When combined with Sibling, can lead to boisterousness and excessive splashing.

9. Sibling.

The good: Once one has been acquired, Sibling is usually readily accessible. Comes equipped with toys like Hand. With Imagination, knows uses for other toys like Stick, Rock and Dirt.

The not-so-good: Shouting, hair-pulling, hitting, and passive aggression are all too frequent misuses of Sibling. Often, use of Sibling requires parental supervision to avoid excessive boisterousness or disastrous results with toys like Rock combined with Hand. Siblings are also not easy to acquire and take time and financial outlay to keep for any appreciable length of time.

10. Broom.

The good: While not technically a toy, Broom has a multitude of uses and can actually be of help when wielded with its originally intended use. Broom is available in many models and also has a rich history, being the star of stories like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Harry Potter series.

Uses: Flying, witchcraft, turning buckets into trained drones.

The not-so-good: Often there is resistance to using Broom for its intended purpose. Broom can also be combined with Sibling and wielded much like Stick, often causing injury. Instruction on uses for witchcraft are difficult to come by and carefully guarded.

There you have it. The Top Ten Toys. Have any others you think should have made the list?

Most of us seem to be pretty clear on child abuse. Hitting a kid, breaking arms, blacking eyes…that’s abuse, right? (except when the hitting is spanking and it’s discipline “for their own good,” but that is another post entirely) Right? Abuse? We wouldn’t dream of it being okay to endanger our child’s life by shoving him out into a busy street, would we? But when it comes to obesity and kids — morbid obesity — the rules seem less clear, if not downright fuzzy. How do super-fat kids get that way — nature? Nurture? Whose fault are fat kids?

[Non-PC Disclaimer Statement: With now 17% of this country's youth now squarely in the fat camp -- considered medically obese -- I don't see why I should tiptoe around the term. Fat. These kids are fat and I think there is no excuse and I am so going to use the word.]
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All my life I hated my middle name. And then a year ago I changed my name — first, middle, last, the whole shebang — and that was that. But growing up, I NEVER told anyone my middle name. Never. (It was Sue. Bleh.)

And then I had kids, which felt like a huge gift in the naming do-over department. I could give them awesome names that rocked! If I loved the names I gave my kids, hopefully they would too. So far, the feedback is that I did okay, even in the middle name arena. In fact, I was so surprised by the middle names we parents are handing our kids. They’re so…middle-y. Which leads me to wonder whether we need them at all. Are they just a syllable filler between the first name and the last name? Are they a way to let the kid know he has REALLY transgressed (”John Michael Smith, you come here this minute and explain the peanut butter on your sister!”)?

Do we need middle names?

Top three middle names for boys and girls, according to Babble.com:
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I suspect that there is nothing that ages us parents more than having kids. Oh, I don’t mean the gray hairs that appear overnight from weeks of colicky 4am wee-of-the-night “bonding” with a newborn. Nor do I mean the heartstopping moments when your toddler’s sticky little hand slips purposefully out of your grasp followed by gleeful shrieks and a short-legged dash for the open car-studded street. Nope. I mean popular culture. Explaining it to kids. That’s when you suddenly see how impossibly OLD you are, light years away from hip in any of its incarnations. Oh ell dee old.

It all started with an IM conversation with my daughter Serena. She’s 11, that bershon age where every eye roll is a commentary on my hopeless inability to approach coolness even with a ten-foot pole. She had accidentally typed the word teh.
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Last summer, my eleven year old daughter got her first laptop. Becoming wired meant a lot of great changes in her life. She can communicate more easily with me now, via IM, email, or Skype. She can research school stuff better, without waiting in line for the family desktop computer. She can write her Great American Novel. She can stay in touch with pop culture more easily (for her, this mostly means watching music videos on YouTube). And, becoming wired means Facebook.

Imagine my shock, surprise and chagrin to see my eleven year old daughter’s new Facebook profile. The one that said she was 18. EIGHTEEN! Immediately I put on my protective mama hat. The one that looks like WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???!!
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I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. Know what I’m mad at? You. Well, not you. You, I like.. But I am mad at You, the larger You, or more specifically, We. We women. I am sick to death of women.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love women. I love being a woman. But I am mad as hell about how we women are in the world.

I am dying for some seriously wonderful women’s community. Remember the old days? Nah, I don’t either. They happened way before you, or me, or any of us. But in my mind, the old days were awesome. Not about things like flush toilets, which, hello, I am so happy to be taking for granted, but more about things like how men and women were. Specifically, how they were with each other and with themselves. Remember that in your ancestor memory banks? When women gathered with women to do women-y things, while men gathered with men to do men things.

And we women were awesome. Powerful. Juicy. Alive. Fertile. The keepers of the flame. The growers of the seeds. We rocked. Remember that?
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When I was little there were a couple of dozen stories that got trotted out at different times through the year. When my mother made chocolate chip cookies my father would ask what she was procrastinating about. When she washed windows we all learned to ask who was coming over to the house. When we had beans she’d tell the story of how she got into trouble singing a bawdy song about beans one night as she hauled the garbage down the alley, thinking no one would hear. Whenever we had grapes I’d be reminded of the snapshot taken of me at age three, holding up a bunch of grapes and repeating “Gapes, gapes.” We all knew that my brother once called the hardware that holds doors onto the door jamb “Hing geese.” The stories were comfortable, familiar. They were our way of remembering our connection to one another since we lacked the courage or tools to talk about our connection and our love directly. Our family stories became our love language.

My son Nathaniel, now in high school in France, calls me and we talk about our own stories. The time I heard some child shouting in French from my Paris hotel room and realized it was my own son, leaning out the window in the adjoining room, calling out to street passersby. The way at Thanksgiving that Grandpa never failed to tell me how he and Grandma made the turkey dressing. The day Nathaniel ran down the stairs because I wouldn’t let him have more potato chips and broke his arm. The time it snowed so much we made an igloo, or tried to. The stories help us remember how our hearts connect even though there are so many miles between us.

I wonder about families and stories. I wonder which stories the parents remember, and which are handed down with the children. I tried to tell many of my parent’s stories to my own children, but I am not sure if they stuck. Different frame of reference? Too many other stories to remember?

Do your children know your childhood stories? Are there stories handed down in your family? Which ones make the cut?

photo: milan6, SXC