Smiling Mom

I was invi­ted to attend an event hos­ted by Leap­frog this past Sun­day night through my affi­lia­tion with Sili­con Valley Moms Blog.  Ini­tially I was mostly exci­ted to be atten­ding this event because it gave me an oppor­tu­nity to catch up with newer and older friends, drink with the girls, and have zero child res­pon­si­bi­li­ties for a few pre­cious hours.  I was in, but not too inte­res­ted in the pro­ducts that I knew would ine­vi­tably be pushed as an exchange for my attendance.

Turns out, I was plea­santly sur­pri­sed that abso­lu­tely no sales pitch given to us.  None.  We were asked, but not requi­red, to leave a com­ment on Leapfrog’s com­mu­nity forum.  We were not even asked to blog about our experience.

OK, now I’m listening…

In lieu of a sales pitch, Leap­frog enlis­ted the help of Dr. Cun­ningham, a Leap­frog advi­sory board mem­ber and direc­tor of the Joint Doc­to­ral Pro­gram in Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion at UC Ber­ke­ley.  Dr. Cun­ningham enga­ged us in an hour long dis­cus­sion regar­ding the impor­tance of fre­quently spea­king and rea­ding to your chil­dren ages zero to five.

Recently I had the oppor­tu­nity to lis­ten to a pod­cast from NPR’s This Ame­ri­can Life in which they did a seg­ment narra­ted by “Wha­te­ver It Takes” author Paul Tough entit­led Baby College.  He fin­dings show that the typi­cal middle class family speaks to their infants and todd­lers dra­ma­ti­cally more often and more posi­ti­vely than the typi­cal lower income family does.  Fas­ci­na­ting!  His work focu­ses on brea­king the cycle of gene­ra­tio­nal poverty by focu­sing on the chil­dren.  If you have 30 minu­tes to lis­ten about his ongoing work in New York, it’s truly worth your time.

Dr. Cun­ningham sug­gests that we should expose our chil­dren to rich lan­guage through our words, books, and tech­no­logy, and in turn our chil­dren will have a bet­ter chance of rea­ding fluently and com­prehen­ding dif­fi­cult voca­bu­lary at an early age.

What a power­ful con­nec­tion, and a fabu­lous discussion.

I left the event with a gift bag full of the latest Leap­frog pro­ducts.  My chil­dren will be get­ting some pretty sweet Christ­mas gifts this year, thanks to our new favo­rite toy com­pany, Leapfrog.

OH, did I say toy com­pany?  I should cla­rify.  Leap­frog first iden­ti­fies the skill that needs to be taught, then crea­tes a sys­tem in which to teach that skill.  Kinda like a really smart teacher, huh?  So I should say that thanks to our new favo­rite teacher, Leap­frog, my chil­dren will have hours of fun lear­ning through play!

*****Leap­frog also pro­vi­ded us with a cou­pon to save $10 off any order of $50 or more when you shop at leapfrog.com which is good through Novem­ber 15^th, 2008.  So shop away!  I know I will be.

Cou­pon Code: HY8BHPR

Thanks Leap­frog!!  I’m a new con­vert.  I’ll pro­mote you.  I’ll con­sult for you.  I’ll work with you.  Heck, I’d even help birth some of your cute little froggy gup­pies if I could!  I appre­ciate how nicely you trea­ted us mom bloggers!!

We’ve known since the begin­ning of Decem­ber that my grandma was living on borro­wed time.  She was diag­no­sed with ova­rian can­cer at that time and given 3 weeks to 6 months to live.  Seven and a half months later, she pas­sed away.

My mom was there, by her side as she pas­sed on.  For that I’m grateful.

The fune­ral is Satur­day, so we’re scram­bling to get everything together for the fune­ral and our next two vaca­tions… today.

We leave tomorrow.

And I had to sell my tic­ket to BlogHer.

Such a bum­mer.  This was to bet the first time I’d ever taken a wee­kend for myself to satisfy my guilty pleasures.

There’s always next year, right??

Sigh.

Prio­ri­ties.  Family always comes first.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So tomo­rrow, we leave to attend our final party for Grandma Bryan. And Satur­day, we say goodbye.

———

I’ve recently been hit with a steam of spam com­ments.  As a result I’ll be tur­ning off my com­ments for the days I’ll be gone from my computer.

So all hun­dreds of you coughO­NEof­You­cough don’t be alar­med when you are una­ble to leave your witty thoughts on my posts.

Peace, and if you’re atten­ding BlogHer, have a won­der­ful time.

So today was just per­fect. Hubby woke up this mor­ning and sur­pri­sed me a fabu­lous love let­ter and tic­kets to a few great plays going on at the reper­tory thea­ter down­town. This is something that I’ve wan­ted to go to for quite some time.

Then we hea­ded off to our local Farmer’s Mar­ket to stand in line for the best cra­pes around. We ate our freshly made cra­pes in the local park, pla­yed tag and just enjo­yed being together on this beau­ti­fully warm day here in California.

I was able to take a nap prior to my brother and girl­friend coming over. We ate outside in the beau­ti­ful eve­ning weather.

The day was great. Just great!

My basic desire for today was to have a day with no family stress, and I think we came pretty darn close! Thanks for such a won­der­ful day Hubby!

And then Hubby went over to my brother’s place to play video games.

Yes, you read that last sen­tence correctly. Video Games.

Hmm, let’s see… nice eve­ning. Like a really nice eve­ning with his wife, insert wag­ging eye­brows, or video games and beer.

He chose the video games and beer.

Yeay for an eve­ning alone, with kids asleep. What mom can’t enjoy that??!!

On another note, I just found out that I won Alli-Fussypants’ weekly cap­tion con­test. She had up a really funny pic­ture this week! Head on over and check it out.

Then click over to her jewe­lery site to see which earrings I won. I chose the Olive Gem earrings. They are so beau­ti­ful! Thanks Alli!

And one last thing.

My mom is the most beau­ti­ful mom I know, inside and out. She would lite­rally give me the shirt off her back if I wan­ted it. Actually she has done that before! She’s also the best Non­nie that my kids could ever ask for. The rela­tionship she’s crea­ted with my kids, hus­band, and me is one in a million. I am so lucky and gra­te­ful to have her in my life.

Mom, thank you for everything. I love you.

Calling all bay area moms, step­moms, part­ners, life part­ners, adop­ted moms, god moms and any female mother figure may have missed…