Smiling Mom

Sounds like a joke, right?  Click on this link and lis­ten to the most hila­rious recor­ded phone call I’ve heard in a long time!

Enjoy!

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!!

I fought back tears as I hand deli­ve­red my absen­tee ballot to our local polling place.  This is a truly his­to­ric day.  I’m exci­ted and ner­vous, as I’m sure the majo­rity of our country is.

After we voted, the kids and I rode our bikes down to our local Star­bucks to get our free cup of cof­fee.  Could the mor­ning have been any better??

So now it’s your turn.  Did you vote?  Are you voting absen­tee?  Do tell!

The other day I filled out my per­ma­nent absen­tee ballot.  I’ve not been alto­gether quiet about my poli­ti­cal views in this election.

I was fee­ling so proud of myself.  Ahead of sche­dule and all! I actually wouldn’t be wal­king my absen­tee ballot into the polling place on the day of the elec­tion as I did last year. I sea­led up my ballot, sig­ned the back and set it aside to put in the next day’s mail.

Ya.

Then this happened.

You see, the day I voted was the same day my son got a let­ter in the mail.  He ope­ned his let­ter with exci­te­ment.  A few minu­tes later, eClaire ‘found’ a let­ter for her.  It wasn’t until I heard BC admo­nishing his sis­ter that I rea­li­zed what happened.

After a loud scream (by me) and lots of tears (by her) and a fier­cely loyal pro­tec­tor (him pro­tec­ting her against me???) I deter­mi­ned that it was in fact not the end of the world. I simply have an unmai­la­ble, par­tially ope­ned ballot sit­ting in my house.  And I am again wai­ting until elec­tion day to vote.

Sigh.

I always knew my daugh­ter would give me a run for my money.  But this soon??

Par­tially rip­ped ballot or not, I WILL be voting in this year’s elec­tions.  I guess I’ll just have to wait until Novem­ber 4^th, once again.