MamAnomolie

I have lamented in years past about the lack of Chanukah items at Target. Aisle after aisle in the holiday section are devoted to Christmas wrapping, cards, decorations... anything you could want, but when I asked for the Chanukah paper, I was directed to a sparse endcap in the party section with low quality blue wrapping paper and a few gift tags. I know, I am not really a practicing Jew, yet I'm still offended when Chanukah is given such little attention.

This year, however, I was surprised and pleased by the Chanukah display I saw at Target this year. Yes, it's insane that today is Halloween and the display is already up, but the point is that we were given a whole endcap and half an aisle of Chankukah stuff! That is major compared to years past. It's not low quality, ugly stuff either. There was a cute wooden Noah's ark with wooden "lit" candles that would be great for allowing a small child to get into the experience. There was nice Chanukah wrapping paper, stickers and greeting cards.

There was even an Elmo's Little Dreidel book that I made the mistake of handing to Sophie. We almost had to add Chanukah goods to our last minute Halloween candy run. So, I just wanted to say thank you, Target! At least one person has noticed the change and appreciates it very much! Oh, and in case anybody is wondering, Chanukah is December 20-28 this year.

No, really, it is a sick day. The thing is, sick days look completely different with kids. Sophie has the cold that has been going around, and I have some sort scaled down adult version. While I'm thankful that Sophie doesn't seem to feel that bad, that also means that I have to figure out things for us to do all day. Playdates are a no-go since we don't want to pass our germs around, but staying in the house all day makes us both bonkers. We tried a park and playground yesterday, but there were enough other kids there that I felt like half the time I was corralling her away from them. Today we went to one of our favorite spots - Historic Yates Mill County Park.

We didn't even explore very much of the park, but there was so much to experience. We enjoyed the color of the fall leaves and flowers, the texture of the lambs ear and the cattail leaves tickling our face, and the smell of rosemary and wild onion. Sophie loved feeling the wind blowing her hair and the trees all around us. We watched ants, snails, bees and butterflies. We picked up leaves, sticks, and berries. It was just what the doctor ordered for both of us!

Tada! What do you think of the new design for MamAnomolie? It's funny, in my former life I worked on web sites, and would never have slapped something up so quickly. I used to test things out behind the scenes, look at the site in every browser available, on Macs and PCs, on every possible screen setting. Now? I'll be honest. I've done next to nothing in terms of testing this out.

I had been having some issues with the former template I was using. Text not lining up where it should be, page components floating on top of the blog text. Besides, I was ready for a change. That's when I found "Liquorice," this lovely little number from btemplates. The name alone had be hooked. I like the vintage, simple feel of it.

I am still working out some design issues. I also have some work to do adding more pages along the top navigation bar and other design elements. A HUGE thank you goes out to Freed Design Studios for help with the CSS code! You rock, Elise!

I seriously couldn't fall asleep last night thinking about all of the changes I wanted to make. I was giddy. (If my excitement about caterpillars didn't have you convinced before, surely by now you realize I'm a nerd.)

So, all of this being said, I would LOVE to get feedback. Does is look alright on your browser? Are you able to leave comments? (If not, you can send me a message telepathically or through smoke signals). Do you like it? Do you have suggestions? Are you out there? Mom?

In honor of Take a Child Outside Week, I have decided to sit inside at my computer and resume blogging. No, really!

Before I was a stay-at-home mom, I worked in the field of environmental education. Not just casually, as a seasonal thing, either. I was in it full throttle. My Master's degree is in environmental education, and I worked for the state Office of Environmental Education. Previously, in preparation for the annual, national Take a Child Outside Week I would be feverishly adding events to the online calendar, attending meetings about how to hype it up and spread the word, and editing the office's website so that it was featured on every page.

So, that is why I found it wonderfully ironic that on September 24th, the first official day of Take a Child Outside Week, it was my husband who said, "Hey, it's Take a Child Outside Week." "Really?" I replied. "Yeah, it says so right here." We were at Historic Yates Mill County Park, taking a walk with Sophie.




So, I could tell you that in honor of Take a Child Outside Week we took Sophie to the park, but the truth is that Sophie and I are outside all the time. We don't need a special week to enjoy picking up sticks, looking at bugs, and collecting leaves, and for that I am grateful.

This has definitely been my favorite Take a Child Outside Week to date!

We have been so fortunate to receive so many hand-me-down items for our soon-to-arrive baby girl. We have a closet full of clothes ready to go. I expected that some of the items we received may not be things we would have chosen, but what I didn't expect was to receive items that we couldn't even identify.

That is what happened when we pulled out a certain pink and white piece of fabric with openings and velcro that made us certain it had a specific intended use. We just had no idea what it was. Jonathan quickly decided that it was for next Halloween for which he would dress up as Dumb Donald from Fat Albert.

Take a look - the similarities are quite striking. The color is even right, and I must say, Jonathan is pretty good with his impersonations. We actually had to ask around to figure out what we had received. It turns out that it's a grocery shopping cart cover...because evidently everybody needs these because grocery carts are disgusting.

I know that everybody has their thing...I spend way too much time looking up ingredient information on personal products, which I'm sure many people just roll their eyes at. Jonathan and I are the kinds of people who think that there is such a thing as too clean and that a little bit of dirt and germs are good for kids to be exposed to. I did start to wonder, though, just how germy are grocery carts?

And just like that, my question was answered. Healthy Child Healthy World had a blog post titled Which Has More Germs - A Restaurant Tray or a Park Sandbox? Part of me was excited and a bit smug after reading it because it turns out that the shopping cart has the least amount of germs compared with every other item mentioned. Another part of me was bummed that the people in my family (who shall remain nameless) who use a paper towel to turn off the faucet in public restrooms now have some hard data to justify their actions.

I think the post is important in that it shows people that what we perceive as being germy is not necessarily as bad as we think, and vice versa. Take, for example, the fact that a toilet seat has fewer germs than a reusable cafeteria tray. The article also brings up the important, and often overlooked, fact that most germs are benign and live peacefully with us all the time. It basically comes down to the fact that germs are a normal part of life, and normal hand washing is generally enough to protect you and your little ones from any bad germs out there. So, Jonathan, you're free to be Dumb Donald for Halloween.