Tag Archives: Elena

go, go goldieblox!

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If you are the parent of a young girl, this post is for you.

Today I got an email from Fat Brain Toys – love them – informing me that “the hottest toy this spring is in”! Well my goodness. Far be it from me to miss out on the hottest toy this spring! Plus, if Fat Brain thinks it’s good, well it must be good.

Being the true consumer that I am, I clicked right through to find this: GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine. From the picture, it’s hard to immediately figure out exactly what’s going on…some sort of pink dolphin in a tutu…ribbon spinning around a board…huh?
The second thing that caught my attention was the price: 30 smackers! Geez. I still didn’t know what GoldieBlox was, but I was feeling pretty certain it wasn’t worth $30.

Immediately, I’m on Amazon searching for “the hottest toy this spring” to see if there are reviews and, of course, to do a price comparison. (Because while I do love Fat Brain Toys, let’s just say that they aren’t always the cheapest store on the online block.) My Amazon findings: It’s the same price and there are no reviews because the product isn’t even quite available yet – due to be launched on April 28 – but conveniently available for pre-order.

Then, I watch this video where GoldieBlox founder Debbie, who is clearly beautiful and smart, tells me about her new toy company. Immediately, I’m hooked. I don’t know if I’ll buy Debbie’s new product yet because it seems it Elena may still be a little young for it – but I love the idea and I hope that she succeeds. Go Debbie and go GoldieBlox!

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sunshine and rainbows

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Elephant calfAccording to the clock in our room, it was about 5:25 am when my phone rang. This was it – the call that I felt like I’ve been waiting for since at least the beginning of November – and in meetings for long before. After a day or so – frankly, it’s kind of a blur now – in “early” labor, one of the zoo’s Asian elephants, Rose-Tu had moved to active labor around midnight and apparently not interested in prolonging the situation, had given birth a couple of hours later to a healthy female calf. Ten minutes later I was pulling out of the garage and on my way to work, feeling both excited and a bit sad that I wouldn’t be there when my own birthday girl woke up in the morning.

My colleague Krista and I arrived about the same time and were the well-rested ones in the zoo’s marketing department; some others had been there all night. Blurry eyes, however, had zero effect on the pure excitement that permeated the still mostly-dark halls of the office. I

quickly got to work in crafting communications for our donors whom we’d been providing with regular updates on Rose-Tu’s progress the past couple of days. My second role was to help the team with whatever news media needs presented themselves.

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harold and the purple crayon

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My daughter is obsessed. As in, she seems to love, love, love reading (or hearing, I guess is more like it) Harold and the Purple Crayon. It is a really cute and magical book, I must admit.

If I let her, she’ll choose it as the book she wants me to read at bedtime pretty much every night. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. One night I cut it off at the pass as we were headed into her room after brushing teeth: “Elena, we’re not reading Harold and the Purple Crayon tonight.” Her: I want to read Harold and the Purple Crayon!” Me: “No, we read it every night…let’s read something else.” Her: Sniff, sniff. (As if I’d just banned her from seeing her best friend…) “Okay,” she said grabbing another book reluctantly – which, by the way, is usually My Truck is Stuck. Sigh.

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what’s wrong with this picture?

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Elena likes putting on her sunglasses (and taking them off, and putting them on, and taking them off…), but for some reason usually puts them on upside down. One morning last week I was driving she and Ian to their respective camp/daycare locations when I couldn’t help but snap this picture at a stoplight. I must admit it might be one of my favorite impromptu pics of her yet.

should i schedule her first therapy session now?

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When I started back to work last January, I spent the first few months thinking I had everything amazingly under control. Really. Work…two kids…this was doable. What’s all that complaining I hear about how hard it is to manage and juggle everything? This was going to work out just fine!

Then one day – I think it was this fall when Ian started kindergarten – I had some random minor breakdown in the car or something when I realized….okay, maybe this is not as “fine” as I thought it was and in fact, it is, kind of hard.

Of course the next thing you always hear is how kids #2, #3, #4, etc. etc. get increasingly less attention than the first one did. Of course – not me! Both of my kids were going to always get equal attention. Well, if that were true then perhaps I would not currently feel like the most negligent. parent. EVER. I mean, I’ve so had three strikes with poor Elena that I’m surprised St. Andrews hasn’t called CPS on us yet. And, all within the month of November.

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