Gimme A Break

I recently found out that my neighbor, who lives across the street from me, has a granddaughter named Natalie. The little girl must be around two years old but I remember my neighbor telling me that when her daughter was pregnant, she used to download games to play on her computer till late into the night.

At the time, I was very curious. Her daughter didn’t strike me as a computer game addict but her mother swears she does nothing all day but play the game, Natalie Brooks – Mystery at Hillcrest High. So when I found out that the woman had named her daughter after the main character in the game, Natalie.

And that’s not all. My neighbor tells me there’s another young woman down the street from us who has a daughter named Fiona. Frankly the only Fiona I remember is from the movie Shrek. But my neighbor assures me it’s not that Fiona the little girl is named after, it’s Fiona Finch and the Finest Flowers, a new computer game that’s really fun to play.

I think it’s pretty cute to name a child after a hobby or a passion. Then there will always be a story to tell when your child asks where they got their name !

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Woo-hoo, guess what day it is tomorrow. Okay, you guessed it! TGIF. That’s what I live for these days. The ridiculously long school hours are driving me and the kids bazoozles!

I have to prepare 2 sets of school lunches each as they have two breaks. Sometimes they only have one break for 9 hours of school so I tell my kids to just eat when the teacher’s not looking. Otherwise they will starve and come home with stomach aches and then have no time to finish the mountain of homework every day! These are truly the most ridiculous days we’ve had and we still have a whole year ahead. Duh!

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Now that school is in full swing, I’m back to supervising the kids’ homework which often involves solving algebra problems, like it or not. It’s not my favorite job in the whole world but who else is there?

Actually I think I may have stumbled on to the answer to that myself. There’s an online tutoring service which teaches you how to do algebra problems. Now isn’t that every mom’s dream to end all those late night home tuition sessions?

That’s right, TutorVista offers an affordable, unlimited monthly tutoring service for K-12, back to school and college. The kids can get all the algebra homework help they need simply by going to their site any time of day or night. I’m thinking how much stress I could save myself there !

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Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I’m a stickler for child safety. From day one, I’ve insisted on strapping my kids into their car seats and when they got older, I would ensure they put on their seat belts before I even start the car.

It’s true, when you have kids, there are so many things to buy. Of course, with the current state of the economy, it’s always wise to compare prices before you buy anything for your child, be it car seats or baby carriers.

It’s easy to do your price comparisons at ShopWiki because they present results for every store on the internet. Traditional shopping sites will only show you stores that have paid for their service, but ShopWiki finds everything and anything that’s on sale on the internet. Quite a handy tool, I must say!

Frankly if you’re the mother of young kids, you probably won’t have time or energy to be dragging your kids with you from store to store to compare prices for stuff you need to buy. Searching online makes it a cinch. You just need to find a time when your babies are asleep and then shop till you drop !

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The very noticeable thing about our recent vacation is that we didn’t have to pack the entire house and lug it to the beach with us. My kids are teens now, so those days when we had to pack like we were moving house, are over!

I remember one time when my son wouldn’t sleep because the hotel bed was unfamiliar to him. It probably smelled different and it kept him, and us, awake all night.

It’s a shame we didn’t know that such a thing as an infant travel bed existed! Yep, it has a collapsible frame that’s great for extended travel and doubles up for short naps and easy diaper changing as well.

The large storage pockets are made for chucking in all of the baby essentials. The bed and frame are lightweight and the sides fold down easily for compact travel with a carry strap.

Gosh, this must be a bed made in heaven for moms and dads! If only we’d known about this, we would’ve gone right out and bought one to save us an entire night of camping out at the hotel lobby with my baby in my arms, listening to some lounge singer sing offkey !

• my handy travel tips
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• if I had 17 kids

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I don’t know about you but I depend a lot on the internet for ideas and advice. Instead of googling for something and sifting through the results, I go straight to the home and family articles at the Article Alley. They’ve got useful tips and ideas and I’ve learnt a lot from reading their articles.

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I heard one of my cousins has just delivered a baby girl. Wow, that means I’m an aunt all over again. They’ve living in another city so I probably won’t get to see my little niece till her parents brings her to visit.

Even then, I have to start looking for a nice little present for her. Busy bee that I am, if I procrastinate longer, I might just forget about the whole thing and then when my cousin comes to visit, I’ll be in a panic big time .

So knowing me, I’d better get an early start. And not a moment too soon. I’ve already found some very pretty Baby Bedding Sets online at Baby Bedding Palace. Their sets come in 12 high quality matching pieces.

I love the fact that the sets are handmade. Can you beat that? I mean, if you ask me to sit down and sew these sets, I’d be at a complete loss. Okay, I admit I can’t sew for peanuts so that makes anything handmade all the more valued.

I hope my cousins and new niece come to town soon. I can’t wait to see her. And I think my kids will be excited and thrilled.

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We have a school break coming up soon and as usual, I don’t have any plans yet. Okay, so call me procrastinator mom but I’m really busy these few weeks with the in-laws being in town and everything.

Anyhow we definitely won’t be going on any sort of fancy vacation because of my concerns over H1N1. Computer games aside, being cooped up in the house all the time will be boring for the kids.

So I’m thinking we could actually plan some activities and short trips just around the city. Wait a minute, I remember ParentsConnect.com has a neat little tool that helps parents find out what fun activities and events are going on around their local area.

I mean that’s definitely a whole lot better than looking up newspapers, sifting through flyers and calling my mommy friends for ideas. If all that information is in one place, then that’s what I’m after. Yep, anything that saves me time and effort.

Right, for parents all over the US, here’s a widget you can click on to get instant access to all the interesting ideas, events and activities in your area that the whole family can have fun and enjoy themselves.

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I’m really running behind here. Been extremely busy and chucking lots of things to the backburner. The kids have been in and out of school. Basically whenever I hear about someone at school having the sniffles, I’d pull my kids out for a day or two while I contemplate the situation.

It’s terrible but this is what happens when some parents insist on sending their sick kids to school even when there’s all these warnings to stay home if they have the flu. Frankly we don’t know what kind of flu they’ve got so it’s kinda scary.

When the kids get back from school, I pretty much disinfected as much of their stuff as I can. Yeah, it’s crazy. And I know some people think I’m crazy for being so OCD about it. But hey, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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I’m not sure why Father’s Day is never as a big a buzz as Mother’s Day somehow. Not that fathers are any less important, mind you . Since we didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day this year, we decided to be fair and give Father’s Day a miss too. We did go out for a sumptuous breakfast this morning. Does that count?

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