Double Standards

I read the Duggar Family blog pretty faithfully and I have noticed that those anonymous commentors who question every little thing the Duggars do have pretty significant double standards. For instance, when Michelle joined Jim Bob recently on the campaign trail for Rick Santorum, several people said it was unfair of her to leave her kids with grandma. "Those children need their mother!" "Those poor kids are being raised by their siblings and grandma!"

Ridiculous I say.

When a couple with 2 kids take off on a cruise for a week without their kids, no one says Grandma and Grandpa are raising their children. They are babysitting. When an 8 year old pours his little brother a bowl of cereal in the morning, no one says that boy is raising his little brother. (Unless of course, that boy just happens to have 17 other siblings.) He's helping his brother.

Gimme a break, people!

Rant over. On with your day!

Commenters Beware

This is totally me.

Target: Your Big Brother?

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did

(skipping to the middle of the article):

What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons.

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

Read the whole article here.

YIKES!!

New Movie by Provident Films

Oops! Wrong Holiday

Happy Valentine's Day anyway!

Are You Listening?

I've heard it said that if you say something once to a man, you may as well have never said it. (It was a man who said this; no insult to men intended.)

I'd like to coin a new phrase:

If you say something to a child and don't ask them to repeat it back, you may as well have never said it.

This is not necessary for all children, but in my experience it is definitely a time and sanity saver with most children.

It goes like this:

Me: "Elena, I need you to go upstairs and get Julia's shoes. They're on top of her dresser."

"Ok now, what are you going to do?"

Elena: (she repeats back the instruction)

Me: "Ok go ahead"

Elena: (does as asked)

Here's how that could have gone:

Me: "Elena, I need you to go upstairs and get Julia's shoes. They're on top of her dresser."

Elena: "Ok, I'll go get them."

(She comes back down with Julia's shoes and dress.)

See how much time I could have saved by making sure she understood the instruction?

My Favorite Pencil Sharpener

This may be the dumbest thing I've ever blogged
. . . that is, unless you have the same problem we do: pencils that are never sharp.

Once upon a time we had an electric pencil sharpener. It broke. Then I just switched to those freebie manual ones you get at office supply stores before school starts. The leads seemed to always break in those thingies!

There was actually a discussion about pencil sharpeners on a parenting forum I'm a part of. I thought: Good grief, I'm not alone in this!

And I heard about this little wonder of a pencil sharpener. It was $5 so I figured I couldn't lose, but seriously folks, this little thing has changed my life. Ok, so I can't seriously say that about a pencil sharpener, but I love it nonetheless.

*no affliliate links in this post

Monumental