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Momtrends Guest Blog: Vacation Planning for Family Travel

All great family vacations involve lots and lots of planning! Nicole Feliciano of Momtrends has all of the great advice and resources you need to make your trip go smoothly and ensure the whole family has fun:

Cool Hotels Family & Kids is a gorgeous paperback travel guide jam-packed with vivid color photos. The author has picked all the hippest spots around the globe to travel with family in tow. The book targets "cutting-edge parents" who "don't want to slow down or sacrifice style for practicality."

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Saved from Down Under!

"Week 13 of pregnancy...been throwing up like crazy UNTIL...my sister sent me some Vegemite from Australia, finally the nausea settles down! Vegemite is very high in Vitamin B, it is a salty spread to put on toast or crackers. This is what I look like most days of the week at my desk as a corporate travel agent in NYC, working, eating saltine crackers with Vegemite and growing a baby; this is what I call multi tasking!"

Thanks for sharing your secret weapon against morning sickness, Kim!  

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Our first entry!

From Viv: "Multi-tasking in the 9th month of pregnancy can be a challenge. Most of my multi-tasking took place in a seated position because bending over became impossible. Being a mother of 3 already as well as being 9 months pregnant, there where times when we would head out into the cold winter air in our pajamas to pick up breakfast. This happened to be one of those days. I managed to stay in good spirits while trying to convince my then 11 month old daughter to stop posing for the camera long enough to get into her coat! A lot of people have this misconception that doing anything this far along in a pregnancy is impossible. But, I think you just have to go at your own pace and if you have to sit down to do it.....go right ahead."

Thanks, Viv, for sharing your gorgeous pregnant belly, hard at work caring for another little one!

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Shoe Marshall

Summer Amnesia

For most students, summer provides a three-month-long vacation for the brain. Kids think “school’s out, summer’s here, don’t bore me with anything intellectual!” Yet teachers complain about spending the first two months of school reviewing material forgotten due to summer learning loss. So as we head towards the Fall, we find ourselves trying to combat summer amnesia and attempt to get ready for a new school year.

Over the summer, you should ensure that your child avoids seeing books as foreign objects collecting dust on the shelf. Have the library staff recommend great thrillers and adventure books. Pick an exciting and challenging book to read aloud together, even with a middleschooler, as it increases vocabulary, improves his listening skills, and stimulates his imagination. Set and stick to limits on TV, video, and computer games: just as you do during the school year. And remember that even comic books and magazines beat reading nothing at all!

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UNICEF Cause-Based Marketing Campaign

True confessions: the involvement of Unicef is what made this event a must attend for me. A year and a half ago, I served as a media spokesperson for Unicef on their Trick-or-Treat Halloween campaign and fell in love with their amazing global work. So much so that my spokesperson fee went straight as a donation to their cause.

Carol Stern, relatively newly minted President and CEO of Unicef United States Fund, came to spend time with us to share her passion for Unicef’s tetanus vaccination program, of which P&G Pampers has become a key corporate sponsor. She shared with us pictures and stories from her trip to the field, observing moms birthing in Mozambique, the primitive conditions, and huge risk of death for the newborns. She found herself wondering, “How can this Mom and I exist in the same world? I went into the hospital giving birth to my son practically screaming, ‘Epidural!” And here this Mom is thrilled that her newborn lived, as two prior children died during childbirth.” She describes her work as Moms on a mission: making the world a better place for other moms.

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Pampers Baby Center

Fourteen of us arrived from all over the country to convene at baggage claim in the Cincinnati airport under a bright sign, “WELCOME MOM BLOGGERS,” as the outgoing, vibrant staff of Paine PR and Rocket XL greet us. Hugs abound as virtual friends and colleagues meet for the first time or reconnect in person after innumerable Twitter exchanges, blog reading, social networking, and Skype talking.

Ultimately this trip emerged as a story of Moms’ need for transparency and dialog with brands, and a large corporate brand welcoming with baby steps this rapidly changing paradigm.

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Mad Women?

OK, so this is a little off-topic, but I couldn't help but thinking in the course of setting up this blog, about the TV show everyone seems to be talking about, Mad Men. If you haven't seen it, it's amazing, for the retro fashion alone, not to mention the peek into the past I'd like to think it's providing. Check it out here.

In case you missed the last episode of the first season, and I feel comfortable saying this now that we're into season 2, it turned out that the Sterling Cooper's newest Jr. Copywriter was in fact, expecting. Aside from how she got that way, I thought it was worthwhile to point out what a relief it is to be able to be a pregnant working woman with 1. no reason to quit working if you so choose and 2. nothing to hide!

In keep with the theme of this blog, however, I must share a photo of a mom-to-be at the office. Here it is, Peggy Olson, almost 9 months along, at the office in the fictional 1959 of Mad Men.

So, what do you think? Have you seen the show? How thrilled are you that women have so many more choices now? 

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I Stopped to Smell the Roses...And It Was Totally Worth It!

By Bridget at "...And Miles to Go Before We Sleep..."

Bridget is the newest B.O.M.B. winner  because we all sometimes need a reminder to slow down and "smell the roses." What started as a normal day turned into a beautiful memory for Bridget, and we should all take the time to appreciate even the simplest day with our children. After all, they grow all too quickly. Thanks for the inspiring post, Bridget!

Yesterday, I was getting prepared to run my typical weekly errands--which is understandably boring--and my daughter, Isis, came up to me and begged me to take her with me. Usually, if one of the kids asked to tag along during this mundane chore, I refuse--not because I don't want the company, but because I get in and out of the car so frequently, that it soon becomes very tedious to get them in and out of their car seat. It takes more time to get out of the car than it does to actually run in into the building to get what I need to get done.

Today, I agreed to have Isis ride in the car with me. I figured that I had a relatively smooth week, and getting her in and out of the car would not be too much of a nuisance to me today--I was so glad that I made that decision.

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