International Day of the Girl is today, @ragazzabazaar informed me. I had no idea!

In honor of such a day, I came up with a list of 10 traits that I sooo desire my daughters to acquire along their journey.

1.   Keep An OPEN Mind

2.   Get Enough SLEEP

3.   Know How to BREATHE

4.   LAUGH..a lot

5.   Feed That BRAIN

6.   Embrace CHANGE

7.   LEARN from the mistakes

8.   SHARE Your Toys

9.   Be KIND

10. Know Who YOU Are & LOVE her to pieces!!

Surely I’m missing a few, comment away please & Happy Girl’s Day my sisters!

By now, we’re settled into a new year at school..a fresh new beginning.

But what if you’re realizing that the teacher/child relationship is giving you flashbacks that you’d rather not go back to?!

How and when do we take the steps to communicate our concern, while understanding all points of view..remembering to stay open minded while still focused on the main goal..to maximize your child’s experience/learning?

3 Simple Steps to deal with a “less than ideal” teacher/child relationship are in my October post of Moffly Media’s Greenwich Magazine HERE.

What if your Mom was forced to retire after contracting severe health ailments from the dilapidated school where she taught? While many of her coworkers relied on air fresheners to disguise the mold, most went home with the typical “2:30 headache” due to the conditions.

Rachel Gutter told us that this was what urged her to work for The Center for Green Schools in 2007 & to become it’s Director two years later.

Tomorrow, Sept. 29th, the US Green Building Council is holding it’s 1st Green Apple Day of Service, where over 1,000 schools across the nation will join with their communities for healthier, more sustainable space.

The Center for Green Schools is putting out a clear message that a school’s physical environment truly affects the outcome of it’s students. Once parents, educators & school officials realize that there are some simple steps that can convert their school into a healthy, safe & enhanced learning environment, they realize it’s a win-win for everyone.

“It’s also about putting funds back into the classrooms” says Ms. Gutter. A school in Kentucky learned that after calling in an energy manager to review their building, they would save enough (over a short time period) to keep 104 teachers on payroll that were about to be dismissed. Our children’s (& teachers’) health and ability to succeed should not be compromised as a result of situations that have solutions.

You can find locations in your area that are taking part in the greening at MyGreenApple.org, because we need to take care of tomorrow’s leaders today!

On the anniversary of 9/11, it helps to have age appropriate answers for your kids questions.

In May of last year I interviewed my graduate school adviser,  Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, (VP of Research & Education at Sesame Workshop) on PBS Parents’ The Parent Show. While we are typically exposed to more coverage than we need, it’s important to understand how our kids are processing disturbing talk & visuals that are hard for even adults to comprehend. I discussed this with Dr Truglio & hopefully the conversation may assist.

Watch Talking to kids in the aftermath of scary news on PBS. See more from The Parent Show.

Tom Cruise..Katie..Surie..I honestly have 0 idea what the whole story is about, who it’s about (well perhaps who), nor is it any of my business, but my unfortunate glance beyond the CVS register definitely made me cringe today.

Surrounding that rag, were shots of all different types of people on magazines that were essentially all the same. Each one apparently had ALL of the answers that, unbeknownst to me, I needed! BUT the one with the cover photo of a Dad swimming with his daughter begged us all to ponder, WHERE’s the Mom?

Why, pray tell, is a daughter with..with..get this one..her Dad?!

Should we also inquire “Where’s the Dad?” if the child was simply swimming with the Mom, the Nanny, the Teacher, the Sitter, the Grandma, the AuPair, the Coach (see where I’m going with this?)..

32% of fathers took care of their kids at least 1 day p/wk in 2010 so why is there a need to time travel backwards on this parenting issue?

If you can shed some light on this please leave a comment below.

[Follow up post to Are you Ready for a New Pet?]

One decision made: We are getting a dog! Lots of new decisions to go..

The kids want a small “cute” dog & my husband wants one that is easy to travel with, so we are aiming for one that will be no more than 20lbs.

My husband is also mildly allergic to dogs, which we didn’t discover until after our pug had been gone a few months & his allergies miraculously cleared up! So we need to look for a low-shedding, low-dander, “hypo-allergenic” variety. Poodles, havanese, maltese, shih-tzus, bijons, some terriers, & many of their mixed-breed puppies can be good for people who suffer with allergies..so we are looking for one of these.

We also live in a city apartment, so we need a dog that isn’t “yappy” that will annoy the neighbors. We all agree we want a puppy that we can train and love and watch grow from the beginning.

When we first decided to get a puppy, I was set on rescuing one from a shelter, but after weeks of searching, I quickly realized it isn’t quite that simple. First, puppies are very hard to come by in shelters. You should be open to adopting a dog at least over a year & sometimes even much older or of unknown-age to adopt from a rescue shelter. Next, you are often unsure of parentage, making allergen prediction nearly impossible.  I also found that in our city, the shelters were filled with large guard dog types..not what we were looking for.  To find a small-dog puppy with known parentage I had to search shelters in a much wider radius & they were so rare that several in a row were snatched up before I could get our adoption application approved.

I was even told by one rural shelter that they probably wouldn’t even approve us for adoption because they don’t believe that dogs should be placed in “urban locations” regardless of whether we were fit to be dog-owners! So as much as I had hoped to “rescue” a dog, we have decided that we were going to go the route of a breeder, which poses a whole set of additional decisions and a lot more researching to avoid puppy mills.

I’ll be back with updates on our search for our newest furry family member soon but in the meantime, should you have any tips for acquiring a new dog, PLEASE share your comments here!

There’s no doubt about it, there will never be another Fred Rogers. But his legacy continues with Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, a new show coming to PBS KIDS this fall.

Mrs. Joanne Rogers and Angela Santomero, creator, executive producer, and head writer of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood talk about how Fred’s message is going to continue for today’s generation of kids. Join the neighborhood at PBSKIDS.org/Daniel

If you have any questions about the show, I ‘d love to hear them below.