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.

I spoke at BlogHer 2012, Keeping Things Private in a Public, Digital World, with NY Times moderator Jennifer Preston and fellow panelists Lynne Seitz & Vicky Colf (Warner Bros) about the ongoing changes in regulations & privacy agreements that leave the end user confused and vulnerable. While there are all types of informative ways to help protect oneself in the online world, I came out of the BlogHer conference with 5 main points top of mind:

•  Turn OFF geo tagging (or geo location) on your phone’s camera app settings – unless you choose to allow the public to know your private details which are embedded within those shared pictures

• Try not to share with everyone – only selected users (i.e. semi-personal information with your friends..not friends of friends)

• DO NOT simply rely on a company’s privacy plan because they constantly change. Stay updated & change your perspective as these terms of service change.

• Think more than twice about allowing apps to share each others data. While you may trust Facebook or Twitter, those cute lil’ 3rd parties rarely have the same privacy terms

• READ those terms of privacy..you’ll be very surprised at what they’re having you agree to.