I wrote a post the other day at Her Bad Mother about what I really wanted for Mother’s Day – I wrote the post, actually, to accompany a Momversation episode that I did addressing the same issue – in which I claimed that I was a Mother’s Day  curmudgeon and that all I wanted was a day off from motherhood. Then I contradicted myself and said that I wasn’t actually a Mother’s Day curmudgeon and that I didn’t really want a day off from motherhood. Not a whole one, anyway. Obviously, I’m confused.

The whole issue, really, was around finding a balance between finding some time and space for myself while still having my family close enough at hand to be relied upon to provide me with praise and hugs. Which meant, really, that that post should have just been a post about how all I want for Mother’s Day is more stuff for my mom cave. Because, seriously: what is a mom cave if not the perfect solution to the problem of “finding a balance between finding some time and space for myself while still having my family close enough at hand to be relied upon to provide me with praise and hugs”? MY PROBLEM, I HAVE SOLVED IT.

So, yes: this Mother’s Day, I want six hours in my mom cave, with bi-hourly hug visits (extra visits to be negotiated), and these items from my mom cave wish list:

1) The DVD set of the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or the full download from iTunes);

2) A glass jar filled with candy. Licorice All-Sorts, maybe.

3) An e-reader (actually, Kobo just sent me one, after seeing me provoke Twitter into a raucous debate about e-readers the other day. All I did was ask: a) did I, an unrepentant book fetishist, really want one, and b) if yes, then which one should I get, and BOOM, Twitter exploded into debate. There might have been virtual fisticuffs. I had NO IDEA that people were so passionte about their e-readers. NO IDEA. Anyway, Kobo settled the question by just sending one to me. I’ll let you know how I like it once I figure out how to get it out of the box.)

4) A pot of hyacinths (because it’s spring now, and hyacinths are the smell of spring, and I want that smell in my cave.)

5) A pitcher of mimosas (because, duh.)

If I were really feeling greedy, I would also ask for my own tablet device, so that I could lounge around and play games without depriving Jasper of his preshus HI-PAD, and also for a new laptop with more power, the better for me to do video and photo editing and run sixteen bajillion applications all at once (any recommendations, techies?) But I’m not greedy, so I’ll take the Buffy and the candy and the liquor.

Happy Mother’s Day, all!

You can win your own dream cave in Intel Canada’s Build Your Dream Cave contest; you have until May 18th to enter. You’d end up with a totally cooler Dream Cave than mine, and you would have to invite me over. And check out the conversation this week at Intel Canada’s Facebook page for discussion about how techies do Mother’s Day, how mothers do Mother’s Day, and also some stuff that has nothing to do with Mother’s Day, because, you know, this mother stuff gets old sometimes.

Although I had always thought of myself as a bit of a book purist, I woke up one morning last December quite positive that I wanted an e-reader.  My husband, thrilled at the prospect of not having to think up a birthday present for me on his own, obliged, and a few weeks later I unwrapped my shiny new gadget.

And I love it as much as I knew I would, but not for the obvious reasons. Most people say they love their e-readers because they are lighter than hardcovers, or because acquiring their desired reading material becomes almost instantaneous. I will agree with all of these things, but there are so many other reasons to love an e-reader:

1) You can look smart while you read smut.

No cover = no title page = ability to read Breaking Dawn without anybody knowing. For all that the people next to you on the subway know, you could be reading A Tale of Two Cities, which, thanks to an alphabetical filing system, is what pops up to the top when you first turn on your machine.  Heh heh.

2) You can indulge your online shopping needs without cluttering up your house.

I do just sometimes get the urge to click, ‘Buy Now,’ and it’s much, much easier to rationalize the purchase of a $7.99 ebook than yet another (really cute) necklace from Etsy. Bonus – instant gratification! No need to wait for Mr. Postman to arrive. (Except with your credit card bill. Try not to forget that part.)

3) There is always room on my virtual bookshelf.

In contrast to my physical bookshelf, which is 8 ft tall, 5 feet wide and threatens to collapse under the weight of the books, stuffed 3 deep on every shelf. And no, there is no thinning it out. Are you suggesting I get rid of my grandfather’s 1930s printings of all the best childhood classics? Or my first edition hardcover copies of everything Michael Ondaatje has written in the last 20 years? No, I didn’t think you were.

4) Built-in dictionary.

I have a pretty decent vocabulary, but even I get stumped once in a while. Luckily, I can simply highlight the word I’m not familiar with, instantly find out its definition, and then spend the rest of the day using the word, sounding all thinky like.

5) If the book I’m reading sucks, I can scroll to another one.

Listen, sometimes books suck. They can’t all be Breaking Dawn you know. But at least if the book I’m reading sucks on my e-reader, chances are, there is something else available for me to read that might not suck as bad. At the very least, one of my e-readers (Yes, I now have two. Yes, I have a problem.) came pre-loaded with 100 classics, so it’s a good excuse to catch up on all the books I  never bothered to read in high school.

Do you have an e-reader? Want one? Love the idea? Loathe the idea? Let me know!

Photo: Kobo (jivedanson/Flickr)

I have a secret. I am a total victim to the bling. I covet Hermes bags and Hummer trucks and Louboutin shoes and all of overconsumed, underethiced trappings of our North American society. But most of it became completely impractical once I had a kid. No point having a Hermes bag if it’s filled with cheerios and covered in milk, you know? But brands are finally, FINALLY cluing in that Moms want a little touch of bling in their lives too. And how!

Check out this GORG Blingtastic super-cute Special Edition Royal Diaper Pail from Munchkin! Made to commemorate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, they’ve created a gift fit for the royalest of royal bums (second only to Prince Andrew!) – and it comes complete with diaper changing staff! From Munchkin’s Press Release:

Cast from solid gold and studded with more than 5,000 rubies, sapphires, and diamonds, this first-of-its-kind product neutralizes diaper odors through a patented system that includes a salaried, 24-hour nursery attendant to help parents change their baby’s diapers.  The company presented the first production model – truly fit for a king – to the royal couple in advance of their April 29 nuptials, in anticipation of the nappies of future royal offspring.

But you guys: YOU CAN GET YOUR OWN. For the low low cost of $1,000,000 (probably US, meaning it’s less Canadian – yay!) you can have a Royal Diaper Pail hand-delivered to your home via white glove service, then you select a “nursery attendant” from a cataologue of pre-screened child rearing professionals. Then you hand over diaper duty from the day baby’s born til they’re two! So the Royal Diaper Pail is not only a useful, odor-free diaper storage system – since you don’t even have to touch the thing, it’s also just a beautiful work of art to inspire you right there in baby’s room.

What an awesome way to add a little luxury – to diapers, of all things! Great job, Munchkin!

(Munchkin’s also giving away normal, non-jewel-encrusted, non-attended diaper pails on their Facebook page today, if you’re interested. But really: BOR-ING.)

I’m not a geek. I’m a dork, and a nerd, but I’m not a geek. Geeks are techies who love techie things and who are good at techie things, and although that middle statement describes me, the preceding and following statements do not. So, although I love, passionately, my iPhone and my Sony Bloggie and my Nikon DSLR D3000 and my various (yes, various) notebooks and my netbook and also my husband’s iPad, among other things, I am not geek, because I only know that I love these things, not how they work. So I wasn’t sure how I’d fit in at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which draws over a hundred thousand geeks every year to talk and think geek while showing each other geeky things. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to do much more than point and go ‘look! SHINY!’ But I went anyway.

And I’m glad that I did, because it was awesome.

I was a guest of Intel Canada, who were interested specifically in the non-techie take on what they and their fellow tech innovators were up to. And they’re up to some fascinating stuff, stuff that you don’t need an in-depth knowledge of processors and chips and Tron-mechanics to appreciate. Stuff like:

1.) 3D Interactive LEGO. Don’t even ask me how this works. Seeing the 3D Interactive Lego in action  was absolutely one of those circumstances in which I stood there like a moron and went OOOH! AAAH! But it was inspiring, because it demonstrated the extent to which technology can be deployed to enhance imaginative play in ways that exceed, dramatically, the type of play that is prompted by 2D, traditional interface computer/video games and the like. Sure, we’ve come a long way from Pac-Man with the Wii and with XBox Kinect (I am one of the only people in social media who has not tried the latter of these) and such, but the 3D Interactive LEGO demonstrated what 3 dimensional, interactive storytelling might look like – what it could look like, say, if your child’s Thomas the Tank Engine collection came to life and was attacked by a fire-breathing dragon! And caught fire, and was ablaze, and someone had to put Percy out! And also James! But be not afraid, because there’s virtual 3D water in that fire truck over there! You can put out the fire! THE ISLAND OF SODOR IS SAVED.

Awesome. (You can see it in action here. So cool.)

2.) Really tiny netbook-style computers that convert to tablets. Seriously, do you need me to tell you how awesomely convenient those would be to have around? Say you’re traveling with the kids, and you need to do a little work here and there, send a few emails every day, edit an Excel document or two, work on your novel… but the kids want to play games, and read stories, and they want a touchscreen, like on your iPhone. You just need this one, small device. And you just need to load it with…

3.) Intel Apps. Including Angry Birds. You read that right. ANGRY BIRDS FOR EVERYONE.

4.) Photo and video management systems that really work, super effectively, because they’re powered by a really super-duper fast processor. This all went by faster than I could take notes at the Intel press conference, and so when I look at my Evernote file it basically just says HOLY WOW MY LIFE WOULD CHANGE. Imagine if you could search your photo and video files with just the barest minimum of information – say, your general location – and the results would all be revealed visually, faster than you could say, now did I tag that Las Vegas, or Sin City? THEY CAN DO THAT NOW.

5.) Will.i.am. He was checking out Intel’s innovations in music creation and editing technologies. He had a man purse. He was the only one at CES with a man purse, I promise you.

And from the non-Intel spaces in the convention halls:

6.) Lady Gaga’s Super Awesome Spy Camera Glasses. I was ten feet away when she introduced these at the Polaroid booth, so my enthusiasm here might be skewed by the fact that I was ten feet away from her when she introduced these, but still. CAMERA GLASSES. We can all be Sidney Bristow now!

(Okay, I have to admit: when these were unveiled, my first thought was, honestly, um, didn’t they already put a video camera in a Barbie doll? The camera glass would have been a little more startling if Video Barbie weren’t already on the market. I expect cameras to be put in small things now. Still: CAMERA GLASSES. LADY GAGA.)

There were about six thousand other things that were awesome-amazing, and even about the half-dozen things that I listed above, there are about six thousand other things to say (like, for example, the possibilities that 3D Interactive toys offer to children with special needs; ditto for innovations in tablets). So expect to hear more tech-fetishizing and discoursing on tech-fetishizing from me.

Once I’m done playing Angry Birds on my notebook.

I told you that I ordered it. I didn’t lie.

I love it. I adore it. I wear it every single day, unless I have to go out, and even then I dither endlessly about whether I could maybe get away with wearing it to pick Emilia up from the bus if I had a puffy coat and tucked into boots. (For the record, I tried this once, but didn’t make it out the door. I looked like a demented, winterized Teletubby. It’s the drop crotch that ruins everything. One cannot sport a fleece drop-crotch outfit without looking like an animated character, or MC Hammer conducting an ill-considered experiment in loungewear.)

I want it in every color. Santa, are you listening? I WANT THIS IN EVERY COLOR.

Then I just need to construct my Mom Cave, stock it with Buffy DVDs and vodka, and you’ll never hear from me again.

I’ve been pretty open about my support of my children’s love of technology. I’ve also been pretty open about my concern over the fact that their love of technology leads them to do things like appropriate my iPhone or smash my laptop (twice). Which, really, constitutes a kind of contradiction: I like that they like and are proficient in the use of computers and handheld device, but I do not like they like using and becoming proficient in the use of my computers and handheld devices. So when a laptop specially designed for children landed on our doorstep, I didn’t even stop to check if it was our name on the delivery slip – I just grabbed it and whisked it inside.

The FIRST SPARK™ kids PC is a full size (13″), full power laptop designed for kids. Which means that it’s got all the bells and whistles of a good ol’ regular laptop, but with certain features – for example, a wipeable keyboard (WIPEABLE KEYBOARD), rounded rubber corners, and preloaded kid-oriented Internet browser KidZui – that make it kid-friendly. ‘Kid-friendly’ also – and for me, most importantly – means that counter-destructability features have been built in, like the wipeable keyboard, the anti-jog features, and the tough outer shell. I’ve lost two laptops to Jasper going hulk-smash on those suckers, so the sturdiness of the FIRST SPARK, and the simple fact that it’s a computer that can be theirs and theirs alone (which is to say, NONE OF MOMMY’S DATA WILL BE ON THERE AND VULNERABLE TO LOSS) is, for lack of a better word, HUGE.

Or, as Emilia says: AWESOME.

(Emilia informs me that she wants to run video computer tutorials to teach kids how to use laptops, and also how to beat Lego Batman (included on the system), so. Stay tuned.)

The FIRST SPARK kids PC is available exclusively at Best Buy®. It features the Toshiba L635. I don’t know what that means exactly, but seeing as the computer is awesome and runs awesomely, I’m comfortable stating that I’m pretty sure that that’s a good thing.

DISCLOSUREY STATEMENT OF DISCLOSURE: we didn’t buy this computer ourselves (I’m writing this as part of Technorati Media’s conversationalist ad program) but Emilia’s approval – as numerous failed experiments with those crappy Barbie toy laptops have proven to us – cannot be bought, so.

Oh my god, you guys. I want this for Christmas. I am totally not joking.

Actually, in the time that it took me to upload that picture, I ordered one for myself. No, really. Like I’m waiting to see if Santa brings me one. Santa always messes that shit up. And I want one NOW; like, today. Do you know how long I have watched my babies in their snuggly jammies and one piece fleece jumpers, warm and cozy and coddled in the simplicity of the one-zip outfit, and envied them? FOR ALWAYS. And now I can have my own! And I will wear it EVERY DAY. It is the UGGS OF LOUNGEWEAR.

Maybe not outside of the house, but we’ll see.

(You can buy them at the OnePiece site which, yes, delivers to North America. They’re kind of stupid expensive, considering that they’re priced in Euros. BUT SO WORTH IT.)

(Don’t tell my husband that I bought one.)

source, via Go Fug Yourself

Here’s the thing about getting a brand spanking new gas range for your kitchen: you will be so overwhelmed by the culinary possibilities offered by such a magnificent piece of cooking equipment that you will – despite having no talent for cooking – feel compelled to make things like garlic mashed potatoes at 10:48am in the morning.

And then, having eaten your potatoes, you will feel compelled to nap. And then your day will slip away from you like butter down the sides of hot smashed tubers.

I blame this guy:

I call him Fred. He’s a mashed potato pimp, and he’s not to be trusted. Which is not to say that I am not happy having him in my home – I am very happy to have him in my home, because he is handsome and capable and cooks things like mashed potatoes really, really efficiently – just that one really needs to keep one’s eye on him, lest one’s relationship with him causes one’s thighs to balloon.

Just sayin.’

Are you headed to the National Home Show in Toronto this weekend? Come find us there! We’ll be around – especially around the Whirlpool booth, learning about Fred’s friends and family – and we’d love to meet you!

Disclosure: Whirlpool gave me Fred. He was languishing in the Whirlpool Home For Lonely Appliances, and they thought that I might offer him a home and companionship. He’s settling in nicely.

Like most parents, this dad wanted to capture the first day of kindergarten for his daughter. Most would whip out a camera and capture one for the family album but not this dad. Artist Don Clark created this print for his girl’s first day of school and one has to wonder, is the monster him or his daughter’s alter ego?

Super Punch: First day of school.

I have a love/hate relationship with Legos. I love them  because they are one of like, three things that will keep my children quiet for longer than ten minutes at a time. But when it’s two-thirty in the morning and I step on one while stumbling blindly down the hall to the bathroom, I hate them. My husband and I joked around once about how my next tattoo should be a Lego imprint on the bottom of my foot.

Speaking of Legos (and of tattoos), check out these ads for Pilot’s Extra Fine pen, featuring totally awesome  hand-drawn  tattoos on little yellow Lego-people.

The detail is exquisite, right down to the gold tooth.

I think Lego should team up with Pilot to put out a collector’s edition of tattooed little yellow Lego people – I’d totally buy these for myself my kids.

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