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Talk about unfair. Melanie Martinez, the host of The Good Night Show on PBS Sprout, has been fired because of two satirical videos that she made seven years ago. PBS claims that because the content of these videos wasn’t suitable for kids, she had to get the boot.

Well, then, what about the fact that actors such as Jim Carrey, Willem DaFoe, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci have all been guest stars on Sesame Street? They’ve also all turned in certain performances that we wouldn’t want our children to watch. What exactly is different about Ms. Martinez? Perhaps the problem was that her videos weren’t successful enough. Maybe if she had won an Oscar for them she would be getting a promotion instead.

Please say Enough, PBS! Help bring back Ms. Martinez by signing this petition or by writing to your local PBS affiliate.

--Kelly and Melanie

No more blocks, no more dress up: what is Kindergarten coming to? A recent article in the NY Times describes the trend toward academics at the expense of fun in the lowest of grade levels.

How sad is this? “The play kitchen, I had to remove it to make space for the math station and the reading station,” says one teacher interviewed for the article.

These things are being done with the best of intentions, aiming to close the achievement gap, but there’s value in the social aspects of those less lofty pursuits. After all, negotiation is an important skill, and how better to learn it at an early age than by quibbling over who gets to wear the treasured single pair of gold lame dress up shoes in the box?

--Melanie & Kelly

Due to technical difficulties (stupid PC!) Here it is!
Pull up a chair and pop open a Pacifico. It's time for Thirsty Thursday. Join us if you want, invite a friend, and/or come back next week when we'll have a new Special. Today’s theme…In honor of all the summer weddings: Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

What’s something old that you will never give up?

Melanie: I have this old, beaded hair ornament from Alaska that’s made of tanned moose hide with a carved wooden pin for attaching it to the hair. I treasure it as a souvenir of my home state, and I can’t imagine ever getting rid of it, even though I haven’t worn it in years.

Kelly: Probably my husband. I can’t think of anything material. A wise woman who may or may not have been in league with Santa Clause once told me that memories are inside of you not in things. It was one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve ever received and has allowed me to let go of a lot of things that were cluttering up my house. That being said I have some items of clothing from my Grandfather, Dad, and Mom that I will probably never get rid of.

What’s something new that you recently acquired/learned how to do?

Melanie: I bought my very first energy saving light bulb. I finally saw the Al Gore movie, an Inconvenient Truth and now I’m obsessed. Who woulda thunk it?

Kelly: I just bought these awesome vintage tumblers. I think they are so funny and will be perfect for a cocktail party.

What’s something that you have borrowed or lent recently?

Melanie: The hugest stack of library books. I haven’t been going there often enough, and my house is starting to look like a bookstore. So, yesterday I checked out twelve books and four books on tape. At least they will only add to the clutter temporarily.

Kelly: I just borrowed 11 CDs from Carolyn.

What’s something blue that you would never wear to a wedding?

Melanie: I hardly ever wear blue anyway, but let’s see…I guess maybe my new blue Swatch, since it’s not fancy enough.

Kelly: Blue jeans of course! Although my brother’s was kind of informal, so I’ll say my blue bathing suit. Even if it were a beach wedding, I would pick a different one.

The latest Elle magazine caught my eye with the blurb plastered across Kiera Knightley’s arm: “The Case for Marrying Down: Why Younger, Less Successful Men Make the Best Husbands.” Intrigued, I put the glossy on top of my carton of cage-free eggs.

You can imagine my surprise when I flipped past the ads for overpriced handbags and “new” reality shows to come upon a picture of a bride doing dishes staring wistfully out the window above the title “To Love and Obey?” On a friend’s recommendation, the author attended a Women’s Weekend with alleged marriage expert A. Justin Sterling. His view on relationships is that men are men and need to be able to act like men and that women are bitches. Really. The first thing he had the group of women do, after his minions had them sign waivers, relinquish their cell phones, and listen to a litany of rules more often used with Kindergartners or Marine recruits, was identify what kind of bitch they were. It went downhill from there.

Irritated, I reread the cover and flipped through the magazine again looking for the article that had lured me in. Turns out I had skipped past it while reading the other. Apparently it was a two part piece called The New Marriage Exhibit A (The Sterling Model) and The New Marriage Exhibit B (The Hirshman Model). I had been hoping that they would talk to people who had actually followed the course of marrying a younger, subservient male, but it was, instead, an interview with Ms. Hirshman. She gave the now-familiar rules from her American Prospect article about going to college to get a high-paying job as an investment banker or lawyer, ”marrying down”, and having only one child. The most vexing part is that Ms. Hirshman refused to detail her own child care arrangements saying that she had a deal with her daughter and would only say that they “had a person” and that person didn’t leave at 5 P.M. She dismissed the childcare woes of women everywhere with an offhand, “…it’s only a couple of years before they go to nursery school! I never understood why people make such a big deal out of this.”

Neither of these solutions sounds like the answer that we’ve been waiting for. Maybe because they are both too simplistic and expect nothing of society. Miriam Peskowitz’s ideas can’t be summarized in a shiny format, or, certainly, this blog, because her thoughts on marriage and equality are more complex than throw yourself under the bus for your marriage and children or throw your marriage and children under the bus for your career. It would be nice if the media would focus on real solutions rather than on the extreme fringes.

--Kelly

There is nothing like a wedding to turn on the waterworks for me nowadays. We went to a friend’s nuptials over the weekend, and the mere sight of her walking down the aisle with her dad was enough to send me over the edge.

As a mother of three daughters, I automatically put myself in the parents’ shoes. I wonder what it must feel like to look at that beautiful bride and remember the little girl that she was. It’s a very tangible reminder that everything changes, although it seems sometimes like it’ll be potty training and time-outs forever.

So, bring on the weddings, and I’ll keep trying to remember to enjoy living in the moment.

--Melanie

On Saturday I had tickets to take my kids to see School House Rocks Live. I’d been prepping them with the DVD of the old television shorts and they were excited to see the show. My car had a different opinion. Someone left it on all night when she wanted to get her Gnarls Barkley CD to listen to in her husband’s car on her way to dinner with her friend on Friday night. (Why do I feel like I’m writing about my teenage daughter instead of myself? ) I tried calling a couple of people for a ride and briefly considered using the two-seater as a shuttle but it got to be like that brain teaser about the fox and the chicken and the boat. So we acted like we were living in the city again and walked the mile and a half to the theater. I was so proud of the kids for being such troopers. We were only five minutes late and just missed some of the silly improv warm up show. The kids had a great time and even thanked me later in the evening for taking them.

--Kelly

Last week I wrote about mass extinctions, but it seems that maybe animals going extinct isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Exhibit 1: Galloping Carnivorous Kangaroo


And even more frightening, think Daffy Duck in this form eight feet tall:

Exhibit 2: Demon Duck of Doom


Hearing about these two creatures makes me miss the show Friends. Can’t you just hear Ross waxing ecstatic about them?

--Kelly

Pull up a chair and pop open a Pacifico. It's time for Thirsty Thursday. Join us if you want, invite a friend, and/or come back next week when we'll have a new Special. Today’s theme…Knowing Me, Knowing You (hear ABBA on this one).

1. When is the other person’s birthday? (no need to put the year, ahem)

Melanie: Kelly’s birthday is August 16th
Kelly: You are correct, Miss.


Kelly: Since Melanie got mine right I’m sorely tempted to look hers up. Mel are you sure you didn’t cheat on this one! OK, I’ll be honest and say October 17?
Melanie: Okay, wait. We weren’t allowed to look it up?? Of course I used my calendar for yours! I knew it was in August, but not the date. You, on the other hand, are impressive, being only four days off, working strictly from memory—it’s Oct. 21.

2. What is the other person’s favorite color?

Melanie: Wow. I feel like I should know this, but I’m not sure I even know my own favorite color. I’m going to go with my first instinct and say that blue is her favorite color, but it could be something in the orange family too, or maybe I’m just thinking that because she’s just gotten an apricot skirt to wear with her orange flats to a party. Good luck figuring out my color, Kelly!
Kelly: It’s red, though my husband always claims I’m lying about that.


Kelly: I am going to guess that Melanie’s favorite color is green. But maybe that is just because it’s what she painted her bathroom. Actually, now that I think about it, she would look really nice in green. So Melanie, since you aren’t sure what your favorite color is why don’t you just go with green.
Melanie: That’s quite good. It think chartreuse probably is my current favorite, although I’ve gone through red and orange phases in recent years.

3. What was the name of the other person’s first pet? (A certain conversation in Palm Springs should help with this…)

Melanie: I generally remember the conversation with our erstwhile admirer at the outdoor Hilton bar, but I can’t remember the pet’s name to save my life. I think it might have been something that could be a double entendre of some sort, but I plead ignorance on this one.
Kelly: The pet’s name is Samantha. But the conversation was with our legal admirers, AKA our husbands, over poker. The double entendre probably comes because we were talking about that game: What is Your Porn Star Name. The one where you put your first pet with the first street you lived on.


Kelly: Having said all of that, I can’t remember Melanie’s pet’s name either, but I do remember ROTFLMAO at her answer. I think I’ll blame the Vicodin (from my accident)/wine combo.
Melanie: It was Buffy. And the first street was Buttermere. So: Buffy Buttermere.

A study from the University of Kansas reports on some factors that are indicators of a happy family. How does yours stack up? We must admit there were some surprises for us.

Rules:
Happy families have only a few rules, stated broadly, as opposed to lots of nitpicky rules designed to contain bad behavior. An example would be “Respect”, talking about respect for parents, siblings, belongings etc, instead of outlining every single rule that would cover every situation.

Creative, working parents:
Both parents worked or volunteered; often one worked from home. One researcher said, “In these families, mothers and fathers were perceived as available, but not ‘in their faces.’”

Kids and Risks:
Children are allowed to take some risks, including travel abroad at a young age.

Conflict Resolution:
Happy families have predictable ways to deal with conflict and know that disputes won’t threaten the family.

Private Space:
Family members have their own spaces, no matter how small, to be alone—even if it’s just a treehouse.

And of course…the one we all hear about…
Family Meals:
Happy families eat together. One suggested tactic for stimulating conversation is to recount the high point and the low point from your day.

--Melanie & Kelly

The recent issue of Stanford’s alumni magazine is a special issue on childhood (No, I did not go to Stanford. Yes, I stole it from a friend’s coffee table). Here are some interesting stats from the articles, the United Census Bureau, and the little-known but highly respected United Bureau of Melanie.

We are getting married at older ages…
Median age for first marriages in the U.S.:
Men (2004): 27.4 Men (1960): 22.8
Women (2004): 25.8 Women (1960):20.3
(U.S. Census Bureau)

…but I personally threw off the whole curve.
Melanie (1997): 30.0


Raising kids is not so much more expensive than it used to be.
Cost in dollars of raising a child for 17 years in 1960:25,230
Cost in dollars of raising a child for 17 years in 2000: 165,630
Percentage of increase adjusted for inflation: 13

Percentage of total cost spent on child care and education in 1960: 1
Percentage of total cost spent on child care and education in 2000:10


But today's kids watch way too much TV and don’t move out soon enough.
Percentage of children who live in a home where the TV is on “Always” or “Most of the time”: 36
Percentage of Americans ages 18-35 who live with their parents: 33
Percentage of Americans ages 18-35 who live with their parents who watch TV “Always” or “Most of the time”: ????

One thing that’s for certain is that those alumni magazines always make everyone else sound like they’re doing so much better than you are.
Percentage of Stanford alumni doing fabulous things and not living with their parents, according to the alumni notes at the back of the magazine: 100

--Melanie

Lookee here. You can make a model to your specs, and then upload it to try on clothes at a number of internet stores or even try on the hot picks from fashion magazines. Not that I’d waste my time with something so shallow. No, not me.

--Melanie

I got this postcard in the mail yesterday. How can this possibly be serious? And yet, on the reverse are instructions for ordering the cookbook.

The text on the Jello mold thing reads, “Clone and eat your own gelatin face while your party guests laugh their heads off.” I’m sure that would be a hit at the next PTA meeting. And is it my imagination or does that volcano cake look like some kind of diseased organ? Even Jane in our book had a better volcano cake than that.

--Melanie

Pull up a chair and pop open a Pacifico. It's time for Thirsty Thursday. Join us if you want, invite a friend, and/or come back next week when we'll have a new Special. Today’s theme…Tick Tock.

Do you wear a watch?

Melanie: Always. I just replaced my old Swatch with a weird new one that doesn’t even have hands; it just has these little clouds that float around the number dial.

Kelly: Never. I stopped when my oldest was born and I stopped working, there just wasn’t a point. Now I don’t even own one that has working batteries. If I need to know what time it is I just ask someone or look at my trusty cell phone.


What time do you get up in the morning & why? Go to bed?

Melanie: Oddly, there’s not much of a morning routine. I get up between 5 and 7, either by my alarm, waking naturally or the organic alarms (kids.) Depends how tired I am, I guess. Bedtime: usually early, about 10 p.m.

Kelly: On weekdays around 6:30 because that is how late the kids let me sleep and I go to bed around 10ish or so, sometimes later if I’m writing or reading a really good book. On weekends I stay up until midnight or 1 and get up around 8.

What have you spent more time doing this week than usual?

Melanie: Driving! I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. One of my daughters has a drawing class every day that is outside our normal sphere of commuting.

Kelly: Yelling at the kids. I really think they miss the routine of school because they are just not listening!

Who knew there was a difference between being authoritarian and authoritative? Not me. I learned the difference from an article in the NY Times, which reports on a study showing that the former are more likely to have overweight kids than the latter.

Authoritarian parents are those who try to control everything about their kids, from how they dress to what they eat. Previous studies have linked this style of parenting which is high in control and low in sensitivity, to poor grades in school and behavioral problems.

Authoritative parents on the other hand, respect their children’s ideas and input, but draw firm limits. Sounds like an appealing model to strive for. As a bonus, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics, their children also have the lowest risk of weight problems.

As an aside, yesterday I saw a mom trying to put her eleven year old daughter onto the elliptical trainer at my gym, over the strenuous objections of a club employee who was upholding the twelve year old age limit. Now, the question is: was this an authoritarian parent, encouraging her daughter to work out? The Pediatrics study claims this can backfire, leading children to avoid exercising. Or did the little girl really want to do the cardio-interval blaster on a lovely summer’s day?

--Melanie

First of all, I always thought that there was only one mass extinction on earth, that of the infamous dinosaurs. After an eye-opening trip to the natural history museum yesterday I’ve learned that there actually have been six mass extinctions. And there is one going on right now.

The baseline rate for species going extinct is about 10 to 100 species per year (this includes all organisms like fungi, bacteria, and insects, as well as vertebrates). The current rate is 27,000 per year – and that’s just from deforestation of the rainforest! Okay, you might think, who cares about bugs and mushrooms anyway?

Well, the average rate of extinction for mammals is one every 200 years. So how many have the past 400 years brought us? Not two, as we should expect. Try 89 with another 169 on the critically endangered list. It is estimated that 30% of the world’s plants and animals could face extinction within the next hundred years or so.

The good news is that the planet has always recovered, the bad news it takes about 5 million years.

Happy Tuesday!

--Kelly

Five months ago when there was snow on the ground and everything was brown and grey my friend Jenny called to see if I wanted to see Wicked with her and our other friend Carolyn. Last night, in sleeveless tops with nary a speck of wool in sight, we finally saw the show. The lag between getting the tickets and going was like waiting as a child for the one time each year when The Wizard of Oz would be on television. I remember being so excited for it to come on. It was almost like a holiday. Not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but kids today just don’t get that excited over screening an old movie on the black box.

Anyway, on to the show (you might want to skip this part if you are planning on seeing it). Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch of the West, was portrayed as one of those earnest, idealistic college women (think PETA) with a horrible sense of style. In a housing mix-up she ends up not rooming with her wheelchair bound sister but instead shares the private suite of Glinda, the future good Witch, who has come to school to get her MRS degree. Glinda is the only blonde in the show and is like the head cheerleader and sorority president rolled into one fabulous package. Of course, a less than successful Clueless-style makeover ensues. But the main theme of the story is how history can be rewritten by the winners, sort of a People’s History of Oz. I don’t want to give anymore away.

Wicked did a great job of incorporating the original Oz story and there was only one area where I felt that there was a glaring inconsistency between the two. The scarecrow should have known that the Wizard was a shyster, but maybe he forgot when he was turned into the scarecrow. I plan on reading the book to find out. I would also put my money on the musical being turned into a movie. I hope it is, and I plan on being there to see it!

--Kelly

I heart the world of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. The mothers are always guzzling black coffee while feeling entitled to ask for more from their kids: from good table manners to listening and not being tattle tales. If that’s parenting fifties-style, I say bring it back!

When the mothers are at their wit's end, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle always saves the day with her magical potions. How is it that I’ve never become acquainted with these books before? Has she been languishing in the library and bookstore all this time?

I am hoping that after enough listenings to the book on tape I got at the library yesterday, maybe my kids, too, will start eating with perfect manners and listening to everything I say. Some say brainwashing, I say great children’s fiction.

--Melanie

An article in The Boston Globe describes the latest parenting trend...ever-bigger families. Apparently, three is the new two and four is the new three.

The disturbing parts of the article? Let’s start with the notion that having large families is somehow a substitute for the frustrated dreams of high-achieving women who quit work to stay home with their families: “After all, managing a bigger family can be a lot like managing an enterprise, with schedules and budgets…”

But even more strange is the idea that, for some, having a large family is a status symbol. “For some people,” says a pediatrician quoted in the article, “having four kids has become the new status symbol, like having a luxury SUV. It says you can afford it…” Zoiks!

If that’s true, it's taking things a bit far on the parenting front!

Obviously, status seeking isn't the only reason that parents have for choosing to have bigger families, and actually the article is fairly balanced in this regard, describing other motivations as well, such as wanting to reproduce (no pun intended) the family structure in which a person grew up.

So, to recap: Trendy diaper bags and stroller, maybe. Deciding on your family size based on keeping up with the Joneses? Just say no.

--Melanie & Kelly

A new Google feature, called Google Trends is like an internet crystal ball—telling you what the world is interested in…as well as when and where (see NYT article.) For example, did you know that peace and war are most often searched by people in Edmonton, Canada and Brisbane, Australia, respectively? On the other hand, Washington D.C. took the top prize on a search of Lewinsky.

It’s also interesting for tracking stories that are blips on the radar screen—the James Frey and Kavya Viswanathan literary scandals show up as sharp peaks in otherwise flat landscapes.

We can imagine all sorts of interesting uses for Google Trends, probably most notably as a marketing tool. In our opinions, it would be even better if there were a feature that showed the rate of change in popularity of each search item—sort of a Google version of The Tipping Point.

All they would need to do is to show the first derivative (slope) of the data that’s already included in Google Trends. Then we could all figure out what the collective wisdom of the internet thinks is the hottest new thing. Give us a list of the fastest changing items and you’d have an instant trend tracker. Don't thank us, thank those college calculus classes.

--Melanie & Kelly

Pull up a chair and pop open a Pacifico. It's time for Thirsty Thursday. Join us if you want, invite a friend, and/or come back next week when we'll have a new Special. Today’s theme…Deserted Island—need we say more?

Which three albums?

Melanie: I’m taking this whole thing literally: If I were really stranded on a deserted island, which sounds kind of scary, I would go for comfort food in the album department, and choose music that was soothing and which reminded me of happy times. Carole King’s Tapestry, Andreas Vollenweider’s Caverna Magica, and The Grateful Dead’s Skeleton from the Closet.

Kelly: If I Could Only Remember my Name by David Crosby, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Chili Peppers, and The White Album by the Beatles (Album 1 if I can only take one)


Which three foods?

Melanie: Peanut butter, bread and apples. Simply, nutritious, tasty!

Kelly: Coffee, good bread, butter.

Which three books?

Melanie: Gotta be books you can read again and again. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset and Time and Again by Jack Finney

Kelly: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck because they’re kind of opposite politically, and they’re long and really good stories. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn because it is long and depressing and would make my situation seem not as bad.

Or something like that...

I’m getting faster. I still can’t quite believe it. You might remember that a few weeks ago I posted my plan to run a 5K race every Wednesday for about twenty weeks—it’s a summer race series with music and food afterwards, lots of fun and even a kid’s race on the beach.

Well, it's been worth it so far. I ran my fastest time last week, which was 26:15, or the equivalent of 8 ½ minute miles. This is incredible for me, because I was used to running about ten minute miles for many years since I had kids.

Of course, I had my bubble burst a bit when I bumped into a friend before the race last week who told me her times are in the 22 minute range!! Well, whatever. I’m still happy to be anywhere in the single digits again for the first time in eight years.

--Melanie

Let me start by saying I have never used a fake name: ever. Except for Isabella Penn, of course.

According to an article I read this weekend, aliases are all the rage at Starbucks, so I guess I’ve been missing out all these years. People use them for all kinds of reasons. Some wish to simplify things by using an “easier” name, substituting Jane for Xotchitl, for example. Other people just want to have fun. Who wouldn’t want to be called Fi-Fi or Lex for a day?

You can generate your own name anagram if you want to be really tricky a la Dan Brown, who used an anagram of real scholars’ names to come up with Sir Leigh Teabing in the Da Vinci code.

So…do you ‘fess up to your real name or come out with an outrageous alias when the barista asks?

--Melanie