Okay, ONE of us just learned from the OTHER one that, to be a good parent, one should read aloud to their children every single night, for like 30 minutes or something. Really? For real? I mean, that sounds reasonable in theory, but after shuttling everybody everywhere, getting house stuff done, trying to maybe take a shower on occasion, doing the whole sports/homework/dinner thing and just GETTING them into bed at a reasonable time….NOW I have to squeeze in quality reading time BEFORE they actually read quietly to themselves? I’m seriously barely hanging on here, people. Help!!

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Wahoo! A dear friend Michael Feldman is the EP and head writer for Sonny With A Chance, that Disney show that all of our kids looove. So lucky us – we got to watch a taping and go backstage afterwards to meet the stars. Suffice to say, our kids were beside themselves…we’ve never seen their eyes or smiles SO big!! Thanks Michael….

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In researching our books, when we’d talk to the prior generation of mothers, we’d often ask if their now grown or almost grown children were the same basic people as when they were three or four or five years old. Almost all of the time, the answer was a resounding ‘yes.’ So it’s really wild when your child busts out with a thought or insight or opinion that might just give you a glimpse into who they’ll be – or who they already are.

The other night, when Amy was in the midst of a total mental breakdown over house and family stuff, her kids Sam and Emily came over to her, kind of horrified that she had snot running down her nose and was heaving sobbing, uncontrollably (she usually holds it somewhat together and fakes it pretty well in front of them). Emily immediately broke down crying – “I’m scared! What’s going on?!” Sam, on the other hand, put his hand on her shoulder and calmly said, “Mom, you need to BREATHE. Just breathe, c’mon. You don’t need this stress. It’s okay, really.” It was quite amazing to see not only the difference in their reactions, but how they are becoming their own, strong, thoughtful little people.

And by the way, it’s totally completely acceptable to let your kids see you have a breakdown, and then see you pull yourself together. No need to put up the facade – it’s too much work, anyway.

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Hey – Amy here. Tonight putting Sam (7 years) to bed, he whispered in my ear “Mom, I love it when you laugh…your voice sounds so beautiful.” Ok, he’s either gunning for Mario Cart Wii….or he was delivering one of those ‘oh my God I need to go write this down right now so I never forget it’ moments. As an optimist, I chose the latter and ran and jotted it down. And then proceeded to clean up the kitchen, review my long ‘to do’ list and finally heat up some dinner.

But wait…that moment deserves a little more pause. A little more…more. It’s all going by so fast, how do we keep these moments, translate them into our brains for how precious they really are, breathe into them a little? In about 5 seconds our kids will be grabbing our keys and dating and leaving the house and…well, we all know the drill. I guess for now, I’ll just try really, really hard to savor his sweet, seven year-old words.

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We both were blown away by the new film produced by our pals Jennifer and Suzanne Todd! (We are also thrilled to be working with them on a Lifetime show based on our ‘Dirty Little Secrets’ book)…stay tuned!

We flew to LA Monday for the first U.S. screening of Alice, and it was phenomenal. A very soulful and compelling interpretation of the tale, with amazing performances by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Mia Wasikowska. Opens this Friday, check it out! xx

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“Oh…! Look at that…kitty? You worked really hard, didn’t you? You want it to go where? In the kitchen? Oh…I’m thinking maybe my upstairs closet shelf would be waaaaay better, where I can see it every day…what do you think?”

It's a...kitty, right? Awww.

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Today is the BIG DAY!! The American Heart Association is declaring today as “Go Red For Women” day, to raise awareness and prevention of heart disease. Please please re-post this on your blog, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It’s time for all of us moms to truly take care of ourselves. Along with wearing RED today, please check out their website — http://www.goredforwomen.org.

GO RED FOR WOMEN and NATIONAL WEAR RED DAY!

· Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 450,000 women each year, about one every minute.
· While 1 in 30 American women die of breast cancer, about 1 in 3 die from cardiovascular disease.
· More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.
· Ninety percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease.
· Only 1 in 5 women believe that heart disease is her greatest health threat.
· Heart disease is largely preventable. In fact, 80 percent of cardiac events in women may be prevented if women make the right choices for their hearts, involving diet, exercise and abstinence from smoking. Check out GoRedForWomen.org!

Wear Red Today!

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Hey guys– we are excited to help support the American Heart Association’s “Go Red For Women” effort and “National Wear Red Day.” This special day is coming up on Friday, February 5, and it’s dedicated to helping raise awareness and prevention of heart disease. Check out: GoRedForWomen.org. One super easy way you can help is to take a minute to read the following stats and re-post via Facebook, Twitter or blog. THANK YOU!! PS– and WEAR SOMETHING RED on Friday!

Cheers,

Amy & Trisha

GO RED FOR WOMEN and NATIONAL WEAR RED DAY
(THIS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5)!

· Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 450,000 women each year, about one every minute.
· While 1 in 30 American women die of breast cancer, about 1 in 3 die from cardiovascular disease.
· More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.
· Ninety percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease.
· Only 1 in 5 women believe that heart disease is her greatest health threat.
· Heart disease is largely preventable. In fact, 80 percent of cardiac events in women may be prevented if women make the right choices for their hearts, involving diet, exercise and abstinence from smoking. Check out GoRedForWomen.org!

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Seriously…we each just spent oh, about an hour and a half cooking a really simple meal, only to have our kids whine and complain about the ‘funny smelling’ sauce on the chicken and the ‘craggly’ spinach (uh, ever heard of SAUTEED?). We are trying, really hard, to be good moms who offer up homemade meals. But why is it so hard? Why among all of the trillion cookbooks out there can we not figure this out? We’re down with the hotdogs and mac ‘n cheese 4 nights out of the week, but aren’t we supposed to step it up a little, some of the time? Ugh. Dinner is throwing us over the edge. Waaaay over.

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