What I remember most about my own college graduation in 1993 was Marian Wright Edelman’s words “Superwoman doesn’t exist… she died of exhaustion.” I can’t tell you how often I hear those words in my head.

It’s graduation season which means the commencement speeches are starting to roll in on YouTube. Which means we all get to hear them now. YAY!

Did you happen to catch President Obama’s commencement address to Barnard graduates? WOW. He said exactly what needed to be said right now to the women who need to hear it. The speech is 30 minutes long, but it is worth it. It’s not a campaign speech, but a touching homage to the women in his life… his mother, grandmother, wife and daughters. It’s also brings home that we are in the midst of history making with LGBT rights.

The other commencement speech that really moved me was Aaron Sorkin’s address to Syracuse University graduates. It’s shorter at sixteen minutes and though the first 10 minutes are amusing, it’s the next six minutes that you must hear. Sorkin is a powerful writer and he hits it out of the ballpark with his speech. We all know our words matter, but I’m not so sure these college graduates do.

Now, I would love for you to share in the comments section any commencement speeches recently or in the past that have moved you. I was looking to see whether there existed any YouTube Channels dedicated to commencement speeches. But alas I couldn’t find any. Wouldn’t that be great if there were one? It would be like TED for Dummies. I would totally watch it.

Photo source: Pablo Martinez Monsivais – AP/ Washington Post

It’s no secret that my favorite baby gift is a bundle of my favorite children’s books.

I often find myself going to my son’s bookshelves to select a few of my favorite book titles to buy for the new baby and parents. Sadly, this weekend I started packing up many of my son’s children’s books from his younger years. He tells me that at a playdate the other weekend, one of his friends was asking him why he still had “babyish books” from his younger years still on his shelves. I’m sure the boy’s words weren’t as teasing as Ry felt them to be, but, nevertheless it is time to make room on his shelves for the bigger-boy chapter books that he is currently reading.

Upon starting my “donate” and “storage” boxes, I realized that I could no longer run to my son’s shelves to select my favorite children’s book titles to gift. Yes, I have my previous order lists on Amazon, but they’re a mish-mash as I’m pretty particular about which books I pick out to gift. So, I decided to chronicle our favorite children’s books here so I could have a nice go-to list. I hope it helps you too when you’re searching for children’s books to gift to very young ones.

Here we go (in no particular order):

1: When You Were Small
2: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
3: Corduroy
4: The Little Engine That Could
5: Make Way for Ducklings
6: The Snowy Day
7: I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (Charlie and Lola)
8: I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato (Charlie and Lola)
9: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
10: Pride & Prejudice (BabyLit Board Book)
11: Alice in Wonderland: A Colors Primer (BabyLit Board Book)
12: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Board Book)
13: Where You Came From
14: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Board Book)
15: Where the Wild Things Are
16: Wave
17: Shadow
18: Flotsam
19: The Paper Bag Princess
20: Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct
21: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale
22: Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion (Knuffle Bunny Series)
23: Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity
24: Olivia
25: Olivia Saves the Circus
26: Olivia Forms a Band
27: Olivia . . . and the Missing Toy
28: Olivia Helps with Christmas (Olivia Series)
29: Zen Shorts
30: Love You Forever
31: Freckleface Strawberry
32: Leonardo, the Terrible Monster
33: Good Night, Gorilla (Board Book)
34: Jamberry (Board Book)
35: Wizard of Oz Scanimation: 10 Classic Scenes from Over the Rainbow (Scanimation Books)
36: The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
37: Waddle!: A Scanimation Picture Book (Scanimation Picture Books)
38: It’s Okay To Be Different
39: Miss Nelson Is Missing!
40: The Story of Ferdinand
41: Silly Sally
42: Pippi Longstocking
43: Blueberries for Sal
44: Is Your Mama a Llama?
45: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Adaptation
46: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up
47: No, David!
48: 10 Little Rubber Ducks
49: The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Became Real
50: The Nutcracker
51: The Kissing Hand
52: How I Became a Pirate
53: Roger, the Jolly Pirate
54: Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me (Board Book)
55: Caps for Sale
56: The Carrot Seed (Board Book)
57: Each Peach Pear Plum (Board Book)
58: The Runaway Bunny (Board Book)
59: Tikki Tikki Tembo
60: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
61: Olive, the Other Reindeer
62: Guess How Much I Love You (Board Book)
63: Every Friday
64: Harold and the Purple Crayon (Board Book)
65: The Giant Jam Sandwich
66: Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
67: The Day the Babies Crawled Away
68: Fairy Tales
69: Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
70: The Giving Tree

What are some of your favorite children’s books for little ones?

When my nine-year old son summarized Being Elmo as inspiring, I knew that this documentary was a sure-fire hit to recommend to you all.

It tells the story of Kevin Clash, the young boy who dreamed and worked hard to become a puppeteer at Sesame Street. But, to his own surprise (and that is what makes him so great!) Kevin is the brilliant actor behind the beloved Elmo.

Yet more reasons to love Being Elmo are it’s also a story about the importance of dreams, opportunities, mentorship and hard work.

Also, there’s wonderful behind the scene footage of Sesame Street from today and decades past. If your young ones still think the Muppets are real, I would hold off on showing the movie and let the magic live a little longer.

Being Elmo is about 90 minutes and can be found on iTunes and Netflix. It’s also available for sale on DVD now.

Here’s the Being Elmo movie trailer:

This post is sponsored by Chronicle Books’ Ultimate Adventure Series for Kids

Chronicle Books asked me to share how I get my son to read in a video post. I wasn’t an eager reader at 9 years old and neither is my son right now. So, here’s what I do.

I would love to hear what you do to get your kid(s) to read. Please leave a comment below to be entered to win a set of the three Ultimate Adventure books from the Worst-Case Scenario series: Everest, Mars and Amazon. I’ll be giving one set away (giveaway rules below).

The books are great and my son thought it was so cool that you could skip ahead based on the choices you made in the books. It’s an added level of interactivity that makes it feel like a game.

Here’s a the book trailer for the Mars Ultimate Adventure book.

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Giveaway Rules: Please leave a comment below (only one comment per reader, please) to enter the giveaway of one set of three books of The Ultimate Adventure Series. One winner will be chosen at random using random.org. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 11:59pm EST. The winnner will be contacted via email. If the winner fails to respond within 48 hours, another random winner will be selected. Giveaway only open to contestants 18 years or older and residents of the U.S. Good Luck!

I remember when Drop Everything And Read (D.E.A.R.) was introduced in my elementary school. Everyday for 15 minutes the entire school would go into a silent period and all students would pull out a book to read. Any book we wanted. I wasn’t a naturally-inclined reader as a child. I struggled with comprehension and always had ants in my pants. But, looking back, I only have fond memories of those 15 minutes of daily DEAR time.

Well, National D.E.A.R. Day is Thursday, April 12, which also happens to be Beverly Cleary’s birthday. So to celebrate we have a present for you… bookmarks!

Click here to make these Free Bookmarks yours. Just print and cut.

Happy Reading!

I like to work smart and sometimes we need some techniques to help us learn, or just remember things so we can look smarter than our fifth grader.

For a while I have been keeping a running list of my favorite mnemonics and I have shared them below. I’m sure there are more out there so please share in the comment section.

1. Spring Forward, Fall Back

This is the perhaps the most well known of them all. Admit it, you repeat this to yourself twice a year to remember. In case you don’t know this one, you move the clock forward during the Spring from 2am to 3am to begin Daylight Savings Time and you move the clock back in the fall from 2am to 1am to end it.

2. Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey

I can’t believe I was in my thirties when i finally learned this one, especially since my dad is a mechanic. When turning bolts or a knob, you turn them right to tighten (or close) and left to loosen (or open). Yes, you can hear me singing the refrain every time I replace batteries or use the water hose. Photo source

3. Using “b” and “d” for Bread and Drink

You can usually also find me at a well-appointed dinner table making the “b” and “d” with my fingers. Look at the picture above. You get it now, right? You’ll Your kids will always know which bread plate and which drink glasses are theirs. Photo source: Hi Sugar Plum

4. Make an “L” With Your Fingers to Know Your Left Side

When my son was younger I taught him him left from his right by having him make and “L.” It only works directionally with your left hand. Photo Source

5. Remembering How Many Days in Each Month with Your Knuckles

I still do this myself (you too, right?). I need to look at my own knuckles to know which months of the year are 31 days and which are 30. I can only really just remember February, October and December. For the others, I need my knuckles. Photo Source: Quiterly

6. Nines Multiplication Calculated with your Hands

My eight-year old actually taught me this trick to remembering how to multiply by nine. Just use your fingers to help you calculate. Photo source

7. Order of Operation in Math (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally mnemonic)

I had totally forgotten about Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally until today when I was astonished to learn through some Twitter conversations that so many adults (even an engineer– I do hope he’s using Excel at his day job) can’t remember basic math like multiplying before adding or subtracting in an equation. If you use the Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally mnemonic, you’ll be good if you can’t remember the Order of Operations math rule. Photo source

Can you share any others that we should know?

Click on over to read my other picks. Also, feel free to use my invitation to signup for Gilt Groupe to take advantage of great savings on high quality children’s products and more!

Since we didn’t have a school uniform, the kids dressed up in green or rainbow-striped clothing, even if you weren’t of Irish heritage.  We were all Irish that day, we were told.

Being of Portuguese heritage and coming from a very busy two-parent working household (which was unusual for my neighborhood in the 70s), there were years that my sister and I would forget to dress appropriately for St. Patrick’s Day.

But, the very resourceful lower-school teachers always had St. Patrick’s Day buttons ready for those forgetful kids to wear in school that day to celebrate as well.

Even though St. Patrick’s Day falls on Saturday this year, I thought it would be fun to have some free St. Patrick’s Day stickers for you all that could work like buttons. This way the kids can wear them, share them with their friends or even decorate St. Patrick’s Day treat bags.

We have four different styles to choose from:

Pot of Gold
Mommy’s Lucky Charm
Think Green
Shamrock  (a simple design)
Variety St. Patrick’s Day Sticker page with all the above designs

Just print out on an entire sticker sheet then use a 2″ circle punch.  We have left a little bit of a safe cutting zone for you, so please position your circle punch correctly.  You can also print these circles out on white cardstock and make great St. Patrick’s Day tags for gift bags.

Enjoy and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Welcome, BabyLit!

Currently available from the BabyLit series is Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, and Romeo & Juliet.  Gee, I hope they publish more in the series.

These sturdy board books are beautifully illustrated by Alison Oliver with images inspired from the original tomes.  Three of the books– Romeo & Juliet, Pride & Prejudice, and Jane Eyre– are counting primers, while Alice in Wonderland is a colors primer.  As an example, from Romeo & Juliet, there’s 7 masks, 8 love letters, 9 street and bridges (with references to Verona, Palazzos Montague and Capulet).

I love the entire series but must admit that Alice in Wonderland and Pride & Prejudice are my two favorites if I were to have to choose.

Clockwise from center:

1) Polo in chambray blue from Lands’ End
2) Striped hoodie jacket from Zara
3) Striped belt from GapKids
4) Sperry Top-Siders in neon tangerine from J. Crew
5) Denim jeans from Zara
6) Pocket Kite from Amazon
7) Kids’ aviator glasses in orange at GapKids (also looks great in silver!)