Embrace the Chaos is where moms can connect over parenting issues, sanity savers and more

It is Family Literacy Day. Which kind of begs the question: isn't everyday family literacy day?

Does a day go by in your family without talking about books or reading? Or at least yelling at your kids to get their reading done?

Sometimes kids have something that we adults don't have: guts. They aren't always brought down by the what-ifs of a situation and go for it. (This is, of course, a downside of teens as well.)

These two high-schoolers from Toronto are a great example. They decided to send a weather balloon, camera, and a Lego minifigure holding a Canadian flag into the stratosphere just because they wanted to. And so they did and it actually worked. And they have an amazing video to show for it.

Yesterday, I wrote a general post on Facebook and why I am leaning toward allowing my son on to the site even though he is under the age limit of 13.

But Facebook is such a huge, huge topic that I felt like I missed some things about how to handle the site itself.

My son is almost 12, he is in Grade 6, and he tells me often that he is the only kid in his year that does not have a Facebook account.

He has one year to go to legally join the site, but we are leaning towards letting him lie and join a year early. It doesn't feel good but I do know that most of his friends have an account and I would rather that he joined while I still had some influence over him, than have him join without me knowing. Because that is what kids do.

If you don't believe me ask the Vice-Principal of your local middle school; they will tell you that all the grade sevens have an account, but many parents don't know it.

I got asked this a lot: "Do you know what you are having?"

Our usual answer to that question was: A) a baby B) a big meal C) what do you think I'm having? D) a human, unless that alien abduction dream was true.

At which point the asker would then try and guess, either by using some superstition that had to with my skin, eating habits, the way the wind blows, the size of my stomach or something else with little reliability.

But is knowing the gender of your baby really that important?

In case you haven't heard, Cindy Crawford's daughter is the new face of Young Versace.

My first thoughts were: Who buys Versace for their kids? And who cares?

But also, why? It's not like that Crawford-Gerber family is in need of money. Putting their child's face in a magazine is about the chasing of fame, pure and simple.

Their beautiful 8-year-old daughter wants to model and they made it happen. And I don't get it.

This wasn't the post I was planing to write tonight, but given the night I've had it is what I have come up with.

My 11-year-old son was in a funk and feeling cranky and down. He was lying on my bed when he did a funny, jerky head move and banged his head on the corner of my bedside table.

It obviously hurt and I went over to check out the situation and as I was soothing him, I noticed blood - never a good thing.

I struggle with getting the kids involved in giving back. They see and hear that other children are not as lucky as them. But I worry that it becomes just noise.

When it comes to kids giving back, it's not about the amount of money raised, or what the projects are; it is the sense of satisfaction and they get from doing it which will hopefully drive them to make giving a part of their lives.

Sleep. It's the most elusive, fleeting, annoying, talked-about, and aggravating part of (early) parenthood.

With your first, no matter how much preparation you have had, there is absolutely no way that you are ready for the relentless attack on your sleep patterns. You will cry tears of exhaustion and bitterness. You will reach out to friends, strangers and professionals for answers.

But there are no answers on how to get your baby/toddler/preschooler to sleep. Nothing you will buy, read or pray to will prove to be the magic thing that does it. But looking back, there are a few things that helped me get through those sleepless nights and get my kids to sleep:

The world is divided into male and female. The toy stores want us to know it, the toy manufacturers want us to know it and, often, the comments here on this blog want me to know it.

But once in a while a kid will tiptoe over the line, sometimes with intent, with curiosity and sometimes just because sparkly, purple things are nice to look at.