Do you know what the Holy Grail for a mother of three is? The hat trick of extracurricular parenting planning? Having three kids in swimming lessons at the same time.

Ask any parent - swimming lessons are the bane of their existence. You definitely want all your kids booked at the same time because the whole changing room rigmarole is too much to do more than once a week. The problem for parents is that swimming lessons are a drag: there is the sitting in the hot waiting room, the taking off of the shoes and the wet pant hems, the ongoing need for a pedicure, the boredom.

But the worst part of swimming lessons is that kids hate them.

Hands up if the recent pictures of almost 5-year-old Suri Cruise with a pacifier in her mouth made you feel all warm and judgy.

Yeah, me too. As much as we want to say that we don't judge other parents, (almost) five is too old to be walking down the street in a fancy-shmancy coat with a binky in your mouth. And we all know it.

Did you hear about the woman in New York who is suing a preschool for being a "giant playground" and not readying her 4-year-old child for an Ivy League school?

Nicole Imprescia is suing the York Avenue preschool for not prepping her daughter for the E.R.B. - a test taken by tots trying to get into the city's most competitive public and private elementary schools. Instead, the lawsuit claims, they dumped Lucia with 2-year-olds learning their "shapes and colours."

The anxious mom pulled her daughter out after a month, concerned that her ability to get into a good school was being jeopardized. She now wants her $19,000 of tuition returned.

Gill Deacon has been on the forefront of making a greener world for years which could make her a self-righteous, grumpy pain. But instead, she is one of the most laid-back, warm and amazing people you will ever meet. And, she still comes to my house even though I have a drawer filled with plastic containers. Gill has a new book out: There's Lead in Your Lipstick: Toxins in Everyday Bodycare and How to Avoid Them which details toxins in everything from makeup to soap. Instead of  being scary though, the book has real ideas about how to clean up your bathroom drawer. I asked her to write a post on the toxins in baby products. 

Your Baby Smells Clean, But Is She Really Clean?
Dewy, soft and warm as we wrap them in a bunny-eared towel, they’re never more darling than when you lift them out of the bathtub, right? (That is, on the days when they’re willing to get out without a fight…) Tickling our sugarplum’s damp after-bath skin, we feel doubly satisfied: they’re cute and they’re clean.

Or are they?

Depending on what products you’ve used in your little one’s bath, she may actually be dirtier getting out than she was getting in. Tubtime is actually pretty toxic.

In the summer of 2000, our close friend's father received a letter from Japan. The letter was from a young woman who worked at the Tokyo Holocaust Centre, "I have your sister's suitcase" it read.

Fumiko Ishigoka was trying to teach children in Japan about the Holocaust in order to foster tolerance and compassion. She wondered if an artifact from a European child would help Japanese children feel empathy for the children who perished long before they were born.

The Auschwitz Museum sent her a child's sock, a sweater, a shoe, a canister of Zyklon B gas and a suitcase. In thick white paint, the words "Hana Brady, Waisenkind [orphan]" were written on the scuffed brown leather. 

Tuesday was International Women's Day, which in my house means that we talk about why stereotypes exist and how we perpetuate them. This is often met with eye rolls and pat answers from my 11-year-old who is starting to catch on that this is something that is important to me.

Goodnight air

Goodnight soup bowl

Goodnight Mr. Nobody

Goodnight garage that needs cleaning

Mama! It does not say that!

What? Huh? Oh sorry, honey.

Nothing like reading one of the classics for the hundredth time after a long day and a big dinner to have the snoozes hit you like a ton of bricks. Your eyes start to water, the head bobs set in and then the incoherent babbling starts.

Sometimes when my co-author Eshun Mott and I are doing the dog and pony show for our book, Whining and Dining: Mealtime Survival for Picky Eaters and Families Who Love Them, we get asked if we have any specific recipes that kids can make.

We are always a bit stumped by this question. Shouldn't it be framed the opposite way, as in, are there any recipes that a kid shouldn't do? Because from fancy to simple kids can cook absolutely any recipe out there. (Adult supervision is a component, of course). If you have a super-keen cook then why would you limit them to recipes that are dumbed-down for the under-18 set? If your kid loves pasta bolognese then why wouldn't you make it with them?

My kids have been peeling carrots, cutting mushrooms and measuring ingredients since the age of two. And let me tell you, it is a giant pain in the behind. They are messy, slow and don't follow instructions. And contrary to the 'experts', my kids will not always eat what they cook. I only do it because I think there is a greater good at stake. 

Cognitive Dissonance: contradictory mental state: a state of psychological conflict or anxiety resulting from a contradiction between a person's simultaneously held beliefs or attitudes.

There are many instances of cognitive dissonance in children - when they are standing on their bed screaming "I am tired!" but won't go to sleep; when they are crying because they are so thirsty but won't drink from the blue cup.

But the largest example of cognitive dissonance in your home may be yours. According to a study by two Universtiy of Waterloo researchers, parents rationalize the joy they get from parenting to make up for the time and money they spend on child-rearing. Essentially, we are delusional.

It's the time of year when it is easy to get very jealous. Every time I talk to someone they are off buying sunscreen and bathing suits or scouring the stores for flip-flops. It's March Break and people are heading south.

But why? Travelling during March Break means line-ups, crowds and inflated prices, while going away in February or April means better selection and lower costs. And yet the majority of people choose to go away for this one week a year because it is a school break. Why are parents so afraid of pulling their kids out of school for one week?