When I first heard that Disney was rebooting The Muppets, I didn't really give it a second thought. They were funny when I was kid, but the decades-old movies are a bit painful to watch these days and their goody-two-shoe optimism has had its day.

But then the trailers and the spoofs came out and it felt like the Muppets were in on the joke. Could this be a reboot of characters from my childhood without all the cynicism and sexed-up characters that plague all the other comebacks from my youth?

No presents please, just your presence is appreciated. It is my (belated) two year blogiversary. My second anniversary of blogging here at Embrace the Chaos was in October. But I have been so busy keeping up with the news and managing chaos that I haven’t had time to reflect on the goings-on here in my tiny corner of the Internet.

But I have learned some things along the way this year including:

Have you seen the video of the two boys spreading flour all over their house? It has over 2 million hits on YouTube and keeps growing.

Seems that mom wasn't feeling well and headed to the bathroom for a longer than normal visit and forgot to lock the safety latch on the cupboard. Her boys drag the bag of flour out and make their own mosh pit. Her reaction as she finds the mess? She repeats "Oh my Gosh!" about 100 times, grabs her video camera and puts it on YouTube, ostensibly for her relatives.

Do you hang on to some of your kids' beloved clothes long after they have outgrown them?

I have some shirts from the boys, a couple of tops and dresses from my daughter. Every time I look at them I remember the way they looked in them, and they way they acted in that certain item. I can literally picture them standing in front of me in that outfit, like a ghost of days gone by.

I bury the small clothes in the basement and then, about once a year when my husband forces me to clean up, I come across them. Then I have a frisson moment where I feel the pain of them growing up, but also happiness at the memory of them as little children.

Keeping dirty onesies, torn jeans and wrinkled dresses is nothing more than being sentimental. And it is something that I should let go of. It is hard because the physical reminder of the item is what brings back the flood of memories.

But clutter is clutter and those piles of favourite kids' items get weaned down. It is the right thing to do. As my husband says, those memories are in your head - not your closet.

I wonder what I will do with the remaining items. Will I toss them eventually? Will I pay someone to compile all the pieces into a baby blanket for a grandchild? Or will I just hang on to them and reflect on the time I held up those teeny tiny sleepers to my swelling belly, amazed that the wearer was going to be born in weeks; those fleeting days when my kids were so little that they couldn't dress themselves; the year when they thought that Spiderman pajamas gave them superpowers; when the love for one particular shirt could make or break an entire day. Holding on to a few pieces of clothing isn't the most rational thing that a parent does - but in a few instances, I can cast rationality aside for a little space in storage.

What do you with your kids' most special clothes? Do you give them all away? Do you have a few hiding in the closet?

Want more chaos? Last year, I admitted one of my deepest secrets: I cheated and I got caught. You won't believe that I could be that stupid.

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I don't have anything against tattoos, per se. I just don't understand how people can commit to inking their skin in a permanent way when I can't even decide on a new duvet cover. And tattoos don't look so good when you are old and wrinkly - who wants a zodiac sign that looks like a prune on their back?

But an article on Babble made me see tattoos as a means of expression of things you love and have lost.

Are constant tantrums a part of your everyday life? Is the yelling and screaming getting you down? Are your old methods of time-outs, the naughty chair and yelling back not working anymore? There is a new method available, and it is free, thanks to the Yale Parenting Center.

(I actually don't want to make fun of the Yale Center, which is one of the few places out there that is doling out parenting advice based on actual research.)

Parenting a tween is like being in suspended animation. You are constantly dancing between the: "He is so adorable still" and the "OMG, do I need to worry about the behaviour? He is almost a teen."

I consider my almost 12-year-old still pretty innocent. It is hard for me to imagine that we will soon be negotiating all those too-icky-to-even-mention topics. I think that we do a pretty good job of keeping the lines of communication open, of being relatively non-judgemental and letting him be independent. We aren't perfect, but we are just cynical enough to know that the lives of teens are filled with moral choices that seem more complicated than when we were young.

I tune in to Saturday Night Live each week while my husband snores beside me just to catch Seth Myers on Weekend Update. (I know, we are a wild and crazy bunch!)

But this Saturday, through my sleepy haze, I heard Seth mention Toronto. He was taking a Toronto school to task for banning "hard balls" in the playground. He was wondering if the principal was going to put a hinge in the teeter-totter next. (Silly Seth, there hasn't been a see-saw in a school playground in years.)

As the kids get older, we are less often the family causing the scene with screaming tantrums and scolding parents and more often the family sitting smug, watching some other family fall to pieces.

Sadly, that was not the case today. Today was our turn and it was totally embarrassing.

Stars, they are just like us. Alanis Morissette admits that she was totally unprepared for motherhood.

No one told her about post-partum she laments in a blog post, so she reduced all the stories together "composite-style, into a fantasy that included bursting into blissful tears, buoyed by clouds and surrounded by cherub angels gushing how the lil’ one’s lips were his father’s and his deep contemplative gaze mine."