Teen McKenna Pope walked into her 4-year-old brother's room to find him cooking tortillas on top of a light bulb. She knew then and there that she would get him an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas.

That is, until she went shopping and realized that the pink oven was overly girly and her brother wouldn't like it. She wanted to show him that it's "it's not 'wrong' for him to want to be a chef." So she did what an enterprising teen does these days.

She started a petition and Change.org and then she went viral.

The storm panic hit my No Frills early this morning and there was a run on bottled water, Halloween candy and Decadent chocolate chip cookies.

Even by 11 a.m. the line-ups were long and I was totally humiliated to be buying a two-litre jug of water as the law in our house is no bottled water! But my husband was insistent that we had some and we decided that filling up the bathtub was one step too far into paranoia.

As an adult, it is scary -- I can only imagine how all this talk of hurricanes and Frankenstorm feels to kids. What is the appropriate level of anxiety in response to all this "storm porn"?

Now that camp is done, I'm already working on the nightmare of scheduling extra-curriculars for the three kids; this is logistically difficult and can get very expensive.

We have barely recovered from paying for summer programs, but I am already pulling out the chequebook and making a list of gear requirements (well, making a list might be overstating things, I should be making a list.) I am thankful that we get off relatively easy because my kids do not play competitive anything. And house league play means house league-level gear. 

In a few short hours my three kids will be out on summer break and I will be their chauffeur, camp counsellor, teacher, computer tech, playmate and cook.

I may also be a little teary on the schoolyard - a potent mixture of anxiety, sadness and fear of the long days ahead.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. I like hanging out with them. And there are parts of summer that I enjoy like being released from the dreary routine of packing lunches, school drop-offs and stress.

The world may be divided by people who loved camp and people who didn't (this is similar to dividing by those who cook and those who bake but different groups).

I went to sleepover camp for four years. I liked it but it did not change my life. I was happy to be there and happy to be done with it when that time of my life was over.

But my sister and brother-in-law loved camp as did my husband's brother and his wife. (It seems that in our family camp-y people marry each other -- is this common?) Camp was the highlight of their year, and they spent the whole school year waiting for it.

Saturday is the annual Take Our Children To The Park and Leave Them There Day (TOCTTPLTTD). Can you even fathom it? Taking your kids to the park, and then abadoning them?

What would they do?

What about the predators?

Easter egg hunts are a sure signal of spring. But this year the family-friendly Easter egg hunt has become a symbol of something much worse: the helicopter parent.

A helicopter parent is the kind of parent that protects their child from every bump and scrape - emotional and physical. They hover over their kids and make sure that the whole world treats their precious young ones with kid gloves.

It’s March Break; which, let's be honest, can be a stressful vacation. The museums and other child-friendly activities are packed. Lots of people are away, leaving you as the main source of entertainment. You have pulled out the stops for two days and now you need to do work/laundry/need a break from dragging the kids our for fun.

And it’s raining.

Time to break out the games.

My house looks just like your house right now. Toys lying around that have no home, half-finished art projects, books piled on the counter and corners of tissue paper floating around under the couch.

It is a little much.

We love Lego here at Chaos. There are Star Wars sets and headless minifigs lying all over the house. There are corrupted cars and colourful towers piling up in the corners. And we aren't alone.

What parent hasn't had a nostalgic moment putting together a Lego set? What parent hasn't shouted with frustration after finding a misplaced piece near the end of the instructions? And what parent hasn't screamed with agony after standing on a tiny brick lying on the ground?

And yet, Lego is one of the few toys that kids and parents both love. We feel good about the educational and motor skill development that comes from playing with the little bricks, and experience a moment of parental pride in our sons' obvious brilliance when they complete 87 steps in a short time.

But what about the girls?