Mama Speaks has a holiday gift guide up—and they’re giving away prize packages, people. Not just prizes, but prize packages. I almost don’t want to tell you, to increase my own odds of winning, but I get extra entries for telling you. So I’m telling you. There you go.

Though I’m not a big fan of suggesting that any particular activities—or clothes, or colors, or toys—are only for boys or only for girls, my kids will be getting The Daring Book for Girls for Christmas this year. Because it’s just that fabulous. (Also blue! And sparkly!)

The Daring Book is chock-full of, well, everything a girl should know. There’s history here (female pirates! and princesses!), and carpentry (how to build the ultimate scooter!), and general time-consuming fun (folding the coolest paper airplane ever!). There’s advice about boys (in part: “there’s no great big mystery about boys. Boys are people”), a list of essential gear (flashlights and duct tape, of course), and rules for four-square and basketball. There are directions for making cootie catchers and daisy chains. Really, everything a kid might need to keep busy from now until next spring. At least.

I could have done without the section on slumber party games—my kids don’t really need to know the history of the game “bloody mary,” because I’m a fuddy duddy like that—but in an almost 300-page book, I’m okay with skipping three pages.

And as for those who suggest that these activities appeal to parents nostalgic for their 1970s childhoods, I say: Hey, I didn’t even grow up in the seventies! And neither did my daughters. But we plan to thoroughly enjoy making peach pit rings and singing campfire songs anyway. So there.

Check out the Daring Girls website. And for even more on The Daring Book for Girls, visit MotherTalk.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book, as well as a small honorarium from MotherTalk for participating in this blog book tour.

Ugh, weekend blogging. Ugh, weekend blogging with nothing to say. Ugh, blogging when I have nothing to say and I’m just annoying all you (three) lovely people who were so kind as to visit.

But hey, Sadie just peed in Dane’s lap, so that’s something! Something I better go help with, I guess. Hmm. I suppose that makes this the end of the post. Which we should all be thankful for, as it was going nowhere at all. We’ll try again tomorrow.

OWEN: Where are my pants? Has anybody seen my pants?
ME: Hmm. There are pants in your closet. There are pants in the laundry basket. There are…
OWEN: No, I want the pants that DON’T make noise.
ME: [??]
OWEN: [Grabs a pair of pants. Just plain old pants. Like every other pair he owns.] Here, these will do.
ME: Um… Um… Okay then.

This book could not get off the UPS truck and into my hot little hands fast enough.

Booklist sums it up:

Margaret Lea, a bookish loner, is summoned to the home of Vida Winter, England’s most popular novelist, and commanded to write her biography. Miss Winter has been falsifying her life story and her identity for more than 60 years. Facing imminent death and feeling an unexplainable connection to Margaret, Miss Winter begins to spin a haunting, suspenseful tale of an old English estate, a devastating fire, twin girls, a governess, and a ghost. As Margaret carefully records Vida’s tale, she ponders her own family secrets. Her research takes her to the English moors to view a mansion’s ruins and discover an unexpected ending to Vida’s story. Readers will be mesmerized by this -story-within-a-story tinged with the eeriness of Rebecca and the willfulness of Jane Eyre. The author skillfully keeps the plot moving by unfurling a new twist in each chapter and leaves no strand untucked at the surprising and satisfying conclusion. A wholly original work told in the vein of all the best gothic classics. Lovers of books about book lovers will be enthralled.

Enthralled, indeed. The Thirteenth Tale is a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend 400 pages, with engaging characters, plot twists, and a conclusion that ties up every single loose end. I have to say, I like that in a book.

The only thing that could have made the reading more enjoyable would have been a rainy day and a cozy fire to read in front of. But alas, I live in Southern California, where it apparently never rains. And I have no fireplace. But I do have tea, which seemed an appropriate accompaniment when the rain and fireplace did not materialize.

For more on The Thirteenth Tale regardless of whether you have access to rain, a fireplace, or tea, visit MotherTalk.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book, as well as a small honorarium from MotherTalk for participating in this blog book tour.

Oh crap. Sadie just spit up on The Last Clean Swaddling Blanket, and I didn’t even know it was the last one until she spit up on it and now there isn’t another one. Crap. Did I already say that? Hmm, well.

See, this is the problem with putting away the clean laundry. Because now there are no piles of assorted textiles for me to sort through in either hope or desperation.

Unless, perhaps, there are swaddling blankets in the dryer? [Going to check… going to check…] And… No. A colossal pile of hand towels, yes, but no swaddling blankets. What am I supposed to do, wrap her little arms in a bathroom towel? I think not. Probably.

I did not realize, before having kids, how much my future happiness would depend on a successful laundry strategy. And yet, here I am, faced with the irony of having to choose between staying awake another hour while blankets dry, or having to be awoken at random intervals throughout the night by a flailing-armed baby who wants a swaddling blanket. Go figure.

So it turns out I was a little hasty with that whole “maybe Audrey’s all done vomiting” thing yesterday. The night, it was not pretty. But she’s made it all day today without further incident, so that’s something. Of course, she hasn’t eaten anything solid all day. And by “without further incident,” I do mean that she spent the entire morning alternating between screaming and nursing while drifting in and out of sleep. Who knew a toddler could both nurse and scream in her sleep?

And now I’m watching her color all over the refrigerator with chalk, because: hello, it’s chalk. It will brush right off. (Into a pile of dust that I’ll have to sweep up. Whatever.) Also because she’s not screaming or nursing, and whatever caused that can’t be all bad.

The other children continue to not be sick, for which we are most thankful. And now I’m going to express my thankfulness by eating another slice of chocolate cake.

Dane brought me home a chocolate cake today. Why would he do such a thing, you ask? Is it my birthday? A holiday? Some other occasion? No, no. I get my very own chocolate cake (mine! all mine! get back!) to distract me from the fact that, despite our best attempts to shun all people and their potential germs since Sadie’s birth, Audrey has got another fun fever-and-vomiting kind of illness. I desperately hope we’re now past the vomiting part and are moving on to the Sleep Until We Wake Up Healthy part. Though that doesn’t seem like my kind of luck, does it?

Contest alert: Win a design consultation, camcorder, and $2000 Crate & Barrel gift card in Gather’s Downsizing Your Home With Style Photo Contest.

No, we’re not moving to a smaller house (can you IMAGINE?), but we did upsize our family without upsizing our space, which pretty much amounts to the same thing. Plus we’re always looking for ways to deal with all the stuff that constantly threatens to take over our house. And so it is that I’m reading Downsizing Your Home With Style, a book whose stated purpose is to help you “make sure your new home is as lovely, livable, and low maintenance as possible.”

And as long as your definition of “lovely” includes spit-up on the arm of the couch, my house is looking pretty good. I now know the proper placement of lamps on bedside tables (centered, not pushed back toward the wall), the recommended height for hanging photos on the wall (slightly lower than you think), and the appropriate amount of space to leave between couch and coffee table (okay, okay, I’d have to look that one up).

Chapters like “Repurpose Your Stuff” and “Camouflage and Sleight of Hand” appeal, though you’ll get more out of the rest of the book if you’re actually moving, not just simplifying an existing household. If you’re selling a bigger house at a profit, for example, you can probably afford to have built-in storage installed in the new place. Me, not so much. But maybe I could pick something up next time there’s a sale at Ikea.

For more on Downsizing Your Home With Style, visit MotherTalk.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book, as well as a small honorarium from MotherTalk for participating in this blog book tour.

Sadie got her thumb into her mouth today, which may in fact have been the cutest thing that ever happened in the history of thumbs. And I did not manage to take a picture.

And then she smiled at me when I walked into the room where Dane was holding her. He says she was saying, “Wrong parental unit! Wrong parental unit! I haven’t figured out what this one is for yet, but I know it’s not the one I want!” But I didn’t hear any of that. I just saw the toothless, open-mouthed baby smile. And I did not manage to take a picture of that, either.

I am sensing a theme to today’s parenting.