I’m issuing an open call for photos of girls to use on my Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me website.

The photos will be used in a redesigned header that will randomly feature photos of girls from a Flickr album. They will also be used as “cover art.”

For details visit Empowering Girls: so Sioux Me.

Thanks to Ainsley, Zack is potty training. He pooped and peed in the potty.

Peer pressure rocks.

We logged on to post the Potty Dance on YouTube and do you know how many other people posted their child’s potty training success, techniques or humor? Hundreds. Maybe thousands?

Evidently, it’s the new right of passage.

I spent the next 10 minutes applying subtle peer pressure,

Look, Zack. That baby can go to the potty.

Zack was fascinated.

Peer pressure was also the technique that finally got Ainsley to tie her shoe. She’s almost 7 and this year I refused to buy shoes with ties that she wanted because she refuses to learn to tie them.

This little boy was standing there and I said, That boy can tie his shoes, How old are you? Only 5? Ainsley that 5 year old little boy can tie his shoes.

If I tie my shoes will you take me out for Chinese food?

Heck yeah.

And then she did. And I bought her the tennis shoes that tie instead of velcro and we went out for Chinese.

Images Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

I’m allergic to cats and my husband says “NO” to a puppy.

So I was at this garage sale way out in the country and they were selling their hampsters.

For a mere $5 they sold me two hampsters and this cool orange and blue cage that looks like Apple designed it, plus a bag of shavings and a bag of food. I’m a bargain pet shopper. No maintenance pets. Heck yeah, you can have hampsters if it won’t cost me more than $5.

Ainsley named them Charlie and Lola.

Zack loves them and often pushes them around in the bed of his giant dump truck or in his tool box or a bucket.

I never have to remind them to feed Charlie and Lola, I will just happen upon Zack - when he’s being too quiet - and I’ll find him pouring food into their cage and 3 feet around it too.

It’s too bad they bite.

Images Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

So my friend Mrs. Blogoway tells me, at our last bookclub - slash - wine tasting, that she’s been talking to this Seattle blogger on the phone. And that she’s got a layover in Seattle coming up and she called her blogger friend, Mona from kirida.com, and they’re going to hang out.

Cool.

But, then to my husband later I’m saying, Mrs. Blogoway is talking on the phone to one of her blogger friends.

What do they talk about?

I don’t know, but don’t you think it’s a little weird that she’s talking to her on the phone like she’s a real friend? Meeting her in person is so intimate, don’t you think it will be aqward?

A few days later my phone rings.

Tracee, It’s Jessica!

And I totally know it’s Jessica Bern from BernThis, who lives in LA. I met at BlogHer and we’ve been emailing back and forth and it was so not weird that she was calling me at home to learn how to use Twitter.

Here’s the thing - my mother had to know her neighbors. She had no choice - neighbors and church was her social life. If she got stuck with sucky neighbors or judgy/bitchy church ladies it was just bad luck of the draw and she had to make due with them. Who else was she gonna be friends with?

Me - and you - we’re lucky. We can make friends with people in Seattle or LA. We make friends with them because we have things in common or we think they are funny - not just because they moved in next door.

It’s a new world. I kinda dig it.

Photo Source: Mrs. Blogaway & Mona on Seatle Layover.

Julie Pippert is featuring my essay: Empowering Girls: Hootchy Clothes and Mean Girls on Moms Speak Up, a blog collaborative. Take a trip over there and give it a Kirsty won’t you?

Thanks Julie.

I turned 35 on Saturday.

We had a California picnic at the lake.

My husband got me this fabulous Momsrising.org T-shirt.

Of course, what I want for my birthday is equal pay, family leave insurance, and gender equality. It’s not just a t-shirt. It’s political action.

He gets me.

When I was a teenager I thought I’d be stupid and boring and washed up and not care about my looks or health at 35.

Instead at 35, I find myself engaged in life, pro-active about my health, excited about my work and more willing to let go of all my hang-ups with every passing day.

Oprah has me convinced 50 is the Holy Grail for women, anyway. I’m still a babe in terms of that standard. I like that standard, it makes me feel I have all the time in the world to get everything I want to accomplish accomplished.

I feel more like Me, and more accepting of that, as time passes.

In short, I’ve never been happier and I’ve never felt better. I’m in my prime.

I hear mothers talk about how sacrifice is “worth it” for their kids. I especially hear this if mother’s have given up something valuable - economic independence, dreams, ambitions, time, goals, careers, autonomy, hobbies, interests, etc.

When did I - as a human being - lose my inherent value? Was it when I stopped being the child so worthy of my mother’s sacrifice? Or was it when I became the mother, expected to sacrifice everything for my children, and then say, “it’s worth it?” Or was it when I turned 18 and stopped being a legal child?

I’m just curious how one human being has elevated value over another - children over mothers specifically - but then somehow they grow out of it?

First Magazine is looking for women who want to share body confidence stories.

One of the stories is about a gift that helped boost a woman’s body confidence.

The other is about a family tradition that help’s a woman feel good about her body.

The women who are featured in these stories will be professionally styled and photographed and also interviewed via phone and email.

All responses can be emailed to Helen Matatov at
HMatatov@bauerpublishing.com by Monday, August 4th.

“Keira Knightley has refused to allow any enhancement of her cleavage on publicity photos for her upcoming movie, “The Duchess,” Britain’s Daily Mail reports via The Huffington Post.

Good. For. Keira! I agree, you ARE good enough as you are.

Photo source: The Huffington Post, publicity stills for “King Arthur” before and after digital enhancement.

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