I knew something was fishy the moment she approached me. She NEVER sits on the couch in the morning. She's always running this way and that, muttering "LATE! LATE!" even when she works from home in that stupid leather chair I can't fit into behind her. (I have tried. Nonadjustable arms.)

But she patted the seat beside her, all nice and cooing, and I, like an idiot, walked right into it. She grabbed me and he held open some sort of gauche gym-bag-looking-wannabe-designer-cat-bag thing. He stuffed me in headfirst. I was so totally pissed. HISS.

I will wait until they sleep. Then I will sit on their chests and breathe menacing breaths until they wake up.

Then I will wait for them to fall asleep and DO IT AGAIN.

She drove me to the vet and left me there for five hours. WITH OTHER ANIMALS. I hate other animals.  And she should never leave me like that.

Because maybe. Just maybe? I was a little bit scared.

HISS.

Then the stupid vet said something about "fecal test" and also told me I have a cavity and have to have a tooth extracted AT A LATER DATE. Which means I HAVE TO COME BACK.

But next time ... next time, I will see her coming.

Fuck you.

Looking to take dress up play to a fun, new, and eco-friendly level? Today, Kate shares a review of the organic, hypoallergenic kid's face paint and makeup kits from New Hampshire based Luna Organics. Read on for Kate's review, as well as to learn how to be one of two winners to receive Luna Organics kits:

+ + + + +

From Kate:

My daughter has long been a fan of face painting, and will generally make a beeline for the face painting table at any fair or carnival (cat whiskers are her go-to look, but rainbows, suns, and large hearts also are favorites). Although hardly a skilled artist myself, I would like to be able to have fun with face painting at home (especially on days when weather or mood keep us inside), but I cringe when I look at the ingredients in most store-bought face painting kits, so we have yet to try it out on our own.

I subsequently was particularly happy to discover the play face paint and makeup sets made by Luna Organics, a small New Hampshire-based outfit producing small kits of powder, lip balm, and color for children. All of the ingredients are gentle for delicate young skin, and all are easy to remove and fun to play with. My daughter and I experimented with the All-Natural Fancy Fairy Kit; the colors are bright and kid-friendly, and the glitter gives it all an extra shine. Also cool, these kits come in an adorable zippered pouch and with little jars that all interconnect in an ingenious way.

For those cold and rainy days when you just can't get yourself to the playground or the museum, check out the offerings of Luna Organics to put some sparkle in your playtime.

+ + + + +
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winners Amy & Betsy!
+ + + + +

Now, want to be one of two winners to receive makeup kits from Luna Organics? Here's how:

Visit the Luna Organics shop, then email contests@bostonmamas.com (with 'Luna Organics' in the subject), and name a face paint or makeup kit you'd love to try with your child.

One entry permitted per person; US & Canada residents welcome to enter.

Entry period closes at midnight EST, Thursday, December 17, 2009.

*Two lucky winners (drawn using Random.org) will receive their choice of either the Fancy Fairy, Ballerina Princess, or Rock Star kit.

I feel as if I've known Kristin Brandt and Erin Kane of Manic Mommies forever; in reality, I’ve known Kristin since college (well, that kind of feels like forever ago…) and Erin since the Disney mom bloggers mixer. They both are smart, hilarious, and impressive in their juggling of work and home; whenever we meet up there's a lot of laughter and also serious parsing of all things social media and family life. For the twelfth installment of my Simplifying the Holidays guest blog series, I’m thrilled to welcome Kristin; read on to learn about the important lesson she learned from her mom, plus a series of holiday tips that have served Kristin well as a full-time working mom.

+ + + + +

From Kristin:

When I was a kid, we begged and pleaded my mom to decorate our house for Christmas. My brother and I loved all the twinkle lights that adorned our neighbor's homes, and wanted our house to twinkle in a similar fashion. But my mother refused, telling us that the decorations were tacky. Fast-forward 30 years, and today my parents' home (the same one I grew up in) is decked out for the holidays - complete with twinkle lights, animatronic reindeer, a toy soldier, and much to my disbelief, an inflatable Santa Claus. When I asked her why the change of attitude, her answer was simple: "I was a working mom. I didn't have TIME to keep up with the neighbors."

And so, I received my first valuable lesson about how to survive the holiday hoopla while holding down a full-time job and managing the multitude of commitments that have clogged our schedule: don't try to keep up with everyone. Here are some additional lessons (some may call them concessions – tomato, tomAto) I've learned since become a parent:

Set your DVR. You could buy DVDs of all of the holiday classics (Rudolph and the Red Nose Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town) or you can save a few bucks by setting up "Season Passes" for each. That way, you don't have to remember to record them each year -- they will just appear, like magic, on your DVR.

Go faux. I love the smell of a real Christmas tree, but I also love the time saved by my pre-list Christmas tree from Sears. We bought the tree the year our second child was born, mainly because I could not face dragging two children out into the snow to find a tree. Four years later, I continue to happily avoid the tree-seeking activity, and can set up our tree whenever the mood strikes (or I find a stray hour). Did I mention that it also doesn't drop any needles and doesn't need to be watered and disposed of?

Stick to traditions. I always set up our creche in the front foyer, the tree in the "solarium" (a fancy way of describing our back room), and the Santas on the map drawer. We have Swedish meatballs for Christmas Eve dinner, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and Paula Dean's Foolproof Standing Prime Rib Roast for dinner.

It's not that I'm not interested in trying something new, it's that traditions such as these keep things easy, and reduce the amount of stress. And, they become something regular and anticipated for the kids.

Take a day off. If you have the time available, consider taking a day off before the holidays are in full swing. Bring the kids to school or day care then use the "free" time to get holiday chores done – gift shopping, holiday card addressing, decorating, whatever!

Forget perfect. While we all want to plan the "perfect" holiday, the truth is "perfect" doesn't exist. Remember, a little goes a long way (for example, you don't have to decorate every surface of your home to make it feel festive). If you can manage your expectations, you are sure to enjoy the season!

+ + + + +

Looking for more holiday tips from the Manic Mommies? Check out these posts from their Real Simple Simply Stated blog:

Tips for managing the card chaos
Holiday food tips from a non-domestic diva
Hosting Tips

+ + + + +

You can follow Kristin on Twitter at @kristinsb, Erin at @emkprgal, and the Manic Mommies at @manicmommies.

+ + + + +

Image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

One beautiful thing about graduating from early parenting -- during which time I toted way too much stuff in an enormous diaper bag -- was the return of handbag use. Only problem? Laurel and my stuff got jumbled together and swapping handbag contents always was a nuisance, with some critical item (usually hand sanitizer) forgotten. Solution? The PishPosh Quick Zip. These prettily patterned, washable organizers feature seven outer pockets and five inner pockets (two elasticized + one extra zippered pocket). Simply load up the pockets, zip the pouch, drop it in your handbag du jour (this obviously won’t fly for little purses, but will fit larger handbags and totes), and go. The Quick Zip will be a lifesaver whether it’s filled with baby’s diapering essentials, a mix of preschooler snacks + your personal effects, or -- once your kid is grown and toting his/her own stuff -- just your stuff; those pretty pockets will fit cell, camera, keys, cosmetics, snacks, and a fabulous novel just fine.
Sweet deal! PishPosh is offering Boston Mamas readers a 10% discount using code BM10 at checkout.

After four months of practices and fifteen hours in a small, poorly lit dressing room, it came to fruition.

 

The little angel as snowbird in the room that almost stole my soul.

 

The hat really makes the outfit.

 

The birds wait backstage.

She came flying in.

 

And landed, eyes on her heroine.

The snow queen.

She was also a merry maid.

 

The cutest in the world.

976 school kids from the KCMO school district saw the show. Thanks to all for the donations.

April Paffrath is one of the most devoted foodies I know. No taste is too simple, no ingredient too humble. And when you read her writing, you can tell how much she relishes preparing, tasting, and writing about food. April is a regular contributor here on Boston Mamas, but today I'm thrilled to introduce her via her voice on Wicked Tasty Harvest. For the eleventh installment of my Simplifying the Holidays guest blog series, April shares a highly impacting way to simplify your holidays and beyond: by thinking about local foods and considering a CSA. Included is a primer on local foods and CSAs, as well as a fantastic guide to CSAs in the Boston area.

+ + + + +

From April:

The holidays are a chance to live it up. We have license to battle the encroaching dark with candles, twinkling lights, bubbly, and more food than you thought you could possibly eat (and yet somehow you can). I adore the festive moments when you're eating wonderful food with people you love, raising a glass to the people you're with, the festive spirit of strangers, and the start of a new year. Food-wise, it's so easy to enjoy and simplify your holidays -- and the year ahead -- by thinking about local foods.

Why eat local foods?

Eating locally over the holidays doesn't mean living on potatoes. Even though snow has fallen, there are plenty of local foods that store well into the cold months, or are being grown in greenhouses. (In the plentiful months, it's easy to prep the freshest food and store it in the freezer for amazing food mid-winter.) Also, local pasture-fed meat is available year-round and it makes a huge difference in the flavor of your meals and the environmental impact of your dinner.

When we choose local foods we're doing several important things. We're caring about the quality and tastiness of the food we eat. We're supporting the community we live in and the livelihood of our neighbors. We're acting as stewards of the planet. And we're ensuring the healthiness of the food with which we nourish ourselves and our families.

When food is sourced locally, there's very little time between when it's picked fresh from the field and when it is served up on your dinner table. Nutrients and flavors don't have as much time to degrade as, say, food that was grown across the country and was picked under-ripe to withstand the shipping. It also means that the local farms can grow plant varieties that might not travel well, but which have amazing flavors, wonderful colors, and provide a better taste experience at dinner.

And better tasting produce and meat means you have to do very little to make an outstanding meal; you need little more than good olive oil or good butter and a bit of salt to make everyone at the table ooh and ahh. For your daily dinnertime, that ease of prep with good ingredients saves countless hours.

When you buy food from a farmers' market, a local grocer who stocks local foods, or through a CSA (community-supported agriculture) share, you're making a decision to direct money to your community, your neighbors, and your region. If you keep more money local, you help preserve the diversity of your region, you keep farming from becoming centralized, and you make it easy for your neighbors to stay in their line of work--which in turn keeps them buying locally. It's a very good circle. Does that mean that you need to decide it's all or nothing? No way. By getting what I can from our local providers first, I don't feel conflicted when I do need to shop at national stores.

How do CSAs work?

A CSA works in a pretty simple way. You give money to a farmer in the off-season. With it, the farm buys seeds, repairs equipment, hires farm staff, and prepares the fields before they've even planted or harvested the next year's crops. You are helping them to prepare for the growing season during the time of year when they aren't making money from the crops. Then, when the growing season begins, you get a return on that early investment in the form of a weekly share of veggies. You take on the risk of a bad year (like tomato blight and flooding) as well as the benefit of plentiful harvests.

Vegetable CSAs are the most common, but the Boston area has meat, fish, and grain CSAs, too. A quick Google search will show you local CSAs in your area. Armed with your list, it's easy to look through and see which farms follow the principles you like. It's also helpful to visit the bulletin boards on Chow.com to see what people have to say about their experience the previous year. Did they like the food and the variety? Did it taste good? Did they like how the CSA was run?

Boston-area CSAs

Below is a sampling of just a few of the local CSAs available in our area. The produce ones typically run for 21-27 weeks, and several offer winter CSA shares where you can get veggies stored expertly in their root cellar. The meat and fish CSAs are available year-round and you can sign up for the seasons or quarters you like. For a national list, Google or check out Eat Well Guide. While nowhere near comprehensive, it does provide a small listing of CSAs, stores, and more. It's a good idea to call, email, or explore the websites of the farms you're interested in and ask them questions about how they grow things. Several local farms grow "organically" but they've decided not to pay for certification so they can't technically call themselves organic. It's worth asking about growing practices, chemicals, feed, antibiotics, and more so you can make sure it's a farm whose style you dig.

+ + + + +

[Note: all prices listed below are as of time of posting.]

Siena Farms, Sudbury, MA

Pay $750 for the weekly box share and pick up at Sofra (Farmer Chris' wife is chef Ana Sortun of Oleana and Sofra), or $500 for the market share, which is a discount of 50% at the Copley farmers' market or at their Sudbury farm stand.

I happily renewed my "membership" for next year's box share. The food is amazing and almost unbelievable. It comes to you pristine and glowing and full of flavor. They offer varieties that are grown for their amazing taste. It's no surprise that the city's best restaurants also get their produce from Siena Farms--places like No. 9 Park, O Ya, Beacon Hill Bistro, Craigie on Main, and more. When you prepare the produce from Siena Farms, it tastes amazing, even if you only treat it with a bit of olive oil and salt. Their mesclun is peppery and wonderful--a real highlight!

Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA
[Editor's Note 3/6/2011: Direct link removed because McAfee is showing security risks with this website.]

Pick up this meat CSA once a month in several locations, year round (Arlington, Natick, Northhampton, and about 5 more). Prices depend on how much you're getting each month. It starts at $80 and 10lbs a month ($8/lb). It costs less per pound if you get more. A bonus is that CSA shareholders are eligible to sign up for one of their coveted natural turkeys. They raise cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and turkeys. The pasture animals (like cows and sheep) are pasture-fed as long as the New England weather lets them, and they get hay with occasional grain over the winter.

Red Fire Farm, Granby, MA

Pay $640 for the summer season CSA. They have add-on shares like eggs, flowers, and fruit. You can pick up your weekly share in Brighton, Cambridge, and Jamaica Plain, as well as a handful of other towns. You can also get it delivered at extra cost through MetroPedal Power. Shareholders get special pick-your-own privileges.

Parker Farms, Lunenburg, MA

Steve Parker is a fixture at the Union Square farmers' market. Pay $325 for the small share or $500 for the large share. Pick-ups are in Davis Square, Somerville, and Porter and Central Squares, Cambridge.

Lands Sake, Weston, MA

Lands Sake is an education farm. (It's also a fantastic pick-your-own farm with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and more. What's so nice about that is that it's organic, and it's hard to find u-pick organic fruits.) We love to visit the farm because it's a little bit hippy and super calm. They had some trouble with their CSA last year due in part to weather, but it's a long-running farm that cares about treating the land and the food right.

Stillman Farm, New Braintree, MA

Another meat CSA, year round. You can find them at farmers' markets and they're very popular. CSA members get a 20% discount at the markets! Like Chestnut, they have grass-fed, pastured animals that are raised in a sustainable and humane way. Shares go from 5lb for $46/month up to 20lb for $155/month. Pick-ups are in Jamaica Plain, Brookline, and Lunenburg.

Six Farms CSA at Silverbrook Farm

Pay $325-500 for a half share or $565-730 for a full share; prices vary based on pick-up or delivery location.

Silverbrook teamed up with 5 other farms to offer a CSA. Some farms specialize in certain products or add in something special to the whole partnership. You also get Hannabells from Shy Brothers Cheese, since they're one of the six farms. Mmm. Pick-up locations around Boston, Cambridge, Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and more. In Cambridge, they'll deliver your share through MetroPedal Power, included in the CSA price.

Cape Ann Fresh Catch, Gloucester, MA

This CSA is really a CSF, a community supported fishery. This unique program brings some of the local sea bounty to New Englanders, year-round. Each fish is valued the same, no matter the species. That allows the fishermen and women to go out and catch fish without chasing the highest paying species. There's no toss-back of caught, dead fish that don't get as high a price as other species. There's less environmental damage in the quest for the priciest fish. They can fish unstressed areas and not risk their lives as much bringing it in. You'll get cod, haddock, hake, shrimp, and more. They use innovative shrimping tools to minimize by-catch and environmental damage, and this shrimp is local -- not the ecosystem-damaging shrimp you can find in the freezer section.

They have a bunch of different sign-up options, including all shrimp and a shrimp-fish combo. Pay $125-$400 for a 10-week share from anything from 5lb of shrimp to 40lb of fish. Pickups are all over the area, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Acton, Ipswich, and many more.

Drumlin Farm, Lincoln, MA

Drumlin Farm is a Mass Audubon Sanctuary. They also have a popular CSA, as well as a winter share that comes from their root cellar. Pay $575 or $525 if you work the farm for 8 hours. Pick up at the farm, Central or Porter in Cambridge, or in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, and Quincy

Picadilly Farm, Winchester, NH

This certified organic farm has pick up in Arlington, Bedford, and Belmont. The form isn't online yet for 2010, but 2009 shares were $525.

+ + + + +

April Paffrath is a writer in Cambridge. Food is her big love, next to her husband and their 3-year-old daughter (who frequently makes dinner right alongside the grown-ups). She writes the blog Wicked Tasty Harvest with two of her food-writer pals. You can follow April on Twitter at @prillyp.

+ + + + +

Image credit: Siena Farms

Pursuant to last week’s local and indie awesomeness post, if you want to shop local and support artists and crafters this weekend, there will be plenty of crafty awesomeness to be had at the SoWa Holiday Market in the South End, CraftBoston at the Cyclorama, and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education Holly Fair in Harvard Square. Enjoy!

Image credit: Made in Lowell, showing at SoWa Holiday Market

On Wednesday, I was working late when I got a call from Beloved.

His truck had apparently stopped going VROOM while he was driving the little angel home from technical rehearsal in another suburb.

And it was 11 degrees outside. My two favorite people in the whole world, stuck in the cold with no heater and far enough away to scare me.

I left my laptop on the floor, all the lights on, Petunia staring after me in puzzlement. I was halfway out of town before I realized I really didn't know where I was going. I drove up the highway for twenty minutes before I saw their weak hazard lights barely flashing on the side of the road, a dying firefly. I was picturing the little angel inside wearing her ballet tights and crying, freezing. I couldn't get turned around to the other side of the highway fast enough. 

When I pulled up behind them, the battery was so dead it kept tripping off the auto-theft protection and locking the doors, so Beloved had to pull the little angel out of the truck on the driver's side as thoughtless cars whipped past at 60 miles per hour just feet from their bodies. She was wrapped in the blanket we'd bought to give to charity that Beloved had in his back seat. She wasn't wearing tights -- she was dressed in jeans and boots -- but she was freezing, if cheerful. We all climbed into my warm car and waited for two hours for the tow truck to arrive.

It was the alternator. It's fixed now, $427 later. All that matters is that my people are warm.

It's no secret that I’m a bit obsessed with kids wearing properly fitting, comfy shoes. And what I dig about Stride Rite is that though they are a household name, they continued to push the fit and comfort envelope; most recently through their Sensory Response Technology collection. The structural support, comfort, and flexibility are evident if you handle the shoe, but the hidden coolness is that these shoes feature a built in sensory feedback system in the sole to help kids feel the ground better, which helps reduce trips and falls. Also no small matter: these shoes are super cute (I especially love the hip styling for boys) and use eco-friendly materials.