But if you’d like something to read, I have a post that could be well worth your while! Think shampoo, free products and Visa gift card giveaway! Trust me, you’ll be happy you spent a little time at PunditMom Reviews!

So I’m taking a little time for myself today. Lunch with the lovely Kimberly from Petroville, a little shopping and getting PunditGirl calmed down for her performance with all the other violinists tonight.

In the meantime, check out things at The Guardian online — they’ve selected this week’s Mothers of Intention post and my fellow MOMocrat Cyn as two of this week’s best of the web! (Just another step closer to world domination!)

And, if you need a little more reading and you know a tween girl, head over the PunditMom Reviews for a look at a new product that could come in handy sooner than you think!

Word to the wise — DON’T TRY TO PET THE GIRAFFES!! It makes them VERY annoyed! But feeding them some leaves and posing for photos, totally fine!

But that’s not the only place we visited while we were in sunny SoCal over the holidays. If you want to know what other cool place we went to, you’ll have to check out my post at PunditMom Reviews!

Photo by PunditMom

Written as a sequel, of sorts, to last year’s The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Daring Book for Girls is a compendium of activities and information to help today’s girls rediscover that there are ways to have fun besides shopping at the mall, watching Hannah Montana or IM’ing their friends.

As the mother of a seven-year-old daughter, I was thrilled when I learned that the founders of MotherTalk would be writing this book and couldn’t wait to see what it would have in store.

When it arrived, PunditGirl and I were both very excited because it’s just got so much STUFF! Where to begin? There was so much to take in after I was done ooh-ing and aah-ing over the beautiful teal cover with the sparkly silver letters (yes, that did appeal to the “girl” in me!)

How to make a lemon-powered clock (really!)? Reading the chapters on women who were pirates and spies (even a female Chinese pirate for PunditGirl)? How to make a tree swing or check out the list of books “that will change your life?”

Aimed at the “tween” girl market, it is perfect for that age group, billing itself as the book “for every girl with an independent spirit and a nose for trouble.”

If you’re the parent of a daughter who could use a little nudging to take off the headphones and get a little fresh air, then this book is just what the doctor (or Santa) ordered. There are so many great craft ideas and topics to spark the imagination of a girl it’s hard to know where to start.

Since the book’s release, some commenters have questioned whether this type of book can really have an impact on the way our daughters are socialized today — can we really hope that a book that is an homage to our childhoods in the 1970s will be the tonic that will drag our girls out from behind the laptops and forsake the sassy outfits?

Can it really get our girls away from the world of Libby Lu parties, Bratz Dolls, and questionable Halloween outfits?

Is it too much to take the feminist optimism we had as girls of the MS. generation and help our daughters discover that they can do “boy” things, too? I think it’s imperative. At seven, PunditGirl is already succumbing to the phenomenon of boys having too much sway on her budding self-esteem. If a few of the activities in this book can help boost her already waning self-confidence, then I’m going to go for it.

Perhaps it is too much to expect that one book can start a new feminist wave for our daughters of the 21st Century. But if we don’t start somewhere, who will?

As a parent, I can’t be responsible for reclaiming the girlhoods of all the “tweens” in America by making them turn off the Disney Channel and sit down to make a quill pen or learn about Queens of the Ancient World. But I can start with one excited second-grader and I’m planning on doing just that.

What I can do is take one PunditGirl, who is chomping at the bit to dig into the activities in The Daring Book for Girls, and help her discover things she never thought she could do. And I can make sure other moms know about it, too.

Also, make sure to check out all the other reviews this month and next month at MotherTalk on The Daring Book for Girls!

I know there have been several posts already at MOMocrats about the fact that John Edwards is really the only presidential candidate who is focusing on poverty as a campaign issue. But I need to talk about it, too, as one of the main reasons I support his candidacy.

As a girl who grew up on a small family farm, I never thought that we were poor. In my mind, our family was middle class — whatever that meant several decades ago. In retrospect, though, I see that we were far from that vision. Our family of five was clearly on the lower end of the economic spectrum. And struggled to keep things going.

My mom and dad scraped together every penny they could to buy the farm they live on. But they both knew that being small family farmers wouldn’t be enough to pay the bills and feed their three kids. So my dad worked the third shift at the local carpet factory after he toiled all day in the fields and my mom took another factory job to help make ends meet. Which meant that I, as the oldest, had responsibilities at the age of 13 that I know my own daughter will never have to face — cleaning the house and cooking the dinners on top of doing homework and keeping a grade point average that would place me at the top of my high school graduating class.

But I know those are things that John Edwards can relate to.

Edwards came from similarly humble beginnings and worked his way up, eventually to law school. After spending eight years working my way through college to get an undergraduate degree that my parents could not help pay for, I went to law school, too.

I worked hard for it — as did John Edwards. And because of that, I know he understands that people like my parents worked their tail ends off so I wouldn’t have to. And it’s time to lend them a hand so they can live the rest of their lives without having to work several jobs just to put food on the table and cover their health insurance premiums and co-pays.

My parents paid a price, and they continue to pay that price. They still are not anywhere near being middle class. And as a result, their political voices don’t get heard.

Sure, there have been promises that politicians would remember them. But those promises don’t usually get fulfilled.

I believe that John (and Elizabeth) Edwards won’t forget people like my parents if they get to live in the White House because they understand the types of lives that my parents, John and Nancy, have had to live to eke out a way in the world and make sure that their children would do better.

I’ve supported a lot of Democratic candidates in my lifetime, but none are as important to me as John Edwards. Because so far, in my many decades, he is the only one who has embraced the idea of wanting to support the poor in this country and make things better for them.

If there had been a candidate like Edwards when I was still a girl living on my parents’ farm, things could have been a bit easier for all of us. If he can do that for any families now by helping to lift them out of poverty one or two steps closer to the middle class, then that would truly be an electoral miracle.

Cross-posted from MOMocrats.

Believe it or not, I’m weighing in today on the new Bill O’Reilly book for kids over at PunditMom Reviews. Hang on to your hats!

But I am busy over at PunditMom Reviews talking about an interesting new book for girls — and for parents of girls — called Girlology!

Come on over and sit for a spell! (Sorry, didn’t mean to go all Beverly Hillbillies there)!