PBS has always been special to me. I could not get enough of Sesame Street as a child. Grover always was and still is my favorite character of any PBS show. He was a world traveler with a can-do attitude and was never afraid to try something new, even if it didn’t always work out the way he thought it would. I can see myself in him at every turn of my life. As a mom, I see the special place PBS has forged in my own children’s hearts.

I am very excited to be a featured “expert” at the PBS Parents website for the next couple of weeks. I’m heading up the topic of ways to keep children happy and parents sane during the busy travel season. Please come over and join in the Q & A discussion!

update: links updated to reflect archived story

My friends are losers. Yes, I am proud to admit that I am their friend. In fact, I wish I were a loser too. Actually, I may already be a loser — and not in a good way — just for helping them create the header image for their loser blog.

What am I talking about? …. My friends Devra and Sarah are on a mission to lose a few inches of their waistline by hiring a personal trainer together. These gals are funny enough on their own when reading along with their blogs. I’m sure their training sessions are going to be quite interesting to say the least. They’ll probably burn half their total calories just from all the joking around. They will be literally laughing their asses off. Good for them. More power to them. Go Loser Moms!

Edited to add: I sent hate mail to my loser friends and it was posted. I guess I am a loser after all.

My friend Devra from Parentopia got to meet Katie Couric last week in New York! Katie invited some of the Blogher attendees to her office for an informal meeting.

Check out the YouTube video that her studio posted about Katie and the bloggers she met! Here’s still shot from the video so you can find Devra in the group. Go bloggers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEXOLbNhiQc

BTW, this now makes me only 4 degrees from Kevin Bacon.

*I am very good friends with Devra.
*Devra met Katie Couric in NY with the bloggers.
*Katie Couric was in “The More You Know” (1989) with Courtney Cox
*Courteney Cox was on The 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards(2007) with Kevin Bacon

I’m a proud dog-mamma today because my old dog Oscar made it onto one of my favorite “pure amusement” websites: StuffOnMyMutt.com. In fact, he’s on there twice.

You can see him here, wearing the big cone collar looking like a spokesmutt for Direct TV, and here is is again as the Stuff On My Mutt fan club leader. He has a rather goofy look on his face in that second picture, but I promise that he really didn’t seem to mind the sticky notes. He’s a good old boy!

And for the cat lovers, they have another silly site called Stuff On My Cat. We haven’t sent in a picture of our cat yet, but you can see him in my cat post on MomsMinivan.

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Some good advice I got from my father once — Be familiar with your spare before you hit the road! (ok, I got it more than once — I get it every time I got a new vehicle.)

Imagine being at the side of the road on a busy Interstate highway with a flat tire…. …alone…. in the dark.

I found myself in this situation recently. I was alone and about 50 miles from home in the countryside on a dark interstate highway on a short 200 mile road trip. It was 7 pm in January so it was pitch dark and very cold. My tire went flat. I pulled off the road as far as I possibly could. Changing a tire by the side of the road is very dangerous and very scary. But I knew what to do. Do you? Read more Flat Tire help for some great advice so you don’t get stuck!

Silly silly Christmas fun. We can’t stop laughing at this. You can upload photos of your family’s faces to an elf body and then they dance around a winter wonderland at ElfYourself.com. First I Elfed my kids . My adorable little angels are now goofy dancing elves. I am right there with them!

Then I couldn’t resist, and I Elfed my dog and cat. I also included my sister’s dog and mother’s for more hilarity. You may have to reload these a few times to get them to play since the site is really busy this time of year.

I just wanted to share this and wish you a Merry Christmas. No road trips for us this holiday season, but we are heading out by plane for some family visits. If you’re doing the same, check out my tips for flying with kids!

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All material copyright ©MomsMinivan.com

This is a response to a cat post by Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who writes a blog generally for webmasters. He posted pictures of his cat this week while he is away at a webmaster’s conference called Pubcon. I attended this conference a couple of years ago when it was in New Orleans. Matt’s cat was eating his Christmas tree, and he also wrote about how it likes to squeeze in behind him on his chair while he works at the computer.

Our cat, Rocky, loves to lie right on top of my desk, preferably on top of my papers so that I cannot read them while I’m working. His favorite spot is right in front of the printer. He hardly even flinches when paper comes rolling out of it while it’s in use. If I am not adoring him enough, then he walks back and forth in front of my keyboard for a view out the window at the birds while pausing right in front of my monitor for a nice sloooow stretch. Occasionally he even acknowledges the dog who sleeps under the desk by my feet .

Ok, bloggers, let’s see your cat posts.