I am convinced that fostering an early love of the outdoors, plants, animal life, and gardening is essential for a child. Engaging in growing live things, digging in the dirt, and experiencing all of the life outside of the house can only be beneficial in helping them understand how to care for the earth, and by extension, other people as well. As the current stewards of the planet, we are only as good as what we teach our children.

Here is some great stuff to get you started, if you haven’t already.

Butterfly Garden– This kit has all you need to grow caterpillars into beeyootiful butterflies before their very eyes!

Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children– From a detailed resource list to craft ideas to how to grow a “moon garden,” this book gives parents and children a great start on working together in the garden.

Kid’s Tote with Gardening Tools– This adorable tote with three gardening tools is sure to get them excited!

Kid’s Gardening Tools– This pint-sized tool set will make them feel all grown up!

Seymour Mfg Co #WB-JR Junior Wheelbarrow– Because what kid doesn’t want to dump stuff from a wheelbarrow?

Gardening Wizardry for Kids– Focusing mostly on indoor projects, this book helps kids to understand gardening fundamentals. Contains crafts and experiments, too!

Alex Toys Garden Apron– An apron is a must for all kids mucking around in the dirt, and this one is from a favorite manufacturer of mine.

A Kid’s Herb Book– Want to grow an edible herb garden with your child? This book is the perfect guide.

Sunday Afternoons Kid’s Play Hat UPF 45– Functionality wins out over looks with this hat. It has that essential neck flap as well as those all-important vents. But at least it comes in lots of colors!

Twenty million people have seen this and not one of them will ever let the older brother live this down.

I don’t know who this voracious, trap-jawed evil genius “Charlie” is, but I like his style. His brother, on the other hand, obviously got his brains from the other side of the family.

via Neatorama

Even if you don’t wear makeup, nail polish, or anything else, there is one thing you must take care of, and that is your hair. Amy Winehouse hair is not acceptable for anyone except maybe Amy Winehouse and most of the time, not even then.

Everyone notices good hair, and they notice bad hair even more. And while I am past that teenage stage of looking in the mirror and brushing my hair every fifteen minutes, a good strategic brushing can do wonders.

Look for brushes that are easy to handle, have soft cushioning for the bristles, and when buying a brush with plastic bristles, look for rounded tips that are molded, not glued on. Choose the right brush based on your hair type and the purpose you are using it for.

 Mason Pearson brushes are the Rolls-Royces of the brush world. Handcrafted in England using only the finest wood and boar bristles, a Mason Pearson brush can easily last a lifetime. That is a good thing, because that quality will cost you a pretty penny. Boar bristles are a big deal because they are very gentle on your hair, and breakage is kept to a minimum.

But luckily, great brushes can be found at all price levels, and here are a few standouts.

This ionic brush from Vidal Sassoon is a good all-around styling brush, and is great for heat styling.
This oval brush from Phillips has gotten rave reviews for being able to brush hair thoroughly, yet still be gentle on the strands.
And last but not least comes this brush from beauty maven Sonia Kashuk, who has an eponymous line of products at Target. It uses nylon bristles, and has been compared favorably as a quality knockoff of the Mason Pearson brush featured above. Supposedly this brush is almost as good, for a fraction of the price.
 

You know what to do. Just think “Whoopi-level” rather than “Sherri-level” in terms of wit and you’ll be fine.

Dear Hugh Jackman Fan Club,

So far, you have enabled Mr. Jackman an unprecedented fifth win over Matthew Fox, who is certainly no slouch in the looks department. Not to mention Patrick Dempsey, Jason Bateman, Will Smith, and Daniel Craig, who also went down in flames.

Therefore, I have decided to throw some really big guns at you, just to see exactly what you are made of. Will you crumple in the face of the awesomeness that is this week’s challenger, or will you triumph yet again?

Only time will tell, my friends.

Let the showdown begin…

vs.

Now, there are just some people in this world that, when something bad happens to them, everyone laughs and says, Well, dude totally had it coming. Or my personal favorite: Many people are like slinkies – not really good for anything, but you can’t help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs. And so it is with the designers and producers of this perky set of celebratory Passover finger puppets.

Can you see the teensy problem here?

Is that BUCKWHEAT? Oh, sure, it could make an award-winning book, but somehow I don’t think it was the Torah. So, if this toy is to be believed, the plagues are: boils, water turns to blood, frogs, flies, locusts, diseased livestock, a hail of fire (that’s the one that looks like Bozo the Clown), lice, death of the firstborn, and being a black guy.

From YouOnMyBlog, via Gawker:

How can you make plagues more distasteful?

I’d really thought Catholics had cornered the market on gruesome religious paraphernalia for children, but damn, this is good. I’m not sure it quite takes it to the level that my Martyrdom of the Saints coloring book that I had back in the day, but it’s quite the contender.

Robert Downey Jr could not be reached for comment.

What Would Black Jesus Do?

According to a study out of the Universitites of Exeter and Oxford, it was found that women who ate a hearty, healthy breakfast were more likely to conceive a son.

In a rather stunning development, women who ate at least one bowl of cereal per day pre-conception were found to have the most male babies. Although cereal contains quite a few nutrients, it frightens me that a food which is completely engineered and bears no resemblance to anything in nature should be the key to having a boy.

Suspicious that some sort of cereal company was underwriting the study, I tried, but could find no evidence of shenanigans.

Women who skipped breakfast or ate a breakfast which was low in nutritional value had more girls.

Now does this study demonstrate yet again the superiority of the female sex, or what? When the going gets rough, it’s the girls who come through. But the boys? Oh no, conditions have to be perfect or they won’t even bother showing up for the party.

I’m trying to remember if I ate a lot of cereal before I got pregnant, although I have to admit that I had a “surprise” pregnancy and thus didn’t even know that I was pregnant until over a month and a half later. So goodness knows what I was putting in my body. I know that I certainly wasn’t making any extra effort to eat healthy, nor did pre-natal vitamins pass my lips until the pregnancy was confirmed.

But hey, if you’re a big fan of Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, or Fruit Loops and you want a boy, then by all means, chow down!

That rapier wit, that irresistible malevolence, that roguish smile, the manly tan, the arm/chest pelt, those perfect teeth, those suspiciously buff pecs, the himbo pinup calendar: is it any wonder that Simon Cowell, evil overlord of American Idol, has won the hearts of so many? But there’s one more reason:

The hair.

We at TeenyManolo, as dwellers in the Manolosphere and survivors of the Eighties, are uniquely placed to reveal to the world the secret of Simon Cowell’s mane muse. Where, in a world dominated by variations of the Trent Reznor and the George Clooney does a man get the inspiration for such a vividly gravity-defying, yet carefree and jungle-lush look?

From just one place, my friends:

Yes, it’s the comeback of the hottest look of the Eighties: The Monchhichi. Via toybender.com. Sex-AY! Is it any wonder they’re also the inspiration for a line of condoms?