I’m going to start this post off by apologizing to all the mothers of boys out there who read this blog.

As another person who has a son, I totally sympathize with all of the exclusive stuff that goes on with girls, whether it be clothes, or makeup, or whatever that we are usually not a part of.  It’s annoying.  I get it.

But I HAVE to share this website.

You see, I was searching in vain for quite a long time for easy, quick hairstyles for my two year old and her below shoulder length hair.  I know how to French Braid, but seriously, that can only get you so far.

I stumbled across this website and hallelujah! Finally a place with a bunch of great, easy styles and video tutorials to boot!  I actually found them before the 20/20 spot, but kudos to them, they deserve the spotlight!

It doesn’t hurt that Mindy and her entire family are cute as buttons, either.

59% of you feel that schools can only do so much in the face of bullying, which might also mean that in this day and age, school-time bullying is coming in second to online and virtual bullying.  22% think they give it a shot, but it isn’t enough, and 14% say schools don’t do nearly enough to address the problem.

I was never a bully in school, nor was I bullied, but my personal opinion is that bullying starts at home.  By that, I mean the parents of a bully have fostered an environment where a bully feels free to act out onto other people, and there is only so much a school can do to stop that type of behavior other than having a zero-tolerance policy.  Then again, I sort of hate zero tolerance policies, so I’m torn.  When my son attended public school, I cannot tell you how many parents I saw flouting school rules on a daily basis, and I would always think to myself that these parents were teaching their children by example that rules don’t apply to them.  Man, I hated those parents.

But, on to something a bit fluffier, although maybe as controversial.  The LA Times reports on the Vinci, a tablet, Android-based computer marketed specifically to children from 1 week to age 4.

According to an article in the LA Times, some schools in Britain are sick and tired of the “skirt creep” that some young girls are wont to do and are solving the problem by banning skirts altogether.

As someone who was FORCED to wear skirts EVERY SINGLE DAY for all twelve of my school years (uh, not including college, natch) I applaud this decision heartily.

Skirts, as school wear, generally suck.

Nothing is more miserable than having to wear a skirt in cold, rainy weather.  And tights don’t quite cut it in the warmth department.  In fact, we were not allowed to wear tights, only socks.  I remember attempting to pull my thick wool skirt over the tops of my knees outside at lunch in order to keep my kneecaps from becoming frostbitten.  I was in Southern California, so it wasn’t actually all that cold, but try telling that to my poor, shivering kneecaps.

Also, nothing is more embarrassing than having your skirt fly up, and this can happen due to more reasons than you would think.  Bloomers are an option, as are bike shorts, but can get uncomfortable sitting in class all day long.

So, in cold weather, pants for the win!

In hot weather, culottes do the trick.  Practically impossible to roll up by the waistband (unless you like having a seam embedded in your crotch all day, and hey, maybe some people do) and equally impossible to roll up the legs.

I know, because all my friends and I tried.

If you’ve cared enough to notice, there has been a distinct lack of original thought here on good old Teeny Manolo.  Go figure that this is turning out to be a busy, weird, distracting summer. 

Hopefully, maybe it is for you too and you won’t have noticed at all.

Buzzfeed has a cute article addressing 25 things kids today won’t even know about.  Here are my favorites,  and no, I couldn’t get behind the 90′s Nickelodeon cartoons, which sucked.   The only 90′s cartoons I liked were The Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. The rest, pfffft.

Why wasn’t a rotary phone on this list?


Cursive writing. Going the way of the dodo?

Memorizing a phone number, which is a good one. I still remember my parent’s first phone number.

God, how many hours of my pre-teen and teenaged life did I spend making mix tapes? Probably too many.

Ahhh, VHS tapes, how I hated thee. My son has no idea what I mean when I say, “Be kind, rewind.” That’s probably a good thing.

I thought I was so kickass with my Walkman in high school. I used it mostly when I waited to play volleyball games, whether a regualar season match or a weekend tournament. There was a lot of waiting around, what can I say?

Go read the whole list here.

Glinda sez, you are never too young to embrace your inner geek!

via

Buzzfeed has a current article with pictures of 50 kids “cooler than you’ll ever be.”

I beg to differ, although some of them certainly are.  Here are the highlights.  Although it must be said there is a distinct lack of girls on the original list.

As you may already know, last week Gallup published the results of this survey, which showed that if Americans were to only have one child, 40% would prefer a boy.  28% preferred a girl, and 26% stated that it didn’t matter.

So while not quite a majority, still quite a big differential going on there.

Is it the whole “girls can get pregnant” thing?  Would people rather be the parent of the impregnator rather than the impregnatee?

Is it a financial thing, where people seem to think boys are cheaper to raise? 

Perhaps they are concerned about passing on the family name.

Or is it a flat-out gender bias?

What do you think?

And just a side note, the two lads featured up there in the picture come courtesy of Marie Osmond. 

I think they will haunt my dreams.  And I didn’t want to be the only person having nightmares, so I had to share.

You’re welcome.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I sure as hell would not be laughing at a lioness attempting to eat my offspring. She isn’t being “cute” or “funny,” she is literally trying to attack that baby. It doesn’t make me giggle, it makes me want to run far, far away from that enclosure.