This is sugar.

This is your child on sugar (when over-consumption deludes the young child to think she can leap off the arm of the couch and land on her face without consequence.)

Any questions?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

Love,
The Mamas

P.S. Tomorrow is the deadline for our Halloween picture contest. Your picture could land you a two-night stay at SummitCove in Keystone or an exclusive preview to see MADAGASCAR ESCAPE 2 AFRICA.

It is enthralling, isn’t it?

I remember as a young woman shyly asking a cousin if I could touch her very pregnant belly. I was curious what it felt like. A waterbed? A balloon? A bowl full of jelly? A wildcat in a pillow case?

I was surprised her belly felt firm, never giving much thought to the strong muscles that cradle the womb. The best part was when she moved my hand to a spot where her son was kicking. Wow.

Despite being pregnant many times, I still find the belly amazing. It’s like a juicy gilded-peach disco ball—ripe, round, and eye-catching. That is why I am never surprised if someone reaches out to say hello to my bump.

Most pregnant women hate when strangers touch their bellies, charging it’s a violation of personal space and rude to intrude. They feel like a public spectacle, property of the prying masses. I nod when fellow moms express how frustrated they feel when accosted by outstretched hands.

I admit I’ve never fully understood these rants. Read on …

If my son forgets to wear a coat on a chilly October day, he experiences cold.

If my daughter forgets to bring the lunch I pack for her, she experiences hunger.

Neither experience will cause lasting damage (well, maybe a little for the teachers who have to deal with them). In fact, my hope is that such lessons will leave lasting impressions.

I want my children to pay consequences they can afford. Like the time Tessa left her brand new Thumbelina on a playground swing, and we weren’t able to find it when we went back the next day. Tuition for this lesson? About $20 and a bucket of tears.

Or when Reed didn’t have enough money to buy the Power Ranger costume he wanted (we kicked in the first $10) because he shot his piggy bank wad in a manic spree at Chuck E Cheese. Tuition for this lesson? About 20 minutes of tantrum.

Most times, it would be easy to Read on …

From a very early age, I knew that my dad was different from all the other dads of this world. He encouraged me to read The Exorcist when I was eight. He recited a Max Ehrmann poem to me when I asked advice about boys (Yeah, I know. Who the hell asks their dad for boyfriend advice?!) “Go placidly amid the noise and haste,” he said. “And remember what peace there may be in silence.”

My dad thought it was the height of entertainment to knock on his childrens’ bedroom windows in the middle of the night and tell them all about the ball of fire in the night sky. My dad has given away THOUSANDS of books in his lifetime, read HUNDREDS of issues of National Geographic while sitting in the bathroom, and probably hasn’t missed a SINGLE episode of Jeopardy since, like, 1984.

But it took me several decades to truly appreciate him for all his… noncomformity.

Trouble followed my dad like the smell of cigarettes and stale beer did at one time. He made mistakes. Big ones. What a let down it was when I realized that he was really, really, REALLY human. I resented him his extraordinary humanness for a lot of years and made it a part of who I was. Thankfully, though, I’ve grown up since then and became pretty human myself. So I, in all my magnanimity, decided to forgive him his imperfections in the same way that I hope my children will someday forgive mine. The truth is that I couldn’t stay mad at this guy who is trained in reading Tarot cards. Who has worked at a homeless shelter. Who sang folk songs to us when we were sad, songs about soldiers going off to war and young girls picking flowers for them. Who made sure that a nameless, faceless stranger dressed up as Santa Claus and visited us on Christmas Eve every single year until I was probably in the fifth grade. Who knows all there is to know about Safartic Jews and the Kingdom of Castile and the Judaeo-Spanish and making killer salsa.

AND, probably most important of all, Read on …

We unintentionally traumatized our daughter last week.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was on television. I have never seen it so my husband Jamie announced we would have family movie night. We thought nothing of it. Hadley (4) and Bode (2) have played in the room when we’ve watched plenty of movies before. The difference? Hadley decided to watch with us.

My kids are pretty sheltered, only watching shows like Dora the Explorer and the occasional episode of Ugly Betty. But Swiper the Fox and villainous Willamina Slater don’t have anything on UFOs and aliens.

Who knew?

The children watched the first 45 minutes with us and then we put them to bed. A few minutes later, Hadley was back, professing she was scared.

I have to admit, we kind of blew her off. I mean, the kid doesn’t usually get scared and would give Boo of Monsters Inc. a run for her money. We gave her a soothing hug and a kiss and told her to go back upstairs.

We didn’t hear another peep out of her but then we found out why. Read on …

Congratulations to Devon Preeo, winner of our BornFit activewear giveaway!

It’s your last week to enter your Halloween cuties in Mile High Mamas’ Cutest Halloween Picture Contest!

Your little BOOS could land you a two-night stay at SummitCove, a family-friendly condo rental company in Keystone. Simply download your favorite Halloween photos of your children, past or present. There is no limit to how many pictures you may enter. Runners up will receive a family four-pack of tickets to the exclusive pre-screening of MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA on November 5th and a prize pack of promotional items. Contest deadline is November 1, 2008.

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Speaking of dressing up, several staff members of Morton’s The Steakhouse in Lower Downtown, recently transformed themselves into Disney’s princesses to present Taylen Zabel her wish: a trip for her and her family to visit the happiest place on earth – Walt Disney World. Taylen, a seven-year-old from Steamboat Springs has been diagnosed with medulloblastoma–a brain tumor. After Taylen received her wish, she and her family enjoyed Read on …

Oz Spies, who started blogging while pregnant with her son Axel, spends her days working in the nonprofit sector, chasing after a very active baby boy, and trying to find time to paint her toenails, walk the dog, feed the cat, and kiss her husband. You can read more at Knocked Up.

My eleven-month-old son Axel hates the car seat. He loathes being strapped in with every last ounce of his skinny body. He curses the heavens in baby babble almost every time we go for a drive. If he had his way, I think he’d get a hold of a couple of phone books to sit on and take the wheel himself. We’d go wherever he wants to go - probably someplace with mounds of graham crackers and all you can eat Cheerios and unlocked cabinets, where babies crawl free and gnaw on bark without meddlesome adults telling them it’s filthy and will give them splinters in their mouths.

I give him his sippy cup, which usually means that he’s quiet for 60 seconds, and the car seat is getting soaked with milk for 10 minutes. There’s now an attractive milk stain circling the base of the car seat. Stains are good for resale value, right? I pack toys around him - a rattling caterpillar, a purple crinkly hippo face, a wooden ring adorned with a pirate and a compass and a bell - and he throws the toys over the side, too. He’s bailing out the car seat, to keep it light in case it suddenly needs to float, which is very good thinking in the high alpine desert of Denver.

Once the seat is empty, he screams. He pulls against the car seat straps. He beseeches other drivers to bust him out of his safe, dependable, Japanese-engineered station wagon prison. Sometimes, if he’s really tired, he’ll give in and fall asleep, but other times he yells and sobs for 40 minutes. He’s immune to the charms of NPR and Modest Mouse. Even the adored toys that are really trash, like empty plastic water bottles, lose their power when given to Axel in a moving vehicle.

The car seat hatred is similar to the stroller hatred and the being carried hatred and the shopping cart hatred - he’ll tolerate all of them, but usually not for long. Try to link them up together - car seat then stroller then being carried - and you’re asking for a writhing baby fit of fury. Read on …