Guest blogger Heather lives outside of Denver with her husband and two young sons. When not blogging at A Mama’s Blog, Heather is an almost full-time stay-at-home mama, who also works part-time a few days a week. When she is not trying to keep up with her two active boys, Heather enjoys blogging about daily life with her sons, pregnancy and birth, and more natural living. On the rare occasions when she has spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her family, gardening, exercising and reading.

My son Ryan is participating in a language development study. He was a participant about two years ago, before he was talking. The research team recently contacted me and said they wanted to have some of the original children participate in their latest round of research, and asked if we would consider having Ryan participate again.

The research involves having Ryan wear a vest, with a slot for a special recording device. It is about the size of an iPod. It records for 16 hours a day and will pick up everything within a 6-foot radius of the child, to “hearâ€? what the child hears, and then determines what the child says.

It is a little odd on recording days, because I am very mindful that anything and everything I say will be recorded. Same goes for Joe. The researchers assured us that they have heard it all- even awful, drug-out fights between parents. Fortunately Joe and I haven’t had one of those yet on recording day, but it does keep you on your toes.

Today was a recording day, and I felt well enough to go to work. The boys went to daycare. I stayed a few extra hours at work to catch up, and honestly I was kind of glad I didn’t have the “pressureâ€? of dealing with the recorder.

All went well, until the last half hour before Ryan went to bed.

At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld, what’s the deal with trucks?

I realize that I’m practically inviting hate mail by posting this here at Mile High Mamas, where I’d bet more than two-thirds of our audience owns a truck, but it’s been a while since I stirred the pot, so I figured it might be fun for all of us to scuffle over the merits – and demerits – of driving a truck.

If your line of work requires you to haul stuff in the bed of your truck on a daily basis, that’s one thing. But if you drive a truck because you think it makes you look like a honky tonk bada**, then I can’t help but snicker at you.

Trucks aren’t quite as off-putting to me as motorcycles with those decals of naked ladies in silhouette. You plaster those on your ride, and you are setting yourself up for failure – practically guaranteeing that no chick will ever wrap her arms around your waist and press her cheek to your back. Sorry to break it to you.

But trucks do run a close second (and they’re right on par if you’ve installed naked lady mudflaps). Simply put, they’re a waste of space. Since most people don’t use the truck bed on a daily basis, they’re hauling around a lot of extra vehicle weight unnecessarily. The extra space is in the truck bed, where no one – not even a dog – ought to be riding. They’re just plain illogical for both families and single people.

I’ll admit that I know a few women who drive trucks

[photopress:HadBode1.jpg,full,pp_image]I love to cuddle up with my little family but when it comes to expressing physical affection, my children could not be more different. My spitfire Hadley has little interest in warm fuzzies; she is too busy conquering the world to waste her time with nonessentials such as touching her fellow humans.

The only exception is when she is puking her guts out and clings to me like a koala. Call me crazy but snuggles should not include projectiles of any kind.

Especially when that projectile is vomit.

I used to have a difficult time accepting her lack of endearment towards me until I recognized that she just expresses herself in different ways. I.e. saying “I love you” repeatedly throughout the day or generously eating all the cookies in front of me because she knows they are not on my diet.

My son Bode was exactly what this snuggle-deprived mama ordered and at 23 months old, he still freely kisses and hugs me. After a few days with Grandma when I was sick last week, we raced towards each other like a scene out of Chariots of Fire (juxtaposed against his 4-going-on-14-year-old sister who warily looked at me as if to say, “Oh yeah. YOU.”)

My solution for the vast divide between the two of them