I'm giving away a copy of "The Daring Book for Girls" at my blog. It's a perfect holiday gift for a young girl, full of fun and creative activities and bits of trivia.

Just leave a comment on the post linked below before Friday, December 7 to enter:

http://unproductivereproduction.blogspot.com/2007/11/review-daring-book-for-girls-with.html

You're killing me with your NaBloPoMo, friends. My feed reader is stuffed to the gills each day. Couple that with being swamped at work and you've got yourself one quiet blog.

Although I'm (clearly) not participating in NaBloPoMo, I am working my own little challenge: National Blog Commenting Month.

The best part of NaBloCoMo is that you get to make up your own rules. My personal challenge is to leave at least one comment each day somewhere that I normally wouldn't. So either on a new blog I've discovered or somewhere I've been lurking. I'm generally pretty shy about commenting and I'm hoping this force me to leave better, more frequent, and more substantive comments.

My son turns two this weekend. Two! In celebration of his age, he has wholeheartedly embraced the concept of "no" in the last week or so. Just in the past twenty-four hours, he has said "no" to:

* taking off his pajamas
* putting on his pajamas
* wearing a coat
* me carrying his coat
* me wearing my coat
* the very presence of a coat in the car
* eating breakfast
* eating dinner
* eating a cookie
* the fact that it was raining
* "Is your name Caleb?"
* going upstairs
* getting into the bath
* getting out of the bath
* going to bed
* having his diaper changed
* anyone leaving any room at any time
* wearing shoes that aren't orange
* being strapped into his car seat
* wearing shoes in the car
* reading any book but the truck book
* T watching a football game
* me changing my shirt
* the rabbits sleeping

The fact that saying "no" almost never actually works hasn't slowed him down in the least. Most of the time there wasn't even a question being asked, he just felt like expressing his opinion about the matter at hand. It's a phase, right? A short one?

“Would you like to wear red shoes or blue shoes?” I ask my two-year old, dangling the options in front of him.

“Orange!” he chirps with a smile.

“Orange wasn’t a choice. Red or blue?”

“Orange!”

The orange shoes: our family’s participation in the rampant Crocs trend. At some point during the summer, my son’s appreciation of them blossomed into a full-blown crush. No matter the weather, no matter the outfit, they are the only shoes he wants to wear.

On this particular morning, I make the choice for him, lacing on blue sneakers once he is trapped in his car seat. As soon as he comes home from daycare that evening, he makes a beeline to his true love. “Hi, orange shoes!” he coos. He’s thrilled to be reunited.

The next morning he issues a pre-emptive strike. Before I’ve even lifted him from the crib, he makes his wishes known.

“Orange!” he declares. “Shoes,” he carefully adds, making sure to close any possible loophole.

I appeal to the seasons. “Sweetie, the orange shoes are summer shoes. Summer is over. It is too cold to wear the orange shoes. Your feet will be cold.”

He considers that. “Socks,” he says firmly.

It’s not about the weather, of course. Autumn has only just begun, and he is right that socks with sandals (ack!) would keep him plenty warm. It’s about me—me and my vanity. In the summer sunshine the neon orange was cheerful and fun, the perfect finishing note to his brightly colored outfits. But with the sky turning grey and summer colors giving way to the drabness of fall, they’ve become a clear fashion liability. I worry what people will think of me. I want people to see my child in his affordable-yet-charming outfit and think I’m a good mom. A mom with taste and a touch of style. A mom whose child is always appropriately dressed. A mom who has her life (and her child) under control. A mom who doesn’t lose battles over a pair of shoes.

Before I became a parent, I said I would never quench my children’s creativity. I would encourage self-expression; I would never impose my own ideas. I would value them as individuals, not merely extensions of myself. I was also determined that they would always be impeccably dressed. I somehow never saw the obvious conflict headed my way.

I’m learning that becoming the parent I hope to be means not seeing every choice of his as a reflection on me. I want to be able to look at whatever weirdness and uniqueness and creativeness he comes up with in the coming years with an honest smile, saying, “That’s my son.” No matter what the rest of the world thinks. Letting him become whoever he wants to be means I must let go. And thanks to the inherent grace of parenting, I am allowed to start small. Tomorrow it may be going goth or bucking college to ‘find himself.’ Today it’s just a tiny pair of mismatched orange shoes.

So on this day I tell him, “Of course you can wear the orange shoes.” We head off to the library for story time. It’s a windy, rainy day—coats have been pulled out of closets and sweaters donned. My son’s scuffed sandals get a few curious looks as we enter. I check my resolve.

At the end of the songs and stories, the children crowd around the librarian to have their hands stamped. I lose track of my son, his generic shirt and jeans blending in with all the rest. Then I think to look down. In an instant I find his cheerful orange feet working their way though the jumble of look-alike brown and blue shoes. I watch the orange shoes’ tiny dance of joy when his hand is stamped, see them turn to run back to me and jump into my arms. “That’s my son,” I think with a smile.

Maybe standing out isn’t such a bad thing after all.

One of my guilty pleasures is my subscription to Entertainment Weekly. There is not a single thing written in it that has lasting value in this world. But it's one of my few connections to pop culture these days, since the last movie I saw in the theater was...let me think..."The Lake House." Which was a piece of crap. Which I would have known if I hadn't let my EW subscription lapse for a few months.

The fall TV season preview arrived on Monday, an issue whose popularity in our house is rivaled only by the Sports Illustrated college football preview. As you might guess, who gets to control the TiVo in our house in the fall can require complex negotiations. Especially since our viewing time is mostly limited to when Puppy is in bed.

Anyway, my renewal notice came with a free one-year gift subscription to EW--and I want to give it to you. I'm sure there are some fellow devotees of good television here. So let's have a little contest!

To enter, just leave a comment over at my blog (http://unproductivereproduction.blogspot.com/2007/09/itsy-bitsy-contest.html):

• If you're a parent, share the most inappropriate TV show or movie your child has been exposed to thus far. (I watched almost an entire season of 24 on DVD with baby Puppy in my arms.)




• If you're child-free, tell me which show you're most looking forward to in the fall season.

I'll choose a winner at random on 9/21. Have fun!