It's popular. It's well written. But I am in the minority in that I didn't like it. At all.

My Gyn once said, "There's a word for women who use Natural Family Planning. It's 'mommy.'"

With all due respect, you are insane. No parent in her right mind would approve of more plush toys. Ever. You know why? Because we already have ALL OF THEM! That's what people buy babies — plushies. Before she was even born, my daughter had dozens. By her first Christmas, the number had crept perilously close to three…

I love Tammy Pierce like no one else but may I suggest one of her other series to start with? Alanna is a bit of a Mary Sue. The Keladry Books and the Daine books are better, IMHO. That said, they many not have been published when you were a kid and your dad rocks the rock of ages. He's awesome. (My husband reads…

Enveloop rechargeable batteries. Because she probably has all the toys she needs, but goes through batteries like they are popcorn. Or men. Or women....

Mayo doesn't work. Neither does olive oil, or conditioner. The Journal of Pediatric Nursing did a lot of testing on this. Science! http://www.pediatricnursing.org/article/S0882-5963(04)00139-3/abstract

OMG, I took a class on kiddie lit in college and Water Babies was torture! It's some deeply Freudian acid trip with perfect prepubescent blonde things being defiled, defiled I say, by the chimney sweep's evil penis-like black boot marks across her perfect white rug — I swear to god the subtext wasn't all the sub. The…

It can have disastrous results, if you don't have access to abortion. If you do, and choose to avail yourself of that option, then it's a sad thing, but not a disaster. That's why we fight for abortion rights. So that one broken condom or one stupid night doesn't ruin teens' lives.

Without abortion it would, in fact, be a much higher number. 1-2 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. are ectopic. (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/2041923-overview#a0156)

HA! That's totally what I'm watching, too! I'm struck by how prescient it was (hey, they predicted the Arab spring, and nuclear meltdown, and the budget crisis, and a couple of other things!) I'm also stuck by how much more honorable the GOP members are in Sorkins world than they seem to be in our world.

Oh, dear... no. I live in a small condo and have no outside space that is mine. My laundry room is in a dusty basement that is common area. I have no where to hang my laundry. What's more, I live somewhere that the weather is simply not conducive to hanging laundry — humid in the summer, wet in fall and spring, and…

Genre-savvy for the win

Actually, having a baby at any point in your life *in this country* is pretty much a barrier to achieving any goal outside of having a family. Unless you're uber-wealthy and can afford someone to shoulder all the work a baby entails, you do pretty much have to make decisions about careers v. family. We have crap for…

There's a book called "The Lady and the Panda" that I have on my to-read shelf. She also wrote a book herself called "The Baby Giant Panda".

How did you miss Ruth Harkness?! 1930s NY fashion designer and socialite goes into the Chinese mountains to fulfill her dead husband's dream — to bring back a giant panda. And she DOES. Not in a cage. Not on a leash. Carrying it in her arms. Cause she was bad-ass like that.

Use a different cut (chicken thighs, for example, are cheaper than breasts and won't dry out). Alternately, only cook four or five hours on low. Won't be useful for right-before-work, unless you have a timer and a lackadaisical attitude towards food safety.

As a serious user of slow cookers, I suggest you get "Slow Cooker Revolution" by ATK from the library. It's peerless. There are two categories of recipe — ones that involve some actual browning/cooking beforehand, and those that require (at most) some quick nuking beforehand. All of them are quite good.

In Boston, the going rate for a sitter — a college student, generally — is $15-$17. That means five hours is $75-$85, plus $12x2 for movie tix, plus $8 for T fare, and $30 for dinner at the local Vietnamese joint, plus $9 for ice cream after. If I have a bottle of water and a small popcorn, yeah... that's about $150.