10 Ways to Find 10 Blissful minutes for yourself

Sure you love your kids, but your pre-mom self—you know-the one who wore sexy under- wear and took vacations that didn’t include Happy Meals—had it’s perks too. This is a book for anyone who relishes her role as Mom, but longs for a few minutes with nowhere to be and no diapers to change. Authors and New York City moms Lyss Stern and Julie Klappas put their creative minds together to give women ideas on how to create their own “mommy time out.”

As the mom of a former teen, I felt I was well equipped to handle teenage-hood again when it reared its ugly head as my youngest turned 13. Boy was I wrong! Why does this phase of life take so long? For those of you not yet there, here is what it’s like: Imagine being in the midst of the terrible twos for six very long years. The only thing I know for certain is that at the end of the line, there actually might be an adult that will start believing that I may know a thing or two about life and that I will eventually start liking again. So it was with some hope that I picked up 35 Things Your Teen Won’t Tell You, So I Will by Ellen Pober Rittberg (Amazon or turnerpublishing.com).

First-ever cooking-with-your baby book from eebee’s adventures combines nutrition, play and family time
Baby mealtime just got easier, smarter and a lot more fun. Inspired by the playful idea that if you can mash it, smash it, oosh it, goosh it, shake it, coat it or stir it, your baby can participate in the process of preparing meals. With eebee’s Mix & Mash adventures parents of babies and toddlers can play a game, build nutritional skills, and have story time – all while feeding their baby!

“Mix&Mash is an “organic” extension of eebee’s everyday, everywhere approach to celebrating the magic in a baby’s day to day experiences,” says Stephen Gass, president of Every Baby Company.

We three women over fifty decided some years ago to change the conversation about aging and dispel myths about women over fifty. These myths may have had validity when none of us humans lived much past age fifty or sixty. Remember our grandmothers? They looked old at forty. They wore housedresses and sturdy shoes. Their lives were all about raising their children, and when that was done it seemed that at least in society’s eyes, their lives were done.

Today we women over fifty have changed considerably. Our average life span is eighty-plus years. We are out in the world, making art, saving villages, improving our communities, keeping up with runway fashions, and living our lives. Yet somehow, myths remain. Here are the ones we keep encountering.

We at I Am Modern love this book and will be putting it on our list of things we want for the holidays.

From its historic beginnings in the 1790s, Washington, D.C.’s, prominent structures have become an important identifying feature of the district and a way to preserve its heritage.

With fact-filled photo captions and chapter introductions by author Tracey Gold Bennett, Historic Photos of Washington D.C. Monuments rediscovers the fascinating past of these famous structures through nearly 200 rare photographs culled from the Library of Congress, National Archives, Smithsonian Institution and the United States Department of Defense.