Last Sunday night I woke up fretting. I tossed and I turned. No matter that Monday was a holiday and that I could sleep in as long as my kids would let me. No. I had a couple of big problems that had been vexing me all week, and they had finally reached critical mass.

Did the Gabrielino Indians use Spanish moss or willow leaves on their huts? Also: How the heck was I going to build a plank canoe out of Popsicle sticks?

My daughter is in the fourth-grade of a California public school, and like her peers, she has a mid-year project that involves learning about early California Indian tribes, culminating in the building of an "authentic" Indian village. We had about a month to gear up for this project. She did several in-class reports that helped her learn about her tribe, the Gabrielinos. She was also given a large piece of cardboard and two pieces of yarn. This, her teacher said, was help start her Indian Village. This is a major project, her teacher told the class. Make it good. It counts for a large percentage of your semester grade. Gulp.

My daughter fretted about this assignment for several weeks before melting down completely. So I stepped in to see what I could help with and found out what I probably should have realized all along: There's no way a normal 10-year-old can handle something like this without serious adult back-up. We had a lot of work to do.

I'm a writer. Put me in a library and leave me alone for six hours (or these days just leave me alone with Google) and what can't I find? And then I revert to my old newspaper reporter days. Let's go interview a Gabrielino elder! Let's go find the two sacred springs still in existence not far from here! My daughter, a bookworm, is apparently following in my footsteps. If this project were about writing a report, it would have been a cakewalk. A perfect grade guaranteed. You'd be able to publish that thing.

But this wasn't a written report. We needed to know just enough detail to differentiate this tribe from other local tribes. This project was more about building an authentic Indian Village and less about actual written information. This project called for craftiness. Not research. My kid's not crafty. I'm not crafty. To this very day I am unable to cut a neat circle or square out of construction paper.

I had to wonder: What's the point in this? To stress out Mom and/or Dad? Couldn't we have achieved the desired goal of learning about local Indians through reading and writing? Wouldn't they rather have an expertly-researched and well-written 25-page paper on the Gabrielino tribe? Please?

Nope. They were going to force me to Papier Mache tinfoil mountains in my kitchen and tacky glue little rocks together.

But apparently there's something to this idea of forced involvement that works. This was to be a family affair. So after three days of work, $60 spent at a craft store, several hours mitigating the efforts of the younger sib to make disproportional crockery and weapons, and an afternoon spent consulting with my Martha Stewart friend Audrey, and we had our Indian Village. My daughter made at least 60% of the artifacts and helped me glue them onto the board.

The best part? I'm so bad at crafts our village actually looks like a 10-year-old did the whole thing herself.

Of course Harry Potter. That's the definitive children's literary import from England, well known even to those who don't read.

But I want to hip you to a few lesser known gems from the across the pond. My kids' father, Luke, is English, which means my kids have a set of grandparents (two sets, actually), a great-grandmother, and various aunts and uncles with an interest in their reading.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea (By Judith Kerr, 1968 Collins Picture Lions, [HarperCollins,] London). One of Luke's favorite books growing up. A darling story for the 2-6 set. Sophie and her Mummy are just sitting down to tea when they hear a knock on the door. It's a huge tiger! He asks if he can join them for tea, and then proceeds to not only gobble down the tea luncheon, but all the food and drink in the house! Now there's no dinner for Daddy. Oh no! Daddy gets home from work and has a solution: Let's go down to the cafe for dinner. They do, and the next morning Mummy goes to buy new groceries, and Sophie daydreams about the Tiger. Will he ever return? He never does.

"I always loved the idea that they dressed up and got to go to a cafe for dinner," says Luke. "It seemed so exciting when was little."

This book has been a best-seller for more than 30 years now. And for good reason. Check it (and its recommendations) on Amazon.com/UK.

Now we are Six (By A.A. Milne; 1927, Methuen Children's Books, Methuen & Co., London) -- No thanks to Disney, Americans have an acquaintance with a Winnie the Pooh that bears little resemblance to the original A.A. Milne character. This is a volume of poetry written by Milne, who also wrote Winne-the-Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner. (He also has another volume of poetry, When we Were Very Young.) This is a book of very charming, very clever poetry for little ones. I know. Yes, it's dated and quaint, and yes, poetry and American kids don't seem like a natural fit, but I've found that kids will quiet down and listen if read to outloud. Here's a very small sample:

A Thought
If I were John and John were me,
Then he'd be six and I'd be three.
If John were me and I were John,
I shouldn't have these trousers on.

Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh appear throughout as well. Our copy has an inscription from my daughter's great grandmother, so it's extra special.

Dogger (Shirley Hughes, 1993, Red Fox, London) -- An absolutely wonderful story set in an English town about a little boy, Dave, and what happens when he loses his little stuffed dog. Many heartwarming lessons are learned about family and responsibility. Always chokes me up. My kids demanded repeated readings.

I'm realizing that there are far too many good books to recommend! Stay tuned for another round of favorite kids' books. Not necessarily from England though.

The decision to circumcise or not just got trickier. According to report earlier this month in the journal Lancet, a study conducted by the United States National Institutes of Health concludes that circumcised males are more than 50% less likely to contract the AIDS virus than their uncut brothers.

This on the heals of a report in the November issue of Pediatrics, the results of a 25-year study show that circumcised males are less susceptible to STDs.

Circumcision used to be the norm in American hospitals, but has been on the decline for at least 20 years as its medical benefit has been questioned and ties to cultural traditions (Jewish, Muslim) have loosened. These new studies certainly shift the ball back into the "pro-" court.

How about you? Did you have your baby boy circumcised? Why or why not?

Quick! What's the first thing you think of when you think of the Junior League? Ladies who Lunch? Cookbooks? How about an organization that promotes healthy eating among kids?

Although it's not new (the Junior League has been working to combat the growing concern over childhood obesity for two years now), the effort is being kicked into high-gear for March, which is National Nutrition Month in the U.S. and Canada.

Local leagues will work to increase awareness of healthy eating habits in communities around the country. Check out the Kids in the Kitchen website, which features kid-friendly recipes from various TV and music stars, as well as game and quizzes.

The Junior League, which started in New York City in 1901, has been involved in family nutrition for more than 100 years, although for most of those years the problem was more getting enough to eat. Today are are almost 170,000 Junior League members in 293 Junior Leagues in four countries.

No doubt you've heard all about the UNICEF report by now. The one that ranks Britain and the U.S. as the worst places for children out of more than 20 developed nations. As always, these kinds of studies generate a lot of press, even though the methodology is a little suspect, and, as always, the findings too generalized to be of any real use.

But the one aspect I did find interesting: Richer countries weren't necessarily the best places for children. Why not? Because in general more money means more time spent in pursuit of money and less time spent with the kids. In other words, buying your kids all the latest stuff is not a substitute for simply hanging out with them.

We all know this old chestnut, right? But do we? Take a look at our affluent culture. Here in the United States, anyway, our ambitious, materialistic, every-man-for-himself thinking almost guarantees that spending time with the children will be undervalued.

This is why stay-at-home moms get such a dismissive rap. How dare we waste our education and stay at home doing "nothing" when we should be out in the workforce making money and buying bigger and better stuff. Why, it's downright UnAmerican.

I hate this thinking. I can't see anything more important than raising two happy, well-adjusted, productive future citizens, so I do it for free, thank you. And none of us need any more stuff. Ever see that bumper sticker that reads: "The best things in life aren't things?"

Any report that comes along to further make this point has my blessings.

The other day I decided to make Mac & Cheese. Not the orange stuff out of a box, but the real, baked cheese over pasta dish that would satisfy my soul on a cold, winter's day. My kids would love it too, I reasoned, because after all, pasta, cheese...what's not to love?

So I cooked the noodles and grated the cheese. I made the sauce, threw it all in a baking dish and into the oven it went. As the delicious aroma of warm comfort food from Mom's oven filled the kitchen, my six-year-old son walked in.

"Eeew!! What's that smell?"

Predictably, it got worse from there. My kids wouldn't touch it. Why? They didn't recognize a mac and cheese that wasn't dayglo orange and didn't come in neat little elbow macaroni shapes. No matter that it was rigatoni pasta with *real* cheese and breadcrumbs on top. Never mind that it put the boxed stuff to shame in terms of taste and nutritional value. No matter that I actually made the effort to make it for them. They were uninterested. I ate their two potions myself while they filled themselves up on bread, per usual.

I should have known better than to cook anything special for my kids. The merits of the home-made over instant is utterly lost on them. I keep trying because I want to expose them to something better, and because I want them to expand their horizons, darn it!

I remember both my kids eating everything placed before them with gusto, until, mysteriously, their third birthdays. Then they stopped eating anything that wasn't starch-based. Pasta. Bread. Rice. What happened?

My ten year old daughter may be emerging finally from this gastronomical myopia. She'll eat my home made chicken "no-no" soup. She'll eat my tortilla Espanola (which really is just eggs and potato). Usually she'll insist on some kind of tomato sauce on her pasta. I have hopes for her culinary future.

But the six-year old boy? Dino nuggets or pasta or a PB&J. That's it.

I'd love to hear from some of our BloggingBaby readers. What do you make for your kids every night? Do they eat it?

And if so, can you send me the recipes?

I like neato mommy stuff as much as the next mom. But there is a lot of it out there. Way more, it seems, than there was just 10 years ago, back when I had my first baby. And way, way more than any mom has time to go through, in any case.

Fortunately, there are lots of sites out there dedicated to sorting through the best of that stuff. Lots of sites to help you decide what's the coolest, cutest, funniest or most appropriate for the baby shower.

Ah, but here's a site with a little something extra. ClassyMommy not only lists a whole host of yummy-looking products for mom and baby, but it donates earnings from sales made from its partner sites.
"Wired moms command $1.7 trillion in marketing spending," says ClassyMommy founder Colleen Padilla. "When you buy something online, somebody is getting a commission from your purchase, anywhere from 4%-15% of the total price you pay. I thought it would be great if we could direct some of those dollars to important charities out there."

What are those important charities? Charities that benefit women and children, of course. These include Save the Children and Project Peanut Butter. Classy Mommy donates 100% of affiliate marketing revenue to these charities.

That would make me feel a little bit better about blowing $200 for that Kate Spade diaper bag,which, of course I don't need now (thank God Kate hadn't launched her line back when I did need a diaper bag!) But that wooden sushi set....now that looks kinda fun. Check out the site and use your mommy dollars to help some worthwhile charities!

They're already comparing Anna Nicole Smith to Marilyn Monroe. I don't know how accurate that is. But both women were blond bombshells and both were tragic examples of how the media eats its own.

But one glaring difference: Marilyn didn't leave any children behind.

Upon hearing about Anna Nicole's death today, the first thing I thought about was her five month old daughter, Dannielynn Hope. Who's going to raise her, and how will she be raised -- meaning: Does this baby girl get a chance at a normal childhood out of the media glare now that her infamous mother has left the building?

Already there's a paternity suit -- imagine, two men fighting over which one of them fathered the child, and according to Celebrity Baby Blog and CNN, one of the two contenders, Larry Birkhead, has filed an emergency custody order for the child. Sorry to be such a terrible cynic, but I have to wonder which of these two men want the baby out of paternal love and not for the celebrity (and attendant dollars) she'll bring.

The whole story is made more tragic because this poor child's entire family has fallen victim to the glare of infamy. Her 20-year-old brother died days after she was born, due to a toxic mix of anti-depressants and methadone. I remember a younger Daniel defending his mom's low-brow Anna Nicole Smith Show on the E! channel. He didn't get the chance at a normal childhood of any kind. Now her mother has died, too. It's all just too sad.

But there's a glimmer of hope. With any luck Dannielynn has a shot of a regular childhood outside of the limelight. Maybe the real father, whoever he is, will get custody and take her far away and let her grow up with dolls and grubby jeans and backyard swings. Less affluence and glam, more security and love. Maybe once this media frenzy dies down this baby girl will be able to grow up in obscurity and get the self-esteem she needs to not follow in her mother's sordid footsteps. Maybe she'll grow up with a healthier female role model.

If that happens for little Dannielynn, then there's hope for her future after all.

File under: Most seasonally appropriate toy. Leave it to those Brits at Firebox.com to come up with such batty delights as stuffed giant microbes.

Since just about everyone I know is sick with a cold or the flu right now, I have to admit I find these plush toys irresistible. They're cute. Colorful. And c'mon. How many giant microbes does your kid have on their bed?

I mean the stuffed kind, silly.

I feel a virulent attack of online shopping coming on. My six-year-old son is standing over my shoulder *begging* for a Stomach Ache as I write this. My daughter wants Bad Breath.

I sorta like the Kissing Disease myself.

Oy!...I mean, dude! Becks and Posh are moving to Los Angeles!

Major League Soccer lured English Footballer (that's "soccer" player to you non-Anglophile Yanks) David Beckham to the Los Angeles team The Galaxy with a five year contract potentially worth some $250 million. Becks, as he is affectionately known around the world, will finish out his season with team Real Madrid in Spain before packing up his cleats and moving to the Left Coast.

His wife, the former Spice Girl known as "Posh" (real name Victoria) and their three sons, Brooklyn, 7, Romeo, 4 and wee Cruz, almost 2, will move out in July or August of this year.

Some would argue that the last thing L.A. needs is another celebrity couple with kids, but in a sense it's the obvious place for such a family. Hounded by crowds and paparazzi wherever they go, the BeckPosh's are moving to a place where they know how to do celebrity. Los Angeles after all, is Celebrity Ground Zero.