A lot of people in the technology industry consider Microsoft to be pure evil. It turns out that they aren't completely evil after all. The company has partnered with the Companions in Courage Foundation to deliver gaming kiosks to children's hospitals around the country, loaded with an xbox 360 video game system, games, and TV shows and movies.

The kiosks will also let hospitalized kids play games and chat with other kids in other hospitals over a private network. The first batch was installed at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center of Seattle and the Children's Hospital of Orange County in California.

"Entertainment, creativity and personal connections can be important factors in alleviating some of the isolation and discomfort these children experience each day," said Companions in Courage founder and National Hockey League Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine, speaking of kids who are in the hospital for an extended period. "These gaming stations are a perfect complement to the interactive playrooms."

The mission of Companions in Courage is to build interactive playrooms in hospitals throughout North America. "It's extremely gratifying to witness the joy and excitement of these children and teens when they have a chance to break away from the normal hospital routine, and make new friends while playing video games," said Cynthia Sparer, executive director of Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.

For once, I have to say -- and this pains me to no end -- good job Microsoft!

New research suggests that children who attend day care or are frequently exposed to other children through playgroups or playdates may be at a decreased risk of developing leukemia.

According to this article from Yahoo, leukemia is thought to be cause by one or two triggers. One is a genetic abnormality. The other is an infection that sets off a chain of events that leaves the body vulnerable to leukemia. Experts theorize that children who are frequently exposed to common childhood illnesses build a stronger immune system, thus "switching off" the second trigger.

Parents of kids in day care or school know how frequently kids get sick when they're around other kids. Look at it this way -- at least there's a silver lining to all those runny noses...a healthy immune system.

I know I should be scouring the Internet for fabulous finds and products, but I just dropped my precious boy at his first day of Mother's Day Out. Today marks the first time that he will be cared for by someone besides myself, my husband or our rarely-used babysitter. What does this mean for me? Three and a half hours of uninterrupted toddler-free time!

I'm sure I will grow to adore this little break once a week, but right now, all I can do is stare at the clock and wonder.
Is he having fun? Does he miss me? Will he eat all of his lunch? Is he being a good boy? Is he going to take a MONSTER POOP and stink up the entire classroom?

I'm sure he's having a great time, as he didn't even shed a tear as I left the room. (I, of course, can't say the same for myself.) Still, it's so hard to watch your little ones grow up. Tell me, what was your first "official" drop-off like? Did you cry?

You might remember that I was faced with the dilemma of choosing between taking the kids to the Railroad museum and going to a dinner party with some folks I used to work with. Well, Rachel pointed out that Monday the 31st of March is Cesar Chavez day and both she and the kids have a day off from school. So we decided to take the three-day weekend to go to the museum and go to the dinner party this weekend. That, of course, meant a babysitter.

Unfortunately, of our two regular babysitters, one was busy and the other was in Paris -- as in Paris, France. By the time we'd heard from them both, those on our fall-back list of friends and family members we would feel comfortable asking to watch the kids were already booked up. Since Rachel was coming off a stomach bug anyway, she decided to stay home with the kids so I could still go.

I had a grand time, of course, and Rachel was sorely missed, but that's not my point here. How would others have handled this? I called the babysitters sequentially -- one after the other -- because I didn't want them both to say yes and then have to tell one we didn't need her. Should I have called them both right away? And do you have more than two babysitters on call, or is that generally enough? Or does it depend on whether or not they're globe-trotting honor students?

The darling onesies, the special bottles, the handknit booties...we mothers know the baby shower drill, right? Well, if you are looking for some gifts that will stand out amongst the sea of blankets and burp rags, you've come to the right place.

Warning: recipients of these gifts need to possess a SENSE OF HUMOR.

Is the new mom planning on breastfeeding? Well, she could always use some extra nipples.

At some point, the newly sleep-deprived parents will be fueled on nothing but sheer desperation. Might I suggest a Control-A-Kid?

Expecting a boy? Don't get sprayed in the face. Use some Pee-Pee TeePees. (Although, honestly, they really don't work. Trust me, I LEARNED THE HARD WAY.)

At some point, the new parents will want to spend a night away from their precious baby. Be sure to keep the babysitter up-to-date with a Don't Kill The Kids Pad.

Every little baby needs some Boo Boo Kisses, right?

Finally, this will solve many late night dilemmas (and possibly save you from divorce). The Wheel of Responsibility.

I had no sooner entered the preschool parents' orientation when I was hit with information about school fundraisers. There was a donut sale in the fall, artwork orders during the holiday season, and an auction in the spring. Oh, and the monthly pizza night at a local restaurant (10% of proceeds donated) and the Scholastic book sales that benefit the school. It's all for a good cause, for sure, but it also seems like a bit much.

Let me be clear that I have no problem supporting the school. It's a wonderful school, and I'm more than willing to invest in education for my daughter and her peers. It's the fundraising that doesn't make sense to me.

We opted out of the donut sales in the fall. Most of our friends are trying to eat more healthfully, and it didn't seem right to up their cholesterol tests just to make a small profit for the school. We made an equivalent donation instead and felt like it was the right call.

Now, the spring auction has come up, and I'm frankly perplexed by the whole idea. We've been asked to donate items for themed baskets -- gift certificates, sports tickets, and other goodies. Once the baskets are assembled, with gifts that parents have paid for, they'll be put up for auction at an event attending mostly by -- you guessed it -- parents.

So let me get this straight: I buy a $20 gift certificate to contribute to the basket, then I pay twice that at the auction. This doesn't seem like the best idea to maximize profits and participation. In fact, it seems a little stupid.

Parents are the people paying tuition AND the people targeted for fundraisers. I have a crazy idea: how about the school just charges a little more each month, and we skip all the fundraising nonsense? We're on a budget just like everyone else, but an extra $20 a month would be doable, especially since we're going to end up paying that much or more via fundraising participation anyway.

Do you fundraise for your children's school? Do you like it or dread it? Have you found any creative solutions to this conundrum?

TLC has a new show called, "The Secret Lives of Soccer Moms". Let me start by telling you that I have a particularly keen interest in this show for several reasons. For one, I was being seriously considered for the job of host held by former sitcom actress, Tracy Gold and actually flew out to LA to meet with TLC executives.

As a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) who occasionally dabbles in my television-hosting career, I can definitely relate to the premise of the show, which allows a SAHM to work in her dream job for a week and decide at the end whether or not she wants to continue being a full-time at home mom.

At this stage of my life, I only consider television jobs that have a limited shooting schedule because I want to be a SAHM and have no interest in relocating my family to LA or New York. This show would have met that criteria and had the added benefit of being a topic of eminent interest to me. Bummer!

In the first episode, mom decides at the end of the week to pursue her dream of becoming a fashion designer and, if the reactions displayed on the show's website comment boards are any indication, the mommy wars are far from over. Many SAHMs resent that in its first episode, mom's decision is received with her family's joyful approval followed by closing credits; the audience is spared the cold reality of seeing kids who are accustomed to the warmth and familiarity of home and mom suddenly dealing with the adjustment of a day-care situation and the emotional aftermath of making sense of mom's "choice".

On the other hand, working moms, especially part-time working moms, can relate to the shows' moms and their sincere desire to tap into the passions and creativity of their former selves - if only for a few hours a week.

As a television host, I would have a far more successful career if I lived in LA where i could audition daily and increase my visibility and chances of landing a job by a hundred fold. On the other hand, the normalcy of small-town living has had an immeasurably positive effect on my kids and the lower cost of living has allowed our family to afford having one parent home full-time. It has also made me a much more credible host and voice for all the new mommy shows Hollywood is rolling out these days. God knows that far too many of these shows and talk shows are overly represented by wealthy urban women who have never lived without a nanny or stepped foot in a Wal-Mart.

Yet, I would be lying if I didn't admit to loving the fact that at least three or four times a year, I travel alone, stay in a nice hotel, and get my hair and make-up done by professionals without wondering if anyone needs a diaper change.

In the end, "The Secret Lives of Soccer Moms" is one of those great reality show concepts that simultaneously entertains and offers viewers, moms and future moms in this case, a platform from which to explore and discuss the deepest questions that dominate and determine our lives and our legacy.

For more information about Rachel Campos-Duffy, please visit: www.rachelcamposduffy.com

It bugs me when women talk about how their husbands are so great about helping out around the house. It's not that I think men shouldn't be doing household chores. It is the idea that they are doing it to help their partners, not because they feel any responsibility for it in the first place. I concede that I might have issues on this subject, but in my opinion, if you live here, you help keep it clean. That goes for kids as well as husbands.

Fortunately, I am married to a man who shares my feelings on the subject. But I know plenty of women who don't have husbands who feel that responsibility for their own homes or children. For these men, their workday ends when they walk through their front door. Even though many of these woman work outside of the home, they still take on most, if not all, of the household and childcare duties. But according to a new study by the Council on Contemporary Families, the idea that household chores and child care is women's work has changed, if only a little bit.

"More couples are sharing family tasks than ever before, and the movement toward sharing has been especially significant for full-time dual-earner couples," the report says. "Men and women may not be fully equal yet, but the rules of the game have been profoundly and irreversibly changed."

Carol Evans, founder and CEO of Working Mother, agrees. "There's a generational shift that's quite strong," she says. "The younger set of dads have their own expectations about themselves as to being helpful and participatory. They haven't quite gotten to equality in any sense that a women would say, 'Wow, that's equal,' but they've gotten so much farther down the road."

But leave it to a man to shine a completely different light on the subject. Joshua Coleman, author of "The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework," says that sharing of the work can lead to more frequent sex. "If a guy does housework, it looks to the woman like he really cares about her - he's not treating her like a servant," he says. "And if a woman feels stressed out because the house is a mess and the guy's sitting on the couch while she's vacuuming, that's not going to put her in the mood."

I can't really argue with Coleman's assessment of the situation, but I'm not sure that sex-for-housework could be considered progress.

I was on my way home from work Monday night when I suddenly lost control of the car. The steering became sluggish and unresponsive and it was all I could do to wrestle the vehicle off the freeway and into a nearby shopping mall parking lot. I'm no mechanic, but it seemed to me that the power steering failed for some reason. The tow truck driver suggested it might have been the serpentine belt that failed; it connects the power steering pump to the engine, among other things.

Whatever the diagnosis, it left us with only one working car. Rachel and I both needed to be able to get to work and Jared needed to be able to get to school. We decided that I would take Rachel to her school then keep the Land Rover to get Jared to school. I would work from home so that I could have the other car towed to the repair shop.

So, in the middle of the night (it seemed), I had to get up to drive Rachel to work. We had to take the kids with us, of course, since there was no one around that early to watch them. As I lay in bed getting ready to drag my lifeless carcass back into the world of the living, I pondered having to get the kids up and into the car. Did I really have to get them up? Couldn't they just stay in bed while I ran Rachel to school?

It only takes Rachel about 5-7 minutes to get there, so it would be less than 15 minutes that we would be gone, and they would be asleep the whole time, so why couldn't we just leave them home? Of course, at five and three years old, they're too young to be left home alone, no matter what the circumstances. But it did get me wondering.

How old do kids need to be to be left home alone? Does it matter if it's just for a few minutes while they're asleep or if it's for an entire afternoon once school's out? Would you have been tempted to leave the kids home?

Over at babycenter.com they're asking "Do you ever have your child watch TV or a video so you can get a break?" and of the 16,607 people who voted, 97 % answered yes.

I know this should not come as a surprise to me, although it does. Not so much because that many people admit to using the TV as a babysitter--as an educator, I know this to be true, and I can see how it would be tempting--had my husband and I not agreed before our son was born that we would not allow him to watch any television or videos at all until he was at least kindergarten age--but because of HOW the "break" time was spent. 30% of respondents said that they use the TV downtime for cooking dinner, and an even greater percentage (33%) said they use this time to do housework.

Housework? Really? I'm sorry, but I can't quite seem to fathom how washing dishes, loading the dishwasher, running the vacuum, or folding laundry constitutes the need for a "break" while the kids sit passively in front of the TV. Bean loves to help with daily housework. He's had a forever obsession with the vacuum, and now at the age of three, he's actually starting to be pretty good at it. I'll do the floors once, and then let him keep going for a while, as I'm loading the dishwasher or wiping down counters. He's also great at sorting socks, putting things away, and carrying small items from where they've landed to the proper room where they belong.

Similarly, dinner prep is typically a fun family time at our house: all three of us in the kitchen, working together to prepare a meal. Bean loves to chop veggies with a butter knife. Mushrooms, green beans and red peppers are all a soft enough target for him to practice his chopping skills, and when they're ending up in a stir-fry or a salad, it doesn't matter if they look a tad irregular. He also helps toss salads, kneed pizza dough or quiche crust, and he's quite thrilled lately with the whole idea of setting the table, now that he is tall enough to finally see inside the silverware drawer.

But what shcoked me the most was that of all the various options for how people spend this TV "break" time away from their kids, only 2% of respondents said that they used this time to spend time with their partner. If, as I said, my husband and I hadn't already agreed to not allow our son to watch TV during his early childhood, I can definitely imagine that I'd see the TV as an appealing way to distract my son--specifically to have some alone time with my husband where we're not doing the married couple staccato of "What did he eat for dinner?" "Did you schedule his doctor's appointment or should I?" "When does this bill need to go out by?" etc, etc, etc.

It's the thing I miss the most, since having my son: that uniterrupted down time with my husband before the end of the day when we're both so tired we can hardly see straight, let alone carry on a conversation about astronomy or politics the way we often used to. I miss mornings leisurly in bed without a three year old jumping up and down yelling "time to get up Mommy, Daddy!" And it's the only way I can ever even imagine really wanting to us TV to garner a "break" from our small boy.

Amber Valetta, in this month's issue of Cookie magazine, talks about taking the TV out of her family's house, and out of her son's life. She said she noticed quickly how different he was--how imaginative and self directed. I see these qualities in my son daily, and I wonder often why more parents don't truly consider cutting back or entirely eleminating television/videos (and video games!) from their kid's lives--especially if all they're doing while their kids are watching is housework.

Can you imagine putting a child that you've not yet conceived on a daycare waiting list? It sounds absurd, but that's exactly what some families are doing to do to reserve their spot in quality childcare centers in certain parts of the country. More commonly, expectant parents are reserving their spots before their children are born, and even then, nothing is guaranteed.

Obviously, these kinds of tactics aren't necessary everywhere and are likely only used in cities and neighborhoods that have grown so quickly that local services haven't had a chance to catch up. It also signals a trend that parents are getting choosier about where they send their children every day and are willing to endure long waiting lists to have that choice.

Being a planner, I can understand the need to have daycare in place, especially if you only have six weeks for maternity leave. Have you ever been wait-listed for childcare? Did you ever consider putting your child on a wait-list before they were born?

Well, Mr. Pickles seems to be settling in nicely to the Infant 2 room at daycare. He's been there for several weeks now and things seem to be moving in the right direction.

I had been concerned they were moving him too soon to simply make way for another baby to enter Infant 1. From the front end it looked like there was room in Infant 2 and Infant 1 was packed, so the oldest kid (my son, which is hysterical given he was only ten months old) would move over. I felt like he wasn't ready to play with the bigger kids.

Many of them could walk. Some of them could talk. One of them sang me her ABCs last time I was there. Plus Infant 2 was run by much younger staff. The veterans were over in Infant 1. I'd become very fond of them, and trusted their years of experience implicitly.

Well, turns out my fears were just that of a new mom going through another phase. Mr. Pickles never skipped a beat. Those young women turned out to be a good match for his unbelievable energy. They didn't mind chasing him all over the place. And he gets to be chased all over the place. In Infant 1 he got so little floor time.

It's 2:30am and you've been awakened by your whimpering baby. You lie in bed, just begging the sleeping gods to help guide your little one back to sleep.

It's not happening.

This is when the silent battle between my husband and I begins. The Battle of Who Will Get Up And Tend To The Baby. Luckily, this is a rare occurrence since we have a good sleeper, but in a nutshell, we both pretend to be asleep until one of us finally throws the covers back and shuffles into the baby's room. (Please tell me we aren't the only ones who engage in this battle. I'm the queen of faking sleep!)

This Parent's Wheel of Responsibility should make the late nights more bearable by adding a dose of humor to the mix. $12.50 at Spoon Sisters.

For the last year, I've been pretty happy to hunker down in my house, writing and contemplating and spending long nights by the glow of my computer. And I'm still happy doing that, mostly, but I'm starting to feel like I want to get out in the world a little more: get out to see movies, go to yoga class, read a book and sip a latte in the quietness of a Saturday-night bookstore.

My parents and brother have done babysitting duties in past, but I don't want to rely on them forever -- and plus, I don't feel like I can come home at an hour much past ten when my Mom is doing babysitting duty. I did enlist a young teenager down the street one night, and have called her since, with no response. I know I overpaid her, if anything, so it must have been:
a) a lack of edible food in the fridge
b) dried banana crusties on the couch (I told you, I'm not a good housekeeper)
c) the fact that my younger brother was working in the basement while she was babysitting...possibly a little creepy?

Anyway, I would like to find another babysitter. I've perused Craigslist, local bulletin boards, and questioned neighbors. Ideally, I'd like to find someone that is willing to hang out with Nolan for an hour or two while I'm there (paid, of course) -- so I can feel comfortable that if he wakes up while I'm out, he won't be terrified.

Does your family have a babysitter? If so, where did you find her/him? Or did you just wait till your child was a little older before resuming a social life?

Well, my not even ten-month-old son is about to move to the other room at his daycare. The other room, Infant 2, is generally reserved for babies who are at least a year old. My kid, however, is set to go either this week or next.

Part of the reason for the daycare administration's decision is that he is the oldest of the babies in his classroom and by far the most advanced. I'm not bragging (ok, well, maybe a little) but he is able to do many more things that all the other babies aren't yet, such as almost walking, eating with his fingers, etc. According to the staff, he's not doing the other babies any favors, nor are they really challenging him in any way.

The other reason they want to move him over is that there is another baby on the way to his classroom, and his classroom is currently full. I don't think they would move my son over before he was truly ready, but it is a bit of a concern.

What if he isn't ready and he spends all his time frustrated because the other kids are doing things he doesn't understand? That aside, I am excited by the thought that he'll get more stimulation than he would in the infant room. I am imagining more games, more reading, more singing, and more general interaction with other kids.

This probably means more illness for me. This also means I have to be ready too. My son may be ready, but I'm admittedly not. Here he is, growing up right in front of me. The move to the new classroom is proof of that. It's also proof that I have little control over it--well, his growing up on me anyway.

I don't actually feel like I have any control over his being moved either. There's not really any other place to send a baby to daycare who is less than a year old. Plus they are local and kind and organized and seem to take a real interest in my son. And they're the professionals, aren't they? I've only closely interacted with one child, my own, yet they've seen hundreds come through their doors. They should know when a child is ready to move on to the next room, I would hope.

Still, there is this skeptic in me, the part of motherhood that trusts no one and is ever-protective of her offspring. I guess what I am feeling is natural. I guess I am also nervous about change. Change is hard sometimes.

Any thoughts on any of this? Should I say something about him not moving over, or just experiment with it, etc.? I often felt Mr. Pickles could be doing more than rolling around on a mat, and now he has the chance.