Tomorrow night, my mother-in-law is visiting. Lucky her, she gets the bottom (full-sized) bunk, being that it's the only guest bed we currently have in the house. I plan on sticking my three-year-old in with us, but gave my five-year-old the option of sleeping on the top bunk or camping out in our room.

"Oh, I'll sleep in my own bed. It's where all my babies are."

Do you know how long I've waited to hear those words? FIVE YEARS. Still, shortly after I got done jumping for joy, I felt sad. My chronic co-sleeper didn't want to sleep with me anymore. Isn't motherhood weird?

Frederic G. Melcher, former editor of Publishers Weekly, once said, "A great nation is a reading nation." Recognizing that the love of reading starts in childhood, Melcher and others came together back in 1919 to celebrate the very first Children's Book Week. Eighty-nine years later, the Children's Book Council carries on the tradition of encouraging reading among children.

This year, Children's Book Week is celebrated May 12-18 and children's author Terry Pierce has some suggestions for ways to promote a love of reading with your own children.

First of all, it is never too early to start reading to your child. Even if they don't understand a word you are saying, it is a wonderful way to bond. Plus, early exposure to books helps develop memory skills as well as symbol recognition, hearing and speaking.

To extend the learning beyond the pages of the book, Pierce suggests asking questions at the end of a story. You could ask your child what she thinks the author was trying to say, discuss the illustrations and even predict what happens next. Another way to enhance the story is to take it into the kitchen. A story that involves food can lead to a fun cooking activity in which your child can be involved in everything from the shopping, to the cooking to the eating.

If your child likes to draw, how about letting him create his own illustrations for a favorite book? Or maybe design his own cover? Reading can also be a springboard into writing. Whether your child wants to pen a letter to the author or begin keeping a journal, books can be inspiring.

For more ideas on celebrating books and promoting reading, visit the Children's Book Council for activities, suggested books and more. Happy reading!

My three year old has just recently started to explore the nuances of telling the truth.

He's beginning to experiment with what happens when he tells a story that his more tall tale than truth. Right now his tall tales are harmless and imaginative, and I can tell he's weaving together snippets of information that he's heard from books, along with the wild color of his own imagination.

The problem is I'm not quite sure how to teach him about telling the truth.

As adults we are constantly sending mixed messages to our children. We say we're "fine" even when we're exhausted and moody and miserable, when someone asks. And who really expects the cold hard truth when they ask, "Do I look fat to you?"

In fact, lying is a huge part of social tact, and the people who haven't mastered the fine nuance of bending the truth somewhat stick out like a sore thumb.

We don't want to know every detail someones trip to the dentist or whatever, when we say a simple "How are you?" in passing. You know those people, right? The ones that launch into full narratives--and you're sort of stuck there nodding and smiling, even though you don't actually give a crap what they're telling you about?

But how do you explain this to kids: that telling the truth is always important and necessary, except when it isn't? Is there is a difference between honesty and telling the truth?

In an extreme case of misplaced priorities, an Australian man has been fined for failing to safely secure a five-year-old child in his vehicle. It isn't that he didn't have seat belts in his car, it's just that there weren't any available after all the adults and a 30-can case of beer were buckled in.

Alice Springs constable Wayne Burnett was understandably "shocked and appalled" when he pulled over the unregistered vehicle and discovered the backseat full of safely secured adults and beer and a child perched on the hump of the back seat floor. "I haven't ever seen something like this before," he said. "This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child."

Oh, but it isn't. Earlier this year, a woman in Florida was arrested for essentially the same thing. She had a case of beer buckled in the front passenger seat and a sixteen-month-old child unrestrained the the back.

As bad as this is, I suppose it could have been worse. At least these children weren't made to ride in the trunk - where the beer should been in the first place. And what is with all this buckling up of beer? It has never occurred to me to strap in my purchases when driving home. Do normal people do this?

The funny minds over Topless Robot blog assembled a list of classic toys that kids love and parents universally loathe and we came up with a few they missed.

Before you attend a birthday party, check this master list of toy no-nos to make sure you're not committing a toy faux pas.

The offenders include:

When my life was very clear and perfectly manageable and I had all the answers to everything, which is to say, back before I became a mother, I'd sometimes see other parents with their children and think, Absolutely not. I will never do that when I have children of my own.

My list of "nevers" was firm and my resolve was strong. There was equipment I was never going to buy: anything loud or squeaky; anything that took up more space in a room than a couch; anything that was made of plastic, especially products with colors so bright they made your teeth hurt.

I was never going to be one of those parents who interrupted the person they were speaking with, mid-sentence, to issue directives to their kids, stop picking your nose this instant, because it was just so rude. My children would never be fussy eaters, or unappreciative of gifts. They wouldn't say naughty things, or be mean to each other, or me.

Raising butterflies is an awesome backyard science experiment for kids. If milkweed or other caterpillar host plants are plentiful in your area, you may be able to catch and feed your own butterflies. If not, there are kits you can buy that include caterpillar and food, all in one handy jar.

If having live bugs in your house for a few weeks doesn't fit into your schedule or lifestyle, however, you and your kids can always adopt a Monarch caterpillar online. Live Monarch is a group dedicated to protecting Monarch butterflies through education and awareness. Simply sign in with your email address and you'll get an update every three or four days on how your caterpillar is doing.

My five-year-old was riveted last week when a wasp -- which we didn't realize was a caterpillar predator -- came and scared "our" caterpillar. The emails include lots of caterpillar facts, as well as beautifully detailed pictures. Nothing can beat a true hands-on experience, but this is still a valuable learning tool for kids.

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.

Wanderlust has struck my five-year-old.

"I've never been anywhere in the world," she told me recently. "Oh wait. Except for Ohio."

It's true that since we've been parents, our travel has been limited to in-state campgrounds and beaches (except for one apparently exotic weekend in Cleveland). Our vacation budget just isn't that large, nor is the level of energy I have for traveling with small children. But we do love a summer road trip and this year we have no fewer than four planned, all of them a considerable distance away.

When the kids were babies, we planned the bulk of our driving around sleeping and eating times. If the kids were snoozing or feeding, they weren't complaining. But now that they're older, I'm discovering that it's both easier and harder to travel with them. They no longer fill their diapers only miles after leaving a rest area, nor do they need to breastfeed in the middle of a traffic jam. But they also get bored really fast, their antsy legs wanting to run and play.

With the exception of a short relationship with a stuffed lamb named Sheepy and a long-term love affair with a pacifier, neither of my girls have formed a lasting attachment to any sort of lovey (or the more scientifically named "attachment object").

From the age of 18 months, my older daughter has carried an armload of small stuffed animals and baby dolls to bed each night and lined them up in her crib or bed, but her favorites change on a very regular basis. My younger daughter, too, has a large collection of objects that she rotates as loveys, currently a small stuffed fairy and a mismatched pair of ballet slippers. I don't expect the commitment to last longer than a week or two.

Studies show that it's normal for kids to attach to a lovey, and that it's normal as well if they don't attach to one at all. Over half of kids in Western cultures attach to a security object, though those numbers are lower in non-Western families. Loveys are tools to help kids cope when they start to learn that they are separate beings from their parents. Some kids use them, and some don't.

TheGoToMom.TV has an excellent post on how a lovey can soothe a baby and how you as a parent can choose appropriate toys for them to love. Though as my daughter and her mismatched ballet slippers have proven to me, you can't always help who (or what) you love.

When I was still teaching, I worked with an occupational therapist who was so talented, I wished I could bottle her up and take her home. She was constantly teaching me new things about my students and how to help them regulate their nervous systems.

One of the most important things she taught me, however, is that children with special needs aren't the only ones who need a "sensory diet." Instead, she said, we all have inside of us an engine. When we need to be calmed or energized, we need to give that engine the proper fuel. Every body is different, so the key is finding what kind of activities are the best fuel for you or your child.

Mommy Poppins has a list of 99 sensory activities for every child, organized by type. If your child seems overstimulated, these activities can help bring them back down to Earth. If your child is tired and cranky, they can give them the energy they need to get through to bedtime.

According to a survey conducted by ITV, Britons are ruder than they used to be. They spit, they swear, they don't say "please" and "thank you". A third of the respondents blame this anti-social behavior on a lack of manners and 90 percent blame the lack of manners on mom and dad.

"I suppose it's part of the breakdown in society -- the fact that we stopped having respect for figures in authority partly because those in authority didn't command it," etiquette coach Diana Mather says.

If the fault lies at home, shouldn't the solution also be found there? Almost 75 percent of those surveyed think not. Instead, they believe that instilling manners should be the responsibility of teachers and taught in the classroom.

I can see the logic - if mom and dad are lacking good manners themselves, how are they going to pass them on to their children? But to me, parenting is all about on-the-job training. If mom and dad don't already have a grasp on etiquette and socially-acceptable behavior, they can certainly take it upon themselves to learn.

Now, if you want to give teachers some extra work, how about teaching shoe-tying? Come to think of it, there is probably a book for that, too.

Children who start school with absolutely no reading skills are at a considerable academic disadvantage, even at the kindergarten level.

One way to help is to give your child a head start at home. See Me Read is a simple and basic literacy program that can be used prior to or in conjunction with any preschool or kindergarten program that focuses on phonics. Best of all it's simple and you don't need a teaching degree to use it!

The See Me Read Kit #1 consists of laminated flashcards, labels and a simple book that are all illustrated with photos you've downloaded of your child interacting with the words you've selected from the list on the See Me Read website. Already this program has the old Dick and Jane reader beat because your beginning reader is the star of the show!

Placing the labels near the objects they represent helps emergent readers make the connection between the grouping of letters and the physical object (like Anne Sullivan did with Helen Keller by pour water in her hand and then signing "water" over and over) the laminated cards on a ring help children understand these letters represent the objects even when they aren't present (the photos help provide a clue as to word is) and the paperback book is a simple, repetitive story that incorporates the same words and photos used on the flashcards and labels.

Could you do the same thing at home with your computer and printer? Sure! However, being able to do something and actually doing it are two different things.

The paper, laminating, and professional look about everything in the kit is of a very high quality. And even though $59 is a lot of money, the sturdy materials and time saved from creating a similar program yourself might be worth it.

"My Beautiful Mommy" is an animated children's book that will roll out on Mother's Day. Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a plastic surgeon, wrote the book to help 4 to 8 year olds understand and deal with "mommy's" plastic surgery.

In case you haven't heard, the latest trend in plastic surgery is being dubbed "the mommy makeover". It involves multiple procedures to restore a mother's body to pre-baby condition; not surprisingly, the fastest growing demographic in the trend are women over 40 who are finished having babies.

Newsweek Magazine examines the trend in an article entitled, "Mommy wants her body back". In it, a mom who underwent a tummy tuck and breast augmentation overhears her 8 year old son bragging to his friends about how "pretty his mom's new belly button was. "I think he was proud", says his mother. Is it just me or is that a little weird?

According to Dr. Salzhauer, more and more moms are bringing their children with them to consultations and appointments. In addition, most will complete their recovery at home and they are concerned that the sight of bandages, bruising, swelling, and a laid-up mom can be scary for a young child.

I agree! But couldn't mom just hire a babysitter during the appointments and make arrangements for little Johnny to go to grandma's house during the more intense phase of recovery? While I have no real objection to a woman wanting to improve her post-baby body, I do object to burdening children with grown-up women's issues like sagging skin, deflated, over-nursed breasts, and cellulite. Whatever happened to discretion?

More importantly, nothing demonstrates the psychologically treacherous ground this subject treads better than the scene in the book where the little girl asks mommy's if her new nose will look different. "Not just different", responds her perky barbie-like mom, "prettier!".

When I was 11, I had a summer job. Five days a week, I rode my 10-speed two miles into town and babysat three kids. The oldest was 10, furious that her babysitter was only a year older than her. The youngest was only one. I can't even imagine leaving my kids with an 11-year-old today, but in those days, it was the norm. All of my friends had babysitting jobs, and all of them also got around on their 10-speeds, just like me.

By all accounts, children in the United States are safer than ever. Crime is down, accidents and illness are less common than before, and the chance that your kid will be abducted by a stranger, say experts, is about one in a million. Yet many of us, myself included, have a white knuckle grip on our children's lives.

Lenore Skenazy, a Manhattan mom and New York Sun columnist, recently wrote about letting her nine-year-old son ride the subway on his own. Critics and supporters came out in droves, calling her both neglectful and a breath of fresh air. She used the incident to create her own blog about kids and independence, called Free Range Kids. The idea behind the concept is to live responsibly (seat belts, helmets, airbags, etc.), but not to restrict your child's actions out of fear.