Not exactly "that new car smell"

These are the things that are in my car (as of this moment):

two carseats
one pair of navy blue rubber boots
two coffee mugs
one klean kanteen
one pack of raisins
one hockey bag
14 re-useable grocery bags
one astronaut costume
one Transformer
one GPS and adapter
packaging from one hemp yoga mat sling
one child-sized Toronto Maple Leafs hockey stick
two sippy cups
one orange ball
one Kleenex box (empty)
one fleece jacket
one travel-sized Magna Doodle
six copies of last week's Toronto Star Living section (Banana Republic/Gap Coupons)
one sun hat
one size three diaper (my child wears size 4)
one small plush caterpillar
one tube ArmorAll wipes (!)
one loot-bag mini Candyland game
crayons
hand-drawn travel picture bingo card
one jolly jumper

One week until Halloween!

I drove home with a kick-butt jack-o'-lantern belted into my front passenger seat.

Funny thing was, I found myself doing that arm thing that parents do when they have to stop suddenly. You know, where the right arm just juts out in front of the person - whether seven or 70, or actually a bag of groceries (or just a single giant vegetable) - as if somehow that was going to make the critical difference in the event of a collision?

But seriously, this is a special jack-o'-lantern. Toronto Star Living section designer, and resident pumpkin expert, Jo-Ann Dodds, created it for the video we just posted on how to carve a cool pumpkin. Lucky for me and my two boys, Jo-Ann kindly gave it to us to enjoy for the week. As long as we can keep it safe from racoons in our enclosed porch - and provided the weather stays cool - the jack-o'-lantern will be fresh to impress on Halloween.

The video is just part of the great offerings on parentcentral's fun Halloween Guide.

If you haven't seen the pumpkin stencils yet, make sure you download them this weekend.

The weather is perfect for a family outing to a pumpkin patch. Not sure where to go? Check out Patrick Cain's cool map of GTA area pumpkin farms.

And while many of us may start out with great visions of imaginative pumpkinscapes framing our front doorways, when push comes to shove, hollowing out pumpkins is kind of time-consuming. If Thursday comes and you have find yourself with more pumpkins than patience, try these simple mess-free approaches to pumpkin decoration. I'm counting on the toilet paper "mummy" idea to get me out of carving one of our beast-like gourds.

Don't get me wrong. Halloween is really fun when you've got kids, and I'm looking forward to preparing this weekend and in the days ahead. If I get REALLY motivated, I just might make a batch of popcorn balls using my granddad's secret recipe. We'll see.

Attention shutterbugs: This contest is for you!

Oh, come on. Admit it. You took 972 photos at the pumpkin patch this weekend.

Yes, it would be a little embarrassing if you were the only one snapping away as junior looks at pumpkins, sits on pumpkins, sits on a hay bale, sits on a hay wagon, rides a pony, rides his parents for ice cream cone, etc. But you're not.

And chances are you took some pretty great pictures of your kids at Halloween last year, or you will at the Halloween festivities over the next ten days.

This is your chance to share —and possibly to win. Enter our "Click to Win Contest", sponsored by Henry's, and you could win a Nikon D40 camera. All the better for capturing memories over the coming holiday season. Plus, your photo could be shown in our Halloween photo gallery. Get all the details here and the rules and regulations here.

Full disclosure: I took about a hundred photos of my two boys jumping in a pile of leaves on Saturday, and I have hundreds more from Halloween last year. Ditto this year's outings to the Brickworks Farmer's Market, Thanksgiving and our summer trip to Sandbanks. (It might have been a two-night trip to Prince Edward County, but based on the size of the Facebook album, you'd think it was a fortnight in the south of France.)

So don't be shy. Share your photos soon!

High school daze

It was interesting to read the comments on Kristin Rushowy's weekend story about a Toronto high school that plans to shift its start time to 10 a.m. beginning in September 2009.

The pilot project is a response to research that shows that teens experience a circadian shift that means they fall asleep at adult-like bedtimes (quite a bit later, in many cases) but still require child-like amounts of sleep. Couple this with a socio-economic reality that plenty of teens hold part-time jobs in the evening, and it all adds up to bleary eyes and poor attention in the early morning hours.

Response ranged from supportive to indignant. Some felt this was a practical solution that acknowledges advances in what we know about teen brain physiology, not to mention, just plain good sense. Others suggested that giving in to the lazy ways of teens, so to speak, would worsen the work-ethic problems that some feel are already endemic among Gen-Y workers. One even went as far as to say that graduates from Eastern Commerce would go on his "do not hire" list.

It could be argued that resisting this change on the grounds of "we've always done it this way" is akin to holding on to hazing rituals or 24-hour shifts for medical residents, even though both are acknowledged as unwise. I'm looking forward to seeing what teachers, students - and ultimately - test results, will have to say about the program's success. Stay tuned!

Your Halloween helper

Green grocers are stocked with pumpkins. Costume shops are selling out of vampire teeth. Bags of candy line the drug-store shelves. Waistlines are under threat.

Yes, it is Halloween time again. With Thanksgiving out of the way, there's no denying the spooky season has arrived.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Halloween is — apparently — the second-biggest season in terms of consumer spending (after Christmas). Yes, it can get a little crazy-competitive — with Martha Stewart-esque pumpkin wreaths, $100 costumes and the battle of a thousand cupcakes. But if you can set aside any ambivalence you may feel about that aspect — you've got to admit, there's no time for like it for kids — and their parents, too!

No other holiday is geared just to having fun. There's virtually no family obligation. On Halloween you can (usually) get away with just emailing the grandparents a photo or 17. There's no bird to baste and, compared to Christmas, virtually no shopping. No airports. No long car rides. No weeks-long party circuit.

The anticipation, though, is almost as delicious as waiting to see what Santa will put under the tree. And the rule-bending that the Hallowed Eve brings just doesn't get duplicated the rest of the year. On Halloween, the kids are in charge (well, at least we can let them think that). THEY decide who they're going to be. THEY get to stay up until "grown-up bedtime." THEY get to eat enough candy to make themselves sick.

Getting ready for the big night can take a little prep, though, and you'll be able to make the most of the Halloween season if you check out our new Halloween Guide. If you like to decorate for this cool occasion, you'll want to check out the special section on our sister site, yourhome.ca, as well.

On the parentcentral.ca Halloween page, you'll find safety tips, the dish on costume trends, craft ideas and inspiration for Halloween parties. Check back often, because we're always adding more.

And if you share your favourite Halloween pics, you'll have a chance to win a Nikon D40 Camera, courtesy of Henry's camera shop (plus your little Batman or Hannah Montana could get their mug on parentcentral.ca). Get contest details here.

Enjoy the festivities!

Take your kids to the polls

Today is a great day to tune your kids into current affairs and instill a sense of excitement and responsibility about voting.

As a busy parent, casting your vote can seem like a bit of a herculean effort. In Ontario, the polls aren't open early enough for most desk jockeys like me to get there before work. And after work, many of us face either risking being late for daycare pickup or hauling hungry kids along with us to the polls. I've been there myself, dragging a crying three-year-old who was having random attacks of "something in my eye," which required steady pressure with a cold compress.

Voting day aside, the campaign period brings politics to life for kids. Walking to school past all the lawn signs, Cameron, now five, sagely tells his dad, "It's either going to be Peggy Nash or the other guy."

The most important thing part is getting there to cast your ballot tonight, of course, and you should talk to your children about going to the polls whether you decide to take them along or not ("I'm going to get home a little later tonight because I've got to vote."). But if your child can come with you, that's even better. Make a big deal out of it, and encourage them to help you hand your ballot to the Elections Canada person. If it's in the budget, take a shortcut and make some ceremony out of voting at the same time — order a pizza or pick up some deli favourites as part of the celebration of election night. Make popcorn and watch the results come in - well, that part's for mom and dad. In Ontario, most kids are in bed before any results are tabulated.

I'm voting on my way home tonight, and we're going to have election brownie sundaes at our house tonight after Cameron goes to the polls with his dad. (I'm making it sound a little like this democratic exercise is one big excuse for junk food, aren't I?) Whatever you do — and however you feel about the outcome — I hope you have a great election day with your kids.

Thanksgiving in tumultuous times

I've been procrastinating at writing this post all week.

Thanksgiving is normally my favourite holiday. Take all the feasting and family time of Christmas. Subtract the heady holiday-party schedule and the toy catalogues and the trumped-up expectations and the credit-card debt. Swap icy roads with crisp autumn air. Add leaf-crunching family hikes, harvest vegetables and cable-knit sweaters. That's Thanksgiving.

And far more important than the aesthetic, of course, is Thanksgiving's simple M.O. - to give us the time to reflect on all that we have.

Much has been made this week of finding a way to be thankful, even as our stock markets are plunging and our financial situations are made precarious. These stories offer some welcome perspective from all the teeth-gnashing, speculation, worst-case scenarios and self-fulfilling prophecies of the meltdown. Particularly for parents whose stock-ticker stresses might be distracting from Thanksgiving's lessons in gratitude, some of which we have on parentcentral.ca, these are a good reminder.

But the thing is, my family -- immediate and extended -- is having the kind of year that makes a battered retirement fund seem like small (oven-roasted) potatoes. Every family has years like this, and I can think of people around me who are dealing with far worse. Still, 2008 hasn't been a banner year, and as a result, I don't really care about how my RRSPs are doing. I feel grateful that I have two healthy kids and a roof over my head (not to mention the luxury of having an RRSP). Yes, I'm going to endeavour to waste less money in case one of us loses a job, but I'm focussed more on the happiness of the people in my life -- and of making the most of our time together -- than I am on the bank statement.

This is all sounding terribly earnest for a cynical journalist, but it's where I'm at. I hope that if your world has been spinning a little out-of-control this year, or even this week, that you'll find what it takes to have a great Thanksgiving.

My little Houdini

I have a 14-month-old who doesn't want to do anything that isn't a risk to life or property.

Set him down beside his stroller, Alister takes off giggling down the block. Leave the gate unlatched while you run upstairs to raid the change dish, he's teetering on the landing. Turn your back for a second, and he's on a step stool — his arm extended to the farthest edge of his reach and one foot half off the edge of the stool — endeavouring to retrieve a framed poster from the wall.

He breaks wine glasses. He has opened the oven door (yes, we need a lock for the stove!). He has no regard for traffic. He cares barely a whit for toys, but loves electric toothbrushes, remote controls and our cordless phone (if he pushes the right buttons, a nice lady comes on the line and says, "You must dial one or zero before the number..."). He has ruined one Blackberry and very nearly threw another in the bathtub.

He climbs onto the back of chairs, steps down, claps for himself, repeats. Sometimes he falls off things. Hard-earned lesson that keeps him on the floor for a while, you might think? No, he just uses the experience to hone is object-scaling skills.

This would all be fine, apart from the fact that we have other things to do than to stand within an arm's reach of our toddler. We joke that we need an extra adult in the house just to spot Alister in his quest for precipices and toxic substances.

Sometimes we allow him to make messes and waste things (or electricity — the fridge door is just full of interesting bottles and jars!) just because it will occupy him for, say, one minute. My older child, Cameron, wanted me to read him Batman book the other day, so we sat on a chair in the kitchen, where I could ensure that Alister didn't touch the stove where dinner was cooking. Alister attacked the Saran wrap drawer, pulling apart two boxes of sandwich bags and about 10 feet of wax paper. But that wax paper got me to the part where Batman escorted Joker to the squad car, so it seemed worth it. When Alister was unusually quiet in our ensuite bathroom this morning, my investigation revealed the tiny cost of peace.  "This uninterrupted dressing time was brought to you by... a couple of wasted Chapsticks," I told to my husband.

I know that this is a story that will sound familiar to any parent of an active baby or toddler. And I try to remind myself that it sucks to be two feet tall (imagine, a whole world of knee caps and counters you can't see over). Still, as a busy mom of two with not a lot of extra patience, it's sometimes hard for me to parent him in a way that conceals the fact that I think he's a huge pain in the bum (a cute, lovable pain in the bum, but a pain in the bum, nonetheless).

On the flip side, his adventurous also means he can play with his brother, who's four years older. His physical nature helps him bridge the age gap. He's tough enough to wrestle bigger kids and loves the mayhem of a crazy playdate.

And he's my last baby, and that's what I remind myself when a bowl of Cheerios is hurtling past my head.