I keep a running list of things I want to write about on RG. Some of the things I jot down never end up turning into posts either because I jotted them down in the middle of the night and they make no sense in the light of day, or because I realize that they're terrible and/or tragically mortifying ideas. As an example of the latter, one of the notes in my phone right now says, "Order Thinx period underpants & test-run for post." This does not seem like an especially advisable life choice.

The post ideas that give me the most trouble, though, are the ones that I like but don't really merit a full-length post, or the ones that I like but have no idea how to talk about in long-form without sounding even weirder than I usually do. Except my current list of cool stuff I want to mention is getting annoyingly long, and I'm starting to realize that I'm not going to suddenly be struck with an elegant way to introduce the topic of, say, foot-shaving, because an elegant way to introduce the topic of foot-shaving does not exist.

So here we go. Five things I'm all about right now that have absolutely nothing to do with each other save for the fact that you really need to know about them all.

The Itty-Bitty Camp Tee on my favorite girl

A question I've gotten over and over and over lately: what is up with glam | camp?

I haven't been posting as much about it lately, true. New additions to our inventory have been few and far between, and the best sweatshirt in the world has been out of stock for a solid month. If you look at our About page, there's a whole new person there. And the reason why I've been more or less radio silent on the topic lately is that we've been in a state of transition, and I wanted to wait until we worked out any kinks before posting about it.

Let's do our kids the favor of taking the mystery out of money.

There are plenty of people who think that money isn't an appropriate topic for kids, especially very young kids. I'm not one of them; I think that money is a topic that's surrounded by a ton of secrecy in our society - even close friends and family members often don't discuss finances with each other - and that all that secrecy does is make people feel even more at sea about a topic that is likely already a pretty big stressor in their lives.

For the past few months, we've been testing out different ways of instituting a reward system with our five-year-old son (three weeks of not biting nails = a small toy; clearing your dish every night for a week = 25 cents), but none of them have felt quite right, mostly because it's been difficult getting him to understand that a quarter means something; it's not just an odd, shiny toy to play with. And besides, I'm sort of from the "kids should help out and do the right thing because that's what they should do, not because they're being paid for it" school of thought, so rewarding our son for chores and such has always felt a little odd to me.

This is how reading feels to me. It's an experience I want for my children, too.

I started trying to teach my son to read about a year ago, using a system that I cobbled together based on what seemed to make sense - having him sound out the titles of books before we read them, having him sound out words within the books here and there, and following along with my finger so he'd be able to see where we were.

It didn't work. He was constantly frustrated, wanting to get to the fun part (the part where he didn't have to put in work), and it seemed like we never made any forward progress. I mentioned this to my friend Erin, who happens to be a third-grade teacher, and the next day at school dropoff she handed me a stack of the most boring-looking books in the world. They're black-and-white and don't contain especially compelling stories...but I am not kidding when I tell you that what they did was skyrocket my son forward in a matter of weeks. The books make him feel good about himself - they move you forward incrementally, making kids feel confident in their abilities while gradually introducing new concepts - and just reading two or three a night has been nothing short of transformative.

via

I am not typically a "trend person." I have, for example, very little desire to layer fishnet stockings under my jeans (or wear jeans at all, if we're being honest about where I am at the moment).

This is not because I am disinterested in trends (fashion or otherwise); it's because I'm lazy. And because the only people who see me most days are the FedEx guy and my kids. Not 100% sure about the FedEx guy, but I do know that neither of the latter two appreciate a pop of color unless the pop in question happens to be from the nice man in the musical truck who makes mom mad because he will not stop showing up before dinner.