Yes, I’m 31 years old, yes I’m a mom, yes I’m pregnant with number two and yes, I love Edward Cullen. There, I said it. I recently read the Twilight series and devoured every page. I have watched Twilight a million times and can’t get enough. So this weekend I will be joining hundreds of tweens and packing into a crowded theater to watch my favorite vampires (and the hot new werewolves) do their thing.

 

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Check out the latest education-related news from around the web -- then be sure to sign the Mom Congress petition to fix No Child Left Behind.

‘Race to the Top' grant rules laid out (Chicago Tribune, 11/13/09)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued rules for a $4 billion grant program to promote innovation in education, allaying fears from some education groups that it would be too focused on testing.

'Staggering’ Crisis in U.S. Education Found in Study (Bloomberg, 11/9/09)

More than two-thirds of U.S. teachers disapprove of how their public schools are run and 90 percent say “routine duties and paperwork” interfere with their teaching, a report found.

Gates Foundation gives $335M for teacher quality (Associated Press, 11/19/09)

Three school districts and a coalition of charter schools have agreed to be test kitchens for some radical ideas for improving teacher quality. In exchange, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced $290 million in grants to the four groups, plus another $45 million for education research aimed at uncovering what exactly is an effective teacher.

Schools in the dark about tainted lunches (USA Today, 11/17/09)

Following an outbreak of over 100 illnesses at five area schools in Racine, WI – believed to have been caused by flour tortillas from Chicago's Del Rey Tortilleria – parents and school officials are wondering why the FDA never alerted them to company’s long history of making children sick.  See the U.S. agriculture chief’s response and pledge to issue better food alerts to schools on USAToday.com.

One NJ school district considering fee for detention (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/19/09)

School board members in one New Jersey town want parents of high school students who are habitually sent to detention to pay, saying the district spends $10,000 per year in overtime and maintenance to run after-school detention.

We asked Sandy Shore, an expert from the credit counseling company Novadebt, to tackle your most pressing queries. Here’s what she said about missing payments, the new credit card rules, and when to get help. Read More

My 10-year-old son has suffered from chapped lips since he was 6. Not just the chapped lips we all get once in a while: he looks like a clown from October to March. Once the dentist actually stopped working on his filling, stood up, and asked me: "What are you going to do about his lips? They're getting infected." Talk about embarrassing... after trying every lip balm around (and having to chase after him with the dreaded stick as soon as he saw it), I brought him to the doctor. His diagnosis: "lip licking." All I had to do was get him to stop. Okaaaay...I needed another solution.

I found it: Neosporin Overnight Renewal Therapy. It really did work overnight. And he doesn't mind putting it on -- it's light, creamy without being greasy, doesn't burn, and has no smell. It'll be the first Thanksgiving in years my mother-in-law doesn't walk in and announce: "What's wrong with his face? Don't you take care of him?"

They also have a daytime product that I think you're supposed to use with the nighttime one, but to be honest, the nighttime worked so well, I didn't even use the daytime one. Just wanted to share this find in case any of you are dealing with the same thing! It costs around five bucks and you can find it in most drugstores and supermarkets.

Phillip and I attended the required marriage preparation classes at church before our wedding. We sat through these with fake-interested smiles on our faces, ignoring the couple who said they'd never had a fight in twenty-some years of marriage (PLEASE) and wanting to crawl beneath the tables for The Intimacy Talk. We totally tuned out the people who came to talk to us about finances because whatever, like we needed to take these stupid classes ANYWAY. But boy do I wish I had listened up for the money stuff, people. I have been in charge of the family finances for about a year now and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING.

I'm not entirely sure what my deal is, since I somehow managed to financially survive years Eighteen to Twenty-Three (those being the post-parents pre-Phillip years) on my own just fine. I paid my own bills, did not sink into credit card debt, paid my rent on time and deposited my very own paychecks. In other words, I was a Big Girl wearing Big Girl Money Pants.

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