We'll drink to this: Jamba Juice has joined forces with the National PTA to help raise $1 million for local schools nationwide and encourage healthier lifestyles. They've created a keychain-sized School Appreciation Card that you can swipe at the 742 Jamba Juice stores nationwide when you purchase one of their yummy smoothies, salads, flatbreads, or other good-for-you-and-your-kiddo offerings. Every time you use the card, 10% of the purchase will be donated to your local PTA, and another 2% to the National PTA. Local PTA officers just need to go to JambaJuice.com/PTA to register, then the swipe cards will be shipped out to be distributed in your community. Now that's one delicious deal!

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Not yet a member of your PTA? It's a great way to connect with other moms working for positive change in their children's schools. Parenting is also a proud partner and supporter of the National PTA, and readers can get a special discounted membership rate. Go to Parenting.com/PTA for all the details.

It's weird to watch someone become a person a little bit at a time, day by day. She came to us a stranger in her own body. She could think and feel, cry and poop. The rest was a blank slate. She'd stare right through you, seemingly unable to tell people from lamp posts, all but blind and totally startled and amazed by the world around her.

She made eye contact with me first, maybe recognizing in my eyes something that reminded her of herself, maybe fascinated by their wet shiny appearance. I had her strapped to my chest in the Moby wrap and she kept craning her neck backwards. Afraid her little melon-head would pop off, I kept trying to force her back into the wrap but she would have none of it. Eventually I realized that she was leaning back to correctly focus on my face. I let her head rest in my hand and her face lit up. She stared right into my eyes with her little lips pursed and her eyebrows raised in surprised recognition. "Oh! My mom!" she seemed to say. I won't forget that moment.

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The only things I never run short on at my house are to-do’s, from picking up the dry cleaning to dropping a kid off at soccer or dance. If, like me, your life is a crazy carousel of errands and appointments (and really, what mom’s life isn’t?), you’re going to love this Happeez whiteboard from Mayfair Lane.

Oh, I know, you’ve seen dry-erase boards before — so have I. But usually, behind every great board is a not-so-great backing: they generally either have magnets (which won’t work on stainless-steel fridges and non-metal surfaces) or they’ve got an adhesive that leaves gummy goo behind once the board is removed. I don’t know what kind of magic Flubber is used on the Happeez board, but it sticks just about anywhere, and comes off without a trace. I’ve been using mine to write down our family’s schedule each day for our babysitter...and who knows, if my kids slack off on their chores, I may make them a list and stick it right on their bathroom mirror, hee hee! ($18, available at mayfairlane.com and retailers nationwide and in Canada)

Next Thursday I will be hosting my first ever Thanksgiving and I couldn’t be more excited. I absolutely love to cook and entertain (if I didn’t have a job, I’d already be ironing the tablecloths and arranging the centerpieces) and it makes me feel very grown-up--in a good way. I am also, however, nervous. Nervous because I tend to overdo it and I’m almost eight months pregnant and actually starting to feel that way. And it’s a pretty major Thanksgiving….

 

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A few years ago, my husband and I went to see a financial counselor. Our son had just been born, and we had to put things in shape. Complicating this was that we were coming from different worlds: Rob was (and is) enlisted in the Air Force, I was a New York City magazine editor. The way our wages were calculated, the tax rules that applied, how we could see our careers playing out—everything was so different between us.

Our financial planner, it turned out, had himself been in the military for many years, and he had great suggestions on how to use all our many benefits: We got a super low-rate loan, wrote up our will totally free, and found out how to basically get our son’s college paid for. Yay!

So I wanted to pass on that benefit to all the military moms out there (without the honking fee we paid, ouch!). If you have a money question, send it in, and we’ll get Jim Ludwick, founder of MainStreet Financial Planning, which offices in Washington DC and in California, (and a former serviceman himself) to weigh in.

By the holidays, your finances will be ship-shape!