I'm doing a "Morning Blend" segment on the shocking, horrible, rude and sometimes just plain laughable things people say to pregnant women tomorrow -- Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. (The day got moved up.)

If you shared a story with me via e-mail, comments, Facebook or our MilwaukeeMoms discussion boards, check out the show and see if your story made it.

Also, tomorrow I'm posting the compilation of comments right here on this blog, so check back for some cringe-worthy moments. See you tomorrow!

I'd go see Serena Ryder at Shank Hall tomorrow night. Serena was on "The Morning Blend" on Thursday and I had a chance to meet her in the green room and then watch her perform live on the set. To see her short performance on the show, click here.

She's a 23-year-old Canadian singer, and all of us who saw her said she was a Melissa Etheridge/Alanis Morisette type. Really good, really cool.

If you go, have fun!

Today on "The Morning Blend" we talked about the serious problem of kids and cyberbullying. In getting ready for the show, I did a lot of reading about the topic. Parents, if you haven't talked to your kids about this, you need to do it.

Soon. 

Maybe I'm just especially naive, but I had no idea how many different ways kids are bullying each other using today's technology tools. Kids are getting each other to confess secrets over e-mail or instant messages and then sharing them with the entire school. They're finding out each other's passwords and sending out vicious e-mails to other kids under a false name. They're creating mean web pages and fake MySpace accounts -- all in an effort to hurt each other.

It's pretty rough stuff.

The part that makes it extra difficult to deal with is the fact that it is around the clock harassment of children. The 24/7 nature of this means that a child could wake up in the morning and have an inbox full of nasty e-mails -- all from anonymous e-mail addresses.

Kids don't know how to deal with this, and very often they are not turning to their parents. A 2004 study done by i-Safe showed that 58 percent of kids said they would not tell their parents if they were being harassed online. What they often do instead is retaliate against the cyberbullies -- and then the whole thing escalates. And now the victim is playing bully too -- not good. 

The experts say the best thing you can do to avoid this is to really monitor your child's online behavior. Know what sites your child is visiting and what kind of communication goes on there. Check the history on your computer, and watch your kids for signs that what they're seeing online is making them upset. See if you can start a dialog about it with them. Kids need to understand that it might seem harmless or even fun to do this, but it has serious implications. Some kids who have been the victims of cyberbullying become so distraught they commit suicide. 

There are lots of web sites you can check out to learn more about this, but two I really like are CyberBully.org and StopCyberBullying.org. Both provide great tips for kids and parents to manage these situations and hopefully avoid them in the first place. 

Today on "The Morning Blend" we talked about web sites and cookbooks that feature fast and easy recipes for busy families. 

In doing my homework for the segment, I wanted to branch out from just the sites I typically use (Recipezaar.com and Allrecipes.com) and look at some other options.

A few I really liked:

KraftFoods.com

BettyCrocker.com

RealSimple.com 

Since this morning, a few members of our MilwaukeeMoms.com discussion boards have suggested a few others: 

CampbellsKitchen.com

RecipeMatcher.com

SuperCook.com

I think SuperCook.com is especially cool because you enter the ingredients you have on hand and it provides you with recipes. I went on and listed six things (chicken, tomato, garlic, olive oil, asparagus and parmesan cheese) and this site came back with 21 possible recipes I could make using those ingredients. 

That'll work! It's already on my list of bookmarks.

If you have favorite web sites for recipes or fast dinner ideas, please share! We can all use the help.

This morning on "The Morning Blend," I shared a story that can serve as a cautionary tale to other parents whose kids are on their way to 'tweendom.

A few months ago I was thinking about the movie "The Nutty Professor" and how funny it was, and I realized my kids had never seen it and might enjoy it. I rented it and popped it in on a Saturday night for all of us to watch together over some popcorn.

Wholesome family fun, right? Uh...not so much.

There were so many parts of the movie I had forgotten about, including the scenes at the comedy club where Dave Chappelle rips on the main character, Sherman Klump (played by Eddie Murphy). Not a good thing to forget about -- it was pretty rough for young kids.

I also forgot about so much of the sexual content in the movie. My kids ended up walking away from it, bored because most of it was over their heads, and we were covering their ears and eyes at times.

In other words, mom made a bad call for the fun family movie night.

If you've done this -- or fear that you might in the future -- there's a great web site that can help you out. CommonSenseMedia.org gives you all sorts of information about what might be objectionable in current movies, DVDs, TV shows, games, music, web sites and books.

Had I looked at this web site, for example, I would have found out that they gave "The Nutty Professor" one star and this notation -- "A dumb, offensive movie -- a good one to skip."

CommonSenseMedia also offers this: "The movie's major problem, however, is its torrent of profanity, nasty insults (including fat jokes and racial epithets), and its misguided obsession with flatulence. The anally-fixated script, which is packed with smutty double entendres and jokes about "colon cleansing," may delight twelve-year-old boys, but parents may well be horrified that this is what now passes for family entertainment in Hollywood."

Yikes. The message here: Next time, check this site first.

 

Today on "The Morning Blend," we talked about how to deal with kid clutter. I have to admit, I'm always happy in these instances that we're live at the studio and not live at my house. Unfortunately, my family is in some desperate need for help with kid clutter, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this segment -- to show some options I'm going to try at my house.

There were a few pleasant surprises in getting ready for this segment.

1) Getting organized is really very affordable. The pieces I bought to contain kid clutter were very inexpensive. The three-drawer unit we showed came with wheels you could attach to the bottom to make it easy to move around, and it held a lot of stuff -- all for $9 at Target. Right now with students going back to college and cramming into dorm rooms, there are great sales on shelving units, boxes, basket and other containers to hold stuff.

2) There are lots of options to help your child customize his or her room's look. I brought in one piece of a system of interlocking white cubes that are designed to hold fabric bins. The bins come in a variety of bright colors, so you could stack up a few of the cubes and put a different color bin in each for a fun look. Again, these were from Target, and one cube -- which included the frame and the fabric bin -- was about $20, so very reasonable.

3) If you're low on floor space, you can always look up. From Target to Wal-Mart to your local hardware store, there are lots of choices for moving toys and art supplies off of the floor. I brought in a $7 bright-pink hanging organizer that could easily be hung from a hook on the wall or, even better, in the closet. Over-the-door fabric shoe holders also would work for housing Beanie Babies, toy cars or action figures. Close the closet door, and the clutter disappears.

So addressing the clutter is simple and affordable -- and now I just have to do it.

The link to the show segment will be available later today, and I'll post it here so you can see the pieces featured today. And if you have any great clutter-crushing tips, let's hear them!

Here's the link to the Morning Blend show.