On Sunday, I co-hosted the Orlando Hebrew National Better-Than-A-Picnic Picnic. The night before, the husband and I were explaining to baby girl that we would be going to the picnic and that we were going to be helping people. We told her that we’d be collecting items that would be given to people who needed them. This led to a resurfacing of a previous conversation concerning people who don’t have as much as we do. It also led to many questions/comments from her:

• “Why do some people not have houses?”
• “But, if they sleep on the streets…that’s dangerous!”
• “When did we not have a house?”

After answering all her questions and feeling good that she was actually understanding this concept, she proceeded to break my heart…in a good way.

“Maybe one day…daddy can go work more and get even more money and we can build them a house!”

Oh baby girl, how I wish we could. That sure would be great.

After the initial laughter between my husband and I about her sending him to do more work, I sat there in the car on our way home and had to really fight back the tears. I was so proud of my girl and that she not only understood, but that she also wanted to help.

During the picnic itself, it was bittersweet to see local homeless families at the event. While it was nice to see the kids enjoying themselves and having fun with other kids attending, including my daughter, it was really sad to know that at the end of the day, they wouldn’t have a home to go to.

One day, though, perhaps as a community, we’ll be able to fulfill my baby girl’s hopes of being able to “build them a house” and help everyone.

For another story about my girl and how sweet she’s acting these days, head over to read about her Big Sister Love.

Disclosure: I was compensated for my time and work in co-hosting the Hebrew National Better-Than-A-Picnic Picnic.

I cannot believe it’s already the middle of October. And here in Florida, it’s still in the mid-90s most days! It definitely doesn’t feel like fall. Yet, many stores around here already have their Christmas sections up. Unbelievable.

Anyway, I wanted to take the time to share with you some recent and upcoming events going on in the blogging community.

Article Republished

• My post on Latino terms of endearment and cultural differences has been republished at MyBrownBaby. Denene has shared my post with her readers and I’m so glad that there’s so many out there that can relate.

ModernMami part of Community Site Warming Party

• This Friday, there will be a #community site warming twitter party hosted by the queen of twitter parties, Amy from Resourceful Mommy. You can RSVP for the party here and join us on Friday night as my site is one of the blogs featured!

Tastemaker Challenge

• The U.S. Potato Board has partnered with nine bloggers, who have officially been deemed the “Tastemaker” Challengers. And guess what? I’m one of them! You can read all the details here, but just know that I’ll be playing Iron Chef a bit. Only thing is, we already know the secret ingredient…potatoes! Follow the conversation on twitter with hashtag #tastemaker.

Got any news to share yourself? Go ahead and let us know in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.

And don’t forget to join the twitter party this Friday! See you there.

****Originally posted on Scholastic Parent Voices. But, I wanted to share with you as well.****

Before I started blogging my daily routine looked like this: work, pick up kid, cook, take care of kid, watch TV, sleep. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Now, while there’s nothing wrong with that, and I was happy, you can see why it might become a bit monotonous. There was no interaction with other parents in that routine. The people I worked with at the time were either older (with older kids) or younger (with no kids). No one had a child close in age to mine (at the time she wasn’t even 1).

My friends fit into similar categories. They either weren’t even married or were married with no kids. Those who did have kids lived further away so I wasn’t able to see them often.

You might think that I could have joined a local mommy group in order to connect with other moms. However, most of the mommy groups are catered for stay at home moms. I am a working mom. That means I’m unable to attend events during the week and believe me when I say that none of the groups I looked at had events on the weekends.

So, I found myself interacting mainly with my husband and with my own mom, who is our childcare provider when we’re at work. Until I started blogging.

I began blogging in 2006 after I read one of those “here’s how you can make money working from home” e-books. But, after starting my blog and eventually finding myself on twitter, facebook, and other social networks, I found that blogging was so much more. I was able to actually connect with other moms, and dads, who knew what I was talking about. They got it. Sometimes, they even helped by sharing their experience or tips.

You know the saying. “It takes a village to raise a child.” It was like I had found my own village.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve now actually met some local mom bloggers and have attended several tweet-ups. I’m also connected with many moms on twitter.

And my daily routine? It now looks a little like this: social networking, work, pick up kid, cook, play with kid, blog, sleep. Or like this: work, kid, house, tweet-up, sleep. Or maybe even like this: work, kid, husband, blog, social networking, sleep.

It varies. And that is a major improvement over monotony.

Photo by Rita Crane Photography