From the category archives:
Friday afternoon after I’ve picked up all three boys, popped some popcorn and turned on a movie (today it’s A Charlie Brown Christmas)… This is my favorite time during the week.
We’ve almost all made it home safely — Craig won’t be home for a few hours — we almost never have anything we have to do, the house is quiet, the kids are happy.
Life is good.
Henry grabbing attention from his brother, and completely melting my heart.
I need to explain something boring first in order to tell you about something that I was having trouble with earlier today. Bear with me for just a paragraph or two ;)
Did you know that clicking on someone’s link to a product or page at Amazon.com can make that person some money? It’s called an “affiliate program” and is a way to make money while doing things like writing product reviews. I do this all the time over at my review blog, and occasionally make decent money doing it.
Still not sure what an affiliate program is? Here’s a simple rundown:
Let’s say I write a review of a toy and link over to where Amazon has it for sale. If someone clicks on that link and buys that toy (or anything else at Amazon during the next 24 hours) I get a percentage of the price of the items they buy. The percentage you get at Amazon starts at 6% and increases as you refer a greater and greater number of items during the month.
OK, now that you know about the Amazon affiliate program, I can explain the problem I was having this afternoon. I was checking out lots of blogs I know are written by good friends of mine who are also suffering from money problems. I was hoping to find that someone was an Amazon associate so I could click on one of their links and then do the bulk of my Christmas shopping today. I’m going to be shopping at Amazon today anyway, and I like to make it “count” for more.
But I couldn’t find anyone! Lots of people were linking to Amazon products, but not one was using affiliate links. Grrr… Foiled. So then I thought I’d google around and see if any charities I like had Amazon affiliate accounts, and I was pleased to discover that one of my absolute favorites, Kiva, has some links you can use to get to the Amazon home page and from there on, any shopping you do for the next 24 hours gets credited to their account. Sweet! So let me share them with you now:
http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=kivafrie-20 (For US shoppers)
http://www.amazon.ca/?&tag=kivacanada-20 (For Canadian shoppers)
All you have to do is click the right link, shop at Amazon, and Kiva gets 6-7% of the price of what you buy. It costs you nothing and is a painless way to donate to Kiva while doing shopping you would have done anyway.
Nitty Gritty:
Clicking links in this post makes me NO money.
If you want to become an Amazon Associate yourself, go apply here. It is super-simple to apply. After you do it, stick an Amazon banner or link in your sidebar. It could be small and way at the bottom, but make it somewhere that people can find it.
Then what?
Before you shop at Amazon, go to a friend’s blog and click on their Amazon link. Bookmark the link to your favorite charity’s Amazon link (google ‘charityname amazon’ to find it). Make your shopping count.
Questions? Stick them in the comments.
So where do you draw the line between sharing something personal about your kid which might help other kids, and protecting their privacy? Personally, I err on the side of privacy. I know you would never have guessed since, you know, I’m writing this on my personal “mommy” blog, but that’s the way it is.
Everything is fine here, by the way — this post isn’t about some big new development. I’ve been wondering what other people do about this issue for a while.
So tell me, do you let it all hang out online, or are there limits?
Christmas morning 2003 in a Portland, Oregon hotel.
At the last minute I’ve discovered that Henry needs a “disposable” lunch for his field trip, and that means I can’t send along his metal drink bottle.
So which is better for my 6 year old? A baggie full of water, or a can of coke zero. Hurry up people, I’m packing lunches now and have very limited options!
My oldest boy Henry is almost 7 and still has some funkiness in the way he pronounces words. Usually all it takes is a simple reminder, and he stops saying “lellow” and remembers to say “yellow.”
The word “first” is a completely different story. He simply cannot pronounce it any other way than “forst.” (Is he German?) Reminding him doesn’t work, modelling it doesn’t work. Saying “It sounds just like ‘thirst’” doesn’t work as he also says “thorst.”
The only way I’ve found to get him close to the correct pronunciation is to tell him to say it like a pirate. What does that mean? Well, you just insert a “grrrrr” noise in the middle.
So now when he says “forst” I say “say it like a pirate!” and he says “frrrrrrrst!”
And that, my friends, is why I will never be a speech therapist. But who cares. I have a kid who talks like a pirate.
