My husband and I have made a pact during each of my pregnancies to keep the name of the child a secret until he/she is born. It drives everyone crazy.

We get tired of answering the question? “Do you have a name yet?”

“Yes, we have a name, but we’re keeping it a secret.”

or

“Yes, but we’re waiting to meet her.”

Both true statements.

It’s awkward to not be able to tell people. I don’t think they understand, but I’m glad we’ve done it. It give us time on our own to feel 100 percent certain that we know the name is right. It’s OUR decision. Without any outside pressure.

If I let friends and family weight in I guarantee my kids would have different names than they do. Not because they have bad names, but because it would be hard to find a name that pleases everyone. By keeping it between the two of us it gives us quiet reflection on the certainty of the name.

And, who says anything about a baby’s name to a new parent once they’ve met the child?

This video was sent to me today in email with the subject line “Why Babies Have Mothers.” It’s not to say that mothers are the only ones who should diaper a child, but why is it that so many mothers are the ones who end up doing the diapering?

I love the mom in the opening piece of this video. And, I’ll never understand how these men can’t change a simple diaper without gagging or wearing a napkin over their faces.

The Girl Scouts of America have created a cool new team (female teenagers) to help teach young people how to stay safe on the Internet. “Good Morning America,” ran a segment about this new initiative:

Girl Scouts of America and Microsoft Corporation teamed up to create a new Web site that empowers girls to take control of their own online safety and help them educate their parents.”

Diane Sawyer relayed some staggering statistics at the beginning of the piece:

Forty percent of teens hide what they do online.”

Wow. That means your teenager might not be telling you everything. Even more staggering is this:

Twenty percent of kids 13 and under say they have met face to face with people they only met online.”

Parents: This is Your WAKE-UP CALL

Kids are meeting people they don’t know. They are talking to people they don’t know. These kids are young. Very, very young. And starting on computers at younger and younger ages. Communicating with a medium their parents don’t understand. This is where the Girl Scout initiative is going to come in handy. These girls are going to speak to other girls, on their terms. In their language.

The girls will be talking to parents too, teaching things like how to set up a Facebook page. They are also offering a free monthly Online Safety Newsletter, written by the teens for parents. Each month, the all-girl editorial board explores a different Internet safety topic online and then shares what it learned in the newsletter, which is distributed to adults the following month.

Being online is a part of every teenage girl’s life,” says Shannon, a member of the LMK editorial team. “Now we have a chance to teach our parents a thing or two about the real issues we face every day.”

This is a win-win folks.

Related:

• Visit the Girl Scout/Microsoft Web site for girls: LMK: Life Online (LMK means, let me know)
• Visit the Girl Scout/Microsoft Web site for parents: http://letmeknow.girlscouts.org/Home.aspx
• Sign up for the girl’s monthly Online Safety Newsletter for parents.
• Watch the GMA segment.
• 5 Tips for Keeping Your Kids Safe Online from ABCNews.com.

• Oscar fashion. People.com has the best photo gallery that I found so far with close up of some of the women’s jewelry.
• My favorite Oscar dress of the night.
• These are amazing sugar-free cookies — they taste just like the Girl Scout’s Thin Mints. (Seriously, I bet you can’t tell the difference.)
• A man thinks he might be the “octoplet dad.”
• Some parents might be giving up Facebook for Lent.
• I can’t stop thinking of this little boy who is a dad at 13. It’s nothing new, really, but still saddens me that children of this age are having kids.

The Moms at Work blog has a post today about the mom of octoplets (actually 14 kids in total) is looking at purchasing a million dollar home. She doesn’t have a job.

I recently posted a story about how she is planning on living off student loans.

I also linked to a story yesterday from CNN.com that says the home she currently lives in is facing foreclosure.

What’s going on here and can someone get the full story?