Category — NaBloPoMo

First, I want to point people to my friend Brandy’s etsy site.  She and her husband are raising money to adopt their first baby.  They are planning to adopt domestically and I’m SO hoping it happens soon for them; she and John will make awesome parents.

Ok, so my intention with yesterday’s post was not to ignite the “cry it out versus attachment parenting” debate; I was more looking for suggestions with Finley’s feeding cycle problems than critiques of sleep or parenting philosophies.  For the record, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child is in my collection of parenting books and I have read it; it’s just never felt right to my gut, for my kids.  Yes, I should probably go back and revisit the book with Finley in mind, but to be honest, I’m somewhat turned off by the die hard cool-aid drinkers.  However, your comments did make me stop, think, and wonder WHY this is such a divisive issue.  Sleep training really is one of those weird, touchy parenting philosophies that, when challenged, gets peoples’ panties in a bunch. 

I’ve said this before, but I feel like the more parenting experience I gain, the less sure I am that my way of doing anything is right.  I definitely started out that way – had all the answers before I even had the kids to test them out on!  But truly, the more I learn, the more I realize there is no “right” philosophy, no 1 size fits all parenting strategy, and no sure bet method that works for every parent / kid.  So I am not condemning anyone else’s methods or saying that mine should be followed by anyone else.  I’m not even sure I should be following my methods…or even what my methods are;)  Honestly, I’m starting to believe that each child, even within the same home, deserves a custom parenting approach.  It’s interesting to see it when your kids are essentially all the same age – they each respond to certain parenting strategies in COMPLETELY different ways.  What works for Jack does not always work for Shane, and what works for either of them doesn’t ever always work for Finley. 

Anyway, I have a little theory that I want to explore.  Here are my questions:

1. Are you a believer in sleep training?
2. How much sleep do YOU, personally, need to function optimally? And what’s the minimum amount of sleep your body could take for a night without feeling like you’re dragging as$ the next day? 
3. How many hours do your kids sleep at night?  How many hours do they nap in the daytime? 
4. Do you forgo fun activities or spontaneous vacation opportunities to adhere to a rigid schedule of naptime / bedtime? 
5. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “the most important part of the day”, how important is sleep to you?
6. On a scale of 1-10, how important do you think sleep is to your child? 
7. Bonus question: would you consider yourself a strict disciplinarian? 

I’ll be more transparent, since this isn’t exactly a research study I’m doing or anything.  I think we, as parents, sometimes do things because they’re more convenient for ourselves.  Or because WE need to do them, but not necessarily because it’s what’s truly best for our kids.  Then we come up with ways to justify it to ourselves and everyone else - we create a parenting philosophy out of it, and we debate it and insist it’s the only right way.  It seems like the toughest part of parenting is recognizing when we’re doing something because it’s best for us, versus something that’s truly in our kids’ best interests. 

Again, I’m not criticizing anyone else.  I’m saying this humbly because that’s exactly what I can’t figure out in this Fin situation.  I don’t know if the real reason I can’t let her cry is because it’s terrible for me but would be better for her in the long-run [oh, and this discussion is purely academic since I couldn’t stand to hear her cry even if it is what she needs]!  I am aware that Finley has potential to grow up and be one of the most successful manipulators of all time, and that does worry me.  Maybe she has a future in politics.  But seriously, I do think a large part of her nighttime habits are about control, and I realize we are going to lose big wars with Finley when she’s a tough teenager if we don’t start winning some of these baby battles now.  I get that.  But I do NOT like the idea of my child crying herself to sleep.  Ever.  Plus, for those of you who had good intentions in trying to give me sleep training encouragement, telling me how it only lasts short periods of time for a few nights…you don’t know my child.  I mean that respectfully.  You truly don’t.  And I doubt you’ve EVER met one like her.  I know I haven’t, and I’ve been around a lot of babies.

Even though adopting our boys when they were not newborns was challenging, the “right way” of dealing with the nighttime stuff was very clear to us.  They needed us, each and every time they cried out; they needed to know we were going to be there.  With the boys, letting them cry and validating it by “saying that kids need sleep, it’s the most important thing for a child’s brain development,” or anything else, would have been empty justifications for doing something that was just best for us.  It’s obviously different with Fin; she knows we’re always going to be here.  Since she was 1 second old, we’ve ALWAYS been here for her.  She’s just a very different personality than her brothers, and our issues / struggles with her are SO different.

I DO agree that there’s a tipping point – the point where doing what’s best for yourself IS what’s best for your child.  We all suck as parents when we’re half alive and suffering from extreme sleep deprivations.  I’m there PLENTY often.  We all have different thresholds and breaking points with regards to sleep.  But I wonder if people who are SUPER rigid about sleep are people with lower tolerance for sleep deprivation.  I’m not accusing anyone, I’m just curious.  Thoughts?

UNRELATED QUESTION: how are people feeling about ABC’s new show that starts tomorrow, “Find My Family?”  It’s about birth family searches…a topic I’ve been meaning to write about.  Thoughts?

I really have no brain cells left to blog with tonight.  We’re still getting very little sleep, thankyouverymuch, Ms. Finley.  When she was 17 months old, I said “uncle,” tapped out, and made Travis take over Finley’s night duty completely.  I was trying to wean her, and she was using those nighttimes to make up for lost daytime nursing sessions (since I’d started working and wasn’t home 24hr/day to nurse her at her beck and call anymore).  But somehow, she’s outsmarted us again.  She’s now 20 months old and has her dad running up and downstairs at all hours in the night to bring her cottage cheese, or yogurt with honey, as she calls out her requests.  We’ll wake up at least once per night to her yelling “daddy!  Cottage cheese!!  My hungee.  My need cottage cheese!”  We can ignore her, but then her calls only get louder…and louder…and louder.  Our neighbors, who thankfully love Finley and are super cool, have actually told us they can hear her yelling at night.  The kid has a mouth and a set of lungs to go with.  The thing is, we just can’t figure out how to get over this hurdle with her.  It’s like she outsmarts / outwits / outwills us at every freakin turn.  We try our best to fill her belly before bed, but invariably, she still wakes up claiming she’s starving.  I think she consumes half her calories between 12-5am.  She hasn’t been eating all that well during the day, but we can’t seem to break the nighttime eating / daytime fasting cycle she’s got going on.  Oh, and she’s still stuck at 18-19lbs. 

The midnight snacks have gotten so routine that as soon as Travis hears her, he pokes his head in her room to take her meal request, she preempts him in saying “daddy be right back” (her way of sending him downstairs to the fridge).  Then he comes back from the kitchen, plucks her out of her crib, and sets her on the floor next to her crib.  She then knows to lift the crib skirt, courteously, for Travis so the light from the baby monitor provides a little glow and he can see as he scoops the cottage cheese into her mouth.  After the pow wow on the floor, she sometimes says “my go back to bed” and goes down really easily.  Other times, she demands Travis sit on the rocking chair next to her crib and stay there.  He spends the good part of many nights in that rocking chair. 

I know most people are wondering why the heck we don’t just sleep train or something.  She’s 20 months old, for gosh sakes.  But it’s not that simple.  First of all, I can’t sleep while my kids are crying.  I don’t know how anyone can stand that…unless you have an easy child who just passes out in 15 minutes or less.  I don’t have that kid and the crying breaks me, no matter what time of day / night it’s happening.  For me to ignore her cries, someone might as well just be plucking my fingernails off 1 by 1.  But even putting that aside, Finley 1) outwills both of us & would just get louder and go on for hours or days or months or years, and 2) would wake her brothers if we let her make a peep from 4am on.  It seems that’s when everyone is transitioning to lighter sleep and while neither Jack nor Shane would even flinch if Finley screamed before 4am, it’d destroy those last few hours of sleep if it happened after 4am.  And somehow, it’s like she knows that weakness.  She’s pretty reliable with a 4:01am wake-up call for “yogurt honey.” 

She’s also been VERY ornery lately.  She ordered Travis to a timeout today and has become quite the little tattle tale lately.  She actually told me she didn’t love me yesterday just to hurt my feelings.  Man, we are in for it with this kid.  Too bad she’s so damn cute.

And so you get just HOW manipulative this kid is, tonight as I put her to bed, I asked her what Santa is going to bring her for Christmas.  At first, she screamed out “TOYS!”  Then I asked what kind of toys, and she said “a doggie.”  I said “oh, hmm, well, what else would you want Santa to bring you?”  And she yelled “IKA!”  Ika is the name of Sara and Kaakpema’s dog.  I thought it was so funny so I told Travis.  About an hour later, Trav was deep in cyberspace somewhere so I asked him what he was doing on the computer and busted him looking at Boxer puppies.  WTF?!  So while Santa should clearly bring this child a heaping lump of coal, he was actually considering the 1 thing we swore we wouldn’t let ourselves get anytime in the near future. 

Travis braved Black Friday at 4:10am and was the 75 person in line at T@rget this morning…is that crazy or what?!  BUT, he got the boys their big Christmas gifts, remote control cars, for $12, which is pretty sweet.  In case you don’t twitter, Shane became OBSESSED with remote control cars recently.  It all started at Outdoor W0rld.  We take the kids to Outdoor W0rld every now and then when it’s too cold to be outside, the winter sun sets early, and/or the museums are closed.  They have an awesome Christmas display and Santa is there every night with candy canes.  They also have indoor ice skating, a coloring station, Wii fishing, remote control cars, and race cars for the kids to play with for hours try out, and it’s all decorated festively for Christmas.  Free entertainment is cool by me, and sometimes Travis and I just enjoy the people watching there; that place can be quite a scene (no offense if you’re a burly man in overalls hiding a can of beer, looking at guns, a wad of dip in your lower lip, wearing a Palin hat).  No offense to my little brothers either, since I know that’s their favorite store in the world!  Truly, we are big fans.  I just like to joke about that place because it does draw a range of people; anyplace that sells men’s overalls, adult pajamas with butt flaps, guns, ATVs, plus gingerbread house kits, St@rbucks coffee, log furniture, and wind chimes is bound to be an exciting place.  Anyway, here’s Shane’s favorite thing in the world (excuse the iphone pics):

Here’s Jack driving the race cars:

And Finley on her dream ride (which I will never allow any of my kids to ride, despite how cute and tough she looks on it):

Anyway, Travis did well at Black Friday.  We’ve never been inspired to brave the stores before this year but were glad we did it today.  We got some other good stuff and I even bought heels and a freakin fancy handbag to go with my suit for my upcoming Derm interviews.  I know a few of my friends just fell off their chairs.  Yup, THAT’S how bad I want to match into Derm.  I’m willing to carry a goddamn fancy handbag.  Same one I’ve made fun of people for wasting their money on my whole life.  But I got mine for $25, and it was an early Christmas gift from Yiayia, so at least there’s that.  If Yiayia hadn’t prodded me, I for sure would have left without one.  It was painful, but I now feel superficially ready for my interviews (being really ready is another story).  So that’s something. 

Our biggest buy, and the real reason Travis set the alarm to go off before 4am (just 1 hour after Fin’s “midnight snack” of cottage cheese), was to get our own Christmas present.  It was the internet’s 2nd most watched item this year for Black Friday, so we were lucky to score one at T@rget.  It was a 32” LCD for $240 (which came with a $10 gift card to T@rget).  We don’t watch much TV, but we have had our 26” TV for almost 6 years now, and it’s lost a lot of its color and picture quality over the years.  We set it up while the kids napped, and when they came down, we let them watch Sid the Science kid and they learned that, although Sid does really have an olive / greenish skin tone, he’s not supposed to look perpetually seasick.  All the colors were vibrant and the kids were glued.  So it was an early Merry Christmas to us! 

Anyone else score any great Black Friday buys? 

I started this post the other day, but it self-destructed or something.  I was saying…while competitive sports offer huge opportunities to kids, there are very large costs.  As a few of you mentioned, some of those come in the way of joint pain and lingering physical ailments.  But I think there are sacrifices that go way beyond the bodily destruction competitive sports can cause.  I’m more concerned about the way it can destroy our families.  Destroy is a strong word.  Erode. Comprimise…the way it can erode family life, or compromise a family. 

I grew up playing competitive soccer (so did Travis).  I lived and breathed it, and loved every minute on the field.  But my soccer schedule didn’t only dictate my life, my mom and dad spent hours a week driving me from practices, games, tournaments, camps, etc.  The majority of events were not local.  I trained / played every day, sometimes more than once a day.  I trained with my high school team, my club (travel) team, my olympic development program (ODP) team, the boys team, my personal trainer, by myself.  I was exempt from church and “family day” on Sundays because that was a huge game day.  I was exempt from family dinners because they interfered with soccer practices.  I was exempt from spending summers with my family because I needed to be traveling with my ODP team, or going from camp to camp.  So, in many ways, it eroded our family life.  My mom has told me she regrets having let me go so far down that road.

At the time, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world.  In high school, our team got a lot of attention.  We were in the paper often, so we were known by the administration and teachers.  I went to a huge high school where I would otherwise have been pretty anonymous.  I was a good student, but I certainly wouldn’t have gotten all the privileges I did just for academic achievements.  In the end, playing competitive sports opened up all kinds of doors, most importantly to great colleges.  I was a recruit, had my pick, and waltzed right into my first choice.  I will always be grateful for the educational opportunity soccer provided for me.

On the one hand, I feel like I am who I am largely because of my experiences as an athlete.  I know team sports taught me how to work with people, how to communicate, how to lead.  Playing competitively taught me how to work for something I wanted so badly, then dust off and keep trying when it didn’t come right away.  It taught me to be goal-oriented.  On the other hand, time spent playing soccer made up as much of my childhood, or more, than time spent with my family.  I consider that a pretty huge trade off.

Maybe it’s partially selfish too; I don’t want to spend my life driving my kid(s) around from place to place.  But more than that, I don’t want my kids to stray that far from home before they’ve even gone off to college.  Travis and I have this talk often and our goal is to have hobbies/sports/volunteer activities we share as a family, things we can enjoy doing altogether.

We love to run, hike, bike, camp, and we’d love to do those things with our kids.  It’s our vision to wake up early on the weekends when our kids are older, not to drive them to practice and pick them up a few hours later so they can come home and crash on the couch, but to load everyone up in the car together to go climb a 14er (14,000ft peak for the non-Coloradoans).  Or to enroll our family in weekend kayaking, climbing, or fly fishing clinics.  We’d like our summers to be spent traveling overseas with all our kids – volunteering in Asia, cycling through Europe, hiking/camping/teaching in South America. 

Although I did travel growing up, those experiences and vacations always took a back-burning to my soccer schedule.  It was clear what the #1 priority always was for me, and my parents allowed that, much to their regret in hindsight.  The tough part is that we all want well-rounded kids, so we start them in sports young.  Problem is, I think it’s REALLY REALLY hard to pull back those reigns when your child excels, thrives, and loves something so much, like I did by age 5.  It becomes a slippery slope, and the next thing you know, you’re driving all over the map for 1 kid’s athletic career while the others are resentfully in tow.  Or, you’re sending 1 kid off in a carpool with other families from his/her sports team so you don’t have to drag the whole family to a tournament.  Either way, competitive sports can certainly compromise a family and erode family time.  The relevant question is, is it worth it?

Kristina – this is to answer your question:)  In my last post, I mentioned talking with Travis and friends about kids in sports, things we appreciated growing up, and things we might do differently with our kids.  We don’t know how we’ll answer all these questions for our own family, which is why it’s a topic I like talking about.  What we do know is that, while competitive sports can offer athletic kids tremendous opportunities (educational, social, physical, and even financial), a LOT is sacrificed for those opportunities.  Travis and I know that from firsthand experience. 

OMG!  I just spent an hour writing about this topic, but my computer died in the middle of it (I was sitting on the couch without my power cord, not paying attention to battery life!) and I lost the entire rest of this post.  The 1st paragraph is all that remains:(  Boo.  I’m running with my neighbor / friend insanely early tomorrow, so I’m not even going to attempt to rewrite this post tonight.  I’ll just leave you with 1 question if you feel like helping me through my “lost post” misery…"what are your thoughts on putting your kids in competitive sports (if they have the ability and desire)?  What tradeoffs do you see, and what are you willing to endure?  What do you hope they gain from being involved in that world?  Would you hope your child chooses / excels in team sports or individual sports?”  Feel free to share your thoughts on any of those questions. 

First, I have 2 giveaways going on: a winner’s choice craft kit from Creativity for Kids and 4 tickets to Disney on Ice in Denver!  Drop a comment on those posts before November 22 for a chance to win those cool prizes.

Does Santa not look confused in the above picture?!  Jack told him all about the “money robot” he wants for Christmas, so if anyone ever finds anything that resembles this concocted toy Jackie came up with, please let me know asap.  He’s also still growing his hair out (REFUSING to let Trav shave it) so he can put a “pirate Christmas bow” in it.  I need to ask Holly from Kick Ass Bows if she can design something that random…I think she’s the only person in the world who could actually create something adorable out of a “pirate Christmas” theme!  I’m sure it’ll be the manliest bow ever;) 

Today we had another eval for Shane and we’re just so proud of him.  There are still delays and thinks we’re working on, but he’s been doing awesome and we’re SO thrilled with his recent progress.  PROMPT therapy has been incredible.  He’s talking with a lot more 2 word combinations, he’s trying, he’s repeating things, he’s becoming more confident, and he’s SO PROUD of himself.  It’s influencing his social relationships, his personality, his overall happiness.  We are really encouraged.  I highly recommend looking into prompt therapy if your child has a speech delay that regular speech therapy is slow to help.  Shane has some oral muscle coordination struggles and seems to have motor initiation difficulty.  He just doesn’t know HOW to move his mouth to get it to say what he wants it to sometimes, and that’s where prompt comes in.  Also, he seeks out lots of sensory input and always has.  He’s a very tactile kid, loves to be held, very affectionate, etc.  So again, prompt is perfect.  The input is tactile in a way that helps him get his mouth into the right position.  I’m going to try and get a video of it this week so I can show you what I’m talking about.  It’s truly incredible how much he’s responding to this therapy.

Finley is a riot, as usual.  Lately, she’s really proud of how fast she can run.  She’ll say “my very fast!” and then take off across the room.  I can get her to run from front door to back door over and over until she almost passes out from exhaustion.  It’s awesome. 

Since this blog is partially for journaling our kids growth and development, Travis would be very upset with me if I didn’t share what he calls the “Jack helicopter butt story.”  That’s all I can bring myself to say about it, and hopefully it’ll appease my 14 year old husband.  He just wanted me to document that our son has a gift, an ability, a level of concentration and bodily control unparalleled by any other human being, let alone toddler.  Can you sense my pride?  And my poor little girl.  She is only 19 months, but has seen the praise a certain action gets from her father.  She’ll do anything for his praise, so I must hear “my do fart,” or “my do toot” 10 times a day.  I say “yuck,” and she just laughs.  I’m losing the battle.  Not even Emily Post can save my kids from their dad.  The irony?  Travis’ parents actually put him through Emily Post’s manners course when he was younger.  Go figure.

Other than that, things are good.  I’m really busy right now with research projects, and anxiously awaiting word on my applications (I’ve heard from ~10 of 90 or thereabouts).  I’m still in complete and total shock that I’ve gotten a few interviews.  We’re really happy about that!  Travis is super busy right now too with school, his part-time job (helping some profs write a book), and his own research project.  But things are good, we’re happy, and our kids are happy.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Oh, actually it does; I should have my camera back this weekend!  I’ve missed it SO much.

First, I have 2 giveaways going on: a winner’s choice craft kit from Creativity for Kids and 4 tickets to Disney on Ice in Denver!  Drop a comment on those posts before November 22 for a chance to win those cool prizes.

Tara and Christina both asked excellent questions about adopting from Vietnam if the program reopens, as is expected at some point in the relatively near future.  My friend, Jena, offered to guest post on this topic and I quickly accepted her offer because I knew she’d be able to write on this better than I could have.  And she did.

There may be things flying around about VN renewing, but in your honest opinion, is it wise to adopt from VN when/if it is possible? Is it ethical? Do you think it will ever happen?

-Guest post by my friend Jena

Laurie and I "met" through blogging about 3 years ago, Jack had been home for about 4 months and our son Khai had been home for about 2 months.  Laurie and I are pretty different, demographically speaking, but found that we often ended up at the same place when it came to things adoption related especially Vietnam adoption (and actually quite a lot of other stuff too).

About 2 years ago I started blogging over at VVAI (which a lot of you probably have read), and have since learned and had conversations with many many people within the Vietnam adoption community.  A lot of what I know now, I wish I didn’t.  And I wish even more that it wasn’t true.

I started out this process of adoption believing with all my heart that I was doing a good thing by adopting a child.  I assumed that if an agency was licensed in a country, it was there to help children.  I am not sure when the reality began to sink in that something wasn’t right.  I think it was when I joined APV (a yahoo group for parents of children from Vietnam).  There were a few voices on APV (old timers) that kept questioning the vast amount of agencies being licensed in Vietnam, questioning the ability to choose gender, questioning the YOUNG ages of the children, questioning that people were being asked to bring cash with them.  They kept saying how much the current situation looked a lot like the old one.

And then we got an email from our agency that they had been asked by one of the orphanages they were working in to provide incentives for hospital workers to funnel children to that orphanage.  Our agency would not do it.  And I watched person after person working with other agencies whose children were in the same orphanage that our agency was working in announce their referrals on APV…. person after person…baby after baby….

And it began to dawn on me that things were not ok. 

And we all know what happened after that.  Kind of.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I didn’t save my son.  And while we have many reasons to believe that his adoption was ethical, (agency we used, health situations, relinquishment vs abandonment) we don’t know.  And at the very least, I live with the belief that our very participation in such a corrupt system contributed to the problem. 

So here we are.  Many of us have beautiful wonderful children from Vietnam.  Many of us have been left with at the least, questions, or at the worst certainty, that our children’s adoptions were either outright corrupt or tainted by a very corrupt system.  But many of us have a love for Vietnam, and the children of Vietnam… and we want a Vietnamese sibling for our child/ren. 

And the question asked is, is it wise to adopt from Vietnam if/when it reopens.  The short answer is no.

The long answer asks more questions.

What is your measure of wisdom?  By wisdom do you mean that you will be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your adoption was not tainted by corruption?  Do you mean, will the same thing happen again?  By wise, do you mean is it the best way to look at becoming parents?  What level of doubt are you willing to live with? 

Is it ethical?

The answer to that is still up in the air.  I do believe that there were ethical adoptions happening in Vietnam at the time of my son’s adoption.  I believe that those adoptions were the rarity, and that there were many measures taken to ensure that they were ethical.  Measures that most of us did not have as options (because of the agencies that we chose to use).

I think adoptions will reopen in Vietnam.  I think that ethical adoptions will happen in Vietnam.  I think that they will be few and far between, because here is what I think potential adoptive parents need to do in order for ethical adoptions to take place (I am not even touching on the systemic/governmental changes that I think need to take place):

• You need to use an agency that processed adoptions during the last opening, do not use an agency that has Vietnam as a program for the first time. 
• Use an agency who has a long tack record in Vietnam, not only of adoptions but of humanitarian work, and by long I mean 30 years or more of CONTINUED work in Vietnam.
• Use an agency who is commited to finding ways to keep Vietnamese families together and believes that adoption should be a last option for children.(and has a track record of such work).
• Ask for a child who has been in an orphanage/foster care for a long time, whose parental rights were terminated a long time ago.

I think that if you follow all of those recommendations you will find that there are less than a handful of agencies that could have accommodated those qualifications.  Less than a handful.  Out of over 40 licensed to do adoptions in Vietnam the last time.

Do I think that people shouldn’t adopt from Vietnam if it reopens?  I think there is a LOT that still needs to be determined.  I think if you want to provide a home for a child who you can be sure needs one, there are MANY other options that would leave you with less doubt and questions.  Having said ALL that, I am still waiting for Vietnam to reopen.

- guest post by Jena

A few months ago I was lucky enough to take my kids to the circus, and after the show, flyers were being handed out for the next big family event.  Jack accepted one, took one look at it, and you would have thought someone slipped the kid some speed.  He was bouncing around excitedly because Lightning McQueen and Mater were on the flyer for Disney on Ice Worlds of Fantasy.  That flyer has been enshrined on our refrigerator and I have one very eager 3 year old dying for the month of December to roll around!  The show will be at the Pepsi Center, then the Coliseum in Denver.  Don’t miss it!

So here’s what I’m giving away, thanks to Mom Central and the Feld Family Activator program: a 4 pack of tickets to see Disney on Ice Worlds of Fantasy at the Pepsi Center in Denver on opening night, Dec. 4th at 7:30pm! 

How to Win:

• Drop a comment here before November 22 at midnight telling me the Disney character with whom you MOST identify and your child’s all-time favorite character
• Blog about this event / giveaway to earn an extra entry (drop another comment linking to your post)
• Tweet about this event / giveaway to earn an extra entry (drop another comment with your Twitter ID)
• Facebook / My Space it / chat about it on a yahoo group to earn an extra entry (drop another comment for doing that)
• Enter my Creativity for Kids giveaway to earn an extra entry (drop a comment on that post and this one to let me know you’ve entered)

Max of 5 total entries per person.  WINNER will be chosen by random.com and announced here on November 23th.  You must be 18 or older to enter.  If you don’t live in Colorado, but know someone who does and would like to give your tickets to them, you are welcome to enter!!  I will just need to know the names and info of the 4 people who will receive the tickets.  You MUST claim your winnings within 24 hours or I will choose a new winner, so don’t forget to check back on November 23rd!  Also, if you don’t win, and want to buy tickets for your family, enter the promo code “MOM” in ticketmaster or tickethorse website and you’ll get 4 tickets for $44 for Monday-Friday shows, or $4 off weekend tickets!  Merry Christmas!