If you’re not a late-nighter (like me), you’ll be happy to know that the Children’s Museum is throwing an end-of-the-year party … and it starts at noon!

So go down to the Children’s Museum, located at 225 West Front Street in Missoula, at noon tomorrow, Dec. 31, to partake in “cosmic art” activities and crafts, including a constellation craft and an astronaut art activity and tiger finger puppet making (because, I’m assuming, 2010 is the Chinese year of the tiger).

And, of course, there are too many First Night Missoula activities to list here. The annual alcohol-free, family celebration kicks off at 1 p.m. and runs until midnight.

If anyone else knows of something fun happening on New Year’s Eve, let me know and I’ll add it to the blog.

- MM

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My youngest daughter and I suffer from incurable and embarrassing separation anxiety. Whenever she visits from Arizona, we act more like parting lovers at the airport than we do mother and adult child.

Seriously, when she departs, it’s all she can do to keep from abandoning her carry-on bag and shoes to come running back to me as I turn to walk away. I, the example-setter, plop down on the low wall just outside the terminal where I hold my face in my hands and sob. People have stopped to ask if I am all right – is there anything they can do?

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With Christmas only a few days away, I’ve noticed that the World Wide Web is again filling with admonishments to parents to “stop lying to your children” about Santa Claus as well as pleas to parents not to crush their belief in the jolly old elf too soon.

I don’t remember ever “teaching” my daughter about Santa Claus. She’s gotten a present from him every Christmas of her 5-year-old life, but always after a deluge of gifts from family and friends, so I doubt she registered anything about Santa from that.

This year, however, she somehow arrived at the conclusion that we must leave cookies for Santa to eat on Christmas Eve. I’m thinking she got that from one of her favorite Christmas books – along with all her other notions about Saint Nick.

Then, this past weekend Santa showed up at one of her best friend’s birthday parties, and my shy little girl mustered up the courage to approach him for a candy cane. The next day, another one of her little friends told her that wasn’t the “real” Santa, but “a dad dressed up like Santa.”

I never really planned on teaching my little girl about Santa. I’m not planning on telling her he isn’t real, either. I have a feeling that she won’t even ask – and my daughter asks questions about EVERYTHING.

Why? Because in our house, what with all the friends and neighbors and family, and the decorating and cookie-making and playing in the snow, and Christmas specials on TV and special books I refuse to read in July, and making cards and choosing presents and wrapping them up and dropping them off, Santa ends up just sort of receding into the background. The jolly red bringer of gifts ends up not being such a central part of Christmas – and that is a lesson I do want my daughter to learn.

- MM

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Word just came in that Montana was recently voted the fourth-strictest state in the nation. That’s according to the highly unscientific poll available at CMT’s World’s Strictest Parents Online Parenting Survival Guide.

The poll placed Montana squarely among the nearly half of U.S. states in which parents are “ridiculously rigid.” Our neighbors in Idaho and South Dakota, on the other hand, are among the “biggest push-over” states, while neighboring states Wyoming and North Dakota were deemed “average joe’s.”

They based this ranking, apparently, on such indicators as whether Montana parents view family dinners as an expression of love, and how we would deal with a child’s surprise body-piercing.

Too bad they didn’t take in account the age at which many parents in Montana let children drive four-wheelers and shoot guns. That might have changed the results a little, don’t you think?

What say you, Montanans? Are we really that strict?

- MM

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With less than two weeks left of 2009, it’s not too soon to begin planning your family’s first winter adventure of 2010. Tops on my short list of ideas for great ways to kick off the next decade is Glacier Nordic Day.

On Jan. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Glacier Outdoor Center in West Glacier will be opening new trails and letting families use some for free. Best of all, kids 10 years old and younger can ski for free! They’re also offering special on rentals and food (the place has a “fully stocked” rental shop and full-service outdoor gear shop).

Glacier Outdoor Center has about 10 km of groomed trails and, according the press information I was e-mailed, a new snowshoe trail. It’s located at 12400 Highway 2 East.

Here’s the list of Glacier Nordic Day specials:
o Free use of 10 km of groomed (classic and skate) XC ski trails
o Half-price on Nordic ski rental
o Kids 10 and under ski for free
o Free introductory lessons on Nordic skiing
o Bonfire
o Snacks and hot drinks
o Dog skijoring demos
o Tours of rental cabins
o Sales in the gear shop

Whether you make it to Nordic Days or not, I hope you and your family are having fun playing in the snow!

- MM

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Victoria Cruz, education coordinator for the International Wildlife Film Festival and Media Center here in Missoula, dropped me a line this week to let me know that two award-winning wildlife films will be showing over the school break.

She assured me that they “are perfect for families with children of all ages.” They sound especially perfect for families with school-age children, since the specials at the Roxie Theater are being offered on Dec. 29 and 31. In fact, they’re calling it the “School’s Out!” matinee program.

The press release Cruz sent over says screenings cost just $2 per person, so you might want to gather up any out-of-town visitors too and make it a group event.

Here are the details:

On Tuesday, Dec. 29 the Roxy Theatre will be showing:
B is For Bunch – 16 minutes
The Great Penguin Rescue – 22 minutes
Christmas in Yellowstone – 56 minutes

On Thursday, Dec. 31 the Roxy Theater will be showing:
E is for Elephant – 16 minutes
Stranger in the Woods – 23 minutes
The Plight of the Sea Turtle – 22 minutes
National Geographic Animal Holiday – 30 minutes

Screenings begin at noon on both days, and concessions will be available. Call the Roxy at 728-9380 for more information.

- MM

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I have a regular fitness routine and, like most folks, find it almost entirely mindless and monotonous.

I’ve succeeded in being able to read while pumping pedals and handles on the elliptical trainer, a feat not easily accomplished but after much patience, achieved. When I feel elliptical ennui, however, I shift to recumbent bike and rowing machine. There’s always the television and cranking up the volume to hear talk show dialogue over treadmill motor drone.

When weather permits, I work in a walk in the great outdoors. Sometimes I even convince myself that golf or fly fishing is aerobic since I put in twice the effort to hit a ball or hook a trout.

Still, as soon as I consider it exercise, the bloom is off the rose: suddenly, choice becomes chore.

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Mamalode has posted the entries for its seven finalists from the contest it is sponsoring, and they are amazing!

Online voting begins today and runs through Dec. 31. Remember, the winner will get a free seat in the Montana Community Development Corporation’s FastTrac® GrowthVentureTM course, a free ad in an upcoming issue of the Mamalode magazine and free online advertising. That’s a total prize value of about $1,000.

So vote, and help your favorite win!

- MM

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Photo from the Children's Museum

Know how to tickle the ivories but have no piano of your own? Want to learn how to play and need a piano at home so you can practice whenever the mood strikes?

The Missoula Children’s Museum is auctioning off a piano that was recently donated to the nonprofit organization, with all proceeds going to the museum.

Bidding on the nearly 100-year-old “starter piano,” an Ellwood Apollo that’s been cleaned and tuned but still has an “off” key or two, begins today and closes a week from today.

To enter your bid, call the museum at 541-PLAY (business hours are Tuesdays – Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sundays, noon-5 p.m.) and give them your name, number and the amount of your bid. For more information send Lisa a message at lisa@familiesfirstmontana.org or call her at 541-PLAY.

Good luck!

- MM

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My oldest daughter phones me nearly every evening from her New York studio apartment on East 87th. She’s kicked aside a cardboard box to uncover a cockroach. Her bathroom ceiling has just caved in. Shock and outrage give way to tears that she struggles to stifle. She’s trying hard to be that mature adult, a much more difficult thing to achieve when talking to her mother.

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