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I finally have figured out why I always tend to overpack whenever I go on a trip. It is all because of Gilligan’s Island. I mean, look at them – they thought that they were just going on a 3 hour tour, and look at what happened to them! Good thing some of them overpacked!

I haven’t done any shameless begging for awhile, so here it is. Could you please, please, pretty please with sugar on top go and vote for my cousin, Travis Hafner*, to get into the All-Star game? Just visit mlb.com and look in the top right corner of the page for the button that says “Monster Online Ballot – 2006 All-Star Game – Click to Vote” Once you click that, a pop-up window will open up. On the American League Team ballot (it was the first one when I voted) Travis is listed under the first baseman as “T. Hafner, CLE”. He plays for the Cleveland Indians.

It would mean so much for him and his family if he made it in to the All-Star game. He comes from the same small town in North Dakota that my Mom grew up in, and his grandparents even got satellite TV just so they could watch his games. They are old and not in the best of health, so it might just be their last chance to see him play in this.

You can vote up to 25 times, and I will be really, really grateful if you do it! Voting ends at 11:59 PM ET on Thursday, June 29, 2006. From Sunday, July 2 to Thursday, July 6, you can return to MLB.com and cast your vote for the final position player for each League’s 32-man roster.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

* Well, distant cousin, but from a really small town where everyone knows everyone so that doesn’t matter. By small, I mean a town of less than 200 people. Really small.

I was reading one of the big name “Mommy Blogs” the other day – one of the ones where all of the cute stories of the things that the toddler does is on display for the world to see. I have to wonder – how will those kids feel later on about it?

As a Mom of a 14 year old, I realize that anything I write about him here is something that he might see. A Google search on my name will bring you to this site, and he actually knows where it is. Any words that I write here, I know there is a chance that he will read them along with other family members. I am ok with that – it is a choice that I made long ago. They are welcome to comment on my site, and while I will not often edit what I say about myself, I heavily edit what I say about him. Oh, I know I have shared a tale or two – some things that happened about 4 years ago come to mind – but I don’t do that now. Even then, it was all about the humor in the situation and nothing more. Now that he is a teenager, it has all changed.

Sure, I could write about the teen angst issues. The drama moments that come out of nowhere over nothing that seems to be everything all at once. The joys of puberty. The stories are not as funny as the joys of toddlerhood, and the photographs? Not as cute. But more importantly, it just wouldn’t be fair to him. If I wrote anonymously with nicknames for my entire family or behind a password protected wall that kept people out, that would be one thing. But that isn’t the case.

So whenever I read those cute tales of potty training and the terrible twos, I wonder how those kids will feel in 10 years.