Would you let your daughter be Katy Perry for Halloween?

The first catalog comes in July, but it doesn't matter because the kids have been talking about what they are going to be for Halloween since November 1st of LAST year. 

My kids like costumes. Zoe has a closet fit for a Disney Princess and even Lucas still likes to dress up and run around the house. September marks the month where we let the "official" Halloween discussion begin. Every year Lucas begs us to do a family costume, but we've never been able to come up with a group costume everyone is okay with. Saturday morning was a lazy one that found all four of us laying in bed with the latest Halloween costume catalog to grace our mailbox. As the kids were going through the paper catalog, I pulled up a costume store on the iPad to see if I could find the Madeline costume I desperately want Zoe to wear this year. While browsing one site, the "Child Sweet as Candy California Girl" costume swept across the screen. Zoe immediately screamed "YES! I WANT TO BE KATY PERRY FOR HALLOWEEN!!"

I'm blown away. Is this a kid's costume based off the music video where Ms. Perry squirts whipped cream out of her boobies?

Why, yes. Yes, it is. 

Now looking at the costume, it's actually fun. With candy and a twirly skirt and a BLUE WIG - what kid wouldn't want to wear this outfit? The dress is cute, in a Candyland kinda way.... but is it appropriate for my 4 year old?

I remember the first time I saw the video. The kids loved it, the adults standing around watching it didn't know what to say or do. Do we just act like it's no big deal WHEE! FUN CANDY! or do we immediately step in and shut off the TV? Is it better to let the kids think it's no big deal, or make it a big deal by turning it off?

Zoe LOVES Katy Perry. She knows all the words to "Firework" and she sees the artist as a fun, crazy grown-up that gets to wear elaborate costumes. I think she sees her like a real life Barbie doll - always in bright costumes, while Zoe is stuck wearing JEANS and TSHIRTS (quel bore to a preschooler).

But the thing is, you and I know the meaning of the song. We KNOW what she means when she says the "grass is always greener, uh-huh." And if I let her wear this costume, what will the other parents think of me as a parent? 

I guess what I could do is just don my own KP costume... then it wouldn't be Zoe the parents would be talking about...

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This week is going to be an emotional roller-coaster for many Americans as we relive the devastation of 10 years ago... I remember where I was when the planes hit the Twin Towers:

It was the first large scale event I was managing the PR for. CTIA Wireless in San Diego – one of the wireless industry’s largest conferences of the year, right here in our back yard. I was reporting directly to the owner of the agency that I worked for. It was one of those early career make-or-break moments. I had been working my booty off to get morning TV stations to come out to the convention center bright and early on the morning the show was set to open: September 11, 2001.

And on a lighter note, in need of some distraction? I review/obsess over my new top 5 favorite iPhone/iPad apps for this week's TechMOMogy Thursday:

I think it’s safe to say that I’m slightly obsessive over new apps. When I find something that knocks my socks off, it’s all I want to play with for days on end. We all probably have a lot of apps on our phone, and with over 425,000 apps available in iTunes alone, there are enough to chose from. Throw in my brand-spanking-new iPad and you have app-a-geddon in my iTunes. So, while I will not go through all 90 or so apps I have currently on my handheld desktop, I do want to share with you a few of my latest faves. You know, because you have nothing to do all day either, right?

Blog Fodder: Content Inspiration, Hot Topics and Just Plain Scraping

In the blogosphere we are not wanting for information. Daily, we find tips, ideas and issues that may get you think about a post for your site. But where is the line between being inspired by a topic and basically stealing content?

One recent example is the Facebook/social media expose brouhaha over the Facebook page called The Crock Pot Girls. Within 2 weeks the fan page EXPLODED with numbers unheard of on FB. Pretty much everyone, plus their mother and sister, liked this page, growing the fan base to well over 1 million in just a few days, outnumbering other popular and favorite sites that have been around for years. This got people a bit curious... Do we all just love our crock-pot that much, or is someone or something working the system? I've now seen a variety of expose' - style blog posts written on the subject, all basically stating the same thing; regurgitating the same conspiracy theory if you will.

Here's the thing: it's news. It's interesting, and it has people fired up, why not write about it? Or, are all these sites basically just stealing content from someone else's post to use for their own gain since they realized it's such a hot topic; i.e. basically "link baiting?"

We write a lot about news and hot topics on the MOMfia site, we want to be able to provide a valuable informational source for people, but I also don't want to be out there scraping content from other people's sites, so I've set few guidelines for myself when writing:

1) If it's a hot topic / current event, is MY point of view different from what others are saying and is my POV something that offers value to my readers that is different from the value of the original blog post? Basically, why am I feeling the need to write about it if it's been written about before?

2) If I am using a lot of information from other sources, am I quoting/linking back? And even if I do link back, am I still using someone else's "intellectual property" - their ideas and their insight?

4) Am I providing enough interest on the original post to encourage others to click through on the link (providing traffic for the original blogger) *good thing* or am I just copying what they are saying word for word, giving the reader no need to read the original article *bad thing*?

3) Is it clear which information I have gathered from other sources, and which information/thoughts are coming from me? Have I used block quotes with interesting lines that I feel show why I was inspired by the original post and that will hopefully encourage click throughs to the other writers post?

4) And lastly, if the author of the other blog posts reads my post, how do I think they will feel about it? Will they feel that I added a point of view that they didn't think about or will they feel that I just plagiarized their thoughts and content?

We as bloggers have enough hurdles to jump on our road to journalistic integrity without stealing content from each other. Inspiration is all around us, and it's wonderful to elaborate on what others are already expounding on, but it's never okay to rip off someone else's content by basically just republishing what they have already said. If you find an article or a post topic that inspires you to share the information, share the original post by tweeting, linking on Facebook or even by posting a small excerpt on your blog with a link to original blogger's site. The blogosphere has grown to where it is today based on community, and sharing other people's posts is what continues to grow the industry and make our voice as powerful as it has become.