just one more week to enter the braininsights giveaway contest!!

You have the chance to win the easiest and real way to support your baby's brain development! Do you want to win a free gift set of the beautiful and unique braininsights packets for newborn to three-year-olds? All you do is, sign up to be a follower of kidandcaboodle and add a comment to the braininsights post about a fun, interactive activity you do with your child! (include your email address so I can contact you). Then post the link to your kidandcaboodle comment on another social networking site. You will get a chance to win the set and you will be contributing to creating greater awareness of real brain development! A winner will be chosen at random on November 24th...it may be you! By signing up for the kidandcaboodle site, you will get updates on the giveaway, lots of ongoing parenting information and you'll also get to see all the shared ideas from other parents! So sign up now....and enter as many times as you'd like. Just make sure you post the link on a social networking site each time! Also, watch for the three- to five-year-old gift set contest coming soon!

a better bedtime: pajama program

At our house, there's always a fight over which pajamas the kids want to wear. My son scams for Spiderman, my daughter prefers polka dots. But there are some kids out there who have never had a cozy pair of PJ's to wear to sleep at night. Thankfully, the Pajama Program delivers. The organization, started by Genevieve (Gen) Piturro in 2001, has provided almost 600,000 new pajamas and new books to children in need.

Thousands of children served by Pajama Program live in orphanages, group homes and shelters. In the U.S. foster care system, alone, there are more than 500,000 children. Every two seconds another child enters the system. Many have been abandoned or abused, and have never enjoyed the simple comfort of putting on a cozy pair of pajamas and having a mother or father tuck them in at bedtime and read to them. Teens in the system have often spent most of their childhood without warm sleepwear or the chance to read themselves to sleep. For its 2009-2010 awareness and fundraising campaign, the Pajama Program launches "A Better Bedtime." Says Piturro , "So many of us take this nighttime ritual for granted, yet hundreds of thousands of America’s kids have never experienced these basic comfort. Every child should have the chance to experience A BETTER BEDTIME.”

At the Official Pajama Program A Better Bedtime Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/abetterbedtime — visitors are encouraged to share their favorite bedtime stories (from published or original works) on the group’s Wall and Discussion Boards in the Fan Box, to offer memories of their own childhood bedtime routines, to upload photos of their favorite pair of pajamas, and to share ideas, stories and photos from their own local events that support Pajama Program.

To learn about local chapters of Pajama Program and to participate in events, visit http://www.pajamaprogram.org/chapters.html.