Having a little boy means having some interesting toilet adventures in our home. My son has his own half bath in his bedroom, so I am constantly going behind him to make sure he has kept the bathroom clean and washed his hands. I hate germs with a passion and am almost obsessive about cleaning our home in the hopes that everyone will stay healthy.

We recently tested out a great little product called The Shandle, a toilet seat handle that helps to remind children to wash their hands while actually offering an antimicrobial surface that prevents germs from growing on it. Since I have a boy and little boys are constantly having to touch the toilet seat to lift it, this definitely caught my attention.

To use The Shandle, all I had to do was simply peel off the backing on the self-adhesive strip and stick it to the toilet seat. That’s it. Now when my son needs to use the bathroom he can simply lift the seat up using the Shandle while also getting a reminder from Frog Bear to wash his hands when he is finished.

The Shandle proved to be an absolute hit. It’s sold exclusively on their website and now comes in Halloween designs!

GIVEAWAY: REMIND YOUR KIDS TO PRACTICE HAND WASHING WITH THE SHANDLE. The Shandle has generously provided 5 Shandles to give away to 5 lucky readers.

To Enter:

Sign up for the Shandle Newsletter at theshandle.com for promotions, discounts and product news and then leave a comment on this post.

Earn additional entries by completing any or all of the tasks below. Each optional task below is worth one additional entry.

Become a fan of the Shandle on Facebook.
Post a message on the Shandle Facebook Page
Follow The_Shandle on Twitter and Tweet about why you would like a Shandle in your home – include a link to www.theshandle.com.
Tweet about this Giveaway and include a link
Post a link to this giveaway in your Facebook feed
Post a link to this giveaway on your blog

To complete your entry you must leave a comment on this post. Please state which Shandle design is your favorite and indicate any additional entries you completed and your email address for contacting.

Comment Example:

“ I love Frog Bear Washes His Hands. He is so cute. Hope I win!! My additional entries are the newsletter sign up, tweeting about Shandle and tweeting about this giveaway. Thanks for the chance! My email is Mommy (at) nextdoornyc.com”

CONTEST CLOSES ON Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 11 PM Central. All winners will be selected via random number generator. Winners must be confirmed as Shandle Newsletter subscribers and will be notified via email. Prizes will be sent directly from www.theshandle.com

The past few days have been extremely yucky in terms of weather. At one point I thought we might have to start building an ark. E.B. decided Wednesday that he wanted some “ghost cookies”, so as soon as I picked him up from school we went straight to Kroger and purchased them. They’re from Pillsbury, already portioned, and just the easiest things ever.

It was a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon.

It pained me greatly to do it. My finger hesitated on the mouse before giving the go-ahead to do what couldn’t be undone. I wondered what I would miss…would it be a fabulous room makeover, a hilariously funny moment in parenting, or perhaps a link to another great blog I’ve yet to discover? I’ll never know, because I did it.

I clicked on “mark all read” in my feed reader.

During a normal week, I have a little time to relax after E.B. is tucked in bed and catch up on my favorite blogs. I try to keep up with 300+ blogs and savor reading each and every one. I’ve tried in vain many, many times to pare this list of blogs down to a manageable number, but I just can’t. Each one has sucked me in and I can’t seem to part with them.

However, this has not been a “normal week”. We have battled sickness, fatigue, working longer hours, schedule innteruptions galore, and the list goes on and on. And each time I opened my feed reader to catch up, the number of updates on each blog began to reach the double-digit numbers and left me overwhelmed so much that I didn’t attempt to catch up because I knew I couldn’t and enjoy doing it.

So, I gave myself permission to start fresh. I’ve actually been thinking about giving myself permission to start a lot of things fresh in my life lately and if clearing the feed reader is a small, tiny step towards that, then yay me.