Best of L.A. Mama This Week

COFFEE TALK: After infant care, the second most talked-about issue on mommy blogs and Web sites is that busy husbands and wives barely see each other, and are rarely together without the children. There's a lot of debate and confusion about when it's OK to leave the kids for the weekend, or even for an evening. Enter Bette Alkazian, a marriage and family therapist, whose balancedparenting.com addresses the dilemma. You can also meet her and seek advice from 9:30-11 a.m. the first Tuesday of every month at Chocolatine, 2955 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks.

CUTTING SCHOOL: A reader whose child attends the Las Virgenes Unified School District sent a link to an online petition that supports keeping Proposition 98 intact. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed suspending Prop. 98, which guarantees minimum funding to public schools, and cutting $4.8 billion to help balance the state's budget. California is ranked 46th in the nation in per-child education expenditures, and the cuts would push it to last place. See www.thepetitionsite.com/1/48-billion-

cut-to-the-california-states-pulic-schools.

PLAY IN L.A.: You know that out-of-the-way oasis park you've heard about but can never seem to find? Parentzone has a great list of the region's best play spaces, with recommendations from parents
http://la.parentzone.com/parent

resources.asp?prid=461

MEET MISS BIMBO: Warning: this makes Bratz look like the Brady Bunch. A month-old Internet game targeting girls 9-16 has players buy diet pills, plastic surgery and lingerie to win points for their online character. MissBimbo.com has received so much press coverage - most of it from outraged parents - it seems to be permanently grounded. Still, it's out there.

SPOTLIGHT ON WOMEN: Shine, a new Yahoo site for women, launched this week, looking a lot like the Huffington Post Living section (www.huffington post.com/living), with all its contributing bloggers. Shine is celebrity and fashion-heavy, but it's very effective at compartmentalizing life so that busy people can go there and find what they want to read quickly. I especially like the cheat sheet of news at the top, and the work + money section is filled with practical issues for working mothers. http://shine.yahoo.com

SEUSS FOR BREAKFAST: Twentieth Century Fox has signed with IHOP to promote its "Horton Hears a Who!" movie by adding green eggs and ham, the combination made famous by Dr. Seuss, and Who-cakes through April 20.

barbara.correa@dailynews.com 818-713-3662 www.insidesocal.com/lamama/