Read on to win one of 2 copies of Alexis Martin Neely’s Wear Clean Underwear book!

As I wrote earlier this summer, my husband and I went on our first trip sans children in June. We’ve had to do some hard thinking this year while planning for all of the serious and practical things related to leaving our children for 4 days and I’d like to share a few parts my experience with you. Our journey included making our wills, choosing guardians, creating Medical Authorization forms, and a Kids Protection Plan.

First of all, I fully admit that we should have taken care of all of this approximately 2.5 years ago when our daughter was born. If not then, than sometime earlier than NOW, when we were finally being forced into making these decisions because we were leaving on a trip. How naive ARE we to think that something horrible could happen to us only when going on a trip far from home? Anyway, at least we did it now, right? Better than never.

We decided we finally had to ACT on creating our wills less than a week before we left for vacation. The main thing we were worried about was assigning someone as legal guardian of our children should we for some reason not make it home from the trip - or, as I mentioned earlier, should anything bad happen to us EVER.

Because we were so delinquent, we went the route of using an online service called LegalZoom to fulfill this need. I have to say that the process was very simple and got the job done for what we were trying to accomplish. However, when I mentioned on Twitter that we had used LegalZoom for this, I received a reply from Alexis Martin Neely who pointed me toward her book about family legal planning - what. an. eye. opener. Alexis’ main point in that message was that while LegalZoom might be appropriate for some legal needs, it might not cover everything.

I honestly spent the next hour or so poring over all of the materials and information Alexis provides for parents who are planning for their family’s future, and really wanted to bring these resources to the readers on This Mommy Gig. I actually contacted Alexis and mentioned this to her and she was so great about it! She immediately sent me a copy of her book, “Wear Clean Underwear” for review and is offering 2 books for our readers!

My mention of LegalZoom on Twitter actually inspired Alexis to write this article titled “Is LegalZoom a Good Idea? Do the Legal Documents Work?” in which she outlines the issues people might have when relying strictly on these documents - her main advice is to make sure to have them reviewed by a family lawyer if you do decide to go ahead with LegalZoom.

What really struck me about Alexis’ work is her advice to parents about planning for the future of their children in the event of a tragedy. Her book “Wear Clean Underwear! A Fast, Fun, Friendly - and Essential - Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents” includes some majorly eye-opening scenarios for parents, all set in a “choose your own adventure” type of format, where you choose your path and see what the outcome would be like. Of course, you should read all the possible outcomes for each scenario, but the stories are set in a very realistic way and really showed me how valuable it is to fully plan for my children. The legal documents we prepared through LegalZoom simply aren’t enough.

The other main thing that I took away from Alexis is that we need a Kids Protection Plan in which we lay out much more than just a guardian for our children. We need to think through many more scenarios and be much more aware of the legal issues that are part of custody arrangements and in the event of an emergency if our kids are at home with a sitter and the sitter doesn’t know whom to contact.

For all parents, I’d highly suggest reading “Wear Clean Underwear” and checking out the Kids Protection Plan site where you can create free legal documents for your family. I’m not at all qualified to offer any of the advice that Alexis is able to, so rather than me passing it on, it would be much more beneficial to check out Alexis’ materials. You’ll have a chance to win the book here, but if you’re not one of the lucky winners, you should know that when you purchase the book through the official site, you receive over $3,000 in bonus materials!

Win a Copy!

All you need to do to be entered for a chance to win one of the two copies available for our readers is leave a comment on this post - I’d love to hear whether or not you’ve created legal documents for your family, but this information isn’t required. You just need to leave a comment - that’s it!

The contest will close on August 11th and the winners will be notified by email shortly after.