My wife always nags me to flip on the brake on our stroller when stopping on a seemingly flat surface, no matter how brief the stop. Here’s a reminder why:
Using a stroller tether would probably have worked too. The baby survived with just a bump on his head.
Or an ass. Take your pick.
Maurice Sendak is the author of Where the Wild Things Are, which as you know, is a movie in theatres right now. Some people say the film is too scary, like in this awesomely titled article: Where the wild things matured and children cry at theatre.
It’s a Burger King and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Movie-Book giveaway! Of course, there’s a Thinga-spin on this one.
When I was pitched a promotional gift pack, one to keep and one to give away, I debated in my old fuddy-duddy way. I’m on record loving the book and being skeptical of the film (due to the it’ll-be-different-from-the-book reasoning).
Then I thought, ohhh, I’m going to take my 5-year-old daughter to her first in-theatre movie eventually, so it might as well be one based on a book she loves. She won’t be hung up on the plot changes. She’ll love it. So, the gift pack arrived on Wednesday and we decided to see the film this Friday. Except, my wife is a party pooper. She pointed out the film is rated PG. Umm, we’ll watch it on DVD in a few years.
Anyhow, oh yeah, here’s the contest!
The Prizes:
The grand prize gift pack also includes a huge popcorn container and a Club BK newsletter (not pictured). The winner's prize pack will be new, not previously played with by a 5-year-old like this one on my couch.
A) One winner will receive a Burger King gift pack consisting of: one hardcover copy of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, one $40 movie card for AMC Theatres, one $20 Burger King Crown Card, and all of the Meatball movie tie-in toys being given away at Burger King as part of ‘Club BK‘ (the coolest being the bread-pizza-cheese boat).
B) One winner will receive a $40 movie card good at AMC Theatres. This is my card. The lack of an AMC theatre within hundreds of miles of me is my loss, your gain. Sorry, I’m keeping the rest of my gift pack loot. My daughter has already bonded with the toys, if that’s possible in 10 minutes of playing before bedtime.
C) Two winners will each receive one gently used softcover copy of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. These are my personal copies from my Party Favor Book Box that I fill with used copies of our favorite books culled from garage sales to give away at birthday parties. One is in mint condition, the other has a back cover fold that has miraculously been bent very well back into shape.
Your Challenge:
Post a comment using the comment form located at the end of this article. In your comment, place the web address of a parenting website you like, with one catch: Don’t post a link someone else has already posted. No duplicates!
Don’t use HTML. Simply copy and past the web address into the comment. Feel free to state why you like the website, or not. Winners will be selected at random.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Sunday, October 18, 2009. That’s this Sunday night. Winners will be contacted by e-mail the week of October 18, 2009 and have 48 hours to reply to the e-mailed winner announcement otherwise a new winner will be selected.
Photo of my 5-year-old daughter nuzzling her 18-month-old brother as she leans over from her chair to his feeding chair during lunch.
The Dyson Air Multiplier is a desktop fan with (almost) no blades. It has been pitched en masse to gadget blogs, with product profiles hitting the ‘net today.
I dare say the real target market for a $300 fan has been overlooked: new parents. Gadget geeks like neat-o technology, but only the fear of tiny fingers being sliced off as they slide between the grate of a traditional fan provides sufficient impetus to buy into the awesome.
And really, there’s nothing like becoming a parent to suck a person into becoming a gadget geek, be it safety gear, car seats, strollers, room monitors or the wackier stuff like cry analyzers and digital care trackers.
The short description of the Air Multiplier, according to Engadget, is that a bladed fan hidden in the base of the unit sucks in air through thin vent slats and channels it through and out the loop, supposedly coming out 15 times faster than when it entered the device. And although it doesn’t look it, the loop can oscillate like a traditional fan.
I could be persuaded to pay the admittedly high price for this fan, but only if it beats out other fans on basic issues:
The solution seems to be to wait until the Dyson fan is sold in stores where a demo is available. Air flow can be tested, but noise level is difficult to gauge given the background noise present in most stores. Alas, Dyson’s website indicates the fan is sold exclusively through its own site and select “design stores.”
Check out this video from CrunchGear:
Where would we be today without these ubiquitous inventions? We take them for granted now, but they were unheard of before Life Magazine rocketed their inventors to stardom.
This nanny makes use of a baby cage provided to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London in 1937. Luckily for us, the idea was patented in America in 1922 and so I can share with you its many perks.
1. Bill Harley has a free MP3 download, Wash your Hands off his new CD… Wash your Hands. (See previously: my review of Harley’s Yes to Running!)
2. KinderVan is a stroller for 4 kids. I’m cheating to call this an update. See previously: Sextuplet Stroller Roundup.
3. Health Canada says many BPA-free bottles contain BPA. Ones that checked out okay are ThinkBaby and BornFree.
4. The only words that matter — Consider this an update to my how-you’ll-react-in-a-crisis-situation comments. It’s an opinion piece written by a reporter at my local newspaper. He has a 5-year-old born the same day as my daughter at a hospital in the next town over.
How a Pumpkin Grows video… It’s by Brian Vogan. I hope to be reviewing the CD soon. If you buy it, shoot me an e-mail. Let’s do a group review.
Behold the Burton Bike!
Your child is Tigger in the photo. Sit your toddler down on the bike, secure him with the elastic band to the blue vertical board, and start snapping images.
Yep. This “bike” is for immobilizing young children for radiographic and other medical examinations. It makes your kid sit still for X-ray photos. The folks behind Burton Bike asked if I would be so kind as to share my impression of its “appearance, safety and effectiveness.”
Well, without a review sample to run through a rigorous testing regiment in Thingamababy’s medical product testing ward, I must forgo judging its safety and effectiveness. But I certainly have an opinion of its appearance.
Me and baby immobilization go way back. I began critiquing these devices in 2005 with the Pigg-o-Stat and Pedia Graph Immobilizer. Feelings ran strong on the Pigg vs. Pedia issue and I had to delete comments and close the discussion. Suffice to say, at the end of the day, both of those products stuff babies into clear plastic tubes. No, really.
I wrote at the time, “Couldn’t the manufacturer mask this contraption to look like one of Winnie the Pooh’s honey pots? Or do something else, anything else, to make the device appear less scary?”
In that respect, the Burton Bike is on the right track… a tiger-striped bike, Winnie the Pooh baby mobile, and a plush Tigger. That’s okay so long as the kids forget that Tigger’s signature activity is bouncing… not so good for X-ray imaging.
Also, one Thinga-reader commented in 2005 that a better image is captured if the child is taking a deep breath. In other words, you want the child to be crying if you’re trying to get a picture of the lungs. I don’t know if that’s true, but so long as you’re dealing with a toddler instead of an infant, you can probably ask the child to take a deep breath.
See previously:
Okay, it’s really just the bees, but boy howdy, she sure makes one attractive drone!
Warning: This is NOT SAFE FOR WORK unless your boss lets you watch Isabella Rossellini dry hump a cardboard bee while fully clothed.
How come no one told me about science porn? Model-turned-famed actress Isabella Rossellini has written, co-directed and acted in a series of short films called Green Porno for the Sundance Film Channel. According to an AP article, Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford was seeking artists to create content especially suited to the Internet.
Rossellini jumped at the chance:
“I wanted to talk about animals, but I know that a lot of people aren’t interested in animals. But everybody’s interested in sex, so I thought I could do the sex life of animals.”
The third and final “season” of Green Porno debuted last month, first on the Sundance website, then on the cable channel, and finally a book-DVD combo release.
Before your brain explodes trying to figure out what audience she had in mind for her videos, here’s her explanation:
“I wanted to have two reactions. I wanted people to laugh, but also, I wanted people to say after, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ I don’t see myself as a teacher or someone who has something to teach. I just wanted to entertain.”
Uhh, mission accomplished? You can view the entire series on Green Porno’s official website. Season 2 has fewer laughs and season 3 gets sort of serious educationally at times. Here is the remainder of Season 1 of Green Porno…
Penn Jillette, the speaking half of the Penn and Teller illusion-comedy team, has video-blogged about a momentous event in his parenting career. His children, Zolton and Moxie, age 3 and 4, saw the Three Stooges for the first time.
He says:
“One of the things I’ve thought about since I first planned to have children was the joy of watching the (Three) Stooges with my children.”
What are some of the things you have desperately been anticipating doing with your kids since you became a parent and thought of the years that lie ahead?
Alternate title: The Educate AJ About Music Contest
The Prize:
Three winners will be taking home a copy of Hot Peas ‘N Butter 5: Best of the Bowl: Ingles Y Español. (Read my review.)
“Hot Peas and Butter is the New York City based world-pop group known for their sizzling percussive beats and hand-clappy Latin party music. Best of the Bowl, Ingles y Español is a collection of original and traditional tunes featuring the legendary cuatro player Yomo Toro, plus a host of other great musicians and a lively children’s chorus. The 11 tracks on Best of the Bowl, Ingles y Español offer a range of traditional and contemporary Latin styles from Merengue to Puerto Rican Bomba, all of which make it impossible for listeners to sit still. Almost every song contains both English and Spanish making it a wonderful way for parents to introduce their children to another language.”
Your Challenge:
Using the comment form located at the bottom of this article, post a comment containing an interesting fact about a genre of Latin American music (a topic about which I know very little). Include the name of the musical style and the country of origin.
It’s easy. Pick a country off Wikipedia’s list of popular music styles by country, click one of the musical styles, and recite a factoid of interest. The Hot Peas & Butter CD has an emphasis on merengue, bomba and plena, but you’re free to select a style from any Latin American country. One sentence is fine. Don’t write a book.
How the winners are chosen:
Three winners will be selected at random and notified via e-mail. If you don’t respond to the e-mail within 7 days, your prize will be forfeit. Seriously, check your spam filter!
There’s a father in California up against an “aggravated mayhem” charge that carries a potential life sentence (his hearing it tomorrow) for having a gang tattoo applied to his 7-year-old son’s waistline. Crucial to a mayhem charge is a finding that permanent disfigurment has taken place.
As you can see by the photo, the gang in question is the notorious Panda Bear Posse.
Okay, so we know a tattoo isn’t permanent. It can be removed or covered over with a new tattoo. And let’s not forget that tattooing a minor in California is normally a misdemeanor. The whole thing is inflated because of the gang angle.
But… I found the public defender’s legal maneuvers quite amusing… he asked, “Which is more painful, circumcision or a tattoo?” And he raised baby ear piercings as another act that doesn’t land parents in jail.
Alternate title: Watch as I recount my slowly eroding prejudice
Pre-ramble:
I could not have written this review last year. I know because… I didn’t.
Last summer I was a homogeneous 30-something white guy, a product of having grown up in a white neighborhood, attending predominantly white schools and absorbing white culture (which for lack of there being a distinct “white culture” in America, I really just mean Micronauts, Star Wars, Cap’n Mitch and Burger King).
In June 2008, I received a Hot Peas ‘N Butter 4: The Pod Squad CD to review and do a blog giveaway. The CD case touted, “As seen on Noggin.” Except, I don’t watch TV. A hat tip to Noggin is the opposite of impressive in my book.
I gave the CD a listen, but a fair number of songs were in Spanish and ehhh, we already play some Putumayo Kids CDs we enjoy. Really, only 3 of the 13 songs were in Spanish, but my first impression ruled the day.
I did a blog giveaway of several CDs because music moves people in different ways.
But me? I shelved my copy. I only review to make a recommendation and I wasn’t recommending it.
Fast forward to January 2009 and it’s time for me to begin comparing elementary schools for my soon-to-be-5-year-old daughter. My wife urges me to attend an information night at our local language immersion school. I’m not hot on the idea, but I go anyway.
I’ve joked about not knowing how one will act in a crisis situation — do something, or turn away. Here’s a story about a guy who did something. He’ll be a national news story in a day or two.
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