My husband has been with the TV station so long that the only time they call him in on weekends is if there is a big story, like when Birmingham abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph was finally captured. So when the station called him Saturday and asked him to co-anchor the Sunday morning news, I knew big news was expected. Mother Nature didn’t let us down.

When Truman and I finally rolled out of our beds Sunday morning (Rick had to be at the station at 6 a.m.) the yard was covered with snow! I haven’t seen snow in so long I forgot what it looked like. Truman saw flurries two years ago but hardly remembers that. And last year when we got a dusting of the white stuff here in Birmingham, we were in New Orleans and missed it. I think we got about four inches Sunday. It was just above freezing outside so the streets and walkways were pretty clear. But since the overpasses were icing over, many of the streets closed. And you know it’s a big deal in Alabama if churches cancel services, which most did.

We had a blizzard here in 1993. We got something like 12 inches and it literally shut down the city for a week. Power outages lasted for days and it was pretty miserable by the end. Rick was a cub reporter then and worked 48 hours straight. He dreads snow for that very reason. But in comparison, this snowfall is awesome. The power is on, which means the heat is on. And Rick came home once the morning news went off – which means he could relieve me of the snow-playing duties.

Truman was ecstatic. He leaped out of bed and of course the first thing we had to do was run outside, make a snow angel and throw snowballs at each other. Truman ate a wad of snow (hope MIL doesn’t read this!) and then we made our mini snowman. Of course, neither of us really knew what to do so we used sticks for arms, the tip of a carrot for a nose, parsley for hair, dried currants for eyes and a piece of a cinnamon stick for a mouth. Then we jazzed him up with some colored sugar sprinkles. And no masterpiece is complete until the artist partakes in eating the decorations!

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NEWS FLASH: Snow in Alabama!

Truman and I had a concert at the house earlier this week. He was beating on the homemade drums and I was belting out a punk rock version of the Alphabet song (think Ramones) on the Tinkertoy microphone. It was awesome. We told Rick all about it when he got home and he gave me that look that I’m sure he gave Santa when he was a kid, “You know, maybe we need to look at getting him a drum set.”

Yeah. Whatever, darling. I mean, I’m all about fostering my son’s talents, but how do I know my son is wired to be the next Peter Criss? (And would I want him to be?) I’m not at all musically inclined. Rick played trombone in high school and now only dreams of playing the banjo and the standup bass. (No kidding.) So, how could my son possibly have a passion for music?

Rick argues that Truman has an obvious interest in drumming. Everyday for the past few weeks he goes into my cabinets and pulls out the pots and pans (not the good ones, mind you) and lays them out on the rug and starts beating the crap out of them. Rick says this is reason enough to consider buying him a junior drum set. “They only cost about $200 or $300.” Uh, what?

The thing is, my son’s obsessions change with the weather. For example, ever since he saw a commercial for that Big City Slider hamburger maker, he’s been wanting one of those, too. He loves to pretend-cook. Who’s to say he’s not the next James Beard nominee?

So, how do you know if your child is showing signs of talent? Do you first have to spend hundreds of dollars on equipment to see if his attention holds?

I Googled around about this very subject – how to identify my child’s talents – and came across this awesome quiz on MontessoriMom.com. It’s a non-scientific survey that gives you a clue what kind of areas your child excels. No freaking surprise here – my son’s talent is ADVENTURE. It says I may be living with the next great athlete! It also says these children are sometimes labeled hyper active when they don’t have outlets for their energy. Good god! This test is genius!

So now…go take the test yourself and let me know if you believe the results.

Post from: Blisstree

Is your child showing early signs of talent?

I’ve had this gesture problem all my life to the point my longtime college roommate, Anne, would literally sit on my hands when I spoke to see if I could complete a sentence without flailing my arms in the air. It was a distracter to my friends, but this habit of mine just may have been beneficial for my child in his early years.

The idea behind the Chicago study is that parents who use gestures when communicating with their young children are actually teaching their children to understand the concept of communication even before their children’s little mouth muscles can form words. Understanding gestures at an early age also helps one to comprehend social cues.

So to all you hand-waving parents out there – keep up the good work!

Post from: Blisstree

Study shows kids learn better when parents use gestures

The goal of the contest is to help young people see past the differences of others and to accept that peers come in all shapes, sizes and abilities. If you are a fan of the show, then you already know that Arthur’s community of Elwood City is filed with a variety of characters. In the past he has featured such topics as blindness, dyslexia, head lice and peanut allergies.

The contest just opened and runs through March 31, 2009. For more information or to download the entry form, visit Arthur’s Character Search.

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PBS Kids’ Arthur conducts national character search

Check out some of the Imagination Movers music videos.

Truman used to be a huge Wiggles fan when he was a wee kid. Those guys are all good and well but godforbid if I heard another polka song sung by those smiling Aussies I swear I’d plunge my eyes out with a spike. We heard that music daily for more than a year and I was so Wiggled out I thought I’d die.

My MIL broke up the monotony with a few jewel purchases from Walmart’s dollar table – something we affectionately called the “boys and girls.” It was a group of kids who sang and danced around theme park rides and lip-synced to cheesy songs. The videos must have been produced in the 1990s, if not the 1980s. That was torture enough. But what made it worse is that there were two chipmunk-like creatures – two adults dressed up like some sort of fuzzy school mascot – that did cameos in each of the videos and sang in these annoying helium-wretched voices. There was one song where the guy chipmunk-thing says something like, “Now, boys and girls, let’s do the hand jive,” and I swear to you he was saying “hand job” but Rick INSISTED that he was saying “hand jive,” whatever that is supposed to mean. Perverts.

And then there were the hand-me-down religious tapes MIL picked up from a friend as an attempt to keep our son on the straight and narrow. These were sung by extremely over-animated kids contorting the words of common songs to have a religious slant. Again, that was all fine and well as long as those tapes stayed at MIL’s house and not mine. Let him watch what he will at the ILs home…so long as we keep the rank music in my home at a minimum.

We did manage to gradually introduce our son to decent tunes after that. He became a fan of the Beatles Yellow Submarine CD and had nicknames for all those songs like “The Walking People,” which was a direct result of watching that really weird animated movie they made. He particularly loves several Dixie Chicks hits, too. But his all time favorites are head banger songs I do not know the name of but that my son fell in love-love with when my husband lovingly taught him how to click the bookmarked button for “Nascar crash videos” on YouTube. Those tunes are on the iPod now…and well, at least it’s not the freaking Wiggles or those perverted chipmunk creatures.

Which leads me back to the Imagination Movers. Now, that is good, clean kid’s music….tunes even the adults will appreciate. My absolute favorite one is called something like “Nina.” I would download it. (In fact, why don’t i?) Their tour appears to be somewhat limited – and somewhat over. But at the very least, if you have a kid – you should DVR or Tivo the Movers’ shows on Disney. I’m telling you, you will be dancing around the house in no time!

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Imagination Movers – entertaining for parents too

My husband and I were raised in entirely different households. Rick’s parents are conservative, tea-toddling Southern Baptists. My parents are…well, my parents are California pseudo-hippies. Rick’s folks raised him in a sterile environment, took him to the doctor for every ailment and protected him from harsh environments. Mine let me run barefoot outside, dig in the dirt and eat cookie dough and rare meat.

Perhaps it is the scientist in my father, but we were rarely dragged to the doctor or given antibiotics to ward of infection. Wallowing in germs was my parents’ way of making us healthier adults.

For the good or the bad, this has become my ingrained philosophy in raising my son, much to the occasional horror of my husband and in-laws. For example, when Truman’s bottle or sippy cup would fall on the floor, I would give it a once-over for cat hair and hand it back to him. My MIL, on the other hand, would snatch it up and run it under “scalding water,” she said, to kill the germs.

Dirt doesn’t bother me that much. Just look at the photo above. My son is wading in the murky waters of Shades Creek, which runs through the way back of our backyard. Actually, it’s considered “neighborhood common area,” but whatever. You can’t exactly get there from our backyard either, not without using a hatchet or sickle to cut back the brush. But a few houses down there is a path that leads to the creek. My husband hikes there with Truman from time to time to throw sticks and rocks in the water and look for turtles. On the day that photo was taken some neighborhood kids had gone out to the creek and waded in. Not wanting my son to look like the wimpy kid in the bunch, he let my son walk out in the shallow part of the water – which went against my husband’s very core of hygiene.

I’m going to pause here and reference a New York Times story from Wednesday that says researchers are “concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with ‘dirt’ spur the development of a healthy immune system.” It’s called the “hygiene hypothesis.” Judith Palfrey’s piece this week in U.S. News & World Report supports the “hygiene hypothesis,” but says washing hands is the key to keeping healthy. So I think that means Rick and I are both right – playing in dirt and muck is fine and quite possibly therapeutic for kids, just as long as they clean up afterwards.

The day my husband let Truman loose in Shades Creek was perhaps one of the most fulfilling for my son. As the sun dropped down in the sky, my husband lured him back home, my son dripping mud and gooey water along the way. The minute he got inside the house, I stripped him down and dropped his clothes in the washer – with the temp set to “scalding” hot. Then I took my sticky little boy and tossed him in the shower for a good cleansing. He came out shiny and clean and brimming with excitement, eager for another day of wading in filth.

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A little filth does a world of good for kids

This is when my iPhone has proven to be its most valuable.

Let me backtrack. I bought an iPhone in July. Since I quit my “real job” a year ago and I now work out of the home, I had to justify (or, over analyze) the purchase. First, it seemed the planets were aligning in the month of July and sending me a message that now was the time. My contract on my current plan was coming due (with the company I had been with for a solid decade), my birthday was happening, and the new iPhone was being unveiled. I had a cheap flip phone/camera phone that served its purpose just fine. But I reasoned the iPhone purchase this way – it was a mobile phone, an iPod, a calendar, a GPS, a better working phone camera, and it just so happened to offer the added bonus of e-mail. Considering what I’d pay for the GPS and iPod alone, I was saving a fortune getting the iPhone. Right?

Shortly after I got my iPhone I realized its ability to totally captivate my son. First, there was the quick access to YouTube. And then I discovered the apps. Girlfriends, shopping around in the iPhone apps store is more fun than shoe shopping! Most of my apps are free. The most I’ve paid for any of them is $1.99.

I’m going to take the next few inches of space here to share with you some of Truman’s favorite apps. If you have any other app suggestions, please share. There’s plenty of room for me to add more apps on my phone!

• I mentioned the YouTube icon on the iPhone main screen. A quick search of Tom and Jerry (my son’s absolute favorite cartoons in the world) and my son is entertained for any hour-long road trip or long doctor’s office visit. Worried about it making too much noise? Just click on the earbuds and enjoy the peace and quiet (save for the occasional outburst of giggling).
• I’m moving on to the apps now. I love Trailers Lite. It is a listing of movie trailers. This is one of my husband’s favorite apps, but Truman also has enjoyed watching trailers for Marley and Me and The Tale of Despereaux.
• I have to give credit to my sister’s boyfriend’s 10-year-old son Julian for downloading a lot of the cool apps for kids. One of Truman’s favorites is iChalky. There’s not much point to this app other than watching this chalk drawing stick figure wiggle and roll around the screen as you move the phone. Julian showed me that you can place a picture of someone’s face on the chalky man and make him, as Julian put it, like a voodoo doll. Rather than using a photo of someone I knew, I opted to let Julian take a picture of the Diet Coke can and that became my chalky guy’s face. Truman calls the app “Coke Head.” Cracks me up.
•  Julian also downloaded Jared, which is another pointless app. It’s a yellow smiley face that sings in Italian – or at least it sounds Italian. Julian suggested I walk into a meeting and set the app to play and pretend I don’t know where the music is coming from. Since I quit my real job, I make every effort not to sit in meetings anymore. However, Jared makes Truman laugh really hard and that’s worth keeping the app on my phone.
• Julian gets credit for the Lightsaber app that Truman also loves. It makes that zzzzzz Star Wars lightsaber noise and when you whip the phone around like it’s a real lightsaber, it even sounds like you’re dueling with old Darth. It’s more fun if you have two iPhones with the app and have a lightsaber joust.
• Julian also put Jerk in a Box on my phone but it’s my fault for showing it to Truman. At your fingertips are several not-so-nice phrase buttons. By pushing one you can call someone a “Pizza Face” or “Loser” without moving your lips. Truman thinks this is the greatest app in the world. I’ve had to warn him, though, that if he uses any of those words he can no longer play the iPhone. So far so good.
• The bartender at the Fish Market the other day showed Truman the iBowl app, and Truman loved it so much I had to download it. It’s not unlike the Wii – you just push a button and swing the phone like you’re bowling. Your ball rolls down and hits pins. Too cool. 
• My husband (who got his iPhone last week) got Truman into Virtual Pool Lite. Like the name says, it’s a virtual pool game. It even sounds like a real pool game. 
• The Audi A4 driving experience is pretty cool, but Truman’s too young yet to get a handle on the steering, gas and brakes. Still, he loves anything that resembles a car or racing. I just like having it on my phone because it’s the closet thing I have to actually owning an Audi.

So those are my app picks for the 5-ish age range. Let me hear some of your favorites.

Post from: Blisstree

Why my iPhone makes me a better mother

Arts & Crafts – We always have tons of paper and crayons for coloring, which is my youngest daughter’s favorite form of creativity. She’s especially fond of drawing everyone in our family. We also have a large container full of tissue paper in various colors, pipe cleaners, art feathers, markers, stamps, glue sticks, beads, and more. Half the time I don’t have to set them up for anything in particular, they just make stuff all on their own. I usually have quite the mess to clean up but it keeps them entertained and they help me at the end.

Play-Doh – Play-Doh gets everywhere and the colors always end up in one enormous blob but it’s so much fun to play with. Even for me.

Imaginary Excursions – I’ve set a blue blanket on the living room floor as an ocean and we’ve all played pirates, surfers, or fishers. I’ve made forts and caves out of chairs and blankets. Playing pretend is pretty much unlimited fodder for fun.

Picnics – Icky outside? No problem. I like to sometimes set out a tablecloth on the floor and we eat our lunch or supper there, just like we would for a picnic.

Active games – We unfortunately don’t own a Wii, but if you do, it’s a good way to play some games while still getting them to release some energy. In our home, we have a Cranium game called Hullaballoo which requires players to jump, skip, dance, and more according to instructions. It’s a really fun game and it gets them moving.

Movie time – There’s definitely nothing wrong with watching a good movie together. We spread blankets and cushions on the floor, pop up some popcorn, and have a family afternoon.

What are your favorite rainy day activities?

Photo: Flickr

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Passing the rainy days with kids

With three kids it’s always nice to come across something packaged in threes. It doesn’t happen often – stuff is usually in a two-pack or some other even-numbered variation, and we end up having to go with a four or more pack which makes sure everyone gets one of whatever it is, but with which we also end up with extras.

Anyway, while trying to find some fun stuff for the kids to do outside I came across a “Triple Wave Racer Water Slide.” I had only ever seen the single slides and I was instantly interested. I remember having to wait patiently for my turn when my neighbor friend’s Slip-n-Slide was set up each weekend – and the longer it was out the longer the line got as other neighborhood kids made their way over too!

The reviews, while pretty good, are also accurate – it’s nowhere near as long as what it shows in the picture above, and you do need to move it around the lawn if you don’t want huge gouges in your grass (ours bounced back pretty quickly though). It was easy enough to inflate with an electric pump, and while the spray didn’t arc as perfectly over the slide as it does in the picture, it did keep the slide wet and gave a good spray.

Overall it’s been a huge hit. The girls were outside for hours and there wasn’t a single tiff over whose turn it was. That alone was well worth the $20!

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Enough For Everyone

Sherry had a great question yesterday in her post about keeping kids occupied. I commented that maybe printing out some coloring pages would help and thought I’d expand on that a little bit and list some of my girls’ favorite coloring sites.

We’ve been doing coloring pages for years and years now. Every once in a while we’ll pick up a coloring book at the store but they seem to have less interest in those (especially as they get older), but coloring pages don’t lose their charm because they get to pick specifically what they’re in the mood for.

They’ve also “graduated” from using crayons to markers and colored pencils and their preferences for pictures has changed from Dora and Disney to more intricate fairies and realistic-looking animals, so below are some of our favorite “older kid” coloring page sites!

~ Jan Brett’s free coloring pages
~ Phee’s coloring pages, fairies
~ Horses coloring pages
~ Cat coloring pages
~ Rainbow Brite
~ Holiday coloring pages
~ DLTK’s coloring pages

[image: sxc]

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Favorite Coloring Page Sites