Baby Toolkit

Eating Jim's Lunch: Tyler Florence's Start Fresh cookbook

2012-01-20T13:54:00.001-06:00

Somewhere, very soon, a grown man may cry over broccoli.

Jim, This Is Just To Say*
I have eaten
the leftovers
that were in
the icebox

and which
you definitely meant
to eat
for lunch

Forgive me
they were delicious
so tender
and so warm.

It's rare when I jump to a recommendation without weeks of scrutiny, but Tyler Florence's Start Fresh cookbook won me over as soon as I started reading it.

I'm too lazy for most celebrity chef cookbooks. The recipes seem designed to occupy hours shopping for hard-to-find ingredients, doing abundant prep work, and then obsessively observing every stage of cooking. What I need now, with my household of five, is simplicity, clarity, and health.

A mom who was making her baby all-organic baby food recommended the book to me, and I thought, "Lady, you're insane." Every time I cracked the cover of a baby cookbook, I spent at least an hour preparing something that NO ONE in the family wanted to eat (though Jim would very kindly feign enthusiasm for the disgustingly soft, unbelievable bland horror that I dished up). My friends grew an organic garden and made mountains of baby food for their first child, only to have it summarily rejected. I was too smart to do this again (note: with every new Jones baby I buy an expensive sling I hate and a stack of labyrinthine baby/kid cookbooks). Not this time (for the cookbooks, I already gave up on a Moby wrap).

And then came the line that landed the sales pitch, "You make one meal for the whole family and just puree some of it for the baby."

I dream of only making one meal that everyone eats. Somehow, I have become that short-order mom who everyone thinks they won't be. My kids eat fruit, breads, peanut butter, crackers, and cheese. It's like being stuck at a w(h)ine and cheese buffet for life. Jim and I still love the variety and flavors offered through menu planning service Relish! (we've subscribed since '08). So I've been making two meals and feeding the baby from jars and containers.

When (Tyler Florence's) Sprout baby food went on sale at the grocery, I bought a couple packs. If the baby would reject them like the other kids' did another leading organic baby food brand, I could cast out the lingering book recommendation faster than she spits out peas.

The baby all but wept for joy at the first taste. Her joyful face soon turned cynical as I swear she thought, "What else are you holding out on?" Then she banged her fists until she ate every bit. About 10 bags later, I bought the book.

Start Fresh is a pragmatist's cookbook. Recipes call for simple ingredients that are roasted or steamed (techniques that are cheap and easy). Jim has some great 13 gauge baking sheets which are perfect for roasting.

Last night the baby ate pureed roasted broccoli with Paremsan while we tossed the broccoli with some random pasta, Parmesan, and olive oil. It was outstanding. Even Ranger ate the letters in his name (which is something for a 6 year old who doesn't eat pasta). Jim was gleeful when I packed the leftovers for his lunch.

And then he forgot them. (And Jim, should you still be reading this, I actually saved half for you.)

Start Fresh: Your Child's Jump Start to Lifelong Healthy Eating is currently an Amazon bargain book ($7.79). The first part of the book is purees while the second half is family meals with simple adaptations. About half the recipes are vegetarian (including great foods like beets, quinoa, eggplant, butternut squash). Only four dessert recipes are included- which is a refreshing change from most kids' cookbooks. The included desserts look healthier than average while still sounding sumptuous (e.g. baked pumpkin with peaches, strawberry-stuffed muffins).

While the book has some fancy-pants moments like making your own almond milk, it has parallel slacker instructions for us less motivated readers.

*My deepest apologies to William Carlos Williams, his red wheelbarrow, the white chickens, and the rain.

***Baby Toolkit is one Midwestern couple's approach to geek living with kids. Our opinions and judgement may be questionable, but they are entirely our own. We have no relationship with Tyler Florence or Rodale books. We are however Amazon affiliates, so a small percentage of purchases made through our links helps support this blog (thanks!).

Blackout: We Oppose SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T00:33:00.000-06:00

Proposed American legislation threatens Internet privacy and freedom from censorship. If you're not already aware of these civil liberties and free speech issues, please see why sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, and others are falling black on January 18, 2012. Even Google is marking the event (though their services will remain live throughout the day)

*Yes, if you read this earlier, I did correct the title. I meant to say I supported the opposition, but that isn't remotely what I initially published. The girls have been up and down all night (bedtime is now some sick variation on whack-a-mole) and Ranger has decided to have an early life crisis this week. I am totally losing my mind.

Up On Blocks: Top Construction Materials for Young Builders

2011-12-07T00:45:00.000-06:00

We love blocks. From Jim to the baby, we can lose ourselves in long cycles of construction and destruction.

These simple toys can motivate the baby to army crawl at top speed to topple and me to linger a little longer at the kids' bedtime while we make the ramp just a little bit longer or the tower a little taller. Six-year-old Ranger builds huge marble runs in his bedroom, and three-year-old Scout sneaks into rearrange them while he's at school.

When Uncle Punk is around, we build using all the blocks we can muster. Then we bombard the structures with ping pong balls, bean bags, and old Crossbows and Catapults flying disks.

For the youngest (1 year and under), we prefer cardboard blocks (as she loves knocking towers down on her own head). Our homemade milk/juice carton blocks are a bit too big for her to handle, so she usually plays with Melissa & Doug Alphabet nesting blocks. She isn't much of a stacker yet, but she does like to nest the blocks.

The next step in our ziggurat of block building are old Fisher Price Stack & Build Blocks. These rounded blocks hold together without actually locking. They require less accuracy and motor control to stack and restack independently. Sadly, they're discontinued, so look at resale stores, yard sales, and (in our case) an awesome friend's living room (I promise she gave them to me).

Fisher-Price Stack & Build blocks

Next in the lineup are MEGA Bloks. When kids' fine motor control and hand strength start improving, big locking blocks exercise their hands and their spatial reasoning. Not that the kids care about that. They're great fun. I chose MEGA over other favorite block brands because I can always find used ones cheap and MEGA seems to have been making exactly the same block for a long time (so there aren't near-fit problems when combining sets). Plus, Ranger's grandma gave him a MEGA Bloks set that he adored.

Melissa & Doug Unit Blocks

Around the same time, we get out the Melissa & Doug Unit blocks. These old school stackers are big and dense hunks of wood that are the mainstay of Jones' building. They are bigger than most home block sets. These are 6-year-old Ranger's most played with toy. Scout got a 2 small sets (2- 30 pc sets) for her 3rd birthday (so she would stop sneaking into Ranger's room during the school day to play with his).

Growing up, Uncle Punk and I shared a similar block set (though ours were covered in suspiciously bright, probably toxic, paint). I can remember sitting down on college breaks with my older brother and building elaborate structures (that we later knocked down with balls). If our geek genes prevail, the kids may get decades of play out of these.

Keva planks

A new block type we like are Keva planks. These unassuming identical planks require more planning than the unit blocks, but they introduce more strategy to block construction. Instead of simply grabbing the double long block to span a threshold, now we have plan ahead. There are often many solutions to each challenge, and it's easy to learn that some solutions are much more stable than others. As the kids get bigger, I think these (and their photo book of suggested structures) will become a centerpiece in our living room.

Research reveals that kids are more likely to read in homes where parents read. It is probably some combination of parental modeling and opportunity (more books around and natural pauses in the schedule to read). With blocks as a regular activity, we're seeing some of the same results. Scout, who has grown up watching us build with Ranger, uses blocks in ways that are surprising for her age (like improvising recognizable structures).

Even if blocks don't develop spatial thinking, they're still lots of fun to stack (and knock down).

***Baby Toolkit is the unbridled geekery of Jim & Adrienne Jones- Midwestern parents of three. We have no affiliation with any of the block makers listed above. We are Amazon affiliates, so we get a small percentage of purchases made through our Amazon links.

Household Essential: 3M Book Tape

2011-11-21T17:15:00.001-06:00

Photographed to emphasize tape

It's no secret that we love books. Despite our best intentions, sometimes we even love them to pieces.

Before we had kids (okay, even for a while after we had Ranger), I thought we could maintain an organized library of carefully maintained books. I slowly came to realize that, at least for picture books, I could have readers -or- crisp, clean editions, but not both.

Why have books without readers?

I nearly wept the day Ranger ripped a page out of the hardback copy of On the Day You Were Born that I bought him upon request. He loved that book, and although paper kind of grows on trees, changing that paper to books can be an expensive process.

Then Jim reminded me of book tape. At one point, we both worked in an academic library and regularly traversed the catacombs behind the public areas. In one dark corner of cataloging, dedicated bibliophiles maintained and repaired worn and broken volumes. Little red boxes of book tape sat shoulder to shoulder waiting to assist in the ongoing battle against time, entropy, and abuse.

I use book tape to stitch together damaged volumes, but it also works on puzzle pieces and game boxes. Jim even uses it to reinforce the covers of frequently used reference books before damage occurs.

Corner reinforcement by library (interior)

The tape is slightly re-positionable when first applied (unlike clear packaging tape), but bonds firmly once placed. Its thicker and stiffer than packaging tape. The edges may shed a little adhesive, but it rolls off easily (like rubber cement) rather than creating a gummy mess. The tape can be creased easily over the edge of a softback cover or spine. Our local library even adds it to hardback corners to slow cover wear.

Exterior spine & corner reinforcement by library

Even with three young readers, we don't worry about letting our kids handle books.

A roll of book tape costs about $6 for 15 yards of 2" wide tape. That's far less than the replacement value of most books and a downright paltry investment in independence for a young reader. There's even an 8 roll value pack that might prevent the stink eye when someone abducts a roll "for work."

***Baby Toolkit is the periodic chronicle of a couple geeks crawling the dungeons of parenthood. We're Amazon affiliates, so purchases through our links will help us buy more books and book tape and other bits and bobs. Though we may be categorized as 3M enthusiasts, we have no non-imaginary relationship with the company.

Orbiting Jupiter

2011-11-02T23:13:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

You may think our previous "back on track" post was some sick tease, but two days later I stood holding the baby's hand while a CT scanner roved round and round her head. By the end of that week, she and I were talking to the director of pediatric neurosurgery (okay, the baby mostly listened).

Now we're waiting for a more complete, full-sedation-required, 3D CT and its analysis by a brain surgeon and a plastic surgeon.

That has mostly taken the wind out of our sails.

Yet we are trying to live with mindfulness and intentionality. Time with our daughter has greater significance, time with all three of our kids does. In this strange waiting period, we are keenly aware that time with family passes at the same (too fast) rate even during anxiety or crisis.

Shortly after all this happened, we went to a local observatory (built with a barn silo dome) and peered all the way to Jupiter and saw her icy moons.

Jupiter, October 22, 2011. photo credit: Peter Riesett, (LordJumper) via Flickr and Creative Commons. (Thanks for sharing!)

Before Ranger's obsession with space, I couldn't stand to think of the universe's enormity. Now, I'm grateful for the awareness (from our vantage point atop the shoulders of giants). We are markedly different than most of the known universe, and we have the remarkable tools to explore it. Even kids who can't tie their shoes can see more clearly than many master astronomers of past generations.

I'm trying to look at our medical unknowns in the same light. Not to fear the vastness, but to find the wonder, opportunity, and miracles in what unfamiliar territory teaches about our present position.

***Baby Toolkit is the chronicle of two Midwestern geeks encountering the vast and varied realm of parenting.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

2011-10-09T12:57:00.001-05:00

Actually, the title might best be "Falling Behind with the Joneses." Since Spring 2010, the quick summary of our lives sounds a bit too soap opera for comfort: family member in coma, frightening pregnancy, rare pregnancy complication, emergency birth peril, NICU, preemie, newborn sleeplessness, birth defects, medical appointments, friend in coma, parent having surgery, and the deaths of (different) friend and (different) family member.

My mind was simply too muddled to write. Since Ranger started Kindergarten and Scout started preschool this Fall, I've been trying to tackle a year and half of neglected housework and family business. As the dark tide of laundry recedes to reveal the laundry room floor and the downstairs sofa sheds it heavy coat of clean laundry, unwritten sentences rise to the surface.

So, with a slight flutter of Apple II-era remembrance* (thank you, Mr. Jobs), may I repeat the first phrase I ever made a computer monitor to display:

HELLO WORLD!

We've missed you.

*The electric thrill I felt seeing those words appear on the screen of my grade school's only computer still resonates when I consider how words written in my living room instantly travel worldwide.

***Baby Toolkit is the periodic commentary of two geek parents from the Midwest. When we're not telling our kids things like "Don't eat the toilet paper," we read, play games, explore, and generally struggle with parenting and household management.

Tilt-an-URL: Check Your Links

2011-07-31T13:38:00.001-05:00

Back in 2007, Jim told me to buy a domain. I dithered around until babytoolkit.com was snatched up by another party (who ran a web store), and then I registered the runner up URL baby-toolkit.com.

In pixels I thought it was great. Then I tried to verbally direct someone to it. Baby-dash-toolkit.com? Baby-hyphen-toolkit.com? Oy vey. Babytoolkit.blogspot.com.

Baby-toolkit expires tomorrow and shall not be renewed, so if you're one of the 3 people using that address please stop and start using:

(drum roll please...)

WWW.BABYTOOLKIT.COM

We outlasted the web store (which is like outliving a gnat) and plucked the URL from their ashes.

If you were looking for a web store, WELCOME and please disregard the previous message.

All Together Now: Tangling with Gamewright's Forbidden Island

2011-07-26T00:38:00.005-05:00

Every couple of weeks, Adrienne, Ranger and I (and perhaps a friend or two) launch an expedition to a sinking island in search of ancient artifacts of legendary power. If luck is on our side, if we keep our lines of communication open and if we focus on cooperating, we might unearth The Crystal of Fire, The Earth Stone, The Ocean's Chalice and The Statue of the Wind before our helicopter pad sinks into the treacherous waters of the surrounding ocean. If we don't, we'll be cut off from returning home and forever seal our fates... at least until we reset the board and try again.

"What the heck's going on!?!" you might ask.

Well, we've been playing Forbidden Island.

Introduction

Forbidden Island is a cooperative board game of daring treasure hunting that pits all the players against the game itself. The players of the game either win or lose as a group. Forbidden Island is designed by Matt Leacock, designer of two other of our favorite board game titles, Pandemic and Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age. It is published by Gamewright, who also publishes another game we reviewed recently and thoroughly enjoy, Rory's Story Cubes (check out our review, To Tell A Tale: Rory's Story Cubes). C.B. Canga's full color art illustrates the exotic locales of the sinking island.

Setup

At the beginning of each game, the players shuffle the twenty four island tiles and place them one by one into the cross layout as illustrated in the Forbidden Island rule book. Next, the four plastic figures representing the treasures of The Crystal of Fire, The Earth Stone, The Ocean's Chalice and The Statue of the Wind are placed in the four open corners of the island.

Forbidden Island includes fifty eight cards that are split into two decks. The red backed Treasure Deck includes twenty treasure cards (five for each treasure), three Waters Rise! cards, three Helicopter Lift cards, and two Sandbag cards. The Treasure Deck is the resource deck of the game, giving players the items that they will need in order to complete their objective. They'll have to watch out, though, as the Waters Rise! cards randomly cause areas of the island to sink and be removed from the board. The Treasure Deck is shuffled and placed to one side of the island layout.

The blue backed Flood Deck consists of twenty four cards, each representing one of the tile cards that make up the island. The Flood Deck is shuffled and placed on the opposite side of the island layout. The island's already started to flood and to represent that, six cards are drawn from the Flood Deck. For each card that is drawn, the players flip the corresponding island tile from its full color side to its blue toned flooded side.

There are six adventurer cards that represent the different treasure hunters that are coming to explore the island. Each adventurer has special skills that let them ignore or break specific rules of the game. Exploiting your adventurers' skills at the right time will be critical to your success or failure on Forbidden Island.

The six adventurers and there special skills are:

Diver: The diver is represented by the black pawn and can move through one or more adjacent flooded tiles and/or sunken tiles for one action as long as he (or she) ends the turn on a tile.

Engineer: The engineer is represented by the red pawn and can shore up two flooded (blue colored) island cards for one action.

Explorer: The explorer is represented by the green pawn and can move and/or shore up flooded tiles diagonally.

Messenger: The messenger is represented by the gray pawn can give treasure cards from their hand to a player anywhere for one action per card.

Navigator: The navigator is represented by the yellow pawn and can move another player up to two adjacent tiles for one action.

Pilot: The pilot is represented by the blue pawn and can fly to any tile on the island for one action once per turn.

During the setup phase, the six adventurer cards are shuffled and randomly dealt to each player. The pawns representing the adventurers are then placed on the island by finding the island tile that has the corresponding pawn icon.

Next, the adventurers are outfitted with their initial gear by drawing two cards from the shuffled Treasure Deck. If they draw a Waters Rise! card, they draw a replacement treasure card and shuffle the Waters Rise! card back into the deck. All cards are left face up in front of the players in order to make it easier to cooperate when completing their player's goals.

Once all of the adventurers are outfitted with two Treasure Deck cards, the group decides on the difficulty level of the game and set's the Water Level marker on the Water Meter. The closer the marker is to the top, the harder the game will be. For beginning players, the Novice level is recommended which, while being easier, doesn't guarantee a win for the group.

That's it for setup. As you can see, there are a lot of elements that add to the re-playability of the game. The island is going to be in a different configuration every game (with a special note on that at the end of this review). Your group of players will also have different adventurers with different roles and their starting tiles will most likely be in a different starting position every game. And finally, as your group gets better at the game, winning more times than losing, they can start at increasingly difficult water levels.

So, how do you play the game?

Playing Forbidden Island

Each player's turn consists of three phases. During the first phase they can take up to three actions. After they have finished their actions, they must draw two Treasure Deck cards. Finally, they must draw the number of cards from the Flood Deck equal to the current Water Level on the Water Meter. Let's break each of those down. As we look at the basic rules of play, remember the special abilities of each adventurer that allow them to break specific rules during their turns. Players have three actions that they may take.

On their turn, players can move to an adjacent tile above, below, to the left or to the right of their current position. They can make multiple moves during their turn, with each move costing one action. The only restriction for most adventures is that they can't move over or stop on an area with missing, sunken, tiles.

Another option is for the player to shore up a flooded tile. Players may shore up tiles adjacent above, below, to the left, or to the right of their pawn's position. When a player announces that they are going to shore up a flooded island tile, they flip it from it's blue flooded side to its full color side. Each time a player shores up a flooded island tile, it takes one of their three actions.

If two or more players have their pawns on the same island tile, they may then spend one of their three actions to exchange Treasure Cards. Players may not exchange special action cards and they must stay within the five card hand limit. They may exchange as many cards as they have action points remaining as long as they don't go over their hand limit.

Finally, if players are occupying one of the two island tiles that can house each of the Forbidden Island treasures, they can exchange, if they have them, four treasure cards matching the particular treasure in order to capture it. Once captured, they put the four matching Treasure Cards into the discard pile and take the corresponding plastic treasure miniature and put it in front of them.

After spending their three action points, players must then draw two treasure cards into their hand. If they are over the hand limit of five cards, they must discard the excess into the Treasure Card discard pile. The Special Action cards include the three Helicopter Lifts and two Sandbags. A player can play a Special Action card at any time, whether it is their turn or not, and it does not cost any action points.

If a player draws a Waters Rise! card, they must immediately move the Water Level marker up one tick mark on the Water Meter. They then must take all the cards in the Flood Deck discard pile, shuffle them, and put them on top of the Flood Deck. This has the effect of making it more likely that flooded tiles will then sink. Then they discard the card to the Treasure discard pile.

As their last action, players must draw the number of Flood cards indicated on the Water Meter. For each card that is drawn from the Flood Deck, the corresponding island tile is flipped over if it is not already flooded or removed, along with the Flood Deck card, from the game. In this way the island sections first flood and, if they are not shored up, eventually sink into the ocean. As the island sinks away at an ever increasing rate, the players will have fewer and fewer routes to complete their goal of capturing all four treasures from Forbidden Island. If a pawn is on a flooded tile that then sinks, the tile is removed and the player must move to an adjacent tile. If a tile doesn't exist within one space, it sinks into the ocean as well and all the player's lose.

Speaking of losing, how do you win a game of Forbidden Island?

Winning (and Losing) Forbidden Island

As I said in the beginning, Forbidden Island is a cooperative game. Players win or lose the game together. Here's the tricky part. There is one, and only one, way to win Forbidden Island. The players must first capture all four treasures. Then all of the players must move their pawns to the Fool's Landing helicopter pad island tile. Then one player must discard a Helicopter Lift special action Treasure Card to lift the entire team off the sinking island. That's a tall order.

So how do you lose? I'm glad you asked.

There are four ways to lose a game of Forbidden Island. If a set of the island tiles that houses the treasures sinks into the ocean before the treasure is recovered by a player, the players lose the game. If the Fools Landing tile sinks, cutting off your player's chance to reach the helicopter and escape the sinking island, the players lose the game. As stated earlier, if a player is on a island tile that sinks and is not close enough to another tile to swim to safety, the players lose the game. If the Water Level on the Water Meter rises to the skull and crossbones, the players lose the game.

This may seem harsh to some of our readers. I won't lie, this can be difficult, especially as you gain experience and confidence and start the game further and further up the Water Meter, ratcheting up your starting difficulty. But I will say that playing, and winning a game of Forbidden Island is an event, especially if your players really get into the idea of being treasure hunters and try hard to work together. When you lose, which will happen (heck it might happen the first couple of times you play and continue to happen off and on throughout the time that you own the game), you will all feel it together. You'll talk about what you might have been able to do differently. You'll commiserate over the bad luck of drawing the wrong flood card at the wrong time. You'll wonder if things would have been different if you had a different assortment of roles. Remember, this is a game for two to four players and you have six special roles that are randomly assigned.

And then... you'll want to set the whole thing up and try again. This game is addictive. And when you win, I'll bet you'll do what every group I've played this game with has done. You'll jump up from your chair and cheer and give high fives all around. You'll rehash the close calls and the clever plays. You'll relish the adventure of it. When's the last time you did that when playing Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit. When was the last time that you played any game that left everyone playing feeling so good.

So, while it is hard. It's definitely worth the effort.

Components and Cost

Forbidden Island comes in a beautiful full color embossed metal tin. Inside, a molded plastic insert holds the twenty four full color thick cardboard tiles that make up the island. There are six colored wooden pawns representing each adventurer. Additionally, there are the Flood, Treasure and Adventurer decks outlined earlier and the Water Meter. Finally there are four color plastic miniatures which evocatively represent Forbidden Island's lost treasures. All of which fits nicely in this lovely tin with the clearly written and wonderfully laid out full color game rules. All of the tiles and cards are linen backed so they should be able to withstand repeated plays for a long time to come.

Given the quality of the game's tin, components, and rule book, you'd expect Forbidden Island to command a premium collector's game price. One of the most amazing things about the game is that it can be had for under $17. On Amazon.com, Forbidden Island currently lists for $13.44.

Conclusion

Forbidden Island is a great game for two to four players. If you have never played a cooperative game, a genre that has gained popularity in hobby games market in the last few years and one that my family particularly enjoys, Forbidden Island is a fantastic introduction to the category. We love this game as a family and here's why.

Forbidden Island can be played with a diverse range of ages and can still engage everyone involved. We have played this with groups made up only of adults and with mixed groups including players pushing their forties and our five year old son, Ranger. The only difference in the play is that Ranger was more in need of suggestions as to which action to take on his turn. On the other hand, these game sessions enabled him to see how adults evaluated a number of potential actions and chose the few that were most optimal. Over time, he's getting a crash course in creative problem solving. He's also learning how to communicate with other people about a problem and learning how to take suggestions for possible solutions from others.

Forbidden Island captures the imagination. If I'm presented with the choice of playing a card game of Uno or going on a treasure quest to a sinking island, I know which one I'll choose ninety percent of the time.

Forbidden Island builds memories. Like Matt Leacock's other, more expensive, cooperative game Pandemic which focuses on ridding the world of epidemic diseases, a win in Forbidden Island is difficult and memorable. You'll tell stories to other's that you inevitably introduce the game to about an amazing recent win or heartbreaking loss. I still remember the time that a group of co-workers won when there were only four (of the twenty four!) island tiles left on the board. It was the last possible turn before the skull and crossbones was reached and a combination of a lucky card draw, plus having the pilot, won the day. It was intense. It was nail-biting. Everyone screamed and and stood up and cheered with excitement that we'd actually eked out a win. All in a public snack area with passers by thinking we were crazy. And... it was awesome!

You just can't beat the cost-value calculation of this game. Forbidden Island is cheaper than most kids' games (Sorry, I'm looking at you) and is going to be something that your children's children will be able (and enthusiastically want) to play for years to come. It's not a game that you're going to get bored with easily as it has an amazing amount of re-playability built into its very design. Plus, if you start to get so good that your group regularly wins the game, you can try these European edition and fan created alternate Island tile layouts to increase the challenge level. How well are you going to do on Forbidden Skull Island, or the Forbidden Island of the Crescent Moon?

Are you ready for your family's first expedition to Forbidden Island?

Let us know if you are a fan of cooperative games in general and Forbidden Island in particular in the comments. Happy adventuring.

***Baby Toolkit is brought to you by the neurological happenstance of two geek parents in the midst of the middle Midwest. While we purchased Forbidden Island from our local Borders (R.I.P.), we do periodically receive review copies from Gamewright. We love Forbidden Island designer Matt Leacock's Pandemic, so we simply could not resist buying Forbidden Island when we saw it in a bookstore- especially since I had a 40% off coupon (sorry, Borders). Expect more game coverage as we're going crazy with GenCon Indy 2011 anticipation.

Teacher Appreciation: Quick & Caffeinated

2011-05-17T16:25:00.000-05:00

Growing up in a teacher's household, I know teachers treasure the sentiment behind gifts from students. The gifts themselves are truly secondary to the feelings of appreciation.

Over the span of a teaching career, sentimental gifts abound and start to swamp most teacher's homes, so I try to give consumable gifts.

This year, after seeing this inspired "Thanks a Latte!" printable project I was all geared up to craft some sweet gift card holders with Ranger.

And then I remembered, I have three very young children- two in diapers- and utterly no spare time to wait for glue to dry.

Enter "Thanks a latte!" v.2. Cup and lid: easily acquired at time of gift card purchase. Hard candy: quick, cheap, and easy. Ribbon: around here somewhere. Cellophane/plastic bag: not in my pantry and a Ziplock would lack panache.

So how do I dress up the cups to keep them from being mistaken for empties? I punched a couple holes in the sides of the adorable little espresso cups and threaded ribbon handles through.

Ranger helped put a handwritten note inside (on flower printables) with a gift card and some peppermints.

With smaller plain paper prints (print file as a 5x7 image) of the flower printable and my sticker maker (though any bit of sticky would suffice), I attached some mini-thanks a latte flowers to the cup lids for labels.

Viola. Little baskets of sugary, caffeinated gratitude.

***Baby Toolkit is written by some sugary, caffeinated, grateful geek parents. Thank you for giving us some of your time. We're not affiliated (or even particularly enamored) with Starbucks and this hack could work just as well with your local coffee shop as long as they have gift cards and to go cups. We are however Amazon affiliates, so a portion of purchases made through this web site's Amazon links help us stay connected.

Quick Change Artists: DIY Playdough Playmats

2011-04-21T11:05:00.000-05:00

My artists: chaos & control

My kids love Play-doh, but I dislike the million multi-color crumb clean-up.

I cut some lengths of freezer paper (size corresponding with age and messiness) to use as perpetual playmats. Waxed paper or parchment would serve equally well.

When playdough interest wanes and the dough is tucked back into cans, I shake the papers over the trash can and many of the wee nuggets are vanquished.

It is not a perfect system. Some days the bottoms of my socks still look like they have a Seussical pox, but the slick paper playmats cut clean-up time substantially.

***Baby Toolkit is a collection of hacks, coughs, and observations from a couple geeky Midwestern parents. We're Amazon affiliates, so a portion of purchases made through our links goes toward our dreams of a giant Batsignal spotlight.

Required Reading for Geeks & Parents: Science Fair Season Set Me On Fire

2011-04-19T11:15:00.002-05:00

At first blush, Judy Dutton's Science Fair Season: Twelve Kids, A Robot Named Scorch. . . and What It Takes To Win looks like Spellbound recast with science geeks. Don't be fooled. While Science Fair Season explores the lives of a handful of contestants in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, it deftly illustrates artful parenting and success in learning as well.

The high school students' projects are sometimes mind-boggling in scale (like building a reactor for nuclear fusion). I expected the top achieving high school students to be working on an undergraduate level, but these noteworthy projects more clearly resemble post-graduate research. Because the students approach their inquiries with fresh perspective, they see possibility and challenge where more conventional researchers might not explore.

While no two contestants' stories are remotely identical, patterns do emerge that speak to science education and parenting young children. So often the students' stories begin with an early spark of interest in something (horses, electricity, cars, astronomy) which parents encouraged with exploration. Though the kids' interests didn't usually mirror parental interests, the parents went out of their way to feed their child's curiosity and enthusiasm. Time after time, parents provide opportunities (like a homebrew chem lab, a borrowed Geiger counter, or time with horses) and find mentors with similar interests. Granted, not every child is going to become a super-competitor in science by the mere magic of parental support, but these stories clearly illuminate a parent's ability to multiply interest into inquiry and fascination.

Yet the book is not populated with Tiger Moms or Stage Fathers, the burgeoning interests are consistently directed by the kids (and I say kids because this explosion of interest seems most common in early childhood). These biographies are full of freedom and exploration.

The other looming discussion is that of how students come to love science learning. Halfway through the book I became painfully aware that, although some "outsiders" come to science interest in junior high or high school, most of the kids with scientific fervor (and the resulting knowledge) fully embraced science long before most schools begin to seriously teach it. We, as a nation, are missing the critical window where kids fall in love with science. Thanks to budget cuts and lack of advocacy, science is barely taught when young students are making decisions about what they love. When schools finally start teaching science in junior high, the approach is often dry and makes the very foundation of existence seem irrelevant and esoteric.

During the space race, science charged into unsuspecting homes through popular media. While the media marveled and quaked at Sputnik, rocket scientists became the heroes of coal mine town boys like Homer Hickam (NASA engineer and author of Rocket Boys). This book reminds me that not only are science heroes present today, they're still coming of age (though in increasingly shorter supply). Our tech role models need to be more than wealthy boys with killer apps (Apple's Steve Jobs, Facebook's Mark Zuckerman). Kids would be better served to know about Pluto Files atrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson and science humanitarian Amy Smith.

In my life as a university academic advisor, the most frustrating academic trajectories were those of students with no real interests. A student sorting through a abundance of passions brimmed with energy, but one without a single definable interest made me want to bang my head against my desk. I knew then that, should we ever have kids, I wanted them to deeply love some thing that challenged and expanded them.

Science Fair Season left me with a long to-do list. I want Ranger, Scout, and the Detective to gain exposure to math and science beyond what they'll get in the elementary classroom, and I also want those opportunities to be available for their friends and classmates. My mom's fifth grade class had this amazing interactive experience put together by an orthopedic surgeon dad; the dad set up hands-on stations where the class could use real orthopedic tools to meet objectives (like screwing a nut on a bolt) through obstacles (inside a bottle) to simulate surgical challenge. My mom believes that one presentation converted more students to science than any other single event of her long teaching career. This it the type of early experience I want for my kids and as many other kids as we can involve.

I think the future, not just of our kids' educations, but of the country and the world, may lie in the opportunities we offer our kids in their early years.

Well written and entertaining, Science Fair Season is going to have the broad voyeuristic appeal of subculture documentaries like Word Wars and The Farmer's Wife, but it also has the seeds of one of the most critical educational discourses of our generation.

Hyperion, hardcover $25 MSRP, $15.99 on Amazon.
Read excerpt at author's site.

***Baby Toolkit is a couple geek parents currently so hot about science learning that we might just turn to plasma. Hyperion supplied us with a free e-book loan of Science Fair Season, but we've now bought three hardcover copies to share with friends and family (the first taste is free...). As Amazon affiliates, a small portion of purchases made through our Amazon links brings us one step closer to a giant dirigible trip around the planet.

Yet Another Barf Tip: Hairstyling Cape

2011-04-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

Late last night, Scout reminded us of the incident that inspired our 2007 post Barf-a-rama: Coming Too Soon To A Home Near You. The spontaneous stroll down this particular toddler memory lane was like a parenting pop-quiz on a chapter long-forgotten.

We scored high on items like EXTRA SHEETS, but sadly that particular point was irrelevant as the eruption landed solely on a handmade pillow (Sorry, Mimi-n-Moe's Mom, but it does wash beautifully!). I entirely forgot #2 and immediately thought, "Hey, that's the last of it." Thus I earned a second pair of chunkalicious pajamas to launder.

Once we realized that our child should be treated as an erratic fire hose of digestive destruction, I reached behind the door and grabbed our easily washable, water resistant nylon hairstyling cape.* A couple snaps later Scout's clean jammies were shielded by her "Sick Cape." Nothing like a barfing, backwards caped superhero. I would normally offer action shots, but the simultaneous unsubscribes might break Feedburner.

And after a few more rounds of awful, all the exhausted citizens of our little patch of Gotham slept soundly in clean, warm beds and jammies.

Yes, this book.

*I cut Jim's hair: sometimes well, sometimes badly. My only "training" consists of a VHS tape that came with the clippers and the 1978 manual Haircutting the Professional Way by Bruno from my parents' house It started during our potato years (we couldn't even afford salad) as a cost cutting measure, but Jim prefers it (despite the risks) because he doesn't have to make small talk with a barber or stylist.

***Baby Toolkit is the work-in-progress of a some slightly bloodshot geek parents raising an energetic clutch of wee people this side of the Land of Nod. We're Amazon affiliates, so a percentage of purchases made through our links (you know you want that Bruno book) bring us that much closer to owning our own decommissioned nuclear silo on the windy plains. Thanks for reading Baby Toolkit!

Extreme Breastfeeding: Pumping for NICU Without Losing Your Mind

2011-04-13T01:00:00.005-05:00

-or- Free Your Hands and Your Mind Will Follow

When our littlest geek (locally dubbed the Baby Detective) ended up in the NICU, I found myself back in familiar breastfeeding territory. My role on supply side of breastfeeding began in the NICU. As a first time mom who gave birth by c-section, my milk didn't come in for days. That newborn, a "sugar baby" in NICU lingo, had low blood sugar and a low body temperature, so my first attempts at breastfeeding were bedside in the NICU.

It was awful. There's no just way to prepare for breastfeeding or the hormonal postpartum roller-coaster. Throw in the physical separation, heightened anxieties, and lack of privacy of NICU, and the natural act of breastfeeding dials itself up to an 11 (on a scale of 10 for those who haven't had the senseless pleasure of This is Spinal Tap [available on Netflix streaming]).

I won't tax you with all the gory details (although keywords like nipple shield coupled with a multitude of synonyms for breast might spice up my Google hits).

When we decided to grow our family to five, I assumed the third round of nursing would be without surprises. Then BabyGeek 1.3 arrived six weeks early after swift and furious pregnancy complications.

Instead of a bassineted baby in my hospital room, our teeny geek was an isolette half a building away. She was challenged to digest liquid food, much less consume it. While she drew most of her nutrition from IVs and lipids from a feeding tube, I pumped every 3 hours in an attempt to provide breastmilk that she could consume by bottle.

The only things previous breastfeeding experiences had taught me were I hated pumping, I didn't have much success with it, and with growing sleep deprivation, the low moan of the pump motor turned into crazy words that made me loathe pumping all the more.

With 8 pumping sessions a day on the horizon, things had to be different this time.

In order of importance, here are the big changes:

1. Go hands-free: this list-topper may seem painfully obvious to the working moms, but somehow I managed to miss the advantages with earlier infants. Maybe it was the early '90s era models in their shoulder padded power suits, but somehow hands-free seemed inappropriate for someone who spends most days in jeans, tees, and a sea of Cheerios.

Prior to this baby, I loathed pumping and avoided it at all costs. The deeply bovine feeling of hooking up to a milking machine felt humiliating (especially in the hospital with people walking into the room all the times). Holding the flanges in place kept my hands and mind focused on the pumping process.

This time, with the phone ringing off the hook, and hardly a moment to bolt a meal, I walked my hospital gown clad self into the lactation boutique and bought an Easy Expressions hands-free bustier.

Suddenly, I had my hands back, and along with them came a solid measure of dignity. Yes, I was still fastened to a very dairy machine, but I felt more 80s throwback (think Madonna) or crazy fashion forward (Lady Gaga) and even a bit Amazing Stories. It was the best kind of ridiculous. When my hands were unshackled, my brain and soul were now free to contemplate something, ANYTHING, other than the pumping process. Pure awesome. Worth every penny.

2. Kick back and watch something distracting.
I hesitate to offer this advice as television kills brain cells and such, but there are times in life where really senseless shows can be blessedly soothing and distracting. While I couldn't sleep and pump, I could pump while watching every episode of Sons of Tuscon, Doc Martin, The IT Crowd, Toddlers & Tiaras, and Man v. Food on Netflix streaming.

3 . Hospital grade pumps should be considered.
Before Ranger was born, we bought a Medela Pump-In-Style Advanced pump. I still own it, but I instead opted to rent a Medela Symphony from the hospital boutique. When pumping 8 times a day, it's important that the pump works well- 10 minutes more per session adds up to 80 more minutes per sleepless day.

4. Lactation consultants can help immensely, but tend toward generalizations.
I love the lactation department at our hospital. The consultants have helped me over the years. This time they lent me a DVD copy of Hands-On Pumping (the 3 videos are available free online at http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/). Those techniques improved my supply quickly. Pumping every 3 hours (at the hospital or at home) is an insane challenge. Undersupply broke my heart because (in my hormonal insanity) it felt like the only thing I could do for my vulnerable baby (in more reflective moments I realized the error in that thinking, but I'll save that for a later post).

While I appreciate their expertise and enthusiasm, I've also been given general advice that didn't apply to my specific situation and made me feel like I was failing. Go breastfeeding, but skin-to-skin contact, homeopathic supplements, and 2 hour pumping schedules just weren't options I could consider. They really wanted my baby to feed directly before leaving the NICU, but it was simply too difficult for her and taxed her limited energy. I understand their concerns that breastfeeding might not last as long if she's bottle-fed, but I also knew my daughter was overtaxed by breastfeeding. The neonatologist agreed that the baby would come home sooner if bottle-fed, so I focused on more effectively pumping and bottle-feeding. For us, bringing the baby home sooner was a much higher priority than direct breastfeeding (or even breastfeeding).

Once the baby was bigger and stronger, the transition to regular breastfeeding was easy. We were so glad to say goodbye to bottles.

5. The White Wave -or- What to do with all the milk

During time I pumped daily, the surplus milk quickly engulfed our fridge's freezer. The hospital can only store so much per patient, and the nurses told me about other moms buying deep freezers. I started freezing the surplus in Lansinoh breastmilk storage bags instead of the space-hogging NICU bottles. They freeze flat, and 10 can be neatly stowed in a gallon freezer bag . With Amazon Mom and Subscribe and Save, I was able to get cases of these delivered to my doorstep at an excellent price.

6. Washing Up
Cleaning the pump parts after every session brought to mind Sisyphus forever rolling the stone up the hill to watch it immediately roll back down. In this sleepless rendition of the classic tale, it's easy to feel that the stone is actually rolling over you on its disheartening downward fall. This is where a kindly clan of magic bottle-washing elves would come in handy, but my neighborhood owl seems to have taken them out (along with the toilet paper fairy). Wash up all the parts as soon as you put the milk in cold storage. It feels even worse to start the whole process with the washing.

We went through 3 different bottle brushes before again settling on the Munchkin's Deluxe Bottle Brush which we liked back when Ranger was formula fed.

All in all, it's no small feat to pump for a NICU baby. If you are a parent who is going through this now, take care of yourself as much as you can. Your kiddo needs YOU more than breastmilk. Sleep as often as you can, eat, and drink lots of water.

If you know someone else going through this, feed them a meal (or, even better, set up a food registry for them at mealbaby.com).

***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing story of a couple of Midwestern geeks and their kids. We are not affiliated with Medela, Munchkin, Ziploc, Meal Baby, nor Netflix, but we are Amazon affiliates (so a small portion of purchases made through our Amazon links go toward the Baby Toolkit jet fleet).

And be sure to check out related post The Boob Wars.

To Tell a Tale: Rory’s Story Cubes

2011-01-25T23:54:00.023-06:00

We are a family in love with stories.

We tell them, we read them, and as this blog attests we often write them down and share them in some form or another with total strangers. Adrienne and I have been readers our whole lives. We even turned to stories, in the form of Barbara Lehman’s wonderfully illustrated but wordless books, to help Ranger learn to better express himself as he described the details of the quirky scenes in Lehman’s illustrations.

For the past year or so, as Ranger has passed from a toddler to a preschooler, he and I have begun to play “story games” to pass the time. While we’re waiting in line somewhere or when car trips are lasting longer than either of our patience, I’ll start asking Ranger semi-directed questions similar to what we’ve practiced with Lehman’s books to fill out the details of a free form story. I might ask, “Who is in the story?” or “What should our story be about?” and as Ranger fills in the details, we begin to explore these free form worlds that we create together. It has become such a part of our life, that Ranger will often interject into any long silence, “Let’s make up a story!”

It’s tremendously fun and puts our creativity through the paces. As I hadn’t done a lot of this sort of thing for a long time, I was rusty at first, but persistence has paid off. What was difficult and awkward at first, is now second nature to us both. We roll with any suggestion and seem to be able to incorporate most any idea into at least a semi-recognizable narrative.

This sort of thing was easier when I was younger. As a young geek child of the 70’s and 80’s, I came of age slinging polyhedral dice while playing role playing games ( or RPGs). My friends and I imagined adventures in underground lairs filled with traps and monsters, smashing cars into each other, going insane from viewing nameless horrors, and hiding out from “The Computer” during endless story telling sessions of Dungeons and Dragons, the Palladium Role Playing Game, Car Wars, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia. These “games” were exercises in imagination and storytelling more than winning some sterile objective. I think they helped my writing, encouraged my reading, exercised my imagination and generally improved my overall communication skills.

Ranger’s a little too young for these types of games but luckily there are other games and play activities that are springing up that we happen to really enjoy and that accentuate the story play in which we already engage. One of those play/game activities is Rory’s Story Cubes. Published by Gamewright, Rory’s Story Cubes are nine six sided dice that come in a sturdy magnetically fastened box. Each white dice has a unique black doodle or pictogram on each of its six faces. The pictograms include doodles of a water fountain, a turtle, a bumble bee, a bolt of lighting, a castle keep, fire, and a shooting star. If you do the math, there are 54 images across the die faces. That’s quite a lot of potential story inspiration when you consider all the possible combinations.

The simple idea of Rory’s Story Cubes, is to take some or all of the dice and roll them, and then work alone or together to make up a story that includes elements from all of the face up pictograms. That’s it. It’s a simple activity and, while there are suggested ways to use the cubes, the included booklet also encourages you to use them in any way that inspires fun and creativity. Since there’s no “right” way to do it, kids are free to let their imaginations wonder unhindered by any “correct” interpretation of the images that they randomly encounter from any particular roll. For instance, one doodle is of an Egyptian scarab as you might find on a pyramid burial chamber wall painting or depicted in an ancient Egyptian cartouche, but Ranger usually incorporates it into his stories as a generic “bug” or a slightly more specific “beetle”.

Some people may be turned off by the randomness of the activity, but I’ve found the activity of making a story (and perhaps not even a good story) from the randomly occurring images to not only be mentally challenging but also very inspirational. I have imagined seeing them being used by writers as a warm up exercise or a way to work through writer’s block. Perhaps teachers could use them in creating writing or speaking prompts for their students. I can just hear high school speech students groaning at the idea of giving a recitation of an extemporaneous story inspired by the fateful roll of the cubes.

I know from experience that the exercise of using the cubes and pushing ourselves to work within their imaginative constraints has broadened Ranger and my general story telling and creation abilities. He’s become surprisingly good at taking a random word or phrase that we may come across and turn it into wonderful little tales. He’s one heck of a storyteller these days. As an example of the types of stories that he now come up with on his own after a couple of months of playing with the cubes, this is my favorite story that he created after I tossed out the phrase “octopus soup” to him in car trip a couple of months back.

Octopus Soup
------------------

Once upon a time, there was octopus soup sitting in a cup on a table. A little girl sitting at the table wanted to try it.

She took a sip and it was wet... and slippery... and yucky. It made her feel dizzy. Then she wobbled off her chair and fell on the floor.

All of the sudden, she turned into an octopus.

When her mommy came into the room, she yelled "Oh no! There's an octopus in my house!"

She picked up the octopus right away and rushed it over to the aquarium and said, "Here. You take it."

When she got home, she couldn't find her daughter and figured out that the octopus was her little girl. So she went back to the aquarium and said, "You have to give me back that octopus! It's really my daughter."

The man at the aquarium said, "Oh good. The octopus turned back into a girl after you left. Here you go... She's a little wet."

When they got back home, the little girl said "I'll just have a peanut butter sandwich."
--------

The box can double as a rolling tray.

Making up stories with anyone, but especially with little kids, is a lot of fun and Rory’s Story Cubes definitely greases the imagination in pursuit of that goal. This simple, portable activity is sure to be a lot of fun for any family, though I wouldn't limit it to just families or kids. I can see it as a great party activity for adults, an icebreaker activity for gatherings, or an improv exercise. It’s a wonderful game to play that we highly recommend. Also, for those that are interested, there’s an iPhone App of the cubes, but there is a visceral thrill in rolling actual dice that is really part of the fun of the whole process. The retail price for the physical Rory's Story Cubes game is $12.99 and comes in a sturdy portable box that is slightly larger than a deck of playing cards.

We’re curious what type of stories that you’d come up with using a roll of Rory’s Story Cubes. Given the rolls in the pictures above, what does your mind come up with? Post them to the comments below.

***Baby Toolkit the sleeper hit blog on a short stretch of a quiet street in Southern Indiana- unless of course one of our neighbors has started a blog (like the clown family down the street- amazingly not a joke). We received a review copy of Rory's Story Cubes from Gamewright. We're Amazon affiliates, so a small portion of purchases made through the Amazon links on the site comes back to us and we use it to pay for connectivity or the downpayment on a Baby Toolkit corporate jet (thanks!).

[Note from Adrienne: Jim's new blog at storiedadventures.blogspot.com hosts even more gaming content.]

Ring Around the Sippy: A Clean Fridge Hack

2011-01-15T14:50:00.006-06:00

Scout is a milk junkie. The child's unceasing demand for moo juice means her cup is in and out of the fridge all day long. The refrigerator quickly starts looking worse for the wear as the grubby cup leaves rings and drops toddler cruft on the glass shelves. Half full cups vanish into the no man's land of other perishables, not to be recovered until a scarcity of cups inspires a search party. With organic milk at $5.99 a gallon, this disappearing act can be expensive.

When the ghostly Rorschach of milk rings finally spelled out "wash me," I launched a full-fridge Silkwood scrubdown. The fridge gleamed as I went to return the slightly sticky sippy. Would this cleanliness unravel faster than a celebrity marriage? I couldn't bear the thought.

I grabbed a clean cottage cheese tub lid from the cabinet and we instituted the first Jones' fridge coaster. What I thought would only prevent cup rings and grubbiness ended up giving us a single location for partial cups. Far less milk goes to waste now, and we've vanquished the mystery cups lurking in the fridge's dark corners.

We recently added a second lid for baby bottles and breast milk bags.

***Baby Toolkit hacks family life from their now slightly-less-derelict Heartland HQ. We work to bring you up-to-the-century, completely biased observations on geek parenting.

Our (un)Resolved Life: 2011 Wishes

2010-12-31T19:22:00.001-06:00

As 2010 draws to a close at the toy-strewn Jones Ranch, we're commemorating the year's closure by enacting a rather typical 2010 evening- carry-out food and Mythbusters on Netflix streaming.

Beyond "more sleep" and "fewer episodes of Barney" (the price of literate preschoolers operating Netflix streaming), Jim and I are waaay too tired to conjure new resolutions.

We're thankful to be spending this mundane evening with our little family at home. A quiet night together is welcome respite.

May your 2011 be full of quotidian joys and comforts. Peace and goodwill to you, friends, as we travel through this turbulent life.

Her First Mistake: Our Story of Premature Birth

2010-12-30T11:00:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time ago
Way up in the land of sleet and snow
How this fairy tale would go
I could not have known*

A few weeks ago I loaded the kids into the car, handed the keys to my dad, and told Ranger that I'd pick him up from preschool dismissal in a few hours. Although my energy levels were low and I was having a few strange symptoms, this pregnancy consistently depleted me in ways prior pregnancies had not.

The morning's routine OB visit would most likely confirm some sort of Braxton-Hicks false alarm and leave me with instructions to "take it easy" for the next 6 weeks. At worst, I thought I might be sent home for more formal bed rest.

One routine ultrasound, non-stress test, and doctor's appointment later, I was walking into the hospital admissions to be monitored and given further tests. The routine blood screening results pointed to a completely unsuspected problem, I met the high-risk pregnancy specialist, and short term monitoring ensued. My dad transferred the kids to Jim as the morning's tests stretched into the afternoon. My comfortable clothing was vanquished for a hospital gown while night fell outside the windowless triage unit. Around the time the hospital kitchen closed for the night, I was informed that the doctor had ordered a 24 hour test and I wouldn't be going home until the test's completion. Everything was weird, but I still expected to return home pregnant.

Around midnight I moved to an actual hospital room. With a hospital gown, fetal monitoring cables, rampantly unshaven legs (think wookie), and a pregnant woman's bladder, the en suite bathroom was a welcome change from regularly walking down a public hallway with cables resting over my neck (hiking up the gown in awful ways). When the nurses confiscated my cup of water in the middle of the night, I wrote the whole situation off as a need for fasting bloodwork. I slept fitfully for a few hours still thinking I would return home within 24 hours.

Shortly before dawn, a technician filled vial after vial with blood. My water cup made no return appearance and a nurse put me on an IV. Something was afoot. I texted Jim and my dad about this, but didn't make the cognitive leap. I called my mom (she doesn't text) and said that I might be being prepped for something, but the 24 hour test wouldn't be over for at least 12 more hours.

A couple minutes later, my OB walked in the room and told me that she couldn't sleep at night because my first round of blood work results were mysterious and alarming. That morning's results were even worse, and I would be having the baby in about an hour.

It was then I knew I had made my first mistake

I had less than an hour to get Jim there, arrange impromptu care for the kids, and inform my parents (who live at least 30 minutes away from the hospital). During a few frantic calls arranging the transfer of car seats and kids**, hospital staff started surgical prep. I gathered up my few personal items and just tried to manage the logistics from a hospital bed that suddenly seemed to be on the other side of the moon.

One (accidental) look in the mirror told me that I shouldn't see the kids before surgery. My typically scruffy appearance had turned from indifferent to unwell. I wasn't quite ready to be cast in a zombie movie, but it no longer required blood work to see that things were abnormal. I didn't want to scare the kids (and Ranger already dislikes hospitals), so I made more calls to make sure they didn't come to see me. Jim made it just in time to prep and attend the birth.

I said come on baby
Come on baby
Come on baby

Except for the expedited nature of the birth, everything else was familiar. Same surgical staff and anesthesiologist as both of the other kids. The recognizable experience lulled me into thinking that everything else would be familiar, even when they introduced me to a nurse from the NICU who take care of the baby after the birth.

In the swirl of the operating room, the great question of baby gender was finally answered: a baby girl, a new daughter, a new sister...

It was then I met this girl so fine
She made me think so fast I left my thoughts behind

I got to hold her, this miniature doppelganger of earlier Jones babies, for a head-swimming moment

I could see her light began to shine

She turned...her eyes met mine
And suddenly the whole world became
A better place

Even if it was only for an instant

Then the NICU nurse rushed her off fearing respiratory distress.

It was then I knew I had made my

Second mistake

The recovery room seemed quiet to the point of vacancy. Despite all signs to the contrary, I kept hoping that the curtain would draw back and the baby would be rolled in. Instead each tug of the curtain only revealed someone else with questions or tests for me.

Soon the my bed was on the move. I was wheeled to our daughter's baby-warming bassinet in the NICU and able to hold her briefly.

It was then I knew I had made my third mistake

In the NICU's bright lights and beeping alarms, I realized that our baby wasn't the exceptional case- the miracle baby who would elude the NICU and an extended hospital stay despite a premature birth. She would not stay overnight in my hospital room. She would have to gain weight and learn to digest food before she could leave specialists' care.

Then, like some twisted Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I found my bed on the move again as I left our tiny baby in the care of others, well-trained strangers, but strangers none the less.

Yes three strikes right across the plate
And as I hollered honey please wait
She was gone

Hours turned to days as the baby and I struggled to normal functioning. I came home without her, and Jim and I worked to be at the hospital for most of her medical tests and waking time (8 feedings, 1 every 3 hours). She grew stronger, achieved milestones, and eventually was released into our care. Soon she was in our chaotic home meeting her siblings for the first time.

And that's when she knew
She had made her
First mistake.

Honey I don't know just what you heard
But come on baby
Are my favorite words
And where we're going
Is a long way from here


So like I said before
I could not have known
How this fairy tale would finally go

Still the only certain thing for sure
Is what I do not know

So like the years and all the seasons pass
And like the sand runs through the hour glass

I just keep on running faster
Chasing the happily
I am ever after


I just keep on running faster
Chasing the happily
I am ever after

*If you don't listen to Lyle Lovett, you should start immediately. And yes, Logan, I was thinking of Deer Creek when I wrote this.

**Thank you, Francie. Your willingness to jump in and help with only moment's notice is extraordinary in both kindness and logistics. You amaze me, friend.

***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing thoughts of two geek parents. We are all doing well (except for a lack of sleep) as we adjust to this new routine. Happy New Year, small print readers (you know we love you the most)!

Half the Weight, Twice the Adventure: Pregnacy Goes Preemie

2010-12-06T09:00:00.000-06:00

For months, I've been anticipating the announcement of Baby Toolkit's newest geek. It's been hard for me to keep quiet for months about our baby in development, especially as this pregnancy has been my most challenging. This may make my posts about specific foods a bit more understandable.

BabyGeek1.3 (yet to be nicknamed) conspired with my AMA (Advanced Maternal Aged) body for a Beta release. More clearly put, she was born prematurely at a 34 week gestational age. Her weight, slightly less than a little sack of sugar, is about half that of our older kids. The strong family resemblance makes her seem a miniature of Ranger and Scout as babies. Even at a tender young gestational age, our littlest girl exudes personality and family traits. When she puts on her Elvis lip and it transitions into a sly half-smile, the twisted Jones sense of humor seems strong in this one. She's also been driving a few of the NICU nurses crazy with her physical strength and persistent desire to kick off swaddling devices.

The health problems that precipitated her birth are resolving themselves quickly. Our little baby is growing leaps and bounds in NICU. Ranger and Scout look forward to meeting her in person.

In the crazy hours surrounding her birth I realized (with regret) that I have read almost nothing about pre-term babies. We have much to learn right now.

We proudly welcome this tenacious new member to our family.

~the Joneses

When Life Gives You Apples, Make Apple Cake (And Invite Me Over)

2010-10-01T12:30:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, Ranger talked us into buying an enormous bag of beautiful Granny Smith apples at a warehouse store. My kids love tart Granny Smiths more than any other apple, and I am to blame (either by nature or nurture) for this. There is nothing like the sharp snap of a tart slice of apple.

When I sliced the first apple from the bag and gave it to the kids, Ranger declared the apple sub-par. In his defense it lacked the crispness that characterizes Granny Smiths. I figured we could still make it through the bag; a green tart apple is a green tart apple, right? It turns out that Ranger has the dedicated tastebuds of a wine master.

Later I fed him a sliced Granny Smith from a local orchard. He loved it and asked for more, so I sliced an apple from the bag that I'd moved to the fridge the previous evening. He took two bites and pushed it away.

I gave the leftovers to Scout who played with them for about 15 minutes before asking for "an apple."

I sliced another chilled bag apple and put it on a new plate. She ate half a piece, shook her head, and asked for cheese.

Jim soon arrived home and helped me eat the two rejected apples. That only left a few more pounds in the pantry.

In subsequent weeks, I kept trying to pass off the apples as grocery store apples. To no avail.

Then I started looking for Granny Smith recipes.

Relish! had one for apple cake that looked straightforward and didn't require a special trip the grocery store. The heavenly autumn olfactory trifecta of cinnamon, cake, and baked apples now waft through the house.

Relish! Apple Cake

Prep: 30 minutes Bake: 50 minutes
Serves 12

3	cups all purpose flour
2	cups sugar
1	teaspoon baking soda
1	teaspoon salt
1	teaspoon cinnamon
2	large eggs , lightly beaten
1 1/4	cups canola oil, (or cooking oil)
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
3	Granny Smith apples , peeled and chopped
1	cup chopped walnuts, toasted

per serving: 317 calories; 3 grams protein; 18 grams total fat; 1 gram fiber; 2 gram saturated fat; 35 grams carbohydrates; 21 mgs cholesterol; 188 mgs sodium

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

[1] Grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set aside. In a very large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; make a well in center of dry mixture and set aside.

[2] In a medium bowl, combine eggs, oil and vanilla; stir in apples and nuts. Add egg mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened (batter will be thick). Spread batter in prepared pan.

[3] Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

The sweet cake bakes to form a crunchy top that yields to a soft crumbly interior. The texture and homey flavors of cinnamon-sweetened apples well suit this season of crisp leaves, pleasantly sharp breezes, and harvest flavors.

The commonplace ingredients, simple recipe, and exquisite results are typical of our cooking experiences with Relish!

This recipe was good enough to make me (momentarily) consider another mammoth bag of mediocre Grannies, but then I realized how wonderful it might be with fresh orchard apples. If you try it, let me know, or, even better, invite me over.

***Baby Toolkit is written by at least one geek parent with a serious sweet tooth and a love for fall foods. We are (paying) Relish! subscribers since October 2008 and credit the online menu planning service for most of the home cooking we accomplish. We have no ongoing financial relationship with Relish! We are however Amazon affiliates, so purchases made through our Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Baby Toolkit (many thanks!).

GenCon 2010: A family adventure

2010-09-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

Long before we started loading the car, I knew Ranger was eager for GenCon Indy. Last Halloween, when he first donned his Mario costume he said, "Let's go to the Costume Place [his name for GenCon]!" For the next 10 months, every time he saw his Mario costume I had to explain that GenCon only happened once a year and yes, we would pack his costume.

We worried about how Scout would tolerate the crowds this year. Last year, she rode in our awesome Kelty Town backpack where she napped a lot. She was not yet a walker, so her independent nature wasn't insulted by the continuous carrying. This year, she's a toddler who prefers running to walking and she only endures a stroller for short periods of time. The backpack offers her a better perspective, but we couldn't imagine her quietly napping between intervals of waving and people-watching like last year.

And her brother wanted her to dress as Luigi. I envisioned her felt mustache, hat, and overalls staying on for maybe 30 minutes before she demanded something more comfortable. After filling my bag with snacks, small games, and a girly sundress, I crossed my fingers that her upcoming meltdown wouldn't deafen too many innocent bystanders.

After the long drive to Indy, Ranger was so excited to change into his Mario costume. Scout was far less enthusiastic to change clothes. We had to park in a nearby mall parking garage and take skyways to the convention center. When we entered the elevator to enter the mall Luigi was whining in her stroller and Mario was bouncing off the walls. Then the elevator doors opened to a chorus of "awwwww" spouting bystanders and Jim and I magically transformed into celebrity handlers. We weren't 10 feet out of the elevator when the first person asked to take the kids' photo. The photographer was a mall shopper, not even a con-goer.

Scout has strong social instincts and relished the attention. Ranger can be shy, but as Mario he's unflappable. As we neared the convention center and met more costumed people, the kids filled with excitement. Their euphoria reminded me of childhood Halloweens and returning to summer camp.

Within our first hour at GenCon, Luigi was kidnapped by the World's Tallest Leprechaun. Her casual attitude about towering over all the people surprised us.

The kids got to meet icons of our childhood like Zelda's Link, Alice's Mad Hatter, and the Duck Hunt Dog (with Ratchet) .

They also picked up world-domination tips from the villainous, venomous Cobra Commander:

The next few days were a bit of blur. Jim and I stayed up way too late trying to solve Puzzle Hunt 9 the night after the family scoured the convention hall for all the clues. The kids insisted on wearing their Brothers Plumber costumes every day and relished all the smiles, waves, and high fives that resulted. Ranger climbed and bounced around LEGO Games' giant inflatable Ramses' Pyramid at every opportunity. We played demo games, tracked down some titles we've been looking for, and people watched.

We also ran from the Beholder, swam in the hotel pool a lot, spent time with old friends, and enjoyed being back in the Circle City for a couple days. The days were splendid and jam-packed. We all wanted it to last longer and are looking forward to next year.

Keep an eye out for upcoming reviews of the games Ranger and Jim played.

***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing saga of geeks with kids. We're Amazon affiliates, so a small portion of purchases made through Amazon links on the site does come back to us and we use it to pay for connectivity (thanks!).

Photos (all but Link): (c) babytoolkit.blogspot.com, 2010 all rights reserved. The Link photo is John Stanifer's (Link).

Joy on Ice: DIY Iced Chai Latte

2010-09-24T16:45:00.001-05:00

There's a reason Starbucks has a siren on their logo. Lately the call of iced chai lattes has been drawing me to the Seattle-borne shop. The night I found myself explaining to Jim that I either wanted the middle size if the menu board showed 3 sizes or the smallest size if the updated menu board had been put in place, I realized that I had spent too much time drinking the corporate Kool-Aid.

So here is the Jones' answer to the witches' brew.

Jones' Iced Chai Latte

4 c boiling water
4 spiced chai teabags (we used Trader Joe's because it was in the pantry, Starbucks uses Tazo)
1/4 c & 3 TBS sugar
4 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Boil water and brew teabags until you're pretty sure the resulting sludge is both bitter and repulsive. At any point you can add all the sugar to brewing tea (sorry it didn't come out to a normal cup measurement). Stir until the sugar dissolves. You can use a sugar substitute, but we're into extreme sucrose around here.

***IF YOU USE A GLASS PITCHER, please make sure that the tea has cooled before the next step. In childhood, Jim exploded a glass teapot making sweet iced tea. His mother still mourns the teapot.

Pour milk into a pitcher with the brewed, sweetened tea.

Stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Serve over ice. Makes 2 quarts (64 ounces). We have no idea how long it keeps because it only lasts about 24 hours here. Do not serve to toddlers unless you're willing to share most of your cup. In our small sample preschoolers seem entirely immune to its charm.

***Baby Toolkit is a random smattering of events told by geeks, full of words and lame jokes, signifying parenthood. We're Amazon affiliates, so please be duly warned (and thanked) that any purchases made through our links promote even more of this nonsense..

Super Mario on Icing: Our 3D, 2D, 32 bit Cake

2010-09-18T15:00:00.008-05:00

A week before Ranger's party, Jim revealed his plans to customize this year's bakery-made birthday cake. Similar to our 2008 cake, he wanted to use marshmallow fondant. Being Jim, he wanted to up the stakes and model 3-D figures of the Brothers Plumber franchise. Though I don't doubt his ability to create a magically delicious Mario et al, I did doubt our timeline. By my estimations we should have started this grand endeavor in March.

"You realize we now have two children, right?" While the last fondant exercise wasn't incredibly time consuming, we're now dealing with sibling and toddler chronologies. In our house it seems that the new timelines are something like this:

[normal task time requirement x children] + [3 hrs x toddlers] + [1.5 hrs x preschoolers] + [1 month x newborns] = time required for task (aka reason not to start in the first place)

Sensing my subtle skepticism, Jim downgraded his vision from a cartoon sugar biosphere to something he knew I couldn't resist. Paper. Actually few things appeal to a literature major like a pulp-dressed cake. We didn't want the paper to touch the cake, so Jim envisioned posting the flat laser-printer images on clear drinking straws where they could levitate above the surface. When none of our local groceries carried clear straws, we switched to bamboo skewers since we already had a giant package languishing in the cabinet (in case of future kebab crisis).

In printing Mario screenshots, Jim realized that the standard resolution required a lot of conversions to get a decent image. As we were working near a deadline, he started looking for screenshots taken from high resolution displays. We sat down the night before the party with a stack of cardstock images, scissors, skewers, and packaging tape to create the soon to be 3D scene.

Pipes in front are attached to cakeboard.

It was faster to cut the images we wanted from larger scenes by hand than on-screen. Jim laid all the cut outs on a coffee table marked to the width of the cake and cut the skewers to appropriate heights. We used clear packaging tape to secure the images to the skewers, and it worked fine in terms of adhesion. Jim used blue painter's tape the following day for the pipes in front of the cake and found it much easier to manipulate.

The next morning I picked up the giant cake. I must admit, there's a sick thrill to ordering a white cake with white frosting and white accents. People were quizzical at best. It was even better walking through the store having people come over to ogle the cake.

"Wow, what a lovel.... cake?" recuperative silence. "What's the occasion?"

I wanted to make up some answer involving minimalism, but I realize now that the funniest answer would have been the partial truth. In retrospect, "My son's fifth birthday!" is actually pretty hysterical. But I folded like a greeting card and explained that my husband had made cake toppers. Depending upon the age of the inquisitor, that response could also be met with looks of cold skepticism. Next year, I'm going for sheer enthusiasm "Isn't it marvelous?!"

A peek behind the cake.

Jim arranged the figures atop the cake. I snapped some quick blog photos before we wrote a birthday greeting to Ranger on the clouds, and I took a couple pictures of him with his cake. News of the cake drew a lot of guests to the kitchen for an early peek.

Skewers are arranged in layers from front to back to give a 3-dimensional effect.

When we brought out the cake after lunch (sans candles as Jim and I have never really mastered fire), the kids' faces lit up in recognition and the table was swarmed with small admirers. We gave a hip-hip-hooray style chant in place of the birthday song that Ranger despises (Jim believes this is due to restrictive copyright).

The cake was surprisingly easy to serve. While Jim pulled the skewers, I was able to start cutting. With no embellishments on the actual cake there were no request for specific pieces. The cake was served in record time, and Ranger got to bring Mario home (we're going to put some of the figures on magnet backing for him).

In Ranger's opinion (as well Jim's and mine), this is his best cake ever.

***Baby Toolkit is the confession of a couple of parent hackers who try to create magic with common household items. Our end results are bolstered by our children's imaginations (for which we are quite thankful). We're Amazon affiliates, so a portion of any purchases you make through our link (need skewers?) helps support our online endeavors (thank you!). Photos (c) babytoolkit.blogspot.com, 2010- all rights reserved.

Level Up and Get Down: Ranger's Mario Birthday

2010-09-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

For the past two years, we have violated most of the rules of kid party planning and hosted a big dance party/play time with lots of friends and their families for Ranger's birthday.

For the invitations we wanted to use a photo of Ranger as Mario. He's still so proud of his Halloween costume (especially after GenCon), and there is one photo he especially loves of his plumber alter-ego. Jim loves the photo because Mario happens to be punching the dragon from the first D&D set he ever owned. Once the photo was in place, the invitation pretty much wrote itself.

As in past years, we requested guests not bring presents. We view the party as a present in itself, and we like to enjoy friends' company without obligating them to buy something. The only hiccup we encountered was that Ranger can now read the invitations. He had two separate tantrums before I reminded him that a few special people (relatives and close adult friends) always give him gifts on the day of his party. He also gets gifts from grandparents, godparents, and parents for his birthday (which usually is not the actual day of his party). The reassurance that he would have at least one special surprise was enough to meet his desires.


foam medal name tag & posterboard crown

Jim and I busied ourselves making posterboard crowns, foam medallion name tags (like Mario Olympics), and looking for activities that work with an audience ranging from age 1 to 9.

We stuck with some old standby activities like building with milk-carton building blocks then knocking the structures down with homemade beanbags (tutorial coming soon*) to coloring paper crowns to dancing to a mix of Ranger's favorite tunes from the past year (another future post).

Inspired by a great event at Ranger's old preschool, Jim wanted to add balloon volleyball. We didn't locate a suitable badminton/volleyball net, and it looked like we were out of luck. My mom suggested we use a section of baby gate on the floor in place of an elevated net and that worked well with our mostly preschool crowd.

We had also planned a game where every kid got a balloon and tried to see how long they could keep it off the floor without catching it. I don't recall if Jim actually started this game, but it turned into a really beautiful half an hour of really serene, but active playtime. Every kid focused on their balloon and keeping it up in the air as long as possible. Even with frenetic dance music in the background, the slow transit of the balloons offered a dreamlike quality. For me, this semi-hypnotic revelry was the best part of the whole party. I reluctantly called the kids out of the gym to make their own pizzas.

This was our second year of DIY pizza making. Instead of spending hours on homemade crusts this year, we bought soft pita bread from our favorite falafel place. We gave the kids paper boats of cheese and other toppings and had an adult sauce the crusts according to each child's preference. Each pizza was on its own sheet of parchment so we wrote the creator's name on a corner and sent them in batches through the church's convection oven. When all the pizzas were done, we served them all at once so no kid worried that his pizza was lost or forgotten.

For the adults we had easy prep buffet foods like lasagna and Caesar salad. Friends also pitched in some wonderful additions like a fruit tray and pasta salad.

Then came the cake...
(Stay tuned. Jim really outdid himself.)

*I mistakenly thought I'd posted this tutorial YEARS ago. Once I find the photos, this one will be posted.

***Baby Toolkit is the pell-mell, helter-skelter, and harum-scarum philosophizing of Midwestern geek parents with a bent for verbosity. We are indeed Amazon affiliates, so a portion of any purchases made through our Amazon links supports our site (thank you!). Photos (c) babytoolkit.blogspot.com, 2010, all rights reserved.

All Is Quiet On The Blogging Front

2010-09-15T22:00:00.001-05:00


Mario meets the Mad Hatter

Just in case you were worrying: We didn't slip down any rabbit holes during GenCon Indy nor were we abducted by legions of stormtroopers.

Why the recent radio silence, you ask?

As bloggers, Jim and I have tried to keep a separation between parts of our lives (especially in respecting the privacy of those close to us) and what we post. This summer, that undisclosed part of our lives has been a series of challenges and revelations. My mind became a contemplative space. As a result, I kept writing posts about our normal content that felt formulaic, cheesy, or out of touch. In my opinion, those writings simply were not worth posting. Even our 4th blogaversary passed unmentioned.

Recently Baby Toolkit's siren's song has returned to my ears. This summer Jim and I have found a host of things we want to write about. I really want to tell you about Ranger's birthday cake and let you peek into our geeks' eye view of GenCon. This has been a banner year for new books and games as publishers put out some surprisingly wonderful new products for preschoolers. I'm reading a book on baby cognitive development that is fresh and inspiring even for a seasoned parent. A new compilation album is rocking our world. We also have some new projects and household solutions.

Thank you for subscribing and sticking with us through the quiet times. Your good faith is strong motivation to return to the keyboard.

***Baby Toolkit is two geeks' tale of parenting young children in a complicated and ever-fascinating world. We send our best wishes to others currently battling the dragons of offline life.

Getting Our Geeks Packed: GenCon Indy '10

2010-08-04T09:38:00.003-05:00

Today many bloggers with ovaries are packing their bags for a huge national conference. So am I (or at least I will be as soon as I finish this post).

While they're probably looking for their cutest shoes and hip new laptop bags, I'm packing up little capes, felt mustaches, and two pint-sized Brothers Plumber ensembles.

Tomorrow, in Indianapolis, geek vacation officially begins with the opening of GenCon Indy '10. GenCon is a ridiculously fun annual celebration of (mostly) off-line gaming (board games, strategy games, card games, miniature games, role playing games, and live action role playing games).

Popular (non-geek) mythology would claim that this is the time when lonely pallid beings crawl out of their parents' basements to commune with other nihilistic slackers over tables full of multi-sided dice, pizza, Doritos, and Red Bull (Jolt or Yoo-Hoo for the old-school storytellers). This hokey tale is far less intriguing than the truth.

GenCon Indy is a gathering of very smart people with humor and imagination. If your brilliant tech geek is on vacation until next week, chances are good that she is wrapping her mind around some fun challenges while cracking jokes with other quick thinkers. It's not fair though to portray GenCon as a science, engineering, and tech party (though I'm sure one can get good advice on optimizing a laptop or building a laser-based game in any food line), geeks come in all flavors- history, literature, and art geeks abound. I suspect that my summer reading about Georgian England and the creation of the first wide-scale municipal sewer system may come in handy.

GenCon gamers tend to be pretty community oriented in their day-to-day lives. These are the people who have regular parties, volunteer in their communities, and hold the elevator for strangers. The GenCon staff and community are extremely kind to children and their parents, probably because GenCon folks retain more joy and imagination than typical adults.

The come-as-you-are spirit of the convention is really refreshing. I'm pretty sure that I won't overhear any GenCon attendee asking "Does this make me look fat?" because there's just not enough time for that sort of insecure myopia.

Most of the Jones family is pretty excited to return to GenCon (at 21 months, Scout has no recollection of last year). Yesterday Ranger refused to get out of the car when we returned home:

"Buddy, it's too hot to stay in the garage."

"Just get my Mario costume, and we can go to GenCon now."

I had to laugh. And no, he's not still strapped into his car seat.

~~I am~~ Jim is chomping at the bit to ~~stalk~~ talk with our game designer heroes, and we're both anxious to get some play time on new games and old favorites.

If I don't start packing soon, we will never get to Indy.

***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing saga of a geek family exploring the world. Though posts may appear in the meantime, we will be on vacation until next week. We are Amazon affiliates, so if you shop through an Amazon link through our site, a small portion of the purchase price goes towards paying a portion of our connectivity costs. Thanks.

Fearsome Fireworks: Drowning Out the Noise

2010-07-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

As we get near the Fourth, Jim and I are planning for another bang-up holiday with two kids who dislike fireworks sounds.

We are packing up the hearing protection earmuffs for the Fourth of July party surrounded by highly munitioned kamikaze teens (and adults). We'll cut out before the real boomers are unleashed.

Then the Jones domicile will rock with crazy loud music until some little people have danced themselves into a stupor.

***Baby Toolkit is the irregularly updated chronicle of citizen geeks who are trying to raise the next generation of Americans with apple pie, multi-tools, and not too much screaming.

The Red Book: Instant Adventure, Just Add Words

2010-07-02T16:00:00.001-05:00

Over a year ago, when we asked Ranger about his morning at preschool, we had a hard time getting a clear response. His responses to any open-ended questions (like "What did you see at the zoo?") came out of left field, and didn't really answer the questions. Often, he'd prefer to discuss something currently happening or something he wanted to do in the future.

Storytelling was clearly not one of his interest areas. The resulting vagueness caused a lot of misunderstandings, and I was frustrated that he seemed disinterested in telling me about his experiences.

In the Spring last year, illustrator Barbara Lehman's wordless story The Red Book was featured in Ranger's Scholastic flier. Intrigued by the cute book's mysterious story, I added a copy to our order.

The first naptime we settled in to read it, I asked Ranger questions about what he saw on each page and what he thought was happening. Each vibrant page offers a lot of things to observe and describe, and the cumulative story is both magical and clearly understood by an older toddler.

The Red Book is a sweet adventure story about a new friendship where the narrative is told through sequential images that the reader can explore and interpret. Lehman's nonverbal storytelling encompasses enough mystery and magic that the events mandate explanation with each new discovery.

Ranger really liked telling me the story of a child who finds a red book in a snow drift and the ensuing events. He empathized when one of the main characters became afraid and celebrated when everything worked out in the end.

At naptime and bedtime, Ranger only wanted to read us The Red Book. His storytelling got better and better, and we all found new information in the images to make the story richer and more interesting.

A month or two later, I bought all of Barbara Lehman's other wordless books: Rainstorm, Trainstop, and The Museum Trip.
Each of her stories centers around brave discovery by a curious, courageous, and independent child. This is a great message for children finding their wings as new readers and storytellers.

These are great books to get your kids talking and reading. The Red Book and Trainstop each tell the story of a girl while Rainstorm and The Museum Trip have boy primary characters. While the gender of the protagonist seems to have no influence on Ranger's enjoyment of a book, I like that Lehman varies boy and girl heroes in her adventures.

Ranger's storytelling reluctance receded as he practiced daily with Lehman's books.

These wonderful stories opened some important new avenues of communication for our family.

A visiting friend's observation on Ranger's relationship with these books matched our own perceptions.

Right now Amazon has The Red Book marked down to $9.32 (hardcover or Kindle edition) and a bargain paperback edition of The Museum Book for only $5.78.

If you have a pre-reader chomping at the bit or a reluctant storyteller, definitely check out Barbara Lehman's picture books at your local library.

Which kids' books helped your family?

***Baby Toolkit is a collection of dispatches from some bibliophilic geeks with young children. While we love to curl up with a good book, we recognize that a lot of kids' books are dreadful. We also confess that there are a handful of books shoved under our heavy sofa so we never have to read them aloud again. We have no fiscal relationship with Barbara Lehman or her publishers. DISCLOSURE: Amazon associations we are, so a small portion of sales through our Amazon links comes back to Baby Toolkit and pays for our internet connectivity (thanks!).

House of Shade and Water: Screen House as a Pool Shelter

2010-06-30T16:20:00.000-05:00

Summer is here, and it is a scorcher. Ranger and Scout (the toddler formerly known as the Raptor) want to be romping outside, while I am driven to stay in the shade.

Our backyard gets full sun most of the afternoon, so I've been reluctant to put out the wading pool and endure the relentless sunshine while the kids slowly boil in the pool.

In a recent bout of cleaning, I rediscovered a SwissGear Screen House we bought two years ago for $20 (as opposed to its MSRP of $130) and promptly gave a few cubic feet of our garage.

My clever friend mentioned putting a canopy tent over her kids' pool, so I decided our screen house might provide an oasis of shade.

The tent itself was a snap to set up with two adults (though it had been a laughable fail with our earlier toddler, preschooler, and one adult construction team).

The screen house not only offers shade and limits bug exposure, it also keeps the beach balls from getting away.

Though I think we may now need a bigger pool.

What summer solutions are lurking in your garage?

***Baby Toolkit is the unsolicited opinion of a couple pasty (rumored to be cave-dwelling) geek parents with boisterous, outdoorsy kids. We have no fiscal relationship with SwissGear, but we are Amazon affiliates, so if you make purchases through our Amazon links a small portion of the proceeds power our family's secret Large Hadron Collider. Okay, they just help pay our monthly Internet bill, but maybe someday...

A Motherblogger's Make-over: Improving Moms Without Plastic Surgery

2010-06-16T12:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got PR spam selling the virtues of "Mommy Makeover" plastic surgery.

Some PR agency thought that I as a woman with children and a blogger (let's be candid, I'm more of a motherblogger than a sweetie mommy blogger), that I would freely endorse helping mothers

"become a more improved version of themselves"

through the miracles of a tummy tuck, breast augmentation, breast lift, and liposuction.

I don't even wear makeup. Ever. The last time I used my blowdryer was to speed-dry a painted name banner two years ago, and the time before that was to de-ice my car's lock in 2003.

Through advertising and marketing, girls are taught from a tender young age that they are not good enough without flawless physical beauty. It's disturbing.

As women we are continuously taught to hate almost every aspect of the bodies that carry us through life despite those machines' amazing reliability and beauty of design. When we dislike our physical beings because we don't match impossible standards of appearance, we waste our lives.

During a recent workout, I was so impressed at the weight more experienced members of the class could manage. As I watched us all in the mirror, they reminded me that each effort, every lift, made me stronger. When class ended, the same women passed behind my locker discussing how they hated the classroom's mirrored wall and how they spent most of their time focusing on their bodies' faults. When such strong and beautiful young women obsess over imagined (or minuscule) defects in themselves, it brings everyone down.

For ourselves and for our daughters, I do want moms to become more improved versions of themselves: Please take a week and contemplate what your body does well.

I am glad I can lift my children and other heavy objects. I rejoice in my ability to see and read. My hands move across the keyboard with a speed and accuracy that surprises me. I can laugh until my ribs hurt. I can climb up a hill or a playground slide. Though I can't go as far on one breath, I can still glide under the water for a surprisingly long time. When I smile, people tend to smile back.

This body is more than a casual transport for my brain, and it can do things now that it may not be able to do in 10 years. Today offers me the gift of an able body, and I can revel in that miracle.

What do you like about yourself?

For an engaging documentary on American culture and female body image check out America the Beautiful (also on Netflix live streaming).

***Baby Toolkit is the mostly unsolicited opinion of a geek family. These are not the Joneses that everyone is trying to keep up with. We are Amazon affiliates so a portion of purchases made through our Amazon links defray the costs of the growing empire that is Baby Toolkit. We have no fiscal relationship with the movie America the Beautiful or its partners.

My Bad Romance: Facebook

2010-06-08T11:11:00.001-05:00

Hey.

When we met I thought we might be friends, but time has taught me that you cannot be trusted to respect my confidences. And more than that, I'm tired of our ever changing relationship. This perpetual Easter egg hunt for snippets of actual content gets caught up in the general gossip of other people's lives (what groups they're joining and who is invited to what party). Time spent with you just feels too much like high school.

Sure, I'm thankful that you've reunited me with a few dear friends, but I just cannot take your incessant chatter. I especially hate that you may be selling me out while you're wasting my time.

So, Facebook, this means delete not deactivate. If you find anything that belongs to me, just throw it out. I hope you will forget we ever met.

Adrienne

Captivity: A Haunting Hoax

2010-06-04T13:16:00.003-05:00

...the strange, true tale of the Fox Sisters, the enigmatic family of young women who, in upstate New York in 1848, proclaimed that they could converse with the dead.

These words in the publisher's book jacket description of Deborah Noyes' Captivity set my geek heart all aflutter. Those interested in American literature, social history, religious history, magic (top hats and card tricks variety), hoaxes, and/or marketing usually have a passing acquaintance with those wily Fox Sisters who opened the floodgates of the American imagination to "the other side."

The chance to "meet" them through a well-researched novelization was a bit of time travel I could not resist. I also wondered if the author, like so many of their contemporaries, would be able to resist their siren song? The centrality of the Fox Sisters suggested to me that the tale would either thrive on intrigue or belly-flop into a quagmire of hokum.

I contacted publisher Unbridled Books for a review copy, and I am pleased to tell you that Captivity offers hours of immersive reading. This is a great summer read and a vacation unto itself (no beach required).

Noyes' story of a famous hoax ends up investigating the real things that haunt us. This ghost story for skeptics includes mysterious happenings (not of the supernatural variety) that keep pages flying (as if under their own power!) until the very last page.

Captivity transforms history into warm-blooded fiction and marries it to historical fiction of the same era. Readers who liked The Devil in the White City or The Thirteenth Tale will find themselves quickly caught up in the world of the Fox Sisters and (fictional) zoological artist Clara Gill.

Captivity's great pace, interesting characters, and a potent combination of history and fiction make this book a Baby Toolkit top summer reading recommendation.

You can see other books we've been reading, loving, criticizing, contemplating reading, and condemning to the dustbin (library donation box) at Goodreads.

Captivity is available in hardback ($25.95, currently ~$19 at Amazon).

What are you reading?

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of two geek parents. We're preparing for a great summer vacation by getting a jump start on some gripping fiction. DISCLOSURE: We received a review copy of Captivity from Unbridled Press. We have no fiscal relationship with Deborah Noyes or Unbridled Press. We are Amazon associates, so a portion of the proceeds from sales through our Amazon links pay for our internet connection (thanks, Amazon shoppers!).

Honoring Veterans on Memorial Day: John Reyes' Amazing Bike Ride

2010-05-30T17:24:00.000-05:00

Things at Baby Toolkit headquarters have been pretty tough for the last few weeks. Our close relative (a mother of young children) had a massive stroke the day before Mother's Day and has not yet regained consciousness.

This is why Jim and I did not stalk our new hero, John Reyes, when he rode through our region last weekend on his multi-month bicycle journey to raise funds, awareness, and friends for Fisher House.

Fisher House is a great organization to remember this Memorial Day weekend. Fisher Houses are much like Ronald McDonald Houses, but they serve the families of wounded soldiers receiving treatment at military hospitals. Families of wounded soldiers can stay free while they visit and support their injured loved ones.

This is an important cause we can all assist this holiday weekend.

I'd never heard of Fisher House before last month. Soldiers' Angels (earlier: Project Awesome 2010: Like Charlie's Angels With Yarn) sent an email about John Reyes and his incredible journey.

The Friday before Mother's Day, John Reyes departed from his hometown of San Antonio, Texas on a bicycle trip that will eventually take him through Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. That's 20 states and a district.

This self-described "comic book nerd" will be riding through the hot months of May, June, and July in some of the nation's muggiest weather. Just reading his written itinerary is exhausting.

And he's doing this for other people, people who willingly serve us all- sometimes at great personal costs.

His fundraising target is $5000 for the trip, and he's currently at $1,220.

Please donate generously this Memorial Day weekend to John's Team Fisher campaign.

Bloggers, please offer John some publicity this patriotic weekend, July 4th, or when he rides through your area. Tell your friends about him on Facebook and Twitter.

Please check his itinerary to see if he'll be in your area. If he will be, can you send a message to local media outlets? Publicity for John's trip is also excellent publicity for Fisher House Foundation.

We're inspired by John's generous efforts and are quite sorry we couldn't meet him when he came through our area. Maybe you can say "hello" for us if he ends up in your neck of the woods (and offer him a cool drink or an evening meal).

Even if you are nowhere near his route, you can follow his Bostonandbackride blog, watch his YouTube vlogs, and follow his progrees on Twitter (@bostonandback). You can also see some of his photos along the way on Flickr.

Enjoy a few moments of his ride...

Safe journeys, John!

Thank you to all those who give and have given to our nation through national service!

***Baby Toolkit is a couple of geek parents who think John Reyes is supercool for his compassion, generosity, hard work, and bicycle skills. We don't know him personally. We wish him safe travels and wildly successful fundraising.

A Pessimist reads Raising Happiness

2010-05-24T11:30:00.004-05:00

Even as a small child, I usually worried that things would go wrong. Almost every positive future scenario was met with scrutiny: "What if it rains that day?" "What if the car won't start?"

Even this blog springs from my basic assumption that life demand scrutiny and preparation.

In retrospect, I think I wanted insurance against life's disappointments. Decades later, a tornado taught me that being able to protect a placid life is unrealistic and even actual insurance can leave one disappointed and adrift.

Our son's earliest months paralleled some of my most insecure and anxious times, so his tendency toward panic comes as little surprise. I feel tremendous sadness when I see his disproportionate reactions to disappointment or injury.

Because I believe some of his poor reactions are learned from my example, it isn't hard to believe that (with mindful parenting) better reactions can be taught. But how can I, a pessimist, teach my children skills I never really acquired?

Through a friend's reference to a popular happiness book for adults, I stumbled upon a listing for Christine Carter's Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents.

At the time, the book was in pre-release, so I wrote the publishers (Ballantine Books) to request a review copy. Still feeling a reader's high from NutureShock, I allowed myself to hope that a parenting book could be more than a pile of recycled "conventional wisdom" and unfounded opinion. I especially liked the author's training, scientific interest and work in the field of emotional health (unlike similar parenting self-help authored by pediatricians, religious leaders and other peripheral "experts" on children and families).

I had expectations that the book would read like two other sociologist's texts that the touched on happiness and attitude (Stumbling on Happiness and Outliers). These books focused on the outcomes of attitude more than their development. They are reader-friendly assemblies of contemporary research. I looked for this book to be NurtureShock focusing solely on happiness issues. Which it wasn't.

It was much, much more.

Reading the introduction I took some notes that I keep by my bed and now glance at most mornings. Carter's concept of happiness is much more than the temporal mood I previously associated with the word. Additional facets like positive emotions about the past (gratitude, forgiveness, and appreciation), future emotions (optimism, faith, and confidence), and daily actions (love, kindness, and empathy) expanded my definition. My concept of happiness was binary (present or not present), it had no origins or supporting characteristics. I viewed joy as environmental and capricious (somewhat like the weather) rather than something cultivated by daily actions and patterns of small decisions.

Quoting Indian social worker and activist Baba Amte, Dr. Carter reminds "Happiness is a continuous creative activity." This idea would be my 6-word summary of the book's thesis, yet that is like calling Moby Dick "a book about a whale."

When I started the first chapter, the author's conversational style engaged me. The text exudes confidence and authority. However it didn't include the research citations that I am accustomed to in my favorite social science books. My stomach twisted, and I thought this promising book had degraded into a from-the-hip opinion on parenting. With nary a reference or footnote in sight, I told Jim that the book might be unfounded opinion.

I flipped toward the back expecting only an index, but found over twenty pages of detailed annotations (179 in total) and fifteen pages of bibliography all in a truly tiny print (I suspect they would occupy double the pages if printed in the same font as the text). Throughout the book, Carter is continuously engaging cognitive and behavioral science research, but the editorial approach is to keep that academic engagement from cluttering the basic recommendations.

Raising Happiness, though a book about children, took me on a journey of self-assessment. Like the first chapter "Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First" suggests, I realized I am no help to my children in developing skills that I do not understand. Much of the book made me consider my own approach to the world rather than the attitudes of my children. I guess most good parenting books could be defined as offering transformation to the reader first, then secondary effects for their children.

Each chapter covers one of Carter's recommendations:

Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First
Build A Village
Expect Effort and Enjoyment, Not Perfection
Choose Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Optimism
Raise Their Emotional Intelligence
Form Happiness Habits
Teach Self-Discipline
Enjoy the Present Moment
Rig Their Environment for Happiness
Eat Dinner Together

While some of the recommendations might sound familiar (to the point of being trite), the book is a surprisingly good instructor on practical incremental steps to enacting difficult change. Chapter Four's subsection Practicing the Skills We Need for Forgiveness, Carter draws on the work of Stanford Forgiveness Project researcher Fred Luskin. She clearly translates Luskin's program into 6 steps to use with kids. As a person who sometimes nurtures grudges, I need the careful guidance of someone who understands how to forgive in a way that is beneficial to all parties.

For example:

Step 4 -Teach kids that they suffer when they demand things that life is not going to give them. They can hope for things, of course, and they can work hard to get what they want. But they cannot force things to happen that are outside of their control. When we expect something outside of our control and it doesn't happen, we feel hurt and wronged. Help kids practice letting go of the desire for things that they have no influence over, and redirect their energies toward things they do have control over.

Working as a college advisor, I regularly saw students dealing with uncontrollable forces. The students most likely to prevail were the ones who focused on the next step rather than ruminating over disappointments.

Jim is currently reading Raising Happiness, and it's really interesting to see him adopting some of the techniques with our kids. I did the same thing when I was reading the book, but it's really illuminating to see the process as an outsider. Tantrums have been a major issue with our preschooler. With so many strong-willed people living in the same family, it's not surprising that our ideas come into conflict. Jim and I have been frustrated by our inability to quell tantrums through constructive means. We don't ever submit to the demands and often issued punishments, but the outbursts just didn't stop. Jim has recently begun acknowledging our child's emotions at the beginning of conflict. He empathizes with the child's feelings without condoning the emerging behavior. This usually yields immediate positive results. In our case, I think our child needs to know that we understand his position even if we don't agree with it. When we simply addressed the inappropriate behavior without any acknowledgment, he would ratchet up his intensity so that we might hear his side. He didn't understand that his message simply became noise (irritating noise) when he screamed unintelligibly (and why should he understand that with only a few years of linguistic experience)? The act of empathizing makes me try to re-evaluate the situation, and it often softens my initial appraisal. This single simple change in our behavior hasn't completely ended all outbursts, but it has shortened their duration greatly and has improved our overall communications as a family.

So many of the small steps in this book resonated and brought to mind people who I admire for their personal and professional successes. Each individual recommendation matched my experience and observations, but I was previously unable to assemble all those random parts into an organized and interpretable whole.

The book is so rich with ideas and suggestions that it lends itself to rereading at different ages and stages. What leaps out to me today overshadows future areas of interest. Once I have engaged the content that resonates with me now, I plan to return to the book to consider additional aspects and approaches.

Raising Happiness is a must read (and currently $16.32 at Amazon.com). And once you've read it, it will probably turn into a permanent addition to your home reference library.

Carter's excellent blog, Half Full, welcomes readers into an ongoing conversation.

***Baby Toolkit loves to read and rarely finds a parenting book we like so much as Raising Happiness. We have no financial relationship with Christine Carter nor her publisher Ballantine Books. We requested and received an advance copy of Raising Happiness ($24). A portion of the purchases made through our Amazon links helps fund Baby Toolkit's ongoing operating costs (thank you!).

Don't Miss The Horse Boy Tonight on PBS' Independent Lens

2010-05-11T14:55:00.003-05:00

Tonight on PBS, Independent Lens will feature The Horse Boy.

This documentary chronicles a family's journey to Mongolia for shamanic treatment for their son Rowan's autism.

The family's unorthodox approach to addressing their son's needs seems like a recipe for greater turmoil, but during their journey across Mongolia on horse back things begin to change.

The documentary portrays a personal solution for a family in crisis. It isn't a one-size-fits-all recommendation that Shamanic horse tours of Mongolia will cure autism. Instead, the film shows layers of parental expectation, self-recrimination, and concerns about social perception falling away. During this process, these parents can more clearly see their child and their own needs and desires.

The Horse Boy tells a complex story of quiet change and the remarkable gifts of intentional living.

The movie leaves me hungry for quiet engagement with my own family. I hope you will watch it tonight on PBS. It's also currently available on Netflix's live streaming and Amazon. Jim and I both have much more to say about it after it has aired, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

***Baby Toolkit isn't buying tickets to Mongolia any time soon, but these geek parents could certainly use a large dose of quiet perspective. Disclaimers: PBS sent us a free burned DVD of The Horse Boy for this review. We are not affiliated with PBS or the makers of this film. We are Amazon affiliates, so a portion of any purchases made through our links helps us get one step closer to our own corporate ~~jet~~ kick scooter.

Tempus Fugit: Hug Your Kids Tonight

2010-05-10T20:10:00.003-05:00

The best news I've had today is that our family member cried when she heard her toddler on the phone.

This mom isn't conscious. She hasn't been since Saturday when she had a stroke, but her eyes filled with tears when her daughter spoke to her today.

We don't really know what the future holds- for her or for any of us.

She's younger than me. None of us expected a health crisis like this.

Too often I delay interactions with my kids. This horror serves a stark reminder that relationships (especially with children) cannot wait.

Play a board game. Listen to a story. Take a walk around the block. Dance in the living room. Hug. Joke.

And please stop smoking.

Smoking greatly increases the risk of stroke (and embolism) in young women. Combined with birth control or other hormones it can be deadly. A little over a decade ago, we lost a beautiful friend in her mid-twenties to a pulmonary embolism resulting from an otherwise minor injury.

With the wrong genetics, smoking can magnify an inherited clotting risk enormously.

If you love a parent who smokes, please support them in quitting for their kids. The catastrophic effects of a stroke can be far more sudden and traumatic than we think- especially in young women.

If you pray, please keep this young mom and her family in your prayers. She's scheduled for surgery in the morning, and we would all be so overjoyed if she would just wake up.

***Baby Toolkit doesn't want other families to go through this sadness and anxiety. We usually discuss geek parenting.

Food for thought: Sunshine chronicles one family's intergerational story of motherhood

2010-04-29T18:00:00.001-05:00

One college summer in the 90s (when we lived in different cities), Jim and I swore off television. It was too easy to fall into a cavern of sitcoms when working 40+ hours a week in the fast food industry. The safety valve for our media-obsessed hearts was an exception for PBS. At the time we made the agreement, the PBS clause felt like agreeing that we could eat our fill of baby carrots: wholesome and oppressively dull.

While the agreement ended up dramatically reducing our overall television time and cultivating a load of in-jokes about Jack Horkheimer's trippy astronomy program, it also gave us hours of engaging conversation about great documentaries.

In my opinion, PBS has only improved since the 90s. Nova's episode on cuttlefish introduced me to the geek of the seas. I now admire the clever little cephalopod despite my general repulsion for mollusks. A documentary on the last day of Herculeaneum (the town smothered by Versuvius' explosion) started an important internal dialog regarding fear, disaster, and extinction.

PBS consistently shows me unusual perspectives that spur different considerations of the universe. Independent Lens is a household favorite because we live over 2 hours from any independent cinemas that show documentaries. Every Tuesday offers the opportunity of seeing an independent filmmaker chronicle some aspect of human life.

On Tuesday, May 4th (check your local listings) Karen Skloss' autobiographical Sunshine chronicles two women who find themselves unmarried and pregnant during college. One, a young woman in the 1970s (and not incidentally, Skloss' birth mother), does not tell her parents, moves to a home for unwed mothers, and gives the baby (Skloss) up for adoption. The second woman (filmmaker Skloss) chooses, in the 90s, to raise her child as a single parent sharing responsibilities with the father.

The contrast between the mothers' choices and experiences is engaging, but (for me) the incredible social change regarding unwed/single motherhood in just one generation is astounding.

At one point Skloss and her birth mother visit the now deserted home for unwed mothers. A former staff member guides them and comments that although there are still young pregnant women, the home became obsolete and was replaced with service centers. They ponder when and how mores shifted to bring single motherhood out of quiet cloisters and into the mainstream.

Community ends up taking a central role in the film. Skloss' Catholic parents love and support their daughter and granddaughter despite ideological differences regarding her single motherhood. The father of Skloss' daughter articulately compares single fatherhood to single motherhood. Skloss' birth mother, aunt, and grandfather open their lives to Skloss and her cameras. The viewer sees the community that supported the birth mother's decision to give up her child, the community that supports Skloss in keeping her child, and the present day community of the birth mother.

For all the single mother is discussed in the news, the conversation rarely transcends stereotypes and statistics. Sunshine offers a personal perspective that illuminates a cultural need to talk more effectively about parenting without partners.

When I read the excellent Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads, Wiseman's observation that the single mom is the most likely target for exclusion in a parent community surprised me. It makes sense though that we may struggle with people whose position we cannot easily articulate. And while we have brought unwed mothers into the light redefined as single mothers, social structure hasn't made many accommodations.

The film spurred some household discussions about current attitudes toward domestic adoption. At times, the film presents the idea of parents giving up unplanned children as antiquated. Maybe domestic adoption fell out of practice after the highly publicized adoption reversals of the 1990s, but (as the great-grandchild of an adopted son) I truly hope adoption remains a viable choice today.

Watch the show next Tuesday and let us know what you think.

***Baby Toolkit is the hobby blog of geek parents who would otherwise squander their time watching television and boring their family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers with all its incredible content. Instead we now pester you with it. DICLOSURE: PBS' Independent Lens sent us a preview disc so we could watch Sunshine in advance (rather than saying "hey, did you catch that great show in May?" sometime around August). Being on Independent Lens' advance viewer list makes us very happy, but probably has minimal cash value. We received a burned DVD and a brochure (total value: $3 with a huge side of happiness). We are also Amazon affiliates, so if you buy through our links (thank you!) a portion of your purchase goes to power the syndicate that is Baby Toolkit.

Hey, you guys! Baby Toolkit is no longer grounded

2010-04-26T18:37:00.001-05:00

I should explain our recent radio silence. For months, I have owed a car seat and stroller review to our friends at ZRecs. In March, I decided to ground myself from Baby Toolkit until I handed in my homework.

This weekend I completed the review. It's mammoth. It has videos.

In other news, I've been exploring the outside world. Through happy circumstance I stumbled into a really motivating exercise class.

Friends have visited, games have been played, books have been read, movies have been watched, gadgets have been utilized, problems have been hacked, and lots of food has been eaten.

One nice thing about time in the outside world is that it gives us a lot of inspiration for blogging.

Hang onto your hats, people! We may start posting with intensity. Once, maybe even twice a week.

So what have you been up to?

P.S. We also redecorated the blog, so if you feedreader folks want to stop by and tell us how much you miss the old 565 Blogger template, we're happy to hear your thoughts.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of some slackers who periodically write about geek parenting.

Listen-Along Storybook contest ends tonight!

2010-03-17T12:36:00.005-05:00

Have you entered our contest to win all 8 books currently featured at listenalongstorybook.com? It ends at midnight tonight (CDT).

[Contest has ended.]

And find more great contests at Prizey.net.

Write a Letter Right Now: The Blessing of Paper Correspondence

2010-03-12T13:19:00.009-06:00

Around two weeks ago, I got a surprise package in the mail. The sender included many thoughtful gifts for our family, but I most loved the enclosed letter from my friend.

Her handwriting, humor, and forthright personality reminded me that despite substantial distance and the passage of time, my friend and I still exist in each other's daily lives. Small actions (like the habit of tearing plastic windows out of envelopes before recycling), gestures, and environmental cues (book titles, dog breeds, places) offer me perpetual reminders of people I don't see as often as I would like.

I encourage you to pick up a pen and drop a line to someone who might enjoy hearing from you.

When I wrote my friend back by hand, it was a real shift from typing at my keyboard. I banned myself from looking up anything online during the duration of the letter (book titles were the true agony). It was strange to commit ideas to the page, and I found myself working more deliberately. The easy pace and ability to commit myself wholly to the letter was relaxing and joyful. Ranger and I added a few thumbprint embellishments a la Ed Emberley and I even doodled an ocean scene on the back of the envelope. It was the most luxurious way I have passed an hour in months. My life felt so much less harried because I had the available time to put pen to paper.

I mailed her letter a week ago. Yesterday, in a modern postal miracle, there were three handwritten pieces of mail for me. With the gladness of those special notes, I sat down last night and penned a letter to someone who can makes me laugh so hard my ribs hurt. Knowing my friend's insanely busy life, I don't expect a reply. I want her to know that I miss her and she still makes me smile all the time.

This could turn out to be addictive.

Who could you write today?

***Baby Toolkit is the sometimes slapdash answer to what happens when a couple of tragically unhip geeks have kids. We are Amazon affiliates, so a small portion of purchases through our Amazon links does power the Baby Toolkit industrial complex (domain names and DSL service).

Potty Positivity: Even Firefighters Go to the Potty

2010-03-11T06:30:00.002-06:00

When I asked my friends how they potty trained their kids, more than one responded that her child wanted to be like their older underpants-wearing friends.

Peer pressure seems to hold some sway with young kids. While underpants may motivate the fashionable, how can parents with fashion-indifferent kids make the move out of diapers more alluring?

Wendy Wax and her sister Naomi Wax offer an ingenious lift-a-flap book that makes kids proud to potty.

Even Firefighters Go To The Potty observes that all kinds of people answer Nature's call. Through Stephen Gilpin's colorful and funny illustrations readers wonder where important figures (a police officer, a doctor, a baseball player, a *gasp* waiter, a train engineer, and an astronaut- among others) have gone.

The child can lift a door shaped flap on the page to reveal the missing cool person in the bathroom. The modest pictures keep everything G-rated while still showing urinals and other non-household bathroom features.

The book made me laugh pretty hard. Just as I was acclimating to the rhythm "But an astronaut is missing. Where could he have gone? [life flap] To the potty. Even astronauts go to the potty," I found myself squirming to read "It's a busy day at the restaurant. The Sutton family is ready to order. But where did the waiter go?"

Noooo! Waiters never go to the potty during their shifts. No! No! No!

When Ranger lifted the flap to show a picture of a handsome fellow thoroughly washing his hands, I laughed with delight (and no small measure of relief). Ranger always laughs especially hard at the page because of my initial reaction.

The book is charming and well-drawn and received far more interest than the classic Everyone Poops. Because it's a household comedy hit, I've had the slightly awkward pleasure of reading it to at least one visiting child. The preschool kids all proudly declared that they too go to the potty. I think that kind of enthusiasm would inspire early potter trainers to desire membership in the secret society of the commode.

The book's pages are made of a heavily laminated cardstock. They're really durable. We let the Raptor (15 months) brutally drag the book all over the house and it shows no notable wear after weeks of unchecked abuse.

For $8, this hardcover book is a steal. I wish we had owned it years ago.

Update 3/12:
Wendy reports that Even Ballerinas Go To The Potty is currently being developed. I'd like to note that preschool girls and boys seem equally delighted by Even Firefighters Go To The Potty when we've read it with them.

Parents who think about books and writers thinking about children's books will like Wendy's new blog. Learn more about her other titles at her website.

***Baby Toolkit is the from the trenches communique of two geek parents in the Midwestern United States. Wendy Wax sent us a free copy of Even Firefighters Go To The Potty ($8). We have no financial relationship with the book's authors or publishers. We are Amazon affiliates, so a small percentage of purchases made through our Amazon links help pay for our domain name and DSL service. Thanks for reading Baby Toolkit!

Have you heard? ListenAlongStoryBook.com podcasts popular picturebooks for free!

2010-03-10T11:29:00.017-06:00

In the 70s, my favorite rack in the public library held plastic bags with books and records. Over my childhood Arnold Lobel's Stone Soup evolved into Sterling North's Rascal while the records were gradually usurped by cassette tapes. Today, the mention of those authors' names conjure memories of laying on the green shag carpet in front of the stereo and engaging in those well-told tales.

Following the Raptor's toddling path through the library last week, I found that the library still has a small collection of those books on cassette (and now CD), but I suspect that those kids' audiobook are becoming a less common feature in libraries today. The audio mediums are more prone to breakage than print materials, so the collections require more patron care and general maintenance.

One children's publisher (Sterling Children's Books) is making it possible for excellent dramatic performance to be a childhood standard yet again.

On March 1st, Sterling launched ListenAlongStoryBook.c om which offers live streaming and podcasts of their most popular picture books.

Sterling's publicist sent us a copy of Cesar Takes a Break by Susan Collins Thoms (MRSP: $14.95), so 4 year old Ranger could experience the podcast with the book.

Cesar Takes a Break is a very timely choice for kids about to take a Spring Break. Cesar, a classroom iguana, decides to explore the school when the children of the class leave for vacation. Ranger is in his second year of preschool, but every break seems to surprise him. This story seems a good way to make him mindful of the upcoming week's opportunities.

Jim thinks the book's varied characters (the school's other class pets) lend themselves to expressive reading. Ranger loves it when Jim reads this story as well.

The high quality podcast entails excellent and expressive readings (by Sterling Children's Book staffers) and original music.

Ranger loved the Cesar Takes a Break podcast with and without the book. His reading skills at 4.5 leave him a bit baffled about when to the turn the page. The story pleases him even without the book in hand. We would love to see a subtle signal added to cue page turns as it would allow pre-readers to follow along with greater independence.

Listen-Along Storybook's first 8 podcasts include the classic folktale Jack & the Beanstalk and new releases like Perfectly Arugula.

Ranger and I will get the books from the library so we can follow along with the vibrant illustrations, but YOU have a chance to win the 8 book set from Sterling Children's Books.

Sterling Children's Books has offered to give each of THREE lucky Baby Toolkit readers (in the U.S. or Canada) all 8 books currently featured on the podcast site.

[Contest closed.]
(Contest entries close at 11:59 PM Thursday, 3/18/2010. Winners will be notified by email.)

For a peek behind the production curtain check out the making of Cesar Takes a Break:

Sterling has also launched a Jokecast for the younger set. WARNING: These are serious groaners, and I know Ranger is going to love telling them to me HUNDREDS of times.

***Baby Toolkit is the brain dump of two Midwestern bibliophile geek parents with opinions on almost everything. We received a free copy of Cesar Takes a Break from Sterling Children's Books (~$15 value). While free books are a decent route to our bookworm hearts, we wouldn't bother telling you (at least not in non-lambasting tones) about something we didn't like.

E.T. can now phone home or cell: VTech DS6321-3 simplifies life

2010-02-19T13:30:00.004-06:00

In the fall our cordless phone's battery life finally flatlined. Its standby time made the life of a gastrotrich look epic. The very weak signal made all our (very short) phone calls sound as if they were happening on a highly trafficked heliport.

I bought another phone. A lovely system with 3 handsets, a base with answering system, and two charging stations. Now I could grab a cordless phone downstairs, in the kitchen, or in our room. I settled in for a new age of convenience.

But my cell phone kept ringing, especially when both kids napped and I was finally settling in with a book. The easily accessed cordless phone was impotent when a persistent, child-waking wail was coming from a coat pocket, somewhere in my backpack, the kitchen counter, or wherever the young agents of chaos has decided to place it.

Mr. Pavlov would be amused to see me drop whatever I was doing and sprint around the house on a frenzied scavenger hunt to make the bells stop ringing. If I was downstairs, the phone was upstairs (or vice-versa). If the phone and I were in close geographic proximity, it would be usually be hidden in some crazy Russian stacking doll arrangement of bags, pockets, and or toys.

Usually, when my hand made contact with the phone, it would immediately stop ringing. I used to make the rookie mistake of checking the display and attempting a return call, but before I hit send my home phone would begin ringing- far,far away. Let the games resume.

About the time I started leaving the cell phone in the car, VTech offered us a chance to review their new cordless phones. When I skimmed the email, their DS6321-3 looked like a direct competitor to my existing phone. As I was about to hit delete I noticed the phone's killer apps: it connects by Bluetooth with up to two cell phones AND it imports cell phone directories.

The review phones from VTech (retail value $100) have been our primary household phones* for a month. My naptime sprinting scavenger hunts have ended.

As long as a cellphone has Bluetooth activated and is within 30 feet of the base, any handset can receive incoming and make outgoing calls. The Bluetooth radius includes our upstairs kitchen and living room as well as the entry area downstairs where I often leave my coat. If I'm downstairs doing laundry, I can easily answer my cell phone when it's in my bag upstairs. If everyone is napping, and my coat is ringing downstairs I can answer it two places upstairs. My sprinting skills can now being applied to important things like wolf attacks and glasses of juice poised on the very edge of the table.

Proximity of the cell phone to the base can affect call quality. When the phone is nears the outer reaches of Bluetooth communication voices began to sound robotic and signal noise increases.

As new users of Bluetooth, we were surprised by how much it shortens the life of each battery charge. I often put my cell phone on a charger (which I'll review soon) when I'm home to counteract the constant Bluetooth power draw. There's nothing different about power use with VTech, but it is a factor to consider if you're considering this system as your first Bluetooth device.

Each handset can also set the ringer volume for the whole system and retrieve messages from the answering machine on the base.

I put a call on hold (cell or home) to answer or make an outgoing call on another phone. The handset displays caller id information from the cell phone.

Cell phone directory import is really helpful. The cell directories are saved in the system and can be accessed even when the cell phone is not connected to the system.

Jim's LG VX8360 imported flawlessly. My Nokia 6205 (no, we're not smartphone people) only imported the numbers but didn't import the names or number types (e.g. home, cell, work). After a call to tech support, it turns out my phone is incompatible with the system. A few of the compatible systems are listed on Vtech's website, but prospective purchasers might want to call Vtech (800)595-9511 to check compatibility of unlisted phones. Even with the import snafu, I was able to update the entries manually without retyping all those phone numbers. For me, it was a worthwhile effort.

Accessing the cell directories feels cumbersome as a user must navigate a few screens to make a call.

Dialing from the cell directory on the land line was a bit confusing as first. The numbers show as area code and seven digit phone number. The phone doesn't recognize whether it is a local or long-distance number and will dial (xxx)xxx-xxxx if you press send. Neither long-distance nor local calls worked as listed in the cell directory when making calls on the home line. After looking at the manual it turns out the user can toggle between all multiple dialing options with the # key. One press on # makes it long-distance dialing [1(xxx)xxx-xxxx]. Two make it local (xxx-xxxx). Three make it intra-area code long distance (1-xxx-xxxx). Four returns it to the cell listing.

The handset's speakerphone function is really handy while multitasking. Good hands-free function means I can laugh with a good friend while chopping vegetables or type two-handed when I need to look something up. Speakerphone also means the baby can say hi to Grandma without hanging up the phone and that Ranger can tell Jim all about preschool without holding a cordless or cell phone to their head. Recent information on phone radiation and kids makes me wary of them holding any wireless handset to their heads.

The VTech DS6321-3 also allows for the connection of Bluetooth headsets (which emit far less radiation then cordless and cell phones). There are no jacks on the handsets for wired headsets.

The two remote chargers only require an electrical outlet, so they can be placed regardless of phone outlet availability. Because of the phone's digital nature, we put the base and charge stations on surge protectors.

The handsets are compact, but they lack a clip or other hands-free carrying option.

Summary:
We really like the VTech DS6321-3. The simplicity of receiving calls from two phone systems on the same handset removes some stress and chaos from our home. Not having to look up phone numbers on the cell is handy.

The speakerphone options make it possible to take a call and change a diaper at the same time.

It was disappointing to have only a partial import of my cell directory, but even the limited data saved me time in creating a tool I use daily. With compatible phones the import is fast and easy.

We're impressed with how many things the handsets can do. The phone would be improved by a quicker method of accessing cell directories, but the handset menus are generally well designed.

On our long term wish list, I would like to see VTech move toward lower radiation DECT phones which eliminate or reduce broadcast signals when the phones are not in active use. Then they can add a belt clip.

*We always keep an old-school wired phone on our land line, and we strongly recommend that everyone have an unpowered land-line phone which can operate in power outages and emergency situations.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of geek parents who do not miss their impromptu sprinting, hurdling, and vaulting workouts provided via modern telephony. We received a VTech DS6321-3 phone (MSRP $100) from Vtech's press agents, but we have no financial, emotional, or other notable relationship with VTech or its affiliates. We are Amazon affiliates, so we do receive a small portion of purchases made through our Amazon links. (c) Baby Toolkit 2010.

Warm greetings: Craft Hope Project 6 (finally) in the mail

2010-02-17T15:10:00.001-06:00

With our snowy weather, I haven't made it much further than sled can carry me lately. It's not so much the fear of winter roads that keeps me home. It's more a fear of other drivers on winter roads. Preschool gets canceled when the public schools have a 2 hour delay, so we've had little reason to go out.

Ranger, the Raptor, and I ventured out to the post office today to mail (late) our fuzzy contributions to Craft Hope's initiative for the Orphan Foundation of America's Red Scarf program. Knitters, the star scarf pattern (left scarf) is quite lovely and makes a dense scarf (perfect for cold climates). The twin rib pattern is incredibly fast to knit and easy to remember. These scarves work well for either gender.

The Raptor found the photo's background dull, so she sprinkled some Cheerios around for a more visually compelling backdrop.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of two Midwestern geeks with ever-increasing snow-shoveling experience. We should level up any day. (c) Baby Toolkit, 2010, some rights reserved

Project Awesome 2010: Soldiers' Angels (like Charlie's Angels with yarn)

2010-02-09T11:15:00.002-06:00

In a continuance of last year's Project Awesome, a few friends crocheted (Magpie Art and Mimi & Moe's Mom) and I knitted lap blankets for VA medical centers through the nonprofit group Soldiers' Angels. For our project deadline, we chose Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Everyone brought their blankets to ship and we enjoyed an evening of soup, pitch-in food, and games.

Friends and family who don't crochet or knit provided the shipping funds. Earlier this week our blankets arrived at a VA facility where they will be given to veterans along with our thanks and best wishes.

Knitting this blanket did a lot for me. Building a blanket from yarn is a meditative exercise in perseverance. Each individual stitch contributes to a useful whole. Small labors (even the imperfect stitches) build into something tangible. The construction is a hopeful metaphor that renews my belief in the value of individual actions. I don't think my blanket will change the world, but it is soft and warm.

If you want to beat the mid-Winter blues with some uplifting activism:

Soldiers' Angels offers a diverse array of projects that support troops in the field as well as wounded veterans.

There's still time to crochet or knit a scarf for Craft Hope's Project 6 which is sending handmade scarves to the Orphan Foundation's Red Scarf program. The project deadline is February 14.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of a couple geek parents with more yarn than time. We benefit richly (but not monetarily) from our Project Awesome friends and goodhearted programs like Craft Hope and Soldiers' Angels.

Dock those tails: Streamlining adjustable elastic pants

2010-02-05T00:08:00.001-06:00

Pants handles [pænts hndls] pl n - the flappy bits of buttonhole elastic that stick out of a skinny kid's waistband when the pants are adequately cinched.

When I was a beanpole kid, I spent about 50% of my waking hours hiking my pants up. The other 50% of the time I was wearing highwaters that fit my minimal girth.

I celebrate the advent of pants with adjustable elastic. The only drawback of these brilliant inventions is the extra 4 to 8 inches of elastic that inevitably emerge from the pants waistband like tiny alien arms that sway giddily with every step.

While daydreaming of ways to batten down the tentacles (without cutting them off), I considered adding a second button on each side. At best it sounded labor intensive. At my present speed of mending, I could probably get all Ranger's size 5 pants adjusted by the time he's wearing size 7s.

Then the clouds parted, trumpets blew, and I saw IT. The no-sew, no-fuss solution.

The elastic anchoring hack is so unbelievably obvious that I consulted with other parents to see if I was the only one who hadn't thought of it.

Hang onto your hats, people. You can start docking those pants tails immediately (and humanely).

1) Adjust waist size normally. Secure elastic to button.

2) Take the tail and fold it back toward the button. Find a buttonhole near the dangling end of the tail (or near the center of the tail if it's really long). Loop that buttonhole over the tail.
3) Happy dance (preferably with music) and congratulate yourself on a job well-done.

***Baby Toolkit is an irregular communique from some geek parents notable for both spleen and silly dancing. We gain no profit (beyond bringing cutting edge obviousness to the Internets) from this discussion of fixing fancy pants for the wee-waisted. Photos: Baby Toolkit (c) 2009, some rights reserved.

Brightest Bulb in the Book: Simplify Auto Light Replacement

2010-01-19T23:46:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure why the numbers in my car's auto manual never match the brands that my local auto parts store carries. I carry in the book, but usually end up resorting to the print or electronic directory. The whole process takes at least five minutes. With a toddler and perilously stacked columns of wiper fluid gallons all around, those short minutes allow a lot of opportunity for movie montage style chaos.

With the right replacement bulbs, I copied the maker and bulb number into the manual. After both bulbs were used, I put the cardboard backing into the manual by the replacement instructions.

This time, when my brake light indicator lit up the dash, I pulled the cardboard out of the manual. It took me less than a minute to find the right bulb even with a change in packaging.

When the new pack is empty, the new card will replace the old one.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of a couple geek parents.

Mountains Beyond Mountains: Medical Relief for Haiti

2010-01-15T09:45:00.006-06:00

A few years ago, I read Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder's excellent biography of Dr. Paul Farmer. The book (like Farmer's life) reminds me of the immense power of a determined individual.

Dr. Farmer found his place and purpose in an impoverished place not so far from our own borders.

His organization, Partners In Health, has been serving rural Haiti since 1987. Now, although two hours from Port-au-Prince, earthquake victims are arriving for treatment. A local church is being used for additional treatment space.

Partners In Health is an American foundation born out of Haiti. This organization is one of the most knowledgeable and prepared to serve Haiti. Within hours of the quake they were already working to route critical supplies through the Dominican Republic. Their Stand with Haiti site offers news from their Haitian clinic.

Please consider helping them help others. Giving (according to psychological research) is one of the most gratifying ways to spend your money.

The Amazon links in this post benefit Partners in Health as will any additional Amazon shopping through these links.

***Baby Toolkit is the work of a some opinionated geek parents. Partners in Health is an AMAZING non-profit humanitarian organization created by a hard-working doctor with genius and compassion. These opinions are freely given and we have no undisclosed relationship with Partners in Health (beyond the sizable intrinsic benefits in giving). These are good people with insight; Help them change lives.

New Prepositions: Dancing with the Squares

2010-01-10T21:00:00.002-06:00

You wouldn't guess it to see us (or to see us dance), but Jim and I have taken years of social dance classes. As generally graceless people, we've been able to endlessly repeat beginner's classes without arousing any suspicion of prior experience.

Over the years, Jim and I have taken lessons for everything from sewing to stained glass to guitar to greeting card writing.

A few weeks ago a small roadside sign caught my eye. A new course? I called Jim, he looked up the website, and before I knew it, he had signed us up for square dance lessons.

Those who know me would suspect this to be something I resist (like romantic comedies) or something undertaken solely for snark value (like watching regional beauty pageants on television). But peeling back the layers of this onion, one can find a wide-eyed girl who secretly adored every moment of square dancing in 5th grade gym class.

The $5 weekly fee (per couple) for a 2 hour class appeals to my inner (and outer) cheapskate.

On the way to our first class, we talked about the sheer pleasure of some colorful new prepositions in our lives. "In square dance class..."

Yep. Colorful lives are drawn from a wide array of colorful prepositional phrases and experiences.

What's new in your lexicon?

Behold, the Angels of Destruction*: Best Recall This Week

2009-12-17T17:58:00.000-06:00

The holidays stress me out. I'd rather clean cookies out of the VCR* than buy gifts that evoke a very merry "meh" from their recipients.

But today the CPSC delivered unto me a seasonal greeting that appeals to my coal black heart.

Precious Moments angels may burn down your house. Starting with your Christmas tree.

That's no star, it's an incendiary device.

Platter-eyed cherubim just got edgy.

Merry bah humbug to y'all!

*Yes, we still have a VCR because Richard Scarry DVDs are impossible to find while the VHS tapes are plentiful and cheap on the resale market. Also, the Raptor likes to trap her hand inside while using the flippy door for toy storage. Also, we use it to watch the excellent Notes Alive! Nutcracker.

**Yes, the title of this post was stolen wholesale from Keith Donahue's book. The book's title is easily its best attribute. Check out his earlier The Stolen Child if you're looking for something to read.

***And while we're on books, I just asked the library to buy Scroogenomics: Why We Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays. This, rather than visions of sugarplums, dances in my head.

Baby Toolkit is written by geek parents who are having a hard time embracing the holidays. We're Amazon affiliates, so if you're just dying to buy something through our Amazon links we get a percentage of the profits. We have no affiliation with Precious Moments, the CPSC, or other media we mention, and we may get a cease & desist notice for the Firestarter cover hack, so you absolutely didn't see it here.

CirKis by Hasbro: Circles + Stars= Fun

2009-12-15T16:20:00.000-06:00

There's a great deal at Amazon* today: Hasbro's new family game CirKis is only $7.99 which is 60% off its standard $20 price.

Jim, Ranger, and I first played CirKis at GenCon 2009. I expected a knock-0ff of Mattel's clever Blokus territory acquisition game; the tiles, the shallow grid board, and even the names struck me as similar. Instead CirKis reveals a very different mechanism and strategy despite the superficial similarities.

In Blokus, players arrange luminescent tiles on a standard grid to acquire as much of the playing surface as possible. At the end of the game the winner is the player holding the most tiles.

With CirKis the grid is a repeating geometry of stars and circles. The tiles are odd polygons varying greatly in size and shape. It takes more discernment to lay tiles, but there are still multiple options for playing each tile. CirKis exercises lateral, spacial, and strategic thinking simultaneously; that sounds complicated, but Ranger really enjoyed playing.

CirKis' scoring is ongoing throughout the game. A player earns points when they complete a circle or star, and the winner is the first to reach 40 points.

While Ranger currently needs help playing (at age 4), I don't think he's far off from playing independently. For now, he can happily play with it as a tile drawing toy (which helps develop his placement skills for future game play).

The pieces are strong and plentiful, so this isn't something I'd want scattered all over the living room floor after the lights are out, but the game looks like it should hold up to regular use by children.

We tried to buy a pre-release copy at GenCon, but CirKis was entirely sold out and even the demonstration copies were reserved. I'm actually glad we didn't get one then because I was able to get two for less than $20 with this current sale price.

CirKis is a great game for families and adults. It scales nicely to different ages and abilities; while a preschooler can be involved with assistance it can also be very competitively played by adults.

*Baby Toolkit is an Amazon affiliate, and we make a small percentage off purchases made after clicking through from our site. We're geek parents who LOVE games. We have no extra-consumer relationship with Hasbro or Mattel nor have we received compensation from them or their affiliates for this post.

More Muppets: Ringing of the Bells

2009-12-11T01:30:00.007-06:00

I'm stifling the urge to wake the Raptor (the biggest Muppet maniac in the household). A new Muppet video was released tonight, and it rocks.

The Nerdist observes "this wave of new vids make the Muppets feel like The Muppet Show again."

Muppet Studios' YouTube channel is well worth a subscription.

***Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of a couple of geek parents. We have no financial interest in or relationship with the Muppets or their parent company (who we actively dislike). However back in 1990, Adrienne did pull off the expressway to cry after hearing of Jim Henson's untimely death.

Word on Sesame Street: Free eBooks!

2009-12-11T00:09:00.009-06:00

Ranger and I spent part of the afternoon listening to lovable, furry old Grover read the audio eBook There is a Monster at the End of this Book. Each word is highlighted as Grover narrates. The audio effects cracked Ranger up.

To celebrate its 40th birthday, Sesame Workshop issued its most popular title ever in ebook form [trivia: There is a Monster at the End of this Book hasn't been out of print since its original printing]. They plan of offering a new free ebook every week. Some of the ebooks will have audio and interactive capabilities. Early in 2010, Sesame Street and Impelsys (the technology provider) plan on offering even more titles for individual purchase and subscription.

The eBooks can be viewed through a web browser, but do not seem to have a download option (please let me know if I'm overlooking something).

Users can print pages from coloring and activity books like the seasonally appropriate Celebrate.

Sesame Street ebooks can be found at http://ebooks.sesamestreet.org.

For more information about the future of Sesame Street's eBooks, read Impelsys' recent press release.

***Baby Tookit is the independent opinion of a couple geek parents. We have no fiscal, social, or familial relationship with Sesame Street, Children's Television Workshop, PBS, or Impelsys. Heck, we're actually suspicious of newfangled characters like Elmo and Abby Cadabby and we feel like Big Bird doesn't get enough air time, but these eBooks are cool- especially while they're free.

In addition, we are Amazon.com affiliates, so if you click through the picture above and buy the book (or other stuff), a small percentage of the sale will go to support Baby Toolkit (thanks!). We do own this book, and Ranger loves to hear it read by Jim even more than the ebook (sorry, Grover).

STOP sending Noah Biorkman cards: Spread the word!

2009-11-20T13:30:00.005-06:00

Recently the Internet mobilized to make the last days of Noah Biorkman's life better by sending him Christmas cards.

People did (over 80k pieces of mail on one day alone), and they were greatly appreciated.

Noah is now in his last days, and his family has requested that people stop sending cards. Snopes.com reports that family requested no more cards or gifts:

Wow! The outpouring of love and concern for Noah is just
amazing! Scott and I never in a million years thought that so many
people would want to send Christmas cards to Noah. However, please
note: We did already celebrate Christmas LAST Sunday -- November
8th.
PLEASE STOP SENDING CARDS AND GIFTS!!!!
Noah is very ill. He is not getting out of bed and it's time for
Scott, our families, and I to concentrate on our son. His time is
very short and he needs us.

Please publicize this in your communities (real and virtual). A quick tweet or a facebook update would do a lot to keep a postal tidal wave from complicating this family's final days together.

Let's have second Internet miracle and put this Christmas card genie back in the bottle.

If you want to do more for Noah and other families facing the same horror, donate a dollar or more in his name to the Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation.

The full snopes.com post: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/biorkman.asp
Noah Biorkman's Care Pages site: https://www.carepages.com/carepages/NoahScottBiorkman

Help the planet (and your bottom line) with online auctions: shopgoodwill.com

2009-11-20T00:14:00.000-06:00

Like an angler with a bountiful fishing hole, bargain hunters like to keep their best sources secret. While I'm sure to draw the ire of other cheapskates, it seems wrong not to tell people about this cornucopia of savings.

All proceeds benefit a charitable non-profit. Buying resale items keeps usable goods out of landfills (longer) and prevents redundant manufacturing. It can also save consumers a fortune.

We married young, so in the first years of our marriage, Jim and I were lucky to buy the essentials. By the time he got the first professional job in our family, even a single dollar had meaning. Around that time I discovered antique malls and consignment sales. After a while I started looking into thrift shops. Now, over a decade later, I answer most "Where did you get that?" inquiries with some form of resale or reuse answer (thrift shop, yard sale, consignment, gift, loan from a friend).

When we're clearing out the house, I like to give usable to goods to friends and some of my favorite charity shops. It was at one of these drop-offs, when I stumbled upon shopgoodwill.com.

In its early days, I visited and found mostly tchotchkes requiring dusting, dolls that give me nightmares, and handbags. Beyond the amusement of the occasional suggestive monkey teapot, I didn't think it had much promise. But I didn't think the Web would catch on either (didn't Gopher already offer everything minus the images and sound? Is that really such a big deal? In my defense the early web featured the blink tag WAY TOO much).

In the time since my initial introduction shopgoodwill.com has grown into a real beauty.

The savings are mind-blowing. This cool metal dollhouse's current bid is $10.99, while an identical dollhouse (possibly with fewer furniture pieces) sold online for $130 at an antique shop. The antique store has better lighting and photographs, but are they really worth the additional $119.01?

Not only can you find many of the original Fisher Price Little People buildings- from the barn to the A-frame house (that I wanted to live in) to the great merry-go-round to the school, you can also buy NEW stuff and current electronics.

Just cruising through I've found new in package games for systems ranging from Leapster to DS to Xbox 360 to PS3 to didj to PSP.

Want a DS or a Leapster?

Are you shopping for someone who likes Lego, American Girl, Hannah Montana, Star Wars, or Sesame Street?

And who doesn't love this vintage Fisher Price tabletop kitchen stove (presently with a $6 bid)?

Shipping seems to be reasonable. If you are willing to drive to the selling Goodwill, you can often arrange for pickup.

I can trust you to keep this under your hat, right? We wouldn't want the place overrun with hipsters looking for Elvis memorabilia.

***Baby Toolkit is a couple of geek parents with more opinions than should be shared. While we shop at Goodwill Industries and drop off lots of unwanted stuff there (including review samples), we are not affiliated with Goodwill Industries nor have we received any compensation for this review (beyond the joy of sharing something awesome with our readers).

Fence Me In: Daybeds & Toddler Security

2009-11-09T14:16:00.007-06:00

When we moved Ranger out of his crib, we wanted something that would offer him a similar sense of security with greater independence.

We talked about something like the Ikea Kura which would offer a sense of enclosure. When we saw the Kura in person, the slat supports didn't seem sturdy enough for our bed jumper.

While I was considering bunk beds, Amy at Mom Advice posted photos of the smartest bed transition hack. For her toddler daughter, she turned the daybed opening to face the wall.

A few weeks later I came across a daybed with a trundle at a local consignment shop. With its exposed springs and snapping metal joints, the trundle frame looked problematic with preschoolers. We stowed the trundle frame for future consideration (a solid decision I think, especially in light of the recent Maclaren stroller recall) and replaced the crib with the daybed.

With a step stool at the foot of the bed, Ranger could easily get in and out on his own. It didn't take long for him to start climbing between the bars rather than over them.

Ranger still prefers the bed in this configuration. He likes his bed and sleeps well at naptime and through the night. When he wants the bed changed, we'll move it, but until then, we'll all rest easy at night.

***Baby Toolkit is written by geek parents who love sleep. We are in no way affiliated with daybed manufacturers, and we have limited home design skills. Adrienne once enjoyed a flight with Amy Clark of Mom Advice (only to literally run away at the end when flight delays made the Cincinnati connection tenuous).

Photos: (c) Baby Toolkit, 2009, some rights reserved.

Halloween 2009: Making Mario

2009-11-01T21:25:00.009-06:00

My favorite Halloween costumes have function beyond the holiday. Before his first Halloween, Ranger's grandparents gave him a cowboy outfit, so we just added a Western hat to complete the costume.

I found an old chef's coat at a thrift shop, so Jim and I talked about a mad scientist costume (in the spirit of Dr. Horrible), but that amused us more than it would Ranger.

Cruising Dabbled.org's great Halloween coverage, I found a great costume that would delight Ranger and satisfy my hopes of reuse. (Thanks, Dot!)

Ranger follows the adventures of Mario in Kart , Tennis, and Strikers via Nintendo. When he saw the Flickr photo a Mario costume became a regular topic of conversation. I launched the hunt for a long-sleeved red shirt, denim overalls, white gloves, and a hat (or sewing pattern).

By Sunday, I had everything but the hat. Jim helped me search through pattern books for a good match and we settled on Simplicity 2808 (note for sewists*: this pattern is for adult sized hats as we're big-headed folk). Ranger's preschool Halloween parade was Thursday, so I spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights as an amateur milliner. The hat needed to look cartoonish, so all errors in tailoring could be deemed value-added features.

Jim fashioned Ranger's fine mustache from brown felt. I attached it to a loose-fitting loop of thin, soft elastic which fit over the ears and behind the nape.

Thursday's parade went well. Even the people who didn't know about Mario (like the nursing home residents who Ranger's class visited) loved his mustache.

On Friday afternoon, I noticed a long sleeved green onesie in the Raptor's closet hanging near her overalls. When I told Ranger about this, we both came to the same conclusion. On Saturday, Jim, Mario, and the Ranger hit the fabric store for more elastic while I sewed against the clock.

If you want to show off a homemade costume to people who will appreciate it, go to the fabric store on Halloween. Ranger got full rock star treatment from both staff and shoppers and EVERYONE knew about Mario. I think he preferred it even to trick or treating.

They returned home and one mustache later, the Mario brothers were cavorting on the front lawn.

Mario pulled out Ranger's golf set and entertained the neighborhood with some impromptu Mario Golf (why isn't this available for the Wii) while Luigi mostly laughed and pointed.

Luigi's hat is also an adult size large. I sewed a tuck in the back of the hatband to size it down. The large size makes her look more like Baby Luigi than Luigi and it leaves us the opportunity to reuse the hat set as the kids get older. Plus, I can wear it too.

Happy Halloween!

*Yes, this is an emerging word, but neither seamstress nor tailor really seemed appropriate and sewer (to me) always starts with a su sound and bears an entirely different meaning, so sewist it shall be. Feel free to suggest better terms.

***Baby Toolkit has received a Nintendo DS and a review copy of Mario Tennis from Nintendo. We have no fiscal interest in nor undisclosed relationship with Nintendo nor its parent companies. Baby Toolkit is written by geek parents who can be seen driving around town in felt mustaches.

Beautiful URLs: Some Favorite Links, October 28

2009-10-28T22:51:00.007-05:00

While Jim is out buying an eyebrow pencil (for Ranger's school Halloween parade tomorrow) and the kids are asleep, so I'm going to seize the opportunity to post a few good links.

There's no better Halloween idea emporium in my feedreader than Dabbled.org. Dot assembled some great costume ideas (we're using one for Ranger- can you guess which?), party drinks & eats, and dazzling decorations. Abandon hope- or at least a chunk of time- all ye who click through here.

Maggie from Magpie Art converted Bumgenius diapers to snap diapers after the hook and loop fasteners wore out. This smart conversion also helps when kids get old enough to open their Velcro diaper closures.

This giant dollhouse pillow/bed has me dreaming up other things that would be great as large and fluffy.

And while the sewing machine is out, why not whip up a few little fabric mailboxes? I think these would be great Christmas gifts.

Want to creep yourself out with a scary fairy tale for parents? Check out Keith Donohue's changeling tale The Stolen Child. It taps into some pretty primal parenting emotions.

For real world horror, if you're using an Infantino sling, please read Consumer Report's safety concerns regarding this style. Slings are on Consumer Reports' short list of products not to buy for your baby. While Jim used a sling with Ranger, I always use structured carriers (like the Bjorn Active and our framed Kelty backpacks). It's probably something about my anatomy and pathetic core strength, but I never felt comfortable with a sling.

Pasta Queen introduced me to a lower-carb (or we're totally out of bread) peanut butter banana sandwich. It's like gluten-free Elvis without the jumpsuit or sideburns.

This link reminds me of the time when birds attacked my friend and her family and made them very sick. Birds nested in the family's furnace exhaust pipe, so when the heat was turned on CO2 didn't vent from the house. My friends were pretty sick before they figured it out. If you're using gas appliances, please consider installing a CO2 detector in the next 2 weeks. It could save your life.

Goodyblog (by Parents Magazine) has a preschool toys contest offering thirteen of their favorite toys.

Jim is home, and I guess fat eyebrow pencils are a thing of the past. Ranger may be going bedecked in washable marker tomorrow (Parent Hacks recommends colored pencil as a face paint substitute, but that would take as long as eyeliner). Does that make me a bad mom?

Now for some zombies dancing:

Out D*mn'd Spot: Another Great Stain Fighter

2009-10-27T00:54:00.000-05:00

I love shopping second-hand with Mimi-n-Moe's Mom. We were at a rummage sale when she commented on how beautifully stain-free a seller's kids' clothes were. This scored us the best find of the day.

The mom uses Dawn dish washing foam to remove stains. If she cannot hand scrub the stain out with Dawn alone she adds a little baking soda "and that takes out most anything."

While I still often use Dial bar soap for a stain-remover, this is one hot tip. Dawn works quickly, and stains take less time to remove. If using a front loader or other high efficiency washer, wash the Dawn out thoroughly before laundering.

I've tried Dawn and baking soda against some stains that went through the dryer and while it lightened the stains considerably it did not fully remove them. I've placed the articles in direct sunlight to see if the remaining stains fade out, but we haven't had many sunny days lately.

***Baby Toolkit is not affiliated with Dawn nor its parent companies. We aren't laundry professionals though we're well on our way to the 10,000 hours required for mastery. Not to brag, but we seem to be naturally gifted in the field of entropy.

Declaration for Vaccination

2009-10-25T23:21:00.010-05:00

A few years ago I read about the 1918 influenza pandemic. I stumbled into a truly gripping book on the present day search for the historical virus (this book has Eskimos, adventurers, and edge of your seat science).

Like so many historical events, it turns out my family was shaped by that epidemic. My grandfather, a young child of missionaries, was traveling back to Egypt after time in the United States. In New York, waiting to disembark on the long journey by sea, he caught influenza. A compassionate woman (a "church lady" and a mother according to the retelling- which probably means a stranger or acquaintance) took him in and nursed him back to health. This brave and generous woman caught the infectious disease and died. My grandfather's life would continue to be shaped by the fact that someone died helping him. His life needed to be more because it had costs others so dearly. In his adulthood he built churches, schools, and orphanages in some of the world's poorest regions.

Recently I was telling this story to a friend, a nurse, and she said, "Don't you think medicine is better today?" Well, of course it is; however EPIDEMIC numbers of sick people can quickly overwhelm the medical infrastructure. Current projections for Indiana suggest future problems (note: that's 57% of hospital beds, not 57% of available hospital beds- most hospitals run above 43% capacity). Some people, such as those with existing health conditions and pregnant women, don't find much relief from modern medicine.

I believe that vaccination is better for individuals and the community than the alternative. I believe it enough that I stood in line for 4 hours with a 4 year-old Ranger and the 11 month-old Raptor so they could get H1N1 shots. Contrary to rumors, not all forms of the immunization have mercury and even Dr. Sears recommends them for children. Dr. Sears even states

"We are dealing with the same thing we face with flu shots every year: same chemical ingredients, new flu vaccine strains."

Our parents and grandparents underwent much greater risk in the fight against polio mid-twentieth century. Anyone bearing vaccination scars on their arms received a live shot of polio, but they made the disease a rarity.

Now is the time for courage.

***Baby Toolkit is not affiliated with the CDC nor any health organization or company. We are not medical professionals nor oracles. We are geek parents endowed with literacy and reason.

Munchie Mug: The Snack Cup That Makes Us Eat Our Words

2009-10-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Way back in 2007, we gave up the hunt for an effective snack cup (Snack Traps: Very Small Money Pits). I filed the fantasy of a truly spill-proof snack carrier in with Nessie, Big Foot, and a drive-through diaper store.

When the McNichols posted a wildly favorable review of the Munchie Mug on Z Recommends (titled The Best Snack Holder Ever), I sent an email along the lines of "No! Really? NO!" to receive an emphatic "YES!" in reply.

Mug makers Witty Works Incorporated, upon my request, sent me a Munchie Mug to review.

With genius simplicity, the split panel fabric top offers access without overflow. Forget about the flashy snack cups with gyroscopic motion, kids will figure out how to foil or break those. These straightforward cups are workhorses that always meet user demands.

The Munchie Mug has easily handled regular cleaning and Ranger's toddler (ab)use for ten months. To Ranger's disappointment, the cup accommodates even the large hand of a hungry adult without difficulty or damage.

On the other end of the spectrum, our 11 month old Raptor can also manage the mug's pragmatic design:

Her catch and release technique reminds us that even the best designed cup will be challenged by these tiny agents of entropy. I promise you that the escaped Cheerios are all part of a larger PEBKAC error (problem exists between kid and container in this case). The high lip on the lid that mystified the Z Recs team makes perfect sense when used by a baby. It catches some of the dropped food increasing chances of recovery. The cut-out offers an easy grip (even when crawling) for tiny hands.

The Munchie Mug is the only snack holder that meets our family's expectations. It is made of durable BPA-free polypropylene.

If you're looking for a great baby shower or baby/toddler birthday gift, the Munchie Mug ($15.95) is sure to be a hit with both young'uns and their faithful attendants. Munchie Mug is available with a blue, pink, or yellow lid and an alternate clear storage lid to keep treats fresh and tasty overnight.

***Baby Toolkit has no financial stake in or undisclosed relationship with Witty Works Incorporated. Witty Works sent us a free Munchie Mug to test. We're geek parents with ample opinions and two enthusiastic amateur test engineers. Video: Baby Toolkit, (c) 2009; some rights reserved.

Motherhood: The New Generation

2009-10-14T15:13:00.004-05:00

Today I found a dirty diaper in the baby's laundry. It had a tidy appearance, wrapped up like a little white present, but it was deep in the laundry basket. My best guess is that it has been residing there, scenting the room with vinegar, for about a week.

With my first child, I would have been on the phone with Jim in seconds to inquire what exactly he was thinking. Now, the phone call would be pure posturing as there's something like a 97% likelihood that I put the odor bomb in the basket. I'm not sure though because my brain is so frequently engaged that there are no system backups. Maybe the phone rang, maybe something boiled over in the kitchen, or maybe Ranger said quietly "uh, mom- there's a problem" and walked in holding the front half of the DVD player. The distractions and interruptions are so common these days that I've started losing track of them.

Now when I find a diaper in the laundry, my lunch from yesterday unopened in the car, or two very different shoes on my feet, philosophical questions fill my mind. How did I get here? What am I doing? Is this chaos my fault?

Memories of my own mother and grandmothers don't offer much solace. They all seemed more present and capable than I feel and my actions suggest.

There have been some big changes in the world since I was a kid though, and they have changed the face of motherhood dramatically.

Let's start with the telephone. It's a handy device, but it demands attention around the clock. Friends, family, and strangers can interrupt kids' naps, family meals, and virtually every shower attempted by mothers in North America. With the advent of cell phones, calls can now also interrupt meaningful conversations, fun outings, and those rare moments when my internal dialog teeters on revelation. A tranquil moment in the afternoon sun with only the pleasant hum of the world around me dissolves into a cry for attention.

And, yes, there are management tools like caller id, forward to voicemail, and taking the phone off the hook, but whenever I employ these methods inevitably I forget to reengage the systems or the next human communication I have starts with "I've been trying to get a hold of you for hours, and [insert real emergency]."

Over a decade ago we canceled call waiting because it is stressful, and I don't know how to handle it gracefully. I consider our home a technological preserve for the busy signal. And isn't it sometimes true that we're busy? When did that become a bad message? I keep hearing about people who no longer use answering machines or voicemail because who wants to arrive home to an audio to-do list? On the other hand, the machine lets me know if I really need to disrupt the nursing baby or if it's just a reminder of the dentist appointment that's already on my calendar.

Beyond the interruptions and monetary costs telephones require maintenance. Cordless phones must be returned to the base but not overcharged. Home phones should be handy but not too easily accessible to tots with a yen to dial Denmark.

Like the cordless phone, my cell phone battery demands the careful nurturing like a Tamagotchi pet (food at exacting measure), but charging is the least of my cell phone headaches. My phone may someday evolve into a sentient lifeform (shortly before I throw out the charger), but it will not need to grow legs. It already skitters around the universe powered by the little feet (and hands) of my family members. This is not to imply that I do not also lose my phone- regularly (like in an amusement park- thank you again, Holiday World staff).

If I make the mistake of setting it to vibrate, magical fairies, magnetic forces, and/or toddler power will be sure to bury it in some unfathomable location. Then I spend the evening walking around the house with the cordless phone listening for the quiet whisper vibration and praying that the battery doesn't die before it is located.

When the battery dies, the search really kicks into high gear as the audio clue phase ends. Now rather than following the digital noise, it has become a needle in a haystack.. or my backpack... or the car... or the toy basket.

I would be ashamed to admit the number of hours in 2009 I have spent looking for that radiation-emitting piece of plastic. When their kids were young, my mom and grandma never spent a single evening crawling around looking for a phone.

Cell phones turn me into a stream of consciousness machine. On a drive, I notice a change in the neighborhood, so I speed-dial Jim, or I call someone for an update on something that really could have waited. Nobody really wants to be tapped into my cerebral cortex, and just because I can call, usually doesn't mean I should.

My kids (even the baby) are drawn to the phone. Ranger sees it as an electronic game (even the calendars and system settings can be "played") and the baby sees it as a chew toy. I don't want to give it to either of them, but in a crisis it's an easy diversion.

Other people's cell phones network us all to the Matrix. Baby's early morning feeding turns into a request for online research help on the relationship between soy products and cancer. I should note here that while I am quite proud of my Google-fu, I am neither a nutritionist nor a medical practitioner, so there's always a lot of background research before I even begin to comprehend the question I am attempting to answer. Jim and I often append "In my PROFESSIONAL medical opinion to any results" in hopes that it will remind the person seeking the information that they called a keyboard monkey rather than an expert. It's easy to become an unpaid helpdesk just by answering the phone.

Our seven digit phone number is the same as that of a toll free mail order prescription company. This company serves only pensioners from a specific declining trade (let's say buggy whip makers), so the calls are occasional. When people misdial the local area code rather than the 800 prefix, our voicemail gets worried calls from elderly people wondering why their meds haven't arrived. The first time it happened, we ignored it. Then the caller left two more messages and sounded sincerely panicked, so Jim called her back. She didn't understand who we were and we seriously freaked her out. A day later, she left another message. I Googled our number and prescription and called the company myself. Sadly, she hadn't left an account number so I banged on the number pad like a monkey at an obelisk until I got a human being. I begged a customer service rep to call her back. They were resistant at first (because I didn't even know the woman), but I kept telling them how increasingly desperate her messages had become, and they decided to make an exception. A few weeks later we got a similar call from an older gentleman. The written instructions for getting through to the Rx call center without an account number are now kept under our phone.

Our lives are more complicated. The house I grew up in had a party line phone and it never rang because someone needed my mom to make an online hotel reservation in the next 20 minutes, give directions, or look up the side effects of a common drug. Nobody went online to research car seats because there were neither online nor car seats. Kids just laid on the back ledge of the giant cars and computers were mostly science fiction dreams.

My grandmother couldn’t even drive until the year I was born. Think how much less people would expect of you (in terms of daily tasks) if you didn’t drive.

We live in a reshaped world and our elders often treat us as if we live in the (slightly) less complicated days of their childhoods.

Thanks to our placement in human history, we’re expected to keep house like Martha (without the benefit of her staff), manage our own household finances and retirements like Warren Buffet, maintain vehicles & households, raise children, and chauffeur to every activity that anyone ever claimed made kids smarter, faster, wiser, happier, more tolerant, and/or better looking. After that, single, "I'm every woman" Oprah tells us not to be schlumpadinkas in sweat pants and prominent mom bloggers publish tutorials on how not to wear mom jeans. [Note: I don't care what your jeans look like, if you have a rock, a toy, and an uneaten portion of sandwich in your pocket, they're mom jeans.]

I guess we should just cure cancer in our spare time.

Post Pregnancy Acne: An Answer You Can Sleep On

2009-10-07T14:28:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, a friend with a newborn recently commented on having the worst acne of her entire life. She made me feel a little better as I've been having similar problems since the Raptor's birth. A few months after Ranger's birth I had similar problems.

Since the Raptor is still nursing, prescription medicine is problematic. That's why I had to try the potential solution Jim saw on Reddit last week. Not only was it non-chemical, it was cheap and easy. As I already do laundry all the time, I really had nothing to lose.

So every night for a week, I've slept with a different clean towel on my pillowcase (I told you it was simple).

The redness and irritation diminished visibly in two days. By day 3, areas that had been persistently irritated for weeks started to fade. After 7 days only a few active sites remain and new acne (thank you post-pregnancy hormonal shifts) are tiny and dissipate within 48 hours.

My skin feels better and has an improved appearance. I suspect that the loft of the towel's loops lets the air circulate under the face. The increased air circulation discourages the growth of bacteria by keeping skin cooler and drier (increased evaporation). Maybe it's the placebo effect or laundry voodoo, but it makes the mirror less miserable every morning.

Thermos update: An interview and a new generation

2009-09-14T22:41:00.000-05:00

Our friends at Z Recommends scored an interview with Thermos' Rick Dias at the ABC Kids' Expo in Vegas. And what did they discuss? Plastic changes in response to consumer and (*ahem*) blogger complaints.

I'll keep you posted on any new developments in the ongoing FUNtainer saga.

*photo: Baby Toolkit, (c)2008

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Party Preparation

2009-08-31T12:20:00.006-05:00

For Ranger's birthday party, we wanted a no tears craft that would engage kids from toddler through 5th grade. After considering at a number of very clever projects, we decided to stick with what we know.

I printed off the crown template I use for fabric play crowns. The day before the party, I traced six of them onto each of five sheets of white posterboard ($0.70 x 5= $3.50+ sales tax for 30 crowns). A wonderful friends brought loads of crayons. An adult sized and stapled the finished crowns. (Hint: Staple from the inside of the crown so the flat side of the staple is against the wearer's hair and the points are on the exterior.)

The levels of interest varied greatly. Some kids put major effort into their crowns and wore them throughout the party. Other kids (Ranger among them) were more interested in getting back to the dance floor and playroom.

That brings us to the Rock. Jim put together a party mix from some of Ranger's favorite tunes:

I'm So Happy You're Here Blue’s Clues
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song the Flaming Lips
Mahna Mahna Cake
Stayin' Alive the Bee Gees
I Am a Paleontologist They Might Be Giants (w/ Danny Weinkauf) [free download- thanks, TMBG & Girlie Action! Thanks for the tip, Spare the Rock! *pre-order this great new album for the bargain rate of $9.99 on Amazon]
The Hoppity Song Five for Fighting
Mix Tape Jim’s Big Ego [free download courtesy of Jim's Big Ego!]
A Little Less Conversation JXL Remix
All the Small Things Blink 182
Gotta Be Me Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Music Farm Xtatik
Rockin' Robin Bryan White
My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors Moxy Fruvous
Family Tree Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Lovely Rita The Beatles
Go Down Emmanuel Road Dan Zanes & the Rocketship Revue
Silly Hat Blue’s Clues
Flying Machine Father Goose
King of Spain Moxy Fruvous
Come Together The Beatles
So Glad I'm Here Elizabeth Mitchell
All Night Long Dan Zanes & Friends
I'm Yours Jason Mraz
So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh Dan Zanes & Friends

Feel free to don a crown and break out your boogie shoes.

GenCon 2009: The Family Edition

2009-08-26T21:00:00.000-05:00

Wonder Woman, a 15 foot tall pirate, the Ghostbusters, Buddah, Darth Vader, Chihiro, a Gamorrean guard, Jim, Ranger, the Raptor, myself, and 27,887 others attended GenCon 2009 earlier this month in Indianapolis.

As first-timers, we did not know what to expect. Despite the fact that my friends were making GenCon widow plans, I lack the graciousness required to jealously listen to stories about the awesome gaming convention. Our preschooler loves games, so we knew he would be amused; our only concern was keeping him from moving players' game pieces. At 9 months, the baby is very opinionated, but she loves riding in the backpack and her patience can now be bought with Cheerios (lots and lots of Cheerios).

After our first disorienting minutes in the vast exhibition hall, I wondered if I had made a huge mistake in coming with the kids. Polyhedra rarely seen outside of theoretical geometry labs surrounded me like tribbles, gleaming brightly from row after row of plexiglass bins.

My mind flashed back to the first night Jim's cousin brought over Descent. While he laid out the chits, cards, and *blush* statues, I cringed. When he dumped the bucketload of dice required on the table, I balked openly, "Um, guys, I think my ovaries prevent me from playing any game with this many dice." But they needed me for a quorum, so I set aside my derisive comments about "pizza boys" and picked up the biggest battle axe in the deck. I've never looked back. GenCon was no time for second thoughts.

We floated through the exhibition hall on a wave of humanity (and alienity). Suddenly familiar sights started appearing in the booths. Memories of great get-togethers (with and without space colonization and zombie attacks) popped up as favorite titles came into focus. Companies I have long admired offered opportunities to talk with employees, ask questions, meet designers, and try new games.

Ranger loved playing demo games, Jim grooved on the geek zeitgeist, I liked asking about kids' offerings (and getting good answers), while the Raptor contentedly left a Cheerio trail in case we needed to retrace our steps.

Party gamers Out of the Box [earlier review: Apples to Apples] introduced us to some new favorites for kids (and the rest of the family). Playroom Entertainment enticed us with their games for the preschool set. Simply Fun (a home-based consultant company- think Tupperware party) astounded us with their elegantly straightforward Ribbit by master designer Reiner Knizia. Gaming closet favorite Rio Grande came through with a great kids version of Carcassone that works for ages 4 and up (this must-have for Carcassonne fans quickly sold out at GenCon). Winning Moves' Cir*Kis caught both Jim's and my hearts, but we didn't move fast enough to buy a copy before they sold out.

While the crowds (especially in the exhibition hall) were daunting with young kids, the attendees and staff made the kids' experience quite good. People were gracious and generous with the baby and very willing to help our preschooler have hands-on gaming time. On the whole, it seems like the people at GenCon welcome kids more than the average crowd. I wouldn't have wanted to navigate the place with a large jogging stroller (it would just seem rude in the limited space of the exhibit hall), but other parents seemed to do okay with infants in mid-sized strollers.

A few tips for those thinking about taking kids in 2010:

If you're going strollerless, take along a large comfortable bag (that you can wear) if you might do any shopping. The vender bags tend to have small hand holes, so something you can sling over a shoulder is valuable.

Toting a lot of small gear (changes of clothes, snacks, toys, etc.) that you want on site, but not on hand? Rent a locker in the morning (seriously, they sell out fast) to use as a home base. The lockers I saw were 75 cents to a dollar and only take quarters. You'll need to pay each time you visit the locker, so you won't want to visit too frequently.

Kids from elementary school on up could really thrive in this environment. It's exciting and there are lots of games to play. If (or, more accurately, when) we take older kids, I will purchase an unlimited library card ($20) to the GenCon games library. That way kids can try new games and household standards even if there's not much for them in the demos. If we had a group of families with kids going (you know who you are: hint, hint), it seems quite reasonable for kids to game in the library with adults exchanging supervisory time.

This trip we stayed with our gracious friend in Indianapolis. While such wonderful free housing would be a fine arrangement for adults, the commute to and from nap time was extended. The skywalk connected convention hotels (there are a number to choose from) seem a great asset with young kids. Not only could the wee ones get better naps, pit stops and snack times would be easier too. Plus, while the kids napped, an adult (assuming more than one are in attendance) could go back to the convention halls for some solo gaming. Our kids would love the opportunities to swim in the hotel pool. The zoo and State Museum would become workable side trips (as we wouldn't be driving around town so much). The event schedule runs literally 24 hours a day, so one parent (or both if they alternate childcare) could still participate even after the kids have been put to bed.

For game-friendly teens and tweens, GenCon seems a great playground. The cos play and LARPers give the con a festival atmosphere that's irresistibly offbeat (4 year old Ranger insisted on wearing a cape after our first visit). Adults seem quite willing to give a young geek a place at the gaming table, so kids with interest won't be relegated to the sidelines or simply shopping the hall.

GenCon was a great experience for our family, and we are already making plans for 2010. I'm sure we'll have more to say on this year's con and the great games and companies we met there throughout the next few weeks.

Photo credit: Gurney5 on Flickr, Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brentnewhall/ / CC BY 2.0

Dial Down the Stains

2009-08-05T20:38:00.005-05:00

With babies come stains. I've had more than one Stepford Wives conversation where friends discuss the BEST pre-treater they've found.

In a rare bout of silence, I tend to keep my mouth shut. Pre-treaters just don't seem that effective to me, at least not compared to a cheap bar of Dial gold.

A little warm water, a quick rub of a Dial bar, and some hand scrubbing can remove a remarkable assortment of fresh stains.

One bar lasts for months, costs under $1, looks perfectly normal in the shower, and easily packs for travel (in carry-on even). It also carves into swell little boats in a pinch.

I have friends who swear by Fels-Naptha (also made by Dial), but I'm just too lazy to go to the one grocery store that carries it.

You can stock up on Dial at Amazon, but unless you own a bathhouse or do laundry for the whole Little League it's probably easiest to find a sale on the 3 bar pack closer to home.

Baby Toolkit has no professional expertise in soap, are only gifted amatuers in the field of staining, and have no extra-consumer connections with Dial or its parent companies. The only free Dial we've ever recieved have been hotel soaps (which probably aren't really free).

Beautiful URLs: Some Favorite Links, August 1

2009-08-01T09:39:00.006-05:00

We were off enjoying some sun, sand, and 60 degree temperatures in Michigan. Friends and family kept us too occupied to really mind that didn't have Internet access.

In the meantime, my feed reader filled with bloggy goodness.

Here are some recent favorites:

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (by Paul Graham) explains a lot about how my life works (or doesn't work). Babies and kids don't really understand either kind of schedule, but the Raptor definitely wants a manager momma which makes blogging (and many other activities) complicated. (thanks, Z Recs)

Craftster superstar Vegbee and family are moving into an RV and hitting the road. Her post about letting go of accumulated stuff inspires me to address my own troubled relationship with disused objects (particularly gifts).

Speaking of stuff, Z Recommends adopts and explains a new Keep No Stuff review policy. Jim and I have been discussing our own review policy. We currently disclose any free review samples and vested interest in companies (it's pretty simple, we're far too lazy to invest). When I get a little maker time, we'll discuss our own review, advertising, and privacy policies.

Ranger, the Raptor, and I have been frequenting the local spray parks, but I think we may have to build our own mist sprayer/bike wash from this great instructables tutorial.

I've always wondered how people could maturely combat real life trolls like hatemonger Fred Phelps, and this solution seems divinely inspired. Thank you, Bill Childs.

By the way, if you're not listening to Bill, Ella, and Liam Childs on their excellent kids' radio show Spare the Rock, you are most certainly missing out. [podcast feed]

Another hankie doll you can make in a pinch with only a handkerchief and a ring or a piece of string. [earlier]

Best birth location story.

Anyone going to the GenCon Indy in a couple weeks? It's a great gaming convention in the heart of Indianapolis. Check out their family day and its great price then make plans to meet us there!

What posts have drawn your attention lately?

I Get Around: Recent Guest Posts

2009-07-16T00:39:00.004-05:00

To Ranger's utter horror, the Raptor started crawling (right toward his favorite toys). Her newfound mobility challenges me too. But between negotiating minor turf wars, I've enjoyed writing posts for two of my favorite blogs.

Z Recommends gave us a chance to review bumbleride's Queen B pram style stroller.

Dot at Dabbled.org invited me to write a guest post during her vacation. You might remember her open source robot party invitations that we used for Ranger's birthday and the decorate-it-yourself bakery cake they inspired. Check out some of our favorite summer books and make sure to click through to Dot's AWESOME dragon cake.

(If you've already subscribed to Dabbled's feed, please check to make sure it's still active. Dabbled's recent transition to WordPress left a number of subscribers behind.)

Thanks for reading Baby Toolkit!

Bang-on fireworks noise solution: Bop away the blasts

2009-07-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ranger is no fan of fireworks. The sounds make him want to hide (which, when I think about it, is a perfectly reasonable reaction to explosions).

Last year, Uncle Punk suggested a novel diversion from the local pyrotechnics, even more loud noise. We cranked up the Ramones and danced until we were too tired to care what sounds might emanate from the neighborhood.

This year, we'll shake up the noisy playlist.

What loud kid friendly tunes do you suggest?

Pillow Talk: Sleep Apnea

2009-06-28T10:30:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was reminded of the small miracle presented by Jim's CPAP. Over a decade ago, a few years into our marriage, I thought I was going to lose my mind or have to move into a separate bedroom.

Jim snored the weird cadence of a malfunctioning buzz saw. While most spouses might respond with a gentle nudge, I would shove him until he moved into a non-snoring position. This happened dozens of times each night.

The biggest mystery was why Jim, for all his snore-generating behavior, was even less rested than me. He was disconcertingly falling asleep at stoplights and any time life paused into quiet.

I was showing the confusion and insanity of sleep deprivation and Jim seemed to have narcolepsy.

My dad noticed Jim falling asleep all the time and suggested Jim go for a sleep study. Our physician decided the same thing when Jim told him how he hadn't been sleeping well for a very long time.

The test results showed that Jim's constant morning headaches, dry mouth, snoring, and agonizingly poor sleep were all due to the fact he quit breathing regularly throughout the night. The constant struggle for air kept him from ever falling into a deep sleep while short periods of oxygen deprivation put him at higher risk for heart attack and stroke. It turns out that, shoving injuries were some of the smallest threats he faced.

Jim was placed on CPAP, and after finding the right mask, we both started getting real sleep. Jim said the first day after using his CPAP felt like recovering from a long illness.

Since Jim's diagnosis many members of his family have also been diagnosed with sleep apnea. It turns out their nose and throat structure makes them more susceptible to sleep apnea.

Very recently, Jim noticed a twenty-something friend falling asleep at a stoplight. After talking to Jim our friend was also diagnosed with apnea.

I don't think many people in our generation are aware of sleep apnea which is scary considering how it can contribute to heart attacks and strokes.

If your partner's snoring or gasping seems atypical, you should probably read Mayo Clinic's guide to sleep apnea (actual medical information written by professionals). Jim is happy to reply to comments or email. He is an apnea awareness evangelist since his diagnosis and treatment dramatically improved the quality of his life.