Stick It To 'Em: Marking Important Buttons For Toddlers

Ranger's fixation with a few CD tracks used to drive me crazy, so I decided to teach him how to find the desired track again after it played.

We kept having problems because there are few good ways to describe the player's buttons to someone who (at that time) couldn't identify shapes or directions.

So, I put a sticker under the essential button. Ranger's now been locating his own tracks for almost a year. It's been great reinforcement for identifying numbers and counting as he knows his current favorite songs are tracks 1, 4, and 11 on CD 1.

Before kids, I wouldn't have dreamed of putting a sticker on electronics, but this strategically placed sticker offered Ranger greater musical independence and a gateway to numeric literacy. It looks pretty good to me.

Putting Words to Paper: Check Out November's Parents Magazine

My cell phone very conspicuously rang yesterday at my physician's appointment. It was hanging in my bag right below a gigantic sign reading "Absolutely NO cell phones" while the dermatologist I've been seeing since childhood checked the same old moles and their new colleagues for signs of revolution and mutation.*

After leaving the office, I made a return call in the elevator. Jim said "I'm driving back to work, and I have a November issue of Parents with me." Well, faster than homeland security can search that statement for coded meaning, I am in the car driving toward the nearest bookstore.

Why the sudden acceleration to buy a magazine I already subscribe to? Because my article appears on page 152. It's "The OMG Guide to Parenting Disasters." Written months ago, I didn't know exactly when it might appear.

I resisted the urge to show the my driver's license and the byline to everyone in Borders (saving that kind of shamelessly excited bragging for, well, this post). Back in my car, I opened the magazine and took it all in. My body rang with electricity as I held the concrete reality of print publication.

Wow. Thank you, Judy (I owe you a cupcake) for inviting me to write and providing such great support and editing. You and Parents gave me an opportunity to fulfill one of those long-shot lifelong dreams.

*Important medical note: I made this skin check-up appointment the day after I drove my dear friend (36 years old) home from Moh's surgery to remove facial skin cancer. My friend's cancer (which she thought was a persistant pimple) taught me that skin cancer can strike any skin type at almost any age. Even though it's not always easy to get to the doctor, it is important to get regular check-ups.

Our Hobo Kitchen: Reusing Everyday Objects

Play kitchens can be loads of fun for toddlers, but new ones can cost a small fortune.

You can build a kitchen from cardboard or score one at a yard sale (like our $10 kitchen), for nominal costs. Really lucky folks may get hand-me-down kitchens from friends or family.

Our kitchen was bare bones when we bought it. It lacked any utensils or fake food. I was way too lazy to buy the food and utensil sets, so Ranger found it stocked with real kitchen items (duplicates, cast-offs, and rarely used items) and clean, empty food tins and boxes.

While Ranger isn't a dedicated junior chef (probably due to a lack of kitchen role models), all our young visitors gravitate to our pell-mell kitchenette. It actually gets so busy at times that I have to unearth a second phone handset so more of the junior chefs can make important calls.

Jim dubbed it the hobo kitchen because its cookware is primarily old food cans which had their lids removed with a smooth edge can opener.

The idea of a hobo kitchen charms me immensely, as my adoptive grandfather Lonz (Alonzo) used to tell me stories of riding the rails looking for work during the Depression so he could support his young family. I'm sure he cooked over his old tins in far less hospitable settings, but I like to think he'd be proud that those lessons he taught me about thrift and conservation are ones I value enough to share with the next generation.

Current contents of kitchen:

• plastic travel mugs that I do not like using in the dishwasher
• some polycarbonate food bowls with lids
• silicone ice cube trays
• empty tea and cookie tins
• clean, empty food cans
• empty salt shaker
• plastic drink mix container
• pot holders I made on a loom during childhood and a random promotional pot holder
  
• duplicate set of measuring cups
• canning funnel
• manual juicer
• potato masher
• baby food jar spatula

What kinds of things do you repurpose as toys?

Literally Two Seconds: Exergen Temporal Scanner Measures Up

This might show just a bit of neurosis, but ever since we received an Exergen Temporal Scanner earlier this summer, I've been on watch for someone in our household to have a fever. Fortunately, my insanity cannot conjure actual events, so we've stayed healthy all summer.

That good health hasn't quelled our curiosity or stopped us from playing with the Temporal Scanner.

Upon taking the scanner out of its plastic clamshell packaging, I noticed that the battery door did not have any super-accessible tabs for opening (like most remote controls). With toddlers in the house, that is a huge relief. Ranger has been a dedicated electronics hacker since gaining manual dexterity, and the batteries are always his first target upon disassembly.

The included 9-volt battery also underlines this tool's smart design. A 9-volt is a long lasting battery (actually a series of 6 AAAA batteries under one covering) that doesn't roll off the table, and doesn't look snack sized to most humans.

This amazingly fast thermometer produces a consistent result in seconds. We never had any luck with ear thermometers and our cheap CVS-brand temporal scanner takes FOREVER to determine a temperature (and never offers the same result twice). Unlike oral digital thermometers and ear thermometers (which estimate a real body temperature from a number of samples), the Exergen measures real body temperature from the temporal artery (forehead) and then accounts for heat loss due to room temperature.

The simple one-button design has an elegance that only comes from a passionate and talented expert. This isn't something dreamt up by non-techs and then half-heartedly executed by a team of engineers. This smart device was developed by a Havard research physicist with special interest in medical technology (Francesco Pompei).

Pompei and his wife head this Massachusetts-based company and have made impressive choices for their company: Exergen temporal scanners are made in the United States. How many digital products can make that claim these days?

We love the Exergen temporal scanner. It promises to be fast, accurate, and non-invasive when we're testing a grouchy, sickly family member.

It's recommended retail price is around $50, but will outperform and outlast its cheaper competitors. Currently the Exergen can be found at Amazon (for around $32), Walgreens, both R Us chains, Sam's Club, and Costco (among other brick and mortar and online sellers).

In the future, we'd love to see the option of a hard-sided case (for protection during travel and storage).