Month: October 2010

Get Ready For Trouble

Crawling is an exciting milestone and Thing 4 is getting close. These pictures show how close.

But these pictures also hint at trouble on the way. Sure, crawling means she will start getting into stuff around the house so we need to watch her at all times. But the trouble that’s coming isn’t for me. We’ve got the baby proofing pretty well down by now.

No, the trouble that is coming is for Thing 3. His world is about to get turned upside down. Until now, he has been the one getting into his brothers’ stuff. And as the youngest he generally gets his way.? That’s about to change.

Do you see in the pictures what is motivating Thing 4 to crawl?? She is trying to get one of Thing 3’s toys.? Until now he didn’t care much what she was doing. ? But as soon as she takes one of his toys he will NOT be happy. And that will be Trouble with a capital T.? Thing 4 is going to be one tough little girl.

When Indeed

Six year olds have a way of cutting right to the point and asking whatever comes across their mind. While I was battling with Thing 3 one morning to change his Pull-Up and get dressed for preschool (a daily occurrence that I can count on as sure as the sun coming up), Thing 1 asked me “When will Thing 3 be potty trained?”

Ah, yes, when indeed. We have been engaged in potty training Thing 3 since the bootcamp back in July. We’re now well into October and while there has been definite progress since then, we are very far from declaring mission accomplished.

How much progress? He generally will go potty 3-4 times a day now at preschool. Except when he decides he doesn’t want to for whatever reason. What reasons could he have for wanting to be in a wet Pull-Up when he knows how to use the potty? This is Thing 3, remember. It might be the wrong day of the week, or he could be wearing the wrong color shirt, or he might not like how the teacher asked him, or he may have heard a sound he doesn’t like. At home, he still wants no part of the potty except the last few nights he has gone just before bed like his brothers. Oh yeah, he still has yet to poop in a potty, preferring to do his business in the Pull-Ups.

It’s one step forward, two steps back.? Sometimes I think Thing 4 may be potty trained before her brother even with the nearly 3 year head start.

Disclosure: I get paid as a Pull-Ups Potty Training Partner.

Another Reason Happy Meals Are Perfect Food

McDonald's Happy MealI already knew McDonald’s Happy Meals were the perfect meal for kids. What’s not to like? They are cheap and fast. Kids actually eat them. They come with a new, top quality toy that won’t break for years. And there are choices, but not too many choices that will overwhelm your kids – chicken or hamburger? fries or apples? regular or chocolate milk? It is, quite possibly the perfect meal for kids.

Just when I thought there was nothing that could possibly make Happy Meals any better…I found the Davies McDonalds Happy Meal Project. Sally Davies, a photographer in New York, bought a Happy Meal, left it on the table, and took a picture of it over six months to see how it might change. Or not. It turns out it didn’t change much at all. Sure, it got a little harder. But there was not a speck of mold on the bun or the meat. The french fries remained a nice golden yellow.

No more throwing away half eaten Happy Meals!

Atari Haunted House Stays in the Past

Atari 2600Wii Haunted House
You may remember Atari’s classic Haunted House game. It came out in 1981 for the Atari 2600.? At that time, it was considered an advanced game with scrolling graphics and pioneered the concept of multiple levels.? All pretty basic stuff now but at the time it was pretty cool.

Now Atari has put out a modern version of the same game for Wii, Xbox, and PC.? The classic game has been remade for a new generation of gamers with enriched 3D environments, interactive objects, dynamic storylines, and new characters.? You must navigate your way through 16 levels of spooky environments, find hidden treasures, solve puzzles, fight new bosses, and manipulate the environment on their way to a showdown with Zachary Graves.

I handed the game over to Thing 1 to try out to see how it measures up to today’s new standards.? The first thing we noticed was that even though the game was on Wii,? it required use of the numchuk controller which is really just a joystick.? I thought it would have allowed use of the Wii motion controllers to make it a truly modern version of the game.? Instead, it was remarkably similar to the original which I guess was the point so maybe that’s not a bad thing.? Thing 1 didn’t like that he had to use the numchuk joystick to move the character around.? I can only imagine how unimpressed he’d be with the classic black Atari joystick with the red button that I grew up on.

The game is rated “Everyone 10+” for Language, Mild Blood, and Mild Cartoon Violence. That sounds bad but really it’s pretty tame and cartoonish, no worse than the Tom and Jerry cartoons all my kids watch.

Thing 1 is not quite 7 years old and that might have factored into his take on the game. We turned it on and he had a hard time figuring out what to do at first. The screen is mostly dark because, well, you are supposed to be inside a haunted house. After we figured out how to walk around and search for items he continued to play for a bit, but soon lost interest. His comments were “It takes too long”, “It’s impossible to beat”, and “How do you even win?”.

I have to say I kind of agree with his assessment of the game. You pretty much walk around in the dark, blindly go up to objects and press the button to see if it contains a prize.? If you are into adventure games it might be more appealing.? We generally like action games like Wii Sports.

If you loved Atari’s Haunted House 30 years ago and want to bring the same game to your kids, give it a try.? Just don’t expect it to compete with the action or graphics kids take for granted in today’s modern video games.

Disclosure: I received free product in exchange for my unbiased review.

Dual Personalities

The Jekyll and Hyde behavior of Thing 3 continues.? We’ve already seen how he is a completely different person at preschool than he is at home.? And now we find out he’s the biggest story teller in the class.? Each day, during group time, the teacher asks a question and writes down each answer on a sheet for all the parents to see.? Usually the questions are “What is your favorite barn animal?” and Thing 3 will have a one word answer like “Duck!” (the exclamation is necessary because he really, really likes ducks).

On Monday, the question is “What did you do over the weekend?”.? Most kids have brief answers like “Played with my mom and dad”, “I drank milk”, or “We made cookies”.? Here is what Thing 3 recalled:

I played with toys and went to bed with Buzz. I got coffee and ice water and went to Chuck E Cheese. Buzz was in trouble and went to time out for taking a cookie. I’m going to watch Buzz tomorrow. I had an apple.

Here’s the interpretation: He carries his Buzz Lightyear doll with him everywhere. The coffee is a reference to trips with SuburbanMommy to the Caribou Coffee drive-thru which we do often on weekends when we need to strap him in one place for a while. I did take the 3 boys to Chuck E Cheese on Sunday. It’s a madhouse on a rainy day but necessary sometimes when there is nothing to do. It wasn’t Buzz who got the timeouts, but sometimes after Thing 3 gets a timeout, he recreates the moment by giving his Buzz doll a timeout. I don’t know anything about taking a cookie as a reason for the timeout. I’m sure the timeout was for hitting his brothers or spitting on the wall. Saying he will watch Buzz tomorrow is a given because we’ve watched Toy Story 1 and 2 a hundred times.