Train 'Em Up Early For The Campaign Trail

Stopped by the Hillary Clinton/John Lewis-endorsement today in Atlanta with my kid in tow. I figure when she's about 10, she'll be able to pull in a real camerawoman's wages.

Where Do They Get This Stuff?

Birthday Rainforest Surprise

Bad Kiddy Product

This is NOT too funny any longer, the growing number of toys being recalled that were made in Lead-Based China. These lists of bad toys represent about half of The Princess’ loot pile ’round our house. The Princess is NOT going to be happy when her Polly Pockets collection gets hauled off to the dumpster today. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you can hear The Princess howling all the way down in Macon.

“The scope of these recalls is intentionally large to prevent any injuries from occurring,” she (Nancy A. Nord, acting Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman) told the news conference.

Several injuries had been reported in an earlier Polly Pocket recall last November. In all, at least one U.S. child has died and 19others have needed surgery since 2003 after swallowing magnets used in various toys, the government said.

“The scope of these recalls is intentionally large to prevent any injuries from occurring,” she told the news conference.

Full AJC story about yet more toy recalls here. Oh dear… here goes… pray for moms all across the country, please, with the nasty business we must go about today.

How To Talk To Your Child About Rednecks

Riding along in the car yesterday...

Kid: "Mom, what's a redneck?"

Mom (me): "Hmmm, let's see. A redneck is a derogatory term, for the most part. One people use to describe a person, a southerner, who talks slow and sounds dumb when they do. Doesn't necessarily mean they're dumb, just that they sure sound like it whenever they open their mouth. Or a redneck can be used to describe people who live in the country, and, uh, don't go to fancy restaurants all the time like we do in Atlanta. They don't have Whole Foods on every corner... stuff like that."

Silence from backseat. Then...

Kid, very indignant, near tears: "Well, Grammy (my mother) lives in the country and she's not dumb! She used to teach school!"

Me: "Yeah, she shops at Whole Foods too."

Another long silence...

Kid: "I don't think I know any rednecks."

Sometimes, it's best just to say nothing.

The Best Day Of My Life

Ava turns seven today. A pic from each year's party for mom's reminiscence purposes. This year's to be added later, after park party at 2pm. No costumes, no princesses, no Harry Potter this year. Outgrown already. Two favored boys invited instead. Sigh... I admire people who can write reasonably about their children. I just turn to utter sentimental mush trying to express myself. The emotions are way too grand.

Live-Blog The Birth

What's the hot trend among blogger men? Live-blogging the birth of their child. Yawn. Wake me up when it's the mom live-blogging it all.

Secret To Staying Young

I'll share with you, Dear Readers only, my secret to staying youthful. My daughter just picked up a video, read the cover and said, "Wow. This video was made a really long time ago. In 2002. I was just, like, just two or something."

I nodded in feigned agreement while muttering, "Like, totally." See, I really have no other choice but to be youthful. Like it or not.

Keep Your Mind Wide Open

I make no excuses, no apologies. I simply love this tween song, the theme song to Bridge To Terabithia.

Ava and I sing it ludicrously loud together. Now that's beauty.

Teaching Kids To Be Cyber-Smart

So they can become cyber-leaders for their peers.

Some parents rush to get their infants on a look-at-all-my-money kind of pre-school waiting list. Mostly so they can slap the bumper sticker for that particular school onto their green Suburban as soon as possible, but not quite covering-up the SSI or the Lovett stickers from the older kids, of course. But I diverge...

Me, about as soon as the pregnancy test turned blue, I not only rushed to the phone for the pre-school, but immediately registered a domain name in my child's name. Then I didn't think much about it all, her being moreorless a milk-swillin' blob for what seemed like decades for a few sleep-deprived months, way back when.

Fast forward seven years to real-time reality and I've found (former) milk-swillin' blob surfing sites I never knew existed, typically trying to find video on any Harry Potter movie, or a Bridge To Terabithia or Fire House Dog vid after having seen the trailer just a few hours ago at the "movie sitter", as opposed to the typical DVD at home. (Text-heavy sites are not even on the radar, and I seriously doubt they ever will be for the Born Year 2000 gen.)

It's only a matter of time before she's on MySpace. She already wants her own YouTube channel, but I don't think you can even sign-up a seven-year old for one of those. Not honestly that is.

At least one friend has had to involve the police over a Mean Girls On MySpace incident that involved her household. The kids in this particular "event" were all about 12. Twelve!

Getting to the point here, as cyber-savvy as Dear 'Ole Mom here is, I still feel my child could slip through even my clutch-y grasp online, even if I do stare over her shoulder 24/7 which I already do, well... mostly, even in our own home.

Vaspers over on The Grate has some critical questions to ask, and statements about cyber-bullies, that anyone with a computer, a modem and an almost-ready-for-prime-cyber-time kid unit should be asking now. A sampling:

Parents and teachers need to prepare children for blogocombat. I recently watched a news program on television, about a young boy who killed himself because some mean kids at school were calling him "gay" and "sissy boy" in a chat room that the child was addicted to.

Why would any child be so masochistic, that they would obsessively visit a chat room that was abusive to and victimizing them? To defend themselves? To attempt to answer every new allegation? To try to win people over to his side?

Why don't we ask ourselves what kind of parents and teachers we are?

Why do we shun our responsibility and let our young people run wild in the web, "do anything they want" on the computer, without any supervision, guidelines, or preparation for the evil they are bound to encounter sooner or later?

And what about when a child goes to a friend's house? And maybe Friend has Not-So-Cyber-Savvy, Kinda Clueless Parentals? Should I ask, as one might ask about guns in an unknown (to you) person's home, about what level of cyber-awareness exists in that household? And how could you do so without insulting their, no doubt otherwise, fine intelligence?

Lordy, lordy, lordy. If the traffic doesn't get us all around here, the relentless pursuit of progress surely will.

Bring Me A Drink, Mixed Sushi Platter

As of 4:27pm today my daughter received her first phone call from a boy. Call was brief and to the point: clarification on the title of the sixth Star Wars movie. That had been an issue at recess. (And no, I wasn't listening in. At six, my kid still feels comfortable talking to her friends in front of her mom. For this week.)

I'd better get AT&T on the line now to commence installation of her personal communications system. She'll need it. Corporate sponsorship bids will be considered until the end of the year.

The training is proceeding according to plan, Mahhh-ster.