I was a 70’s baby. When I was a kid we often played with our favorite Star Wars action figures. Each one stood about 5 inches, yes “stood”.

Maybe I’m getting old, but the Star Wars action figures today suck.

I remember the GI Joes from the generation before me seemed massive in comparison. The classic dolls usually stood around 8 inches (I’m doing this from memory). They towered over our toys!

My son just celebrated his fourth birthday. I introduced Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back to him shortly before he celebrated his big day. Both movies still rock. We’ll be watching Return of the Jedi very soon.

Naturally, having watched Star Wars the toys were on the top of his list. Our wonderful friends and family generously bought him some great gifts, including the new Star Wars action figures.

Here’s the deal, they stand are about 3 inches tall, they hardly stand. They are so tiny that small hands have a hard time balancing them on their own. The guns and accessories that come with them are practically invisible. I should also add that you can barely fit the accessories into the figurines hands.

When your kiddo first eagerly tears the action figures out of the packaging you’ll notice tiny plastic bands holding their weapons in place and their wardrobe on. Once they get removed it’s difficult to get them back together again.

I expressed my concerns to a friend at work, hoping he would help me see the light, but he agreed. We concluded that the new action figures are made to be collectibles. Wonderful, so my son will be able to help raise money for college from all of his unopened toys years down the road.

I understand that things get smaller over time, but kids don’t. I am as disappointed with these new Star Wars toys as I was with The Phantom Menace. Are you reading this George?

Am I alone here?

Photo from Flickr by: MarkyBon

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When most people think of Dolly Parton they think of her flash Country persona, her anatomy (sorry, but it’s true), her starring in Nine to Five (if you’re as old as me) or her Islands In The Stream song with Kenny Rogers (ah ah!). In Nashville, TN. we often associate Dolly with her Disney-esque theme park, Dollywood.

Around my house we know Dolly for her as the Book Lady. Each month my two kids (both under five) receive a free book from Dolly! The books are always excellent and age appropriate. It’s always a pleasant surprise when the books arrive from Dolly’s Imagination Library.

Take a glance at this:

In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.

So she decided to mail a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could ™, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.

Needless to say the experience has been a smashing success. So much so that many other communities clamored to provide the Imagination Library to their children. Dolly thought long and hard about it and decided her Foundation should develop a way for other communities to participate. The Foundation asked a blue ribbon panel of experts to select just the right books and secured Penguin Group USA to be the exclusive publisher for the Imagination Library. Moreover a database was built to keep track of the information.

What’s great is that this program is now spreading to different states, provinces and countries. You can find out how to get free books for your community’s little ones here: http://www.dollysimaginationlibrary.com. How cool is this program?

Now whenever the new books arrive both of my kids scream THANK YOU DOLLY PARTON!

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I’m a big film geek, I have been for many years. It probably all began when my mum took me to go see House of Wax in 3D, starring Vincent Price. No, I’m not “that” old, it was a re-release.

I decided last weekend to take my son to go see a movie, Monsters vs Aliens. I was concerned at first, because I didn’t want to scare him or bore him. This was going to be his fourth in-theater film, so I wanted to be sure he’d have a good time.

After a great response from my friends on Twitter, I decided to give it a go. My son and I had a guy’s night out, while my daughter and wife did a girl’s night. It was a fun way to connect one on one. We went out for dinner and road some rides at the mall, then came the main event.

I am very happy to report that the movie was great. He sat mesmerized through the whole picture. He was talking and talking about the film afterward, which was a good indication that he loved it. I highly recommend it for a 3-year old, it’s even got some tongue-in-cheek jokes for us grown ups.

In case you’re wondering, his other movies were Bolt, which he loved too; WALL-E, which he was board to tears with (hey, it was rated Family!), and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Ya, that’s right. We took him when he was a baby to a Movies For Mommies screening of the hilarious film. We hope he was too young for it to leave a lasting effect on him.

Have you seen any new good movies with your wee ones lately?

Photo by: JanneM

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Last night I came across my daughter’s swaddle blanket as I was cleaning up. It brought back some great memories, especially because my friend Brad and his wife are expecting their first born any minute.

I remembered that my son’s blanket was identical, and it got me thinking. I was inspired enough to put a video on Seesmic asking a question: Did your baby have the same swaddle blanket at the hospital?

Swaddle Blanket Conspiracy

So far the replies and tweets I’ve received have confirmed that babies born in Chicago, Nashville and New York also had the same blankets. Both of my kids were born in Toronto.

Did you have the same blanket? If so, where was your child born? I wonder if this is the same internationally. Is this a swaddle blanket conspiracy?

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I just came across a post from LifeHacker a couple of days ago on a YouTube player for children called Kideo.

I always cringe when I play a video to my 2 and 3 year olds. You never know when something terrible might appear in a video. I’m really impressed with the ones I’ve seen appear on Kideo so far.

LifeHacker writes:

Kideo is a simple front-end for letting your kids off the leash on YouTube, with an extensive white list of kid-friendly videos that can be refreshed via the space bar.

Check out Kideo and let me know what you think, better yet, what your kids think.

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I’ve heard recently about a couple I know who are having some difficulties, the main cause is that they never take breaks away from their kids.

I am the world’s number one fan of my little ones, they seriously rock. They are also 2 and 3 (11.5 months apart), so they can be a touch exhausting.

Recently I was lucky enough to take a few extra days in San Francisco after Macworld to spend with my wife, Heather. Together we walked all over the city in weather that couldn’t have been better.

Heather and I met as backpackers in Ireland, so we are both accustomed to adventures in unknown cities. We spent a few days exploring hidden, local gems without the use of any guides. It was just like the old days when we first met.

It came to us as a shock when we realized that we hadn’t had a holiday without the kids – ever. We skipped around the city like giddy school children, it was incredible to be FREE for a few days. We were free of any responsibilities,  no pull-up changing, potty training, prepared meals, bath time, nothing!

Do you have someone you can leave your kids with for a weekend? Have you asked your in-laws, parents, siblings, trust worthy friends for a weekend of babysitting?

Even if it’s just a weekend in a neighboring city, perhaps camping if the weather works for you. The main point is to get away with your partner, not to stay with friends, just the two of you. If you’re a single parent the same applies here.

Go away and take some time off – you deserve it.

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RSS icon girl by Geek Mom Heather from Flickr

Do you understand how to use RSS (Real Simple Syndication)? We bloggers often assume that you do, but not everyone does. Don’t be ashamed, we all have to learn some time.

Darren Rowse explains RSS well on his Problogger blog, as does Common Craft in their video: RSS In Plain English. Finally, watch the video: Google Reader in Plain English to get a clear understanding of how to use Google to manage your feeds.

———

Are you back? Do you understand now? Great! So, how can RSS help protect your wee ones? It’s simple.

Subscribe to this feed: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerelchild.xml. It’s the US Consumer Product Safety Commission – Recent Child Related Product Recalls feed. It’s updated frequently and is a great source for information that you should have, especially with the holidays looming.

Did you know you can use RSS to easily subscribe to this (or any) blog? It’s very easy to do. To subscribe for free just click this image:

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When I was a kid our family photos were all kept in albums. The hundreds of photos were meticulously positioned under the plastic static film on each page by my mum. She was great about writing the dates and locations of the photos on the backs.

Today we’re lucky enough to have plenty of storage in our harddrives and external harddrives to store thousands of photos. The photos can easily be tagged, so we can locate them quickly. Each image file has the date written to it, so tracking when they were shot is pretty simple. But there’s a problem.

If a thief robbed my childhood home he would have stolen the stereo, TV and probably my dad’s scotch. He never would have looked twice at the piles of bulky photo albums, today it’s a different situation. Your laptop and harddrives will be among the first to go should you get robbed.

I’m not trying to make you paranoid. I’m just reminding you to always back up your photos (family videos and audio). If you’re leaving for a period of time you should hide your external harddrives or even store them elsewhere.

Backing up to an external harddrive is also a great way to protect your files if there’s a fire, or if your machine suddenly dies. Once you lose your family photos they’ll be gone forever. Don’t just trust the cloud to store them either, there’s no telling when a service or your account can disappear.

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CPR Baby by Zoomar

I’m always searching for new apps for my iPhone, I was thrilled when I recently found a free version of PacMan. As I searched through the iTunes Music Store free apps section, I came across an amazing app that’s so much more useful than killing ghosts.

Phone Aid serves as a quick guide and support system should you need immediate instruction on how to help someone in a medical emergency. There are terrific illustrations and audio commentary that walks you through the steps to administering CPR, assist a choking victim and more First Aid.

I highly recommend you download this free app. I hope to heck you never have to use it.

This is the part that I add that I am not a medical professional, and that you should probably call 911 before you mess with any iPhone app.

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When your baby is born you will likely be housebound for a while. That means that you’ll be home to help your wife and tend to your wee one. This is awesome, sure you’ll be pretty sleep deprived, but it’s still awesome. There’s nothing better than gently hugging on your son or daughter, and on your wife for doing all of the work. It’s an incredible and sweet experience.

What you’re going to learn quickly is that you won’t be going out any more, forget about your bowling league, after work drinks or baseball team. It’s simply not in the cards for you to be entertaining yourself after work. Speaking of cards, you can forget about poker night too. Instead you’ll be in your home, a lot.

I was given this tip from a colleague when we announced we were pregnant with our first child, Sam. The tip is to stop watching movies now.

The tip is a really good one, assuming you enjoy good movies. Please tell me you do, don’t tell me you liked The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. If you did just stop reading this post now, because it’s clear that you could be entertained by watching spit-up dry, there will be plenty opportunity for that.

The idea is that by the time your baby is born, you’ll have an arsenal of good to great films to watch. The early childhood days are filled with your baby either sleeping, pooping or eating. Surprisingly babies aren’t nearly as much work as you expect, except at night when you were planning on getting some sleep.

You’ll be spending loads of down time at home, so you want plenty of good entertainment to fill the time. If you’re nearly a dad, or you’re a new dad, and you’re reading this yelling “Doh!”, fear not.

There’s always decent video sites like www.hulu.com. I’m not sure of other international options for good online entertainment. Any suggestions?

Photo by: TheMacGirl*

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I can safely say that it’s not easy being forced to watch children’s programming. Many of the programs are too slow and repetitive, like the ones that have long pauses to wait for your kids to do as their told. Or the shows feature grown ups who dance around like they’re all hopped up on, umm, too much caffeine. I finally found a kid’s show that doesn’t insult their (or my) intelligence.

I was born in 1972, my favorites were Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Both shows were cool, urban, fun programs that guest starred popular actors and musicians. Take those two shows, add Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and mix it all up with Deee-Lite’s video for “Groove Is In The Heart” and you have Yo Gabba Gabba!

Any cool daddy who appreciates 80’s video games, rap music, anime, and really catchy music will love the show. Every episode teaches the kids valuable lessons, while entertaining mommy and daddy. Wikipedia lists the first season guests as:  Leslie Hall, The Shins, The Aggrolites, Cornelius, Biz Markie, Shiny Toy Guns, Supernova, Mark Mothersbaugh, Rahzel, The Postmarks, Sugarland, Tony Hawk, Low, Laila Ali, Elijah Wood, Mýa, The Salteens and series co-creator Jacobs’ band, The Aquabats.

According to the Yo Gabba Gabba! News page, Season 2 guest stars include Melora Hardin, Amy Sedaris, Jack Black, Andy Samberg, Rachel Dratch, The Roots, MGMT, the Ting Tings, Ladytron, Biz Markie, Mark Mothersbaugh, Mix Master Mike, Mates of State, Hot Hot Heat, Datarock, and more. How’s that for a lineup?

Give the show a watch with your little ones and let me know what you think. I swear you’ll be humming those songs in your head for weeks, here’s a taste.

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