/dev/null/kevin

 Code Orange!  Code Orange!  Hazmat teams to Playground One!

When you have a kid in school you learn all about other kids with food allergies.  The most common allergies seem to be wheat, dairy and peanuts.  Schools are careful that no one is served food they shouldn't eat but some schools actually ban all kids from bring food with peanuts in it.

I have to wonder what the extra zealous schools would think of the following snack: Keebler Cheese and Peanut Butter Crackers.  Motto: It's the trifecta of allergens!

And, yes, I'm pretty sure that this isn't so healthy for kids without allergies to be eating, either.

Christmas is coming (yes, you heard that here first).  So, I present¹ you with Kevin's Christmas Survival Pack For Parents.  It's not enough to have bought all the gifts, food and decorated the house, you need to be prepared for after the gifts are opened.

Here's a list of things that every parent needs on Christmas morning (not including alcohol):

• Quality Scissors - For cutting open those sealed plastic boxes.


• Band-Aids - For when you cut yourself on the opened sealed plastic boxes.


• Wire Cutters and Pliers - For those toys tied down with 75 feet of 20 gauge wire.


• Small Phillips screw diver - For those little battery compartments.  Apparently, the batteries try to escape.


• Magnet, Flashlight and Magnifying glass - For when you lose those little screws.


• Glue Gun, Zip Ties and Tape - To repair all those little accidents.  You can also keep toddlers in one place for a little while.


• Lots of Batteries - Y'know, cuz they're not included.


• Stud Finder - Lots of junk goes on the walls so make sure it doesn't fall.  My stud finder always points towards me.

¹ See what I did there?  Another Christmas pun, free of charge.  You're welcome!

My wife showed me this Precious Moments Snow White figurine that rates a 10 on the cute scale.

But my daughter goes to 11.

My daughter doesn't like to eat bread crust.  I know she's not alone.  Yet we tell our kids to eat is because it's supposedly healthier.  My initial reaction was that it's probably not since both the crust and the inside from from the same dough.  The only difference would be that that the crust is more cooked and has whatever topping you might put on it.

It turns out that I'm wrong.  The crust really is healthier than the rest of the bread.  A 2002 German study found that the crust contains an antioxidant called pronyl-lysine.

So, until we can get her to eat crusts I will now be eating them instead of throwing them away, or feeding them to the dog.  Sorry, Bruiser. 

As a Star Wars fan, I've been waiting for this moment for a long time.  I got to sit down and watch Star Wars with my daughter on my lap.  She loved it.  I loved watching it with her and answering her questions (she had many).  Afterwards she wanted to play with my Star Wars toys vintage collectables.  And, yes, I did show her Daddy in the movie.  She wants me to wear that costume for Halloween.

She cannot escape her destiny:

She's four years old and is really into characters and plots now.  No more Dora, Blue's Clues and Wiggles.  Now it's High School Musical (1 & 2) and many new books.  She can handle the idea of death without getting scared and she also knows that everything on TV is "pretend."  It helps that I tell her what's going to happen so she's prepared.  Still, some concepts were hard to explain.  The Force, Obi-Wan dead, but not really.  I didn't want to call him a ghost so he's just "living inside the Force" now.  She also didn't like Alderaan betting blown up.  I had to compare that to the Big Bad Wolf blowing down the pigs' houses.

She liked Princess Leia because she's into the whole Princess thing (thanks, Disney), but that's also got her interested in the first place.  I think her only disappointment in Star Wars was that Princess Leia didn't do anything during the final battle.  Where is she?  What's she looking at?  Where's her spaceship?  Time for some Nancy Drew books now and some Buffy videos in a few years.  Maybe some Xena. 

She wants to watch "the second movie" but I may wait a bit.  It's a bit darker.

Pam Kong's recent post, along with Craig Bender's and Dan Lacher's comments, reminded me of discussions I've had with my own parents about child safety.  Given that I agree with most of the safety precautions we take these days, I also wonder how much safer these extra measures really make us.  Are we just a little safer, with the illusion of "total" safety, or are we really much, much safer?

We recently rode in a friend's minivan and our daughter sat in their extra car seat.  As I put her in I noticed that it was very old and improperly installed.  I'm pretty sure that it would have done nothing in an actual accident.  I did my best to quickly fix what I could (it was pre-LATCH tech) but all I remember from that drive was worrying about being in accident.  Fortunately it was a short drive. 

Craig/ThinGuy made the comment about never wearing seat belts as a kid.  I, too, have many memories of long drives with nothing in terms of safety.  We had a 1964 Volvo P544.  No, I'm not that old but my dad liked old cars.  He would disassemble the back seat so both the bottom and back rests were horizontal.  This so my sister and I could both lie down and sleep.  It also exposed the trunk, electrical wiring and much bare sheet metal.  Still, I felt safe back there.

As we grew older we (kids) would usually sit in the front seat.  We would shift the gears.  Later we would even steer the car.  Sometimes we'd do both.  With bench-style seating this is easier than it would be today.

Today my father would probably be arrested for child endangerment and locked up next to Britney Spears.

On the plus side, I passed by driver's test with ease.   I drove our other Volvo, a 1966 P1800.

So, were we just lucky and stupid?  Or is safety less about the equipment and more about taking the right precautions and fully understanding the risks?  While I'm sure we are technically safer, much of our safety could just be illusion.  If we become too reliant on the technology to keep us safe then we run the risk of failing to use common sense and may become less safe as a result.

That's when the robots will take over and kill us all. 

If you want to know how much you do something just tell your kids not to do it.

My four-year-old daughter started calling kids who made her mad stupid so we told her stop.  We explained that it wasn't nice.  I've now learned that I call many things stupid.  To my credit I don't direct it at people, usually situations or ideas, but she catches me at it all of the time.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I know where she learned it from.

Compare last year's picture to this year's picture.

She really has grown 2.5 inches in a year, but she looks the same height.  Strange.  We also remember to get her a haircut this year.

I'm here.  Not missing work.

Here is yet another product for babies with lead in it.  I've honestly lost count.
Tags: china lead recalls toys
August 15, 2007 12:56 PM PDT Permalink | Comments [2] |

I have to take a Daddy Moment here and beam about my little girl.  She wrote this about a month ago, not long after turning four, completely unassisted.

It says [translated] "I love you, love Hayley"

I LUV UO LUV HAYLEY

The "Ee" and "Gg" are Daddy's.  The rest is hers.

Every parent's worst nightmare: A massive toy recall - 1 million in total and 87 types - this time due to lead-based paint.  Thanks, China!  Your plan to kill our children and pets with dangerous products is working well.  Welcome to the global economy!  Please use more gas so prices continue to go up!

Here is a list of all of the recalled toys.  Note, these are for very young kids and these are all popular characters.  I hope someone goes to jail for this, both here and in China.

I read Watership Down as a child and have fond memories of it.  My four year old daughter is always asking me to "make up" stories for her so I usually just tell her modified versions of books that I've read or movies that I've seen (She really liked the adventures of the "robots" R2-D2" and "C-3PO".

Recently she wanted a story about bunnies, so I tried to remember Watership Down.  I remembered a few character names, but couldn't recall enough of the plot to tell her a good story.  So, off to the library we went to get the book and DVD.  The book is to wordy for a four year old to sit through, and there is a whole mythology and language to learn.  As a result, I've taken to reading chapters on my own and then summarizing for her.

*** Spoiler Warnings for Watership Down. ***

My recollection of Watership Down, filtered over these many years, was a story about "bunnies on an adventure."  I had forgotten how violent parts of the story are.  It's hard enough explaining a military command structure to a child, but there are quite a few dead bunnies to contend with as well.  I knew I was in trouble when my daughter was upset that the OWSLA didn't let Fiver eat a cowslip.  And that's just in the first chapter.

Suffice it to say that General Woundwort and Captain Campion are making few appearances in my abridged version of the story.

The DVD isn't much better.  The "next chapter" button will be my friend if I ever let her watch it.  I previewed it and it's quite gory.  It also suffers from something I call "not enough closure" syndrome.  My daughter can handle stories with the characters in some peril, as long as she sees that they are okay at the end.  The problem with lots of "kids" movies is that after showing the characters in lost, hunted, or otherwise unhappy for over an hour, she needs to see them found, safe and happy again for more than just a few minutes.  Just saying "happily ever after" doesn't always cut it.  She wants to see it.

In the case of Watership Down, after the big (and bloody) fight with the General, they fast forward over all of that "safe" time and show Hazel and friends safe for about a minute.  Then the Black Rabbit of Death comes to take Hazel away. 

Good night, sweetie!  Sleep tight!

I can't protect her forever, but I'm going to try for as long as I can.  Long live Hazel-rah.

Hasbro has recalled almost one million Easy-Bake Ovens because kids can get their hands stuck inside and easily burn them.  29 injuries reported so far, 5 with burns.

Here is the recall notice.

Still no word on how dangerous it is to actually eat anything "baked" in one of these.

Tags: easy bake oven | recall

Here's a picture of my three year old daughter at Pump It Up in Sunnyvale, CA.  The best part of this place is that Dad can play, too!

Tags: slides, kids, fun