Strollerderby : websites

Pregcellent: Babies Do Come With (Hilarious) Instructions!

Kelly Mills — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:31:00 GMT

As a new parent, the whole baby thing can be overwhelming, to say the least. There's this idea we should just know how to do stuff naturally, like breastfeeding or interpreting the baby's cries correctly with little or no instruction. But of course, it isn't that instinctive. The lucky moms and dads have good relatives and friends to share parenting pearls with, and of course there's tons of books on the subject as well. But other people can get annoying with the constant advice, and the books are by and large dull as bleaugh.

That's why I think nothing is quite as good at breaking down what to do and what not to do as this site, in simple "yes" and "no" terms. I laughed for a loooong time at this. The helpful photos instantly tell you how to do so many of the essential infant things. My favorite is probably the one on bonding, but they are all pretty damn good. Like the diaper change one...Chortle snicker.

PBS Kids Launches Pay Service

Brett Singer — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:00:00 GMT

PBS has figured out one way to combat their shrinking government funding.

The New York Times reports that PBS is launching a new service called PBS KIDS PLAY! (all in caps, with the exclamation point, as in "What is PBS KIDS PLAY!"), that will offer various learning games, and also video clips of shows such as "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" and "Curious George." The cost will be $10/month or $79/year.

The extremely friendly FAQ page on the site has lots of helpful info, including a list of local member stations that offer discounts on the service to donors (only a few are listed but they suggest checking back later to see if your station gets added). The "elevator pitch" (their words) refers to the enterprise as a "personalized learning service" where "your child will learn a comprehensive preschool and kindergarten curriculum, based on national educational standards, by playing with PBS KIDS characters." The "personalized" part means that you can track your child's progress; in fact, you can have four separate "learning profiles" per account, meaning siblings can play (or PLAY!) at no extra cost.

This isn't the only "virtual preschool" (my term) on the market: Disney offers Preschool Time Online ($9.95/month or $49.95/year), and Nickelodeon has MyNoggin ($9.95/month, $7.95/month if you commit to 6 months, $5.95/month if you commit to a year). Both require a credit card for the free trial, whereas PBS KIDS PLAY! does not. The sites also look like they were created by a large media company, which of course they were. One synergistic benefit of signing up with the bigger companies is that you get a free subscription to their magazines (My Noggin or Family Fun) included with your fee.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if anyone is getting money for a service such as this one, I'd prefer it to be PBS. On the other hand, are these services meant to replace preschool? Is this some bizarro method of homeschooling, and/or of giving your kid a leg up once they start kindergarten? And since it costs money, has anyone studied its effectiveness? Should a three year old be spending this much time in front of a computer? What happened to flash cards, or just plain ol' having fun? How many questions can I ask in a single paragraph before my head starts to hurt?

Personally, I'm a fan of preschool. Thing 1 benefited greatly from it, socially and educationally. Thing 2 is there now and we love it. Of course, this is in Manhattan, where preschool is the only daycare option for working parents, so our reasons for sending the kids there were practical as well as educational.

After a quick review of the three sites, it seems that PBS KIDS PLAY! is the least commercial and, at least in their "pitch," the most educationally minded. If any of you use these services or is considering it, let us know in the comments.

Crafty: Make Magazine Launches "Howtoons" Kids' Projects

Patti — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:26:00 GMT

Howtoons is like manna from heaven. Functional, fun projects that don't all revolve around gluing stuff to other stuff. Terrific, vividly illustrated instructions. Stuff that's cool enough for big kids to do by themselves, and interesting enough for little kids to get excited about helping with. Pinchy chopsticks that I don't have to scour Chinatown for (these disappeared from brick-and-mortar stores when my kids were born. Why is that?).

Make and it's sibling Craft are such awesome showcases for people who are still interested in creating things; it's a pleasure to see them encouraging the next generation of makers and crafters.

Someecards: When You Care Enough To Email The Very Best

Patti — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:34:00 GMT

I'm not the hugest fan of e-cards, mostly because they're usually full of noisy midi files and weird animated graphics and they frankly kind of scare me, although I think it's sweet in a weird way that my dentist's office sends them on a regular basis ("Happy Labor Day from Dr. Ho!"). But I'm kind of all about these cards from someecards.com, with their vintage clip-art style and postironic taglines. The whole baby category is just exactly what I need in my life, and I'm fairly sure the cry for help category is going to serve me well in times to come. Boy, do I hope my dentist finds this site soon.

Threadless T-Shirts Launches Kids Line

Patti — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:24:00 GMT

Of all the purveyors of t-shirt irony, Threadless is my favorite. They let would-be designers submit ideas, which are then voted on. The winners get their design printed and sold as a limited-edition shirt.

The people-who-have-kids market must just be out of control, because Threadless is the latest in a long line of companies to begin producing children's products. Threadless Kids runs under the same principle as its parent: the community votes on kid-friendly designs, some of which are mirrored by adult versions (as in the photo at right). They're promising the same level of quality and service that Threadless is known for (I'll vouch for it, they're great and the shopping experience is a blast). Teeshirts in sizes 4 through 12 are $17, and onesies up to size 24 months are $20.

What I like best about Threadless Kids so far are the models—rarely do you see such a gathering of kids of all ages, looking like scruffy, cute, imperfect, real children. It's more like flipping through snapshots of my kids' last birthday party than looking at a catalogue. Bonus points for that, definitely.

Martha Stewart Relaunches Kids' Web Site

Patti — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:27:00 GMT

Look, I'm an unashamed and unapologetic fan of Martha Stewart. Always have been. And the new MarthaStewart.com portal is exactly why, especially the kids' section. Cute birthday party ideas that don't involve licensed characters? Sign me up, even though I've never baked a cake from scratch in my entire life. Clever organizational ideas? Always useful in my tight-fitting, tiny-closeted house. And who doesn't need more ways for their kids to sit down with glue and scissors and just focus for an hour or two? Martha's got 'em.

The site offers daily "Good Things" like this Sibling Kit for kids with a new baby in the family, and it's chock full of synergy--recipes from other parts of the site are referenced on the Kid's page, kid's crafts are crossreferenced in the main Crafts section.

Now, how can I do this homemade tap shoes thing without destroying my hardwood floors? Martha's not infallible, I guess.

SavvySource Takes the Edge off the Preschool Hunt

Patti — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:30:00 GMT

I went into my first preschool search pretty blindly, and very ignorant. I was quickly knocked out by the process and blown away by the prices, but I didn't want to end up like the caricature moms of fiction, going crazy trying to get my kid into preschool against all odds. Fortunately I had a friend who had a good line on a school that turned out to be a perfect fit for our family in every way.

Now that we're mulling the possibility of a move, and now that I have two kids of preschool age, I'm once again dipping into the available resources. Instead of a savvy friend, I've got SavvySource in my arsenal: lists of preschools nationwide, with basic contact information. For select cities, SavvySource has detailed profiles for preschools, complete with information about curricula, teacher education levels, facilities, and a million things I never even thought to wonder about, with information provided by the school and by parent surveys.

Getting into preschool shouldn't be harder than getting into college. Anything that simplifies the process is all right by me.

Teen Ink: Where Teenagers Can go to Write

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:20:00 GMT

Where was this when I was a teenager? Oh, right... the internet didn't exist when I was a teenager. Well, it sort of did, but I was clueless.

Teen Ink is a series of books, a magazine and a website written for teens and, more importantly, written by teens. It has teen written fiction, non-fiction, poetry, college essays, and book, music and movie reviews. One of the most interesting parts is a contest where you can submit and interview that you have written and some lucky teenager will win the opportunity to interview a celebrity. Right now you can win an interview with Martin Sheen. (Martin Sheen! I love President Bartlet!)

It is actually quite cool. Sadly for me, the homepage kind of hurts my eyes, but you know what they say, 'If it's too loud, you're too old'. (Hipster parent, or not.)

Madallie Makes Traveling with Kids Easy

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:02:00 GMT

It isn't often that I come across a truly unique kids' products site, but when I do, you're the first to know. Like now. Today's fabu du jour is Madallie, the children's online travel store.

Madallie's motto is "turn your kids into happy, patient travelers with Madallie." (Wait, wha-? Really? Really.) The moms behind Madallie have tracked down the most creative toys, comfort dolls, activities, books, games, backpacks and more to keep your kids occupied, and (more importantly) keep you from losing your shiznit, whenever you're on the road. Even if it is only to soccer practice.

What I like best about this site is that everything is all in one place. You don't need to go to three different stores to get everything you need for traveling. If you have a trip coming up (and even if you don't—Valentine's Day is around the corner) you must check out Madallie. You'll be glad you did. And so will rows 26-34.

"Ellen's Acres" Debuts on Cartoon Network

Patti — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:41:00 GMT

"Ellen's Acres", which premiered earlier this month on Cartoon Network, is described by its producers as "Eloise At The Plaza, set in a motel". The premise should certainly be ripe for the type of imagination-driven stories that have made Eloise a favorite for decades: five-year-old Ellen's hipster parents decide to drop out of the Los Angeles rat race to run a Nevada motel in the middle of the desert. While her parents run their new business and give her as much attention as they can spare, Ellen entertains herself by spinning vivid stories that also feature the motel's staff and guests.

It's a pretty timely premise, if you ask me--nearly all the parents in our social group at least occasionally gravitate toward that "leave it all behind" fantasy to some extent. My initial reaction to the show's synopsis was jealousy, in fact (my secondary reaction was to add Ellen's retired-skateboarder dad to my list of Hot Cartoon Guys).

The show's website has some free printables and wallpaper downloads as well as two very cute games ("Put this in my bookmarks!" said my four-year-old), plus character descriptions and an episode guide.

Disney Sneaks Peek of New Website to Public

Patti — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 12:19:00 GMT

Disney's creating some buzz with the new website update that CEO Robert Iger announced at CES a few weeks ago. Insiders who saw the previews in Vegas have raved about it, and Disney is leaking it bit by bit to the public before its official launch in a few weeks.

Most recently the House of Mouse is talking up the changes on their current website's "Disney Insider", touting the "motion" of the new page as well as the versatility. Still shots of the new site look awfully enticing (and are those Fairies Of Color I see in that glimpse from Disney's upcoming Tinkerbell feature? It's about damn time!). But when I tried to view samples of the video clips that are meant to be the cornerstone of the new Disney.com, they borked Firefox. Given that I have a six-month-old computer with a lightning-speed broadband connection, I'm going to need a little more pixie dust before that flies with me.

Deconstructing MommyTips.com

Patti — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:05:00 GMT

MommyTips could use a little help. For starters, as recently discussed here on Strollerderby, the gender bias inherent in the name needs to go. These are parenting tips, and it wouldn't hurt to take a hint from Parent Hacks and go gender-neutral. Let's all just assume (correctly) that fathers parent their children, come up with good ideas, and want to include themselves in parenting communities. Thank you. Moving on.

I don't want to continue to compare and contrast MommyTips with Parent Hacks, but they're both working toward a common goal of sharing unique parenting fixes with their readership and it's impossible not to compare them. Unfortunately MommyTips comes up short in ways that could easily be resolved and anything useful they're providing gets buried under crap. First and foremost, the site design. I had to do a double-take in my address bar to see if this was a Geocities site, and then check my calendar to see if it was 1997. This is not good design, and if your site is intended to provide information you need people to be able to find it. One tiny "tip" on the front page in the middle of a sea of advertisements, amongst which I had trouble finding the category links that would lead me to the rest of the tips, is not helping parents find what they need. May I introduce you to TypePad?

A little bit of editing wouldn't hurt. I don't need three individual tips about how baking soda paste will relieve the pain of a bee sting, I need it once. Credit it to three people if you must, but post it once. And don't post it in ALL CAPS. Or with Random caPital Letters or painful misspellings. Or with cream of mushroom soup (okay, that one's a personal nitpick). Powers That Be At MommyTips: please don't let your contributors look like fools. They have some great ideas that are completely obscured by grammatical chaos and administrative indifference. If editing is not your personal strong suit, paste things into a Word document and run them through a spelling and grammar check, then paste 'em back into your site. If you want to appear professional (and those eighty kajillion ads you're running tell me that you do), you need to polish your content.

Bottom line: there's always room in my life and in my bookmarks for another website providing good solutions to my parenting issues. But if I can't wade through the muck to find a mommy tip, I'm going to have to continue to make do with only a parent hack.

The Parenting and Home Web Sites You Should Definitely Waste Your Time Reading in 2007

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:01:00 GMT

Melissa Summers has compiled an excellent list of websites that she'll be reading more of in 2007 for her semi-regular Buzz Off column. At the top of her list, the entertaining and educational Parent Hacks, which is chock full of parenting wisdom. You may think you're a seasoned parent, but after reading Parent Hacks you'll feel like an amateur.

Melissa goes on to list her other top picks which are: Kiddley (craft-tastic), My Wardrobe Today (love these "day-in-the-life" sites), Finished Kitchens Blog (tax refund check anyone?), Whoopee (cheeky Brit mama tells it like it is), The Bargainist (financial tips), and Real Simple (for easy entertaining tips).

I see her list of websites and would like to raise her a: Real Estalker (stalking open houses, you know it), a Jen Lemen (one inspiring mama), a Construction Deal (my most favorite home improvement idea site) and One Toddler Goodie.

Happy time-wasting in 2007, and remember to rearrange those cubicles so you're facing the door. That way, if your boss pops in, it'll look like you are working.

[photo credit: fuggit.org]

Cleaning Up The Mouse House: Disney Previews New Website

Patti — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Disney's commitment to holding its market share of children's entertainment is so strong, it would almost be admirable if it weren't so darn insidious. This week at the 2007 International CES in Las Vegas, Disney CEO Robert Iger made it clear that his company has every intention of continuing, and increasing, its dominance in popular culture. He unveiled a preview of Disney's soon-to-be launched new website, which takes full advantage of web technology to provide an online environment customizable to any child of any age, and which serves as a portal to the entire Disney empire.

Describing the current site as "a site map" (although, as such sites go, not a bad one in my opinion), Iger noted that the modern consumer, with broadband technology, is capable of viewing more and richer content. And Disney aims to please: streaming video, social networking, the ability to set up individual logins for each member of your family to create an age-appropriate experience, downloadable content, and of course, more advertising possibilities.

The Mouse's old house welcomes 25 million unique visitors every month. The company claims their goal is to keep those 25 million people interested longer and to strengthen their brand loyalty. Investors have higher hopes than that.

Stay tuned for a review of the new Disney site when it launches, if we can tear ourselves away from the promised Jack Sparrow content.

The Family That Logs On Together ... Oh I Forget

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:00:00 GMT

What's easier -- jotting down a daily to-do list and sticking it on the fridge? Or logging on to your computer to find out what events you have planned that day? A growing number of online parenting calendar businesses are hoping the latter.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's "Working Dad" Paul Nyhan explores the burgeoning field of virtual parenting calendars like Cozi, Famundo, Fircle, Parentorganizer and even Google Calendar. "This year, a new generation of online family tools, including Seattle-based Cozi Central, hopes to fulfill this annual promise with one-stop Web sites that offer a calendar, message center, contacts, to-do lists and even a slide show," Nyhan writes.

Are you freaking kidding me? These companies aren't living in the virtual world. They're living in Fantasyland. On many days, I don't have time to shower in the morning. (What a lovely play date companion I am.) I don't want to waste precious parent sleep time logging onto my computer to check the time of a doctor's appointment when simply glancing at my hand written to-do list will accomplish the same thing. Come back to me in a few years when I have nine kids playing nine different sports, and I might change my tune. (Or my contraception.) Or I might just buy a whiteboard and a mess of markers.

Christmas Around the Web

Patti — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:00:00 GMT

School's out, your shopping is done, it's crappy outside and you and the kids are about to bring new meaning to the concept of "boxing day". How to kill the next few days and come through with your holiday spirit intact? Check out Tech Digest's list of the Top Fifty Christmas Websites.

The list runs a wide gamut from descriptions of holiday customs around the world from Santas.net to children's crafts at Enchanted Learning. Older kids will get a kick out of How Christmas Works, while preschoolers will go nuts for L'il Fingers Merry Christmas. There is a huge store of educational material here: historical narrative, a discussion of the origins of the Christmas tree, and the official site of the White House Christmas tree.

Songs, jokes, activities, trivia, stories, a killer collection of vegetarian holiday recipes: you can stay busy for days with this list that includes something for everyone. Even crazy cat people.