Mama's Musings

Top Ten Tween Unplugged Toys #2

If you like the classic game of Cranium, you will love the new CRANIUM FAMILY EDITION (About $8.50; Recommended Age: 8 and up; Players: 4 or more)

New this holiday, CRANIUM FAMILY EDITION makes holiday gatherings or even just a night at home an evening of high-fiving fun. I swear even my rather game-lazy seven year old got into it because it is active. The folks at HASBRO sent it along to us to try out. We love it! You get to act out certain scenes will the others guess. This family twist on classic CRANIUM is packed full of cross-generational fun with 16 sensationally collaborative, laugh-out-loud activities that transform game night fun into a family affair. Whether you’re tackling silly stunts like passing a Cranium cube to your mom—using only your elbows— or working with your team to spell “underpants” backwards, CRANIUM FAMILY EDITION is as much fun for parents as it is for kids!

Top Ten Tween Unplugged Toys #1

Over the next ten Mondays, I am going to introduce an exceptional gift idea your tween will love. Just in time for the holidays, I have reviewed numerous products to bring you the very best. All the products were tested by me and my children. They all run under $40 and are available online. Today's product wins the prize for creativity, imagination, and downright fun.

If you have ever had a special connection with an animal, you are going to love the Manadoob Secret Connection Kit. Based on the work of documentary filmmaker June Salin, her book, Manadoob, Mystery of the Moobia Stones, introduces several make-believe animals who are misfits in their own right. Wella, a sensitive young girl,  gets invited into the secret world of the Manadoob by her most trusted companion, her dog Cruz. Her experiences take her on an extraordinary journey in which she learns her most valuable possession is the belief she has in herself.

The kit itself has 16 rune-like stones, a cloth pouch, and a guide book. For hours of endless imagination your 8+-year-old will love this kit (Retail $34.95)! There's even a Manadoob Web site to connect  with the characters beyond the book itself.

Mini Man turns 30

Okay, so it's actually the minifigures from LEGO whose birthday was the day before my son's. You know the adorable action figures that can be assembled in 8 quadrillion little ways? I'm not kidding. And because I know you love trivia, I'm including a few fun factiods about these figures, who have their own Web site, too. Happy 30th Birthday, dudes. Thank you for enriching my childhood and that of my own kids, too!

 Minifigures represent the world’s largest population, more than 4 billion people strong, making it 3 times larger than China, 12 times larger than the United States and 120 times larger than Canada.   
 Globally, 3.9 minifigures are sold per second, 365 days per year.  That’s an average of over 122 million per year! 
 There are more than 8 quadrillion (8,181,068,395,500,000) possible combinations of minifigures that can be made using all of the unique parts over the last 30 years.
 Film stars and comic heroes started to appear as minifigures in 1998 with LEGO Star Wars™; only two real people have been represented in minifigure form multiple times (Answer found on www.GoMinimanGo.com)
 The standard minifigure is four LEGO bricks tall and has just over 970 degrees of movement.
 Of all of the minifigure’s roles, the police officer is most popular, with 41 different versions appearing in 104 sets over the last 30 years.

1983 was a very good year

As you people rev up for back to school, remember this: 1983 was a very good year. I remember it well. It was a time when my friend Cherish and I discovered boys. We spent hours filling out applications we had stolen from the local drugstore to win a free car. Aside from ballot box stuffing, we danced between being little girls and being big ones. Needless to say, we didn't win.

It was also the year the Chicken McNugget was introduced, McEnroe won Wimbledon, the movie The Big Chill was released, and Cabbage Patch Kids were everywhere.  My short-lived romance gave me one that wore camouflage. It was very short-lived.

This September marks the 25th Anniversary of the cultural phenomenon and the milestone will be celebrated with a limited edition series that match the original 1983 design and style.  So dust off your scrunch socks and poodle hair-do. The Cabbies are back. But please. Leave your cammies at home.

Available everywhere this September 9th.

Builders of Tomorrow Unite!

My four-year-old nephew loves anything that is big, yellow, loud and moves earth. So when we got the LEGO Road Construction Set for him, we knew we had hit pay dirt.

The set claims to be for four years and up. According to my sister-in-law, parental supervision is certainly advisable as the little pieces are still hard to manage for four-year-old fingers (unless you are my other nephew who is exceptionally brilliant and reads the instructions by himself). The end result, however, is very worth it. In fact, my nephew has started creating his own vehicles from the 300 pieces. As with the LEGO brand, there are myriad ways to create and recreate. Quite the bargain for your Wee One - at $19.99, this set is a great introduction to the construction industry, and all the moves those machines can make!

Crime Fighters

It was a rainy day when the doorbell rang. Special delivery package for the kids. Their Police command Center from the LEGO City collection had arrived. And just in the nick of time!

Our eight-year-old daughter carefully read the instructions, thereby assisting her six-year-old brother in assembling the entire thing under an hour. With very little parental guidance the two of them identified which pieces went where. The life-like scenarios such as the computer monitors, hand-held intercom device and the mobile jail cell have provided hours of fun for the kids. The police tractor trailor is very sturdy and has survived several intermedia-level crashes with other non-Lego vehicles.

Fighting crime is a daily event in our home as our son morphs into a knight, then cowboy, then justice-seeking vampire. Thanks to Lego he has joined forces with the Power of Good for hours-long entertainment and imaginative play.

Mama's Musings Holiday Giveaway #13

Baby Brain Box (retail value: $79.95)  is based upon the groundbreaking work of Dr. Jill Stamm, Ph.D., the respected founder of the New Directions Institute for Infant Brain Development.

Baby Brain Box provides rich learning tools that will help every infant, toddler and pre-schooler maximize their opportunity to learn.

Product Development Is Based on Research From:
    * Baylor College of Medicine
    * Yale Child Study Center
    * Detroit Children's Hospital
    * Harvard University
    * University of California, Irvine

What does it do?

• Stimulates your child's development.
• Gives your baby a (chubby) leg up by getting him or her baby off to the best learning start possible.
• Influences the steps of healthy brain development through its colorful design.
• Encourages LEARNING PLAY.

Baby Brain Box is aslo available on-line at www.babybrainbox.com  and www.amazon.com (after 1/7).

We're giving away one box so please remember to leave a comment and subscribe to my parenting newsletter to enter to win! Deadline is December 12th. We promise never to sell, rent or give away your personal information to anyone. Ever.

Fill out your e-mail address to receive my parenting newsletter!

Congrats to Noreen for winning!!

Lego's Big Rig and Mosaic

My daughter ran home from school crying the other day. After completing her six-week reading challenge, she won a glass-blown raindrop that promptly broke when she put on her jacket to go home. I let her cry for a while, then consoled her by pulling out the Lego Mosaic I received in the mail for her to try out. Later that same day, my son and our babysitter spent three hours putting together Lego Creator's Big Rig, a three-in-one vehicle set with 550 pieces. Geared towards seven to twelve year-olds, I was grateful for our 12-year-old babysitter's patience as she completed the project with my six-year-old son. She comes every Thursday to help out in the afternoons while I work.

My son's favorite part?

"The engine, Mom. It's got a propellor and is really cool!" He also loves the exhaust pipes and other real-to-life pieces that makes his truck more than your average variety store toy. The great thing is we have a chance to create two other types of vehicles with the same parts -- a go-cart and a low-rider car.

The Lego Mosaic 6162, geared towards children above age three, kept my creative eight-year-old daughter busy for a good half-hour. She used all three templates to create pictures, then added on ideas as she went along. We were certain to keep the parts separate, which is a good idea whenever you get a new Lego toy. Eventually, the pieces will come off as curious hands create new things from the standard design.

Lego saved the day and has once again proven to be a delightful toy for the entire family! My favorite thing about Lego is the bonding that happens around building the toys together. It's educational and so much fun. But I haven't mentioned the very best part. No batteries necessary!

These are great toys for under the tree or any time of year.

End of (Summer) Days

Labor Day is a bittersweet time for many of us. We have to stuff our kids' feet back into proper shoes, tame our sunkissed hair and resume a proper standing in society as Little Johnny's mom or dad. The New York Sun reported on Dead Summer Walking. The journalist asked me how I felt about summer's end.

"It's like death," I said. Then again, there are moments of joy as I remind myself my children can only grow older when there is a future. And there is no future without endings and beginnings. So I bite my lip and rejoice in the appreciation of the day.

Speaking of appreciation -- for those of you struggling with your children's poor habits, the Appreciation Station seeks to reinforce positive behavior through rewards, treats and a general appreciation of the good things our kids do. I found myself getting annoyed with my kids and reacting badly when my son spilled water all over some papers on the table (that should not have been there!). Then I noticed how my daughter started treating her brother badly, too. I apologized for lashing out, then suggested they be patient while I had a conference call.

They both earned a token and my deep appreciation for their waiting. It is a fabulous tool you can fill with whatever you like. They start you out with stickers, coupons and gift certificates, but you can fill them with your own notes and treasures. It came just in the nick of time as school begins and the leaves fall. Appreciation goes beyond the summertime to every day. For that I am very grateful.

Pirate Mania

The pirate theme has continued throughout the summer. It is safe to say it will last on until at least after Labor Day.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my son has discovered Legos. There was no holding him back when he saw the Lego Castle Skeleton Ship Attack Special Edition in a catalogue that accompanied his fire station. After much searching, I found the marvelous set (thanks, in part, to a lovely contact who shall remain nameless). The ship took several fascinating hours to put together and by some fluke, my sister bought him a perfectly matching telescope that also turns into a pirate ship. It is a mock Lego set, much smaller and less detailed.

At first, I thought the Skeleton Attack ship to be rather morbid. My son playing with ghoulish characters made of plastic? Wouldn't it freak him out? I underestimated the pirate in him. He has played with it for hours on end. In fact, one morning, he awoke early and completely ignored his grandmother who slipped past him unnoticed. Arr arrr! Those pirates are most distracting.

Lovin' it!