Mama's Musings

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!

Madame Alexander Goes Hollywood

Growing up, I used to create theatrical performances with my best friend. We weren’t the players. Her extensive collection of Madame Alexander dolls were. Because the only thing that moved on the dolls were their eyes, we had to create compelling dialogue to make the play believable.

My friend lived in a farmhouse with no heat. Her mom worked two jobs to make ends meet. But every Christmas both she and her sister got one Madame Alexander doll each. It was a stretch for her mom, but those dolls, dressed in various international garb, meant there was a world out there waiting for them to discover. They also meant hours upon hours of fun as we thought up crazy storylines to entertain her family.

In my mind, Madame Alexander dolls represented fairytales in dolly form – Little Red Riding Hood, Little Bo Peep, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Imagine my surprise when I found out they’ve moved their line beyond a child’s imagination to embrace characters from Hollywood and Broadway!

In a new fall line up of Desperate Housewives dolls, Madame Alexander is speaking to a new generation of theatrical performers. Bree, Susan, Gabrielle, Edie, and Lynette are five new 16 inch dolls with movable arms with large heads and elaborate clothing. In my inner child’s eye, I can just imagine the stories we could make up with them!

Wicked ™ is another line they’ve introduced (based on the Broadway musical). The two witches, Elphaba (wicked witch of the west) and Glinda are both 10 inches and simply exquisite.

For those traditionalists, they also have the good old standbys such as Raggedy Ann and Madeleine, a very comforting thought indeed.

On Fire for LEGOs

The more toys my son has the smaller his already impossibly small room gets. Despite my efforts to cleanse his room of odds and ends on nearly a weekly basis, it seems to do little good. We tried moving some of his most favorite toys upstairs, until I stepped on a particularly sharp (plastic) object one night. We then instilled a ban on all playthings in the family room.

That is, until my son got the LEGO Fire Station. Call me crazy, but the three hundred little pieces didn't bother me the moment I opened the box. Perhaps it was the glow my son's eyes cast on the packaging. He was in love.

What started out as an idea to keep him busy for an hour while I fixed a software installation issue on my computer, ended up being a wonderful family project. Life surprises us like that as we struggle to do our best. We think things will end up one way, and oftentimes, unplanned, they end up completely differently, but even better than expected. He got me away from the computer time and again until I finally ditched any thoughts of dinner, called the pizza delivery guy, and set to work to create a new playworld for my son.

My husband got home early (it was our children's last day of school, which ends the last week in July in Bavaria) so we headed upstairs to finish our fire station project. My almost six-year-old son took the lead, enthralled by the little pieces and sometimes challenged by the instructions. Nonetheless, he independently worked on the rescue vehicle while my daughter and I tackled the fire truck. At first, ee mumbled under this breath that he wasn't good at building things. Oh yeah? LEGO Fire Station proved he could do it. It makes me cry to think how much of a boost he got in his confidence by completing such an elaborate building in one day.

My husband put together the station, then we moved it all to the family room for more fun the next day.

With other toys that require assembly, my kids seems excited by putting it together, then leave the toy unnoticed thereafter. The LEGO Fire Station has elicited a different reaction. They love the assembly AND playing with it, too. In fact, we had to convince our son to go to a playdate he has been anticipating for months today, simply because he did not want to part with his new toy. I'm certain he's going to want the other LEGO CITY toys, too. As I eye my son's room, I figure we can always have a yard sale or, more drastically, move to a bigger house. After all, there are few toys I can remember more distinctly from my childhood than LEGOs. Can you?