OWTK Bi-Monthly Book Review - February/March 2007

Below are three books that have been fixtures in our house over the last couple months. Track these down at your local library or pick them up from a fine independent bookseller in your area (should one still exist). You could also purchase them from Amazon.com by clicking on the Amazon ads over there on the right and search the titles - you help OWTK when you do so...but I would actually rather y'all show some love to the small bookstores that are hanging-on out there in the country.


Library Lion
by Michelle Knudsen
illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
Candlewick Press

A lovely edition featuring an adorably gentle, book-loving lion who takes up residence at the city library in exchange for some light dusting and odd-jobs. After disobeying the no yelling policy when faced with the end of his first story time, he fell in line and became as much of a fixture in the library as the books themselves. When the head librarian, the lion's biggest fan, finds herself in a pickle after a rough fall, our lion is faced with a choice - break the rules and be expelled from his utopia or remain silent and not help his friend. A beautifully illustrated work by Kevin Hawkes and a nice tale for youngsters about decision making and when it is OK to break the rules.


How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
by Jane Yolen
illustrated by Mark Teague
The Blue Sky Press/Scholastic

You have to love children's literature. Where else would dinosaurs-as-children of human adults be feasible? That is what Jane Yolen has created in this silly, charming book. With striking illustrations by Mark Teague depicting larger-than-life, previously thought-of-to-be-extinct dinos throwing fits at bedtime, requesting piggy back rides and giving goodnight kisses. His drawings fit perfectly with Yolen's short, to the point phrasing. There is an economy of words here as the author defers to the hilariously absurd images and that decision is brilliant. It's what makes How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? a refreshing change of pace, even for a more advanced reader - it is just plain fun!

On a side note, I am quite excited about the final installment of the Harry Potter series. While I have not read any of the previous works, I have seen all the films and my curiosity to discover what happens at the end will probably cause me to get the book this summer as opposed to waiting for the film version.

Mind Flakes - A new blog and a great story to start

Mind Flakes is a brand new blog and their first post is absolutely hilarious.

Ever try to cut your toddler's toes under the cover of darkness while they slept soundly?

Mind Flakes has, and the adventure has been blogged here.

It's her party and we'll have it at our house if we want to

The big 3rd birthday party for our little lady is this weekend.

What started out as potentially extravegant affair at a Justin Roberts concert in Philly has turned into a mildly, dare I say, boring event at our humble abode with pizza, soft preztles and fruit (with cake and ice cream too, of course).

In a funny aside, my lovely bride mailed half of the invitations without stamps - so we got those back yesterday. If only we put the guest addresses in the top left corner of the envelopes. Then they would have arrived as intended...for free!

We are asking the guests that they refrain from "toy" gifts and instead, if they would like to bring a present, give our daughter crafy items and projects, tracing paper, colored pencils (and a sharpener!)

She practices her etters every night. It is really something. She can write just about every letter, in upper and lower case, and read off the letters on my shirts. We figured more of these supplies would be the best gift possible right now, and not too expensive for family and friends.

Dr. Seuss Birthday Party

The good Doctor will be celebrating his 103rd birthday on March 2nd and I have suggested, over at Families.com, that folks throw a little p-a-r-t-y in his honor.

My girl shares her birthday with Seuss. In fact she was born on his 100th B-Day, three years ago. Some local school kids visited the hospital that day and dropped off a special edition of The Cat in The Hat for her to commemorate the occasion.

The National Education Association is marking the event with a Read Across America campaign.

Out Without The Kid

On Saturday, the Mrs. and I dropped off the little one at Grandmom's and drove up to New York City for the day. The occasion? Tom Stoppard's three-part play "The Coast of Utopia". We were in the audience for the first marathon showing - all three parts, for a total of 8 + hours of 19th century Russian political and philosophical theater, back-to-back-to-back. The performances were terrific, lead by Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton (of Kicking & Screaming fame - my favorite movie of all time)

We were allotted substantial breaks for meals and were fortunate enough to meet up with an old friend and his lovely bride for a late lunch at Peters, on Columbus Ave.

We played Powerball in PA before we left. I eagerly logged on to my phone upon leaving the theater for the last time at 11pm, with hopes of seeing 6 familiar numbers, finding a hotel room that night and getting an early start on apartment hunting Sunday morning.

But alas, not a single number. My dreams of a Manhattan condo will have to wait.

Sparty

My girl and I watched the entire Michigan State victory over the #1 team in the land, and our big ten rival, Wisconsin Badgers on Tuesday night. She stayed up 'till after 9pm to sit by my side and enjoy the edge-of-the-seat thriller. She was cheering along with every Drew Nietzel 3-ball as he single-handily put the game away late in the 2nd half. It was amazing to see my favorite team play as perfect a game as they have in a long time and take down one of the best teams in the country. That win probably punched their ticket for next month's festivities. It was made all the sweeter having my gal next to me the whole time.

During the game, and the post-game celebration that followed, my girl spotted Sparty, MSU's larger-than-life mascot. She immediately took a liking to him so I fired up the laptop and found some great pictures. She was hysterical to see him playing with Mr. Potato head during the Spartans v. U. of Idaho (hence the potato) football game this past Fall.

I am looking at this Sparty bobble-head on eBay. It would look great in her new green and purple big-kid room!

My wife and I got to talking last night about our parenting style. We want to make sure that once baby girl #2 arrives, we continue to parent sans any gender-bias. Naturally the conversation ended up being about sports (the ultimate male "thing"). We want so badly to show her that girls can and do play sports and be competitive. We will tune in to the Women's NCAA March Madness tourney, the collegiate softball tourney and Women's Ice Hockey during the next winter Olympics and let her watch ladies play sports.

But then I realized that whether she is watching men or women play is kinda irrelevant - I mean as long as she is exposed to sports and shares that bond with me and my wife, who loves sports as well - a key, really, as our girl sees her mommy getting excited when our favorite teams do well. That may be validating to her as a female, to see mommy rooting hard, getting upset, heartbroken and excited - all during a 2 hour stretch of basketball. We stay as far away as possible from the "boys play and watch sports while girls run around with dolls playing dress-up" bias. Trying to raise a well-rounded child in this day and age is tough - the gender bias is everywhere you look. I would hate for her to start to feel that society expects her to act a certain way and be into certain things just because she is a female. It happens to many kids, girls and boys, as they fall into the roles we adults assign to them and that is tragic.

Sparty might just be the key to battling this bias! Ok, maybe not - but he is cool.

No Scrotum Here

I am on duty as the P.M. parent to be home with the little one. She just went in for a nap after reading Smudge. Luckily for me, there were no discussions of male body parts or references to medical terms for the human anatomy. God forbid we as parents, teachers, adults in general would have to brave a conversation with our children about human anatomy.

I of course am making light of the hub-bub surrounding the newly minted Newberry Award winning book called The Higher Power of Lucky. I have not read the book yet, but in it a ten year old girl is listening-in on AA meeting and overhears a sordid conversation in which the word scrotum is uttered. Many people are outraged, that is probably an understatement, by the use of the word. Seriously, a lot of 10-12 year old girls are getting their periods and are then off engaging in adult behavior. I think the medical terminology in a book should not be the focal point of those outraged. How about not letting your kids watch primetime television or listen to some mainstream pop music. How about sitting down to dinner together as a family and talking about each other's lives - and no, the mall food court does not count. Considering that the bulk of this country does not read, the use of one word 2-3 times in a book is probably the least of our collective problems. Maybe it's just me, but do people take this kind of stuff WAY to seriously or what? Aren't there bigger issues, many of which start in the home, that should be addressed...and then maybe this word in this book would not be such a big deal? Frankly, I find American Idol more offensive that the word Scrotum, but that's just me.

Watery Poo

Our girl was sent home from school yesterday after dropping 5, count 'em 5, diarrhea poopies in a little over 3 hours. Now that is what I call productivity!

She is a fine spirits otherwise, but there are some nasty bugs floating about her classroom right now - so she is home again today and hopefully we will be able to find accommodations for the remainder of the week. Would hate to send her back with her defenses possibly down and catch something else lingering in there and then be the vehicle for maintaining that vicious cycle of sickness hot potato.

I find myself dreaming of Spring. Warmer sun, longer days, open windows and outdoor fun. I romanticize that, in Spring, there is no sickness because the air is so warm and fresh and clean. Then I remember that in Spring ear infections report to camp along with pitchers and catchers.

Oh well, it is always something.

Vomitoriam

1:30am - Daughter cries out - kinda sounds like she is gargling water.
1:31am - Dad retrieves Daughter from crib.
1:31am - Daughter vomits all over the right side of Dad's face.
1:32am - Daughter is rushed to the bathroom, where she finishes what was started on Dad's cheek and neck.
1:35am - Bath time! And all is seemingly normal.

I took one for the team. No throw-up on the crib/bed/floor. Just on me and my favorite red sleepy-shirt.

We all slept until 9am (quite possibly a record for the three of us). I run to the store for Pedialyte (after just tossing all the expired bottles of the baby Gatorade we had stored from last year). She holds down toast, applesauce and banana in the A.M.

She was really warm too, but that also has disappeared without the help of Tylenol.


We think we are in the clear.

So much for the reverse-jinx!

First & Last Name

I went home for a couple minutes during lunch, to surprise my ladies. I was showered with kisses and raspberries, both grand and petite varieties of each.

I discovered that just this morning, my little one began writing her whole name. Pretty exciting stuff! Yeah, the 'g' looks funny, but holy crap! She can write her first and last name.

No Shins for me

I will not be seeing The Shins in Philly next month. Tickets went on sale about an hour ago but if a steep face value of $27 per was not enough, the nasty and decidedly inconvenient Ticketmaster charge of $9.20 per priced me out of this event. That is $36.20 to see a very very good band, but one I do not deem worthy of that high a price. That evening would have been at least a $150 + night out with babysitter cost and a meal in town. It hurts, but I had to pass.

Boy-o-boy, have I been busy...

I have been writing a lot over at Families.com

I mentioned last week that I had about a dozen, half-done articles for Families.com. I have been pretty good over the past few days in putting the finishing touches on several.

Here they are:

Boo-Boo Peas. My girl's ability to care for all her ill-dolls and bears using frozen peas, among other things lying around the house.
Hockey Night in America. Our Red Wings v. Flyers experience.
Sleepover Fun. Our recent experience having a cousin spend the night at our pad.
Cooking with Kids. We love cooking with our daughter, but if you read OWTK - you probably already know that.
House cleaning Family Fun. What? House cleaning and Fun in the same sentence.
Wallet Photo Fun. My trick to kill some time during a road trip.

The Best Day

Yesterday was amazing. Never got out of our PJs. Played, slept, baked brownies. My girl was charming from start to finish. It was as close to a "Perfect Moment" type of day (to quote the late-Spalding Gray) as I have ever had.

I wish it was the standard weekday for us.

Kid's Music or Music by Kids?

Two sisters. 12 and 14. On Barsuk. Opened for Sufjan, Cat Power, Pearl Jam, Rilo Kiley and Death Cab. SMOOSH (that's their band name).

I feel pretty comfortable saying that all kids, especially young ladies, need to be listening to these gals.

Listen to a couple songs and watch a video here.

Read a CBS article about Smoosh here.

Great MSNBC article here, with this quote:

Does [Asya] think the duo have anything in common with the JoJo’s and other teen pop acts of the world?

“I guess we have some stuff in common. I mean we both like to perform and stuff. But our types of music are totally different,” she says.

“[It’s] the way we write our songs and stuff. They’re more of just performers and we’re musicians. I wouldn’t be able to call myself an artist if I didn’t write songs or play anything.”

There is hope.

SNOW DAY!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Home from work to be home with my girl.

A Night of Firsts

• First NHL Game
• First Red Wings Loss
• First exposure to Guns-n-Roses
• First time peeing in a dirty arena stall (3rd period, so it had been thoroughly used already)

What a terrible game for Red Wings fans. They looked incredibely sluggish, which after playing last night in Detroit, shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. My brother scored me lower level seats for free yesterday afternoon. So the whole evening cost me $10 for parking. Thats $10 for each Wings goal I did not see because we arrived late. Yeah!

The tickets were $89 each, face value. Forking over $356 for a family of 4 to see a hockey game (1 of 82 they play during the course of a regular season) is just crazy!

We were running-in late, so naturally I left the camera and the cellphone (camera) in the car. And they do not let you exit and re-enter. So I have no pics of my gal's first hockey game. Great seats too, 25 rows up from the ice behind the goal. Would have had some great shots of the Flyers scoring a ton of goals. Ugh.

The night belonged to ex-Red Wing and Flyer Keith Primeau who was forced to call it a career due to head injuries/concussions. They had a nice little ceremony before the game, which we heard on the radio driving towards The Center. We picked up a couple free posters of him in action once through the doors. There were a few fans hoarding at least 100 posters each. They were left by the gates in giant cardboard boxes, encouraging such excessive activity. Maybe they are planning on wallpapering a room with them (now I think of that!)

One more thing, for those who have been inside an arena to watch a sporting event recently...Does the between-play music need to be that loud. It's kinda insane.

In the Kitchen with OWTK

Another lovely weekend has come and gone. We made three attempts to go through a car wash. The first two - Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at Duke's Firehouse car wash. We got in line on both trips and sat and sat and sat. The line was at least 12 cars deep and hardly moving. After about 10 minutes we fled. We pulled into another place on the way to Whole Foods this morning but it was not the kind of car wash that you ride through. Well, your car does but your family is forced out first. Where is the fun in that? For $16 I would like some in-car entertainment!
Again, we fled. So the car is still a grey, cruddy mess. I was hoping to have an 'after' shot to go along with this one. Maybe one night after work the line will be more accommodating.

We spent the whole afternoon and evening cooking. Our girl was helping a ton, which is always a treat. We made Lasagna from scratch with homemade meat sauce (gravy) - the first time we ever tried that (I have not tasted it yet...still in the oven...but it smells great). Our daughter is seen here dropping in the fresh basil (check out the action shot - basil in mid-air) and the dried oregano. We also made Beef Stew and ate it for dinner. Quite good. I needed to trim the meat a bit more and have the broth be more stew-ish and less soupy - but a solid meal overall (the crusty Italian bread helped!)

We whipped up some homemade applepearsauce too. Five apples (Fuji, Golden Delicious, Cameo) and one Asian Pear. Just peeled them, steamed them and tossed them into the food processor. The little one wore out the Cuisinart PULSE function!

One last thing...

Check out the Party Cupcake "recipe" on the back of a cool silicone baking tray we picked up at Target:

1 Chocolate Cake Mix
1 Can Vanilla Icing

...pretty original and informative, no?


Oh, two more things. We picked up a new sleeping bag at Target too. A Coleman youth bag for $20. No characters (yes, they do make products for kids without Dora and her pals - I am surprised as well).

Our girl wanted the red bag with grey and blue leaves inside but they also had pink with a cool abstract flower interior. I swear to god I did not push her towards the red over the pink! (Mom, I am talking to you). If I was nudging her towards anything it would have been the cool birthday party invites with the slightly sparkly chandelier on it...but she wanted the ones with the big in-your-face birthday cake. It is hard, but I am letting her make these types of decisions for herself. ha! About the party, we pretty much decided tonight that it will be at our house again. Justin Roberts is not playing with a full band at World Cafe Live on March 3rd. My desire to pay for a party of 28 has been severely diminished with that bit of news.

Hope your weekend was swell. Whatcha do?

Free Kid's Books!

Chronicle Books, one of the finest publishers of children's literature, is having a contest. Simply sign up for their monthly kid's book email (I receive it and it's not intrusive at all) and you are entered.

The winner takes home a gift basket complete with autographed copies of Chronicle's 'Best of the Year' book selections.

Enter the contest now!

So I was listening to my iPod...

I made great time getting to school last night and as a result, arrived about 50 minutes early for class. So I was sitting on a couch in a common area, listening to my iPod and skimming this week's City Paper (one of Philly two free weekly rags, which had just been published yesterday). I am listening to Midlake's "Trials of Van Occupanther" when I finally get to the Paper's entertainment listings and notice that Midlake is playing in Philly later that night. So I call my lovely bride who greenlights my spending a night out by myself at The North Star Bar, in the city's Art Museum area. Pretty rock-n-roll, I know.

What a good show. The band was under-the-weather, all five guys, but you could not tell from listening to the music. They were air-tight as they played pretty much exclusively Van Occupanther tracks save for 2 oldies (from their one previous record) and 1 new one, called "Children of the Ground" (very good, could've been a leftover from the Van Occupanther sessions - it had a similar vibe to it).

I arrived home at 1:50am and rose for work at 7:10am. Yeah!

DadGear and DaisyGear

Check out these cool diaper bags

I am in the market for a new bag for #2. We had a pretty decent, albeit fairly boring, Eddie Bauer bag for #1 but the bottom ripped open around her second birthday. Since then we have taken to carrying fairly rad, white Apple Store bag/backpack should we have the need to transport an extra shirt, fork, coloring book or something for an outing.

These DadGear bags do not come cheap, the one I have my eye on, pictured here to the left, is a hefty $66.

Thoughts from the Generally Uninspired

I am pretty much zapped right now. I have lost the ability to focus on pretty much anything. Getting even the simplest task done is a struggle.

Here are some random thoughts to pass the time:

• Way behind in my schoolwork.
• Dozens of half-finished Families.com articles sit on my desktop.
• Digging new CDs from The Shins and The Magic Numbers.
• Loving "Through the Children's Gate" by Adam Gopnik.
• Thinking about heading to Philly on Monday Night to see my Detroit Red Wings. The hometown Flyers' have a family section with ticket prices between $10-$20.
• Still no idea what we are doing in my daughter's new big kid room.
• Would love to visit Brooklyn next month for the BAM Kids' Film Festival.
• Little Lady's talking-back and general sassy-ness is on the rise.
• It is really cold here, finally.
• We have been told that we are now, magically in the Flood Plane and must have the appropriate home owner's insurance. Prices for such insurance range from $1000 + per year. About three times our policy premium right now. Is my house really 3x more likely to be damaged by a flood than by fire (considering I cook every day). F'in stupid. 50 year old house - never once touched by a flood. At it's closest point, the little stream is more than 20 yards from my home (which sits on a slab). Some say this is as a result of new cookie cutter, McMansions recently built near-by and now more concrete around than grass - which means more water run off. How about they chip in for my flood insurance? ugh.
• There is WAY too much snot, and the accompanying balls of used tissues, lying around the house.

Liar, Liar Pull-Ups on Fire

Why do kids lie? Where does the ability/desire/faculty to knowingly tell a fib originate? I am not talking about making stuff up, telling tall tales, and other silliness...but rather a slightly, even if it comes from a playful place to start, mischievous and outright lie. I have seen this in bits and pieces with our toddler. Did mommy say yes? Yes (a loud, 'No I did not!" quickly comes from the other room) and other non-truths.

I was told a story recently by a friend whose four year old completely made up a story about her day at school. What made this odd is the level of detail she provided and her unwillingness to admit that it was categorically, 100% false (school confirmed not a single part of the tale actually occurred).

How do y'all deal with your young (and old) kids when you catch them in a lie? Any idea how they learn this behavior?

Weekend Wrap Up

Friday evening's Sixers game was a no go. We got dressed, bundled up with jackets, scarves, gloves and hats and headed out the door only to discover a fair amount of snow (for this winter anyway) on the ground. We had no idea that it had or was supposed to snow. I flipped up my trust Macbook and checked accuweather.com, who predicted below freezing temps and a bit of additional snow changing to rain (does it happen any other way in Southeastern PA?) for the rest of the night. Fun! I was not driving back and forth to Philly on a Friday night in that weather, not for the Sixers anyway.

So we hung out in the front yard for a 1/2 hour or so, catching flakes on our tongues and sliding around driveway. A nice unexpected time.

Back in the house, we enjoyed mugs of hot chocolate, cuddled up on the couch under a blanket and watched the entire basketball game on TV (the first Sixers game I have seen from tip to last shot in years). And you know what? It was awesome, a great game to watch (even though we lost by a deuce). My girl fell asleep up against me, which is pretty adorable. I scooped her up, plopped her in her crib and deposited myself in my own bed.

On Saturday we picked up my nephew who, as part of our birthday gift to him, was spending the night at our house - a sleepover with my daughter. We had fun and came up with a cool musical game (which I will turn into a Families.com article later this week).

On Sunday we drove to Philly for Baby Loves Disco. I have no energy at the present time (as you may have already realized by now) to write a full blown recap of this dance party, but it was cool. Our two little guest did not do much dancing, but the club, bouncers, food and the activities for non-dancers was all very neat. Yeah, that is the best I can do right now - "very neat". I am going to bed. Look for more, later.

Goodnight comb, goodnight brush, goodnight nobody, goodnight mush.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Colin Meloy on Parenthood

Did you all see the interview with Colin Meloy of the Decemberists on the topic of parenthood, over at Babble.com? Pretty good stuff.

Colin became a dad last year, to a son named Hank, and speaks about the creative process and how a baby impacts his songwriting and music.

An Evening of Bad Basketball

The 76ers, OWTK's hometown pro basketball franchise is fairly terrible at the present time. Earlier this season we traded our only superstar player, Allen Iverson, and cut an oft-injured and expensive piece of dead-weight in Chris Webber. However, none of that is going to stop us from taking in the action tonight when the 76ers square of against the equally poor Golden State Warriors.

I received the tickets for my birthday because my favorite pro bball player is a Golden State Warrior, former Michigan Stater Jason Richardson, but he is injured right now so I will not get a chance to watch him play tonight.

I much prefer the college game, but since my little one has never witnessed a basketball game live and in person, we figured that even though I can name maybe only 4 total players between both teams...what the heck - let's go!

Jazz for Kids

I am very excited to have learned about the Kid's Jazz Festival at Philadelphia's own Please Touch Museum.

This year marks the 15th Annual Junior Jazz Festival and is set to run the entire month of February.

The goal of the festival is to introduce kids to the world of jazz using live performances, dancing and theater. There are jazz related performaces and activities every day of the week (not just on weekends, which is nice.)

How has this been going on for 15 years in my closest big city and I was not aware of it? Man, I need to get out more! OWTK is going to try and get there at some point this month.

Justin Roberts and more OWTK on Families.com

...speaking of Justin Roberts, my review of his new CD "Meltdown!" has been published on Families.com.

I also have new posts on Sarastoa, FL and The American Girl Place in New York.