A Mama's Rant

Let's meet at Play Library

Last Friday afternoon we had a 21 kids to a local indoor bouncy castle place for Monkey Boy's birthday party. It was a lot of fun and boy did he receive some terrific gifts, from Nerf footballs to educational toys.

If you're ever stuck on what to give a child for a birthday present, check out Play Library: Two mommies chatting about kids' toys, games, books, and just fun stuff to do.

This b5media blog is written by Kerri Aldrich and Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei. They tackle everything and anything that might be fun to do with kids, or that children might find entertaining. They also share bits of news and information that might be helpful for parents and caregivers to know, like what's hot at the American International Toy Fair or product recalls.

Now can anyone recommend a good typing computer program for a seven-year-old?

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Five Odd Things About Me Meme

I've been tagged by Devra at the Parentopia blog. Usually, I don't do memes. But I really like Devra and not just because she's Jewish and shorter than me...

1. Being half Jewish and half French, I will eat just about anything. Raw fish, chopped liver, pickled herring, sweet meats, pate, gefilte fish...you name it. However, I do not like chicken on my pizza, in my pasta, or in a quesadilla - totally skeeves me. Yech!
2. Bruce Springsteen is my rock 'n' roll savior. The older I get, the more I like his music - it speaks to my soul.
3. Living in Colorado, you'd think I like the mountains. I do as long as I'm looking at them from the plains. We have some pretty spectacular views of the Rocky Mountains every time we drive west, and I'm very thankful for that. But being in the mountains? Forget about it! I would not walk down, let alone ski down those gigantic things. And I think I'm allergic to the fauna at every mountain campsite since my hay fever and eczema tend to go crazy when we camp.
4. On my driver's license it says I'm allowed to drive a motorcycle. Can I? Not on your life. I took a motorcycle class and passed the driving test, but haven't been on a bike since. Why? I was just pregnant with Monkey Boy when I took the class and never had a chance to practice after I learned how. Plus, Big Bad Dad keeps buying motorcycles that are way too big for me.
5. I adore Anthony Bourdain. The man is cool, can cook, likes punk rock, writes well, is funny, and like me, will eat just about anything. My kind of guy.

Don't know anybody in particular I'd like to tag. Instead, I'm tagging all of my readers. Send me a track back or comment below with a link to your "Five Odd Things About Me" post.

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Happy 7th Birthday, Monkey Boy

Hard to believe my little 3 lb. 11 ouncer is now over 50 lbs. and growing!

Yes, that's him sitting in a snow bank in his bathing suit after soaking in the hot tub. Dang, you're a weird kid. That's why we love you!

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A Jersey Girl in the Rocky Mountains

The older I get, the more my Joisey shows. I swear my accent - wauder (water), dawter (daughter), and cawfee (coffee) - is getting more pronounced. I'm even beginning to reference all the Brooklyn Yiddish my dad had used when I was growing up.

Yiddish? I might as well be speaking Klingon. Folks 'round here give me the funniest looks when I tell them that Boo Girl's been acting a bit verklempt. I guess the old Mike Myers SNL skit, Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, went over most Coloradans heads.

Yiddish aside, I guess I'm in accent denial. When I saw this quiz over at Bitch Ph.D., I didn't think it would pick up on my Jersey accent.

Boy was I wrong. No big whoop.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

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The Magic Cellar Wins Awards

As part of the Core Knowledge sequence, my children learn about African folktales at school. So I was interested to learn about the Magic Cellar, a South African animated cartoon. Co-produced by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Morula Pictures and Chocolate Moose Media, each short episode takes an African folktale or legend and places the story into the lives of some modern South African kids.

Recently, the Magic Cellar, was awarded Gold and Silver World Medals at the 50th New York Festivals. Magic Cellar is the only animated television series in the world across all categories to receive this award. The series also won a Gold Davey and first prize in the Animated Television Production category at the Chicago International Children’s Festival (CICFF).

With all these awards being handed out, it's only a matter of time before Nickelodeon or PBS picks up this cartoon for American kids.

2006 BoB Awards are live!

The nominations for the 2006 BoB Awards are live!  (That's Best of Blogs for those of you who don't know.)

The goal of the BoB Awards is to bring exposure to smaller, lesser-known blogs i.e., if the blog you want to nominate gets more than 100 unique hits per day, they don't qualify.

Also, don’t nominate your own blog And if you see that someone else has nominated the blog you wanted to nominate, it is not necessary to resubmit the same blog. Multiple nominations don't increase a blog’s chances. That’s called voting, silly.

Nominations will be accepted until midnight EST on Friday, February 16. Voting will begin Friday, March 2. Get on over there NOW and nominate your favorite blogs in each category!. 

New this year: They're making the BoB Awards presentations to the winners in Las Vegas, which sounds like a good excuse to book your trip right away.

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