Bunch Family

Would you splurge on a Disney princess makeover for your kid?

Now you can enhance your kids’ trip to Disneyland by treating them to a princess transformation at a fanciful spa.

Leave it up to the fairy godmothers / aestheticians who will do your kid’s hair, makeup, nails, and supply the gown, wand and shoes so they can really live the Disney dream for a day. Princesses-in-waiting can choose to “be” Belle, Tiana, Snow White, Cinderella, or Brave’s Merida.

Ok, so it sounds like a pretty fun way to spend a day at D-land – but would you splurge on a makeover of princess proportions for well over a hundred dollars?

“Having a fairy godmother make you into a princess, that’s as real as it gets,” said one mom as she watched the transformation of her two daughters. “You can’t put a price on it.”  Read more...

The first ever Kids “State Dinner” starred some frolicsome fare

54 young chefs between 8 – 12 gathered at the White House on Monday to enjoy some Kickin’ Chicken Salad, Power Pesto Pasta, Zuchinni fries and other fresh eats made by their talented peers. The First Lady declared it the ”hottest ticket at the White House.”

Michelle Obama hosted the event to pat these clever kiddos on the back for raising awareness about healthy eating. The lucky attendees were the 54 winners of a nationwide recipe competition, whose dishes were prized for being delish, creative and healthy.

The kids drew inspiration from all kinds of sources. One young chef recalls, “I didn’t want sandwiches for lunch one day in the summer, so I went into the kitchen to see what we had. I put them together and made chicken spinach pasta.”  Read more...

Ready for the next level of nerding out?

What could make a kid gamer happier than playing a sweet game? Making one.

A new project announced at this years’ Maker Faire hopes to channel kids’ passion for playing video games into creating them. ”Code Hero: A Game That Teaches You To Make Games“ is the brainchild of independent video game designer Alex Peake, who believes that the sneaky math and code lesson that comes along with making a video game will equip kids with the power to be super creative forces in the world.

“We want to prepare kids to be the innovators of the future,” said the 30-year-old CEO of Primer Labs. He’s been programming since he was 8. ”We don’t want to just prepare them to get a job. You need to give them a grounding in literacy, mathematics and code. Those are the components the world is made of. It used to be two. Now, it’s three.”  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. Think your kid could write better lyrics than Beiber? Now they have a chance to try. A new lyric-writing workshop for kids is helping middle schoolers create their own radio-worthy tunes that get mastered, recorded and performed live by bands. We wonder if we’ll see the next Justin Timberlake come out of this?

2. La Leche League Canada recently rejected breastfeeding Dad Trevor MacDonald’s (who happens to be one of our favourite proud papas) appeal to become a lactation coach. What gives? According to LLL philosophy, the roles of mothers and fathers are “not interchangeable.” Instead, MacDonald is starting his own Skype-based LGBTQ breastfeeding support group and Facebook group. But he still thinks LLLC’s black-and-white approach has gotta go. “I think allowing a transgendered person to become a leader is the next step to reflecting the diversity of experience that’s out there,” he said. Hear, hear.  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. You know the Slow Food movement? Author and mom Susan Sachs Lipman applies that philosophy to parenting in her newly released book Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World. Instead of advocating for long, leisurely meals, she urges families to try leisurely schedules. Eager for a taste? Or would trying to follow a guidebook would stress you out even more?

2. The latest in diaper developments: 2,500 moms in Brooklyn and other Orthodox Jewish communities are all over these kosher velco diapers. They’re designed for observant Jews during the Sabbath when opening disposable diapers with adhesive fasteners is considered “work,” which is forbidden. Is there any problem velcro can’t solve?  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. In very, um, unique campaign messages, aspiring Quebec premier François Legault is telling kids they should “be more like Asians.” He mused that if people in Asia keep working so hard while young Quebecers just want “the good life,” Quebec society may be in trouble. The end of la belle vie?

2. In the past decade, the number of kids in the US who drink sugar-free beverages has doubled. Wow. So, are these drinks becoming more prevalent, or if kids are more likely to reach for them specifically? There are no studies that have looked at the long-term health effects of artificial sweeteners in kids – do you care if your kid grabs one?

3. More reasons to make the most of summer sun: one study shows that kids who spend hours watching sitting around are up to nine times as likely to have poorer motor coordination than their active peers – and boys are more effected than girls. But what about kids with crazy video game skills?  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. Did you know that in the last decade, the number of men who have left work to stay at home with their kids has more than doubled? Today, the ”Leave it to Beaver” family structure is quickly dissipating as Dads increasingly do their own thing – and it’s totally cool. “Being a stay-at-home dad feels like a form of rebellion, like living off the macho grid and showing people that you are not tied to your father’s notion of what men should do on weekdays.”

2. Last week, eBay announced it was considering allowing kids to start up an account. Currently, users have to self declare they are over 18. Does the thought of unleashing your kid into the online shopping world make you cringe? Or do you think this an exciting new opportunity for kid entrepreneurs?  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. Hey homeschoolers, does the lesson plan fall to pieces without a designated room free of Xbox’s, pyjamas and other distractions? One mom doesn’t think it has to: “life is our school. Living it is our education. A formal School Room cannot contain it.” Can freedom and creativity (and focus) jive anywhere you plunk down with the kids and the books?

2. You won’t see any aisles of pink or blue around Harrods’ new 26,000 ft. gender neutral toy department. The UK retail haven will group toys into zones according to theme, rather than for boys or for girls. Would this change have an effect on your kids’ wants?

3. Graffiti artist with max kid-appeal Bue is moving his vibrant murals off the street and putting them into a kids’ clothing line, Toykyo Kids. These threads will probably guarantee coolest kid in school status.  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. Technabob wants to know: why are Dads so cool now? Where have they been all our lives? Prompting the question is one Dad’s amazing effort to pimp his kids’ ride. He worked with his 5-year-old son to soup a Fisher Price Power Wheels Lightning McQueen with metal rims, a .66 horsepower electric motor, throttle modulated variable speed control. Ballin’.

2. Boy or girl? It may be up to you. A new study recently showed that mothers may be able to adjust the sex of their unborn babies in response to their environment – mother birds fed a lower quality diet produced far more sons than daughters. “It is adaptive for mothers to produce more sons when conditions are poor because sons are much less vulnerable to nutritional stress than daughters.” That’s a whole new level of nature vs. nuture to wrap your head around.  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. When do you get your kid their own phone? Do you get them a smart phone? A prepaid handset? A specialized phone with parental controls? The New York Times offers a parents guide to your kid’s first phone.

2. Here’s a new idea: video games may actually make your kids smarter. According to Professor James Paul Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, “better theories of learning are embedded in video games than many children in primary or secondary schools ever experience in the classroom.” Long live Super Mario.

3. Elevating the plain ol’ paper bag to an art form is no easy task. To get you in the mood for back to school, check out this amazing gallery of cleverly crafted lunch bags (and maybe get inspired to try your hand at making one yourself!).  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading today:

1. For the first time in their 19 year history, the Power Rangers are gracing the page. Keep an eye out for the newly premiered graphic novel brought to you by Papercutz  publishers, the crew behind Nancy Drew, Lego, and Garfield & Co. comics.

2. Maeve Binchy fans expressed shock at Amanda Craig’s essay published in The Daily Telegraph last week that wondered if the author would have been a different writer had she had kids. “Binchy’s warmth and interest in other people included their families, but I can’t help but feel that her detailed portraits of ordinary life might not have been so predicated on the relationships between men and women had she had a child,” she writes. Do you think a book’s credibility is affected if the author doesn’t have first hand experience in their subject?  Read more...

What the cool parents are reading about today:

1. We weren’t alone in our joyful singing along when Feist guest starred on Sesame Street, right? The upcoming 43rd season has a lot more of those moments in store: the street will get a visit from Jon Hamm, Don Cheadle, Maya Rudolph, and lots of other awesome peeps come September.

2. One New York Times Motherlode blogger explains how she learned to give up the dream of a sit-down family dinner every night. Instead, she embraced the family breakfast. “If I’ve learned one thing about family and parenting in the past 10 years, it is that compromise can make what’s important about my dreams fit with my reality. I set aside that fantasy dinner, for now. Instead, we have family breakfast.” Do you think the idea of family dinner should be less set in stone?  Read more...