As always, BoingBoing has found us something we want: monster footprint snow shoes. Slow Mo Mama simply drew monster-y footprints on some study cardboard, cut them out and laced string through four holes in the footprint shape to tie it to a boot. Via BoingBoing.
Facebook friend Amanda tipped us off to this Salon essay titled, “Regrets of a stay-at-home-mom.” Borrowing from Jane Austen’s famous phrase, she writes, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of two teenagers must be in want of a steady paycheck and employer-sponsored health insurance.” Working moms, what do you think?
Catherine Connors aka her bad mother has a lovely rebuttal to the whole Tiger mom = better mom debate. Her mother supported her love of ballet, despite the fact that Connors wasn’t exactly the most graceful of ballerinas, apparently. Catherine’s turned out pretty darn good we think. Read more...
Have you seen these Kanye West “Monster” videos… featuring actual monsters? (By actual, we mean Cookie and Grover and their ilk) The editing is stellar and matches up nearly perfectly with Kanye’s song, but we’d still rather see the monsters actually singing the song like they did for “Bohemian Rhapsody:”
Warning: Like the Kanye video, these mash-ups are of the original songs, which means some songs contain explicit freaking lyrics. Miss Piggy as Peaches is genius, though. Read more...
As you might have noticed, we’re big vegetable fans here. So much so, we get rather peeved when someone tries to hide them away. That’s why we were delighted to see George Ball of the Wall Street Journaldeclare 2011 to be the Year of the Vegetable! Ball takes his cue from Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move! initiative. In order to fight childhood obesity, Ball says we need to teach by example — adults also need to eat more vegetables and the tomato slice on a burger doesn’t count. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) he says that kids get pretty excited about the vegetables they grown themselves. His answer: more community gardens! Now where is Margaret Atwood? Read more...
Did you know that the adorable Jorge and Alexa Magnetic Zeros video isn’t the only awesome video we came across yesterday? I know right? There’s also this Star Wars PSA — how to introduce your kids to Star Wars. Well, some of it is pretty common sense, “There’s no question that you should star with A New Hope,” but we can see how it might be nice to get other parents’ opinions on how to explain the Force and midichlorians and such.
So long as the end results stay this awesome, we’d be happy to see these video invitations become a trend. Who doesn’t want to go to Tad and Elijah’s knight-themed party? (via ohdeedoh)
Have you heard of the Canadian Family Robinson? They’re a “homeschooling, RV-living, green-minded, traveling, happy family of 7 living their lives in the best way they can for themselves and the earth!” Follow their adventures and monitor the progress on their house. We can’t wait to hear from their 5-year-old, Ocean, who is described as a “mermaid scientist.” (Mermaid Scientist sounds like a superexcellent Saturday morning cartoon and/or graphic novel. We now wonder if this family has that phrase trademarked…) Read more...
Ah, the second last day of the year. Time for some retrospection! Let’s kick things off with BuzzFeed’s 50 Funniest Headlines of the Year. If you’re reading this at work, be sure to have a sweater or scarf handy to stifle your giggles. We think the very last one might be our favourite: “DUI Checkpoint nabs 3 drunk drivers and a goat.”
More retrospection: Jonathan Liu at GeekDad looks back, not on the year, but on his life as a stay-at-home-dad. He wants to know if there are others like him. Are you a stay-at-home dad? Read more...
On Salon, writer Kate Haas waxes sentimental about the box of fugly retro maternity wear her mother shipped to her. At first she hems and haws over the collection of unwearable items — like a “thick yellow cotton dress with black buttons and piping (for that pregnant bumblebee look)” — she eventually realizes how meaningful her mother’s gift is.
When one of the Bunchland editors was a kid, she wrote a short story called “The Boy Who Ate a Crayon.” Predictably, it was about a boy who ate a crayon and the resulting aftermath. Several years later, the eating of crayons is close to being an everyday thing. Boing Boing reports on edible crayons made with fruits, nuts, seeds and dried veggies. I think a sequel to the original short story is in order: “The Boy Who Ate a Crayon…And It Was Delicious!” Read more...
Or maybe you don’t need to think about baby names until 2011? If being in a family way this New Year’s Eve prevents you from sipping champagne (Or if alcohol’s just not your thing), Babble found some alcohol-free cocktails that will be excellent for ringing in 2010. The Kir Speciale does look pretty special. Read more...
We found this Adam Kodord illustration on BoingBoing and are just so entertained by it.
Speaking of the Naughty List, have you been misusing the Comic Sans font? You might be a Comic Sans Criminal. Take the pledge and set the correct tone for all your printed materials forever more. Please.
Do you stare hard at the nutrition facts on boxes of cereal, debating which product is best? (We do this with cereal, bread, toothpaste and shampoo) Globe and Mail health columnist Leslie Beck has a few tips for choosing the right way to start your day. Spoiler: Look for whole grains to be listed as the first ingredient. Read more...
Our jaws dropped when we watched this video on Gawker of a kid unwrapping a gift of books and declaring his present “poo.” As if! Call us old-fashioned, but we were taught to politely accept every gift, no matter who it was from or what it was. Kids today! (We’ve also mystified by the reaction his freakout elicits from his parents. Laughing, people? Really? Way to encourage his crummy behaviour.)
TIME.com‘s gorgeous photo galleries never fail to amaze and delight, and their “Around the World Via a Day’s Worth of Food” gallery is no exception. Catch a glimpse of the daily meals of a Himba tribeswoman, an obese former bus driver from Tennessee, a model from New York and bike messenger from Japan. The pictures and descriptions are excerpted from What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. Read more...
Where would wannabe videographers be without pregnancy and babies? What would they shoot, without the existence of such prime fodder for many a home movie? In the interests of making us alternately cry and cringe, Parent Central has rounded up the best and worst pregnancy and baby videos on the web. From the good (a tastefully-shot B&W depiction of a water birth) to the funny (a clip from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life) to the offensive (a labour day vid from YouTube stars the Shaytards, who refer to their youngest as “Babytard”), Parent Central’s post cuts through all the baby-related video clutter out there.
Ohdeedoh, you’re killing us with your Christmas craft ideas. The latest one threatening to send us into a cuteness coma is their DIY mistletoe kissing ball, which takes only fabric, pompoms and glue to make. We like how they acknowledge the fun for kids lies in running around avoiding the ball so that they don’t have to pucker up. (Grownups can still stand under the ball and smooch away.) Read more...
The Feminist Breeder Blog would probably blanch if they read our roundup of Santa lies: those half-truths and flat-out fallacies we’ve been told and we tell our kids about the big guy who “delivers the gifts” each year. They clearly advocate being honest with your kids and ‘fessing up about Santa’s existence, or lack thereof. “We work our butts off to afford a few special presents for the kids, and I’m not about to let some imaginary man take credit for it,” they write. We concur!
College Humor, with their boob jokes and Facebook fails, aren’t usually a site we mine for blog roundup fodder, but they’ve won our hearts with their illustrated list of five imagined sci-fi children’s books. The Battlestar Bears Learn About Cylons, anyone? Goodnight Dune? (Thanks to @nataliayanchak for the tip!) Read more...
