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A Toddler and his iPhone
My Monkey with his two favorite things - his iPhone and his monkey. A pic taken with my iPhone, of course.
My two year old has his own iPhone.
Now, before you think I am absolutely insane to buy an expensive phone for my toddler, let me assure you that I did not run out and drop $300 on a new phone for him. No way. However, being the ultimate tech-geek that he is, the Dude did run out a few months ago to get himself the new iPhone 4G. This meant that we had his old iPhone available to be donated to a good cause. We quickly realized that the best cause was our little Monkey.
The Monkey has been playing with our iPhones since around his 2nd birthday, nearly one year ago. When I discovered how toddler-friendly certain iPhone apps could be for him, I researched the most educational and creative apps and loaded them up on our iPhones. I was so impressed with certain apps, that I wrote a post back in April about my favorite iPhone apps for toddlers. With thousands of hits, that post quickly became my most popular blog post. Either there are a ton of other parents out there letting their toddlers play with their iPhone and iPads or people are simply curious to learn more about it.
It does seem that more and more people are discovering that it’s smart to let your kids play with smart phones. An iPhone or other smart phone can, with proper guidance and supervision, be used as a valuable teaching tool for children. The interactive content on an iPhone can help developing brains learn how to problem-solve and figure things out quickly and, when exposed to educational apps, a toddler’s learning process can actually be enhanced. Consider apps to be a valuable supplement to the teaching process already going on in your home or in preschool.
There are pros and cons to letting a toddler use an iPhone, so here are my helpful ideas on safe iPhone play: (continues…)
24
Foodie Friday: Homemade Tomato Soup and Gourmet Grilled Cheese
My kinda comfort food
Now that Fall has officially arrived (except here in SoCal where it’s 90 degrees!), it’s time to start cooking for cooler weather. And nothing is more comforting than a steaming bowl of homemade soup and a hot sandwich. I think I represent many Americans when I say that my ultimate comfort food is the classic tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. You really can’t go wrong with this beloved combination, but I want to explain how I like to make it even better.
There is no need to dump a can of condensed tomato soup in a pot when making homemade tomato soup yourself is so easy. And as for the basic grilled cheese sandwich? Well, let’s just say that you can forget about the white bread and processed cheese singles. I prepare my grilled cheese with good egg bread or crusty sourdough. And, as for cheese, I like it with good Gruyere and Swiss. I’m telling you, this ain’t yo mama’s grilled cheese sandwich. (continues…)
21
EKS Day: Join Joe Jonas to Help Raise Awareness for the Special Olympics
On September 25, 2010, Special Olympics and Best Buddies will lead the world in a celebration of the inspiration, impact and unrelenting spirit of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The first annual “Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day” (EKS Day) will promote a global call for people to commit acts of inclusion, acceptance and unity for individuals with intellectual disabilities (EKS Acts).
Join Joe Jonas and others around the world in helping spread the word about acceptance and unity for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The goal of EKS Day is to share Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s story, inspire young people to commit EKS Acts of Unity, and reach 100,000 EKS Acts by the first annual global Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day on September 25, 2010.
How can you participate in EKS Day? (continues…)
16
A Love Story: The Short Version
His & Her jeans. Guess which is which.
The Dude is about 2 inches shorter than me. On a good day.
There are days when we’re about the same height, like when I’m in flats and he’s wearing his fancy Cole Haans. And then there are days when I’m about 5 inches taller. Those are the days I wear heels. Those days are few and far between. It’s not because I care about being so much taller than the Dude. It’s because I’m clumsy enough as it is wearing flats.
I’m 5’9 and, before I met the Dude, I usually only dated men taller than me. I didn’t have anything against dating shorter men. Really. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Shorter guys never approached me and I was much too shy to approach anyone, let alone a cute shorter dude that didn’t even look my way. As soon as I sprouted in junior high to become the 2nd tallest girl in the class, the guys immediately stopped teasing and flirting with me. Instead, they asked me to play on their recess basketball teams. In high school, the cute short girls snagged all of my crushes, many of whom were my height or shorter. I never saw tall girls and short boys together. It was only when Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman that I believed that there were people out there that didn’t give a crap about height.
How many times have you heard a woman say that she would never date a man shorter than her or a man say that he only likes women a certain height? It’s the kind of stuff I heard in high school and continue to hear well into my 30′s. What gives? (continues…)
13
Mental Monday: Anxiety, times 30.
I recently read somewhere that people in their 30′s tend to have the most anxiety over any other age-group. I can’t recall where I read that or verify the research but, on a personal note, it makes sense to me.
As you settle into your 30′s, there’s a good chance that you’re no longer a professional student or floating from one dead-end job to another. You probably have a career or a career on hold while you’re raising children. Although more and more people are holding off on marriage and children well into their 30′s (or abandoning that lifestyle all together), there is a whole host of other responsibilities that people in their 30′s usually have accrued. Maybe you have a demanding career, a mortgage or high rent, and car payments. And school loans from college or for that MA degree from when you were 25 that you may or may not have actually needed. The 30′s are a time when we become more knowledgeable about who we are and what we need in life to make us happy. However, reaching that place of happiness and staying there can easily make the most calm and collected of us into anxious nervous-wrecks.
Societal and familial values, in addition to biological urges, have created a simple plan for us to follow – school, career, marriage, house, dog, children. Because of that, many people in their 20′s look at their 30′s as a time to get serious, settle down, and work even harder to get ahead. But then we arrive in our 30′s and get nervous when things don’t go as planned. (continues…)