Archive for the ‘Product News’ Category

The Wheel of Consequences

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Move over Vanna, there’s a new wheel in town.  We’re all familiar with spinners used in board games (and game shows like Wheel of Fortune) but who would have thought they could be useful in parenting as well?  When two of her kids began fighting and arguing excessively, Julie Butler figured out how to put a simple board game spinner to work and, in so doing, put an end to her kids’ battles overnight.  She has since packaged her discovery into a Windows-based software package and is making it available over the internet.

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Hot Lunches Without the Headache

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

For a long time, my kids would have nothing to do with sandwiches.  Me, I love a good sandwich — nice sourdough, some garlic sauce, lots of onions — but there’s no telling what your kids will like or dislike.  And mine didn’t like sandwiches.  So we had to come up with something else to put in their school lunches.  If only, we thought, there were some way they could have a nice hot lunch every day at school without us having to show up at lunchtime to cook it for them.  Luckily, we found such a way.

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Avoiding the Sun, Aussie Style

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

In addition to the issue of general water safety and that whole not-letting-the-kids-drown thing, there is another issue that needs to be dealt with these days — sun protection.  Sunburn is no laughing matter, even if it doesn’t always lead to skin cancer — it’s bloody painful in its own right.  As parents, it’s part of our job to keep our children safe and that includes making sure they are not exposed to too much sun.

If just staying indoors isn’t an option (and, truthfully, would you want to be stuck in the house all summer with your kids?) then sunscreen is an absolute must.  But for the parts that don’t get sunscreen, is a t-shirt and swim trunks enough?  Perhaps — and perhaps not.  A lightly woven, wet t-shirt doesn’t really offer that much protection.  So what can one do, short of staying indoors?
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Talking Cow Encourages Sex Ed

Monday, June 21st, 2010

So abstinence education doesn’t work — even Bristol Palin admitted that.  Teenagers need realistic, accurate information about sex and pregnancy.  It simply makes sense that teenagers get that kind of information as part of an overall biology/health education program in school, so that what is taught is both correct and consistent.  The alternative is to have kids learn about sex on the playground or, even worse, from potential (hopeful?) lovers.  That’s where ideas like “you can’t get pregnant the first time” and “if you love me, you’ll let me” come from.  So, yes, sex education is a good thing.  But should it really come from a talking cow?

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