• Me

    XO Laptop from OLPC is Too Cool for Words

    I have been reading responses to the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project (Give 1 Get 1) with a combination of amusement, horror, embarrassment and pride. The pride is for the sheer brilliance of the folks at the MIT Media Lab and their courage to look beyond the obvious for creative solutions. It is also for those folks who "get it" or at least try to get it. The other three are for pretty much everyone else who has commented on the project. The XO is a computer designed to withstand extreme conditions, bright sunlight, water, lack of power, jostling, and, well… Kids. I know many of us were raised…

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  • Me

    Putumayo Kids presents Animal Playground "No More Monkeys"

      You know the song about the monkeys jumping on the bed? Well, here it is, Trinidadian-style a la Putumayo. Be forewarned – it’s like crack for kids and they just can’t get enough of it. I find it kind of catchy myself. The whole Animal Playground CD is phenomenal. Want more? You can buy it (from me!) on my Barefoot Books site.

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  • Me

    Change Afoot

    First of all, the Book of the Month club will soon have a new home on GoBarefootBooks.com. Don’t look now. Seriously. Ok, well, I warned you. It’s not quite ready yet! Not that I’ve spent all that much time or real estate in discussing it, but I’m hoping it frees me up (so to speak) to blog more about my interests. You may not know it, but I just love other mom blogs. I haven’t had a lot of time to read them, what with the baby and everything, but I just feel like there are some kindred spirits out there waiting to be found. Too touchy feeling? Ok, well……

  • Me

    All Grown Up

    Time for something light. Little Guy got his first hair cut this past weekend and also his first real bike. It’s a red Radio Flyer tricycle with a bell and some handlebar tassels. SO CUTE! His face lit up and he yelled, "Big wheels!" I love experiences like this. When the week is going poorly (as most of this week did) and I ask myself why I thought it was a good idea to have children, I do think of those perfect moments when everything is just "as it should be."

  • Me

    9-11

    I wasn’t going to blog about it this year. It’s not a matter of forgetting, or moving on, so much as I don’t want it to seem like this is the only day of the year that I remember. A few things happened today… small things, really… that made me feel like I needed to write something. I don’t live in NY and never have, although I lived across the river for a number of years. I didn’t lose anyone that day, although I had a few friends who worked in the WTC and I was living/working in Boston at the time. There are a lot of people who have…

  • TV,  Vent

    Bad Parenting Awards

    Parenting is hard. They tell you that before you have kids, but you don’t really understand what it means until you have a toddler shrieking and throwing blocks at you while your newborn screams bloody murder and you haven’t eaten a proper meal or slept more than a couple of hours at a time in the past 48 hours. Whew. Because I know how hard it is, and because I have found myself screaming things at my kids I swore I’d never say, I don’t like to throw stones. My house, after all, is made from incredibly brittle glass. With that caveat, I’m throwing a stone. A really big stone,…

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  • Barefoot Books,  Book of the Month

    September Book of the Month – Listen, Listen

    As promised, the Book of the Month club has begun. The book for September 2007 is Listen, Listen by Phillis Gershator, illustrated by Alison Jay.  Listen, Listen is a stunning journey through the seasons, exploring the sites and sounds of a quiet countryside throughout the year. Alison Jay’s illustrations lend a simple beauty to this tale. This is just the right book to read along with your toddler or preschooler, who will delight in helping make the sounds of the season (“shhh, shhh” or “buzz, buzz”) and identifying some of the creatures they meet along the way. Early readers will find the simple and rhythmic text fun to read and older…