Tricks and Toons

FAIRY FLYBY: This morning, Annabelle was happy to find the Tooth Fairy paid a visit last night. This time the Tooth Fairy left a letter in addition to some cash. That was a first.

HMM...: I'm sure you're just dying to know how our Triops growing experiment is going. Wish I had something positive to tell you, but the fact of the matter is, there's nothing to report. Right now it still looks like small bark chips floating in distilled water. No sign of life at all.
We're trying to stay positive. The directions said they'd hatch "with in a day or two." It's been a day. And a half. Hopefully (sung to the tune of "Tomorrow" from Annie):
The Triops will come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar, there'll be some. ...

ISLANDERS: We continued our exploration of tricksters in literature. Today's readings (all from Virginia Hamilton's "A Ring of Tricksters") were three tales from the West Indies. The gullah speech took a bit getting used to, but in the end it certainly made for more authentic sounding trickster tales.

In each of the three stories, one of the lead characters was a spider, Anansi (from the African word Ananse, meaning spider).

FREE READING: CJ spent some of his free time today reading "Nintendo Power" magazine, which is no great surprise. However, he also curled up with "Popular Science" for about a half hour on the couch. Nice!

GAME O' THE DAY: Our discovery of the day was ToonsTunes.com. It's a relatively new Web site, describing itself as a place where kids can experience music, create music and share those creations, play games and make friends.
Though it's nowhere near as big, it reminded me a bit of Club Penguin or ToonTown in that there are several places you can visit on a map, and in each place (everything from a music store to ). The site is in a trial period, and CJ and Annabelle are more than happy to be beta testers.

My favorite part of the site is where the kids can create songs by combining hundreds of different guitar and bass riffs, drum tracks, keyboards and more. They can even adjust the tempo and key. Here's a link to one of CJ's songs, "Mega Ultra." And here's a link to one of Bee's, "First Song." (After you follow the link, give the songs a second to load.)

Annabelle's favorite part of ToonsTunes.com is the social networking aspect. Her buddy list is already bulging and I heard her complaining that she can only be a member of 5 bands. I watched her chatting with a 'friend' who was complaining about their account getting hacked (Annabelle advised her to change her password). I saw that the girl typed back, "Your a nice friend." (At least hopefully it's a young girl ...)

RAISING HAPPINESS: Mothering, good and bad, has been a hot topic here in the staff room at MPA this week. This morning, I came across a sane, humane sounding counterpoint to the inflammatory Wall Street Journal story about "Superior Chinese Mothers."

The article, on the Huffington Post, was by Christine Carter, PhD, author of "Raising Happiness." In it, Carter points out that three decades of research "clearly suggests that such a narrow focus on achievement can produce wildly unhappy people." She also points out that "we are a country full of high-achieving but depressed and suicidal college students, a record number of whom take prescription medication for anxiety and depression."

While we're on the topic of good/bad mothers, we can't forget the horror show that is "Toddlers and Tiaras." I've never watched a full episode, but I've seen tons of commercials and enough of it to conclude the mothers portrayed on the show are fruitcakes at best, potential child abusers at worst. Case in point - here's a lovely video of a mother having her FIVE YEAR OLD daughter's eyebrows waxed.

Unfortunately, Annabelle saw the first part of this and she practically started hyperventilating. :/

BONUS SHOT: I swear, Kirby was just begging me to take her picture today. So I did. Hmm, now that I think about it, Kirby looks like she needs her eyebrows waxed. ..