Young children who are developing their artistic skills don’t worry much about drawing realistic looking figures, or whether their lines look like much of anything to the rest of the world, because they see what they want to see in their original works of art.
Unfortunately, parents are hardly ever able to see what their child sees in that mess of scribbles, but one parent decided to interpret her child’s artwork into collaborative paintings she and her daughter can create together.
Ruth Oosterman creates paintings that explore the shapes and contours found in-between the lines drawn by her two-year-old daughter, and from within the chaos of kiddy art she draws forth something quite special.
This map, interactive at the site, shows the vaccination rates for schools in Los Angeles. Thirteen schools in Los Angeles have opt out rates of 50% or more. That means more than half the children who attend are not following the prescribed schedule of immunization against measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, diphtheria, or pertussis (whooping cough). Many more schools have opt out rates just under 50%. That means that there is insufficient herd immunity at these schools, and children can contract these diseases and transmit them to babies and those with compromised immune systems -the people most likely to die from them. Children who have been vaccinated are also at risk, because some vaccines take years to gain peak immunity, and even then it’s not 100%. Being vaccinated will reduce the risk, however, and the best way to reduce the risk of disease is to vaccinate as many children as possible to reach herd immunity -the point where diseases hit roadblocks in contagion.
Keep in mind that the statistics on the map are for the percentage of parents who filed a “PBE,” or Personal Belief Exemption for immunizations. In many cases, that doesn’t mean the child is completely unvaccinated, but instead means that certain vaccines are skipped or delayed from the standard immunization schedule. But the current outbreak of pertussis is real. So far this year, almost 8,000 of cases of pertussis have been reported in the Los Angeles area, 267 people have been hospitalized, and three babies have died of the disease. The rate of measles is higher than it’s been for 20 years. The Hollywood Reporter has an extensive article about vaccinations and the parents who opt out. -via Metafilter
If my young daughters send me Facebook friend requests, is it okay if I click on "Ignore"? I really don't need this kind of drama in my life. Rob Fee's assessment of what a toddler's Facebook news feed would look like is just about right.
(Images Via August 18, 1988 New Castle News in Pennsylvania)
Kids are generally a pretty optimistic bunch, without any cynicism or prejudice to color their view of the world, and because of this positivity their outlook on the future is usually pretty fantastic.
In the past their ideas about the future involved flying cars, space exploration, and a world full of computer screens and cool inventions.
However, in the year 1988 kids were already starting to look at the future in a more realistic light, and their ideas about the year 2000 were some of the most mundane answers ever given to questions about the future.
Little Catherine Book, seen here striking her best future movie starlet pose, had this to say about houses in the future:
They'll build the houses so they have zig zags. Then they'll have trees on the outside of the zig zag so if a skunk tries to walk through the house they can't because the ends will be so sharp that they'll prick them.
And shy Brad Shaffer shared this startling revelation about the future of his family's home:
My house will get older and more spider webs . . . It'll just get more unless my mother cleans it.
It seems kids in 1988 had already accepted the disappointing reality awaiting them in the new millenium, and they were tired of animated propaganda like The Jetsons spreading lies about the future.
Professional photo shoots of babies are cute. Leaving them naked for the shoot gives the images a natural ambience. That's probably what Al Ferguson was looking for when Kirsty Grant photographed him with his newborn son Ted.
But once you become a parent, black and white images of naked babies aren't charming. They're alarming. A baby without a diaper is a time bomb. Which is precisely what Ferguson learned:
And Ted detonated just as the photographer snapped her shutter. His father wrote:
During the shoot I felt his tummy muscles tense up and in that moment I knew what was about to happen. Unfortunately, it was just a moment and before I could do anything Ted exploded from his bum.
A warning to Mr. Ferguson: you have seen only the beginning of it. There will many, many more poop explosions in your life.
Australian Lachlan Lever was a newborn baby in 2012 when early screening discovered he had moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears. By the time he was seven weeks old, Lachlan was fitted with hearing aids. That’s when his parents, Michelle and Toby Lever, saw him smile for the first time, caught on video. Since then, Lachlan has developed well. He said his first word at 6 months, and he’s now a two-year-old chatterbox. Read more about Lachlan at The Daily Mail. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
I don't know about you guys, but I loved my local library when I was a kid. But with all the distractions of mobile devices, games, and more, many kids never even visit the library and when they do, they find it to be boring. That's why some libraries have really made an effort to encourage kids not only to keep reading but also to see just how much fun can be had at the library. Here are a few branches that go above and beyond when it comes to keeping kids entertained.
1. Brentwood Library
Perhaps one of the most visually impressive children's museums in America, the Brentwood Library's children's area features a charming entrance adorned in oversized books and a massive storybook tree. An animatronic owl greets visitors when it is triggered by a motion sensor. Inside the kid's section, the walls are covered in paintings of fairytale forests and between the rows of books are charming artificial trees.
The second Friday of each month means LEGO Mania time and summer reading programs feature musicians, puppets, magicians, live animals and more. During the school year, they have an after-school program that includes snacks, crafts, games and books.
Seeing pre-teen zombies roaming around the library after dark is no big deal at the Laramie County Library, where there are lots of tween activities including an after-hours program that hosts a yearly Zombie Prom.
The library is so popular with the young set that over 3,500 children visit each week and the entire second floor is dedicated to kiddos. The children's space features an oversized chess board, board games, computer stations, story areas and a kid's-size bookmobile to distribute imaginary books. Librarians say parents have a hard time getting children to leave.
Part of the reason the library is so popular with kids is that they can actually volunteer there as long as they are 12 and older. The library even offers a Teen Advisory Board to help decide on what programs would be the most popular with their peers.
A combination effort between the Children's Theatre of Charlotte and Charlotte Mecklengburg Library, ImaginOn offers 102,000 square feet of entertainment and library space for youngsters. The center offers two theater spaces, one that seats 570 and one with occupancy for 250 viewers. Aside from theater performances oriented towards children, ImaginOn's theaters are also used for theater classes and camps oriented for groups of toddlers all the way through teens, as well as puppetry acts and story time sessions.
Upon entering ImaginOn, children first encounter the StoryLab area, an interactive exhibit space designed to get kids interested in literature. Once they get to the actual library section, kids from birth to fifth grade can find books, DVDs, CDs and children's software oriented to their specific age group. The second floor is reserved specifically for tweens and teens and even offers them the chance to use the library's film and recording studio.
Ashley has the cutest ever response to the ice bucket challenge! She dares several members of her family in Mentor, Ohio to follow her. But she also extends invitations to Barbie and Dora the Explorer. Hopefully Boots, Swiper, and Benny will join in, too.
The daughter of Mandy Meaux, shown here, has apparently decided that when it comes to consuming chocolate doughnuts, the standard is "deny, deny deny." She stands by her response, in spite of it crumbling all around her as a result of mom's chisel of repeated questioning. Nice try at trying to hide the evidence behind the coffee table, though, kid! Via Viral Viral Videos.
Redditor meancloth is pretty sure everything is fine with the latest ultrasound image. Baby A gives a thumbs up to assure him that conditions are AOK inside. Baby A? Yep, the other baby is fine, too. However, if you’re into counting fingers and toes, Baby A seems to have six on one hand. That could be a sonogram artifact, or a biological bonus. As if twins aren’t already a biological bonus!
People normally look back at photos from their childhood to see how goofy they used to look, and how far they've come since, but some people don't want to let go of the past, and they're taking it back to the good old days through recreated childhood photos:
The trend of recreating childhood photos as an adult is nothing new to the interwebs, but some people go above and beyond to get their recreation just right, like these guys who captured both wardrobe and location, even though the height scale has reversed.
I loved back-to-school time when I was a kid. I got new penny loafers, a plaid skirt, and knee socks. We never started school before September. But I didn’t look forward to the beans and cornbread the cafeteria served at least twice a week. Things have changed quite a bit since then. A post at Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds contrasts the process of sending kids to school when the author was a kid with the process today. For example, packing lunches.
5. Spread yellow mustard on bread. Slap baloney on bread. Unwrap American cheese slices and put on top of baloney. Put top on the sandwich and wrap sandwich in tin foil or wax paper. Put it in the lunchbox. Every kid gets the same exact lunch. Period.
6. Alternate sandwich choices could include: peanut butter and grape jelly, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, the end of last night's leftover roast beef or the ever popular with children tuna fish with large chunks of onions and celery and Miracle Whip.
7. Put some Planter's Cheese Balls into a baggie and close with a twist tie.
8. Take Twinkies out of the box. Put one in each child's lunch box.
9. Fill Thermoses with either Kool-Aid or whole milk.
10. Include a red delicious apple even though you know that damned apple is just going to come home uneaten again, which is fine because you can keep adding the same one until it practically rots.
YouTube user "Papa" handmade a hovercraft for his delighted children. Shown in this video is his second attempt at the project, made out of a polystyrene insulation board, a hand vacuum and a rope for steering. It looks like hovercraft 2.0 is getting the kids' seal of approval. Via Viral Viral Videos.
Dreamworks animator Daniel Hashimoto, featured previously on Neatorama, is back with volume two of Action Hero Kid, a project he makes with footage of his son James. Follow the adventures of James the superhero kid, his father (also known as "Hashi"), and his wife Mandy on Facebook.
In this compilation of babies seeing themselves in mirrors for the first time, we see that they catch on fairly quickly that it’s a reflection of themselves. After all, most of them recognize their mothers in the mirror. This new discovery soon gives way to the common and particularly human joy of admiring ourselves. -via Tastefully Offensive
