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Warning: this will make you feel ancient. Dial phones were replaced by push-button phones when these kids’ parents were children (although that wasn’t universal -remember when we had to pay an extra fee for touchtone service?), so it’s no surprise they don’t know how to use them. But when you hear them try to figure out how to send a text on a rotary phone, it strikes home how different the world they are growing up in really is.

My older daughter found a rotary phone in vendor's mall a few years ago and asked me to show her how it was used. Every step was totally new to her. Then she wanted to buy it and use it! I said no, because we'd then have to get landline service. Would that even work these days? -via Metafilter

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A little girl named Lara practices to become the musical director of this church choir in Kyrgyzstan someday. From her careful movements and her passion for the music, it probably won’t be as long as you might think! -via Daily Picks and Flicks

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Lilly Allen is a baby girl. Her father, Michael Stansbury, is a fitness coach. But for this video, she takes over that role and leads her father on a tough aerobic and bodyweight workout. As she moves, Michael imitates her motions. He keeps up pretty well, but I'm not sure that he would have lasted a few more minutes.

-via 22 Words

This looks like the best birthday party ever! The little girls wear their best pastel princess dresses while they use science fiction laser weapons to save the galaxy. This intriguing picture is one of the many in Dark Roasted Blend’s roundup of surprising kid pictures from different times and places, supplemented with artworks and advertising. Many are funny, some are just cute, and all will bring a smile to your face one way or another.  

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Take some inspiration from the Winter Olympics, tons of snow, and a large helping of elbow grease, and you can create a snow run that will win you the Dad of the Year award! Jay Venini built a luge out of snow in his backyard in Northport on Long Island. Man, this looks like a lot of fun! It appears to be designed for the mass and speed of those under 12 or so, but there are plenty of them around. And Venini’s children are suddenly the most popular kids in Long Island. -via Buzzfeed 

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Children’s television used to be a pretty far out adventure, full of psychedelic animated shorts and music by bands enjoyed by both the kids and their parents, but ever since music went bubblegum pop, and kids shows lost their cool, it’s easy to forget how hip children's television used to be.  

A new Tumblr called EMOCTV is busy collecting instances of strange and experimental music found in children’s television shows, like this clip from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood where he demonstrates an ARP synthesizer that should be set to a dubstep beat immediately, and a classic clip from Pee Wee's Playhouse with music supplied by The Residents.

-Via AnimalNY

Most 4 year olds love to play, do arts and crafts and spend their days letting their imaginations run wild, but it’s safe to say that the girl they call Mayhem is unlike other 4 year olds, mainly because she already has a career in fashion design picked out for herself.

But Mayhem can’t use a sewing machine or needle just yet, so she creates her fabulous dresses out of paper. Some are original designs, others are based on dresses she saw in photos and on TV, all are incredibly detailed and quite wearable considering the inflexible medium.

Mommy Shorts interviewed Mayhem's mother Angie about the fun fashion crafting they've been doing together, creating very wearable outfits out of construction paper, tissue paper, gift wrap and any other kind of paper product they can find around the house.

You can see more of Mayhem's fabulous designs at her Instagram account and website Fashion By Mayhem, and I hope the fashion houses are paying attention because this girl is really going places in the world of fashion design!

-Via DesignTAXI

In the great green-certified room there was a smart phone, and a silver spoon, and a picture of…

Since 1947, millions of children have gone to bed enjoying Margaret Wise Brown's classic picture book Goodnight Moon. But the parenting methods used back then were, to put it mildly, crude. They did not nurture children, let alone push them hard to learn from the very beginning of their lives.

Now Lizzy Ratner, Jen Nessel and Sara Pinto bring us Goodnight Nanny-Cam, a revision of Brown's book for tiger moms and dads. You can see more pages at 22 Words.

P.S. Be sure to check out other Goodnight Moon parodies, such as this one for Dune, this one for Keith Moon and this one for Star Wars.

The seminal cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants is now in its fifteenth year on the air, and whether you love the pineapple dwelling strangeoid or cringe at the sight of his stupid face you have to agree there’s something iconic about that undersea wearer of square pants.

But before Stephen Hillenburg's absorbent series hit the small screen SpongeBob, and all the people and places that reside in Bikini Bottom, went through years of development and reworking until Spongeboy became the Bob we know and (some) love today.

Cartoon fans, budding animators and chroniclers of all things Nick will love this 36,000-word oral history of SpongeBob SquarePants, compiled by Tom Heintjes, which is the most comprehensive history of SpongeBob ever published.

-Via Cartoon Brew

The LEGOgrapher sees the world from a uniquely tiny perspective, but seeing him unafraid to explore, to climb for the best shot, feels remarkably humanistic for a little plastic person.

LEGOgrapher is the brainchild of photographer Andrew Whyte, and he captures these fun and interesting shots with his smartphone as he travels around the UK and the world with the little LEGOgrapher in his pocket, shooting a pic a day for 365 days.

The shallow depth of field makes the viewer feel properly detached from the massive human world, and there are some nice textures and colors present that give the pics a vibrant liveliness.

-Via Bored Panda

Playgrounds are supposed to be fun, not just because of the equipment contained within but also in the overall layout and design of the lot, and even though most kids probably won’t appreciate the whimsical visual elements as they play their little hearts out, their parents will. As a beautiful building is a point of pride for an architect, so too is a delightful looking playground the bees knees to its designer, and when a playground is both good looking and fun to play in everybody wins!

Here's a list of ten fantastic looking playgrounds, recreational wonderlands for kids that adults would probably be just as happy to visit.

Alex told us about how useful it would be to name a child "Gotham" so that dad will get up and attend to him when he hears "Gotham needs you." I can’t say with any certainty whether that was the inspiration for today’s comic from Lunarbaboon, but his take on the idea is quite clever.

A 10-year-old boy from Dokka, Norway, was in the news last week when he drove his parents’ car several miles from home with his 18-month-old sister along. He had snuck out while the family was asleep. He drove into a ditch, and flagged down a snowplow for help. The boy told the snowplow driver that he was a dwarf, and had ditched the car when his turned around to retrieve his forgotten license.

It wasn’t so funny when the child pulled the same stunt again this week. The boy drove off in his aunt’s car yesterday, and the police were called. The child made it 19 miles this time, before he stopped and a bystander took his car keys away. The Vest Oppland police weren’t as forgiving for the second offense, and have reported the family to child services. -via Arbroath

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In a genius marketing move, 13-year-old Girl Scout Danielle Lei, with her mom’s help, set up a cookie stand outside a medical marijuana clinic in San Francisco. The sidewalk in front of the Green Cross turned out to be a lucrative position.

Any patients at The Green Cross with the munchies didn't stand a chance. In two hours on President's Day, Danielle sold 117 boxes outside the clinic — people gobbled up all her Dulce de Leches and blazed through the Tagalongs. According to her mother, Carol, that's 37 more boxes than what she sold during the same two-hour period outside a small Safeway the next day.

It’s not the first time Danielle has sold cookies outside a medical marijuana clinic, although it was the first time at this location. No other Scouts in her troop have tried this method, but the local council has no problem with it. Danielle will return to the Green Cross tomorrow to sell more cookies. -via Slate

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I’ve just been steered to a fascinating blog called the man who is not my mother. It is a diary of an infant with an amazing internal vocabulary who describes her surroundings and experiences. Here’s a recent post: 

Some mix of prescience, suspicion, and fascism has bade the man who is not my mother keep me close at hand. The infernal rocking contraption rests next to the great hillock of a bed he shares with my mother. Despite his drooling, stunned repose, I’ve come to enjoy those gentle pre-light hours, curled next to my mother.

Now, he means to prise this meagre joy from me; he prepares another room in the house to serve as my cell. Blackout shades, the table for changing, a mattress of just the right size, ringed ‘bout with bars. A rendition room, a black site. Put Bunny and Elephant in there… They mean to work me over in there, patting me and bouncing.

Sleep with one eye open. When the revolution comes, a cell for the prisoner can just as easily become a cell for the captor. We’ll see how you like your bed with bars.

The man behind the blog is Isaac Bloom, a stay-at-home dad who works part time from home. He channels his daughter Adeline as she discovers the world around her, although her musings are peppered with his “mature” point of view. -Thanks, Laura Grace Wheldon!