Titus Ashby is only two years old, but he can sink one ball after another, often with banked shots or from great distances. His proud father, Joseph Ashby, writes:
This is the trick shot video that makes other trick shot videos look like a bunch of old guys who should have something better to do -- like retire, turn up their pacemakers, or join an assisted living facility.
Andrea Burnett makes Star Wars-themed crib mobiles and sells them through her Etsy store Sheep Creek Needlecraft. They are each custom-made, with your choice of elements like different spaceships from the films, a Death Star, and planets. This is perfect for getting your geek baby off to a stellar start! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Jorge Cham of PHD Comics charts an essential truth: parenting is a long period of anxiety punctuated by moments of sheer terror or joy. When it's all over, which will you remember the most easily?
Link -via Joe Carter
Jude practices his faceplants instead of taking a nap. His parents watch by a baby-monitoring app. And laugh! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Little Kayla is very excited about seeing the moon, but she can't reach it! -via Viral Viral Videos
First Lady Michelle Obama is not afraid to get her groove for a good cause. She recently visited the set of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote her "Let's Move" campaign to end childhood obesity. The result is a hilarious segment titled, "The Evolution of Mom Dancing."
It includes great dance moves like:
As an American I am proud to say, "My first lady can dance better than your first lady! Nanner! Nanner! Nanner!"
Hit play or go to Link [Flash video/self-starting]
The Tooth Fairy tried to get the tooth. But Emily's room was a mess, especially the bed. It was covered with toys, blankets and Emily's sister. So she left a note saying that she would come back if Emily cleaned up and made the tooth accessible. Amy, Emily's mom, reports that the child responded favorably and it's likely that the Tooth Fairy will return.
Warm
and cozy is for weak babies. To ensure strong Viking-worthy children, Nordic
parents regularly leave their babies to sleep outdoors in the freezing cold:
Would you put your baby or toddler outside in the freezing cold for their lunchtime nap? Most Nordic parents wouldn't give it a second thought. For them it's part of their daily routine.
Daytime temperatures this winter in Stockholm have regularly dropped to -5C (23F) but it's still common to see children left outside by their parents for a sleep in the pram.
Wander through the snowy city and you'll see buggies lined up outside coffee shops while parents sip on lattes inside.
And if you are visiting friends and your child needs a nap, you may be offered the garden or balcony instead of a bedroom.
Helena Lee of BBC News explains: Link (Photo: Asa Eriksson)
Collectors Weekly has a pretty comprehensive article on the evolution of black dolls, from homemade dolls to racist caricatures to darker versions of white doll molds to specialty doll companies to what's available today. Because children should have dolls that reflect who they are -and that reflect the people around them. One of the people who contributed to the article is Debbie Behan Garrett, author of the book Black Dolls: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion.
"Because of the false belief that anything white was better than anything black, some early dolls that black parents and children made from household items were often in the image of white people,” Garrett says. “I didn’t personally make any dolls as a child, but I have heard of those who used a Coke bottle as the doll’s body and undyed rope as hair. The undyed rope represented blonde hair.
“In the early movies and television, there were not very many positive images of black people,” she continues. “White characters always had positive roles: There was Shirley Temple, ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ and Opie on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ to name a few. Black people had Buckwheat in ‘The Little Rascals’ and other characters that were not positive images for young children. The negative characterization of black people not only affected black children. It was a way to embed in the minds of young white children that all black people were like the ones seen in the media.”
The end of World War II in 1945 brought about a boom in U.S. manufacturing featuring new plastics developed during the war. Suddenly, vinyl and hard plastic dolls were cheap and easy to churn out of the factory. These manufactured dolls were so affordable that middle and lower class people didn’t have to hand-make their dolls anymore.
The mass-production of plastic dolls was so streamlined that, for manufacturers, making special molds of dolls with African American features seemed like an unnecessary cost. That’s why most of the vinyl and hard plastic dolls were white. The black dolls that were sold by companies like Horsman or Terri Lee were most often white dolls painted brown or dipped in brown dye, Garrett explains. “You couldn’t look at the doll and classify it as a true representation of a black person,” she says. “Because it was just a brown counterpart of the white doll.”
You'll also read about Samantha Knowles and her new documentary Why Do You Have Black Dolls? and the many companies that sprung up over the years to fill the need for authentic black dolls. Link
Today you are a man. Tomorrow you go back to junior high school an internet rap sensation.
Meet Daniel Blumen. This May he is set to have his Bar Mitzvah. That is the day that this 13-year-old boy will read from the Torah and become a man. This rite of passage is a huge accomplishment. Most families plan big parties and send out written save-the-date cards, but not Daniel. Daniel and his family created a beautifully made video of him rapping. Oh, and did I mention that the video also includes cameos by several celebrities. The save-the-date video has gone viral and now Daniel has become a celebrity in his own right.
Hit play or go to Link.
When you were little how did you get out of going to bed? Ask for a glass or water? Complain that you had to use the restroom? Not a 10-year-old boy from Massachusetts. This little guy called 911.
According to Enterprise News a 10-year-old boy called 911 at 8:09 pm to complain about his Mother sending him to bed. The boy dialed the police, but hung up before talking to them. As per policy the police called the home back.
On the call, the mother is heard telling the boy that the police are on the line because he called them. The mother asks if he still wanted to talk to them and complain about his bedtime hour, but he didn't.
Image: Pirate Clock from the NeatoShop
Sunny Chanel's 7-year-old daughter is too young to see any of the nine films up for a Best Picture Oscar. But she took a look at the posters for each film and gave her assessment of what the movie is about from that. This is what she said about Django Unchained:
"It's a wild west movie! But I don't know why there is a 'D' in the name. It should be just Jango, just with a 'J' not a 'D'. That's weird. The guy in the middle is a good guy and the other guys are bad guys. The guy on the left always plays bad guys. In the movie they dance a lot and then they kill bad people and the bad people kill the good people because they are mean. Really mean."
Leonardo DiCaprio would get a kick out of her assessment of his roles. After judging all nine movies, the youngster says that Lincoln will win the Academy Award. Link -via Laughing Squid
Many
children who suffer from neglect or abuse from their parents nonetheless
manage to grow up into decent adults. Question is, do they owe anything
to these bad parents?
What do we owe our tormentors? It’s a question that haunts those who had childhoods marked by years of neglect and deprivation, or of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of one or both parents. Despite this terrible beginning, many people make it out successfully and go on to build satisfying lives. Now their mother or father is old, maybe ailing, possibly broke. With a sense of guilt and dread, these adults are grappling with whether and how to care for those who didn’t care for them.
Emily Yoffe of Slate wrote an interesting article exploring the question of whether grown children of neglectful or abusive parents have any obligation to take care those who didn't even fulfill their own: Link - Thanks facetedjewel!
I saw this headline a couple of times yesterday before I realized that what made the story so rare is that she gave birth to two sets of identical twins all at the same time! Tressa Montalvo had a Cesarian section on Valentine's Day at Women’s Hospital of Texas and produced four boys, each weighing between three and four pounds. She had conceived fraternal twins, then each embryo split into identical twins. Montalvo and her husband used no fertility drugs.
The odds of delivering two sets of naturally occurring identical twins is somewhere in the range of 1 in 70 million, according to the hospital. Two boys shared one placenta and the two other boys shared another placenta.
Ace and Blaine were born at 8:51 a.m. on February 14 and weighed 3 pounds, 10 ounces (1.64 kg), and 3 pounds, 15 ounces (1.79 kg), respectively. Cash and Dylan followed a minute later, weighing 2 pounds, 15 ounces (1.33 kg), and 3 pounds, 6 ounces (1.53 kg), respectively.
"We tried to stick to the A-B-C-D theme when naming them," Tressa Montalvo said. "We didn't expect it, we were trying for just one and we were blessed with four."
The quadruplets join a two-year-old brother. The boys' father said they were going to try for a girl next. That's easy for him to say. Link -via Holy Kaw!
(Image credit: Reuters/The Women's Hospital of Texas)
