5-year-old Christian Bentley, who has leukemia, loves Star Wars. So the Make-A-Wish Foundation decided to build him a huge playhouse designed to look like the Millennium Falcon from that franchise. The Foundation contracted Little Mountain Productions, a custom builder of church facilities, to do the job.

Battling an ear infection, Christian appeared overwhelmed by the whole ordeal, at times rubbing his eyes and shaking his head in front of a crowd that included Star Wars characters including Storm Troopers and an Imperial Guard.

Union Public Schools' Moore Elementary School raised the roughly $5,100 it took to grant Christian's wish.

Little Mountain Productions of Tulsa, which designs and creates sets, stages, special effects and props, built the playset, a replica of the Millennium Falcon spaceship featured in the "Star Wars" movies.

The base of the clubhouse was erected by volunteers from Simmons Homes.

"This is definitely one of the most creative wishes we've ever done," said Jane Rohweder, director of development for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oklahoma. "The wish he had took so many people, so many volunteers to make it happen. It's really been a community effort."

Below, the first gallery link shows photos of how the playhouse was built. The second gallery link and the story link provide information about the installation of the project.

Gallery and Gallery and Story Link | Photo: Little Mountain Productions

Etsy seller GeekUnique sells crib-sized quilts designed to resemble classic 8-bit video game characters. Her options include Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Link, and Q-Bert (above).

Link via technabob | Photo: GeekUnique

(YouTube Link)

The Mr. T Mobile (get it?) plays the theme music to The A-Team while five B.A. Baracus heads rotate for your baby's amusement. Sadly, this appears to be a custom job, and not mass-produced. It was made by author and comedian Shed Simove.

Nota bene: the link at the end of the video is NSFW.

via Great White Snark | Previously: Bioshock Mobile

(YouTube Link)

The young son of YouTube user Bradleycharris had a loose tooth. He proposed to remove it by tying a string to model rocket and launching it into the sky. Of course, the idle wish of any child should be indulged at any time.

via reddit

Craftster user NameThatCandy crocheted a diaper cover that looks like a uniform from the original Star Trek. Nice handiwork, but putting your child in a red shirt seems like asking for trouble.

http://geekcrafts.com/star-trek-diaper-cover/ via Geek Crafts

(cross-posted at NeatoGeek)

When I was eleven years old, my family went to Europe for a month. It was a very fast-paced trip. We went to Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. We once got lost and ended up in far western Austria.

Years later, my parents explained to me why they had gone to the great expense of the trip: they wanted me to have the mind-broadening experience of traveling in a foreign country. They themselves had lived in South America for two years before I was born, and my father had worked for months at a time in western Europe. These were experiences that expanded Mom and Dad's cultural awareness, and they felt that it was important for me to acquire them as well. I'm glad that they did.

Except for excursions to northern Mexico, it is financially unlikely that I shall ever again travel abroad. So I'm glad that I was able to encounter other cultures in their native environments. I want my children to have this, too.

Does international travel play a role in the education of your children?

If you could take your children anywhere in the world for a week, all expenses paid, where would you go?

Photo: NASA

Helen Bannerman (1862–1946) wrote children's books, some of them now quite controversial. Among them was the 1904 work The Story of Little Kettle-Head. It's about a young pyromaniac who sets herself on fire and underwent a crude cybernetic conversion to replace her destroyed head. So it's sort of like The Six Million Dollar Man, except that it probably didn't cost more than five dollars. Also, there's misogynistic mutilation by boys, aided by a father figure. All in all, a freaky work of children's literature. Enjoy.

Link via The Presurfer

Cartoonist Natalie Dee examined the socioeconomic commentary expressed in the lyrics of the children's song "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." Two more images at the link.

Link via reddit

Previously:
The Periodic Table of Smellements
They Set Our Castle on Fire!

(YouTube Link)

The commercial for Huggies' latest product is both funny and somewhat disturbing. Mostly funny. It's a diaper design that looks like blue jeans. The ladies (and some of the men) stop and stare and ask themselves, "What's in his diaper?"

Link (warning: sound) via Wolf Gnards

(YouTube Link)

YouTube user spinningfancy recorded the playful relationship between human toddler Lula and Leonard, the African Leopard Tortoise. At 1:30 they have a tea party on the lawn.

via The Breda Fallacy

Medical researchers at Imperial College in London found that autistic kids have a particular chemical in their urine. This finding could be used to create a simple urine test that could be used to diagnose the disease early:

Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyse the children's urine, they found that each of these groups had a distinct chemical fingerprint, with clear and significant differences between children with autism and unrelated controls.[...]

Autism is currently diagnosed using a series of behavioural tests, and while children can show symptoms of the condition when as young as 5 months old, a clear diagnosis is not usually possible until they are age 2 or 3 years. This is problematic, because there is growing evidence that the earlier behavioural therapies for autism are started, the better the chances of children being able to lead relatively normal lives.

"If you could identify kids who were at risk much earlier by a chemical test rather than by observing the manifestation of full-blown behaviour, we could get them into therapy much earlier," says Nicholson.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: CDC

Which female anime characters would serve as good role models for young girls, and why?

Image: US Renditions
(Cross-posted at NeatoGeek)

(YouTube Link)

The Onion News Network commentators and pundits have a good point -- many violent video games are not realistic enough to prepare children to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. For example, swallowing pills that you find lying on the ground won't cure zombie bites. In fact, it may even poison you, leaving you too weak to outrun the undead hordes.

via View From the Porch

One of the bad things about neglecting your family so that you can focus on business and networking with your smart phone is that a lot of people tend to hold you in low moral regard. The solution to this problem is the BabyBerry -- a smart phone that looks like a real baby.

Don't worry, this isn't a real product. It's just a clip from the BBC comedy sketch show Mitchell & Webb.

Video Link via Gizmodo

An old essay by parenting columnist Barbara F. Meltz was passed around the gunblogosphere a few weeks ago. Meltz addresses a specific child safety issue: guns in the homes of your children's playmates.

The nightmare scenario is that your kid goes to play at the home of his friend. The home has unsecured firearms, and kids are curious so...well, you can imagine what happens next. And has happened to some kids and their parents.

Meltz proposes that parents simply ask the parents of playmates if they have firearms. If the answer is yes, ask how they are secured.

As a father and gun owner, I would have absolutely no problem with a parent asking these questions. My rifle is kept unloaded in a locked case, and I don't want my child playing in a home where a firearm is kept in any other condition. Rather than be offended at the query, I'd be impressed at the parent's good sense.

Meltz's question also brings something else to mind. There are safety issues beyond guns whenever a child makes an unsupervised visit to a friend's home.

What questions should a parent ask before letting his or her child visit the home of a friend?

Link | Photo: US Department of Justice