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Taco the dog wants to be like his hoomin puppeh, so he crawls, too! He has a ways to go, though, as the baby is faster.

via Ace of Spades HQ

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I was early in toddlerhood when I got my first swimming lesson. But this program, Infant Swimming Resource, is different from conventional swimming instruction. It's designed to teach babies to roll on their back and assume a posture that will permit them to survive until they are rescued. As the frightening demonstration video shows, it appears to be effective.

Link via Doobybrain

Previously: Can You Swim Well Enough to Save Your Child?

Have you read the children's book Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney? It's a delightful conversation between a child and his father/mother as they prepare for bed. Little Nutbrown Hare wants Big Nutbrown Hare to know how much he loves him, and it's a whole lot. But Big Nutbrown Hare loves him right back even more. The person who got this tattoo showing a scene from the book writes:

My mom used to read this to me all the time when I was really little and it has always been one of my favorite books. My mom and I were never too close when I was younger, but after my parents got in a divorce 2 years ago our bond is stronger than ever. This tattoo commemorates our close bond now. The words say “I love you right up to the moon… and back” in my handwriting.

via F-Yeah Tattoos (NSFW title, but the content's okay)

Etsy seller Mazter made these gorgeous knitted pants and offers patterns for them sized from 6 months to 5 years. She notes that they're not hard to scale up to larger sizes, so, Alex, you've got something to look forward to this Christmas.

Link via Boing Boing

There's a Girl Scouts robotics team called The Flying Monkeys. That 11-13 year olds are being productive with technology is cool enough already, but there's more: they made a prosthetic writing device for a 3-year old who was born without fingers on her right hand.

The girls consulted a prosthetics maker and an occupational therapist and came up with a design that has a platform strapped to the arm as well as a cylindrical holder for writing implements or other tools.

The device helped 3-year-old Danielle hold a pencil with her right arm and write for the first time. It also netted the Flying Monkeys an FLL Global Innovation award of up to $20,000 to patent the invention, which they have applied for

Link via Make | Photo: Girl Scouts

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I've tried the Duck Season, Wabbit Season trick on my toddler, but I've never been successful. This parent, however, was made it work. If a person insists on contradicting you, just reverse yourself.

via Geekosystem

A crew consisting mostly of children built the largest LEGO tower in the whole world. The 102 foot 3 inch tower is made of half a million bricks. The kids assembled small bricks into larger components about a foot wide, which construction workers then combined from a crane. Four days later, the tower was complete, surpassing a previous record held by Chile.

Link (warning: self-starting video) via DVICE | Photo: The Daily Telegraph

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This dexterous tot will simply slide down the stairs if it will get her to her bottle a few seconds sooner. The video, though, is actually funnier in reverse.

via Geek Dad

Sam Pointon, 6, loves trains. So when the director of the National Railway Museum in York, UK, retired, he applied for the job. And he got one:

In his application Sam wrote: "I have an electric train track. I am good on my train track. I can control two trains at once."

Bosses were so taken with his enthusiasm they offered him a role as director of fun.

Sam said: "It is the best job in the world. I love it. It is good fun.

"My favourite is the steam engine, I like it when the wheels go round."

Asked what qualified him for the role at the railways museum, he answered: "I've been on loads of trains, including the Eurostar.

You can watch a video of Sam at work at the link.

Link via Urlesque | Photo: BBC

Today, being April Fools' Day, is the most difficult day on which to be a NeatoBambino author. It is quite difficult to distinguish between real oddities and fake oddities, especially since April Fool's Day pranks have become very mainstream. So this Crayola product might not be real. It should not surprise us either way that the company might produce markers that reflect a variety of skin tones, although they should be more properly identified as multiethnic instead of multicultural.

Link via Volokh Conspiracy

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I'm not sure what to think of this product by Berjuan. The doll comes with an apron which the child puts on. The apron has two flowers that represent nipples. When the crying doll touches her lips to the nipples, she makes suckling sounds.

What do you think? Creepy or healthy?

Link | Product Site

Studio Gorm, a German design firm, developed the Construction Quilt. It:

[...]was designed as simple multifunctional interior piece that can be transformed into a toy by children. It works as a carpet, a couch cover and can be converted into a landscape for toy cars or fort to play in. it works off of a simple grid of triangles made of dense foam covered with wool felt.

http://www.studiogorm.com/construction_quilt.html via NotCot

Here's a crafting project that's accessible to even non-crafty people like me. Kevin Kelly and his young son made a wreath out of plastic toys from a dollar store:

First we cut a torus from a piece of scrap plywood. Then we hot glued on to it several bags of plastic toys from the dollar store. It was fun building up patterns. Time flowed quickly. It made us giggle at times. The thing is completely useless. But it evoked something vague when we hung it outside my studio door. It's pleasing in a strange way. Looks like art to me.

Link via Boing Boing

The Jedi Temple, a Star Wars-themed martial arts academy, has just opened in Quilpué, Chile. Students learn Jedi values along with yoga and taekwondo:

In the classes, the children are given a chance to breathe life into a Star Wars' fandom (sometimes inherited from obsessed parents), by wielding light sabers made popular by Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Vanguardia.com reported.

A genuine Star Wars experience is provided by "an exact replica light-saber, that has the sounds and the light reminiscent of the movies," William Berrueta, the creator of the school, told BBC Mundo.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/03/11/star-wars-school-opens-chile-teach-children-martial-arts/#ixzz1GKIxn1uc?test=faces via Geekologie | Photo: Getty

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Emerson, at the age of five and a half months, isn't sure what to make of nose blowing. It's both freakish and hilarious. My guess is that he'll grow up a fan of horror movies.

via Urlesque