another hit toy!

Well, with Carl anyway. You're going to think all I bought were Leap Frog toys. Well, I did place a whopping order with them before the holidays because they had such a wicked sale. I actually bought this toy because it was on sale for $6. I figured, if it was a dud, it was only $6. I even bought one to give a friend's son for his 4th birthday. In hindsight - I rock!

Leap Frog Fix The Mix. I have to show you a stock photo. (no call yet on my camera estimate) The box says it is for ages 3-6.

The child hits that start button and the machine plays a sequence of 5 things. Carl immediately turns it to Level 3. That level has things like "The Wash Your Hands Song"... the 5 parts are: wet your hands, get some soap, lather up, then rinse 'em, dry 'em off. It sings it in a little tune. Then, the kid has to push/twist/squeeze one of those colored buttons trying to find the first direction. The goal is to push all 5 in correct order. Once you make a mistake, you have to go back and start with the first one. After they get all five in the correct order, the machine congratulates them, gives them a score, then tells them the tally of all the rounds they have played so far and says something like "awesome!" or "that's amazing!"

Level 3 has other songs/directions as well. Counting to 10 by 2s, Counting to 25 by 5s, ABCs, months of the year, Life Of A Butterfly, Body Parts top to bottom and a few more. Carl has his favs and he'll keep hitting the start button to scroll through to find one he likes. But, he stays on task and finishes every time. He's really good at remembering where the song pieces are when he makes a mistake and doesn't make the mistake twice.

It's a cool toy, but I can't find it on Leap Frog's site again. And Amazon has it for $22! I love it when I make a good purchase!!

http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-29114-Fix-the-Mix/dp/B00134PM5U/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I did also buy this one below (Match Up) for $6 and it isn't anywhere near as cool. It's confusing and we haven't really figured it out yet. Maybe if we play with it a lot more, it'll get to be fun, but for now, he's happy fixing his mixes!

http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-29108-LeapFrog%C2%AE-Match-Up/dp/B00134O9HC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1263844684&sr=1-1

her future's so bright, she's gotta wear shades!

After the poor sick kid posts, we all deserve a wicked cute kid picture, right?

The kids got real Ray-Ban sunglasses when we were in NY. I didn't get a chance to get Carl's picture in his before my camera got sick, but I'll put him up as soon as I can! Down here, we wear our sunglasses a lot! The kids had plastic ones last summer and loved them, so I was happy to be able to get them more sturdy ones with better lenses. Carl especially wants to wear his all the time. He is just like me - I go nowhere without my shades! I got a new fancy dancy pair, too, but no pics of me either. Trust me - I do not look this cute:

did you know??

That when a child takes amoxicillin for the first time, they may develop a nasty looking rash? I know I have seen dozens of kids on amoxicillin in my time, administered many many doses to infants and toddlers myself. But, apparently, none of them were first timers falling in the 3-10% category. Yeah, that's Carl... 90-97% get by non-rashed. He is looking pretty pitiful. It looks just like a Fifth's Disease rash - minus the cheeks. But, with him just finishing his course of amoxicillin, Fifth's doesn't make anywhere near as much sense as a reaction to the drug does.

I can't take his picture, but he looks like the kid in the photo on wikipedia's page about amoxicillin. (we're in the photo #2 look right now) I called our pediatrician's office (and the nurse's message line said someone would return my call within 30 minutes. Two and a half hours later, Lew called back. He got put through to the hospital. We're guessing the ped's office actually closed - if they were even really ever open - and they never returned my call. Then, the service started dumping calls to the hospital. Anyway, that nurse basically read straight from the wikipedia site. She did say he is fine to go back to school. Oh boy! How much do you want to bet they force me to take him to the doctor on Monday and won't allow him back with this rash without a note????? You know I've been here before!

It doesn't mean he is allergic to amoxicillin or other penicillin family drugs, just happened to get this rash. Unless it gets worse.....

here we go again

8:00 pm
Gretchen = 103.2*

wordless Wednesday

another cool toy, TAG readers

The kids got so many wonderful toys for their birthday and the holidays, I thought maybe I'd highlight a few. Partly to recommend them anyone reading who has younger kids and partly for me to help remember what they loved when they were 4.
These TAG Reading Systems from Leap Frog were a birthday gift. I researched them to within an inch of their lives. Oh wait, if you know us, we do that with everything.... even maple syrup*. I went back and forth on buying a $40 toy per child. I read reviews, reviews and more reviews. I asked friends who had the toy already (their glowing reports are what really pushed me over the edge.) and I stood in Toys R Us picking them up and putting them back many times.

So, if you like reviews from someone you know... feel confident buying your 4 year old a TAG reading system! The twins love them! Be sure to buy the one bundled with The Cat In The Hat, though - not a book with Ollie in the title. The Ollie one looks identical - and if you have twins, you'd be tempted to buy the 2 different books, so one of each.... but the computer pen that comes with the Ollie book is the old version and only holds 5 books in it's 16 MB memory. The Cat In The Hat one has 32 MB and holds up to 10 books. The pen reader tool comes in either green or purple so you have an easy way to tell them apart. For now, they each have all the books we own loaded on their pens, so they can read any of the books, but they sort of feel certain books belong to them vs belong to their twin. They do share nicely most of the time.
Once you buy the pen part, you go online and download the stories into the pen. Then the child is ready to "read" the individual books that are loaded up for them. The pen only works with the TAG reader special books which you have to buy separately (they run $10-$14 dollars most places, sometimes Leap Frog's website has good sales. I got several for only $5 each before Christmas.) They can click one icon and the reader literally reads the page to them. Or, they can choose to touch each word individually to hear the story. Touching the pictures will say different things. There are different games to play where the pen asks them questions and they have to touch items on the pages to answer.

Another cool thing is you can then plug the pen into the computer and it tells you exactly what your child has been doing on the TAG reader. This plug-in feature shows how much time they spent with each book, how many times they "read" it, clicked on the individual words, what percentage of game questions they answered correctly, what skills they excel in and even what grade level they place in based on their answers. FYI... Carl is scoring at a 1st grade level on some things!!

I definitely recommend the carrying cases right from the start. They also come in green and pink, so you can easily tell whose is whose. You're able to fit 6 books in each one. Stock up on AAA batteries or get some good rechargeables. You can buy headphones, but really, it isn't that loud and even in the car for 18 hours to NY, with 2 of them playing in the back seat, I never got bugged by the sound. I kind of like eavesdropping on their activity anyway.I highly recommend the TAG Reading System! And, Carl & Gretchen recommend it even more!!




*disclaimer... do not use maple syrup on the TAG reader system!

my weather report

I'll even archive for y'all....

Mon 1/4,
Tues 1/5,
Wed 1/6,
Thurs 1/7 ..... water in dump truck on the back deck = frozen.

Fri 1/8 .... the only day all week that the water thawed!

Sat 1/9,
Sun 1/10,
Mon 1/11 .... frozen again!

Plus this morning (1/11), it was not until 11:15 am (yes, I kept checking and watching the time. I want this to be accurate!) that the pond out back's layer of ice started to thaw!



sickness report:
Carl is down to 40.8 lbs. You should see his ribs! I weighed him naked, so that might account for some of the weight - the doc's weigh-in last week 42.5 was clothed. His head cold is a doozy! Gretchen seems OK.
My throat isn't as bad today. Phew!!!
No school for Carl today, but I might try sending him tomorrow. We'll see how the afternoon goes. His therapist called in sick today, too. She was up all night throwing up. Ugh! Poor Ashlie!!!