We just returned from another trip to the flea market, though this one didn’t turn out as well as other ones.
I bought a Junior Scientist Kit
I also got a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker
I also got three very cheaply made jewelry boxes ($1 each). Two of them already broke – so that was a big waste š
On a more positive note, Mike got an Eddie Bauer backpack for $4. It’s sturdy, with a leather bottom and in very good condition, though used.
We also got two DS games for Mika, but paid $10 each – not much less than what we can get them new online for.
So really, the only good deal was the backpack. Well, I hope we learn the lesson and we’re more careful in the future.
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American Girl, the makers of those impossibly expensive dolls, has a publishing arm that offers books
The book is full of activities for moms and daughters. It has quizzes that help to get to know each other better and ideas for things to do together (review a restaurant, have a movie night complete with popcorn recipe, make a calendar with pictures of the you together). Nothing is terribly original, but they are not things that either of us would have necessarily thought out on our own. Plus somehow it’s more interesting for Mika if she gets an idea for something to do together from the book.
What I most like about the book is that it just encourages me to do things with her.
The main plus and minus of the book is that these are activities for a mom to do alone with her daughter. This is great for one-on-one bonding time, but one-on-one bonding time is not necessarily easy to find when you have another kid around – specially one that is jealous of the book. But the book is really not geared to 5-year-olds. I wish there was one that was.
I’m also thinking of getting her Tear Up This Book!: The Sticker, Stencil, Stationery, Games, Crafts, Doodle, And Journal Book For Girls! 
The brutality and absurdity of the American justice system is well known around the world. The fact that until recently we were executing juveniles earned us the condemnation of the world (and several international human rights bodies). And now, prosecutors in Pennsylvania are to decide whether to try a kid for a murder he is accused of having committed when he was 11-years old. If convicted he may get life in prison.
A child. A stupid, immature child – one whose brain has not fully developed, whose concept of right and wrong is still fussy. A normal child.
We, of course, don’t know if he was responsible of the crime he is accused of or not. But it doesn’t matter. What a child of 11 does is no predictor of what he’ll do when he’s 22 or 32 or 70. The idea of robbing a child of his whole life because he made a stupid and very, very, very wrong decision as a little kid is beyond absurd, it’s unconscionable. Which is not to say that kids like that shouldn’t be punished – but it has to be appropriate punishment, psychological counseling and rehabilitation.
Jordan Website, where you can contribute to his legal defense. Please do.
I want to introduce my readers to my friend Alpana Aras-King who runs Storybox Art in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alpana is an amazing photographer, and has taken some of the most beautiful family/children pictures I’ve ever seen. Alpana is a trained photographer, and her pictures do not just show her artistic vision but her sense of fun and soul. Check out her website.
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