Odd

WREXlabs is everything that is right with parents today. This awesome site crafted by a father son team, Tim and Declan, is a forum for curiosity encouraging kids and parents alike to take stuff apart and see how they work.

Cracked.com (I used to read that mag when I was a kid, it seemed so much cooler than MAD) has a list of wacky cartoon-esque devices that actually exist.

Cracked: "This is a tribute to the brave dreamers and engineers who are working hard to bring to market the kind of products previously only found in cartoons and ACME catalogs."

Such as:

1. The Suction Cup Wall-Climbing Apparatus

2. Gas-Powered Rollerblades

3. The Helicopter Suicide Pack

4. The Tom and Jerry-Style Mouse-Killing Chamber

5. The Giant Space Slingshot

Funny stuff...

A local council in western Sweden has withdrawn its written warning against a pre-school teacher who encouraged children in her class to eat cat food earlier this year.

Say what?

The teacher gave the children cat food to taste when the class was working on a project about cats in February.

Local media reported at the time that it was not the first time the teacher had encouraged the children to taste feline feed.

One of the children's parents complained to the principal, Cecilia Knutsson, who decided to take action and warn the teacher.

What's not to love about Wired's "10 Geeky Movies to Raise Your Kids on"? It's one of those childhood memory inducing/"Oh yeah, I forgot about that one"/we desperately need a quality movie for our Family Movie Night type of lists. Or what I like to call a good "free movies in the park" list. And the geek in me is loving the shout out at #4 of "My Neighbor Totoro" and all thing Miyazaki.

For the taking, Spitefuls is offering two excellent, downloadable "Disaster Dioramas" paper crafts, Titanic and Hindenburg, with promises of more down the road like the Alamo...SWEET. "All your favorite disasters.... now in smaller paper form!" What a great way for you kid to fill some of those after school homework free hours during the first week of back to school.

Holding regular living room "jam sessions" with our kids using their collection of kid-friendly instruments and homemade noise makers, attending family-friendly concerts and classes, etc...we attempt to surround our kids with music even if our own musical talents are lacking(sadly mine is really lacking). Hoping to create a life-long appreciation for music we try to educate our kids the best we can with what resources we find.

According to our 8 year old son, we're in the one week, five day countdown until our
Legoland "adventure getaway" begins. A countdown he's been conducting for months now, ever since the end of June when he overheard my husband and I plotting the details of our surprise summer getaway for him. He's beside himself with excitement. Rightfully so seeing that our son's top four favorite things in the world are, in this order:
1. Legos (the boy will be very rich someday when he decides to sell his bricks on eBay)
2. Hotels
3. Indiana Jones

Yes, LunaBlocks, Lego inspired furniture created by Thierry Nahon and Philippe Landecker of Lunatic Construction have arrived. Helping adults and kids alike live the dream. Created for those people who've always wanted to build their own Lego furniture but we're concerned about the comfort factor. And a LunaBlocks chair is a must for any Lego loving kid's room.

Yeondoo Jung's "Wonderland" collection of images where children's drawings were transformed into photographs is simply magical. I know by watching my 8 year old son sketch out entire worlds he's imagined up that in his mind they are very realistic places where anything and everything can happen.

If your tots are total hooked on Yo Gabba Gabba then they could probably identify a Theremin  for you thanks to Sukho Lee's rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the bizarre instrument courtesy of a recent "Cool Trick's" segment. A strange instrument  borderline sci-fi it manipulates wave frequencies and amplitudes with strategic placement and waving of hands and without ever touching the instrument.