Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I was sitting alone on a bench by a duck pond, our ignored lunch by my side, while my two-year old daughter Fern, a dozen yards away, slowly fed her rice cake to an indulgent Canada goose. I suppose I must have looked like a safe parent, because just then a chummy 10-year old girl […]

About six months ago my husband and I decided it was time to add a pool to our backyard. We live in Arizona so outside activities are limited during the summer when it’s 115 degrees in the shade! Our twins are just shy of four years old so they are not quite ready for museums […]

I live in the state with the highest number of drownings in the nation for children age 1 to 4 (according to a 2007 Nova Southeastern University pilot study of drowning prevention practices in Broward and Miami-Dade counties).
In fact, in 2004, enough children drowned in Florida to fill four preschool classrooms, despite local and state […]

I’m writing this poolside at our gym, watching swimming classes. My kids aren’t in the water right now, but I’ll have the pleasure of watching their classes in a couple of weeks.
How do you teach children to swim when you don’t know whether they’ve ever been in water before? This was the problem Peter and […]

My daughter and her good friend were chasing bubbles at the edge of our old neighborhood park one sunny day last week. As a man with a large, leashed dog came toward us, a particularly fierce gust carried a flurry of suds out over the wide sidewalk, and both kids ran out to pop them […]

I wish I could remember dates. I’d be able to tell you how old Andrew was when he smashed my thumb.
It wasn’t his fault, actually. We were playing football in the back yard. He was wanting to practice kicking. I think that he had tried punting. Now he wanted to try kicking field goals.
I was […]

This just in – An Ocala, FLorida mom got fed up with the behavior of her teen-aged kids, so she went on strike:

According to a charging affidavit, Dean said the children needed to start cleaning up and stop fighting and that she had no control over them. Dean also said she was fed up with […]

As a mother, hearing the latest news report brings on thoughts like “Oh, great something else I have to worry about.” Many people have heard the latest buzz in the news over chemicals leaching from plastic containers, most notably in baby bottles and sport bottles. The chemical offender this time is Bisphenol-A […]

Have you checked into the cost of having an appliance repaired lately? Its frightening how quickly those charges can add up.
We purchased a washer/dryer set used from some friends almost 2 years ago. The machines were only about a year old when we got them. Everything went great for a while, then […]

A recent MSN-Zogby poll showed that one in four U.S. shoppers plans to spend less on toys for the holidays this year.
Gee I wonder why?
Could it be the recalls for lead? How about the ones for choking hazards? What about the increased awareness of legal toxins like phthalates allowed in children’s toys and accessories?
The poll […]