An Open Letter to All Parents of Children my Children Have Bitten

Dear Parents of Children my Children Have Bitten,

First, let me say I'm sorry. I know I already apologized when it happened and I made my child apologize, even though this caused at least one of you to scold, "Forcing a child to say he's sorry is teaching him to lie, because he may not really be sorry. You should ask him if he's sorry and if he is then you should ask him to say sorry." For the record, the next time this happened I asked him if he was sorry and he said, "no." So we lie now.

Second, you should know that we do not bite or hit or in any way abuse our children (unless you consider occasionally dressing them alike abuse.) It's not our fault. If we're going to blame anyone, let's blame those people who cuddled them when they were little and announced, "You're so cute, I could just eat you." Yes, I'm talking to you, mom.

Third, I know you're just trying to make me feel better when you say, "It's totally OK. My child probably asked for it." Please don't say that. My children speak English and I want them to know that it's not OK. And the part about asking for it? Please just don't say that, especially if your child is a girl.

And as long as we're on the subject of speaking English. You know who else speaks English? My children's babysitter. So when you see her with them at toddler time gymnastics, please don't use that false whisper to say, "There are those twins again." She hears you and she loves them so much that it makes her feel bad. And she tells me. And it makes me feel bad.

Oh, and my kids don't have herpes or any other communicable disease, but it's totally OK to wash out the wound and put antibacterial ointment on it. Heck, you could even call your doctor. As a mother of three children who've been bitten by my children, I can tell you that you're going to see a bruise and maybe a little scabbing, but there hasn't been any permanent damage yet.

One last thing. Even though one of my boys is much more likely to bite your child than the other one, please don't refer to him as the "evil twin," even if you hear my husband call him that.

Thanks for your time. See you at the playground!

Your friend,

Megan

MotherTalk and Parent Bloggers Network

I've recently been invited to join MotherTalk and The Parent Bloggers Network. I'll be reviewing books and other products for them and I'm pretty excited about it because sometimes I get tired of talking about myself and my kids. Sometimes.

I'm only going to review things that are interesting to me and hopefully to you. In the interest of full disclosure, these things are being sent to me for free. Both MotherTalk and Parent Bloggers have encouraged me to give my honest opinions, which I will always do.

Getting free stuff in exchange for a review is a hot topic on the Web these days, but it's not new to me. When I worked at TechTV we had an room full of products that we were given to review. Then, as now, we chose what we wanted to review. And we still gave lots of stuff bad reviews.

I will always mention if I've received a product for free to review and I will always tell you who I'm writing the review for. I haven't been asked to review these products on the podcast and I probably won't, unless I fall deeply in love with said products.

If I'm talking about something you can buy and you don't see a disclosure on the blog, that means I bought the product myself and am telling you about it just because I felt like it. For examples, see here, here, here, and here.

If you have a book or another product that you want me to review, please send me an e-mail at megan.morrone at earthlink.net.

Three is the New Two

I saw a friend at the park yesterday who has an eight month old (her third child.) I asked her how she and her husband were surviving being outnumbered.

She said it had taken some adjustment, but her situation wasn't all that unique.

"Three is the new two," she said.

I remembered some article I'd read about how more people are opting to have only one child because they're waiting longer to have children and because it's harder for women to have a career and more than one child. Oh, and because they only want to have one child.

"I thought one was the new two," I said.

"Not with the people I know," she said.

I said, "I guess maybe in cities one is the new two?"

And she said, "For my friends in the city (meaning San Francisco), one is the new two and when two or three is the new one, they move out of the city."

Then I remembered some armchair census taking I did recently with the Christmas card pictures we'd received last year. Most of the families had two children, but for the first time the number of our friends with three children actually outnumbered the number of our friends with one. (We have lots of friends who don't have kids, but they don't usually send photos with their Christmas cards.)

Is three the new two? Share in the comment section if you feel like it.

Jumping Monkeys Episode 4: Denise Howell

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LINKS:

• Anysoldier.com - See lists of things soldiers want and need and send it to them. Got unloved beanie babies or other small stuffed animals lying around? Add them to your package for the soldiers to hand out to kids. Here's the Parent Hacks link to send stuffed animals to Iraq.
• My Daughter, The Burger-Flipping Penguin  - Interesting New York Times article about social networking sites for the 8-12 year old set. Registration is required
• The Power and Peril of Praising Your Kids by Po Bronson
• DoMyStuff - Outsource Your Parenting Duties (or your housekeeping duties so you can spend more time with your kids.)
• Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I don't know what it is, but it works.
• Teaching colors with Flickr. - I've been working on colors with Milo and Huck and we've been using the Flickr groups dedicated to color. Here's a blue group. And here's a red group.
• 24 Hours with Flickr. 
• Vote for TWiT for best podcast (if you want.)
• Squibbles - Kind of like a Digg for kids Web sites. Submit kid friendly sites and then rate them. Created by Dad, Michael Bosko.

THE INTERVIEW: Denise Howell of This Week in Law,  Bag and Baggage, and Lawgarithms

Denise and her son listen to Storynory and Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child (Editor's Note: I have listened to Spare the Rock since Denise recommended it and it's now one of our favorites.)

When a Mommy Chicken Loves a Daddy Chicken

In our house we like to multitask. Two babies at one time, three kids in diapers, two careers, etc.

So it should not come as a surprise that yesterday we tackled the issue of eating animals we love and reproduction in one interesting conversation with our children.

It all started when we decided to try a new organic farm stand that I'd heard about. Want to put off talking about the facts of life with your children? Skip the organic farm stand and just go to Whole Foods.

We picked out some strawberries and then watched the chickens for a while. When Milo started trying to scale the coop, we knew it was time to go. We paid for our strawberries and also bought a dozen eggs.

Annabella: Where do those eggs come from?

My daughter who eats eggs for breakfast twice a week and has become an expert at cracking them herself was looking intently at the egg carton. It's not that she's never seen eggs, she's just never seen them so close to chickens before.

Me: They come from the chickens.

Annabella: (Horrified) Are there baby chicks in those eggs?

Me: Um.

Marco: Only if they're fertilized.

Annabella: What does fertilizer mean?

Marco: Fertilized.

Huck: Fertilized!

Milo: Fertilized!

Annabella: What does fertilized mean?

At this point I would like to report that we had a long discussion about what happens when a daddy chicken loves a mommy chicken very much and fertilizes the egg, but if the daddy chicken is too tired or wants to watch "The Wire" on DVD instead then the egg isn't fertilized and we eat it for breakfast. But instead I answered her this way:

Me: Do you want some strawberries?

And that was enough to distract her, hopefully for several years.

Jumping Monkeys Theme Song

Thanks for all the great feedback about our new Jumping Monkeys podcast. Feel free to spread the word to friends and family who you think might be interested.

I just realized that I don't think I've given public thanks to Paul Minshall for creating the catchy theme music for us. Paul has it up on his Vox site, if you want to give it a listen right now or learn more about his inspiration.

Thanks, Paul!

Wisdom of a 4 Year Old

Annabella and I are backstage at her first ballet recital. It's time for me to leave her with her class and head out to the audience. Later, my own mother will remark that I seemed much more nervous than Annabella did.

Me: I have my camera ready.

Annabella: I don't want you to take pictures of me. I want you to watch me.

Jumping Monkeys Episode 3: Happy Father's Day

Jumping Monkeys Episode 3 has just been released. Thanks for listening.

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In honor of Father's Day we recommend last minute gifts for dads. Plus, we show off some links by and for dads. Then we interview two very cool dads and another cool guy, who's not a dad, but is still cool.

Links we talked about on the show:

• Planet Earth DVD
• The Blogfathers: Dads You Can't Refuse - Daddy blogging goodness for the whole family (or at least for those over 18.)
• Lullabye Renditions of Metallica - This comes from James H who says the Rockabye Baby versions of The Cure and Nine Inch Nails always put their 2 year old to sleep at night. (They're on their iPods and their son has an iHome in his room.)
• Sandbox Threads - Cool clothes for little ones. Started by a stay-at-home dad.
• Cry-it-out: Adventures of a Stay at Home Dad - The very funny blog of SF journalist Mike Adamick. He sews his daughter's clothes and stuffed toys, people. We'll be interviewing him on an upcoming show.
• Make Magazine's DIY Gifts for Dad

Our Father's Day book pick is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. You can download it free by going to Audible.com/TWit.

The Interviews:

We first chat with Alternadad Neal Pollack and non-dad Ben Brown (formerly of Consumating.com) about their hilarious new site Offsprung: Your Life Didn't End When You Became a Parent. Next we catch up with Farker and father Drew Curtis about his new book: It's Not News It's Fark.

Listener mail:

Want to know more about allowances? See this discussion on Parent Hacks or this post on the Washington Post blog.

Looking for a great pocket diaper? Listener Steve says, try Fuzzi Bunz.

Thomas Train Recall

The US Consumer Product Safety Corporation reported today that several Thomas Trains and related products sold between 2005 and 2007 could cause lead poisoning. They recommend that you take the toys away from your children and contact RC2 for a replacement.

Click the image to see a larger version.

Read the details in the CPSC press release.

I know absolutely nothing about lead poisoning, but this scares the monkey out of me since we have 6 of these trains, several of which have flaking paint, and all of which have been in every one one of my children's mouths, probably in the last 24 hours. I didn't get a chance to call the company, but leave a comment if you did and let me know what response you got.

Update: If you're as upset as I am about lead in our children's toys, sign this petition to tell Congress to make testing our kids' toys for toxic chemicals a priority.

Via Moms Rising.

Why I envy my children

Now that it's all over, I can't stop thinking about the fact that someday my children will be able to enjoy the entire series of The Sopranos from the very beginning. They have no idea what they have to look forward to.

I remember the excitement on my own father's face on Christmas morning 1990 when he had rented The Godfather I and The Godfather II so we could watch them together as a family all morning in preparation for the 7 o'clock show of The Godfather III at the local theater. His only consolation must have been that at 17 I had no idea what a terrible movie The Godfather III really was.