MomReviews

It was great timing that Parent Bloggers Network teamed up with Kraft Bagel-Fuls for this Blog Blast this weekend, because I just got two boxes of them and wanted to tell you how much I like them anyway!

Kraft Bagel-Fuls are the first bagel and Philadelphia cream cheese all in one. You know those mornings when you would really like to have some breakfast, but you’ve got a baby on your shoulder and a toddler purposely dumping Cheerios off of their highchair tray onto the floor for the dog to eat, and as much as you’d like to toast a bagel and spread some cream cheese on it, you just don’t have a free hand? Well, with Bagel-Fuls, it’s all rolled up into one!

But first, Parent Bloggers Network wants to know how I manage getting everyone fed in the morning. One thing that makes it really easy for me is the fact that my oldest son, who is 11.5, gets himself up in the morning and makes his own breakfast. School just got out for the year, but because his bus came at 6:45 AM, Ryan was actually out of the house before I even got up in the morning! So all I had to do was drag Nathan’s slow-to-wake-up heiney into the kitchen, put a bowl of cereal or some toast and milk in front of him, and then get Kaitlyn up and into her highchair for her own breakfast. So for me, mornings are generally mayhem-free, fortunately.

To give you an idea of size, here’s a Bagel-Ful sitting on a lunch-sized plate. It’s a good thing I have a wide-slot toaster, although I still had to push it down into the slot and it stuck up at the top.

Here’s the inside-it kind of looks like a Twinkie, doesn’t it? We’ve tried the original with plain cream cheese and the original with strawberry cream cheese, and both are delicious! It really does taste just like a bagel smeared with cream cheese, great job, Kraft! I plan to keep buying these for sure.

Now, what I’m really hoping and crossing my fingers for is that I get picked by Parent Bloggers Network to be one of the two winners of the Blog Blast “morning saver” prizes, each featuring coupons for free Bagel-Fuls, a Bagel-Fuls branded wide slot toaster, a Tassimo hot beverage system, commuter coffee cups and more. A toaster that specifically holds the Bagel-Fuls PLUS a Tassimo which makes coffee, lattes, and hot chocolate? Oooh, pick me!

So remember, don’t let mornings turn into mayhem in the kitchen! If you like eating bagels with cream cheese for breakfast, keep a box or two of Kraft Bagel-Fuls in your fridge for a quick meal or snack! This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a contest sponsored by KRAFT BAGEL-FULS.

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I don’t know what it is about flat, sticky, rolled-up sheets of fruit puree, but my kids love Fruit Roll-Ups. Thanks to the website My Fruit Roll-Ups, now you and your kids can design your own for almost any occasion. The fun, interactive site has you choose a layout of either two or three images plus text if you want, arranged in a checkerboard pattern. You choose images from a big selection of clip art in categories like Animals, Sports, Hobbies, and Special Occasions. There are hundreds to choose from, and you can start over as many times as you want until you pick just the right image and text. You can print your designs, too, so you can let your kids play around on the site and then print out their special creations.

If you have a birthday party coming up and you are looking for unique goody bag items, you could make Fruit Roll-Ups that say Happy Birthday (Your Child’s Name)!, pick an image of something they like, and voila, an inexpensive treat for everyone! Just make sure to leave enough time for the shipping, which takes about 15 days. It’s $30 for a box of 30, which yes, is more expensive than the grocery store, but I think it’s worth it for a personalized treat that your child can help design!

Thanks to Parent Bloggers Network, I received a code to use for a free box of 30 personalized Fruit Roll-Ups! Nathan chose a baseball with flames shooting up from it because, he says, “it’s cool”. He also had me type “Nathan Rocks” for the text We played around with a few different designs and text options, as well as looking at different color options, but to me, it made sense to stick with the original red. Once we had it just the way we liked, we used a special code that PBN gave me to get the $30 box for free! Thanks PBN!

I’ve got one code to give away to a reader for a FREE BOX! This is valid in the U.S. only. Please visit the My Fruit Roll-Ups website (link is the bolded words) and then come back here to let me know which design you will choose if you win. Enter before Wednesday, June 18th when I will choose one valid comment at random and then email you the code to use to order your free Fruit Roll-Ups. Comments that do not include the design information will not be considered valid. Retail value of this prize: $30.00. Good luck everybody!

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When Ryan was born in 1996, I took his picture about a dozen times a day-ooh look, his eyes are open! Now he’s sleeping! Now he’s still sleeping! I always got double prints when I developed the film-yes, FILM-, so I had plenty of extras to share with adoring Grandparents.

Now that I only use a digital camera, it’s much harder to share photos with family. My father in law uses Flickr, but my Dad and Stepmom can barely send email. I could be having my digital photos printed out at Target or Walgreen’s, I know it’s easy to do, but I just don’t. All these great photos of my adorable kids and no one in my family is seeing them!

KINZIN TO THE RESCUE!!! Parent Bloggers Network asked for volunteers to try out this new service called Kinzin, which is not only extremely easy to use, it’s also private AND inexpensive. Kinzin sends ten printed photos that either you select or randomly pulled from your Flickr page to three addresses, EVERY MONTH. And the best part is, it only costs $2.99 per address per month, PLUS, you get the third address FREE. $5.98 to send three different family members ten photos a month! Perfect!! If you have family members that don’t use the Internet or just like having printed photos, you really need to check out Kinzin.

Start by going to the Kinzin website and signing up for a free account. Using Kinzin’s unique “These Are My Kids” feature, you’ll create a page for each of your children with a recent photo as well as a “What am I Up To?” blurb called a Kidstream. You’ll fill in the names and addresses of the three family members who will be receiving your photos, and then choose the photos you want to send. You can add captions to the photos as well. I checked with my Stepmother and she confirmed that the photos are printed on quality paper and are 4×6 size.

You can also add the Kinzin application to your Facebook page as well as join the Flickr group, so if you do have family members online, they can see the photos there, too. I’m just so happy to know that my Stepmother, my Grandma, and Chris’ Dad are all getting printed photos of my kids each month. I just need to remember to upload new photos every month to my Kinzin page so they don’t keep getting the same ten photos over and over

Seriously people, check out Kinzin. For the price of a combo meal at a fast food place, you can send out ten photos a month to three different addresses and show your friends and family just what your cute lil’ punkins are up to. I guarantee they will be thrilled and so will you! To see other reviews of Kinzin, check out the posts from the other members of Parent Bloggers Network.

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The introduction to Christie Mellor’s Were You Raised By Wolves? Clues to the Mysteries of Adulthood is titled “Hello, Brand New Grown-up!”, but her advice is so practical, even not-brand-new grown-ups can benefit from it. Her goal is to demystify the brave new world of moving the heck OUT of your parents’ house already by dispensing practical wisdom on everything from basic cooking and cleaning tips to how to dress both in the workplace and just how to dress so that you don’t, you know, embarrass yourself.

Mellor begins with the absolute basics-what the new grown-up needs to know to live on their own. How to make a bed, for example, with a drawing showing exactly how to tuck in the corners. How to clean a toilet, 20 amazing uses for baking soda (seriously, it’s unbelievable how many uses there are for baking soda and yet it’s still so cheap to buy), how to really deep clean before company comes. Useful kitchen tips include how to make coffee that is drinkable, how to hard-boil eggs, make basic soup and salad dressing, even how to make homemade mayonnaise. I turned down the corner on the page for how to poach chicken, because it never occurred to me to add bay leaf and peppercorns to the liquid!

Her chapter title “You, in the World. Not Being an Embarassment” has advice on how to tip, how to be a good party guest, how to be an even better houseguest, and how to handle situations involving alcohol. She even has a detailed drawing on how to build a cool little outdoor bar for your patio. But my favorite chapter title has to be “Put on Those Big Boy Pants!”, with advice on how to act like a real grown-up by throwing a dinner party, arranging flowers, and making a hostess gift.

I’m telling you, if someone you know is graduating from college this year, or moving out of their parents’ house and getting their first apartment, be a good friend and get them this book. It’s not just a boring list of “things you should know”. It’s written in a casual, friendly, well-meaning style and it is chock full of really useful information. I could have used a book like this when I first lived on my own!

The book is available on Amazon.com. Buy a copy, put it in a gift box along with some dishtowels and potholders, and you’ve got the perfect “congratulations on getting your first place” gift! To read what other reviewers thought, stop by the Parent Bloggers Network blog to get links to other reviews. Thanks again, PBN!

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Parent Bloggers Network sent me a copy of Your Child’s Strengths by Jenifer Fox, M-Ed, the president of the Purnell School, creator of the award-winning, groundbreaking strengths-based curriculum The Affinities Program, and the leader of the Strengths Movement in Schools. I knew I would enjoy reading the book, because my nine year old son Nathan has been diagnosed with a learning disability, has an Individualized Education Plan at school, and to be honest, is hard to get along with sometimes. I was really hoping that the book would shed some light on how I could help Nathan find what he is good at instead of always focusing on what he can’t do as well.

I sat down to read the book. I breezed through the first section, The Weakness Habit, which looks at how our school system focuses so much on rankings and test scores that it fails to encourage students to develop their actual educational strengths. I dog-eared so many pages that there were fewer pages that didn’t have a corner turned down. I paid close attention to passages like this:

The system cheats students by failing to provide them with learning experiences that will engage their sense of uniqueness, inspire their creativity, and bolster their ability to solve real-life problems.

I thought long and hard about my son, about how concerned everyone at his school is about his learning style, about how he just doesn’t “get” math, about how his Kindergarten teacher first recommended him for ADD testing because when she was explaining math problems, he was looking away from her and twiddling his pencil. I read the passage in the book that talks about how some people (the author included), have to look away from the person speaking to them in order to be able to block out the visual cues and focus on listening to what is being said. Which describes my son PERFECTLY. And how being that way has ended up with him being labeled as having “Attention Deficit Disorder with Inattentiveness”.

I moved on to the next section, A Strengths Awakening, dog-earing more pages as I went, and re-reading passages like this:

Children thrive when they understand the many ways in which they are strong and smart. In order for children to live productive, meaningful lives, they must be aware of their individual Learning Strengths and have the language to communicate them to others.

I started to feel really excited, that not only my son but our whole family would benefit from the techniques outlined in this book. I thought about sitting down with Nathan and telling him that I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on him, that it turns out that he and I just have different learning styles, and that once we come to an understanding, I’m sure we’ll have less battles at homework time. I read the four things parents can do with even young children to help them discover their strengths:

• Record observations of preferences, quirks, and choices.
• Stimulate imagination through creative play.
• create rich memories with tradition and ritual.
• Model positive attitudes and positive approaches to life (I really need to work on that one).

I thought about cross-stitching this on a pillow: “Remember, strengths are not talents or skills, or what your children are good at. Strengths are far more personal-they are the activities that make someone feel strong.”

But then I moved on to section three, the Create Your Future, Play To Your Strengths Workbook. I read how I would need three different color pens and two kinds of stickers, and that it would take an hour a week for six months. And my anxiety level shot through the roof! Instead of slamming the book shut and giving up though, I decided to stop reading and think about why the workbook section was bothering me. I thought about everything I had just read, and began to see a pattern emerge.

And then I had an epiphany! I DON’T LIKE WORKBOOKS. I don’t like feeling like I’m being “forced” to fill out charts. I never completed the “Good Mood Workbook” that was all the rage in the 90s, I never, EVER filled out more than a few days of a Weight Watchers Food Tracker, and there is nothing wrong with that! What I LIKE to do is this, blogging. I write completely off the “top of my head”, with almost no editing, and then hit ‘publish’. I don’t want to write it down and then over-analyze it.

So for me, in order to put the principles of “Your Child’s Strengths” into practice, I am going to have to think of something other than filling in a workbook. I’ve bookmarked The Strengths Movement website, and I plan to keep reading the book and going back over the dog-eared pages. I plan to talk to both my husband and my son about what I’ve read, and work out a way to implement the program that will make sense to all of us.

This is a book that should be read by parents and teachers alike. I wish I could know for certain that my school system was implementing a program like this. I wish I could tell my son that there’s nothing wrong with him just because he doesn’t learn math the way other people do, and not to worry about it. What I CAN do is let this be a wake-up call: I’ve been ignoring my son’s strengths. There, I said it. I’ve been struggling and fighting with him instead of celebrating what makes him unique. That is going to change, no doubt about it.

Please go to the The Parent Bloggers Network blog to read other reviews of Your Child’s Strengths, and to see the upcoming review schedule. You can also visit The Strengths Movement website, and if you want to place an order on Amazon.com for the book, click this:

Thank you to Jenifer Fox and The Parent Bloggers Network for making this review possible!

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