January 9th, 2010
I have never been a fan of electronics for children. We do not have a DVD in the car, even on long trips. My kids never even played with Leap Frog. Once we received a musical book that repeated letters and spelled words in a loud, droning voice. The book stopped working quickly and then disappeared, mysteriously.
But once I got my iPhone I saw some great educational apps and downloaded them for my son, Eric. My favorite was First Word sampler, in which the user matches a series of letters on the bottom of the screen to ones in a word next to a picture. When Eric answered a few correctly, I thought he could read. Until he got to the word SHIP. After slowly dragging the correct letters up the highlighted word—S, H, I, P—he looked at me and announced with a triumphant smile, “BOAT!”
No matter. As soon as he discovered my Bubble Wrap app and Slingshot Cowboy, the ABCs went out the window. Educational indeed.
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By Cathy Burke
June 22nd, 2009
Why is it that every day my daughter expects something new? From a stuffie (stuffed animal) to clothes to a piece of candy.
It is the something/anything syndrome.
I am trying to teach her that we are in a recession. Her pronunciation of it is difficult enough. Though it is the explanation that counts.
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By Dawn Yun
December 31st, 2008
Dear Steve,
I am writing to profess my love. No, not in a carnal way, you are nice looking and all, but are not my type. I am also happily married, or as happily married as any 40-ish mother of two small children can be. This also isn’t one of those Mac vs. PC things. I must apologize in advance when I tell you that apart from the fact that my MacBook has no right click and the key to the universe is not CTRL-ALT-DELETE, I do not have the foggiest idea about the difference between the two. As long as the screen comes on and my documents are where I left them, I am happy.
No, I love you because you invented the iPhone. And not because I talk on my cell very much, or listen to music, watch videos, or play games (although I do admit that light saber applet is way cool!). I love you because the iPhone is helping me lose weight, and before you even ask the question, yes, for every 40-ish mother of two it all boils down to the muffin top.
With a few swipes and taps I can track calories, exercise, and chart my progress (oh yes, there has been progress!). Sure, I am the one lugging my ass out of bed three mornings a week to hit the gym, but until you came along my efforts at tracking food consumption usually ended around 10 am. I have known all along that journaling is one of the keys to weight loss, but those little pieces of paper were so conveniently easy to loose. Studies (and I am a doctor, so I read the studies) show dieters consume 1,000 more calories a day when they don’t write everything down; it is easy to eyeball incorrectly (sure, that’s only a half a cup of pasta) and “forget” the handful of chocolate kisses. However, my iPhone not only demands precision, but entering the data is easy, and trust me, I am not going to loose it.
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By Jennifer Gunter
