Parenting Survival Tips

Pinewood Derby - Sectional Race Results Are In...

Ok Parents -

First - thank you Hans for your support! Now - this is not at all what I had expected when we went to the Pinewood Derby Sectional Race this Saturday so read on.....

I took my own advice thinking it was brilliant and put my boys cars on the shelf and we did not touch them all week. On Saturday, we arrived 30 minutes before the race allowing just enough time to add some graphite, check in and weigh in and we are good to roll...only to find out that when we went to weigh in their cars my older son's car had lost .5 grams and my younger son's car had gained 1 whole gram! How could this be? Both cars were stored in the same place inside the home and both weighed the max weight at the first race of 170.1 grams....hmm....does anybody have any insights as to how this could happen and how the 2 cars stored in the same place could be impacted so differently?? very strange!

Well, we ended up borrowing a drill and taking out 1 gram from my younger son's 1st place car so that he could make weight to race again - oh  - the pain it cost me to see his sad face! But, he ended up making weight and was able to enter the race against his peers and two other outposts.  It was a very close race the entire time and he ended up bringing home the 4th place ribbon! Congratulations Luke! My older son was racing against some veteran pros and so it was fantastic to see him bring home 6th place. Way to go boys!

It was an exciting race all the way to the finish line and both boys are now elgible to compete again at the Division Race coming up on the 16th - where the competition becomes quite fierce! I may have to rethink my strategy of just letting the cars sit for 2 weeks??? hmm....any and all advice is quite welcome! :-)

Until next time....let it roll......

Julie
aka: Derby Mom

....And The Pinewood Derby Race Results Are In.....

Ok - It was a fun-filled Saturday at the Pinewood Derby races and the results are in....

My 7 year old had some tough competition against 13 other kids but in the end took home 1st place by only a slim margin of .02 seconds - check out my Race Photo Album to see the cars in action!

My 9 year old raced against 11 Veteran racers and I was so proud when his car took 3rd at the races and he also won 5th place in design - check it out -

Now - I would welcome feedback from other parents who have been involved with building cars for the Pinewood Derby and here is my question - do you mess with a winning car?

Some men were saying oh you should do this or that to try to improve the car this week before the next race, but I am thinking they performed well why mess with a winning car - let's just put them on the shelf and try not to drop them and add a little graphite the morning of the race and we are good to go? All input is welcome!! 

I am so proud of both of them and they are both elgible to compete again this weekend at the Sectional Races...good luck boys and keep up the great work!

Julie
aka: Proud Derby Mom

Pinewood Derby Race Tips

Hi Parents,

Is your son or daughter building a Pinewood Derby car this year or thinking about it for Boy Scouts or Royal Rangers?

Well, both of my boys are in Royal Rangers and this is our 3rd year at the races coming up next weekend. Every year, as a single mom and feeling totally out of my element building race cars, I continue to learn new tips and tricks and thought it would be a good idea to share my learnings with other parents who might be new to the Derby or looking for ways to improve your car performance.

The 1st year, both boys did well and went on to compete at the district level and the key learnings from the first year were:

• Design Counts - the shorter the height the better!
• Weights are Key - keep adding and deleting weights to get right at the 5.0 or 6.0 gram maximum (depends on your org regulations - but always strive to hit the max allowable weight) - you can even just add a screw or two into in the bottom or drill a hole as a quick way to add or delete a small amount of weight.
• Graphite is a MUST! I don't think it is possible to use too much graphite - so prior to every race I load up the graphite on the wheels and axels.
• Don't forget to do a practice run! - Before the race, it is a good idea to do a few trial runs on a smooth surface to see if your car is rolling straight or not and if not - take out your screwdriver and slightly adjust the axel screws (just a half turn usually is enough) and then keep running test drives until the car rolls straight.

2nd year key learnings:

• Weight placement - it is critical to drill out the bottom of the car and glue or screw the weights into the bottom of the car so nothing is dragging to slow down the car.
• Thinness of the wheels matters - ok - we learned the hard way by spending more than 10 hours slowly shaving and polishing the wheels to get them as thin as possible - read on....

3rd year learnings:

• It is legal to buy the already shaved wheels and you can save yourself hours of time!
• Find friends that have power tools and enjoy building to help you out!

        Thank you so much Grandpa and Paul! :-)

For more Pinewood Derby Tips or to order supplies from the pros check out these websites:

1) Scoutarama

2) PinewoodExtreme

3) Pinewood Derby Rules & Kits

4) DerbyChamp

5) Derby Supplies

Well...be sure to check back next week to see how my boys did at the races!

Good luck on your cars and be sure to comment if you have any Derby tips to share!

Julie
aka: Derby Mom

Cheap, Fun - Family Vacation!

Hi Parents,

Ok - my family loves to travel so I plan to start blogging about some of our favorite vacation spots. I would love to hear about your favorite family get-aways too, so I can add them to our list! :-)

Over the Christmas holiday break we drove up to one of our favorite vacation spots - our annual snow-filled holiday get-away to Circus Circus in Reno/Lake Tahoe! Every young kid's dream and not a bad deal for the parents too! :-)  My 2 boys are now 7 & 9 and they beg to go to Circus Circus every year and after reading our top 10 list of reasons why we love it so much, I am guessing you will be clicking the link above and making your own reservations today! :-)

1) How many hotels do you know of that have a monorail that takes you from the lobby to your room?

2) How many hotels do you know of that have free circus acts going on around the clock?

3) How many hotels do you know of that have the mega of all ChuckECheese like game area on the main floor where you can fairly easily win stuffed animals larger than your child? - I will share my stuffed animal recycle story with you another time! :-)

4) How many hotels do you know of that have a never-ending buffet restaurant with an endless array of seafood, salads, kid-friendly food, desserts and oh so much more!

5) How many hotels do you know of that have a Krispy Kreme donut store right as the elevator doors open on the first floor and it opens at 6am - (if your kids are early risers like mine - this is the best) - they also carry Starbucks coffee, so we head down in our PJs - ok don't tell anyone - grab a dozen along with that Tall Starbucks and head back up to the room to comfortably enjoy our vacation breakfast before really starting our day!   

6) How many hotels do you know of that have a free shuttle bus that will take you to 4 different Lake Tahoe Ski Resorts every day and then bring you back at the end of the day so you don't have to worry about driving on the snow covered roads or if you have a cocktail after a hard day of skiing  - no worries - you will be safely chauffeured home!

7) How many hotels do you know of that have endless entertainment within walking distance or a short drive from your hotel? The list at Circus Circus is endless, but some of the highlights are the great shows, concerts, shopping, variety of restuarants, swimming pool coming this year, gambling if that is your preference - all under the same roof. If you don't mind driving a few miles you can check out the University of Nevada Planetarium that is just down the street and it has kid's celestial shows going on all throughout the day. Sometimes we will hang out there and sit through 3 different shows just because they are so amazing and the kids love it! There are also several museums (cool auto museum), laser tag and more very close by.

8) How many hotels do you know of that hand you a 20-page coupon book as soon as you arrive that is good for restaurants and local attractions?

9) How many hotels do you know of that offer suites with whirlpools in them - ok - well at how about at these low prices? How low you ask - read on to reason #10....

10) My favorite reason of all - the Circus Circus room rates can be as low as $39/night - where else can you find a deal like this? Simply awesome for a fun and memorable vacation for the entire family! ok - now I put the link in here again because NOW I am sure you will want to check it out and book your Reno family vacation today! :-)

I look forward to hearing your comments about your favorite family get-aways!

Until next time...

Julie
aka: travelling mom

 

Help Stop Our Teens From Abusing Cough Medicine

At the BlogHer conference in Chicago earlier this year, I had the pleasure of meeting the bloggers from the "Five Moms". They are on a mission to help keep our children safe and  below you will find the results of an annual survey to see how their efforts are making a difference in the well being of our youth. Seven months ago, the Five Moms set out to raise awareness among parents that teens were abusing cough medicine to get high. Yesterday, one of the most respected yearly surveys of school-aged children and substance abuse - Monitoring the Future - was released. Monitoring the Future is a report on teenage substance abuse conducted by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is in its 33rd year, surveying 50,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders nationwide on smoking, drinking, and drug use. According to the survey, 4, 5.4, and 5.8 percent of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, respectively, reported abusing OTC cough medicines to get high. While we are pleased that cough medicine abuse did not increase among 8th and 10th graders over last year's findings, and actually decreased among 12th graders, our ultimate goal is that our efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of medicine abuse result in a decrease among all age groups. Until we accomplish this, our job isn't done. More parents need to be made aware of this disturbing trend that continues to impact our kids. Make a difference to protect yours by telling your friends. With your continued help, next year we hope to report even better news. Please keep the conversations going with neighbors, teachers, and other members of your community. Thank you for making a difference. Sincerely, Christy Crandell

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend!

Cubical Decorating Competition Gets Serious!

Hi Parents,

Ok - this time of year definitely brings out the kid in all of us! At my work, we just launched a "holiday cube decorating contest" and my team is out to win! Here are the cube ideas we have generated so far and I welcome your input as to other ideas or how we can bring one of these ideas to life! This is also a great way for working moms to interact with their children this holiday season while baking cookies or preparing decorations for their office.

1) Holiday Sports Theme - each cube in our row could host a different winter sport, such as ice skaing, sledding, luging (sp?), hockey, skiing - it could either just be a fun display OR it could be a game at each desk that they can play and if they "win" they could get holiday cookies or candies (yes - no worries - I will bake the cookies...or bring in the candies)...we could also possibly raffle off ski lift tickets if the play every game they can get entered into the ski ticket drawing.

2) Candy Land Theme - We discussed having a hop scotch type trail on the floor in our row and have a deck of cards at the front cube and anyone that wants to come into our row has to pick a card to see how many spaces they can advance! :-) or do something else with this theme - and of course have plenty of holiday candy hanging from the ceiling!

3) Gingerbread House Theme: We could make a giant gingerbread house....see visual of somemone who implemented this idea last year in her office and won!

http://diannawilliams.wordpress.com/2007/09/30/the-gingerbread-cubicle/

4) North Pole: We could set up our row as the North Pole with a Santa and allow "guests" to write down what they would like from Santa and pass out candycanes and have a workshop environment where we are all "making toys"...

5) The Gift Code Zone: Ok - I mentioned in my last blog post about the gift code concept where I do not put names on the gifts under the tree at my house, I instead create a code assigned to each person and they have to break the code before they can open the presents. We could put up a tree with empty gifts under it and have a tough code puzzle and whoever breaks the code gets a fabulous gift (wine or chocolate perhaps...).

Help! Any and all ideas are greatly appreciated to help us turn our office into a winter wonderland while having fun and of course winning the competition! :-)

Thanks!

Julie
aka: Hopeful Creative Parent

Holiday Traditions

Hi Parents,

Oh - it's hard to believe that it is that time of year again and everyone is racing to the stores to buy the last ninja turtle or barbie cheerleader doll. I don't know about you, but for me, I can't remember what gifts I received for Christmas when I was a kid, but I do remember the amazing holiday traditions that were a huge part of my family life as a kid. I am so thankful to my parents who created and maintained the holiday traditions that I am able to carry on with my children.

Here are just a few Christmas traditions that we embrace in our home and I would love to hear from you if you have holiday traditions that are a part of your family life.

Christmas Holiday Traditions:

1) Homemade GingerBread Houses:

Every year my boys and I start at the beginning of December and we make a huge Gingerbread House every year. We take a large piece of cardboard and cover it with tinfoil and that is our base. Then we use graham crackers for the walls, white frosting in a can for the mortar, and bowls and bowls of colorful candy and cereals as the decorations for the walls. We make marshmellow snowman for the front yard and licorce to pave the driveway. We take our time and do just a few walls a day so it is a project that lasts us the entire month and we put our finishing touches on our house on Christmas Eve. Every year we try to out-do the previous year with our master creations and then we write in marker on the foil the year and take photos so that we can look back on this holiday tradition that will last a lifetime!    

2) Cookie Baking Feast:

Every year we make more than 25 dozen cookies and spend one whole day in a marathon baking feast together making cookies, decorating them and of course eating them! :-) We put a few dozen in the freezer that will last us throughout the year when we have guests over and then we make a list of friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, etc. that we want to share the others with and then we spend a day driving around delivering cookies and wishing our friends "Merry Christmas". My boys love decorating, eating, and delivering the cookies and this is another holiday tradition that they will remember forever.

3) Gift Codes:

Oh - this is one of my most favorite holiday traditions that I really enjoy passing along to my children. Every year I wrap my boys gifts and then I create a different code for each member of the family and write clues to the code on their gifts under the tree. I try to have all of their gifts wrapped and under the tree at least 2 weeks before Christmas so they can spend hours trying to "break the codes" and figure out who's gifts are who's. Here is an example of some of the codes I have done in the past:

• One son's name begins with N so every gift of his had a word written on the paper that begins with an "n" like "nice" and "new" and "noel" and then my other son's name begins with an "L" so all of his gifts had words on it that begin with letter "l".
• My kids are a lot older now so the codes need to be tougher and I have used words from songs that piece together for each person or math problems and one child is all "even" answers and the other child all "odd" answers....
• I am still working on this year's code but I will be sure to post again when I have it created and I look forward to hearing your code ideas! :-)

4) Pine Needle Pick-up:

Every year we have fun picking out a "real" tree and every year our floor is covered with pineneedles and instead of spending hours every day vaccuuming, I have a tradition of incenting my children to help pick up the pine needles. I give them a cup with their name on it and they get $.01 for every needle they pick up - oh - this is hours of keeping them entertained while I work on other projects during this busy time of year and they are happy to have $5-$10 extra to spend after the holidays.

I am blessed to be able to pass these holiday traditions on to my children that will last them a lifetime and I look forward to hearing your family hilday traditions.

Julie
aka: Happy Mom

Paying Your Teenagers Not To Drive?

Hi Parents,

I attended a fundraiser banquet recently and I met a couple sitting next to me and we started talking about our children and realized we both had 2 boys. Their boys are both teenagers, 14 & 16. They told me their children are very well behaved and at the top of their class in school, but they were still concerned about the safety of their children behind the wheel of a car. They said their 16 year old does not have his drivers license yet and they put him on an incentive plan and they pay him $100 every month that he does not drive. They know the statistics on how many children drink and drive and lose their life and they said so far their incentive program is working. Their son is motivated to take the cash and right now has no desire to learn to drive.

They also said they have a no questions asked cab fare program and they will cover any cab fares at any time encouraging their sons not to get into a car with friends that may have been drinking.

Is this taking it to far and hindering the natural growth and development of children or is this a smart parenting approach that other parents should adopt?

If you have teenagers, I would love to hear your stories about allowing your children to drive or other programs you may have in place to encourage safe teen driving.

I still have 6 years until I have to worry about this issue so I would love to hear your stories so that I can be prepared for this monumental milestone in a child's life.

Thanks,

Julie
aka: Caring Mom

 

New Site for Networking Parents - TBD.com - The mid-life MySpace

The mid-life MySpace: TBD

Recently I have been using an application on Facebook called "workin' it" to network with family and friends, but I just came across this new site TBD.com which is considered to be the "Facebook for Grown-ups".  Mark Miller wrote an interesting article in the Chicago Times today and I would welcome your comments. The mid-life MySpace: TBD

Robin Wolaner, founder of Parenting Magazine, recently launched a new website, TBD.com (to be determined), a reference to Wolaner's belief that boomers are embarking on new adventures in life. TeeBeeDee is a place where they can do what she calls "purposeful networking" -- comparing notes, getting ideas and inspiration.

TeeBeeDee joins a growing field of interactive ventures appealing to people who want to network online, but are just a bit older than the typical Facebook or MySpace user.

Other boomer-oriented social networks include Boomj, Boomertown, Rezoom and Gather. And AARP -- the granddaddy of 50+ media -- is getting ready to add social networking early next year as part of a redesign of its Web site.

There's no doubt boomers are online in huge numbers. Sixty-five percent of Americans age 50-to-64 are online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, and the percentages are higher among boomers under 60. But, will boomers take to social networking in the same way their kids have bought into Facebook and MySpace?

"The most compelling reason that young people use these sites is to hook up," says Susan Ayers Walker, who writes about computers and technology for AARP's Web site. "Older people already have their social networks set, so what is the compelling reason they will use sites like this?"

How about ... hooking up?

There are plenty of sites available for "hooking up" and plenty of sites out there for parental advice but what where do you find the parental social groups online that are facing the same issues you might be with raising boys, getting homework done, or managing your teenager?

If you are a boomer or getting close, I would love to hear your thoughts on what parental social networking sites you find helpful as a and what do you primarily use these sites for?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Julie
aka: Online Mom

Famster: Family Social Networks - Fad or Future?

Hi Parents,

I am in the process of adding a family resource section to my blog and I thought there is no better way to kick it off than with a discussion on secure family social networks, such as www.famster.com.

Famster is an award winning social network site catering to families.  The main difference between Famster and other social networking sites, like MySpace or Facebook, is that it is secure and password protected. It also offers a host of user friendly features, such as photo share, blogging, scrapbooking, photo albums, address book, email, calendar, recipes, streaming video, family tree, RSS news feeds and more. It also differs from the major social networks in that there is a monthly subscription fee of $9.95 per family domain while most public social networking sites offer a free subscription.

With the invasion of sex offenders mulling through the public social networking sites, this new niche of secure social networks may have a following. Currently hundreds of thousand of families see the value of this type of service but is it here to stay?

Famster is partnering with socially responsible sites such as Common Sense Media, Plugged in Parent, Baby Center, and Snapshots of Heaven. I would love to hear from you if you have a Famster profile or thoughts on the viability of this type of family networking service or suggestions on how we can allow our children to safely engage online.

Julie
aka: Concerned Mom