I have to admit, I was skeptical when I ordered my Custom Made for Kids personalized book. We had received a personalized book before, and, while my daughter loved it, I ended up having to hide it because it was so very painful to read. It was the dumbest story I had ever read and the illustrations were embarrassingly bad.

So I was overjoyed to discover that The First Adventures of Incredible You, is a huge leap over any other personalized book I've ever seen. What I like most about these personalized children's books is that you get to fill in not just your child's name, but over a dozen personal pieces of information about your child, so the book is really personal and a great memento of this special time.

The Playgarden is a 4,000 square foot indoor playground with a focus on health for children, both through giving them the opportunity to get exercise and developing physical habits and skills, as well as being built with green practices.

As part of a promotion for their allergy medicine, a pharmaceutical company is putting up a giant geodesic dome in Central Park. Inside the dome they promise to provide...Spring. Flowers and grass and warmth. It sounds rather nice.

This weekend we went to a birthday party that I feel completely comfortable saying had the best children's magician I have ever seen perform. Ragidy Supreme does a show that is completely enthralling to kids and absolutely a hoot for adults. Magician, comedian, kook.

Frontline, the PBS documentary news show, is doing an episode tonight about how children today are growing up online. Even though many Mommy Poppins readers have younger children, even some of the preschoolers are starting to go online and I know my 8 year old is starting to Google search for things and look at youtube.

It does concern me because I know how easy it is for ME to have some unwelcome image pop up from an innocent search and it's scary to think what she might accidentally stumble upon.

Growing Up Online focuses on teenagers and the kinds of things that they re doing online that might get them in trouble as well as some of the myths that parents are worried about, like sexual predators. Some of the issues that are discussed are cyber-bullying, uploading sexual images and the different information kids can find online that could be destructive. But, for me, the theme of the show was about how the internet is forcing parents to let go and acknowledge how little control we (will) have over our children and how little we may know about their lives.

Nell left a very helpful comment on the recent post about the Early Childhood Resource and Information Center with lots more great libraries with toys and storytimes. I thought it was worth elevating up to its own post:

This was one of our first posts and also one of the most popular. If you go to the original post you can see some great reader comments too.

It’s Sunday night…do you know what’s for dinner for the rest of your life?

Can't remember the last time you went out to a restaurant without cutting up a plate full of food into tiny pieces? Well, here is the perfect excuse! It's NYC Restaurant Week Winter 2008 where you can get a three course lunch for $24.07 or dinner for $35.00 at some of New York's finest restaurants. You know that unless you plan ahead it will never happen so make a reservation now and do it! Don't bother calling Gramercy Tavern, they are already booked up for the entire week but don't worry, there are a lot of other amazing restaurants that still have space.