Julia Roberts is out on the stump promoting her new movie and talking about her kids, motherhood and marriage to husband, Danny Moder. The full-time mom (except for when she's working) has said that it should be illegal to take pictures of celebrity children, but I guess it's OK to sell your own pictures as she did in 2005 or to trot them out to promote your current film entitled, um, Duplicity. In other shocking news...the NY Post publishes a cartoon that critics claim represents Obama as a chimp, Little Miss Perfect is a new show about child beauty pageant contestants, girls and boys really do marry their parents (or people who resemble them), the preschooler essentials before you leave the house, and a fashion-garden mash up that benefits everyone.  Find out now!

The totally redone Brooklyn Children's Museum is still new enough that we hadn't yet exhausted the current exhibits, but they're staying one step ahead of us by adding a great new exhibit that we really enjoyed, Building Brainstorm. I have always been interested in the fields of architecture and design, and thought this would be a great opportunity to expose my boys to those interests during play.

Located on the second floor, this bi-lingual (Spanish and English—love that!) exhibition continues with the interactive theme found throughout the museum, encouraging and inviting children of all ages to plan, build, and design, with rough materials and soft cloths, plastics and wood. The exhibit is made up of a series of challenges: Shape Search Challenge, Shapes in Building Challenge, Inside Shapes Challenge, Window House Challenge, Floor Plan Challenge, Room Design Challenge, and Brainstorm Challenge.

Do you check back on posts to read the comments? Sometimes readers add great information there, or ask great questions. Some of my favorites lately were Margaret who asked other readers if they wanted to get a group together for a kids knitting class. Sharon, left a great comment with more ideas of places to eat on the Lower East Side on the Candy Store Itinerary post. Another commenter on our Drop In Play Spaces post asked for recommendations for the cleanest play spaces.

Good question. It seems to be a trade off. Places that don't charge hefty membership fees and are open to the public maybe aren't always quite as pristine. But I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule. Here are some of the indoor play places I've found to be really clean:

The financial collapse, unemployment, war...hey, put all that nonsense away and give yourself a few minutes of smiles with our new feature: Friday Afternoon Video Break.

Let me know if this is a feature you'd like to keep and If you have a video to recommend, email me.

Our first entry comes from Katia who says:

So much going on with valentines Day, Presidents Day plus the February Break Vacation Week. I'm dividing the events into separate posts. This one has the best activities just for this weekend. Check out a sword dance festival, a disco dance party, valentines day crafts, movies, a winter festival and more, all free. Click on the links for more information about events and locations.

Do you twitter? Have you figured out what it is or how to make it useful? That's something I've been wondering myself and think we might have come up with one answer: to create a cool tool that will update NYC families with the hottest, most up to the minute news of what's going on in New York for kids.  

Twitter is like "micro-blogging". You can update the world with any news you want to share as long as you can say it in 140 characters or less. Then everyone who is "following" you can see what you've said on their computers or mobile devices.

Now, I'm not a big social media person...I'm actually not a big social person. I don't chit chat, the art of small talk is lost on me and I don't really care what you had for breakfast, so, while I have the obligatory Twitter account, I have been waiting to figure out something cool to do with it before I really decided to use it.

So Karen from A Child Grows in Brooklyn and I put our head's together and figured out how we could use twitter to create a crowdsourcing tool (doesn't that sound cool?) that will let all of us get the word out to other NYC parents about the latest news for kids in New York.

Say hi to KidBuzzNY, The Inside Scoop Written by You. It's our twitter group that will let all of us spread the word about the latest and greatest for kids in New York.

Want a fun outing that your kids will REALLY love? How about a tour of some of the best candy stores in New York City? The Lower East Side is chock full of unique and fun candy stores and you can hit them all in one day for a super treat on Valentines Day or any day you want to be the bestest parent EVER! Find your inner child, turn off that parenting voice and have fun going crazy for candy with your kids, if only for one day.

Before we get to the links, I want to announce the winner of our Valentine's Day Giveaway. Alysia and her family will be enjoying a sweet dinner four four delivered to their home thanks to Susie's Supper Club. Congrats!

Any family with more than one child will hear the cry “You love him/her more!” often enough to switch our parent guilt into overdrive.  Turns out, you don’t have to worry so much.  The information on that good news, as well as Google's new tool to reduce your energy bill, Macy’s Valentine’s Day snafu, the Holy Grail of giveaways, and sharing breast milk...after the clickity click click.