By Michelle Riggen-Ransom

CREDIT: Paper cutout illustration from the book, How Babies Are Made
By Andrew C. Andry and Steven Schepp.
“Mommy, how are babies made?” The question, of course, had been raised before, what with a little sister joining our household just over a year ago. My husband and I have staved off the inevitable from our curious boy with a deft combination of avoidance, generalities, and feel-good euphemisms. While I was pregnant, we talked to my (then) three-year-old son about the cozy place the baby was growing inside Mommy’s body, how she was developing week by week, and what would happen when she was born and my son would become transformed into the esteemed position of Big Brother.

We settled on a suitably generic-yet-factual phrase for how babies are made. “The mommies and the daddies put their bodies together in a certain way and that starts a baby growing” is what we ended up saying to him umpteen times as my due date drew nearer. This answer seemed to appease him. And once the baby came, we were all too busy and tired to think about much beyond getting dressed and fed on a regular basis.

So I was caught off-guard when, a couple of weeks ago, the question, “How are babies made?” came back with a vengeance. I started to give him our standard house answer, but he cut me off.

“I know they put their bodies together, but what parts of the body do they put together?” He looked at me with sweet, genuine puzzlement as I stammered, flailing around the room and crashing into walls like a wounded butterfly. We always explain EVERYTHING to him; why was this subject any different? It’s just science, right? Nonplussed, he pressed on: “Is it, like, their heads they put together? Or their tummies?” He was looking at me for honest answers in order to help him make sense of this crazy, crazy world, and what did I do? Giggled like a twelve-year-old and told him to ask his father. Aye! A grand mal, 1950s-style parenting failure!

But he didn’t ask has father; he asked me again a couple of weeks later. This time, he was in the tub, and as I cast my eyes wildly around the bathroom looking for some sort of an escape hatch, I happened to see a spider on the ceiling.

(more…)

This book is definitely on my wish list. Thanks to New York-based designer Todd Oldham and Ammo Books for putting together this definitive collection of the late artist Charley Harper’s 60-year-long career. Harper is best known for his graphic, geometric depictions of wildlife—and an inspiration to me.

Since this large format book, Charley Harper – An Illustrated Life is a bit steep for my budget ($200), I will be happy to own a copy of his new board book, Charley Harper ABC’s or the classic beauty, Birds and Words (first published in 1974).

By Marianne Ruggiero
Coordinator of Family Programs at The RISD Museum

In the Asian art galleries of The RISD Museum, there stands a fearsome guardian. Part roaring lion, part winged bird, it is poised to attack any foe that enters its domain. The fantastic stone animal, created in China about fourteen centuries ago, is called a “chimera” (kie-MEER-ah). It was probably one of many statues whose ferocious demeanor served to keep evil beings, whether in spirit or living form, away from imperial tombs.

The chimera is just one of the many hybrid creatures created by different cultures throughout time. Others might come to mind, whether first seen in art galleries, on the pages of a story by Lewis Carroll, or on the screen of your kids’ Nintendo. Griffins, according to legend, have the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The gentle unicorn could pass for a horse if you disregard the long horn that protrudes from its forehead . . . and, oh yes, there is the matter of that goat-like beard as well (also an attribute of the chimera).

Cultures often share the same traditional mythical beasts but don’t agree on their behavior. Is a dragon, possessed of reptilian body and avian wings, good or evil? We Westerners seem to relish the dragon’s malevolent qualities as it breathes fire at helpless maidens or valiant knights. In China, the dragon is every bit as mighty as its Western counterpart, but generally uses its might for right: to bring rain to parched earth, or to symbolize the strength and goodness of the emperor.

In whatever form or incarnation, children seem to love these hybrid beasts, the more fantastic the better. Here’s a fun project to do with your kids that lets them create their own “Mixed-Up Creatures.” It was adapted by Fran Gorman, Program Assistant in the Museum Education Department and former art teacher at Jamestown Elementary School.

MIXED-UP CREATURE BOOK

Materials
• 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper (white or colored, regular weight)
• Heavier paper (construction works well)
• Scissors
• Small piece of cardboard as measuring tool
• Ruler or straight edge
• Heavy yarn, string, or ribbon
• Crayons or other drawing materials

How to Make Book
• Fold the regular-weight paper the tall way (8 sheets makes a nice book).
• Use the heavier paper for the front and back covers. Cut to the size of the book pages (4.25” W x 11” H).
• Punch three holes on the folded edge of each sheet of paper, including covers.
• Thread the heavy string in the holes and tie in the three holes.
• Inside: Draw a straight line with the ruler ¼-inch away from the punched holes. The line is from top to bottom.
• Use the small cardboard to measure each page into four equal sections.
• Draw a line and cut straight across with scissors. Repeat with each page.

How to Create Creatures
• Draw the head of an animal in the top section.
• Draw the center of a different animal’s body in the next section down.
• Draw the legs (not the feet or paws) of yet a different animal in the next section down.
• Draw the feet, hoofs, paws, or claws of a different animal (or even a person!) in the lowest section.
• Decorate the cover of the book with designs or stamps.

Have fun flipping the pages of the book back and forth to create all kinds of mixed-up creatures!

East Meets West

Meet a cast of “mixed-up creatures” and have fun making art at The RISD Museum’s Free-For-All Saturday on May 31, 2008, from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. At 3:00 p.m., in the RISD Auditorium, Boston’s Chinese Folk Art Workshop amazes with traditional dance, drumming, and acrobatics. Free-For-All Saturday at the museum means admission, refreshments, and all activities are free!
Location: The RISD Museum - 224 Benefit Street, Providence, RI

The lion dance (pictured above), created in China over one thousand years ago, will be presented by Boston’s acclaimed Chinese Folk Art Workshop as part of “East Meets West.”

For Kids: Can You Draw This?
The Chinese seem to have a fondness for complicated beasts. Take the fenghuang or “Chinese phoenix”: with the face of a rooster, neck of a snake, breast of a goose, back of a tortoise, legs of a deer, and tail of a fish, it is just about the most mixed-up of all creatures. Think you can draw such a creature? Download and print the template here, and bring your drawing to The RISD Museum. You’ll receive a free pass to the museum for yourself and your family to use another day!

—————————————————————————————-
CREDITS:
Chimera
Chinese, 6th century
Stone; 20 ** x 17 ** x 16 **
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
Museum Works of Art Fund
Photography by Erik Gould

All additional inquires or requests should be directed to: Melody Ennis, Coordinator of Photographic Services, The RISD Museum, 224 Benefit Street, Providence, RI 02903. 401 454-6535. E-mail inquires to: mennis@risd.edu
—————————————————————————————-

ARTplay is a monthly column written by Marianne Ruggiero for The RISD Museum in which various themes and activities introduce kids and parents to the museum’s collection both online and off. Each month Kidoinfo will help spark your children’s interest in art - they can learn about different works at the museum and download a related activity to create offline. Be sure to visit the museum and explore the art in person. On Free-for-All Saturdays (the last Saturday of every month), kids may continue their exploration through a variety of hands-on workshops, performances, videos, and special gallery quests throughout the day.

Kidoinfo is just over a year old and thanks to a growing number of contributors, my fabulous editor, Nancy King, and my tech husband, Douglas (who set up the site and handles many major tech-related issues after his day job is done and the kids are in bed), I have made Kidoinfo into a site for kids—and the people who raise, teach, and entertain them—that is full of local flavor and appeals to a national audience. As Kidoinfo continues to grow and (hopefully) becomes as important to some parents as their morning cup of coffee, so do the responsibilities to keep Kidoinfo up to date and running smoothly. I am looking for the right people to join the Kidoinfo family: a few summer interns and part-time sales associates. Email Anisa if you’re interested, or pass this on to someone you think would be!

(more…)

Today I welcome Erin Barrette Goodman, a writer, yoga teacher, and mother of two young children. She is the founder and director of the Rhode Island Birth Network, which promotes empowered decision-making during the childbearing years. Together with her husband, John, she is in the process of turning their 1.5-acre South County yard into a sustainable suburban homestead, which they’ve affectionately dubbed Nadalada Farm. When she is not writing, networking, or working in the yard, Erin enjoys arranging special dates to have fun with her children, husband, friends, and occasionally alone!

By Erin Barrette Goodman

When I mentioned to my husband, John, that I would be writing a column on dating for Kidoinfo.com, he was, understandably, a little confused.

I am, after all, a thirty-something mother of two young children, and my last official date took place over a decade ago.

When I clarified that I am going to be writing about family-friendly dating – the special things we do as a family and as a couple, with one or both of our kids, and with other families and friends, and equally important, alone – he seemed less confused (and a bit relieved).

My interest in this new world of family-friendly dating started a year and a half ago when my friend Julianna, an artist and healer and a fellow new mom trying to stay sane, invited me to join a small group exploration of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

At the core of this twelve-week creative recovery/discovery process are two essential tools – daily journal-writing, or “morning pages,” and weekly “artist dates.”

The rules for the artist dates are pretty simple: Set aside one to two hours a week to do something by yourself and for yourself to nourish and feed your creativity.

Each week at our group check-in meeting, we shared a quick review of our date experiences, which included everything from beachcombing, window shopping, thrift-store treasure-hunting, tub-soaking, garden-planning, and tea-sipping, to yoga classes, dancing, cooking, and movie-watching.

As I went through this powerful process, I noticed that not only did I love my weekly (solo) artist date, but I also liked the idea of creating similarly nourishing, great-feeling “date” experiences with my children and husband.

And so began our exploration of family dating!

What makes a date a date?
(more…)

By Maura Keating
It’s summer, well, mostly . . . Memorial Day is the unofficial start to our summer season. Now we can start wearing white (with the gracious permission of the Fashion Police), and we can wear sandals every day if we want to. And we want to. The best sandals allow you to feel like you’re not wearing shoes even when you are. The best sandals give you all the best that shoes have to offer (protection, support, comfort) and limit all of the bad (odor, heat, clamminess, blisters).

This is my son’s second summer. He didn’t take his first steps until the fall last year so we didn’t worry much about sandals. This year, my son is exploring everything that his little feet can possibly do—walking, running, hopping, skipping. He’s going to need sandals. I’m picky about all shoes. Feet are important and they have to last us a long time. Toddler shoes need to support growing feet that are just learning what they need to do.

If you are looking for the perfect sandal, try Umi Shoes. They are adorable and/or chic, depending on the look that you are striving for. My husband loves the look of my son’s Umi sandals so much that he wants a pair. Sadly, like so many good things in life, Umi is for kids only.

The Umi sandals were comfortable right out of the box. With two Velcro tabs, the sandals are easy to put on and easy to take off, but not so easy that they slide off. The Umi sandals are made from very soft leather that is easy on baby skin and leaves no red marks. My son has inherited his mother’s sensitive skin. Every summer, I have to endure at least one uncomfortable week while my winter-tender skin acclimates to strappy sandals, rocky beaches, and the other ordeals of summer living. When he wears his Umi sandals, my son’s feet are just as happy as they are when encased in shoes. We’ll have to see how he fares with rocky beaches in bare feet at a later date.

(more…)

Gas is expensive these days—and between the price of gas and the price of groceries these days it pays to find ways to save. Thanks to Katy, she recently told us how we can get groceries for less at Price Rite—now here are ways to find the lowest price of gas near you.

On the Web: Enter your zip code to find cheap gas prices in your city. These websites list nearby gas stations and their current gas prices to help you find low gasoline prices.
• Gasbuddy.com
• Gaspricewatch.com
• Gasprices.mapquest.com

On your mobile phone: While on the road, you can download software form Mobio networks to your cell phone. Enter your zip code to get nearby prices.
Getmobio.com/learn.cheapgas/

Use a widget: A desktop widget monitors gas prices without visiting a separate web page.
• automotive.com/widgets/gas-prices/index.html
• www.interdimensionmedia.com/widgets/gas/ (Mac)
If you have an Apple (my computer of choice) use a widget that compares prices from a particular gas station with the local area average to help us decide if it’s worth driving a few extra miles to save money.
www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/transportation/gas.html

Today I welcome Melissa Brusso, a mom from Pawtucket, as a new contributing writer for Kidoinfo. In her column, Home Plate: Reflections of a Sportsparent, she shares her wit, wisdom, and experience regarding the world of sports with her husband, “SportsDad”, their daughter “Stretch”, age 10 and their son, “LittleMan”, age 7.

As the weather warms and spring is really here (come on, suspend judgement), I can hear Coach Paul Janaway booming in his English-accented voice about the importance of sun lotion and drinking plenty of water, and the very real threat of squirrels helping themselves to your poorly wrapped lunches. I remember the huge, mesh bags of soccer balls waiting on the dewy grass, the requisite Sergio Mendes’s “Mas Que Nada” playing in the car (yes, every morning), and the LittleMan jumping out of the car and racing off before I can manage to park. Yep, it’s almost summer.

And that means camp, particularly the handful of sports camps that my children have enjoyed the past few summers.

For a city of our size, we have a terrific selection of sports camps located in a ten-mile (or so) radius of say, Seven Stars Bakery. Many of these camps are excellent and run by some quality individuals from the education and athletic communities. Whatever your child’s sports interest or ability level, there is a sports camp that would be suitable and age appropriate.

The following is an anecdotal and freely editorialized roundup of some of the sports camps that my two children have experienced first-hand and that we look forward to attending again. It is not a complete listing, but hopefully, it will provide an angle on the camps that a newspaper listing does not. It will become more complete as readers add comments about other excellent sports camps—especially camps outside the Providence area—so please add to the list in the comments section!

• The above-mentioned Coach Janaway of Proactive Soccer can be found at Moses Brown Plus camp all summer—and at Henry Barnard School during the school year. Because he is a physical education teacher as well as an athlete (check out his soccer cred on his site!), Janaway brings to soccer camp an understanding of children and development, as well as a passion for soccer. So even the youngest and most inexperienced campers feel at home with age-appropriate and fun drills that never feel over their heads. And rest assured, more experienced soccer players are also challenged at their level. Everyone is expected to play hard and do his or her best—and everyone does.

(more…)

We are movie buffs in our house and most Pixar movies top our list for fun, family-friendly films. This summer’s kids movies are full of action, adventure, sequels, and animation, and except for Pixar’s upcoming Wall-e, most new releases are rated PG or PG-13. Whether or not these films are appropriate for your child is your call. As a mom of two six-year-old boys—who are growing up fast—I personally wish there were a few more G-rated films out there.

So here’s our guide to help you decide whether to take the kids, leave them home, wait for the DVD, or skip it altogether! For already released movies, I have included the Kids-in-Mind rating system that ranks the amount of sex, violence, and profanity on a scale of 1 to 10. For films that are still unreleased but have already received ratings, I have included the Motion Picture of Association (MPA) rating system. I will update this movie list as the films are released and rated. Feel free to add your own comments below.

A word of caution for parents of young kids who have yet to take their children to see their first movie on the big screen: previews are long and may show sneak peaks of other less appropriate films, the theater’s sound system tends to be very loud, and the theater is very dark. I advise choosing aisle seats in case a quick exit becomes necessary. Read the Movie Theater Rookie Report to hear one dad’s movie experience with his little kido.

MAY:

Iron Man
May 2
RATING: PG-13 (Sex-4, Violence-7, Profanity-5)
STARRING: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow
Genre: Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller
Based on the comic book superhero.

Son of Rambow
May 2
RATING: PG-13 (Sex - 3, Violence-5, Profanity-5)
STARRING: Bill Milner and Will Poulter
Genre: Comedy | Drama
British indie flick about a pre-teen who is filming his own action movie.

Speed Racer
May 9
RATING: PG (Sex-2, Violence-5, Profanity-3)
STARRING: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman
Genre: Action | Family | Sport
Remake of the ’60s anime cartoon with real actors and computer-generated cars.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
May 16
RATING: PG (Sex-1, Violence-6, Profanity-1)
STARRING: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Ben Barnes
Genre: Adventure | Family | Fantasy
The second in the series based on C. S. Lewis’s seven Narnia books. The Pevensie siblings return to Narnia to restore order.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
May 22
RATING: PG-13 (Sex-1, Violence & Gore-7, Profanity-4)
STARRING: Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett
Genre: Action | Adventure
Famed archaeologist and adventurer Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones is called back into action in the fourth installment in the series.

JUNE:

(more…)

Common Sense Media: Non-profit, non-partisan website. Includes critical reviews, lists potentially objectionable content, and age appropriateness. I also like that they recommend older movies and classics, too, not only what’s playing now. Also has reviews of other media like TV, music, websites, and books. The only thing that’s odd are the “on,” “off,” and “pause” symbols for ratings.

Kids in Mind: Lists of movie and DVD releases. Reviews of movies are based on comprehensive details about content, not the quality of a movie.

FamilyStyle Movie Reviews: Find out about movies available on video and showing in theaters. There’s also a Kids’ First area with suggestions for favorite videos for young kids.

Kids First!: Search the site database for info on videos and CD-ROMs. Be sure to check out the “Hot picks of the week,” and the video clips for Quicktime and RealPlayer.

Movie Review Query Engine: When you want to find every review available, use the Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE).

NY Times Family Movie Guide: Find reviews for family films before watching.

IMDB: Use the Internet Movie Database when you need to know movie trivia, like who wrote the film score or what other movies the star appeared in.

Find Local Movie Showtimes:
Google.com/movies: Enter your zip code and find what’s playing near you.