Filed under: Gear, Kidwear

So, your cousin Betsy is getting married to the heavily tattooed guy she met at the grocery store. Great! But, she wants your previous little daughter to be the flower girl and your son to be the ring bearer.

While you're happy to welcome Heavily Tattooed Guy to the family, you're not as thrilled to pay for both a flower girl dress and a ring bearer tux. Enter a children's rental clothing store.

For example, you can rent a white "red petal" flower girl dress for $18.99 for three weeks. The price is the same for a black boy's tuxedo.

To do so, you sign up and pick out the clothes you want. After you rent it, they send the item to you in the mail, with overnight shipping if needed. You can keep the outfit for three weeks and send it back without washing.

Personally, I think this is a good idea if you need a great formal outfit. I know we have an outfit or two bought for my daughter for professional pictures, only for them to end up hogging closet space.

Have you ever rented clothes for your children? Did it work out or was it a hassle?

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Filed under: DVDs and Videos, Games, Video Games

Oh kids these days. With their Wii and their PS3. Do they even appreciate these new fangled gadgets, or do they just expect that they should get it?

Remember simpler times? Remember 2D graphics? Remember when kids freaked out over getting that one thing they always wanted?

Thanks to Katrina, who directed me to this video of an extraordinary Christmas morning. This boy's reaction to what Santa brought him is worth a watch and a giggle.

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Filed under: Pregnant celebrities, Celebrity babies, Celebrity parents

Director and Oscar winner Sofia Coppola and her boyfriend, Thomas Mars, are now the parents of a little girl. The two welcomed little Romy in Paris on Tuesday, People reports.

This is the first child for the couple, who met in 1999 when Coppola was directing The Virgin Suicides. (Great movie, by the way.)

I'm curious if little Romy will have some of the talent the rest of her family has. Besides her father, who is a member of the French band Phoenix, Romy's grandpa is director Francis Ford Coppola. Nic Cage and Jason Schwartzman are also extended family members.

Congrats to the couple!

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Filed under: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, Public school

Standardized testing is a hotly contested topic between lawmakers, educators, parents and students. Are they effective? What do they prove? Do they hinder educators who, instead of fully investigating topics as they see fit, must teach their students simply to pass a test?

I'm most familiar with the system in Texas -- the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test, but many states operate on similar models. These are standardized tests in math, English, reading, science and social science that, theoretically, students must pass in order to continue their educational careers. The idea is to restrict "social promotion" -- the practice of advancing a student according to his or her age, with less emphasis placed on academic achievement.

But this isn't how it works in practice. Some districts advance the vast majority of students who fail the test, while others hold back just as many. The law provides leeway for parents and administrators, giving them, and not the state, the final say on whether or not a child is promoted to the next grade level.

Without standardized tests, what systems do we use to hold school systems accountable? On the other hand, tests cause anxiety, are often culturally biased, and generally prove, above all, that students who pass are better at taking tests than those who fail. Beyond this, the idea of creating an educational model that treats every child of a certain age as if he or she were the same, seems almost ludicrous.

Does your state or school district use standardized testing? How does it work in practice? Has your child been held back? Do you have a child advance despite failing the test -- why wasn't s/he held back?

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Filed under: Lifestyle, Working out of home, Working moms, Working dads, Staying at home

As you may know, many of the staffers here at Blogging Baby work from home. That fact may have prompted valued commenter LS to write in and ask us for a post focusing on what we and other parents do to make income from home.

It sparked a super interesting thread of discussion amongst the staffers here, actually.

Though "working from home" sounds like a dream, it also has its challenges. When I quit my full-time office job for a full-time work-from-home job, I was continually congratulated, usually accompanied with a wistful "you're so lucky" sigh. And I am so lucky. I drop Nolan off later, pick him up earlier. When he is sick I can stay home with him. If I want to take him to the park for an hour at 2:00 in the afternoon, I can, and then I just make up that hour at night.

But, as mentioned in our discussion thread here today, there are repercussions for that flexibility. There's usually no healthcare. Late nights working are not an exception, they're a rule. There's no separation from home and office so there's no "line" between work and relaxation time. Weekends are spent working, at least some of the time.

I have been a corporate salesperson for most of my working life, and in my work-from-home job I'm doing the same thing I've always done - just, from my living room. And also wearing yoga pants with dried fruit crusts. I also do a lot of freelance writing, here and for other publications. Companies like this one (whom I actually talked to today as part of my stay-at-home job) offer writers opportunity to submit articles for cash, and I am sure there are others.

Work from home parents, do you have any tips on how to help make ends meet from home? It seems to me there are a small number of fields you can work from home and I'm sure ideas are welcome.

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Filed under: Image of the Day

November is "Goodbye to the Playground" month here at Blogging Baby's Image of the Day. We're celebrating images of kids on the playground before the snow sticks. This photo from paigewatkins embodies everything I love about fall, a sense of innocence, children's overflowing creativity and hoodies!

If you'd like your own picture featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr Pool - We'll select an image every day to highlight. Remember: I'm on the lookout for shots with interesting backgrounds, cool angles, or original composition. Don't just submit a shot of your kid swinging: try to find a picture that captures the joy of being a kid at the playground. Be sure to read the intro on the main Flickr page for more information and limit your uploading to 5 photos per day.

Also, don't forget that if you submit a photo of your kid with his or her favorite toy to our new "my favorite toy" flickr pool now through the end of December, you'll automatically be entered in our FAO Schwartz holiday giveaway...the excellent prize and submission details are here. Start shooting and submitting now, because the December "Image of the Day" theme will have something to do with those toy pictures.

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Filed under: Business, Child Development, Lifestyle, 10-12 years, Whining and Dining

They're sure precocious down in South Yorkshire. Chris Hardacre may be only twelve years old, but he's now a fully licensed bartender. His father runs the pub at the Star Inn in Barnby Dun in South Yorkshire. At twelve, he is the youngest ever to have passed the British Institute of Innkeeping exam.

Chris got the idea when he read about a 16-year-old girl who had taken the test. He's just pulling pints for now, but he plans to take over completely once he turns 18 -- and the law allows it. For the time being, he'll have to settle for dispensing drinks. I have to give the kid credit -- at least he knows what he wants to do with himself when he grows up.

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Filed under: Health and Safety

Have you ever thought something was a good idea yet found yourself creeped out at the same time? That's how I felt when reading this article about parents taking samples of their children's DNA in case of the worst.

Parents across the country that have watched one too many episodes of CSI are taking samples of DNA, either from a swab to the inside of the cheek or a snip of hair.

Before you run to grab the nearest cotton swab, out of the 850,000 children that go missing each year, only two percent are murdered or never heard from again. While the fact that this type of crime happens is a horrible thing, there's a pretty good chance nothing horrible is going to happen to your kids.

While some experts think parents are wasting their time doing these ID kits some, such as Elizabeth Smart's father, thinks they are a good idea.

So lay off the CSI, but if you still feel the need to save DNA, check out Kid-ID for more info. But, the best thing to do is to just keep track of your children and teach them how to keep themselves safe.

That's much more important than any DNA swab.

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Filed under: Health and Safety, Moms, Adjusting to childcare

When I picked Nolan up from daycare on Monday, he was pushing around a doll stroller and his playmate had a trail of snot pouring out of her nose.

"How's Nolan?" I asked, because he'd been a little under the weather, just quieter and more subdued than usual.
"He's OK,"Carrie said,"He's been a little quiet, I think he might be coming down with something."

I kept him home today, because he woke up flushed and puffy-eyed, and he'd been coughing throughout the night. It was lovely, actually, because he's not feeling well so he's pliant and affectionate, content to sit on my lap and rest his warm head on my chest. It's a rare opportunity to sniff him and wrap him and try not to squish him with all the love. But even though Robby was home sick too, and able to help a little, I still got way behind on my work. I work from home, but I have 9 hours of work a day, easily. I'll be up till 1:00 or 2:00 completing what I missed today, and I'm not sure what to do tomorrow.

"Bring him in if he's just got a cold,"Carrie said,"All the other parents do it, we don't mind."

And I know they don't mind, but I wonder whether it's right for Nolan to subject the kids to his germs, and for his compromised immune system to be exposed to other germs. But I don't want to neglect my job. I wonder, is it OK to bring your child to daycare if he has a cold? When is it OK?

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Filed under: Lifestyle, College

As the costs of an American university degree keep rising, more and more students are going into heavy debt to finance their educations. Credit card companies have also been preying on more and more college students, resulting in many of them graduating with heavy burdens of the very worst kind of debt to carry. As a result of all that debt, more and more twenty-somethings are moving back into their parents' home after they graduate from college. Since 1970, the number of young adults who move back in with their parents has increased more than 50 percent. The current statistics show that one in five young people will move back in with their parents after college.

That means one in five sets of parents get to enjoy their empty nest for about four or five years, and then have their kid move back in with them. But this isn't the same kid: he has four years of boozin' and cruisin' under his belt, and he probably won't take too kindly to parental limitations on alcohol, drugs, and sex. Not only that, but the kids need to find some kind of work in order to start paying off their debt. Some parents are even resorting to charging their twenty-something kids rent to discourage them from staying back home too long.

As much as I love my daughter, and harbor some hope that we'll be geographically and emotionally close when she graduates from college, there is such a thing as too close.

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