Signing for a good cause

Have you heard of the Wee Hands Challenge?

It's a fun, kid-friendly event aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of signing, not just for babies and toddlers who might not otherwise be able to say they'd like more Cheerios, but also for special-needs children.

Here's a video that explains how the challenge works.

 

Go to weehands.com to learn more!

Barbie at the Symphony: A tale of two viewpoints

Hey there, today I've got a guest post from my colleague, Adam Bisby, an editor for our life and entertainment sections. Here he shares his experience taking two four-year-old girls to Barbie at the Symphony. - Brandie

 

As a 30-something dad escorting two giggling four-year-olds to the first of two Barbie at the Symphony performances at the Sony Centre, I was torn.

On one hand, there was Barbie. We all know her as an iconic fashion-forward doll made by Mattel. Her fans young and not-so-young also know her as a superstar singer, dancer, actor, model, entrepreneur, marine biologist…the list goes on. Fact is, beautiful, accomplished Barbie is easy to idolize. Her detractors, meanwhile, say she promotes an unrealistic body image for young women (with estimated measurements of 36-18-33). Fact is, I’m thankful my daughter Ava and friend Olive don’t yet know what those numbers mean.

On the other, there was the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, which accompanied clips of Barbie’s various movies and music videos throughout last night’s 90-minute Sony Centre show. The nearly five-dozen musicians, along with conductor/producer/narrator Arnie Roth, made beautiful — and iconic — music, such as movements from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Swan Lake, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, and Dvorak's Symphony from the New World. With images of Barbie and friends projected on a not-quite-large-enough screen above the orchestra, her rapt fans definitely seemed more inclined to appreciate — and in some cases, enjoy and even dance to — a full slate of “serious, adult” music. If you’ve read classical music critic John Teraud’s excellent set-up story in Thursday’s Star , you’ll know this is among the production’s goals. For a casual classical fan such as myself, it was nice to hear these timeless pieces performed by professionals in a live setting. Did I need some distraction from Barbie’s animated adventures, or from the steady crescendo of squeals from the audience? It certainly didn’t hurt.

Put them together, quite literally, and you’ve got Barbie at the Symphony. There were a few nifty moments of interaction — like when Barbie conducted puppet master-style from on high — and another fun and educational sequence when conductor Roth showed off the various sections of the orchestra. But most of the show consisted of video clips with scores played live over top. For fans of this material, it looked like seventh heaven. And for this dad, who has had to suffer through certain D-list kids’ productions — Backyardigans Under the Sea, anyone? — it was an oddly enjoyable night out with his daughter and her friend, even if a questionable (and highly influential and marketable) icon was the standard bearer for the show’s laudable goal.

WHAT: Barbie at the Symphony
WHERE: Sony Centre For The Performing Arts
WHEN: Today at 1 p.m.
TICKETS: $25.50-$55.50 at ticketmaster.ca

A parenting editor's parenting fail

We were running a little behind getting out the door this morning. Again.

My youngest started Montessori school in September and we still haven't quite got the hang of getting two young children to two different schools by 8:45. Very often we're just getting to the cloakroom door of Alister's new school at the last minute. Sometimes there's a handful of other moms and dads standing there clutching coffees and saying goodbyes. I'm hopeful that at least some of them have been missing the "Montessori at home" workshops and are behind on their readings, too.

But this morning I was the only parent standing at the front door puzzling over a fluorescent green sign that said "Reminder: There is no school tomorrow. It's a PA day."

Huh? They can't mean Saturday, can they?

Nope.

No school TODAY. As in right now.

The office staff buzzed me and said, "But it's in the calendar and the sign's been on the door all week."

I must have missed it Tuesday when I was last there. I just KNEW I was going to flunk out of Montessori school.

It's just this sort of thing for which they pay me the medium-sized bucks to run a parenting website. I am clearly SUCH an expert.

The truth is, I never like to miss an opportunity to point out that my decade on the parenting beat has done little to make me a superior parent. Sure, it makes me speedy at finding resources and gives me lots of other people's good ideas to steal. But it doesn't equip me with an endless reserve of patience when I'm trying to get my kids into snowpants. Or any extra memory space for Scholastic book orders and, apparently, PA days! (Clearly I need to program those with several blinky reminders into both my Outlook and Google calendars.)

So when you've gone tearing out of the office to find that you're a month early for your kids' dentist appointment or failed to send Christmas cards, think of me and know I'm raising a cup of something caffeinated to you.

And in case you're wondering, I may have failed to notice a PA day, but I do have the phone numbers of several neighbourhood nannies in my BlackBerry. As we peeled through the neighbourhood to drop him off with the nanny of twin four-year-olds, his best little buddies ("I LOVE dem!"), Alister was pretty pleased. Only then did he mention, "Yes, Mark said we don't have school today and we are SO excited!"

Cute kid quote of the week

Cameron, 7, after I got two parking tickets totalling $100 in the space of 90 minutes yesterday.

"Well, maybe if it happened two times it's a lesson! Don't do it again."