My kids are sick.  The older one got sick and then my younger one is sick now.   I give them medicine, although some say to let there natural body defenses fight the cold.   Now my thing is with the labeling of cold medicine.  There are several cold medicines that label themselves as children’s cold medicine.  The problem is that most of these “children’s medicine” are only recommended for children 12 years or older.  I am not saying that 12-year-olds are not children, but the majority of children are younger that 12.  Maybe we can call it Pre-teen medicine instead of children.  Just so that parents do not have to waste their time reading labels of medicine that do not apply to their 12 and younger child.

Tampa Bay Parent has a page dedicated to listing places where kids can eat free. The list includes several restaurants in the Tampa Bay Area.

Click on the Link to see the free list Kids Eat Free

I recently received a forwarded e-mail containing a picture and message from the supposed parents of a missing girl. The girls name was Penny Brown and message urged parents to forward it to as many people as possible. Being a parent, anything about a child going missing is of great concern to me. However, I decided to do web search of the name and found out that this e-mail is an urban legend. This e-mail has been circulating around since 2001 and there are several web sites that warn that this is an urban legend. I have decided not to use the photo becuase I do not know the identity of the child in the photograph.

As a special caution to anyone that does receive a forwarded message, do a little research. This is the way that urban legends begin and continue to grow and develop. I have heard of quite a few myself and people have also come up to me telling these things as if they were fact.

Child abduction is a serious issue and the fact that someone would have started an urban legend about a missing child is disgusting and repulsive.

For more information and sites that document this urban legend.:

• http://www.teamamberalert.net/penny_brown.html
• http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blmiss7.htm
• http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/pennybrown.html

For official information on Missing Children

• Team Amber Alert
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

That [It's your nap time little baby. Now you better stay in bed..]has become the catch phrase in my house during bedtime and naps. After getting Baby Dance the Polka from public library and reading it ten trillion times a day, we cannot get the words out of our heads; and that was over three months ago. Ok, maybe it wasn’t ten trillion, maybe it was 6 billion. But, the point is we read it over and over and over again. And that is how it should be. Reading should be fun for kids and parents. When children see that the parent enjoys reading they will enjoy reading also.

We, as a family, take weekly trips to the public library. The kids enjoy it and we do too. While we are there we also pick up a video or DVD. Most library videos are educational so we throw in a little edutainment. But the books are the best part because the kids get to pick-out what books they want. The mere fact that they, and not mommy or daddy, pick-out the book is cool in itself.

For me cool is seeing my girls running to be read to by me or my husband. Those times have taught us all new things:The girls have learned to ejoy reading and I have learned that my kids do not need the latest gadget, just quality time with any old parent will do.

A soldier’s wife,Stacy Kelley, was told she must take down a sign that says”Support Our Troops” and “God Bless America.”  The sign apparently violates deed restrictions in the Westchase neighborhood.

Stacy was given a written letter that she must take down the sign or receive a $100 a day fine.  She believes very strongly in what her husband is doing and she is refusing to take down the sign, despite the possibility of a hefty fine.  Local radio stations in the Tampa Bay area have agreed to pay the fines if they are imposed.

More about this story can be found on Tampa Bay’s 10 web site