This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.

A commenter on my Handipoints review here asked if I’d heard of another world called SecretBuilders. His child’s teacher had mentioned it, but he was concerned about the safety. (Teachers seem to have been early PR targets during the world’s testing phase, and have their own section on the web site.)

It’s taken a while for us to get back on our safari, and in the meantime it appears that the SecretBuilders world officially launched. So, we’ve taken time here during the holidays to go check it out.

SecretBuilders.com

The style of graphics is very similar to Club Penguin, although the avatars are human figures. The intentions are higher than many other kid-targeted worlds, as their site says they view children not as consumers, “but rather as creative, ingenious beings that will help build a vibrant virtual world that will also impact their real world.”

Screenshot of a room in SecretBuilders

The Good

SecretBuilders is designed primarily for children 5 to 14 years of age and is free to join and use. And, they are very concious of privacy concerns. My six-year-old was able to complete the account set-up process essentially own her own. She only needed my assistance for a parent’s e-mail account, which for safety reasons they require of all children under 12.
Also, restricted chat is the default for those under 9 and parents are required to approve additions to their buddy lists. Free chat is available to children over 10 but moderators will still screen out inappropriate language and speech including bullying, harassment, intimidation as well as revelation of any personal identity information.
In addition to interacting with other children in the Secret Builders world, there are opportunities to chat with historical figures such as Shakespeare and Einstein and fictional characters via artificial intelligence (AI). These characters are supposed to chat with children vis-à-vis a monitored chat dialogue and provide guidance on places and activities in SecretBuilders. The only one we’ve encountered so far was called “The Beast” and looked like the Big Bad Wolf, but I’m guessing was from the Beauty and the Beast story. Results of the AI chat were rather mixed - can’t say it was an easy conversation to follow.

The Bad
It was hard to find much to dislike about Secret Builders. After my girl went back on her own to give her friend from next door a tour, I asked her if she had any criticisms. She said it was cool, easy to move around and had fun things to do (she and her BFF were taking turns painting a picture at that moment).
However, I did have some difficulty finding how to edit the settings of her account after it was set up. Apparently, she must have entered her age incorrectly because free chat was available on her account, as well as safe chat. I couldn’t find a parental login, so I tried logging in as her to edit, but still couldn’t find a way to change it.

The Lessons Learned
While it’s nice from a user experience perspective to know that even the younger users can get started using SecretBuilders without a lot of help, parents should still be involved in the initial set-up to ensure everything is done the way you want it to be.

The one thing I was left wondering after a couple of visits to SecretBuilders was just where the name came from. Were the kids secretly building or building secrets or what? Not being able to really find that answer online, I finally took a shot at sending a note to the generic e-mail address on the site. I soon heard back from Umair Khan, CEO of SecretBuilders:

“We named our world and our community SecretBuilders because it is a world whose builders are children themselves. Children will build this world out, with their ideas, suggestions, creativity and activities. They will build out this world both by helping build venues and features, and also by providing content for others to consume (by publishing articles in our magazine for e.g.) We will provide them with more and more tools, activities and features to help them do so.”

Doesn’t sound so secret, but it does sound very admirable!

For another good review of SecretBuilders, check out: Kids Computer Games Recommendations

Laura P. Thomas is the wife of a former rocker and mother of one 6-year-old girl that’s already waaay too interested in The Jonas Brothers. (the apple didn’t fall far) She works in the Global Online team at Dell, evangelizes virtual worlds, and twitters too much as LPT.

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Tags: Child Safety, Club Penguin, computers, kids, Kids and Teens, SecretBuilders, Virtual world, virtualworlds

The red kettles are on the corners and being promoted by the Jonas Brothers. The Blue Santas and Brown Santas are out in force in our home town. There are also angels awaiting adoption at the mall. And in this season of caring and sharing, we all want to impart a spirit of compassion in our children.

So how do you respond when, like my girl did this year, they ask you “why doesn’t Santa visit the poor people?”

Crazy Santa via Creative Commons by dlemieux (www.flickr.com/photos/dlemieux)

I got off rather easy, I think. We had recently been shopping to fill our shoebox for Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child, an organization that focuses on children in war-torn areas of the world. I told my girl that when people were fighting it can be very difficult for Santa to get into their country to bring toys to the children. His sleigh might be mistaken and accidentally shot down, so we help get toys to the children in other ways to ensure that they have something for Christmas.

That seemed to appease her for the moment, but I’m afraid I would have been stuck if she’d pressed further.

I want to make Christmas a magical time for my girl and keep Santa alive as long as possible. If I’m able to explain his chimney expeditions and ability to traverse the world in record time simply by chalking it up to magic, why wouldn’t that give him the ability to grant the wishes of every boy and girl the world over? How do I explain that in a prosperous and peaceful town like our own, there are far too many children who can’t count on Santa?

As I sit here Christmas Eve morning about to begin that last mad dash of gift wrapping, grocery shopping and baking, I say thanks that I don’t have to explain why Santa won’t be coming tonight. And, I hope that I can continue to keep him alive, while also raising a child who appreciates our blessings and learns the joy of giving to others.

Tags: Blue Santa, Brown Santa, charity, Christmas, compassion, giving, Salvation Army

Nine years ago, I found what I thought would be the perfect Christmas gift for my brother, who at that time, had just joined the Marines. It was a fairly large cross stitch of a bald eagle with the American flag in the background. And yes, it was a great gift idea nine years ago and continues to be a nice thought as I re-gift the incomplete project year after year (don’t worry, I do get him something new too).

If only I had known how easy it could have been to find time to work on the darn thing before having my sons. But then, you know what they say; hindsight is always 20/20.

The worst year was 2006 – the year my husband decided where to pursue his PhD, the year we moved across the country and bought a house, the year we had our second son… all ending with my brother opening his “present” and saying to me, “Did you even work on it at all since last Christmas?”

I was flabbergasted by the fact that he noticed, but ever since then, I make sure that some noticeable progress has been made. Each year, I swear I’ll space out my work on it throughout the year, only to have December arrive and me working fervently into the night on what I still believe will look great when done.

My brother is no longer in the Marines. My dad and husband insist I should pay someone to finish the cross stitch, but I feel like it loses something then – not to mention, I’m kind of curious to see just how many years it will take.

Next year – the 10^th year - I’ll begin working on it in January… right

Happy holidays everyone! And if you ever plan on giving someone a cross stitch that you have to do yourself, I recommend something small.

Kristen Keller lives in New Jersey with her two young boys, husband and two dogs. In an effort to obtain the perfect work-life balance, Kristen works part-time out of her home office as an independent public relations consultant and spends the rest of her time striving to give her children the same wonderful childhood experience she had. Click here to check out Kristen’s other posts on This Mommy Gig.

I’ve got a botanical holiday mystery I want to solve, and I don’t have the faintest idea how.

It’s become a favorite tradition for me and my 10-year-old daughter Kinsey to hunt down the perfect Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend.  Well… only if it’s below 70 degrees here in Houston, where it’s hard to get into an elfish mood when it’s a warm and humid November day.

Sunday was surprisingly blustery and chilly, so off we went to the same upscale nursery where we always plunk down a hundred bucks for a fresh Frazier Fir.  (I’ve gone the cheap tree-lot route before and quickly ended up with a crispy fire hazard.  Ya get what ya pay for.)

The wind kept toppling all the trees over at the nursery, so it was tough to pick out the perfect specimen.  Nevertheless, we found a keeper and soon had it roped to the top of our vehicle.  Kinsey decided the tree’s name should be Harold.

It’s the first time we’ve named our tree but, hey, why not?  We’ll be feeding and caring for him in our home for at least a month, protecting him from our over-energetic Schnauzer, adorning him with cherished family treasures, expecting him to greet Santa himself.  Harold deserves an identity better than just “The Tree.”

I managed to carry Harold up the flight of stairs to our condo, place him with his least-handsome side toward the wall, and give him a good drink of water.  We wanted to allow him a day to relax before draping him in lights and ornaments.  That’s when I noticed something was wrong.

I gave up our artificial tree years ago because the holidays didn’t feel complete without the evergreen fragrance of a REAL tree filling our home.  Harold was definitely real… but he had no smell! I stuck my head into his branches and breathed deeply.  I crushed some of his needles between my fingers and sniffed.  Barely an iota of pine-y scent.  How could that be?

The next day, I called the nursery and tried to find out what was up.  Scent-cancelling pesticides?  Misguided genetic engineering?  A left-wing conspiracy to squash everyone’s Christmas spirit?

I felt rather silly describing the reason for my call, but the woman on the phone asked me to wait on hold a moment.  Minutes later, she came back on the line saying, “You’re right!  I sniffed some of our trees, wreaths, and garlands and could barely smell anything!”  Still, she couldn’t offer any explanation.

I feel cheated.  I suppose I could tie some of those ridiculous car air fresheners on Harold as make-shift ornaments to fake the missing fragrance.  But I really want to know where Harold’s smell went.

Tell me this, fellow moms — have you bought a fresh tree?  And did you take a good whiff?  Are Kinsey and I the only Frazier Fir consumers wondering whether certain growers have been meddling with Mother Nature?

Can’t wait to hear if we’re alone in our predicament…

Tags: christmas tree

Kthnxbi? It’s “internet speak” meant as a sarcastic goodbye to someone. It always makes me think of this old Saturday Night Live skit with Helen Hunt (that unfortunately doesn’t seem to exist in video online).

Today, however, I’m sending my completely sarcastic and uncaring “buh-bye” to the Bratz dolls. A California judge has ordered the company that makes them to stop doing so and to begin removing existing inventory from store shelves after the holiday shopping season. What not sooner?

Is there really anyone who will miss them other than the manufacturer that was raking in dough? Even those mothers that I know allowed their daughters to buy them seemed to not really like, but just generally tolerate them and their overt sexiness. Scholastic had stopped distributing their books due to parental pressure (or maybe not). They were a big part of the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (PDF), and a topic of discussion the world over. In Australia, they even came up with the term “corporate paedophilia” to describe this sort of sexualization of young girls (although Barbie Magazine bears more of the brunt in their report than Barbie’s rival Bratz).

Now, I totally agree that “the view our children have of the world and sex ultimately comes back to us,” but how much easier it would be for “us” to establish that view if we weren’t competing with so many external factors that don’t mesh with it.

Bratz are only one of many of those challenges we face as mothers trying to raise daughters. My girl doesn’t own a one, and yet while brushing her teeth one night she looks in the mirror and says “I’m fat.” That sort of body-image pressure won’t ease up if Bratz come off the shelf, but I’m still going to join many others who wish them a fond farewell:

• Mathman’s Ramblings: Barbie Kicks Slutz (oops, I mean Bratz) Dolls …
• Mysterious Creature: Goodbye Bratz!!!
• Bye Bye Skanky Bratz Dolls! « Welcome to Sarcazmo!
• things leaked out of my head - don’t [bleep] with barbie man

Tags: Barbie, Bratz, Dolls, girls, Sexualization, Shopping, toys

I’ll spare you the excuses about why I haven’t posted in months. (Gulp.) There are plenty of you out there who work full time and parent full time, too — and still manage to commit regular blocks of time to blogging. I admire you, and I wish I had your dedication. Somehow, my dedication gets spread around too thinly to other things. Ah well.

For the past several months, I’ve been working on a project with my 15 year old son, Alex, who is a gifted pianist.

His newest CD, Christmas Keyz, is now available for purchase on Amazon.

As you can imagine, there is much to tell about this. I tend to get wrapped up in the details of how long he’s been playing (11 years), the contests he’s entered and won (another post someday), and the remarkable paths he has ventured down that have each contributed to his musicianship, performance abilities, and altruistic maturity.

But what really matters is that he’s accomplished something unique, something beautiful, and something that brings joy to other people.  He stands a little taller these days, and that’s a sight that makes any mother’s heart nearly brim over.

This holiday season, Alex will take his music to a number of community events, including the local library’s “Visit with Santa” and a local elementary school’s “Santa Shop.” But his favorite audiences are the ones he’s been playing for since last June — the residents of a few retirement centers. He most enjoys playing for “the regulars” who gather to hear him play, who grasp his hands and look him deep in the eye as they thank him for bringing his music again, who cajole and tease him and press candies into his palm with a sidelong glance at mom.

You can check out clips of his music on his website at The Music is Key. (His site, BTW, was designed by fellow TMG Blogger, Rachael Cahours Acklin. LOVE her work.) You can watch him play his original arrangement, “Noel the First” from that site or on YouTube and Facebook. His MySpace page has a complete MP3 file of another of his original arrangements, “Away in a Manger”.

Alex is currently in discussions with a number of charities. We hope to have a special promotion sealed in the first week of December. For now, he’s watching sales closely, hoping that they edge up to the point where he can recover production costs on the CDs, website design, and marketing. He hopes to make enough to be able to fund his next two projects, a CD of his original compositions and a CD of his favorite anime themes (hauntingly beautiful works from various scenes in lesser-known video games).

I couldn’t be more proud of him. I hope you’ll stop by his website and read a little more about him. I hope you’ll consider purchasing a CD or two — as a proponent of the arts, as a supporter of young enterpreneurship, and/or as a voice of approval to a teenage volunteer musician giving back to the greater community. Thanks — and Merry Christmas.

Tags: Add new tag, enterpreneur, family, holidays, piano

Nicholas is starting to differentiate between girl stuff and boy stuff (purses are for girls, cars are for boys).  I really hate making any kind of assignments for gender (especially to things that I would love for him to play with or do) and it bugs me when I find myself doing it. There are some things that I am finding are total boy things where he is concerned.

Peeing standing up.

I was really sweating this one when we first started potty training. I mean, it’s not like I can show him how to do that in any real way. Thankfully, my fiance, William, took over the “peeing standing up” lessons. Seriously, this is one of the first things I thought of after Mark died, “Who is going to teach N to pee standing up?!?”

I think that some of it must be instinctive though, as Nicholas was arching his little back and pointing aiming at the toilet from pretty early on in the potty training process.  On a side note, I think he must have seen one of the construction guys around here peeing outside because there is a certain part of the yard that, for several months, he insisted on “peeing” at each time he passed it (he would go to the spot, spread his little legs, tell me he had to pee and arched his little back). Weird.

Baseball

Here is where my own gender bias comes in. I played basketball in school and have never been a big fan of baseball or football. Just not my sports, but I’m aware that there are many rabid fans who are women. Shoot, one of my grandmothers was such a huge baseball fan that we played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at her funeral. Anyway, Mark was a huge Astros fan, and since I don’t particularly care for the sport, I think of it as a “boy” thing. Here’s my problem: I want Nicholas to love the sport as much as his Daddy Mark did, I don’t like the sport much, know nothing about it, and William doesn’t like baseball. My solution? My friend, Jeremy, has been assigned baseball duty with Nicholas. He is an Astros fan, he knows how important the ‘Stros were to Mark, and he folows the sport/team. He’s my go-to guy for teaching N about baseball and the Astros. Crisis averted. I hope.

Women

Okay, I know this isn’t really a “boy” thing I need to teach Nicholas, but I am really hoping to raise a son who loves women, respects women, and surrounds himself with quality women (both friends and partners). Maybe this isn’t a traditional boy thing to teach him, but I feel as a woman it’s my responsibility to teach him the finer points of the female mind. Do open doors for them, do use manners and be polite, do take it slow with a woman romantically and allow them to dictate the pace as much as possible. Don’t assume a woman is bad with numbers or math. Don’t blame anything on PMS, even if she’s brought it up first. It will only lead to badness.

What “boy” stuff have you come across? What gender assignments have your kids made that you’ve been surprised by? What about your own gender assignments?  What do you wish your spouse or partner knew or did as a man?

Sherry Carr Deer is a Mommy to 3-year-old Nicholas, fiance to William, the widow of Mark, and a PR professional at a non-profit hospital. You can read more of her posts here.

Tags: baseball, gender, potty training, women

A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to the Trace Adkins country song, “You’re Gonna Miss This,” which can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igm2iGvo-us. If you haven’t heard this song before, or even if you have, be sure to have tissues on hand. As I listened to this song, I thought of my life and how quickly it seems to be flying by. I can relate to each part of the song – have memories as clear as if they happened yesterday.

I remember sitting with my mom in Burger King when I was a freshman in high school and talking about how we would be looking at colleges in a few years. My mom started crying while we talked – three years before I would be leaving. As silly as her tears may have seemed to me at the time, I now completely understand the emotions unlike any other that come with parenthood.

I remember getting my first, one-bedroom apartment that I paid for with my measly entry-level PR job income and looking forward to the days I would be able to have a house and a yard. I remember my dad walking me down the aisle at my wedding and dancing with him to “Butterfly Kisses” – a song he picked for our dance and another one that makes me cry every time, because I know I’ll always be his little girl no matter how old I get.

And now, here I am, married to the man I’ve been with for 11 years (since college) with two young boys and two dogs, living in a house with a wonderful yard that we own in New Jersey, almost 10 years of work experience under my belt, and my younger brother is going to turn 28 soon! I look back and think, how did I get here?

I’m thankful for songs like this for putting things into perspective in such a simple way. When my two-year-old is crying uncontrollably because he’s overtired, or my four-year-old asks me the same question several times in the span of two minutes, I now find myself thinking back to this song and how this is just another page of my life that will soon be turned. Enjoy the here and now, because as challenging as it all may seem at the moment, we are going to miss this.

Kristen Keller lives in New Jersey with her two young boys, husband and two dogs. In an effort to obtain the perfect work-life balance, Kristen works part-time out of her home office as an independent public relations consultant and spends the rest of her time striving to give her children the same wonderful childhood experience she had. Click here to check out Kristen’s other posts on This Mommy Gig.

It’s likely that my opinion is very different from others who contribute to this blog because we are a diverse group, which is something I like and something I think is representative of mothers the world over. But, there’s a little uproar going on that I just have to add my two cents to - and maybe my fellow moms here will provide a counterpoint.

The who-ha was apparently created by this:

I watch the ad and see a tongue-in-cheek, sassy take on the truth that not only wearing your baby, but also all the other ways we wag out children around wreak havoc on our backs and bodies. You just have to admit that.

Others, however, see it as insulting, a personal attack on what they consider the only proper way to carry a baby and as an insult to motherhood in general. Some fear it will prevent other moms or moms-to-be from experiencing the joy of wearing their babies. You’ve got to read the comments on a post titled “Motrin: The Anti-Mom?” to really get a taste of it.

Oh please. Lighten up! Oh, yeah, you can’t because you’re carrying an extra 15 or so pounds of child with you everywhere. I should probably take that back. I mean, I’ve just been more offensive than that Motrin ad, right? Flame away folks. If a sling or whatever works for you, then fine, but don’t get all righteous about it. It’s that attitude that led total strangers in the check-out line at Target to feel they had the right to inquire whether I would breast feed when they saw I was pregnant.

Bloggers and Twitterers have yelled loud enough that Motrin is now pulling the ad and issuing apologies to those who complain. I suppose they have to - to try to take on an attack of mommy bloggers would be a public relations mess. But, I just had to go on the record as saying I think this is all an over-reaction. Probably due to the fact that my mother didn’t breast feed me or carry me in a sling as a child; and, I’ve doomed my own daughter to be the same maladjusted human because the only time I carried her on my body was in a backpack as I meshed with the masses at the Austin City Limits Festival.

And while I’m here admitting to being a terrible mother because I did not strap my child on me at all times possible, let me go ahead and lay out all my dirty mommy laundry — I work long hours outside of the house, put my girl in day care at two months old, and didn’t breast feed. Egads!

How long do I have before someone calls Child Protective Services on me?

Laura P. Thomas is the wife of a former rocker and mother of one 6-year-old girl that’s already waaay too interested in The Jonas Brothers. (the apple didn’t fall far) She works in the Global Online team at Dell, evangelizes virtual worlds, and twitters too much as LPT.

Tags: baby wearing, blogging, motrin, public relations, Twitter

I’ve been away for too long, my friends.  My family and I have just had too much chaos in the past few months and I finally had to put the brakes on this out-of-control train, do a little audit of what was and wasn’t working in our little universe, and figure out what to do about it.  Of course, with all that’s gone on over the past few months, that’s taken a considerable amount of time!  In any event, my sincere apologies for staying away for so long.  It’s good to be back.  :) 

So, about the title of this post:  An Extreme Life Makeover. Sounds sort of drastic and official, doesn’t it? Well, that’s how it feels, a little bit.  

Many things have happened in the past few months that have prompted us to have to get a little drastic and official.  Thankfully the end result is that I - and we - feel like we’re finally finding our feet again, feeling more confident, happy, excited.  And it feels really, really good.  

I’ll start off by getting you up to speed on what’s been going on lately… 

As you might recall from my last few posts (from August and July, to my utter mortification), my wonderful husband was downsized out of his job back at the end of June.  I’m not going to lie: It was at times enormously stressful to have the primary bread winner NOT, well, “winning bread.” Nonetheless, I think he - and we - have handled it with as much calm and optimism as we possibly could in the circumstances with two children to support, a mortgage payment and all the other usual bills to pay.  

There have been several things working in our favor, not the least of which is that my husband is a one-of-a-kind, wonderful, calm “glass is half-full” kind of guy. There’s also the fact that my husband has a fantastic network of personal and professional contacts.  We were stunned by how many people contacted Dan after his job loss, whether just to voice their support or to provide him with contacts or job leads.  If any of those people are reading what I’m writing here, please accept our heartfelt THANKS, because you kept us both hopeful and positive.  

I think my husband’s strong work ethic and workhorse personality were also factors in our surviving the past few months.  The man refused to treat any of his time unemployed as “vacation” or “down time,” and he spent every day making phone calls, sending out resumes, finishing antiques “projects” he’d acquired over the years so he could sell them on Craiglist, helping friends complete home improvement projects that they lacked the ability or knowledge (or tools!) to do themselves.  He kept his mind and his body engaged the whole time, and I admire that about him. 

So where am I going with this?  Well, let’s just say that Dan’s job search is over.  And we’re pleased as punch!

Don’t get me wrong: I loved having all of that one-on-one time with my husband and am grateful that fate threw us that curve ball when it did.  Dan had been stressed out and anxious leading up to the downsizing; once it was over and the dust had settled, he was back to being himself, the guy I know and love: calm, happy-go-lucky, driven, optimistic.  With his perspective back, it was nice having him around more, and the new routines we developed bouncing around the house together all day every day have been sorely missed now that he’s back to work again.  But Dan was ready and excited to begin his new professional journey, and so far, so good!

There are two other things that came up recently that have also forced us to examine our lives a bit more closely, especially when paired with Dan’s job situation.   Continue Reading »

Tags: family, health, life, work