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

As with nearly all things Disney, when they embraced the technology of virtual worlds, they did it in a big way. Not that it was without a bumpy start, mind you. Their earliest venture into the space called ToonTown launched way back in 2003 and has been panned pretty hard - or worse, simply ignored. But, as I heard from Steve Parkis, SVP of Disney Online Studios, when he spoke at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo, Disney is not only improving the worlds they already have, but also taking the technology for creating them and adding a bit of the “Disney Difference” to it.

Club Penguin
Not everyone was sure it was a good thing when Disney bought the popular world of Club Penguin last August. Many took a wait-and-see approach to the news; and one year later, some users still don’t like it, while others have embraced it as a good thing. Founded in November of 2005 in Kelowna, Canada, Club Penguin is the flagship of Disney’s virtual world arsenal. It has more than two million accounts and its online newspaper, The Club Penguin Times, is apparently more widely read than New York’s Daily News, the Chicago Tribune or the Dallas Morning News. So, we decided penguins would be next on our safari of kid-focused virtual worlds.

When first going to the site it seemed that we would have to purchase a monthly subscription to enter, but a little more poking around and we found where we could create an account to get in-world for free. The sign-up process requires e-mail verification, supposedly by a parent. This was the first sign that parental involvement is definitely encouraged in Club Penguin. During sign-up, you’re given a choice of open (but human-moderated) chat or restricted chat. I thought about going with the open chat to allow more interaction, since I had heard from Parkis about the millions of lines of chat their moderators have reviewed; but, in the end, I opted for the pre-set conversation options.  Might as well take the super-safe side while she’s unaware of any other way to do it.

Once in, we picked a penguin color and name then headed off to see the sights. My girl picked the “nightclub” first, which turned out to be pretty tame - a dance floor downstairs and a couple of video games upstairs. The games we found as we explored beyond that starting point to the beach, the mines, the soccer field and more ranged from easy to challenging - a good thing for the wide range of ages they want to attract.

The Good
One of the best things about Club Penguin is their definite focus on kid safety and parental involvement. Related to that is the moderation and interaction the company has with their users. Here in Austin last week, one of the Club Penguin founders, Lane Merrifield, spoke about that moderation and interaction during a keynote of the Austin Game Developers Conference: “‘We rarely hire techies to take care of the kids… we hire people who care about the kids,’ with backgrounds as teachers and other professionals.” More than 150 of them respond to e-mails, have direction interaction with the Club Penguin members and, with the help of game veterans, enforce a constantly evolving censorship list.

The Bad
You really need to pay a monthly subscription fee to get everything out of it. Some things like the ability to buy merchandise for your “room” are limited. The options for non-subscribers to customize are there, but they’re fewer in number and your child will beg for the subscription so they can get the things they see, but are unable to purchase.

The Lessons Learned
There are plenty of fun games for your little penguin to play; but, if you want the full experience, be prepared to pay for it. A one-time purchase of a stuffed animal will not get it for you. Also, there is way more to learn than can fit in one post. The world has entire blogs focused on it, wikis, lots of game cheat sites, and apparently, in-world armies that have epic snowball fights. And that doesn’t even include the active Disney-run community blog that keeps penguins up-to-date and in-touch even when not in-world.

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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We’re so excited to welcome our newest contributor!

Ann Handley is an 11-year veteran of creating and managing digital content to build relationships for organizations and individuals. Ann has a demonstrated ability to develop content strategy and to fully execute on it. She has a passion for building community, particularly in using new media tools to broaden and build value.

Currently, Ann is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, which provides strategic and tactical marketing know-how for marketing and business professionals through a full range of online media. Ann writes at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix, a blog in the top 20 of the Advertising Age Power150 and in the top 10 of The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs. She also writes at her acclaimed personal blog, Annarchy and is a contributor to The Huffington Post.

Previously, Ann was the co-founder of ClickZ, one of the first sources of interactive marketing news and commentary. Prior to that, she spent 12 years as a business editor and writer for both local and national trade and consumer publications.

She live nears Boston in a slightly creaky, comfortable house with 2 kids, 4 dogs, good coffee in the kitchen, decent wine in the cellar, a stack of New Yorkers by the bed, and an occasional field mouse in the laundry room.

We’ve all heard someone say this at some time or another, “S/he’s [insert young age here] going on 13.” But it wasn’t until recently, through what I have experienced with my three-year-old, Braden, that I could really appreciate the truth in this statement.

Therefore, I thought it would be fun to share a quick list of things Braden has been doing that is preparing me for the teenage years:

Mood swings

Okay, so I suppose this goes with whatever age you are (after all, he comes by this honestly with me as his mother), but lately… my goodness! A complete angel and happy one minute, and seemingly possessed the next.

Sleeping in

After a long stretch of getting up at 6:00 or earlier, Braden has begun to sleep in. These days, he’ll sleep to 7:30 or *gasp* 8:30!

And my personal favorite – he thinks his parents are idiots

I can’t tell you how many times over the past few weeks I have tried to explain something to my sons, only to hear Braden respond with, “No mommy, you’re wrong.” And he recently got frustrated with my husband (the Princeton student going for his PhD in electrical and computer engineering), because he wasn’t doing something “right” on the computer. My husband left the situation and said to me, “Obviously, he doesn’t know what I do for a living.”

I’m sure many of you have some to add – would love to hear them!

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.

Sigh.

So last week we were wondering if girls work, and then this morning:

Me: Ok, hop in the truck so we can get to L’s house!

Maggie: No, Mom - we’re taking the CAR!

Me: What? No, Daddy’s taking the car, we take the truck, remember?

Maggie: No! Trucks are for BOYS and cars are for GIRLS!

Say what?!?!

I drive the kids to daycare almost every day in the big pickup because daycare is close by and there’s no reason for my husband to waste gas on his drive to work, so he drives my Honda Civic. This is the usual thing and I only take the car on days that I need to go do errands or make a longer trip. So what in the world caused her to say that trucks are for boys?

Huh?

It’s finally hitting me that I’m just ONE of the influences in my children’s view of the world and it fascinates me to try to decipher where the crazy-talk is coming from. Enlighten me!

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Have you ever been in the midst of life as you know it, and all of a sudden, something about your normal, everyday life rubs you the wrong way? This happened to me the other day when I came to the realization that, when my husband, I and our two boys are all at home, it is automatically assumed that I am the primary person responsible for the children.

If my husband has to go off to do work, run an errand or catch a game he’s been looking forward to on TV, he’ll simply say, “I have to go…,” and be on his way. If I have something that I want to do or need to accomplish that is not child-related, then there is the understanding that I need to give him notice at least a few hours (or even a day) in advance. Because of this, I usually end up putting extra work hours in at night after the boys are in bed, rather than “inconveniencing” my husband when the boys are awake.

I brought this observation to my husband’s attention the other night, and how did he respond when I asked why it was that I had to give him advanced warning while he could go off and do work, run an errand or watch the game at the drop of a hat? He said, “… because you’re the woman.”

Now, before all the women reading this get too red in the face with anger (because I would too), just a couple days before this conversation – when we were talking about ridding our yard of leaves – he tried to propose that I do it. When he asked me why it’s just assumed he’ll do it, sick and tired of having to answer the question of “Why?” all day to my two young boys, I simply said, “Because you’re the man.” Touché.

When all is said and done, this really is not an “I hate my husband” post or anything even remotely close to it. It’s not entirely his fault I’ve fallen into the role of primary caregiver when we’re all at home, as well as the primary bread winner (at least while he finishes up his PhD). In fact, I’m sure, subconsciously, I played a big part in ensuring things are just as they are. I simply feel like, now, I’m living my life each day with eyes wide open – realizing the crucial role I play as mother, wife and professional, and how working mothers truly are the most talented jugglers of them all.

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.

Sometimes the choice of daycare is hard. Not the choice of daycare facility, because that’s an entirely different conversation, but having to use daycare at all.

Difficult Choices

I’m reminded this week, of that difficult choice, as my friend goes back to work and leaves her new baby. She’s a first-time mom, and wants to extend her materinity leave, but doesn’t have the financial resources to do it. She’s lucky, though, and gets to leave her daughter with her in laws (yes, she really is lucky). The difficult part is that my friend’s mother just died, and she ran a home daycare forever. She helped raise dozens of children, and was supposed to help with her new grandbaby. My friend and her husband had the great option of having his parents take care of their daughter, but it “should” have been my friend’s mom doing it.

Making the Call

I can distinctly remember the feeling when I realized that I needed to find daycare for my son. It felt like I was falling down a very deep hole. Nicholas’ Daddy Mark was a stay-at-home dad. He had been taking care of N, and that was supposed to be his role until N went to school. Instead, I had to find a place or a person to take care of our boy. Even as Mark lay in a coma, and knowing from the doctors that the outlook was poor, I told myself it was just until Mark got better and stronger and could resume taking care of our son.

I called the first daycare for an appointment from Mark’s hospital room. I sat and held Mark’s hand while I talked with the facility. I guess I wanted to feel like he was part of the decision, and not just a victim of circumstance. It was one of the hardest calls I’ve ever made. Making that call was admitting that Mark might never come home. Might never leave that room, that bed.

We were lucky, and found a wonderful woman who stayed with N in our apartment every day. She was caring, funny, and loved Nicholas. But, she wasn’t his Daddy. And N wasn’t “supposed” to be taken care of by anyone but Mark.

I’ve never understood the judgement that some people dish out because others have children in daycare. That judgement is especially confusing to me because you may never know *why* someone has their child there and not at home where they are “supposed” to be. Sometimes the choice of daycare isn’t much of a choice after all.

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

Oh, out of the mouths of babes!

I take the kids to daycare every morning and then drive back home to work out of the house while the Daddy of the family leaves at the same time and drives into town to work. Maggie always asks, “Where is Daddy going?” and I always reply, “to work” and we talk about how everyone has a job to do (thanks to our beloved Frances book!) and that Daddy’s job is to go to work and Maggie’s job is to go to daycare. Today when I gave my usual reply, she said:

“Do girls work?”

Indeed.

I’ll spare you the analyzing I’ve been doing over the past hour, but they always serve up such zingers, don’t they? At the very least this proves that I should put on “real” clothes in the morning and brush my hair a little more…………

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Let me just start by saying that I am a collector of parenting books and a sucker for anything promising humor combined with motherhood stories - and have been since before I even HAD kids. This explains my mile-high pile of books that I keep pushing onto all of my newly pregnant friends - “No, really, you HAVE TO read this one!” The good, the bad and the ugly, they’re all in there and they’ve all been devoured. I take the advice I want to hear and sneer at and ignore the stuff I don’t agree with. After all, who knows my parenting experience better than I do?

Back in my twitter-holic days of this summer, I came across a new acquaintance named Jenna McCarthy (no, NOT Jenny) who had a pretty cool blog and as I discovered after following the link in her twitter profile, a brand new parenting book! After reading her blog and a few of the excerpts on her site, I knew I had to read the book and I knew I wanted to share it here.

The book is titled The Parent Trip: From High Heels and Parties to High Chairs and Potties and is a completely hilarious look at Jenna’s trip through conceiving, pregnancy, childbirth and new motherhood. Along with the tale of her journey, she offers some great advice for mothers with the real-world spin on them, none of that unrealistic “only the saintly mothers in our dreams” kind of stuff that no one really does but authors want you to think YOU should do. You know what I mean, right?

I love this excerpt about pumping breastmilk - for anyone that has actually DONE this, you know exactly what she’s referring to. If you’re waiting for the experience excitedly, do NOT trust those glazed-eye ladies who tell you that babies know how to nurse on their own and pumping is easy - ha.

Jenna writes:

In more than one awe-inspiring video shown in Prenatal Prep, we watched as a newborn babe wormed its way up its new mom’s belly and located its intended food source. By sheer instinct and fundamental need, these intrepid creatures were able to engage in the act of nursing that is one of nature’s most beautiful and profound.

Pumping breast milk, on the other hand, is about as organic and intuitive as watching a monster truck rally on TV while downing a bag of Doritos.

The Parent Trip made me laugh out loud and remember the days of pregnancy and tiny babyhood and SO wish I would have had this book when I was pregnant the first time. Jenna tells it like it is without hiding the fact that motherhood is pretty darn amazing. I’m planning on making sure all of my newly pregnant friends get this book and am even making all of my been there, done that mom friends read it too! A big hat tip to Jenna, who wrote this hilarious, true-to-life book while raising her 2 daughters.

Want to win a copy? Here’s your chance!

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment here. The contest is open until October 1st and the winner will be notified via email.