On the off chance that you haven’t heard, Silly Bandz are all the rage with kids these days. We were actually first introduced to the Silly Bandz craze by our preschool and 2nd grade sons this past school year, and they’ve since swept the nation.

While our kids’ obsession has cooled off a bit this summer, I fully it expect things to ramp up again when they head back to school. In fact, many schools have banned Silly Bandz because kids were getting too distracted collecting, comparing, and trading them.

Anyway, I’ve been asked by several people in real life where to buy Silly Bandz, so I figured it might be worth writing something up to post here, as well. But first…

What are Silly Bandz?

In case you haven’t had the pleasure of collecting, trading, playing with, or buying Silly Bandz, here’s the deal:

Silly Bandz are little more than rubber band bracelets that come in numerous colors and shapes. They’re typically sold in themed packs, including the following “official” Silly Bandz packs:

• Alphabet
• Art Fest
• Baseball
• Basic
• Beach
• Fantasy
• Pets
• Princess
• Rainforest
• Rockbandz
• Sea Creatures
• Spring (retired)
• Western
• Zoo

As has been the case with most successful collecting crazes, it appears that these Silly Bandz packs will gradually be retired, thereby further stoking demand.

Not surprisingly, as the phenomenon has grown, a number of impostors have come to market. These are sold under a variety of names, including: Silly Bands, Fun Bands, Animal Rubber Bands, Rubber Band Bracelets, etc. These off-brands have brought with them a number of “innovations,” including tie-dye and sparkly bands.

How much do Silly Bandz cost?

The standard price for a 24-pack of official Silly Bandz is around $5.00. Yep, that’s right. That’s a little over $0.20 for a rubber band. Amazing, huh? Of course, with all the knockoffs that are now available, you can easily find unofficial Silly Bandz for somewhere in the $3-$4/pack range.

Just be sure to double-check the size of the pack you’re buying, as it’s not uncommon to see 12-packs that look like a good deal until you realize you’re getting half as many as you thought.

Where can you buy Silly Bandz?

So… Where can you buy Silly Bandz? That’s almost certainly one of the first questions that will pop into your head when your kids start clamoring for them. As it turns out, you can find Silly Bandz, or a reasonable facsimile, just about anywhere nowadays.

I’ve seen them at Target, Walmart, Toys’R'Us, Learning Express, and in numerous drugstores, grocery stores, and gas stations. Someone even set up a dedicated Silly Bandz kiosk in our local mall. And, of course, you can buy them online, with Amazon.com being a prime source.

If you’re out and about hunting for Silly Bandz, your best best is to look near the checkout — exactly where you’d expect to find an impulse buy!

I just ran across an interesting article about school start times. This isn’t particularly surprising but, according to a recent study, delaying the start of school by as little as half an hour would significantly benefit teens.

During a two month trial in Newport, Rhode Island, researchers found that delaying the start of school from 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM resulted in significantly more sleep for teens. In fact, the number of students getting by on less than seven hours dropped by nearly 80%, and the number of students sleeping at least 8 hours increased from 16.4% to 54.7%.

Other benefits of the later start included increased alertness and fewer students reporting that they were too tired for schoolwork or sports. In addition, fewer students reported feeling unhappy, depressed, irritated, or annoyed, and fewer students skipped class or showed up late.

When I was a kid, high school students started earliest, with middle school students starting a bit later, and elementary school students starting last. In our current community, however, the reverse is true: elementary kids start at 8:00 AM, middle school at 8:30AM, and high school at 9:00 AM. All in all, this seems to work well.

Source: Time.com

I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, but just haven’t been able to find the time. As I’ve previously noted, our twelve year old started taking Intuniv (guanfacine) to treat his nervous tics, as well as to improve his impulse control and reduce his aggression.

The good news is that his tics became much less apparent, and his behavior also improved dramatically. Unfortunately, we couldn’t tell if the behavioral improvement was because the medicine was working, or because he was feeling so crummy from the side effects — primarily sleep problems, headaches, and nausea.

We switched his dosing schedule so he’s be taking his Intuniv in the evenings, but that didn’t really solve the problem. His sleep patterns did improve, but he was still having bad headaches and some nausea.

Switching to Lexapro

Ultimately, we ended taking him off the Intuniv and switched him over to Lexapro (escitalopram), which is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is often prescribed as an anti-depressant. The doctor thought that the Lexapro might help reduce his anxiety, and thus solve both the tics and the behavioral issues.

At first, this seemed to work well, but the behavioral issues returned within a few weeks, and his tics have come back with a vengeance. Perhaps the initial benefit was a placebo effect, or perhaps his body adjusted to the Lexapro, or is otherwise having an adverse reaction.

We’re currently thinking of taking him off the Lexapro, letting it clear out of his system, and then trying again. The tics we can live with, but the behavioral problems are taking a toll on the family.

Our five year old son has been battling impetigo for the past couple of months. We’ve had it on the run several times, and actually thought it was completely gone at one point, but it’s kept coming back. Admittedly, a part of the problem was inconsistency on our part when treating the problem early on.

Treating impetigo, in the beginning

We first started treating his impetigo with Bactroban (mupirocin) ointment accompanied by regular pHisoderm baths. When that didn’t knock out the infection, he went on two rounds of Zithromax Z-Paks (azithromycin). The Z-Paks seemed to do the trick, and the impetigo seemingly disappeared.

Convinced that we had won, we stopped with the Bactroban. Unfortunately, the impetigo came back shortly thereafter. It’s unclear whether he got re-infected or if the original case never completely cleared up. Regardless, we started treating him again.

Treating impetigo, one more time

At this point, we were applying the Bactroban more or less daily. When the impetigo didn’t improve, he went back on a Z-Pak. This time around, there was no improvement, so we got referred out to a dermatologist.

The dermatologist suggested stepping up to twice daily Bactroban treatments accompanied by daily baths with a hypo-allergenic soap. He also recommended putting some Bactroban in his nostrils and on his anus once per day (nostrils first!).

When the dermatologist’s suggestions didn’t help, we went back to our family doctor who recommended that we try a new oral antibiotic. This time around, we went home with a prescription for Omnicef (cefdinir). We’re about halfway through that prescription and have seen a huge improvement.

As of today, his sores are on the mend, but we’re still hitting them Bactroban twice per day, and will continue to do so until we can’t find any spots to treat. We’re hopeful that we’ve finally got the upper hand, but we aren’t holding our breath. While we’ve dealt with impetigo in the past, it has never been this stubborn.

As an aside, we haven’t seen any red urine (a known side effect of Omnicef) this time around.

A couple of week ago, I noted that our son had started taking Intuniv to treat his nervous tics. He started out with a 1mg dose, increased to 2mg after a week, and then to 3mg a week later. Easing patients onto Intuniv in this fashion is the standard approach.

Unfortunately, shortly after he started taking Intuniv, he started having problems with insomnia. He’d fall asleep just fine but would wake up at 2AM or 3AM and then be unable to get back to sleep. After consulting with the doctor (who also checked with the pharmaceutical rep) we ended up switching from morning to evening doses.

The good news is that the nighttime sleep problems are gone. The bad news is that he now comes home from school absolutely exhausted. And by that I mean completely and totally wiped out. We’re hoping that he adjusts to the Intuniv in the coming weeks such that he’s no longer so tired in the afternoons, or so we can switch him back to morning doses without disrupting his sleep.

I’ll update when we know more…

As I’ve noted in the past, our oldest son has a history of tics and twitches. In the past, these have come and gone, often associated with stressful periods in our lives, and never lasting more than a few months.

This past fall, our son (eleven years old at the time) started middle school, and shortly thereafter the tics returned. They’ve presented as eye blinking, nose wrinkling, and a funny little mouth stretch (for lack of a better term). While we kept hoping they’d go away, they haven’t.

We’re now pushing six months, our eleven year old has turned twelve, and there have been no signs of improvement. Since this is by far the longest he’s had them, we decided to have him checked out.

After evaluating him, the doctor recommended two possible pharmaceutical solutions. I should note here that, in addition to the tics, he’s rather high strung, and we’ve also been having some issues with his aggression toward his brothers.

Lexapro vs. Intuniv

The two options that we were given were Lexapro (escitalopram) and Intuniv (guanfacine; the time release version of Tenex). Lexapro is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is often prescribed as an anti-depressant. This would help with his anxiety, and could also reduce the incidence of his tics.

Intuniv, on the other hand, is an alpha-2-adrenergic agent that is often prescribed for ADHD, and is also thought to be effective in treating tics. After a good bit of research, as well as consultation with our family practitioner, we decided to go with the Intuniv.

He started on a 1mg/day dose for the first week, going up to 2mg/day this week, and 3mg/day next week. We’ll then take him back in to get checked out by the doctor. While we still haven’t seen an effect, we’re still ramping up to therapeutic levels. I’ll update when we know more.

Real-world side effects of Intuniv

While our son hasn’t been on Intuniv for very long, we have noticed some minor side effects. For example, he’s had a bit of an upset stomach and reduced appetite, especially since we increased the dosage to 2mg/day. He’s also been more tired than normal, and has been waking up at night and having trouble falling back asleep.

We just picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 digital camera for my lovely and talented wife. This new camera is a replacement of her old Casio Exilim EX-S600, which has been acting up over the past few months and appears to have ultimately died after less than three years of service.

Panasonic Lumix ZS3 review

In short, the Lumix ZS3 is a fantastic camera. It has a large (3 inch) LCD display, 10.1 megapixel resolution, 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, and it also records HD video. Very impressive, especially for the price.

Image quality is great, and the camera is very intuitive. It even has a fully-automatic mode that automatically recognizes your shooting conditions and switches between macro, landscape, portrait, sports, etc. so you don’t have to (unless you want to).

Also, if you’re trying to take shots of active subjects (like little kids), it has a nice focus lock that latches onto the subject and keeps them in focus no matter where they move within the frame. Very cool.

The ZS3 also has a little brother, known as the Lumix ZS1, which likewise shoots 10.1 megapixel pictures, but sports a slightly smaller display (2.7 inches, and records standard definition (640 x 480) video. For the price difference (about $60 on Amazon), the ZS3 is a no-brainer in my book.

Accessories for your Lumix ZS3 (or ZS1)

If you’re look for a great case to go along with either the ZS1 or ZS3, check out the Tamrac 5691 camera case. The main pocket is just right for the camera itself, and the outer pocket fits the battery charger perfectly.

As far as memory cards go, both the ZS1 and ZS3 use either regular or high capacity SD memory cards. We went with an 8GB card, which is likely way more space then we’ll need.

Am I the only one who loves the smell of Halloween candy? No matter what you’ve collected while out trick-or-treating, it always smells the same when you stick your nose in the bag.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, go take a whiff of the Halloween candy that your kids just collected. It’s amazing. It’s also virtually impossible to describe — sort of an emergent property that arises whenever you combine multiple types of candy in a small space.

Mmmmm… The sweet smell of Halloween candy… In this case, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

Ready for a family movie night? Our local Publix grocery store recently replaced their MovieCube kiosks with Blockbuster Express kiosks. Movies are $1/night, just like RedBox, and the selection is actually pretty good.

Even better, there are a number of Blockbuster Express promo codes out there floating around. What follows is a list of codes that I’ve run across…

Blockbuster promo codes

(updated 11/23/09)

• OCTOBER (One free overnight rental; expires 10/31/09???)
• PTPX91X (One free overnight rental; expires 10/31/09)
• G29RA3 (One free overnight rental; expires 11/04/09)
• GW9RA4 (One free overnight rental; expires 11/04/09)
• GER9A2 (One free overnight rental; expires 11/11/09)
• GSNX9X8 (One free overnight rental; expires 11/15/09)
• PUBLIX1 (One free overnight rental; expires 11/25/09)
• PUBLIX2 (Rent one, get one free; expires 11/25/09)
• NOVEMBER (One free overnight rental; expires 11/30/09)
• GU9SA (Rent one, get one free; expires 12/2/09)
• G29SA1 (One free overnight rental; expires 12/3/09)
• PUBLIX3 (One free overnight rental; expires 12/21/09)
• KIOSK (One free overnight rental; expires expires 2/1/10)

Note that I haven’t tested all of these promo codes (yet), but the ones that I’ve used have worked perfectly. As far as I’m aware, these codes are good at any location so, you may even be able to use the “Publix” promo codes at Blockbuster kiosks in non-Publix locations. Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth a shot.

Oh, and one more thing… Yes, it seems that you can use these codes more than once as long as you use a different credit card — or at least that’s how it’s been working so far. Once again, YMMV.

As I write this, there’s a guy cleaning the carpet in the other room, and I’m starting to lose hope…

Ink on the carpet…

Six or eight weeks ago, Son #4 (currently four years old) went through a scribbling phase. He scribbled on the door frame and his desk with a pencil (no big deal), he scribbled on the hardwood floor with a black Sharpie (despite being “permanent,” it eventually came off), and he scribbled on the carpet in his bedroom with (supposedly) washable markers.

Unfortunately, we got sidetracked and didn’t get around to cleaning the marker off the carpet until today. My wife started out trying to clean one of the spots with Resolve. When that didn’t work, she called a local carpet cleaner. They were actually able to make it out here this afternoon, but the last I checked, the news wasn’t good.

…and it won’t come out

The worst of the scribbles are in the dead center of the room, and the steam cleaner was unable to make a dent in them. When I walked in the door from work, the cleaning guy was telling my wife that he was going to try a “heavy duty” cleaner, but that he suspected our son had gotten his hands on permanent markers.

We dug the markers out and, sure enough, they said “Washable” right there on the barrel. I’m guessing that what they really mean by “Washable” is more along the lines of “Washable, but if (and only if) you take care of the problem immediately.” We didn’t, and we might now have to live with the consequences.

Update: The carpet cleaner managed to make the stain fade, but the ink is still there, and it’s still fairly obvious. Oh well, I guess this is just something else to help us remember the “Terrible Fours.” Lesson learned… If you want to remove “Washable” ink from carpet, you should start cleaning immediately. If not, it will magically morph into permanent ink.