October 31, 2006

Halloween Urban Legends

It’s Halloween — you know what that means, don’t you? That’s right, ’tis the season for razor blades and needles in apples and poison in candy. Or is it? According to Dr. Joel Best of the University of Delaware, “I can’t find any evidence that any children have been hurt or killed by any contaminated candy that was picked up trick-or-treating.” And he should know… He’s been researching trick-or-treating since 1958. In fact, he dug back through 40 years of newspaper archives and databases. While he turned up a few cases that were originally linked to trick-or-treating, these links later turned out to be erroneous — like a dad who poisoned his own kid’s candy with cyanide to cash in on the life insurance back in 1974. Nice. Real nice.

[Source: Rocky Mount Telegram]

October 27, 2006

Carnivals - Week of 10/23/06

Raising4Boys participated in two carnivals this week. Here they are with links to our articles that were included in each.

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar.” Also included was “Withdrawing Funds From Upromise” from fivecentnickel.com.

The Best of Me Symphony included “Fun With Dry Ice.” Also included was “Spending Money to Save Money” from fivecentnickel.com.

October 26, 2006

Playgroup Connections, Part Deux

I’ve written in the past about the importance of a playgroup in my life. When we first moved here at the beginning of the summer, I didn’t know any moms in the area, and I didn’t know about any play groups. Thus, I took matters into my own hands and decided to start one myself. [more]

October 25, 2006

Kid Quote: Coke, Caffeine, Fries and Ketchup

Overheard while our 23 month old was chatting it up in the midst of our post-soccer McDonald’s feast:

“Coke. Coke. Caffeine. Caffeine. Fries. Ketchup. Ketchup.”

Needless to say, we are so proud.

(And no, we don’t actually let our kids drink Coke, or anything else with caffeine in it.)

October 24, 2006

Crazy for Care Bears

Our four year old has a passion for Care Bears, so I recently bought him “Perfect Panda” to add to his collection. This set off an obsession with the little furry guys. One morning, he retreated to his room for quite some time. It eventually dawned on me that he had been quiet for too long. You know that revelation… quiet, out of my sight, too long. What was he getting into? [more]

October 20, 2006

Reclaim Your Weekends

Remember back before you had kids, when weekends were actually relaxing? Nowadays, it seems like weekends around our house are even busier than weekdays. While we try to be sensitive to the possibility of overscheduling our kids (and ourselves), things tend to add up quickly when you have four young’uns. With that in mind, check out this list of nine ways to reclaim your weekends… [more]

Kid Joke: Young Bull

Q: What is a bull before he grows up? [more]

October 18, 2006

Kid Quote: An Angry Mom

Overheard at the end of our six year old’s most recent soccer game…

“Dad, did you see me? I was running so fast it was like an angry mom was chasing me!”

No, not an angry mob. An angry mom. Hmmm… I wonder where he gets stuff like that?

October 17, 2006

Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar

I’ve been thinking about ways to teach our kids more about the value of money. When it comes to such abstract notions, we’ve found that it’s far better to give them a bit of real world experience than it is to just talk to them. So… When we went out to a local pizza joint awhile back I decided to make it a “teachable moment.” [more]

October 16, 2006

The Best of R4B - Selections from 07/06

Time to dig into the archives yet again… Here are some of our favorite posts from the month of July…

07/07/2006Birth Order, Brothers, and Homosexuality
07/10/2006Kid Hack: Popsicles in the Tub
07/14/2006Monitoring the Sex Offender Registry
07/19/2006Remember the 80s?
07/21/2006Pregnancy, Sex and Labor
07/24/2006Cool Summer Activities
07/26/2006Fun With Dry Ice
07/28/2006Dinnertime Conversation

And here’s a rundown of what was happening at FiveCentNickel during July…

07/06/2006Cell Phone Overages - A Hidden Cost of Moving
07/07/2006Great Sprint PCS Service (and a 10% Discount)
07/10/2006Buying Home Depot 10% Discount Coupons on eBay
07/12/2006Bank of America’s “Out of State” Check Policy
07/14/2006Five Ways to Hurt Your Credit Score
07/17/2006Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
07/20/2006(In)Convenience Fees
07/24/2006Earn Interest on Your PayPal Balance
07/24/2006Emigrant Direct’s Online Incompetence
07/26/2006Pre-Paying our Mortgage
07/28/2006Refrigerators, Usable Space, and the Art of Overstatement