I took my kids to the park last night after dinner. There are a few parks in the area, but we went to one that is a bit of a long walk, and geared towards younger kids. My 3-year old loves the baby swings and always asks me to give her an “underdog”.

Anyway, as we showed up we saw this INCREDIBLE amount of bubble floating around the playground. Turns out they were coming from a bubble machine that one of the Mom’s brought to the park. All of the kids were flocked around this thing chasing the bubbles. They were having an absolute blast.

I checked out the machine because it looked like so much fun. It looked like this one here. This is definitely something I’m going to look for in my local toy store. Unfortunately Amazon doesn’t ship this stuff to Canada yet. I read the reviews and it seems to be pretty popular. There are also some cheaper options available, but those ones seemed to break sooner based on reviews I read.

This week I bought myself a new toy. I’m a big gadget fan and I love to buy new electronics. But this time the “toy” has a real family purpose!

Check out this quick video I made with the Kodak Zi8. It was shot in 720P high definition video and snappily edited in iMovie ’09 on my Mac.

I bought the Kodak Zi8 HD Camcorder as a replacement for my 5-year old bulky Mini DV camera. Camcorders have come SO far in the last few years! The old one had better optics (a real 10x optical zoom lens) but in every other way, this new Kodak is better.

And it cost WAY less.

The Kodak Zi8 cost me $150 over at Amazon. If you live in the USA you can get it for even less (last time I checked it was $129 and available here).

I love the Zi8 because:

• It’s really compact. It is about the size of a BlackBerry. yet it has a HUGE screen!
• It can hold up to 32 Gigs of flash memory for hours of recording per card
• The picture quality is outstanding. I use 720p mode mostly.
• The “macro” mode allows close zoom-ups of objects
• A child can figure it out. I gave it to my kids to make movies of me and they were easily able to use it.

I’m not the type to show my kids in a public movie so instead I made some sample footage outside and slapped together a quick video to show you why I love this camera.

If you’ve been holding off, I really recommend this camera. It has awesome picture and better sound than the ever-popular Flip Mino HD
cameras.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. Recently a good friend of mine, who is also a BlackBerry user, told me about a new game that had been released. The game is called Baby GO!

How many times are you out shopping for groceries, and when you get in line your toddler becomes bored, and you wish you had something to keep him or her busy. Or how about Saturday morning … you just can’t seem to EVER have time to talk to your spouse while you both enjoy a hot cup of coffee! You know what I’m talking about! Your kids are asking for things constantly, and by the time you remember you had that cup of coffee waiting for you on the counter, it’s cold. Microwave time. Yuk.

The guys over at Zeebu Mobile came up with a really cool solution. Baby GO (free version) and Super Baby GO ($3.99) keeps your toddler occupied. You fire up the game, and give your BlackBerry to your child. No need to worry – they won’t be able to email your boss, or delete calendar appointments. The only keys that work while the game is active are numbers / letters.

The game is really simple – which is also why it is so effective. Kids press keys, and block letters or numbers appear along with a child’s voice recording, dictating the name of the character.

Head on over to BlackBerry App World to download it. The free version is … well … FREE. The paid version, should you choose to upgrade, is really quite cheap.

You’ll be thanking me for recommending this (and the folks at Zeebu for making it)

Now go enjoy that hot cup of coffee.

This past weekend, my wife and I were cleaning up the home office, where we have a couple of big bookshelves. She pulled down “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, which we had purchased before the birth of our first child. We sat there for a minute and just thought back to the good times and the excitement of expecting our first daughter.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend this book to any expecting Moms and Dads out there. It’s a great book. The author also has a website:

Helpful Parenting Tips from the bestselling author of “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”

The Author’s profile:
Heidi Murkoff knows that every day of your toddler’s life brings new experiences — from the wonderful (introducing crayons to your tot) to the joyful (buying that first pair of shoes) to the sometimes puzzling (where did that imaginary friend come from?). Here, she addresses your questions and concerns, like Switching From Crib to Bed, When to Start Learning ABCs, Why Toddlers Ask Why, and Teaching Toddlers Responsibility.

Complimentary
Like so many of the great parenting books on the market, the language skills that I teach parents, for dealing with the terrible twos, are highly complementary. I am a big believer in arming yourself with LOTS of tools for the job.