Dear Readers,

I wanted to take a moment and let you know about some big changes we will be making to MomTalk to improve the overall experience for you.

This Tuesday, March 8, we will unveil a new look for all of our blogs. The new design has several exciting features, including:

• Author spotlights
• Improved search
• Improved navigation
• Monthly themes
• More health information you can use
• Shorter posts on the homepage, meaning visibility to more posts on one page

We will also be introducing two new blogs: JustKiddin’, a blog for moms of elementary schoolers, and Middleville, a blog for moms of middle schoolers. Debuting Tuesday, these two blogs replace TweenBeat, which as you know currently spans both school age ranges. We hope that each blog will better align with your children’s educational experiences and be more relevant for parents in these different stages. Not to worry – your favorite TweenBeat bloggers will still be here, they’ll just be blogging for JustKiddin’ instead. Look for them Tuesday!

Additionally, we will be extending TummyTime to cover pregnancy through the first year. We hope this will help moms who are expecting share experiences, conversation and dialogue with moms who are going through the first year of baby’s life. This change means CuddleBugs will focus exclusively on Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers.

Later in the week we will be unveiling a new look for MomTalk. The updates will place more emphasis on groups, as well as the forums & discussion threads. By focusing the experience on the conversations happening between moms, we hope MomTalk will become a better place for moms in the area to connect, share and discuss.

Please note that in order to bring you the changes each of the blogs will be down for an hour or two starting late Monday afternoon and into Monday evening. We apologize in advance for this disruption, but hope that when you return to the blogs on Tuesday morning you will be as excited about the changes as we are.

If you have any questions or comments about the changes, please feel free to email us.

Enjoy the weekend!
Theckla & the entire MomTalk team

Are you a mom of a middle schooler (or two)?  Onslow Memorial Hospital is recruiting women who would like to share their experiences raising children in middle school, and lead conversations about parenting with other women in the community.

The ideal author will be willing to share stories about their families and discuss their thoughts and feelings about how their children are growing, what it means to be a parent of growing children, struggles as a parent, the best things about raising children and the things our children do that make us all laugh, cry and sometimes cringe!

This is an exciting, paid opportunity and we’re looking for someone with passion, dedication and the skill set to keep a blog lively, timely and relevant to parents who will be following the blog. Previous blogging, journalism or PR experience is helpful but not necessary.

If you are interested in joining our team, please click here to apply today!

Photograph by Thomas Brock and his trusty iPhone

This is the third in my series of holiday gift guides. The first was on electronics and the second on books. This one covers board games.

I’ll admit that board games really aren’t my favorite things. But Mini and AM enjoy them, so, I suffer through. I prefer to get games with some educational value these days.

Apples to Apples is a game based on comparisons. Each player gets a set of cards and has to choose and justify the best comparisons. I want to get this game, or it’s “junior” variant, to help Mini develop good reasoning and analytical skills.

In a Pickle is another game of comparison. In this game, each player gets cards and has to make judgments on the relationships of each item. I’m hoping this game will help Mini understand how different objects relate with each other.

Scrabble Apple is Scrabble in an apple bag. Mini enjoys Scrabble and I like that the game helps her develop a strong vocabulary. The small bag makes storing the game pieces easy and there’s no giant board with which to deal.

Lastly, there’s Monopoly. There’s a half-million different versions of Monopoly these days, everything from sports teams versions to movie versions to some sort of electronic version that doesn’t have paper money (Seems evil, but that’s just me…). The Monopoly Championship edition is the version for us. It’s the same as all the other Monopoly versions, but comes with a family championship trophy. Monopoly teaches strategy and basic money management. The trophy adds a little competition and gives Mini something she can take home…If she wins, that is…

Games are a great way to spend time with your family. There’s a minimum investment and the return is hours of fun and a little education.

Do your Tweens enjoy board games? Do you plan on getting any for Christmas? What are your favorites? Ask questions, share your ideas and ask questions in the comments.

The New York Times published quite the interesting article this week relating to Disney’s Baby Einstein brand of electronic media (VHS, DVD, CD) which were marketed as tools to make your children smarter by plopping them in front of a television or stereo playing them.

It turns out that the efficacy of these videos is still unproven (even though the line has been available for over ten years!) and some (most notably the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, less so myself) have said using them really isn’t a great idea and Disney is now offering refunds.

I’ve never been a fan of sitting Mini in front of a movie or video, though I confess to having done it, though it was more for a “five-minutes-to-do-something” break than a “get smart quick” scheme.

Now that Mini is in 4th grade, it’s important to me to not let her get sucked into the vortex of television and online programming that’s less than educational. She reads (Greg Heffley’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series’ are current favorites) and listens to audiobooks (J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series) quite a bit. We play games, though I will say boardgames aren’t my favorite things.

We go places, too. And not just the park or the mall…We go to aquariums (Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, SC and the local N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores), we visit museums (there’s a lovely history of Onslow County at the Onslow County Museum in Richlands) and, though Mini doesn’t know it, we’ll be making a trip to the N.C. Zoo at Asheboro soon. The hope is that these interactive and engaging activities will help Mini develop a curious mind and interest in the world around her.

The only way to get your kids smart(er) is to actively engage them in activities. Reading and writing, playing games and having honest-to-goodness-conversations will do more than any 30-minute DVD of pretty colors and soothing music, I can promise you. It’s activities and interaction that will make children smart.

What activities do you use to help your child develop thinking skills? How do you feel about the Baby Einstein products? Share your questions, ideas and experiences in the comments.