Today Olive treated me to the best Mother’s Day present ever — a scavenger hunt of her own design. She started me off in the hall and handed me my first handwritten clue on a piece of paper cut out with her fancy zig-zag scissors. The next clue could be found where I sleep.

I love this clue. “Go where art is most.” Poetry. The next clue was wedged in the shelves where we keep her art supplies.

This was an easy one. In the kitchen I found another clue to go where the balls are kept.

The top of the toy piano has a basket where all of her headbands are kept. There in the headbands was the final clue telling me that I’m so close. All I had left to do was root around in the closet and find the gift that was wedged in behind the sled.

Inside were two cards (love the portrait of me sitting atop the M in ‘Mother’s Day’) and coupons where Olive has generously offered to clean the house and make lunch. “With help,” it was later added. I love the handmade gift, but most of all, I loved the scavenger hunt. A mama game designer couldn’t be more proud.

Best Mother’s Day ever!

My review piles are starting to get to Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout-proportions, so expect some round-ups in coming weeks across a variety of categories. Today’s round-up is all about gorgeous picture books that focus on the imagination and creativity of kids.

The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer

In this beautifully illustrated book, a girl named Luna collects words the way some people collects stamps. The words that she collects sprinkle through the page, sometimes looking like stamped letters or collage or fireflies in a jar. She collected all of these words, but then started to notice that the words were starting to disappear. People were just too busy and they didn’t think that the words were important anymore., so Luna packed her bag and went on a journey to spread her words where there was hate or loneliness or sadness. Amazing what a difference beautiful language can make. I love the fractured look of the text as it tucks in and out of the page, but the publisher must have been worried that they were too hard for readers to assemble, so the last spread of the book reiterates the text of the book.

An Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton

I remember hearing about An Awesome Book when it circled the Internet what seems like ages ago, but never really spent time with it until recently, when the author sent me a copy. (You can also read it online along with his other awesome book.) It’s a bit like The Word Collector. It bleakly explains that some people don’t dream of rocket-powered unicorns. No, they dream of things like furniture and matching silverware. Ugh, can you imagine? Surely not, because you’re awesome, too, right? You totally dream of dancing wild animals with diamond-coated wings, right? This book is a great reminder that dreaming big can change the world. Say, it would make an awesome graduation present!

Martin on the Moon by Marine Audet, illustrated by Luc Melanson

Martin sits in class on the first day, noticing things about his brand new school. At first it’s ordinary stuff like how the girl in front of him would look like his friend Athena if she had braids, or how his new teacher has hair like his cat. Soon his daydreams and memories take over, like the river he knew so well and the poetry his Mum Mum writes. He tries so hard to concentrate but he ends up on the moon. This book is translated from the French, and it has a lovely poetic quality as Martin makes it through his first day of school.

Little Lamb, Have You Any Wool? by Isabel Minhos Martins, illustrated by Yara Kono.

“Little lamb, little lamb, have you any wool?” is the question a boy asks of his sheep so he may have wool to make a sweater. Soon he’s asking for more and more wool to make a scarf… and a hat… and a coat… and mittens… and socks so that he won’t be cold. Soon he realizes that the sheep might get cold, too, so he uses the wool to make those things for the sheep as well. Martins has written a very sweet story, but it’s really Yara Kono’s illustrations that make this book for me, wonderfully simple and textural and adorable.

If All the Animals Came Inside by Eric Pinder, illustrated by Marc Brown

I had first mentioned this book when hearing about Little Brown’s spring lineup, and now a copy of the book has come inside our home. A boy imagines with glee what would happen if his house filled with wild animals. Sure, his sisters and parents wouldn’t like it, but he would! The bouncy verse has him riding elephants, playing hide and seek with monkeys, and racing with an ostrich and giraffe. Each verse ends with a variation on, “The walls would tremble. The dressers would shake. Oh, what a terrible mess we would make!” Soon the boy realizes that having a house full of animals could have its drawbacks, too. Marc Brown (yes, the Marc Brown of Arthur fame) brings the animals to life in a wild style that mixes textural paintings with photographic elements in a really lively way. This book is happy-making.

“Hey,” my husband said from the next room, “Maurice Sendak died.”

I burst into tears. Even as I write this, I can’t stop crying.

Like so many, Where the Wild Things Are is my favorite picture book and has been since I was a kid. But it’s more than that. Few people are as influential on my work as Maurice Sendak is.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to work on an adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. Through almost all of the project, I didn’t have any interaction with Sendak himself, but it was a labor of love for everyone involved. When the project finally made its way in front of Maurice Sendak, he was happy with the animation but did not like our narration at all. Too soft. Too safe. On one unforgettable day, I found myself on a conference call with Maurice Sendak. Regarding children, he growled:

You gotta scare the shit out of them.

That comment planted itself like a seed in my brain, and a forest grew. While I haven’t fully gone over to the scare-the-shit-out-of-kids camp, I’ve grown to question our collective desire to make media overly safe, overly explained, and overly familiar for kids. I think everyone needs a little bit of Maurice Sendak ringing in their ears.

Maurice Sendak, my words and my tears cannot adequately express how much I’m going to miss having you around.

Today is Cinco de Mayo which means that my boy is turning 2! While Ozzie isn’t quite capable of being interviewed, we conferred as a family to decide what we thought his favorite things of the past year were.

Favorite Book

For pretty much the whole year, Ozzie’s been obsessed with the Priddy Books’ giant First 100 Words book, handed down from Olive. It’s really helped him to develop some new words as he names the objects and animals. Mostly, though, he just likes looking at the pictures of the other babies. If Ozzie heads to the bookshelf saying, “Baby! Baby!” we know what he’s after.

A close runner up of late is Trains Go. Ozzie loves it when the train goes whooooooooosh.

Favorite TV Show

I thought it was curious that one of Ozzie’s early words was ‘Abba’. It turns out, he didn’t mean the Swedish supergroup but rather Yo Gabba Gabba. I informed him early on that he must like that show because I wanted to keep watching it. Fortunately, he really likes it all on his own. And like mom, he likes Brobee the best.

Favorite Toy

This category was a close call, because he spent a lot of time with Skylee and with his LeapFrog My Own Story Time. But we decided the favorite was really his Wedgits. It’s marvelous that a building toy we got for Olive has so much appeal for both her and her baby brother. They’re great for toddler building, but allow for some cool creativity for older builders.

Favorite Museum

I’m glad to say that our little guy has been to quite a few museums, but the one he seems to like the best is the American Museum of Natural History, particularly in the Hall of Gems and Minerals. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it’s a toddler wonderland. It’s a dark room with lots of lit up rocks to look at, but more importantly, there’s an endless sea of carpeted stairs to crawl around on.

Favorite App

Interestingly, despite what I do for a living, Ozzie hasn’t spent much time with apps. That decision was mainly to protect the iPad from being tossed across the room, but also because Ozzie didn’t show a lot of interest. A couple of weeks ago, though, something seemed to click in his baby brain and he understood the basics of how to interact. He likes Koi Pond now even more than when he was a baby. Some days Koi Pond is the only way we can get a diaper changed.

In second place is the close, personal relationship he has with Siri.

Favorite Music

The boy loves OK Go. Rarely does a day go by when we don’t watch one of their videos on YouTube. The points of entry for Ozzie were the Muppet video and the dog video, but lately we’ve been enjoying some of their other work, particularly the video and song for “End Love”.

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!

One trend I’m starting to see is in the uptick of subscription services for kids. There are more and more digital services, and now a bunch of different subscription-based services that will send your kid a box of stuff every month. The latest of these is Wonder Box, brought to you by the folks at Education.com.

Wonder Box is full of goodies for your 3 to 6-year-old, with attention to skills surrounding Kindergarten readiness. Saying that makes it sound more school-y than it is; the projects are really rooted in creativity.

Each month focuses on a different theme. Olive and I were given the first available box to try out, the Once Upon a Time box. It came fully loaded with everything we needed to complete the activities: a customizable cape with fabric crayons, a puppet with precut shapes and glue, story cards, and a stone soup book where the illustrations could be colored and added to.

Olive was most excited about the story cape. She named herself Super Flower and made her own insignia using the crayons.

The puppet was a hit as well, and the Wonder Box itself can be used to create a puppet theater. Each activity comes with a card for parents with suggestions on how they can gently bring some preK learning into the creative experience, like sorting out and naming the shapes while making the puppet. It’s an approach I believe is just right for preschoolers–let the learning flow naturally instead of hitting them over the head with it.

The story cards come in a great, durable, purse-ready case, and are like Rory’s Story Cubes in card form, great to pull out when you’re on the go.

Olive, who’s about to turn 7, is on the old side of the Wonder Box age group, but she still had a blast with it. I can easily imagine how excited she’d be to have a box arrive each month, getting to be surprised by the contents.

That said, Wonder Box isn’t a cheap monthly proposition. Subscriptions start at $24.99/month if you buy an annual subscription, but go up to $29.99/month for shorter subscription terms. Single boxes are not available. None of that is to say that Wonder Box isn’t a good value. I believe it is. The materials are high quality, the packaging is lovely, and if you were to buy the equivalent of all of the contents you’d easily be spending that amount if not more.

I’d be curious to hear from all of you if you’d be open to paying for subscription services like Wonder Box. Or, would you make a gift request out of it?

In April I definitely had Skylanders on the brain.

“If I Were a Skylanders” Writing Contest - I told you about this last month, but I’m linking again to provide some context for the amazing winning entries.

Birthday Week: Conquer Kaos with a Skylanders Birthday Party – We had a great birthday-themed week at GeekMom, and I brainstormed a Skylanders party for Olive who seems fixated on the idea. Also as part of birthday week we saw Stealth Elf cupcakes. I’m trying to decide between those and a portal cake.

Caine’s Amazing Arcade – If for some reason you’ve missed the video that spread like wildfire over the interwebs, go now to watch the amazing story of Caine’s Arcade. I’ve also just learned that Caine’s Arcade has been shipped to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Fingers crossed for a NYC stop! I want a fun pass.

Last night I schlepped out to the fragrant Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn so that I could play fangirl to the best of kids’ music at the kickoff of a three-day family music conference called Kindiefest. Cocktail in hand, I tried to play it cool. Soon it felt like I was at the sidelines of the Kindie red carpet. A flash of pink tutus told me The Not-Its had entered the room. Look over there! Bari Koral is talking to Ashley Albert of The Jimmies! Then in walks Dan Zanes’s hair, escorting the wonderfully talented Dan Zanes. What’s up, Hipwaders? And, could it be…? It is! Recess Monkey has entered the building.

But my super fangirl swoonfest was saved for the Friday night keynote given by Scott Schultz, creator of Yo Gabba Gabba and The Aquabats Super Show. I’ve often joked that I had another kid just to have a reason to keep watching Yo Gabba Gabba, so it was a real treat to hear Scott Schultz talk about the genesis of the idea and how it then came to be in my living room.

He identified his aha moment as sitting with his one-year-old watching TV, and thinking about the large spectrum of music not being provided in kids’ TV. He and Christian Jacobs quit their jobs and went full speed ahead to create a show, thinking they’d make an Aquabats show. Soon that was playing second fiddle to Yo Gabba Gabba, which they realized should be first out of the gate.

Schultz showed Yo Gabba Gabba in its earliest iteration, a crazy weird sizzle reel that they made in their garage. I wish this was online so that everyone could see it. The early Muno and Brobee costumes were monster costumes that provided foes for The Aquabats. It’s like the Yo Gabba Gabba  you know and love, but weirder. They knew they could never pitch a show that weird (Schultz used the word ‘weird’ as much in his keynote as I’m using here), so they fundraised among friends to the tune of a hundred grand and made their own pilot. That’s the very pilot that caused me to end my no-TV-until-age-2 rule with Olive.

I still say bravo to Nickelodeon for picking up this show that broke the conventional wisdom of kids’ TV and letting it be the show Schultz and friends set out to make. As Schultz said, “We really bent some brains.” Bravo also to The Hub for giving Aquabats a home. And now, bravo to music video channel Vevo for giving the new Strange Island a home. While not a kids’ show, I can’t wait to see what else springs from these minds. Check out the madness:

This Keynote was great inspiration for every doing creative work. Schultz outlined steps on his road to success, and it’s a great list to keep tucked away in your creative brain: have flexible expectations, be opent to inspiration, make magic, find the believers, and move forward.

Back on music that IS for kids, Kindiefest is going on for one more day. If you’re anywhere near Brooklyn tomorrow, get yourself to Littlefield, and awesome venue that will be showcasing the likes of Bari Koral, SteveSongs, Apple Brains, and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s WeBop.

I first fell in love with Tegu magnetic wooden blocks at the 2011 Toy Fair. We love all forms of magnetic building toys in our house, and these blocks in natural hardwoods feel amazing in your hands. The kids got the Tegu 22-piece set for Christmas, but they don’t build as much as I thought they would with them. It would be amazing to have a few more of those sets to open up more options, but that comes as a hefty price tag at 60 bucks a set.

Enter the new Tegu Prism Pocket Pouch. I was thrilled when Tegu said they’d send me one to try out, because I’d been eying their other travel pouch. Like their other blocks, these prisms are eco-friendly and paint-free. It may be my imagination, or it may have something to do with size and shape, but the magnets feel stronger in these. Where we feel lacking in the rectangular sets, six prism pieces is all we need to be occupied for hours. They lend themselves, as tangrams do, to pictorial shapes. Look a duck! A rocket! A house!

We also have a great deal of metal furniture in the house, and Ozzie has discovered building and playing vertically. When we build on my metal desk, we can create gravity-defying shapes because they’re magnetically anchored.

Yesterday we tried them in the wild for the first time. We’re pretty lax about screen time in this house, but one place where I hate having it is at the dinner table. Having compelling non-screen entertainment for a restaurant is hard to find, particularly for Ozzie. The Tegu blocks kept him going for a while. It worked out well that the edge of the restaurant table was metal for him to continue his battle with gravity.

When the prism blocks aren’t in the diaper bag, they live on my desk. They’re quite soothing to play with during conference calls. I could see getting them for kids of all different ages, as well as for office gifts. They’re worth the $30 price tag because of how much you can do with this perfect, compact set. Add to that Tegu’s mission of job creation, sustainable forestry, and the funding of education in Honduras, and you have all of the reasons why the Tegu Prism Pocket Pouch gets the Media Macaroni Seal of Approval.

When Olive was three, she was hooked on BrainPop on the computer. Much as she loved it, I wasn’t ready to shell out the $99 to subscribe to Brainpop so that she could watch all of the videos on the site. Gradually, she exhausted the supply of free online videos and moved onto other things.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago when I noticed that there was a BrainPop iPad app. She’s at a better age for the content now (it was a wee precocious for a three-year-old to watch the stuff), so I thought I’d give it a try. The app is free to download, then just like the website, there are a handful of free videos but a subscription is required to have access to everything. The difference here is instead of paying a hundred bucks up front, there are options to pay $1.99/month or $6.99/month to unlock more content.

Once Olive noticed the app was on the iPad, she started watching the videos again. Ever time she had the iPad on I heard the familiar beeping of Moby the Robot. She answered with an emphatic yes when I asked her if she was interested in subscribing. So, what the heck, I went all-in at the $6.99 rate. So far, it’s been totally worth the money. As with when she was younger, she seems to be obsessed with the medical stuff, watching videos about degenerative diseases and what happens when you die from a scientific perspective. Either she’s got some dark stuff she’s thinking about, or we need to kick our med school savings program into high gear.

The timing for getting hooked on BrainPop again has been fortuitous in unfortunate times. You see, Ozzie broke his arm last weekend. He’s a trooper and doing fine, but the situation has been causing some worry. BrainPop to the rescue! Olive did a search on broken bones and was able to watch all about them and how they heal.

BrainPop videos do an excellent job of distilling really complex subjects into videos that are totally understandable to kids. I’m happy that Olive is choosing to spend some of her precious iPad time watching these videos. The monthly rate seems worth it for us. Sure, if we subscribe for a year we’re getting awfully close to that hundred dollar mark, but at least this way we have the flexibility to cancel.

Usually when Olive and I make our own fashion shows, we use a combination of Groovy Girls and art supplies (generally lots and lots of colored tape). Now Chronicle Books has given us a new way to create a show, runway and everything!

Rosie Flo’s Fashion Show is a box filled with fashion goodies. The first thing Olive seized upon were the invitations, inviting everyone in the family to her green-themed fashion show. (She started this around St. Patrick’s Day.) Then she started in on the designs.

There are two different types of paper dolls, one set of fashionable spectators and one set of models to walk the runway. The fashions are fashionable to start, but there’s lots of room for your young designer to add his or her inspiration. Check out Olive’s goth look for spring.

Then there’s the venue itself. The whole thing folds up into a neoclassical fashion wonderland. There are fold up chairs for your runway guests, and a crowd of onlookers that can also be customized. Now we need to make mini Michael Kors and Nina Garcia.

The level of detail and amount of things do do will keep your designer busy for hours. There’s even a backstage area to design. Plus, the finish product becomes a reusable playset perfect for Fashion Week.

We were provided a review copy of Rosie Flo’s Fashion Show.