Tina he's 4. He uses my iphone all the time just as maddie mentioned her family was using their ipad. He also watches movies and shows on the ipod when we travel. It's much nicer to bring a slim and light weight piece to the restaurant or on a plane than having to bring a dvd player. I don't like him using such a small screen though because I don't think it's great for his eyes. Plus he loves the kid calc games on the iphone (math puzzles) so they're a great distractor on trips. He does not treat my phone as a toy, and this wouldn't be any different, but as with any small kiddo, he does have grubby hands sometimes :) And I don't like the grub on my phone. I'm just having a hard time swallowing the 800 price tag for the one with the most memory! I'd love to buy the cheaper one and then be able to use his Ipod to supliment our memory for movies and shows. I guess that has to wait. I may go ahead and get a cheaper one just to try it out and get him a new DVD player that has an Ipod dock again. We seem to go through one a year because those are sort of delicate, hence my want to switch to the pad. Thanks for the information everyone :)

I love this post. I read so much as a kid, I remember throwing down a spare mattress on our basement floor (where I could find some peace and quiet from my large and loud family) and reading entire books in one sitting. My favorites: The Secret Garden The Boxcar Children A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Little House in the Prairie series Charlotte's Web (also loved Stuart Little and Trumpet of the Swan, I still all three of my originals, it was a set). Loved all the Ramona Quimby books. Choose your Own Adventure books...the where you get decide which route to take in the book, and each one leads you to a different ending. Many more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I still have a bunch of books from my childhood. My Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes is another favorite.

When I was in school, 30-40 per class was very normal. And I feel fortunate that I was in large classes. Teachers cared about teaching and we came out able to read, write, punctuate and construct at least a semi-coherent sentence, add, subtract, multiply and divide, and all without having to use a computer or calculator. Oh, and you'd better show your work! Unfortunately I'd lose credit because I could add two or three two-digit numbers in my head. Today it seems like, unless they had a calculator, kids would have to take off their shoes and drop their pants to count to 21! I worked for a school district for seven years and watched the decline of education. It was disgusting. Seems to me we need to start cutting education funding. Make them do more instead of have more. Concentrate on teaching instead of babysitting. An analog clock was a teaching device in years past, but can't do that anymore. Can kids tell time unless it's digital? A GOOD teacher is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, there's getting to be so few. And of course the lack of parenting further complicates things and makes for a vicious circle. I can forgive teachers being frustrated when they're not allowed to teach, or when they're expected to do things they shouldn't have to be doing. But when they're more concerned about more time off (from a six month job), than doing what they're supposed to, I start becoming annoyed. And yes, drugging the kids because they refuse to parent. Everyone has to have an excuse these days. They're not brats, they're ADD, and so on and so on. And I'm so sick of this I'm not going to raise my kids like my parents raised me... I got (insert discipline here)... Better stop here before the FGs throw a temper tantrum.

Aw - too bad your folks did that. I remember coming to the dinner table in tears; I'd been reading Grapes of Wrath, I was 11, and it was just way too much for me. My dad took it from me and asked me to wait a bit before I went back for it. It helped calm me a bit and gave us a chance to talk. Then he let me finish it. I don't think they ever censored anything I read. I remember reading a book about Pompei, but I was older. Very unsettling, but even more so as an adult when I got to see the remains at the Naples Archaeology Museum, and of course seeing Pompei itself. Wow.