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Family Game Night and Recycling Old Games

The playing adult steps sideward into another reality;

the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.

Erik H. Erikson (American psychoanalyst)

We tend to make Saturday night family game night, although I will readily admit we lean towards the Wii games (I just cannot resist the siren call of the Just Dance and Rock Band titles). And, the last few weekends the Phillies have trumped everything– still watching as a family, though.

If weekly game night is a tradition you haven’t instituted yet, the beginning of the school year is a great time to start. Especially now as Jake enters his teen years, I think it’s important to have these rituals in place, so that if something specific isn’t planned staying home on a Saturday night (or inviting friends over) doesn’t seem like a horribly boring thing to do.

The third annual National Family Game Night is taking place on September 28th, and game guru Hasbro has a pretty sweet promotion running with Recyclebank: old games with too many missing parts, or that have just seen better days, can be traded-in and recycled for the month of September.

To make recycling easy (particularly on your wallet), Recyclebank will provide a printable, pre-paid mailing label.

Board games come with lots of different pieces and parts. Recyclebank has partnered with a Materials Recovery Facility to ensure that everything we receive will be disposed of in a professional manner by qualified personnel trained and skilled in the performance of the specific services involved and in accordance with applicable industry standards. If it’s recyclable, we’ll do right by it.

Pledge to continue to recycle games in the future, and you’ll earn 10 Recyclebank points towards redemption for gift cards and prizes.

(Reusing is even better than recycling, so if your game is pretty shipshape and capable of a few more miles, Hasbro has made it easy to order replacement pieces too. That’s assuming you can’t find what you need on Ebay or at a yard sale.)

THEN, you can head on over to the Hasbro site and print out up to $83 worth of coupons for new games (looks like the coupons expire 10/9/11). If you’re pretty well stocked up for now, buy ahead for Christmas. (It was exasperating trying to track down classic Battleship, Scrabble and Sorry last year during the holiday season.)

Know what I’d like to see? Libraries lending out board games, like they do computer games and DVDs. That way you could see if it’s age-appropriate or, you know, FUN before you fork over the cash. Games are more expensive that I remember… but I guess that’s true of many things.

Do you do family game night?
What’s your family’s favorite?

September 16, 2011
6 Ways to Volunteer and Give Back, With Kids
Thanks to Walgreens for sponsoring my writing. Help Walgreens help others! Visit their Facebook page here to learn about their charitable partners and decide which cause Walgreens will donate to with a quick vote.

No one is useless in this world
who lightens the burden of it for someone else.

–Benjamin Franklin

There’s a lot of worry out there.

I see headlines wondering about a double-dip recession. I know people in this area who are recovering from all the flooding that’s occurred these past few weeks, others who are going from a two-income family to a one-income family.

Meanwhile, donations are down when people need it most:
- Blood donations are down.
- Food kitchens are starving as food and money donations are down nationwide. Oh yeah, and food prices are rising.
- Salvation Army donations are down as much as 30 percent.
- You know what’s up? Unemployment, that’s what.
I get that people are feeling poor all over, but we need to bear two things in mind:

1. For 99.999999% of us: we have it better than someone else. Therefore we can afford to help that person, and

2. We are rich in proportion to the extent we can help others. You need to give of yourself to feel truly rich.

If your situation is such that every penny counts, there are ways to give to your community that don’t involve dipping into your bank account. Even better, these are real, tangible ways that can include your children.

(Perhaps, one day, we will look back on these hard times and acknowledge that they helped teach our kids lessons we didn’t have opportunity to learn, in our own youths.)
- Clean the outdoors. This can be as part of an organized community cleanup, an every-once-in-a-while effort, or you might decide to keep your block or a corner of your favorite park litter-free. Everyone benefits from a beautiful outdoors.
- Feed the hungry. Hold a food drive for your local food pantry, and prepare some land in your yard to “plant a row for the needy” next spring. Clip coupons for shelters and food banks.
- Give the gift of comfort. Collect blankets, comfort items and toiletries to donate to a women’s shelter, or collect books and toys for the children’s ward at the hospital. Some hospitals collect for care packages, and some will take volunteers to read to sick kids.
- Go mobile. Drop off Meals on Wheels for the elderly and housebound, and stay and visit for a while. Check with your local library, too. Mine has a program where volunteers drop off library books; you could see if anyone would like to be read to or might need a bit of a helping hand.
- Remember our four-legged friends. Animal shelters need towels, old stuffed animals, and pet food. They’re always looking for volunteers to walk, play with and clean after animals. Many pet stores have adoptable animals as well and could use donation items.
- Build something. Habitat for Humanity has programs that kids as young as five can help with.
Giving back to your community teaches kids responsibility, empathy, and communication and practical skills that will serve them well later in life.

But mostly, it shows them firsthand that one person really can make a difference.

If we as parents give our children opportunities to volunteer, give back, and see the difference they can make in people’s lives—

if we raise them to believe that is their duty, and privilege—

think what a world our children could build.

Don’t forget to help Walgreens help others! Visit their Facebook page here to learn about their charitable partners and decide which cause Walgreens will donate to with a quick vote. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.
September 15, 2011
Heelys: Concealed Wheels for the Well-Heeled Kid (or Mom)

Like how I throw my arms out for balance? That's how the cool kids roll.

I got a brand new pair of roller skates,
You got a brand new key.
I think that we should get together and try them out, to see …

-Melanie,
“The Rollerskate Song”

Here’s a little something you don’t know about me (unless you know me in real life, in which case you’ve heard about this plenty).

When I was younger, I took skating lessons. Roller skating and ice skating for years, and for one short season I played ice hockey. To this day that’s one of the things I’m most proud of, because I was a little kid. But tough. And a strong skater.

Ever since the things have arrived on the scene, I have secretly wanted a pair of Heelys. I miss skating, and if I’m being perfectly honest I really wanted to recreate that scene in Roxanne— when Steve Martin turns a lever on his shoes to reveal concealed wheels, and then roller skates through an art museum. Holla if you know what I’m talking about.

(I’m not the only one who thought to do that. Check these guys wearing their Heelys in the Louvre.)

So when asked if I’d like to test drive a pair and document it, I couldn’t say sign me UP! fast enough.

I really wanted to order this pair:

but Jeff and Jake wear the same shoe size that I do, and they were unwilling to let me hog all the fun to myself. I know. They suck all the fun out of life.

Turns out, you can’t just turn a lever and have a wheel pop out of the heel. Like Transformers in shoe form.

Maybe you knew that. I did not.

When the wheel is in, you have to kind of walk with your weight on your toes. I get now why they say kids aren’t allowed to wear them in school. BUT. You can pop the wheel out pretty easily using a provided “key” and put in a “heel plug” to wear the things as sneakers if desired. They’re not as comfortable as traditional skate shoes (skateboarding sneakers like Vans) but better than Converse.

But you wouldn’t want to, say, wear these with the heels in to Six Flags for the day, thinking you could get from place to place quickly. Standing in line on your toes for long periods of time would be tough on your ankles, I should think. If you were forward-thinking you could bring the key, I guess, and transfer back and forth, but I’m telling you right now: I’m too lazy for that.

Basically, they are SKATES that can be worn as sneakers. Not Transformers.

Heelys are an entirely different skillset than roller skating or ice skating and I’m a little embarrassed to say I did not pick it up quickly. You have to lean back, shifting your weight to your heels, and lift your toe off the ground, and my subconscious is just not down with that. Or possibly the problem is weak ankles, I don’t know.

Basically I need a push or pull to get started, or I’ll just wind up going maybe a few yards or so before that toe smacks back down and stops me.

Little kid Heelys come in a 2-wheeled version that you can convert to traditional Heelys when you master the technique. Maybe that’s what I needed.

I’m working on it, though! When I get better I’ll post my sweet sweet tricks, I promise. I can definitely see this being a way to fit in a fun outdoor workout.

Jake fared much better, which is not wonderful for my self-esteem, but admittedly makes for a better blog post. Harumph.

I’m pretty inspired by some of the tricks and techniques on the Heelys website (they post helpful Skating 101 videos, too) but really I just want to get better than Jake. Yes, I’m competitive. I’ll probably wind up getting him his own pair so we can do head-to-head skate-offs because I am awesome like that.

They’re fun. You should totally get some. Oh, and your kids might like them too 🙂

__________________________________________

Impressed? Intrigued?
Get Heelys info (including promos, sale updates and all that good stuff):

www.heelys.com
http://shop.heelys.com
www.facebook.com/heelys
www.twitter.com/heelysworldwide
www.youtube.com/heelysworldwide

Disclosure: I received a complimentary pair of Heelys for review purposes; no other compensation was given. As always, all opinions, observations, and embarrassing stories are brutally honest and mine, mine, all mine!

September 14, 2011