1. Travel, travel, travel. When traveling, Kindle is your best friend. Every trip I always plan and fully expect to read AND finish Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Steven King’s The Stand. With the Kindle in my backpack, I’ve actually accomplished all three this summer! You literally can have 350,000 books at your fingertips.

2. Its not just about books either. Do you have professional document you need to review on that flight? Email it to your Kindle. Do you have technical or training you have to tackle? Email it to your Kindle. If you have a soft copy of a body of text (including word docs, Adobe pdf files, or plain email type text files), you can simply email it to your Kindle, and it can serve as your electronic briefcase.

3. Its appearance is hi-tech. This new Kindle is sooo much thinner and streamline, its thinner than my IPhone.

4. The touch is just right. You know how some keyboards have just that right touch and feel? That is how my Kindle is. Not clunky, nor ambiguous. And the buttons are laid out as if someone at Amazon actually designed it with humans in mind.

5. IF you own a Kindle you can download for free a Kindle reader and not have to buy the book twice. Using the patented Whispernet technology you can ‘mark’ where you left off when reading a book on your Kindle, then pick right up at that point on your IPhone. And vice versa. An electronic bookmark that coordinates between both devices.

6. Wet environments are no problem. This was a pleasant surprise, that I found out by accident. On a recent vacation, I took it out to the pool. My wife warned that the kids were sure to splash my new toy into oblivion. Ha! I got through five Kurt Vonnegut short stories without a hiccup. I might add next to us were two women reading, and their paperback romance novels were damp and ‘wavy’ shall we say?

7. I love to highlight what I read, especially any self help (and I sure need them) books. This feature is perfect and even has feedback when you take a note.

8. The dictionary is now a built-in feature and has instant lookup, without having to go to a separate page for the definition. Just move your cursor to the word that you want defined and it appears on screen. I can’t tell you how ‘smart’ that makes me!

9. The illustrations now come in sixteen shades of grey which is infinitesimally better than the previous four!

10. This is the future. You may not want to hear it. Just as video killed the radio star, electronic books will not obsolete paper but the improvement can’t be ignored. Amazon hit a home run with the electronic book and they will have a corner on this market for some time to come.

11.  (Bonus)  Did I mention the Kindle 2 is now on sale?

Sharon and Tannor reading the book about Thomas the Train
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I have always found that picking out Christmas toys for toddlers is so so much fun. For some parents, it’s extremely frustrating because some of the coolest looking toys don’t even interest their child. I think that most parents know their children better than they admit. Use sound judgement and buy gifts when you get that gut feeling that you know it’s the right gift.

Have you seen how toddlers loves to touch, taste, smell, and see their toys? The process is usually touching, smelling, tasting, and seeing-and this is not necessarily the order. Because of federal regulations and safety concerns, most toys for toddlers will not fit all the way inside a child’s mouth. Let your children express themselves naturally and you will soon learn what they are communicating to you.

Toddlers are excellent at communicating with their body language. The good news is that most our communication between people is through body language.

I have found bringing my kids to Target, Walmart, or the local mall is the best way to test this method. Most kids will end up pulling toys off the shelves and start playing with them. Toddlers don’t have the sense of ownership, so be careful with this method-if you break it you buy it! Often, a child will choose a toy that is for another gender or different age. Don’t be too concerned with as long as their is no safety issue. My 2 boys play with dolls and doll houses.

When our 2 boys were toddlers, we would always take note of what our kids played with at church, play dates with other kids, and what they gravitated towards when we were shopping. We later used this information to make our buying decisions. Our kids always acted so surprised when they opened their gifts at Christmas. Trust me, we are not that smart. While you may still believe in writing a letter to Santa Claus, I prefer to use this time tested method and have my kids tell me what they want.

My wife and I never claim to be expert parents. We are not even trail blazers. We are the worlds best copiers! I usually read product reviews at Amazon written by other parents before I purchase a brand new item. The reviews are real. Many of them are totally unhappy about a certain toy. Amazon includes the good, bad, and ugly! If you are planning on spending hundreds of dollars on toys and don’t have the time or patience for “hands on” product demos, then borrow some one else’s experience! I have to admit, that is little risk in doing this method. You can always return a gift if it’s a dud.

Having a 100% satisfaction guarantee sure helped me make buying decisions for my kids. I have actually returned products that I purchased online with free pre-paid mailers. But this is the rare exception. Getting items delivered in the mail brings back child hood memories from the old Sears Roebucks catalog. It’s just so convenient.

By the way, don’t forget the classics like wooden toys for your toddlers. Thomas The Train toys are a perfect example of great toys for toddlers. Fast forward 6 years and my 2 boys are still playing with their train set!

This is what I suggest for the classic wood Christmas toys for toddlers:

Colored wood stacking rings. An old classic. 6 colored rings are stacked down a cone.

Magnetic Stacking Train. Have the kids build the train and take it apart over and over again! Toddlers just go crazy over magnets. It’s a real treat for them. Mix the blocks around and stack them in imaginative ways – kids love to feel the repelling and attracting magnets.

Given time, I could write a book on this subject. However, it’s more fun to watch and interact with your own kids. Every parent has a story to tell that is unique to their family. Just remember to spend quality time with kids and be really interested in what they are doing.

Sabina is reading “Thomas the train” & other books in her new organization books area…
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Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends – Trust Thomas [VHS]

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