Rating: Excellent 

I’ve taken my daughter a few times to Wilson Pool, but I think I just discovered how to get the most out of it: go there when the weather stinks.

Yesterday it was cloudy and fairly cool, and we almost had the place to ourselves. If you’ve ever been to Wilson Pool on a weekend, you know what a rarity that is. Normally we have to suffer elbows and kneecaps while we spin around the vortex pool and lazy river, and we encounter long lines on the stairs to the water slide. Not so yesterday, as you can see from this short video I shot.

Read On »

Here’s the scene: your team is in the Final Four, the game is starting, you’re taking care of the baby. You know your wife has told you repeatedly not to let the baby watch TV. Zero. Not even in the background while you’re doing something else. What do you do? You get the largest baking sheet you can find in the kitchen cabinet, and you duct tape it….this is the 1002nd use for the product….so that you can see the screen and the baby can’t. March is full of such madness for me.

But it turns out that more and more research points to serious problems for babies who watch TV, even educational materials designed for their age group. Read On »

One reader of this site recently asked this question:

“My family is relocating to Portland and we have NO knowledge about the city, neighborhoods etc. Could you or others provide me with some information or resources as to how to research neighborhoods? We’re looking for diversity, lots of children, pedestrian friendly, decent schools - you know, the ideal neighborhood.”

My wife and I had to go through this process a couple of years ago, so I can offer up a few tips, starting with selecting a good school, which was key for us. Read On »

When I was a boy, I used to love going jogging with my father. We’d show up at the local school track, and I’d run a couple of laps with him, play around in the longjump sandbox, jump on the pole vaulting mats, do another lap around the track, and so forth. My father got his 3-mile run in, and I had a blast. As a result of those enjoyable outings, I grew to love jogging.

I’ve now switched to swimming, which is about the only sport my body seems to be able to take in strong doses as I get older. But my dedication to the exercise–getting out of bed at 5 AM on weekdays, writing workouts for my team, doing 4000+ yard sets, honing my strokes–stems directly from my experiences with my father when I was younger.
Exercise, by definition, is hard work, and I’m not surprised that obesity is becoming such a problem in the US. Our lives, particularly in places with long car commutes, are becoming more and more sedentary. To avoid packing on the pounds, we must consciously substitute the exercise we used to get through walking, working, and playing with treadmills, stairmasters, tracks, fields, and pools.

Parents can make all the difference for their children’s health by being role models. In Portland, that’s a lot easier than in other cities. We have the nation’s largest urban park, for example, which is filled with amazing hiking and biking trails. In most neighborhoods, Portlanders still walk to places instead of always relying on their cars to get around (see how your neighborhood sizing up on the walking scale: http://walkscore.com/). Our mass transit system is viable and thriving. And finally, we are a city that loves bicycles (check out http://www.bikeportland.org/ to get just a dose).

Today’s paper shows a week of beautiful weather ahead of us, so get out there with your kids and make the best of it. Find a form of exercise that you and kids can do together that’s fun and rewarding. The next three weekends in a row, for example, offer some great bike rides:

• Sunday, August 5th - Hottest Day of the Year Ride
• Sunday, August 12th - Providence Bridge Pedal
• Saturday, August 18th - Tour de Fat

I plan to participate in all three with my daughter on her tag-a-long. Beyond just having fun rides around the city, I hope that my daughter will grow to crave physical activity the way I do. I don’t want her to feel like hopping on the bike saddle is drudgery. I want her to think it’s fun.

I have loved The Simpsons since their debut as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. That is how odd (and old) I am. We own all of the episodes available on DVD as well as all the books about the episodes. Obviously, even though all of these things are kept in the ‘grown-up movies’ cabinet, our children are privy to our enthusiasm for the show. Since he was 5, our son has begged to watch because it is, after all, a cartoon. We put him off with a simple “no” for awhile, but then felt the need to better explain why we felt it was not an appropriate show for kids (smart-mouthed, disrespectful youth and profoundly stupid adults was a main point - hugely hysterical for intelligent people, potentially ruinous for impressionable minds). And then we set a viewing age to stop the begging. Now he counts the days until he turns 10; in fact, he is planning a Simpsons party for that birthday. I’m a little chagrined in advance.

Previously, we had been able to avoid much handwringing about the injustice of not being allowed to watch a cartoon because our kids don’t watch commercial TV and knew very little about what they were missing. During the last year, however, the impending release of The Simpsons Movie has been unavoidable. From the gigantic Homer-hand holding a donut to the raucous previews in the theater, they have been keenly aware of its coming. And so are their friends - “When are you going to see The Simpsons movie?? I LOVE Bart! It’ll be so COOOOL!” Well. I am not a pushover mom - I’ve held my own against attempted invasions of Bratz and Xbox - but I’m starting to wonder about our ‘no see’ policy with the famous Springfield family. Despite many (intentionally) aggravating and embarrassing characterizations, the writing has consistently been smart, the storylines timely and thought-provoking. My son has come to understand that behaving like Calvin is not acceptable (emulating Hobbes would be far preferable; he’s getting there), and I could do much worse than have my daughter become a Lisa Simpson. So it might be time to lift the ban and see how well our parenting thus far holds up.

My husband & I saw the movie last night, along with a full theater at the Regal Broadway Metroplex (which charges only $6 for all movies, all the time and features comfy chairs and intermittent tables - go there!). It was a fantastic extended episode of the TV show. The only gimmicks employed for the big screen were fun jokes on the audience. As always, the writers take nothing seriously for more than a sentence. Even with a story centered around pollution, we are not made to feel overly guilty - it is, as usual in Springfield, an equal opportunity barrage of offenses. Essentially, most of the movie is what you get, content-wise, on Fox.

There are a few noticeable differences afforded with the PG-13 rating that are making me think hard about allowing my kids to watch it before the imposed age of 10. One is a mildly shocking but nonetheless outrageously funny (and thankfully brief) view of full frontal animated nudity. Another is an uncharacteristic but certainly well-deserved expletive from long-suffering Marge’s mouth. And Homer flips off the community at one point. If you are having any reservations about taking your children to see The Simpsons Movie, but would otherwise let them watch the show, these would be the only elements different from the TV episodes. The humor will often be over the heads of most kids (some it I’m still having to look up for better understanding), as will the typical sexual innuendo and political jabs. You will all, however, not be able to stop yourselves from singing the “Spiderpig” song over and over.

I will probably end up doing what I’ve done with the Spider-Man and Batman movies (because my son is intrinsically drawn to superheroes but still frightens easily with the bigger-than-our-house villains) - rent the DVD. It’s cheaper, we can easily skip parts if need be, and we get to know the people and effects behind the movie through special features, thus emphasizing the imaginative aspects and lessening the real lifeness. Because if my kid only takes away from this show the feeling that it’s okay to behave like a moron (which would be easy enough, for a 9-year old attention-seeker), I’ll truly deserve the Bad Mom badge. D’oh.