My wife, Shola, and I see doctors differently. I avoid them; she sees them as a resource. To me, it’s a challenge to stay out of the doctor’s office; she sees a doctor's visit as a faster route to good health. Neither is wrong, but they inevitably conflict when it comes to parenting – as they did this week.

Rowan, our 7-month-old, gets sick regularly. He has bronchiolitis, and the pediatrician says he’ll get sick on and off until he’s 2. The tricky thing is to figure out when his routine illness is turning into something else. And this week Alexander, who’s 2, got a double ear infection. Then Rowan started pulling on his ear. And just to make matters more complicated, Rowan is teething. So the question arose: should Rowan visit the doctor?

I said no. My reason wasn’t medical. I was falling back on my hardy Midwest upbringing. I’m sure I went to a pediatrician as a kid, but I have no memory of it. Heck, I wonder if our “gentleman’s farm” in Central Illinois even had heat. So I protested that Rowan didn’t need to see the doctor, and cited the evidence from my childhood. Yes, Shola responded, “that’s why you can’t hear now.” Fair point, I thought: I do like the TV much louder than she. So I relented, given that winning this argument essentially involved putting our child at risk.

So I took Rowan to the pediatrician, which thankfully did not take all morning. She checked him and pronounced ears “perfect.” He was sick, but in the familiar way. So I enjoyed a moment of pride – we didn’t need a doctor after all! (This reaction, of course, is nothing to be proud of.) But then the pediatrician offered this line: “It’s hard to tell when his congestion gets more serious, so you were right to bring him in.” Ah, so close to victory!

Later that day, as I gave Rowan a bottle, something else happened. He pulled at his ears.

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A plastic gallon of milk has always been too unwieldly for a little kid to pour. But I'm afraid a newly engineered jug might be even worse.

According to this story from The New York Times, the new shape, being sold at some Wal-Mart and Costco stores, saves the grocer storage space and needs less washing, thus saving water. Fewer truck runs also need to be made because more milk can fit in the cab.

The new shape, apparently the wave of the future, is supposed to save us consumers money: 10 to 20 cents a gallon.

I'm all for saving gas and water. But I'm skeptical those savings will be passed along to us.

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I walked in the door from shopping the other night, and Lily had a little office set up on the floor in the foyer.

She had her pink telephone, a stack of computer paper, the kind with the green and white stripes, and Bob's old computer keyboard. She was "typing'' furiously.

She got up and came to me in the kitchen. "My boss said if I don't get my work done, I'm going to lose my job!'' she told me.

"Wow, really?'' I asked.

"And my house. And my kids!'' she added.

Ummm. I guess Mommy and Daddy should not be talking so much about the bad economy, pending layoffs in various industries including our own, and the price of gas and food.

Whoops.

Then last night she asked me as I tucked her into bed: "Do we have enough food to eat? Are we going to run out?''

"Yes, we have enough food, and we have jobs so we make money and can buy more,'' I assured her.

"Good'' she said, "because I have $100 in my wallet and I want to buy a giant toy.''

I had never thought of raiding her little pink mermaid wallet to buy groceries. Until that moment.

Let's hope and pray we never get that desperate!

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By Cindy Kent
Sun-Sentinel

This is our vacation -- right here, right now.

I would like to think this was a great strategic plan on our part, that considering the cost of gas, food and the expense of eating out we decided the best way to enjoy the summer was at home.

But really, it required no planning whatsoever.

My son Tom will visit family in Miami frequently over the summer months including a few overnight and weekend stays at his grandparents and his sisters' place. A day trip to a water park hanging out with his older brother and some other stuff will fill out his time with friends.

Tom and his friends play lots of card and video games; they go bike riding and to the park. Tom loves archery and martial arts both of which also keep him busy. For other ideas on how to keep busy without leaving South Florida, check out the Sun-Sentinel story about "staycations."

We like to mix all that fun stuff up with chores: taking out the trash, washing the dishes, helping with laundry and yard work. And believe it or not we throw in a few grammar and math worksheets! (He finished this year with a 4.0 average.)

Now, we're working on getting him to enhance his summertime adventures by picking up a book.

Cindy Kent is a Fort Lauderdale mother of three.

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I wanted to believe. So did my wife. So did the girls.

But when a modeling/talent agency told us our girls had been “chosen” to be represented, and all you have to do is pay $500 per child plus $40 a month (per child), forgive me, but I got skeptical. My journalist’s instinct, dormant through the early steps of the process, kicked in when the modeling agency started asking for fees up front. One Google search later and I was on the phone with my wife telling her to get out, with the girls and with her money.

If you’re about to enroll your child in a modeling or talent agency, do your homework. I’d have to do a little more journalism homework myself before naming the agency in this space. From what I’ve been able to gather, agents are supposed to get paid when they find work for you. When they start asking for fees up front, start sniffing. If there’s any hint a bovine has been to the bathroom, run.

I did, and I trust the girls may someday forgive me. But not on Friday evening. Not at first. And who can blame them? Seemingly nice people were telling them they have what it takes to be a model. They were on the brink of being discovered, and these nice people were going to help.

“They’re cheats,” I said after their mom pulled them out and tried to explain my reservations. “They’re not going to help you. They just want your money.”

“You don’t know that!” they each replied, and they were right, in a sense. I was going by my gut, by a few web sites in which people who had dealt with the same agency warned other prospective customers to head for the hills.

I realized, with too little tact, that in their eyes I was not protecting them – I was doubting them. I was doubting their beauty, I was doubting their talent, and I was doubting their marketability as models. None of that is true, but it is what they were feeling. A dream was within their grasp, and I yanked it away from them. I felt an ache in my heart. It has not gone away.

But if they’re going to be serious about modeling, acting or dancing professionally, we are all going to have to realize that there’s hard work and investment involved. No one’s going to knock on our door and hand us the opportunity of a lifetime.

Worst of all, there will always be people and companies out there eager to exploit our hopes and dreams.

I know I made the right decision. If the people we were dealing with are running a legitimate agency, they weren’t acting like it. And maybe I’ve only been a “father” to these girls for a year, but I’ll be cursed if I’m going to let some vultures break their hearts.

I’d rather have them angry at me.

If You've Got The Look, Look Out! Avoiding Modeling Scams

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My son is finally at the age where he can enjoy (and sit through) a movie at the theater. We've seen Kung Fu Panda, Speed Racer and Horton Hears a Who in the past year.

Now the movie my son has been waiting for opens this weekend -- Wall-E, a lovable little robot tasked with cleaning up the mess that is Earth in the distant future. Judging by the review, it should be well worth the wait.

Will let you know what my son thought of it next week. At what age did you start taking your son/daughter to the movies?

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There's nothing better than when I walk into the house after work and Ana Isabel runs up to me yelling "papa."

I usually pick her up and give her a kiss. I ask her if she has been a good girl and ask about the day's activities. It's usually a short conversation, aside from the fact that she's not even 3 yet, I usually arrive just before bedtime.

There are other times when I pick her up and carry her around. At the mall, during walks to the store or when she wakes in the morning. But since her brother, Lucas Emilio, arrived two months ago Ana wants me to carry her all the time. She was 35 pounds at her last doctor's visit. So my arm hurts after a while.

My wife says Ana has me wrapped around her little fingers. Maybe so. But I see the time when I'm going to have to stop just because my arm is about to be pulled out of its socket.

Any suggestions on how to encourage my daughter from making that same request over and over and over. My arm would sure appreciate it.

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Rowan clapped. And, luckily, I was there. I started humming a song yesterday and he thrust his hands together and, for the first time, hit palm to palm. Excellent.

Milestones fascinate me. When our kids reach one, we immediately figure out whether they are meeting those all-important developmental stages. Then either panic or pride hits. So this morning I searched “baby and clapping” online and discovered he is, well, right where he should be. He’s seven months. One web poll at BabyCenter.com even suggests there’s a bell curve out there when it comes to babies and clapping, with most kids learning it between 7 to 8 months. (This isn’t Rowan, but check out this “baby-clapping video” for fun.)

Credit for this new skill should go to Rowan’s older brother, Alexander, who is 2. Rowan studies him, reaches for his toys and crawls in his direction. This makes me wonder: Do younger siblings reach milestones faster? I suppose this gets into the “are first-borns smarter” question , but this isn’t about IQ. Here’s my question: Are older siblings better teachers than parents? And, if so, how much better?

Now if only Alexander could potty train Rowan.

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One key change I've noticed since my son inched closer to age 13 (less than one month away, and counting) is that it takes a real intervention in order to get one-on-one time with him.

We're on vacation this week. You might laugh at us for vacationing on the beach in Broward County, but leave this website, go look up the price of four airplane tickets or the tab for gas if we were to go on a road trip, and then come back and tell me what a great idea a vacation in Deerfield Beach is.

(Actually, I'm sitting in my kitchen in Plantation right now. If you're on a local vacation, you can come home and grab the things you forgot. Or run home to get online for a bit.)

Today we sent both kids to camp so we could have time without them, for probably the first time in many years. Granted we're spending the time reading our emails, but still, it's peaceful!

But the quality time we've had with the kids this week by snatching them out of the home, and transporting them a mere 20 minutes away, is amazing.

Recently we took another week off for a Fort Lauderdale beachfront vacation. Again, that's all it takes to get some great time with the kids.

At home, kids and parents are distracted constantly. And a pre-teen like Creed will be on his cell phone, at a friends' house, having friends over or chatting on his MySpace page.

Yank them away to a local hotel, leave their cell phone at home, and you have instant parent-child bonding.

Creed and I took a long walk on the beach Sunday night and had our longest conversation in months. He and Lily, 6, have been forced to play together for the first time in months. We all had to sleep together in one big bed.

It's like we're a family! It's been great!

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Today is my younger son's third birthday. He got a Thomas the Tank Engine bicycle. And he just sits on it. Or he walks it around the house. Or he sits on it, waits for someone to put his feet on the pedals, then waits for someone (me) to grab the handlebars and walk him around. That's right, he refuses to push on the pedals.

He was more excited about his new DVDs, books and his cake than he was his bicycle. Although he won't let anyone else touch his bicycle.

I remember when Evan turned 3, he also got a bicycle. And he went wild on it, riding up and down the sidewalk with a big grin on his face. I know -- different kid, different skill sets, etc.

But it's tough to remain patient when your kid flat-out refuses to even try. He already has a tricycle that he loves ... to be pushed on.

Any suggestions?

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A couple of months ago, I wrote about my younger stepdaughter's trip to the movies to see "Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)," a film about a 9-year-old Mexican boy who crosses the border illegally to reunite with his mother in Los Angeles. You can find it in Blockbuster now. We did.

Pax, now 13, almost jumped out of her shoes with excitement when she saw it. We had to rent it. Had to. This was not optional.

I won't go into a full movie review here, except to say that I do recommend it and that I have rarely seen a movie end on a more perfect note.

But what really impressed me was that a teenage girl with no connection to the grand debate about illegal immigration would choose to see this movie in the theaters, gush about it when she got home, and then insist that we watch it together as a family as soon as it was available.

Afterward, we talked about the movie a little bit, about the characters and the storytelling and about one character's act of sacrifice. But I didn't want to ruin a child's enjoyment of a film by delving any deeper into the issues raised by this one. We now have a common reference point around which we can frame future, more profound discussions. The truth is, she didn't like this movie because of its immigration themes. She liked it because it was about a child's love for his mother.

Knowing how lovable Pax's mother is, I can relate.

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I had one of those “ah ha!” moments this week. I noticed that when I get up from meals, Alexander, our 2-year-old, tends to wander away as well. Obvious, right? But somehow it just made sense this week.

It might be that Alexander is growing more and more independent. He’s sleeping in a “big boy” bed now and learning to play on his own. So it makes sense that he’ll decide to get up from the table when he wants to. He’ll also follow our lead. If he feels like there’s fun to be had at the table, he’ll stay. So our job is to stay put as a family and eat a meal.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Our big meal together as a family tends to be breakfast, and that’s inevitably rushed. Unfortunately, I usually get home too late for dinner. This probably gets into the debate over “equally shared parenting” that Lois Solomon wrote about earlier this week. I’d love to give my kids the kind of fun, conversation-filled dinners I had growing up. But newspapers have a way of eating into evening hours. So perhaps I’ll try to set a start time for breakfast to avoid the coming and going. We’ll see if it works.

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In this week's installment of free stuff to do.

Take your budding car expert to check out the classics at Lake Worth's Evening on the Avenues.

If your kid is interested in making things explode, the free science museum at Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton is a good bet.

Good (free) times can also be had at:

Today: Summer Games exhibit at Miami Children's Museum, 980 MacArthur Causeway. If you don't make it today, save the date for the third Friday in July when its free admission.

Musical performances from 7 - 9 p.m. at Hollywood's Young Circle Park at U.S. 1 and Hollywood Blvd. Bring a blanket or lawn chair for seating.

Saturday: Asian Pacific Festival at the Alvin Sherman Library in Fort Lauderdale. Learn about traditional Chinese music and dance, Thai traditional dance and see a Korean Hapkido martial arts demo. Plus there will be food and craft projects. From 1 - 4 p.m.

Storytime for kids ages 3 - 6 at 10:30 a.m. Barnes and Noble, Broward Mall, 591 S. University Dr., Plantation.

Continue reading "Best free events for kids" »

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