meta-dad

Funding Your Kid’s Future

As a parent it is easy to get lost amongst the day to day minutiae of child rearing. Buying the groceries. Driving the kids here and there. Doing the laundry, again. Buying more groceries. Driving to and from soccer practice - the list is seemingly endless.

Here’s a reminder for all of us (including myself) - don’t forget to squirrel away some money for the kid’s college years. Current financial sources have placed college tuition projections for kids graduating high school between 2011-2022 between $85,706 - $153,486 (based on average college expenses, and tuition for public college or universities with adjusted cost inflation rate of 6%)! By the way that means if you start saving for your newborn’s undergraduate degree right now (he/she enters college in 18 years or 2020) you will have to sack away $710 dollars a month for the next 18 years to cover their college experience!

For parents with teenagers prepping for SAT’s now the issue is all too pertinent. As you may be aware there are a number of online options available to you. One of the biggest scholarship programs out there is the Bill Gates foundation. It was initially funded in 1999 by a one billion dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Check out Scholarships.Com for a fresh listing of resources and scholarships. Their expansive college scholarship database is updated constantly, offers relevant and accurate scholarship & grant information.

DIY Dad - Build Your Own Computer With Your Kid

Here’s a great opportunity to spend some quality time with the kids, perhaps learn something and save a few buck in the process. Here are some PC Kits you can custom order online for a fraction of what they cost in the stores. They include plain English (gosh, I hope so!) instructions with lots of illustrations and full manufacturer warranties.

You can also get upgrade kits to increase your ram or replace your CPU. All you need is a screwdriver and we can help you save $100’s. The basic kit comes with a 2.2G Core 2 Duo, 2G SDRAM and a graphics card option - that’s a pretty good start and it’s definitely a kit with room to grow.

Dad Resource: Home Data Recovery Solution

This is not to say that all Dad’s play the part of the family’s IT department when technology goes sour in the house, but this Dad certainly has had his share of wrestling with buggy routers, flaky monitor cables and uncooperative operating systems. I would like to think that over the years technology has taught me some hard but important lessons, mainly that technology is unreliable to a point and it will - someday - break down on you.

You better have that drive backed up or *poof* all your family photos will be gone, forever (this actually happened to me) or heaven forbid someone (who will remain unnamed) accidentally deleted some folders that had important stuff in it. There are a number of solutions to recover deleted files out there, some convenient (expensive) and some that require a little work (inexpensive).

When I have been in the market for some type of data recovery service or solution I have always been floored by the service fees (generally starting at $200-300 per incident) for data recovery. I have come upon some software solutions that you may want to consider - or at least bookmark. The folks at FileSaver.Com have a $20 software solution (for PC) that allows you to recover any deleted files from a given drive using a simple windows-based interface.

Bird Flu Status - A Family Focus

There is much to be discovered about the lethal H5N1 strain, this is clear to the international scientific community. In January 06′, there was an outbreak in Turkey in which all but two of the 21 confirmed human cases, it said, have involved children and teens aged 4 to 18. The general thinking is that children are more likely to touch or play with diseased birds. I am not a doctor or scientist but I do know when it comes to flu season in general the first warnings tend to be directed at the very old and the very young because of the susceptibility of their immune system.

One of the more disturbing discoveries is that since the virus not only affects the lungs, but passes throughout the body into the gastrointestinal tract, the brain, liver and blood cells it has been revealed it can pass from mother to fetus. This fact was confirmed in Beijing this past September when a 24 year old pregnant woman died from the bird flu and it was discovered that her four month old fetus was also infected.

Experts across the board seem in agreement that the Bird Flu will cross into U.S. boards at some point in the near future. In the fall of 2005, President Bush earmarked $7.1 billion dollars for research to fight the next flu pandemic, focusing largely on public health preparations such as how to quickly manufacture an effective vaccine once it strikes. In the spring of 06′, the White House formally released Step 2 of that strategy a list of actions that different branches of government need to take to prepare.

What makes the flu pandemic hard to contain is the fact that a person can have the flu a full twenty four to thirty six hours before showing outward symptoms of it. Advice being heeded includes the three-foot rule which limits contact at businesses and schools to three feet with limited contact. But this advice implies that the flu only spreads in the large droplets of coughs and sneezes; tiny droplets that stay suspended in the air for long periods can spread it, too. Scary stuff. Something to think about the next time you watch your kid sneeze into the wind, right. One small thing to keep in mind - when your child sneezes or coughs have them do it not not their hands but into their arm. By doing this they will be less likely to pass anything through hand-to-hand contact.

At this point knowledge is one of the best things for us as parents. There are some resources out there to helps us keep up to date with how the Avian Flu is being tracked and what is being done about it.

Related Links:
MSNBC.Com | Bird Flu
DrugDelivery.CA | Free eBook on Bird Flu

Modern Birdhouse

For the dad who has everything… everything but a really cool birdhouse. RALPH was inspired by Ralph Rapson’s iconic Greenbelt House design (Case Study House #4), which features an enclosed garden and angled roof-lines.

(ModernBirdHouses.Com Vis a Vis YouGrowGirl.Com)

Related Sites:
YouGrowGirl.Com | Seven Cool Gift For Gardner’s In Your Life

DULY NOTED:
Mothers expecting babies can surf internet and find a great variety of information about babies. They can find baby name resources. They can shop baby toys online. They can seek information of day care centers in their area and if they wish to do the can buy crib bumper in advance.

Hip Sexy Nursing Wear

It’s fascinating to me that baby formula companies in the sixties and seventies were able to sway an entire generation of mothers/parents away from breastfeeding, of course claiming baby formula (manufactured nutritional powder mixed with cows milk) is better for you than your own Mother’s milk! Well, it seems things are coming full circle. Yes, I think breastfeeding is a good thing and no I have no harsh opinion toward those who don’t. It’s a mother’s decision, plain and simple.

If your wife does breastfeed you may want to consider getting her some cute nursing wear for the holidays. For those dads out there who may not quite have a grasp on the differences between regular pajamas and nursing pajamas - let me provide some insight. Nursing wear tends to have very efficient and strategically placed snaps, gaps and “windows” to provide both momma and baby “access” to make the breast-feeding process both easy and discreet. I must admit this is some pretty exciting technology. The fine folks at NursingPJs.Com have a fine collection of nursing wear (and free holiday shipping to boot), that will please momma, baby and you (dad), as illustrated above.

Their is a plethora of scientific reports and news articles that state high and mighty claims about the many benefits to baby of being breast fed. Watching my oldest son get a battery of three shots (with the final being a tetanus shot in the thigh) while breastfeeding was a first-hand proof that their is some serious mojo in that milk. He didn’t bat an eye. Then again, he could be a robot. Personally, I side with the idea that the hormones/endorphines in the breast milk keep the baby comforted and perhaps block or lessen the impact of pain. All I know is by the end of the visit with the pediatrician, the only one not in tears was my son.