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The "Theme from Jaws"That's the sound I've been hearing in my mind for a while now. Beginning with my eldest daughter (10) developing a tendency to cry at every little thing. The sound actually started when all of the women in my family clued me in to WHY she was starting into this phase. There was a moment of silence, the thought "Oh, crap!", then the theme song started. As the occurrence of conversations that Daddy can't partake in is increasing..... the crescendo moves ever closer to the dramatic climax. I'm not prepared, yet! I haven't even started the obligatory gun collection and tattoos required to inspire suitors to conduct themselves appropriately! I'm evening working on my introduction! Me: "You'll have her back by 10, correct?" I always said that when my two daughters acheive that point in life that I was going to move out! Looks like I better find that doghouse that I will, most certainly, be needing. Kids ExpoWe'll be at the 2008 Kids Expo in Richmond, Virginia February 23rd. The expo provides activities, games and fun for kids of all ages including a Diaper Dash for the youngest ones. You'll also be able to me Shannon and I along with other family members that help us. Hope to see you there Enough!OK! Sadie is over her stomach flu. My wfie is feeling the last of hers. I thought hat was the end of it. Alexis woke up complaining of an ear ache. After seeing the doctor, it has apparently been there for a while now, she just didn't complain. How different my children are. Sadie screams terror if she scuffs her skin on the edge of the table and requires a bandage for all wounds. While Alexis overlooks an ear ache for days, or longer, without mentioning a thing. The ear (and the pain that came with it) was so bad that the doctor offered a shot to speed the process up. After talking my daughter into it, that shot turned out to be two shots. I had convinced her that the pain would be minimal. Bad idea! Her legs were pretty much locked up for two hours. I thought I was going to feel the wrath of my 10 year old for having misled her. But, she admitted that the temporary pain of the shots was small compared to how her ear was feeling. Three hours later, she was pain free. I'm heading down to the country to get my motorcycle now. The last remaining tidbit of manhood in this stay at home dad! Being a real man!Having two daughters has surrounded me with baby dolls, Barbie’s, butterflies, rainbows and glitter glue for 10 years.
I was unaware, until now, that a decade of exposure to this life has stripped me of any male persona I may have had. Why do I bring this up? I have been working on the personalized background themes for the kids on KidZentral . I find that I have no idea what boys are interested in these days and find it hard to decide on themes that would interest them, other than sports icons (NFL, MLB, NBA). When I was ten, it was "The Dukes of Hazzard" and Atari. Any insight anyone could suggest would be helpful. In spite of a man's natural tendency to be drawn to cars, big machines and power tools, I find myself gleefully searching for anything that sparkles. And that is no help to me. Getting startedIn the summer of 2007, my daughter Alexis wanted an account at MySpace. Needless to say, the answer was NO! So I began the search for a social networking site like MySpace for kids. I couldn't find one that made me feel safe that there would be no predators, or little chance of one. This surprised me. With the number of sites where you could do a free search for sexual predators by name, why hasn't someone applied this to a website for kids? I'm no expert at websites, but I have made a few for friends and such. Knowing this, my daughter asked my why I didn't make her one! So I started with KidZentral and ParentZentral the first of 2008. Subscribers (Parents) are verified via a sexual predator search before gaining access to the parents site. Once approved, they can create a Kids account at KidZentral. As the idea developed, we added lots of nifty features like logs for parents to view their kids activity on KidZentral. Messages, blogs and even photos are there for the parents to review. Great idea right? I think so! But then you find out REAL quick that you need LOTS of money. Lots. The server and software is the least of it. Getting your site out there is another thing. Tons in pay per click ad fees, paying for press releases, buying ads. And it has not gotten us very far. We're beginning to wonder if we could ever get to the top of the search engines so people will actually find us. Last I looked, the closest we've come is page ten IF you search for "safe website for kids". You can get there quick if you pay google per click. That was an eye opener. Lots of money and people that seem to love clicking 5 times on the same ad at 50 cents each. I won't say how much we spent, but it wasn't a subscriber generator by any means. That is one heck of a business. Pay-per-click ads that is. That's enough of a rant for now. I'll be back soon to tell more of my adventure. Bill |
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