The Chronic Consumer

Motocross gear is very expensive, so I’ve been outfitting my son a bit slowly. Instead of spending $1,000 on everything he needs, I started with the important stuff (helmet and boots) and have been adding to his equipment bag whenever I can. My most recent purchase was these Fox Dirtpaw MX Gloves.

Motocross gloves are important because they’re padded around the knuckles to protect your hand against the rocks and roost that might churn up while riding on the track. In addition, some MX gloves claim to help prevent or reduce arm pump. This isn’t something I’d know about, as I don’t ride.

Anyway, these Fox Dirtpaw MX gloves for kids are pretty good. They fit snugly, serve as protection, and have survived several washes without adverse effects. The only thing I don’t like about them is that it practically required a certificate in document management to get through all the tags that were attached to the product at the time of purchase! Seriously, less is more, fellas.

The bottom line: for $20, you really can’t go wrong with these Fox Dirtpaw MX gloves. Now I just hope they last until my son outgrows them!

I posted a few days ago that I bought a nice button-down oxford from Gap Kids for my son. Well, I was at the mall again today and stopped by the same store. This time, they had a very cute (ok, some would say dorky!) sweater vest that would look perfect with the oxford I bought. It’s made from 100% cotton, has a roomy fit, and is just the wardrobe piece for fall or winter layering. I’ve already made my son try it on with the oxford and a pair of khakis, and I think we have our Thanksgiving outfit right here!

The sweater vest was also on sale, but I didn’t get quite as good a deal as I got on the shirt. The original price for the sweater was $24, and it was on sale for $14. So basically I got two very versatile pieces of classic kids clothing for $23 plus tax. Not too shabby!

Like most 6-year-old boys, my son doesn’t like dressing up for special occasions. He prefers wearing his favorite t-shirts and shorts or jeans, no matter the season. But of course I have to make sure he has something decent for the occasional night out at a nice restaurant, lunch at a country club when we go on the frequent Myrtle beach golf packages that my husband’s company gives away, or a family gathering like Thanksgiving or Christmas. While I was at Gap Kids the other day, I came across a terrific deal on this long-sleeved basic oxford shirt, so I bought it.

The shirt is made from 100% cotton and has a nice soft feel to it. It’s also roomy so my son can grow into it, and since it’s from the Gap, I know that it will be durable enough to hold up through many washings. The shirt has a single pocket on the left breast, as well as a “locker loop” on the inside. It also comes with two replacement buttons.

The regular retail price for this Gap basic oxford shirt is listed as $24.50 online, but I bought it on sale for around $9 at an actual store. As I said above, that’s a terrific deal that really can’t be beat for a shirt of this quality. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have bought it at full price, but at nine bucks, it was a no-brainer!

So it’s not the 1990′s anymore. I get that. But Fruit by the Foot is still something I buy, though this time I’m doing it for my son instead of for myself.

Fruit by the Foot is similar to Fruit Roll-Ups in that you get some kind of rolled up fruit-flavored chewy snack to consume. The main difference is that Fruit by the Foot provides three feet of snacking fun, instead of the regular little square of a Fruit Roll-Up.

While I wouldn’t exactly call Fruit by the Foot a “healthy” snack, it is healthier than some other prepackaged offerings. At least it contains 25% of the RDA of vitamin C and only has 80 calories per roll.

My son likes the Strawberry and Berry Tie-Dye flavors, so those are the only ones we get. Personally, I find them far too sweet to eat on a daily basis, but my son doesn’t seem to get tired of them. I guess that’s ok — as long as he brushes his teeth as soon as he’s done!

In an effort to get my son to spend less time playing video games, I’ve been trying to get him interested in board games instead. I had a bit of success with stuff like Chutes & Ladders and Candyland, but he’s bored with those now. So I recently purchased Stay Alive to expand the collection a little bit.

The object of Stay Alive is to push and pull various levers across the board to get your opponents’ marbles to fall while leaving your own intact. It’s for 2-4 players, and the game is both easy to explain and easy to pick up. We were playing in no time!

I bought the travel-sized version because I figured it would be easier to handle than the full-sized one — and because it will take less time to finish a game. It’s a 5×5 board, and each row has either one or two layers that the marble must pass through before dropping off the board.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward. Each player takes a turn at sliding one of the levers, with the goal being to get the other players’ marbles to drop. The only real rule is that players must move a different lever from the one the player before them moved. This is just to prevent a stalemate, with players sliding the same lever back and forth to negate each other’s move.

Overall, Stay Alive is a pretty fun family game. We’ve played it quite a few times already, and after two months, everyone is still interested in the game. Hopefully the interest will keep up for a while longer! Anyway, at $9.95, this was definitely a decent purchase!

With my son’s birthday coming up shortly, Jerry and I have decided to go retro with the gift. Instead of getting him some video game that he’ll get tired of playing in two weeks, we’ve been looking at kids wagons. We think this would be a great choice because it will get our son outside and moving around instead of glued to the television. Plus, wouldn’t it be absolutely adorable to see him pulling our dogs or his friends from the neighborhood in that thing?

I think there are a few classic toys that every child should have. A little red wagon is definitely one of them. I had one when I was a kid, and clearly remember how much I loved to play with it. Will a child of the digital age feel the same way about such a low-tech toy? We’ll see!

Ever since it was revealed that first daughters Sasha and Malia Obama wore outfits from Crewcuts, the J. Crew clothing store for kids, I’m sure interest in the brand surged. But when I read an article praising Michelle Obama for shopping at Crewcuts, saying that she was able to find trendy clothes that weren’t too expensive, I had to wonder if mainstream Americans would agree with that assessment.

I browsed through the site a little bit earlier today and saw that they sell silk taffeta dresses for $158, a “cymbal dress” for $248, and a silk taffeta tartan for $228. I don’t know about you, but these are not prices I’d be comfortable paying for a couple of growing girls!

Jeans at Crewcuts cost anywhere from $29.50 to $49.50,which again is more than I would pay for kids jeans. Sure, if they were in high school and basically done growing, it’s a bit of a different story, but that’s not the case with the Obama girls.

Look, I get it. The Obamas are the first family and as such they’re much richer than average people and therefore can spend differently. But I wish these idiotic reporters would stop saying stupid things about how Crewcuts is “affordable”. I’m middle-class, and I would NOT pay these prices!

My five-year-old son is in kindergarten now, so we’re spending quite a bit more time focusing on educational activities. While his public school class is still drilling for upper- and lower-case alphabet recognition, I decided we should forge ahead at home and take serious steps towards learning to read. Since I have absolutely zero experience teaching kids how to read, I thought the Hooked on Phonics system would come in handy. I recently bought the Kindergarten Edition, and think it is absolutely terrific!

The Hooked on Phonics (or HOP for short) Kindergarten Edition takes a very intuitive, systematic approach to teaching children how to read. Steps are incremental, yet noticeable, so kids will feel a sense of accomplishment from very early on — which is very important for getting them to stick with the program.

The Kindergarten Edition comes with the following items:

• Interactive CD-ROM
• Workbook
• 3 Audio CDs
• 5 sets of flashcards
• 24 level-appropriate books
• Parent’s guide
• Two progress posters
• 1 sheet of stickers

The Parent’s Guide lets you know where to begin with the HOP system depending on how much your child already knows. For instance, since my son is already proficient at recognizing all the letters, we didn’t have to start at the very beginning. Instead, we could jump right into learning the various sounds that the letters make.

Once you begin, you can pretty much work at whatever pace your child is comfortable with. The Parent’s Guide recommends 15-20 minutes per day, which is a reasonable amount of time. That’s long enough to review the previous lesson, and then go on to some new stuff without overwhelming the child too much.

As I said, I’m pretty impressed with the overall system and presentation — except for one thing. I think the audio CDs are pretty boring for kids of this age, especially since one exercise is liable to be repeated four or five times in a row without a break. Instead of making my son sit through that torture, I now go through the exercises without the CD so that we can stop after two or three repetitions (which is usually enough if he’s paying attention).

Other than that minor nitpick, the Hooked on Phonics system really works! My son is actually reading the simple stories contained in the books and is getting much better at sounding out words on his own than he was before starting the HOP system. Yes, sometimes it’s a chore to get my son to study every single day, so we do take time off now and then. I just make it up with a longer review session, and keep going from there.

The bottom line is that if you want to give your children a head start on building important fundamental reading skills, then Hooked on Phonics: Kindergarten Edition is a must-have. It’s straightforward, effective, and is a fun way for kids to learn how to read. Plus, at a sale price of $40 and change, it’s a bargain! Buy it today!