Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

Spring has Sprung! At least, here in NYC it has. And if you happen to be looking for seasonally appropriate songs, here you go! Read more »

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

April Showers bring…MUD PUDDLES! Forget about those May flowers and get out your rubber boots! Here are some of our favorite songs about rain. Read more »

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

It’s March, and for many of us that means: March Break! No school! We know lots of families that will be spending the break traveling, and we are traveling too - we’ll be rocking our way to Mexico with R Family Vacations. So we thought that this month we’d recommend some of our favorite traveling songs. Whether you’re heading to Mexico, Grandma’s, or just the grocery store, here are some transportation tunes to hum when the going gets rough – because every traveler knows that even the best laid travel plans go awry! Read more »

Lawrence King, a 15-year-old eighth grader, was declared brain dead after being shot by a fellow student in what police are calling a hate crime. King was gay and often came to school in feminine clothing and makeup.

This churns my stomach. I don’t need to tell readers here of the pervasiveness of anti-LGBT bullying in schools. This is the most tragic outcome of such bullying, and the result of a society that does not yet do enough to teach tolerance and create a welcoming environment in schools. Organizations like the Safe Schools Coalition, GroundSpark (the media company responsible for diversity-training films such as It’s Elementary), and even HRC, through their Welcoming Schools project, are doing their best to make resources and training available. They face a difficult task, however, especially as many schools struggle even to find time and teachers for subjects other than math and English.

Bear with me for a tangent: My son went to a friend’s birthday party a few weeks ago at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. They’re half pizza parlor, half video arcade, with space for birthday parties and videos of the titular rodent doing covers of popular songs. They’re commercial and loud, but I was happy my son had a chance to socialize. All was well until the enormous video screen at the end of the party room began blaring “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” I like Pat Benetar well enough, but it seems totally inappropriate for preteen children to be captivated by a person in a mouse costume urging “Hit me with your best shot! Fire away!” The company motto? “Where a kid can be a kid.”

No, they didn’t kill Lawrence King, and neither he nor his killer may even have heard of Chuck E. Cheese. There is no connection between the restaurant and the Northern Illinois University campus. The problem of school shootings, whether as hate crimes or anything else, does not have a simple solution. It has to do with gun control, yes, but also education, teaching tolerance at home and in schools, and creating a culture that does not promote or glorify shooting, especially to children, the most impressionable. To that end, companies such as Chuck E. Cheese need to be more careful about the messages they present.

My heart goes out to King and the NIU victims, their families, and friends.

You can contact Chuck E. Cheese here to ask them to take “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” out of their rotation.

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

“It’s February, it should be snowing!” Those are the opening words to our song Snowdance. And we stick by them! In this months post, we bring you two of our absolute hands down favorite snow songs: Read more »

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

Happy New Year! Have you made any New Year’s resolutions yet? If not, then you can get the ball rolling with some songs about things to work on and strive for in 2008: Read more »

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. This month’s highlights include one song that “celebrates the friendship and tenacity of two birds that are told their relationship is ‘obscene’ by the rest of their bird-brained society,” and manages to do so in a way that is both kid-appropriate and non-preachy. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

As the year winds to a close and children hear about “Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men”, it’s sometimes easy to forget that peace and good will begin very close to home - on your street, in your class, at your hockey game or at your gymnastics practice. So this month we’ve highlighted some songs that indirectly teach about good will, tolerance, and the value of friendship. Read more »

Here’s the adorable theme song and opening sequence from BuddyG: My Two Moms and Me, the new animated show I reviewed last week. If it doesn’t put a smile on your face, you’re probably reading the wrong blog:

The song was composed and sung by Curt Bright of The String Beans. (How can you not love a band that records songs like “Gophers in Loafers”?)

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. I was particularly amused by their first recommendation below, as my own son often uses a similar argument. Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to iTunes for those who want only the singles.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and if your family is anything like our families are, that means one of two things: Over Eaters and Picky Eaters.

Here’s a song for each of them! Read more »

I’m proud to announce the launch of a new venture here at Mombian: the “She Got Me Pregnant” video blog. Published in partnership with After Ellen, the vlog will focus on the intersection of lesbian parenting and popular culture, covering children’s media, depictions of parenting in pop culture, and celebrity lesbian moms.

I convinced my partner Helen to join me in this effort (how, I won’t say), so she’ll also be providing her perspective and commentary on matters Mombilicious. In our inaugural effort, we review Dottie’s Magic Pockets, a new TV series for children of LGBT families, wonder where Dottie gets all her free time, and debate the merits of a parallel universe in which only gay people exist. We also compare Melissa Etheridge and Britney Spears as parents, and highlight a song that could be an anthem for LGBT families.

The film editing won’t win any awards at Sundance (as with parenting, we’re learning as we go), but we hope we’ve put together an enjoyable ten minutes for you. You can tune in to a new vlog every Thursday, crossposted here and at the After Ellen blog. Thanks to the fine women over there for giving us this opportunity.

If you came here from After Ellen and are visiting for the first time, welcome! Hope you’ll have a look around.

Online Videos by Veoh.com