droolicious : mp3

Lullaby Versions Of Rock Songs At eMusic

Chris Ford — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:30:00 GMT

We've told you before about the oddball lullabies from Rockabye Baby. They're the company that takes famous rock songs and turns them into lullabies. Well, if you're interested but don't want to necessarily commit to an entire CD, there's a great new option.

All of the music from all of the (many) Rockabye Baby CDs are now available on music download service eMusic. There are 21 compilations in all, each focusing on the music from rock icons as diverse as U2 to Led Zeppelin. I'm kind of a big fan of the Lullaby Renditions of the Pixies myself (hasn't Monkey Gone To Heaven always been kind of a lullaby anyway?), but you don't have to stick with one artist. At eMusic you can make a mix and download the tracks - DRM free and ready for any MP3 player.

And to boot - there's a promotion going on at eMusic that if you sign up for a free trial you get 25 free downloads. Which means you'll have plenty of free music that will put your baby to sleep without you pulling your hair out over too.

Check it out at the Rockabye Baby page at eMusic.com

Jive Pod: Like Simon on Steroids

Aaron Burgess — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

I'm dating myself here, but I have many fond memories of Simon, the primitive electronic game that had you wildly following lighted musical pads in an effort to keep up with their bleeps and bloops. Hasbro's Jive Pod is sort of like that -- only the bleeps and bloops have been replaced by beats, breaks, booms, bangs and whatever other sounds you can pile into the thing.

Part MP3 accessory, part electronic game, Jive Pod gives you two playing options: You can follow the preset lighted pads, trying to keep up with the game's preloaded music; or if you really want to get daring, you can connect Jive Pod to your own MP3 player. Not only does the game act as a speaker for your tunes, but depending on how advanced your musical tastes, it can make for some pretty intense action on those lighted pads.

$7.50 (regularly $24.99) from Amazon.

Baby's First MP3 Player

Chris Ford — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:01:00 GMT

There are a lot of crazy baby products out there, and this one is, well, borderline. If you don't want to subject your iPod to your toddler (but you still think it might be fun to get an MP3 player for your one year old) then you should probably check out the SweatPea3 MP3 player.

The SweetPea3 MP3 player is made of FDA food-grade rubber, has three buttons for kids to use to control it as well as a secret button so parents can set all the specifications (most importantly volume). It's got 1GB of memory, a headphone jack (for the kids when they get older) and room for three programmable playlists.

SweetPea3 MP3 Player, $59.99 from ThinkGeek.com

Ultimate Ears Loud Enough Volume-Limiting Earphones for Kids

Aaron Burgess — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:04:00 GMT

Compact enough that they won't slip out of small noggins, Ultimate Ears Loud Enough earphones are designed to limit outside noise while also quieting that Naked Brothers Band CD by up to 40 percent without a noticeable loss in volume. In other words, the outside world will stay quiet enough that your kids won't feel the need to drown it out, and you can stave off tinnitus for a few years more -- at least until the kids start going to concerts in person.

$34.99 (regularly $39.99) from Amazon.

Ten Best iPhone Apps For Distracting Young Children

Chris Ford — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:02:00 GMT

We've all been there. You're in the grocery store, or doctor's office, or a restaurant and you need a five minute distraction for your toddler. And if you're a dad or mom on-the-go who doesn't keep a spare stuffed animal in their pocket, you're usually relegated to whatever you have handy. If one of those things is an iPhone or an iPod Touch, then you may not realize it or not, but you've got a wealth of toddler distractions just waiting to be explored.

I've combed through the iTunes Application store and tested out what I think are the ten best applications you can use to distract your young child. The emphasis here is on the word "young." I only included things that would be good for pre-school aged kids, which means I didn't pick any games or anything that would have a learning curve. I also didn't pick anything that required your child to shake the iPhone. It's one thing to hand over your $300 telephone to a two year old, it's another to hand it over and encourage them to shake it.

So here they are, in no particular order:

Preschool Adventure ($0.99, 3DAL, LLC.):
Preschool Adventure is one of the few on this list that was written specifically for pre-school aged kids. It's an app that has four smaller activities inside of it: Colors, Shapes, Sounds and Body. With all of them, you touch the screen to make something appear and sound. So for instance, in the colors app, your child touches a splash of a color, and then a sea creature appears saying the name of the color and the name of the creature ("Pink Sea Animone" is, admittedly, kind of a mouthfull for children). I found the app to be very simple but engaging for a pre-schooler, and my two year old loved it.

Bubble Wrap (Free, Orsome Software):
Bubble Wrap is one of those adult time-wasters that can double as a diversion for your kid. The app itself is simple - you just get a field of bubbles like you were holding a sheet of bubble wrap. Then you touch each bubble to make it pop. As soon as you start, there is a timer to see how many you can pop in sixty seconds, but your kids will undoubtedly ignore that and just enjoy popping the bubbles.

Midomi (Free, Melodis Corp.):
Midomi is a distraction for your kids that you'll have to do with them, so it won't buy you any time, but it's cool nonetheless. Midomi is an application that will identify any song it hears, whether it is on the radio, being played live, or your own singing or humming. It's pretty amazing when you first try it, as it's quite adept at figuring out your tuneless humming. My kids and I had loads of fun thinking up songs and singing them into it to see if it could recognize the tune. Even better is listening to some of the songs it thinks you're trying to hum (especially the songs in Japanese).

YouTube (free, with iPhone):
Everyone who has an iPhone has the YouTube application built in, so some may think this one is a cop-out, but in reality it's one of the great diversions on the iPhone. This is how you get the most out of it. Get a free YouTube account, and in your free time (you are reading this after all) go and search for videos you think your kids will love. Mark all of those videos "favorites" and then when you log into YouTube on your iPhone, go right to your favorites and start playing them. I loaded my favorites with videos of Disney songs, and I can get both of my girls (2 and 4 years old) silent for the length of each song.

Scribble (Free, Zintin Software):
This one is kind of self-explanatory. Scribble is a simple app that lets you draw on the iPhone screen. You can choose colors and draw whatever you can manage to get on the screen. Better than drawing though, I've found it good for quick games of tic tac toe or getting my four year old to practice writing her name.

Vehicles ($0.99, iFRizzo.com):
I don't have boys, but this one is clearly for those of you with little XYs running around. Vehicles is a soundboard of all the cars, trucks and plane sounds they could fit onto one screen of the iPhone. The sounds themselves (cars, police cars, fire trucks, airplanes etc.) are about two or three seconds in length depending on which one you choose and can be played over each other for a true sounds-of-the-city symphony.

Koi Pond ($0.99, The Blimp Pilots):
This app is deceptively simple but mesmerizing to adults and children just the same. When you launch Koi Pond, you get a screen with Koi fish swimming underwater, with tranquil outdoor sounds playing in the background. When you touch the screen, the app makes it look like you are touching the water they are swimming in. This naturally makes the fish swim away, so you have to wait until they unwittingly swim again into your view. There are lilly pads to move around and food to feed them too (when you shake the iPhone food appears - thereby breaking my "no shake" rule) which makes them swim back into view more quickly. I know, it sounds really simple and boring, but both of my girls were fighting over the iPhone for a half hour the other day so they could see the fish.

Rulla (Free, LIngon i Korg Software Creations):
This one is a little odd, but kind of fun for a toddler who is learning to read. Rulla (terrible name) is a simple app that makes a message crawl across your iPhone screen, kind of like a news ticker. I think the original intention was to have a way club kids could shoot a message to each other across the dance floor, but my kids loved thinking up funny messages to "make the phone say." It started with their names and ended up with "Daddy is a kitty cat."

Color Tilt ($0.99, IMAK Creations):
This one is kind of like Scribble, but is way cooler. It's an app that lets you draw by bringing your finger across the screen, but the color you're drawing in is determined by which way you are tilting the iPhone. It's a great use of the iPhone's capabilities, making any scribble look cool. And quite frankly, scribbling is about all you're going to get out of a two year old anyway.

Bubbles (Free, Hog Bay Software):
Bubbles isn't the same as Bubble Wrap, although it may seem like it. Instead of a static page of bubbles, with this app you draw your finger across a blank screen to create the bubbles. Then, as they fall down the screen you pop them with your finger. Simple, but interesting enough to stop a toddler crying in a shopping cart, believe me.

Photos (free, with iPhone):
Photos might be the eleventh suggestion, but everyone gets it with an iPhone (or any iPod for that matter), but in some ways I saved the best for last. The Photos app is the one slam dunk that my kids always want to use. Looking at pictures of themselves, friends and family always quiets them down, and it's gotten to the point that when my two year old sees me with my phone she asks to look at pictures. The trick to it though is to load it up with pictures you've been taking with your regular digital camera, not the iPhone. The pictures will look better and you'll always have more of them.

So there they are. If you have any suggestions or great finds yourself, please let us know in the comments below and happy distracting!

Nap26 is Mommy and Daddy's (Non-Addictive) Little Helper

Aaron Burgess — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:04:00 GMT

No matter how well you think all those years of 24-hour partying conditioned you for the sleep deprivation that goes along with being a new parent, the truth is that nothing can prepare you for the onslaught of a newborn's demands. Some of us learn to adapt, taking siestas whenever the kids go down, but for the rest of us, the lack of sleep can quickly turn into crushing fatigue.

Nap26, a new audio system geared toward new parents and other sleep-deprived adults, aims to provide a solution in just 26 minutes -- the precise sleepy-time duration in which NASA studies showed airline pilots' energy and alertness improved. Using binaural beats and vibrations, the disc lulls you into, and later awakens you from, a nap that's meant to leave you feeling as though you just came out of a three-hour sleep. Just pop in the CD or download it to your iPod, and away you go.

Nap26 is $19.99 from the POWRNAPS online store -- and if you've tried the system and had success, try to stay awake long enough to let us know in the comments.

Brave New Baby: Fisher Price FP3 Song and Story Player

Mir — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:03:00 GMT

I am constantly seeing really little kids with iPods, and hey -- if you have money to burn when your preschooler hurls that Nano across the driveway, be my guest. If you want an MP3 player actually made for little ones, check out the FP3 from Fisher Price ($50.97 at Amazon). It's rugged kid tough, with an easy, intuitive LCD display that uses icons so they make selections all by themselves, even if they can't read yet. Even the headphones are designed specifically for little ones, which is nice because I want my kids to get hearing damage from me screaming at them, not from letting them use the wrong headphones.

Back to School Drool: Don't Let Your Kids See This Post

Karen — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:02:00 GMT

They are the hottest thing to hit school supplies this year: Sound Gear by Mead. Your kids can plug their mp3 player into their binder (shown here) or pencil case, add 4 AA batteries and be distracted from learning. Personally I think the product is a bad idea, but I'm sure teachers will hate them even more. Kids however? Well what do you think?

$29.99 at Mead Online.