Combine those smartphone photos moments with Twitter, Facebook and other social networking like FourSquare, and it’s a busy online mom’s dream. 

Or maybe not. 

Turns out, your smartphone could be allowing online predators to know exactly where you live and where your kids are.  This video is great investigative report on this issue. 

If you are like me, you don’t want to revert to avoiding the smartphone apps. If you use your phone for GPS directions while driving, clearly you don’t want to turn it off.  I use Google Sky Maps almost everyweek (very neat being able to instantly see what the constellations or planets are), and it requires having the GPS on my phone turned on.  

You have another option to turning off the geotagging completely.  Simply deselect the location option just for your camera. 

Check out solutions for your specific smartphone here, at Icanstalku.com

P.S.  If you have a teenager with smartphone, warn her about this as well, and perhaps double check her phone settings yourself.

How can we set a better raise our kids to be more globally-oriented? How can we pattern a world that’s less ethnocentric for our kids? Try letting them hear another language often, in a natural way and support it with fun activities.

Latin Grammy-nominee and award-winning singer/producerMaria Del Rey has some fabulous music that promotes early learning of Spanish through rich, vibrant music (or some deep lullabies) that alternate English and Spanish lyrics.  She’s been at this for a long time, most recently with the tour of her The Bridge: El Puente multi-media show, which has played to over 60,000 kids in 36 cities.  As a winner of Parent’s Choice Awards and representative of Latin America at a United Nations Conference for Children in Geneva, Switzerland (among other things), she knows her stuff when it comes to kids

Her new company, Childgood.net, has bundled together and expanded her repetoire.  Trust me, moms, when I say you will LIKE listening to this music.  This isn’t shlocky kids fare, this is also MOM FARE.  I love the rhythms, the Latin beat and very cool culturally-appropriate instruments that get used. 

Will kids like it? Well, I suppose so.  My son (now in 3rd grade) has listened to Maria’s Peanutman album (available now under The Bridge: El Puente title) EVERY NIGHT  at bedtime since we got it, many years ago.

Maria has created some home activities sheets that compliment her music.  The materials were developed for children who attend her Hola Amigos or Bridge: El Puente live concerts and residencies, but you can use them at home.  It includes:

•  lyrics in English and Spanish to keys songs from The Bridge: El Puente mp3 download,
• a map of Latin America with flags to match with countries
• craft activities like a homemade drum, feather hat and huipil.

Here are the materials.

You can get the mp3 from her personal site (click store and select the Bridge: El Puente album) or a CD from Amazon or CD Baby.

So, this can neatly fit into foreign language, music, geography and art for the homeschool families! And moms of kids in pre-school or elementary (traditional) school can pat themselves on the back, reveling in the “supermom-ness.”

Some methods of coping with life’s abundance will never land you on a cable television show demonstrating how to make pies from scratch while simultaneously addressing birthday cards three months early.  I’ve learned to pretend that our kitchen is at the beach—those little crunchy things beneath my feet are sand, not a reminder I have to sweep.  

Alas, some things can’t be imagined away; they must be dealt with immediately.  Sometimes they are alarming: a child’s coughing jag in the middle of the night that turns out to be asthma.  Alarm can sometimes morph into amusement: a trip to the doctor’s office to have a Lego^© piece extracted from a child’s nose. 

Unplanned events can be exasperating. Consider this recent late-night exchange: 

Mom: “What do you MEAN you promised to bring mash potatoes to your lunch at school Friday?”

Kid: “But Mom, my girlfriends and I ALWAYS bring a shared meal for (insert favorite holiday here). I promised to bring the mashed potatoes.”

Mom: “ I don’t have time to run to the store tomorrow.  I have an all-day commitment tomorrow helping with the school play. I’m still getting over this virus. I haven’t done laundry in two weeks and have to grade college papers tomorrow night.”

Kid:  “It’s all arranged, sorry.”  

Mom: (sighing with resignation) “Okay.” 

Kid: “Mom?”

Mom: “Yeah?”

Kid: “They have to be vegan.”

Hence, making mash potatoes at midnight.  Hold the butter and milk for her vegan friend.

 Often, the “abundance” in our lives is permanent.  My son is the poster child for ADHD—heavy on the H.  While I’m groping for my morning caffeine, he launches out of bed as if propelled by rocket fuel.  Every emotion is to the “nth” degree; when he’s grumpy or angry, everyone within a mile will know.  The upside: he’s contagious when happy and excited, and that’s often.  It’s the bonus.  Like the gravy on mash potatoes.

 I can’t imagine life without the rich abundance that is my children—although perhaps I could imagine one day without them. Maybe two.