How To Deal With Kids Nightmares

*3:12 AM

I was awoken abruptly by my 5-year old standing 5 inches from my head saying he was too scared to sleep because Zombie’s outside were going to eat his brain if they got in the house.

Then he started walking over to my sleeping wife to which I told him immediately, in a whisper-panic, “NO, NO! NO! Don’t tell mommy!!”

Why? Because then I would get in trouble and that just can’t happen (again.) 

Yesterday, I downloaded this game Plants Vs. Zombies to his iPad after he saw some older kids playing it over the weekend. And by "older" I mean 6-7 year old’s. He thought it was cool because they thought it was cool and couldn’t stop talking about it. 

I played the game years ago and loved it, so I thought, “Hey! A fun little Zombie game were they’re attacking a house, and when they get in, they mumbled 'brains'... and a guys yells 'NOO!!’, and then you hear crunching noises, wouldn’t be so bad for a 5-year old... right?”

Well, at the time it seemed like a pretty good idea. 

So I did what any sane and tired parent would do. I put him back in his bed, kissed his forehead, and told him as long as he doesn’t wet his bed he has nothing to worry about. 

A Magical Birthday and My iPad 2 with a few ‘Apps for Kids’ Disappears…

To be honest, I was not looking forward to my birthday this year. I mean this past year alone has been the absolute worst health-wise, ever!
A horrible case of chicken pox last summer that left me out of commission for nearly 5 weeks and destroyed my immune system. Multiple cardiologist visits and tests, and then a ‘bout with pneumonia a few weeks ago …it’s just all downright depressing.
Getting old is freaking me out so much now that I find myself always wondering, “What’s going to happen to me this year?” I’ve never been like that.

Some observant friends caught on to this suspicious behavior of mine and invited my wife and I to the Magic Castle in Hollywood to celebrate my birthday. It really was a great start on a road to recovery of some sort.
If you’ve never heard of this place, it’s basically a real-life Hogwarts, except this castle was founded in the 1960’s, not 9th century, with cheesy decorations, and magicians not wizards roaming around entertaining cocktail-attired guests. And maybe about 10 bars just about every 50 feet from each other.
I’m sure if Harry had gone to school there, he would have one serious drinking problem.

The other component of a recovery was getting an iPad 2, with one of those nifty magnetic magical covers on it for my birthday!
I never really understood the full use of this thing – is it taking over the place of my laptop or my iPhone? And I didn’t get one last year because I learned my lesson from buying a 1st generation iPhone in 2007, the 2nd version was 4 times cooler than the original.
I’ve now come to find out that the iPad basically took over all of the time I did read an actual book or maybe magazine before going to bed and even the little TV I did watch. I literally watch no traditional TV anymore (Hulu yes!)

The other 90% when the thing is on my daughter has it. She’s basically taken over the device - desktop, created folders, has her Pandora stations, Netflix streaming set up to watch Scooby Doo, Spongebob, and Strawberry Shortcake. She’s 5! Not even 6 quite yet.

Although, my wife did help her set up YouTube to old musical numbers, and of course, she’s been playing that crazy Smurf game. I swear Apple is marketing to the wrong demographic for this thing - it should really be kids.
The thing is MUCH better than getting a kid a laptop/computer, as in parental controls, and knowing what they’re playing with. And the games/apps I’ve found for it have been incredible. Loads of quality educational, creative, and learning stuff that’s pretty cheap in price.
We were considering getting her a Leapfrog Leapster or even a DS for her upcoming birthday, but that’s pretty much out the door now since those cartridges cost so much ($20-40) and a much better equivalent app in iTunes from $0 to $6.

Some iPad apps I’ve found, so far, to be great for kids (5-7-ish):

1. Math Bingo
2. TeachMe Kindergarten/1st Grade
3. StoryPatch
4. Drawing Pad
5. Learning to Draw is Fun
6. Read Me Stories
7. Toy Story Read Along
8. Angry Birds RIO
9. Fruit Ninja HD
10. Toontastic
11. Sock Puppets
12. Pocket Frogs
13. WordSearch Star Free
14. MathGirl Number Garden (iPhone app running on iPad)
15. Albert HD
16. Stack the States
17. Netflix
18. NASA App HD
19. Smurfs (my daughter insisted I put that on my list, just make sure you turn in-App purchases OFF. Settings/General/Restrictions, “Enable Restrictions”, In-App purchases “OFF.”)

Now that my daughter is finally asleep, I can finally play Words with Friends HD! By the way, if you play I’m “GjertsonB”…