Hi @Franchesca

This is the room where everyone that is vocal on the site suddenly becomes an introvert

Hey @JohnGB It does seem rather quiet.

It varies, but at times it's busy

Perhaps I can help with my Irish blarney ;)

Once there's some momentum it can be quite noisy in here.

:)

you need to pick a controversial topic and nerdsnipe everyone

Teach me :P

Hey @CharlesWesley

good morning

how have you been John? Nice to see you are back

Been busy with all sorts. I multiplied which has kept me somewhat busy

I created the world's most perfect human...

with a little help from my partner... just a little.

What have you been up to?

fantastic congratulations!

Congrats!

I'm currently cooking a new human as well, so you won't hold the most perfect title for long :P

fatherhood is keeping me busy, i'm working for a university now and that's been exciting, and i've taken up running and will be in my first half marathon in about a month

@Franchesca congrats!

thanks!

i have to say watching my son use apps on phones and tablets has been fascinating

i really enjoy watching him figure out how to use it--what he struggles with, what he doesn't

Cool, how far along are you Franchesca?

@CharlesWesley we wanted a specific app for our daughter and couldn't find one. So we made it for fun.

Learnt lots about how children use apps vs. adults

^^ Not a for money app, it's just nice and free without adds for schools.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hippokidsapps.zooabc

If you're bored, you can take a look and tell me what you think.

Turned out to be quite popular for the iOS schools programs, which makes me quite happy.

fantastic I'll give it a shot!

Basically we needed something to teach ours the cyrillic alphabet and Russian ABCs, so we did that.

Maybe a bit advanced for an 8 month old, but it also keeps her entertained :)

Is it just me or is UX.se down?

our son will be three in may so it will be interesting to see what he does

up for me

What age do they start school there?

(up for me now too, I think it was a DNS issue)

public school starts at 4 or 5 years of age depending on the specific school district

Okay, so still a while for you then.

yes we work with him regularly on the basics. He can count a little past ten, knows his colors. He knows his alphabet but doesn't usually engage for very long. So I'm interested to see how he reacts to the app

the apps he usually gravitates to are more open world exploring type games rather than structured apps with linear steps

he's big on these: sagosago.com

have you found that lots of screen time is bad for him at all? I've heard of parents that won't let their kids have any "screen time", preferring physical books.

we limit him so i don't know how much is too much

we read from books every night -- usually at least three before bed time

the use of the phone is usually a "treat" we reward him with

Same plan here

we travel to visit my parents often which involves a ferry ride and some time in the car. so if he has been good we will let him play a game

I like the idea of separating "consuming" and "creating"

Unlimited creating time, but limited consuming time.

yep the key i think is finding apps that are stimulating

Any good book recommendations?

I only pretend to read now, as I just recite the books and have my daughter turn the pages

we have spent a lot of time with some dr. seuss books -- they are above his age level but i find he enjoys the stories even if he doesn't understand all the larger words

Yup, went for those early on too. Hoping she'll get into them later

Right now it's all about how pretty the pages are I think.

i found it was interesting to see how he grew into them. he surprises us a lot with what he retains

exactly -- however with repetition they learn, and then one day they will say or do something entirely out of context from the book and you'll realize that they were making a connection to something in the real world based on something that happened in the book

:) I'm looking forward to that.

which is really cool. the last few months his imagination has taken off so he now does pretend play and he uses characters from books or lines from the books in his own way

All I get now is a big smile and a "Papa!"

Makes me happier than almost anything else in my life.

for sure! it's fleeting, the way they say it or the way they look at you changes quickly

I'm going to enjoy this as long as I can

:)

@Franchesca So how far into the baking process are you?