It's almost spring, and windy days are here! Take your kids out to enjoy the sunshine and fly a kite. Don't have a kite? Help the kids make one with objects you already have around the house.

Materials:
- for the kite: plastic trash bag, paper grocery bag, or a sheet of paper
- for supports: drinking straws, sticks, bamboo, lightweight wooden dowels, or chopsticks
- markers/crayons to decorate the kite (optional, but fun!)
- tape
- paper hole punch
- paper clip
- string (at least 7 feet)

Directions:
1. Cut your trash bag or paper into a shape that looks like this: (Click the picture for a larger version you can print out as a template.)

2. Cut your supports to be the same height as the kite. Tape the supports onto the kite where the red dotted lines are.

3. Put a few pieces of tape on each side of the kite where the green rectangles are.

4. Use the hole punch to punch a hole through the kite (and tape) where the blue circles are.

5. Cut off a piece of string (if your kite is about 10" wide and 8" tall, the string should be about 3 feet long).

6. Tie one end of the string to the kite through one hole; then tie the other end through the other hole.

7. Clip a paper clip to the center of the string.

8. Tie a long piece of string (at least 4 feet long) to the bottom of the paper clip.

9. Decorate your kite if you'd like.

10. You're ready to fly!

If you're in Austin, take your new kite out to Zilker Park this Sunday, March 4th, for the 79th annual Zilker Kite Festival. It's a blast even if you don't fly anything, and it's completely free! Kids can build their own kites at the festival, and there are loads of contests to enter and watch, including Smallest Kite, Largest Kite, and Most Unusual Kite.

What are the features you look for in a good home pregnancy test? Funny question, I know, but seriously....those suckers are expensive, so you want to make sure you're getting a good deal, right?

Early detection: You could always just wait it out and see if you get your period, but come on! Who wants to wait? What makes a pregnancy test detect a pregnancy earlier than others is the amount of hCG (the hormone a woman's body produces during pregnancy) that the test can pick up. Most of the more sensitive tests detect hCG at 20-25 mIU/mL (milli-international units per milliliter).

Reliability: You want a test that will give you a positive if you're pregnant and a negative if you're not. Of course there's room for false negatives (you're pregnant but the test says you're not) if you tested too early, but you should never get a test telling you you're pregnant if you're not (false positive). Tests with a high rate of false positives and evaporation lines can be confusing and frustrating.

Ease of use: They're not really hard to use, but some do have different methods of applying urine to the stick. There's the hold-the-stick-in-the-pee-stream method (midstream), the pee-in-a-cup-and-dip-the-stick-in-the-pee method (dip-strip), and the pee-in-a-cup-and-use-a-dropper-to-suck-up-the-pee-and-put-a-few-drops-on-the-test method (cassette). Although they're all simple to do, many women prefer the midstream or dip-strip styles.

Ease of reading: The standard 2 vertical lines are usually more clear and easier to read than the +/- tests, but many women also really like the newer digital tests that display the words "pregnant" or "not pregnant."

Here are two of the most reliable brands that detect hCG at 25 mIU/mL:

First Response Early Result

Fact Plus One-Step

These two are also good, but they detect at 50 mIU/mL:

e.p.t

Accu-Clear

Picking up a test at the drugstore for 10-15 bucks isn't your only option. You can also go with the store brand tests; most of them are made by the same company. Many dollar stores also carry home pregnancy tests, and the vast majority are just as sensitive and reliable (if not more) as the big name brands. Another option is to buy tests in bulk online from a site like www.saveontests.com or www.testsforless.com. You can find any of the three types of tests (midstream, dip-strip, cassette), and you can expect to pay between 30 cents and a couple dollars per test, depending on the type and quantity you buy. The cheapest are usually dip strips, which are thin, flexible strips. They're the same thing as the innards of a regular home pregnancy test without the hard plastic cover.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the website peeonastick.com, or POAS for short, it's a great resource for all things related to home pregnancy tests! I'm not at all affiliated with that site, but I have used it as a reference many times in the past, and I've learned most of the things I know about pregnancy tests from the experiments and information there.

Do you have (or nanny for) a pre-verbal child? Are you frustrated by trying to figure out what she wants when she grunts, "EH!!!!" or babbles, "mamamama"? Is she talking about Mommy? Does she want some milk? More of something? How are you supposed to know?

Signing with a hearing toddler can help reduce the frustration felt on both sides, and it actually helps the child's verbal abilities develop, too. You may be amazed at how much your toddler can communicate to you even before she can speak!

How do you start? First you'll need to learn some sign language yourself. You can shell out big bucks on books, dvds, kits or classes, but it's really not necessary. You can easily (and for free!) make up your own signs or use American Sign Language (ASL).

I remember spending hours and hours blowing bubbles as a kid - playing in the soapy water, trying to make the biggest bubble possible and then attempting to catch it again without popping it. Lucky for me, Ethan loves bubbles, too! We make our own bubble solutions when the store-bought ones run out.

You can play around with the proportions, but my favorite bubble solution recipe is this one:

Super Bubble Solution

Ingredients:
2/3 cup dishwashing detergent
1 gallon water
2-3 tablespoons glycerin

Directions:
Gently mix the ingredients together in a gallon jug, and let it sit overnight with the cap off. (If the kids can't wait, no big deal. You can use it right away.) Pour it into smaller bubble solution containers for easier portability.

Tips:
1. If you have the time, make your bubble solution and store it for a while before using it. The older it is, the better!
2. Dawn and Joy seem to be the best dishwashing detergents for making bubble solutions.
3. If you have hard or well water, you might consider using bottled distilled water for your solution.
4. You can find glycerin at drugstores or often at craft stores. Our grocery store carries it in the first aid / medicine section.
5. Glycerin is expensive, but you can get similar results by using light (as opposed to dark) Karo Syrup.

When it's bubble time, we bring out some shallow plastic bowls or metal cake pans and pour some solution in them. I pull out lots of things to use as bubble wands:

- drinking straws
- fly swatters
- metal coat hangers
- plastic cookie cutters
- six-pack holders (those plastic rings that hold all the soda cans together)
- funnels
- strawberry baskets
- cotton shoelaces tied into a circle
- our hands!

Bubbles are great for experimenting in all sorts of ways: What happens if you touch a bubble with a dry finger? How about a wet finger? Can you blow a bubble inside a bubble? Can you catch a bubble on top of another bubble? Try blowing bubbles on a rainy day when the yard and sidewalks are wet. Your bubbles will decorate the ground!