Children on Michael’s Domain

The most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

According to this study from the University of Lund, the most effective ways to tackle climate change are largely not being discussed. Not surprisingly, they touch such the things dearest to our hearts: our car, our holidays, our children and our favorite foods.

"Silver" and "gold" coating a 5 cent coin

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last Friday, I coated with my kids 5 cent (copper) coins. They look pretty nice even though its only zinc and brass. All you need is a clean copper coin (you can clean old coins efficiently with vinegar), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), zinc powder and a hot plate. The original method (see this PDF ) uses a bunsen burner, but we did the heating and the final conversion of the zinc-plated coin into a brass-plated coin simply by placing it on our kitchen’s hot plate. Hot sodium hydroxide is pretty dangerous, so be warned (eye protection) and keep the kids under control!

rtmpdump - Die Sendung mit der Maus

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In my post from 5 March 2010 , I wrote about Die Sendung mit der Maus. At last, you can now watch Die Sendung mit der Maus in its entirety as a Flash video online! For 7 days, until the next episode of Die Sendung mit der Maus. The resolution isn’t HD (512x288 at 25fps, H264), but at least you can save it to your hard drive – if you know how. The programme that makes this possible is, of course, open source: rtmpdump . The command line is:

Rescue from the vacuum cleaner

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I have identified the top reason of LEGO pieces disappearing in our household: the vacuum cleaner. On suspicion I reluctantly decided to explore the bag’s content (Miele HyClean N/G) after it was full and here is what I extracted: Three LEGO pieces, three puzzle pieces, a screw driver head, a pinwall pin, a Mastermind pin and some yet to identify metal item.

LEGO

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Tobi wants Lego. To make sure that you don’t buy him sets he already owns, he has made a list at brickset.com of all his sets. And so that you don’t have to register at brickset.com, there is a mirror of this list here: Tobi’s Lego bricksets .

Kid's series on German TV

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The online offering from Germany’s public service broadcasters (i.e. ARD) for children ( kinder.ard.de ) is rather limited (although they do produce good children’s television). You can find plenty online, but rarely the actual programmes themselves – instead, there’s a lot of Flash rubbish . Selected ‘Sachgeschichten’ and clips from Die Sendung mit der Maus are the only things that interest my son. I want the whole Sendung mit der Maus! And Sesame Street isn’t available online at all, neither in full nor in part. That’s exactly what I’d like: I don’t just want to decide for myself WHAT my children watch, but also WHEN they watch. If I lived in Germany, I could record the broadcasts onto a hard drive. Fortunately, German law not only permits digital recording for personal use (“ private copy ”), but also the sharing of the recordings with friends. That’s how I get Sesame Street , The Show with the Mouse , Was ist was TV and the Bibliothek der Sachgeschichten .

Finally some good self-made chocolate ice cream

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Last summer I bought this ice cream maker. Some of the ice cream I made was quite OK, but only now did I succeed in making ice cream that compares favorably to Mövenpick or similar. The secret is: EGGS and lots of FAT and SUGAR. Here is the recipe:

Giant soap bubbles

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There are hundreds of web pages describing recipes for giant soap bubbles. Some of the more interesting ones are The Bubblesphere , Bubble Town , Soap Bubbler , Riesenseifenblasen durch polymere Additive (in German) , Nanotech Kids . Why another web posting about soap bubbles? Because almost all of them use ingredients that are not available where I live (i.e. Finland). I got a recipe from a soap bubbler who performed at a kindergarden event in my neighbourhood and here is my modified version (including brand names which were absent from the original recipe):

More of Tobi's kindergarten songs (Finnish X-mas songs)

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

METSÄMÖKIN TONTTU

Kas metsämökin ikkuna, sielt tonttu ulos kurkistaa.Ja jänö laukkaa laputtaa ja oveen kolkuttaa:Auta, auta pyydän sua, metsämies kun vaanii mua.Sulle suojan tarjoan siis kätes ojenna.

How much toothpaste is safe to swallow for a 3 year old?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My son doesn’t like to brush teeth and he is probably no exception. In order to protect his teeth, we started to use a fluoride-containing tooth paste when he was about 2 years old. However, we were always careful and didn’t let him swallow the toothpaste in order to avoid overdosing. There are likely still quite a few cases of acute fluoride poisoning in small children every year (Shulman & Wells, 1997) and not surprisingly they are mostly caused by ingestion of large amounts of fluoride containing toothpaste. Just now I made the calculation and my son was probably never in danger of overdosing due to the fact that the water we get here in Helsinki from our local utility supplier Helsingin Vesi is very low in fluoride (0.1 mg/l or 0.1 ppm). He brushes his teeth twice a day and uses each time a pea-sized amount of tooth paste (equaling about 0.15 g). The toothpaste he uses (OralB Stages) contains 0.11% sodium fluoride (equaling 0.05% fluoride). This means that if he swallowed all of his toothpaste he would ingest 0.15 mg of fluoride per day. This is 30% of the daily amount of fluoride supplementation recommended by the American Dental Association for children between 3 and 6 years of age and still less than the daily amount recommended for children of ages between 6 months and 3 years (0.25 mg). I have not encouraged him to swallow the tooth paste although there seems nothing to argue against doing so apart from my parental inconsistency. Daddy probably doesn’t know as he changes his mind all the time… But I guess since he is chewing very avidly his xylitol chewing gum , he should be fine even without much fluoride.

The E-numbers of ADHD-like behaviour inducing food colors and additives

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There has been a publication about artificial colors and other food additives influencing children’s behaviour ( McCann, 2007 ), making it more ADHD-like. This is perhaps due to the chemicals’ influence on brain chemistry. This claim is not new, just the methodology (double-blind, randomized). I just checked out this paper and figured out the corresponding E numbers. Unfortunately the research used “cocktails” of these additives and therefore some of these might be harmless. But nevertheless, here is the list:

Chocolate and onion-syrup against cough

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Cough serves a useful purpose if it is productive, i.e. if it removes excessive mucus from the airways. However, unproductive cough can be problematic, especially since there seems to be no safe cough medication for children; many of the over-the-counter drugs for treating cough in children have been banned due to their serious side effects. On the search for safe alternatives, I came across commonly used food items which effectively suppress cough and dilate the airways (chocolate) and which (presumably) help against respiratory tract infections (honey and onion).ChocolateTheobromine is used as an effective anti-tussative agent and as a brochodilator ( Usmani 2005 , Simons 1985 ). Therefore it should be possible to achieve the same cough-suppressing effect by consuming cocoa or chocolate. A typical dose of theobromine is 500-1000 mg (i.e. about 10 mg/kg). The theobromine content of cocoa varies between 0.5% and 2.7%. In order to get into the therapeutic range, my son (16 kg) would have to eat about 200 mg of theobromine. The maximal cocoa content he tolerates in chocolate is 85% (which is quite surprising, but since I hardly eat anything below 70% cocoa content he got used to it early on). So he needs to eat about 10-20 grams of very dark chocolate. Children metabolize theobromine quite fast, so the effect is not very long-lasting. My son has agreed to test this and it seems to work.Honey-onion syrupThe other remedy against cough is onion syrup. I take an onion. I prefer red ones as they are not as hot as the white ones. I cut it into very small pieces (cubes of 1-2 mm length) and then I mix them with about the same amount of crystalline, good-quality honey. After a a few hours the mixture becomes liquid as the sugar pulls out the water from the plant cells (osmosis). Then I squeeze out the juice from the mix. One onion per day is the approximate dosage for respiratory tract infections. Honey and onion contain both anti-bacterial compounds, but I haven’t found any good studies showing that this mix really helps. However, unlike the chocolate, this is an old, traditional recipe against cough.

Tobi's kindergarten songs

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Pikkuiset kultakalat

Pikkuiset kultakalat lammessa uipikkuinen kalaäiti huolestuiuikaa, uikaa jos osaatteja he uivat ja uivat sen uskotteHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiJa he uivat ja uivat sen uskotteAika isot kalanpojat lammessa uiaika iso isäkala huolestuiuikaa, uikaa jos osaatteja he uivat ja uivat sen uskotteHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiHop-hop-däbä-däbä-hop-hop-huiJa he uivat ja uivat sen uskotteJättiläis kultakalat lammessa ui…Mini, mini kultakalat lammessa ui…