Kids do the darndest things--like staying alive underwater for an ungodly amount of time. Also, Washington's homes are super-affordable, and Backpage.com is still contributing to the sex trafficking of minors. more ›

This afternoon, the Seattle Times reported on a Center for Disease Control study which found that, in Washington State, more than 6 percent of elementary schoolers have not been vaccinated, due to parental exemption. According to the Times, this is the highest rate in the country. However, the Times glossed over kind of a lot. Which vaccinations were most often ducked? How many kids in each state were surveyed? What were the reasons for exempting? We were curious, but the Times didn't link to the study. So we had to go find it ourselves. more ›

What's the "State of Washington's Children"? We're not sure. more ›

In the Seattle Rep's production of Yasmina Reza's Tony-winning God of Carnage, an incident of playground violence results in an increasingly chaotic night of childish bickering between two sets of parents. Veronica Novak (Amy Thone) and her husband Michael (Hans Altwies) have invited Alan and Annette Raleigh (Denis Arndt and Bhama Roget) over to discuss a fight between their two sons and suggest how the boys might reconcile. more ›

Once again the zombies attacked Fremont, bringing gore and horror to the streets! more ›

On a chilly April morning, families came to Woodland Park Zoo for the Bunny Bounce Easter egg hunt and more! more ›

Once the site of a posh country club with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Meadowdale Beach Park in Lynnwood is now one of the few publicly accessible Puget Sound beaches in the Greater Seattle area. Accessible, that is, via a sometimes-steep 1.25 mile hike from the parking lot through a forest path. This isn't the place to bring your massive inflatables or your rolling BBQ. Yet the hike isn't so strenuous that you can't bring the little ones. (One note--the parking lot is small and fills up fast, so if you go on weekends, go early.)
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The School Board voted last night to approve proposed changes to school start times. In the fall, elementary schools will begin class at 9:30 a.m. and K-8, junior high, and high schools will begin at 8:15 a.m. We've heard from usually reliable sources both that kids learn better in the mornings and that mornings are bad for learning, so since that one's apparently still up in the air, we'll whine about what an ill thought-through decision this is with regards to working parents. more ›

No, but seriously--this is good news. In February, all over Washington, dentists are offering free dental care to low-income children, including screenings, cleanings, X-rays and fillings (where possible), and referrals if things have gone further south than that. Because dental care is generally so expensive, it's the kind of thing that low-income parents have to skip when it comes to their kids' health. Washington Dentists Care (we know it might not seem like when they're coming at you with that drill, but they do) is sponsored by the WSDA, whom we applaud because your teeth have to last your whole life.

Here is a partial list of free care offered this month. Please call for an appointment: more ›

Just in time for Inauguration Day, 826 Seattle is celebrating the publication of Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids' Letters To President Obama (available January 20th). In the book, 826 students from all seven writing centers "reach out to the 44th president, speaking to the issues closest to their hearts, relating their life stories, and asking for help. Topics include the economy, education, war, global warming, race relations in America, and immigration. The book also includes letters about snow cones, puppies, microwavable burritos, dinosaur projects, multiplication, and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, reportedly haunting a White House bedroom." To celebrate the book's release, there's a party and reading at 826 Seattle next Saturday afternoon. more ›

Seattlest is not sure what to do with this P-I story about a poll on kids' perception of violence. The gist of the article is that according to Junior Achievement's survey, a startling percentage of kids in the U.S. don't seem to feel like violence in their communities is all that noteworthy--and that data resonates profoundly with the experience of many in South and Southeast Seatte. Presumably, the poll was faulty in some way, phrased poorly or not asking the right questions, because there's not a non-sociopathic kid in the world who isn't concerned when their friend gets shot at the mall. (Even as a young kid, we could recognize that "when is it okay to hit somebody?" was a dirty trick question.) It is conceivable, however, that street violence feels so entrenched in some Seattle neighborhoods that a kid could take the attitude that change isn't possible. more ›

The state ferry system could float two ways in the next chunk of the future: either stay pretty much as is, full steam ahead with plans to build ten ferries, or slim way down and increase fares. It's hard for us to get too worked up about this, maybe because we can't even imagine leaving the house, let alone driving to Mukilteo, this week. Or maybe because we've been reporting on the multi-millions of dollars cut from Washington state health and human services, for God's sake, and we'd rather see the ferry system build only five new ferries and kick up the fares than to see more cutbacks in health care for kids and poor people.
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Warning: First-person singular follows. more ›

• West Seattle Blog has been covering a weekend diving accident at Seacrest which left one man struggling for his life at Harborview.
• The Central District News also spent the weekend updating and covering a sad story of two youth shot near Garfield High School. One of the young men died at the scene, while another was taken to Harborview to care for his injuries.
• Oh no. Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas/holiday lights and decorations are arriving. Capitol Hill Seattle reports the lights are already being strung up and down Broadway.

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He's been ordered to remain in custody while the court figures out if he understands the charges and sounds out Booker's moral compass. Someone give the boy a brownie and a hug, for God's sake. more ›

We had a laid-back, happy time at Dope Emporium on Saturday. It felt like a hiphop block party: a family affair with barbeque, a beer garden, and kids running around doing cute things like breakdancing. There even was a producers' battle from which MTK (of Himalayan Rickshaw Run fame) emerged triumphant. Check out some photos from the event, taken by Seattlest and Terry Creighton. more ›

Love it or hate it, there's no denying the commercial success of Kidz Bop. A big hit with the kids, as well as their parents, the family-friendly Kidz Bop series has sold 10.5 million CDs in the past seven years, no small feat in the dying music industry. And to think, all they're doing is taking pop songs (sometimes current, sometimes retro) and adding incredibly chipper kids' vocals to the mix. more ›

Now that whoredom is all over the news, won't somebody think of the children? more ›

On Saturday, we took our godson, his mom and his dad to Baby Loves Disco. Since we don't have a kid of our own and don't have any experience with kid-themed events, 17-month-old Eli agreed to let us interview him about the party. more ›

Those crazy kids at WET have put Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on a crash diet -- the subtitle is "A Pistol Fit in One Act" -- and added what they call "dance and circus vocabulary" to the mix. According to the Weekly,

The show is “movement intense,” says director Jennifer Zeyl; actors can and do literally run up the walls.

Last night there were tons of Ron Paul's people outside the Showbox Sodo. Before, during, and after Barack Obama's fundraising event/rally, the Paul supporters waved their signs and interacted with anyone who would give them the time of day. Too bad they couldn't afford tickets to the event due to the current tax structure--if only someone would abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve.... Meanwhile, inside the venue was a crowd of teens, twenty-somethings,... more ›

This Seattlest started his carpet-bagging campaign here about ten years ago, so maybe we have an imperfect understanding of the Fun Forest and it's cultural baggage. When we heard that the City Council had elected to raze the Fun Forest in 2009 our first reaction was "What?! They're clear-cutting the Wenatchee National Forest?!" But then we caught on, as we occasionally do, and realized they were talking about the little carnivalette that lives in Seattle... more ›

For a Presidential candidate—especially one who has recently surged in the polls—Barack Obama is kinda a rock star. So it makes sense that he'd host his latest Seattle appearance at a rock club. The Seattle Generation Obama Concert takes place Tuesday night at the Showbox SoDo. Obama will be there, doing his campaigning thing, along with special musical guests the Dusty 45s and (the still-reunited) Brad. Since Obama and company are going after the... more ›

Jersey Boys, more than anything, feels like the Tony Award-winning "Behind the Music" musical. This one happens to be about The Four Seasons. When four blue-collar kids dodge prison to form a white doo wop band, meet up with producer Bob Crewe, and sell 175 million records worldwide before they're 30, the announcer in your head automatically intones: "But things were about to go terribly, terribly wrong." It's undeniably satisfying. more ›

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs. more ›

[Full Disclosure: We were in APP (then called "IPP") from 1st-8th grade.] more ›