Crayola Unveils NEW Partially Peeled, Pre-Broken Crayons for Preschoolers

Every pack of Crayola L’il Nubz™ comes with a mixture of round and triangular crayons (because we all know they’re going to get mixed together anyway).

The newest product from Crayola has preschool moms and dads rethinking their back-to-school shopping. Called L’il Nubz™, these partially peeled, pre-broken crayons are being lauded as a game changer by parents and teachers alike.

“My 3-year-old used to spend HOURS peeling her crayons whenever we’d sit down to color,” noted mommy blogger Dakota McKenzie. “By the time she was done peeling the paper to her exact specifications, it was time to put the coloring book away. Now that I think of it, she was hardly coloring at all.”

McKenzie had been granted a sneak peek of this timesaving invention, thanks in large part to the success of her blog, “Mommy & MEgan.” Although she was skeptical when she first received a box of L’il Nubz™,  she changed her tune soon after handing the box over to her daughter.

Using an old school box of crayons, McKenzie’s daughter spent 14 hours, over the course of five days, on this page in her coloring book. Most of that time was spent peeling and breaking existing crayons.

“She went from no-casso to Picasso the moment that box hit her hands. Sure, she was a little confused when she first dumped them out and realized there was very little paper left to peel, but that just meant she was able to spend more time actually drawing and coloring.”

In addition to having the paper partially removed from some crayons and completely removed from others, many crayons are also pre-broken.

“I used to get so anxious whenever my son would crush Crayons in his tiny but surprisingly powerful raccoon hands. But with L’il Nubz™, the experience has been comparatively stress-free,” said social media influencer and stay-at-home dad Bo Sabe. “It was also a relief to see the box comes pre-distressed, with dented corners and a broken flap you can barely insert back into the box. That’s one less worry when I hand a new box over to my little bud.”

Daycare workers are also rejoicing, with facilities across the country recommending L’il Nubz™ to their parents.

“L’il Nubz™ aren’t just for preschoolers. We’re recommending them to all of our toddler parents,” said Annie West,­ director of Tots & Bots, a STEM-based daycare­. “We all know that toddlers, and even some older kids, eat their crayons. With L’il Nubz™, there’s one less non-food item making its way into their little digestive systems.”

A representative for Crayola indicated they had a team of researchers working on this project for years before developing L’il Nubz™.

“Our original design kept the crayons in tact, but encased in a virtually indestructible carbon steel shell,” said scientist Alexa Adams. “But we found in testing that we had grossly underestimated a preschooler’s determination to rip off the paper and break the crayon. So instead of preserving the crayon’s integrity, it was still destroyed, and more valuable creative time had been expended on freeing the crayon from its case.”

“Not to mention,” Adams continued, “Parents weren’t keen on spending $799.99 on a single box of crayons.”

A 24-ish pack of L’il Nubz™ retails for $24.99. Most packs come with 2-3 crayons already missing, so you don’t have to worry about looking for them under your entertainment center or between your sofa cushions.

“Her use of color since L’il Nubz is nothing short of inspirational,” said McKenzie of her daughter’s newest creation.

How a talking fork helped me become reacquainted with my past life

Our homemade version of Toy Story 4’s “Forky.”

Parenting is a solitary gig, even when done in pairs. You see friends and family less and less, and things you once did eagerly, and regularly, become a distant memory. That’s not to say it’s all a bum racket, but it isn’t exactly for the faint of heart, either (particularly when family, aka free babysitting, is 160-2300 miles away).

But it is what it is, and you do your best, keeping an eye on the clock—and so inadvertently rushing time—just waiting for the day when your kid can accompany you on various adventures. At age two, everyone says it’s OK to take your kid to an age-appropriate movie (oh, the cinema! Remember that?). But at age two, your particular mini-me shies away from crowds and cries at loud sounds, and the movie theater is, sadly, a combination of her two biggest breakdown triggers. So you sigh from the sidelines as children’s movies come and go, and you stay in. And in. And in.

(The vague recollection of you going to the movies 2-3 times a month pre-child feeling more and more like a different life entirely.)

But your child is growing, and though the triggers have remained the same, they are increasingly less so, and so one day – after you’ve gently mentioned how much fun it would be, little by little for weeks – she agrees that yes, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

So you call a buddy, pack headphones into your bag, say a hail Mary (never mind you aren’t Catholic; you need all the help you can get) and head to the theater.

You hand her the headphones while you’re still out on the sidewalk; you make a game out of the escalator ride up; you buy her absolute most-favorite treat; and you head into your theater just as the movie is about to start (because you know better than to risk sitting through 13-minutes of previews).

When she opens her mouth to speak, the words that come out are precisely what you’d feared: “I want to go home.”

Sure, you expected that, but your heart falls to your feet all the same. But you’re not going to go down without a fight, so you pick her up and give her a hug. “It will be OK. Let’s just try it for a minute. If you don’t like it or it’s too loud, we’ll leave.”

You don’t expect her to agree, but she surprises you. These little humans are funny like that.

“OK,” she says. “Let’s try it.”

And that was that. For the next 90 minutes, she sits perfectly still, shifting only a little just to get more comfortable. She doesn’t make a peep except to laugh or say “thank you” when you hand her a treat.

As you walk out of the theater, you sense a strange feeling. It takes a second or two before you’re able to define it. Could it be? Is this really?

…happy…

So much has happened, so much has gone wrong, you’d almost forgotten what it was like. You can feel the moment etching into the folds of your brain, a veritable oasis after walking through four years of desert.

When you take a moment to reflect, you can’t decide if this is the absolute best children’s movie ever—or if what you’re feeling is really just the joy that comes with being re-acquainted with the theater. With your old friend.

Oh, how I’ve missed you.

When you’re in the bathroom for a post-movie potty break, the reality of the day hits you.

You can start going to the movies again.

You feel a weight lift as you welcome in a small bit of freedom. Your mind briefly turns to the rest of the day as you realize just how many tasks lay ahead. Your daughter’s little voice brings you back to the room as she finishes washing her hands.

“Can we make a Forky after my nap?” she squeaks.

You don’t even pause to think. The day has written itself.

“Absolutely.”

New phishing scam goes unchecked by Facebook

UPDATE (9/2/2019): After a brief slowdown in these ads following our story’s publication, they are back in full force as of August 31, 2019. All of the below warnings remain (unfortunately) relevant.

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A not-so-new scam on Facebook has many users forking over their personal information – including credit card numbers – in exchange for too-good-to-be-true deals on Keen shoes.

Some users who have attempted to place an order noted they received a “timed out” screen when finalizing their order, while others had their orders appear to go through (though they received no confirmation emails). In both cases, shoes never arrived at their doorstep — but their name, address, phone number and credit card information were unwittingly handed over to online hucksters.

The ads first began appearing on Facebook and Instagram April 15, if not sooner, and a large handful of unlucky users have had their newsfeeds overrun by these scam ads. Although each ad appears to come from a different (fake) company, they all share a few common features: they have a similar layout, and they boast highly discounted Keen shoes, free shipping and fast delivery. Most of the ads come from bogus accounts clearly created for the purposes of the ad – they have no posts, followers or profile pics – though a few appear to be hacked accounts from legitimate (but potentially defunct) businesses. They all claim to be from authorized Keen retailers, but as Keen has told concerned consumers on Twitter: “This is not a KEEN official site or authorized retailer.”

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As a lover of Keen shoes, I admit the first time this ad appeared in my feed, I considered clicking the “Shop Now” link. But something just didn’t feel right. So instead, I took a peek at the comments, which were flooded with words like “Scam!”; “Don’t click!”; “Report this ad”; “Don’t buy!” and even “They stole my credit card information.”

(This is just a small sampling; many of the comments also had some pretty unkind words for Facebook.)

So I reported that first – and presumably last – ad as “misleading or scam” and went about my day, thinking the unpleasant experience was behind me. But instead: the ads kept coming. And coming. The faster I reported them, the faster they arrived until it got to the point where 80% of the ads in my newsfeed were scam ads for Keen footwear. A quick scroll in my newsfeed today – at least 11 days after reports of the fake ads first appeared on social media – and nearly 1 in 5 posts in my newsfeed was a fake Keen ad. And even worse: I accidentally clicked “Shop Now” once when scrolling.

(I closed my browser immediately, deleted my history and cookies and then restarted my phone, but who knows what villainy now lurks on my device.)

It’s enough to make a person want to abandon the platform altogether, which makes me wonder: is it possible THAT – and not the credit card thievery – is the scammer’s true objective? It’s also possible this is a consumer advocate group placing the ads merely to demonstrate a very large kink in Facebook’s scam-detecting armor, though all signs at present indicate a malicious scam with no end in sight. And let’s not forget how reporting the ads seems to make more ads appear in one’s feed: clearly something is awry with Facebook’s algorithms.

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This DM from KEEN to a concerned consumer was more than a week old by the time this story was published.

For their part, Keen has been turning the sites over to their legal team, though it seems clear they have nothing to do with the ads, and the responsibility of having them removed from Facebook should rest squarely on Facebook’s shoulders.

Any yet: more than 11 days have passed, and the fake ads continue. In some cases, Facebook tells me they’ve removed the ads. But for most, their response is far more unsettling: thanks for reporting, but we’re keeping the ad up for now. As someone who has paid for ads on Facebook before, I know they claim to have an ad review process. I create an ad, I submit it to them, and between a few minutes to a couple hours later, the ad gets approved and is posted. Which makes me wonder: what is their ad review process, and why isn’t it catching these blatantly fake ads?

A representative for Facebook didn’t respond to questions concerning this specific scam but says their ad review process “relies primarily on automated tools.” They check to see if the ad violates any of their Advertising Policies, and they reject the ad if it does. These “automated tools” are reviewing the ad’s text, images and related landing pages for violations before it goes live, and if an ad gets reported, it gets kicked back into the system for another review. It’s unclear if/when human eyes ever enter into the process, because the majority of the comments on these ads indicate the lion’s share of human eyes can see the scam. But sadly: that isn’t the case for all users, and some have clearly fallen victim to the fake ads.

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“While we continuously evolve our tools and improve enforcement,” explains Facebook, “Bad actors continue to find ways to game the system. This is why we also encourage people to report this kind of behavior.”

But if reporting a single ad that’s part of a larger scam doesn’t help Facebook see the big picture – even if you feel like you’re painting the picture for them by reporting similar ads over and over – reporting can feel like a Sisyphean task. Since Facebook appears to be addressing the fake ads one-by-one using an automated system, rather than stepping back and noticing a larger scheme at play, this scam will continue to go unchecked if they don’t reconsider their approach, revise their algorithms and hire a few more humans to review suspicious ads and detect trends.

In any event, purchasing solely from authorized retailers and reporting the fake ones appears to be our only recourse at the moment. Well, that, and writing a story about it and hoping – just hoping – that it will eventually make its way to someone who can actually make a difference.

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NOTE: The below fake ads are a small sampling of what’s made the rounds on Facebook. As of 4/27/19, the scammers appear to be switching up their game and marketing Skechers — instead of Keen — in their ploy. They also now occasionally make it appear as though the ad links to REI.com. Regardless of whatever brand (or product type) is featured in the ad, proceed with a dose of skepticism, and don’t divulge any personal information (including credit card number) until you’re 100% certain the company is legitimate. There are plenty of real ads on Facebook too, so if you’re unsure, check with the manufacturer. Or as my study hall supervisor used to say: “When in doubt: DON’T.”

If it’s too late and you fear you’ve already fallen victim to this or another phishing scam, the Federal Trade Commission recommends you take these next steps.

Read, Sing, Play and... Hibernate with Me (Book Review)

My husband was originally going to play this ukulele, but our daughter refused to let go.

It’s a big, scary world out there, and children sometimes need a little reassurance that they are safe and loved.

Hibernate with Me does precisely that by coupling a feel-good rhyme with delightful illustrations of a parent bear comforting his or her cub. Written and illustrated by Benjamin Scheuer and Jemima Williams, respectively, this book works well as a bedtime story and/or lullaby.

That’s right: a lullaby. In fact, Hibernate with Me was first written by Scheuer as a song, with the words lending themselves nicely to a children’s story. While the book functions first and foremost as an illustrated tale, with no musical prowess required, the last spread of the book features the lyrics, chords and melody.

And that, for my little musical family, is what helped this story really stand out for us. That’s not to say the book doesn’t work on its own—because it does—it’s just that we’ve never had a book inspire us to break out our instruments and learn an entirely new tune.

I admit there are a couple chords in this song that I had forgotten how to play, so I had to consult with my trusty cheat sheet.

My husband, a multi-instrumentalist, started off learning to play it on the piano, and then one day during nap time, I plucked away at the ukulele until I figured out the melody (no small feat for me, considering I’m self-taught and reading music is slow-going at best). It felt like quite an accomplishment, which isn’t something I normally expect from children’s literature.

Ultimately, we decided the song sounds lovely on the ukulele, and in the process of recording the below video, our daughter commandeered one of my instruments and started to play along. There’s one linguistic slip-up here, but we didn’t dare try to recreate this, for reasons evident to anyone who has ever spent more than an hour alone with a toddler.

Recommended by the publisher for kids ages 4-8, our 2.5 year old had no problems following along. She’s an anxious little thing at times, and the book’s message of comfort and security was not lost on her. We also think the song, when removed from the context of a children’s book, could double as an endearing tune for a friend or significant other.

Our video features less than half of the song and was recorded prior to hearing the official release, which I’m also including below.

The official video features illustrations from the book. And, well, the melody as it was actually intended.

We Love "Love, Z" (Book Review)

“That’s a really good story.” –My two-year-old bibliophile

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I honestly don’t know what to say about author/illustrator Jessie Sima’s Love, Z that wasn’t already captured so succinctly by my daughter, so how about if I instead tell you what my husband and I BOTH said after we read the book for the first time?

That’s right: one simultaneous “Awwww!” moments before our daughter said “Read it again, please.”

It really is a darling story. It tells the tale of a little robot who finds a message in a bottle. Most of the letter is too smudged to read, but Z can make out the words “Love, Beatrice” at the very bottom. But little Z doesn’t know what love is, so the robot embarks on a quest to find out.

Friends, family and followers of my blog know I have a soft spot for cute robots, particularly since I draw one myself (though I’ll be the first to admit mine isn’t as cute as Z). But you don’t have to have a predisposition for sentient robots to enjoy Love, Z’s adorable illustrations and heartwarming tale.

Highly recommended for kids 2-8. Whether they’re learning to ascribe words to their emotions; they’re starting to read on their own; or you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day present that is on-point, super sweet and sugar-free: Love, Z is for you.