So if you follow me on twitter or are my friend on Facebook, you already know what happened Sunday night: Oliver and Callum were goofing off on the couch (somersaults and jumping and all sorts), and I got up to cook dinner while singing my favourite song “one of you is going to get hurrrrrrrt”, and then one of them DID get hurt. Oliver pushed Callum off the couch (so they say; I didn’t even see it) and somehow he broke his elbow.

Little tiny boy in a big cast kind of makes me want to weep.

We were really lucky to only spend about 2.5 hours in the Emergency department on Sunday night, from start to finish.  Callum was in obvious pain, Oliver was way too interested in all the other patients and their ills, and I was on my own with them.

It’s times like these, times when we are stuck, like on a plane for 14 hours a couple of weeks ago, or waiting for an x-ray, like Sunday, that I am so thankful for my iPod touch.  I mean, I adore the thing anyway. I probably love it too much. When there’s wi-fi, I have a constant connection to email and twitter. I can sit outside with the kids and read the news.

In desperate times, I let the kids play with it (otherwise, they leave it alone on threat of death…). We recently discovered Talking Carl, and they’re finding it hilarious to torture him (worrisome!), but I don’t have full use of that app as it is better suited for an iPhone.  Their favourite apps are  puzzle games, Shape Builder Lite and Tozzle Lite, and ones involving farm animals (Occupy Baby Lite has On the Farm, and they always like Peekaboo Barn Lite). (Gee, do you see how cheap I am?! Free apps all around!)

Thanks to Mom Central Canada, we were recently able to try out 3 new apps from My Living Stories.  I asked Oliver, and he decided he wanted to download The Tortoise and the Hare, King Midas, and Goldilocks.

Review:

As with Talking Carl, My Living Stories apps are better suited for an iPhone rather than an iPod touch as they give you the opportunity to record your own voice to tell the story. I suppose I could get a microphone for the touch.  I can see that a voice recording would be neat for a kid missing a parent, grandparent or other significant person.

I liked the graphics of the stories. They were clear.  The child-like voice reading the stories was also clear.  Sometimes, however, the background music seemed to drown out the voice of the reader.  We found it especially hard to hear the narrator of King Midas in parts.

The kids enjoyed the stories, which they were already familiar with except for King Midas.  Overall, I think it would have made more sense to have a collection of many stories as one app, rather than one story per app, but I’m not familiar with how technically difficult that would be.

Giveaway:

Hey Canadians, would you like to win a $25 iTunes card?

Here’s how:

1. Leave a comment on this post between now and August 10, 2010 at 7pm EST. Please indicate which My Living Stories app you think you’d be interested in (you can choose from the Princess & the Pea, King Midas, The Tortoise & the Hare, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks & the Three Bears). Do you have other favourite apps for your kids?
2. Please leave one comment per person only. There are no extra entries for any other activities (e.g. tweeting about it).
3. Please make sure your comment includes your email address.
4. Contest is open to Canadians only.
5. Readers may enter the contests on multiple blogs participating in this My Living Stories Mom Central blog tour, but are only eligible to win one iTunes gift card.
6. I will use random.org to select one winner on August 10th after 7pm EST.
7. I will contact you and ask you for a postal address if you have won. I will provide your name and postal address to Mom Central Canada for it to be used to send you your prize.
8. You do not need to be a parent to enter this contest. Maybe you’d like to record a story for your favourite niece/nephew/random kid you know.

Good luck!

I’m sure I’ll be getting out my iPod touch again when Callum has his first cast off next week…ugh…

Disclosure: I am participating in the My Living Stories program by Mom Central on behalf of Decode Entertainment. I received 3 free apps and a gift card as a thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.

PS: also still a giveaway going on, on the other blog, for UnderWAY supplement drinks, which claim to curb hunger, until August 3rd.

Related posts:

1. Blog tour: Mom Central comes to Canada
2. Mom Central Canada blog tour: Moms Fight the Flu
3. Contest: Royale Reno-cation (Canada only) ENDED
4. New review blog, with a giveaway
5. Stories, not songs