Jurassic Lounge: Australian Museum as you've never seen it

Jurassic Lounge is here, people!

Every Tuesday night this summer, the Australian Museum opens its doors for after-hour sessions featuring art, live music, drinks and new ideas.

See Sydney’s hottest new artists, performers and DJs at this event. With a drink in hand, you can have a wander, and check out amazing live acts and exhibitions against a spectacular backdrop of dinosaur skeletons, precious gemstones and native animals. Now that is a very cool concept - it’s the Australian Museum as you’ve never seen it!

It's $15 at the door, which includes 1 free drink, and it's on every Tuesday, 5.30pm to 9.30pm until April 19, 2011. (Over 18s event).

Australian Museum is at 6 College Street, Sydney. Call 02 9320 6000 or see: www.jurassiclounge.com

Vital message for summer: from The Children's Hospital at Westmead

Hearing about a drowning is utterly heartbreaking. As a mother with a backyard pool I will confess to being stricken with fear at the very thought of it. I am not a strong swimmer and it has been of utmost importance to me to ensure my three year old twins are water-aware and feel confident in the pool. This does not mean it will ever eliminate the need for supervision. Oh no, not at all. In fact, I become a primal mother when we're in the pool, and watch their every move intently. But as these pictures show - courtesy of The Children's Hospital at Westmead - curious, young minds seek adventure... and in this case, these actions can have potentially disastrous consequences.

And the latest case of near-drownings due to lack of supervision have emergency doctors at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead warning parents about the dangers of crowded pools - there have been five near-drowning incidents in the past week.

While hospitals, major pool organisations and children’s safety groups have been busy building pool safety awareness in the lead-up to summer, there is still major concern over the safety of children in and around water after the five separate incidents.

Each year, as summer approaches, children spend more time venturing into the water to cool down, in both private and public pools. However, as Professor Danny Cass of the Trauma Unit at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead says, supervision by parents must play a lead role in preventing drownings.

“In this latest group of near-drownings, four were in public access pools while the other was in a private pool. Each of these cases involved a lapse of supervision. This is a real issue, particularly when the child is at a busy public pool where there are large crowds of people. Supervision can become confused. Supervision around water means within “arm’s length” and with eye contact,” said Cass.

“Not only is supervision the issue, but also the fact that the child can easily be overlooked when in the pool surrounded by a large number of swimmers”.

Emergency and Trauma specialists at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead are urging parents/carers to be extra vigilant this season and to ensure that:

1. They intimately supervise their children around swimming pools and any other body of water.

2. They closely observe their child when swimming in public pools.

3. They maintain a secure pool fence for their private swimming pools.

Let's all strive to make this an accident and fatality-free summer.

Grover is the Old Spice man. Cute.

Now this makes a nice change from the Katy Perry/Sesame Street mini debacle.

Check out Grover in his turn as the Old Spice dude.

Good ol' fashioned, cheeky fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB4P_VMNGYQ

Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2010 - red carpet and awards photos.

Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2010 - last night I went along. I shoulda bought along the ear plugs I have in my bedside drawer (the ones a friend advised I buy when the twins were babies - to use when the other half let me catch up on sleep, so I'd muffle duo newborn squealing). I never did use them, but boy I needed them last night.

The pre-tween, tween, and teen audience (with a smattering of adults who came for fun - like me - plus adults who accompanied little people) well and truly made their presence felt.

With an orange carpet (to match the Nickelodeon channel logo) earlier in the day, kids had a real chance to warm up vocal chords before the real thing inside the Ent Cent. Wow-ser - the very mention of Justin Bieber, Taylor Lautner, or Miley Cyrus sent these little tikes into a frenzy. And then there was the green slime - fun to watch from the periphery. Seeing those little people shiver their tushies off post-event, I had to resist the urge to tell them to change into warmer, drier, cleaner clothes.

Ah yes, kids will be kids. And mums, well...

Photo credits: Justin Lloyd, Anderson David, Getty Images, and Charlie Brewer.

Witchery Kids - apparently, this is offensive.

Many weeks ago, I found out that Witchery was releasing a kid's range. So I rang the PRs and asked for images and a release. Never happened, but perhaps they were prepping for the mini maelstrom that has erupted today over the Witchery Kids campaign.

On Kerri-Anne this AM, they had an expert speak about how these photos are damaging to kids and how these (and this is not a direct quote; I deleted the show from my Foxtel IQ) images are making kids grow up too quickly.

Um, what?

When I see these images, I see hip, cool kids who present lashings of kiddie 'tood, can rock rolled up jeans, of-the-moment hairstyles, and my fave accessories twist of the season: the looped belt.

What I don't see is "the sexualisation of children."

Have these detractors not seen a copy of Studio Bambini from, oh, the past decade? Or the photo shoots from every issue of Shop Til You Drop 4 Kids since its inception?

They've been filling their pages with edgy kiddie shoots for yonks.

No doubt the style savvy parents (well, the mums) have been demanding this kind of editorial, and the publications deliver.

Now, I am not a label snob (when you have twins, chances are you can't afford to be) but I like these mini threads. Not everyone wants to put their kids in floral dungarees and merchandising-hell (we are in the midst of one right now in my house: it's all about Dora and Thomas).

I simply see this range as a cute, fashion forward alternative.

What do you think?

PS: the mother of one of the girls on the Witchery shoot emailed Kerri-Anne and angrily denied there was anything 'sexy' about the shoot. She recounted how they spent the day laughing and having fun with it all. Sounds harmless to me.