From last Sunday to this Sunday was the longest week I’ve had in a while. Last Sunday, which kicked it off, should have been an indicator of just how busy it would turn out to be: I started off the day cleaning the hovel my husband now calls home during his work week because I just.couldn’t.stand.existing in it, met a deadline in the mid-afternoon, headed to a party downtown hosted by Leapfrog (Alone. EXCEPT for all four kids) and near the end of the night found myself in the bathroom of a bar while a rock-singer pharmacist and a doctor-turned-opera singer tried to coax an errant contact lens out of my eye. But for now, let’s concentrate on the Leapfrog party.

As a parenting writer I’ve been invited to PR-hosted events before, but I can’t think of one I’ve ever been to that was as family-friendly as the LeapFrog event. It was held in a Kindercare in the south loop, so it was obviously a total kid haven and right off the bat I felt less flustered than I sometimes would about walking in the door with my four offspring, one of whom was still a little sniffly and teary-eyed after scraping his knuckles during a sidewalk wipe-out. The parents and kids were hanging out in the play area, which meant my boys could jump right into action (Owen quickly forgot his scraped knuckles in favor of hitting the playhouse.) There were juice boxes, cookies and even some healthier treats for the kids. Of course, I can’t remember what the healthier treats were, because my kids went straight for the cookies. If only they were shorter and couldn’t actually see what was on the table–I may have been able to trick them.

After playing for a while, the parents were invited into a room close by to talk to a pair of experts about technology, learning, play, and parenthood. Instead of talking “at” us, they told us a little about their role developing software for the company and then listened to what we had to say about the role of technology in our kids’ lives. Many parents shared that, like me, they were reluctant to allow too much technology into their homes at first, but have found themselves caving little by little over the years. That’s definitely true in our house–you may recall that I’ve written about my struggle with video games before, and when we moved, we left ALL the game boxes in Chicago in Daddy’s Bachelor Hovel, er, I mean, Daddy’s Commuter Apartment. The boys can play when we go to Chicago, but here, they just don’t have access to it, and since living here they’ve been reading and playing outside A LOT more. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Still, I can see the value of having some high-quality technology in the boys’ lives. First of all, that stuff is going to be out there waiting for them at some point; whether it’s now because we bring it into our homes, or later when they discover it at a friend’s house. Or, they could do like some kids did in the 80s and live at the arcade. (Do kids still do that?) I can try to eliminate gaming from their lives on principle, but most kids are going to seek it out at some point, and I’d rather have some control over the quality and quantity they’re exposed to.

And, let’s face it: once in a while I wouldn’t mind the distraction of a half-hour of gaming so I can make a phone call in peace.

So that’s where products like the LeapFrog hand-held games fit into a lifestyle like ours: I know the programming is at best, educational and at worst, safe for young eyes and ears. It gives my kids a little gaming fix–all the better to keep them away from the lure of Grand Theft Auto and other disgusting video games–and can even buy me an hour of quiet in the car so I can listen to NPR. And besides the LeapPad we had three years ago that became possessed and would turn itself on in the middle of the night and request that somebody “Turn the page and press the green GO button!”, I’ve had no complaints with the games or the handhelds. We bought a Leapster a few years ago (can’t wait to see how the Leapster 2 compares) and it’s held up sturdilly–best yet the kids never really tired of playing the game that came pre-installed on the machine. As the educational consultants at the party explained, the software is created to meet kids on their level and adjust the difficulty so that they can be successful without getting bored. I guess that would explain why my three-, five- and nine-year-olds have all happily played the same games.

Anyway, back to the party. After the parent discussion, there was pizza and salad and the kids could get their faces painted, get a caricature drawn of themselves, and bonus, go home with some great product. We picked out a Didj, a handheld for big kids that I didn’t even know existed before the party, a Crammer study system, which my almost-11-year-old described as, “Sorta like an iPod, but more educational”, and the very generous hosts loaded us up with some other great goodies that my boys eagerly played with all the way home. The nice thing, though? Unlike Xbox games, after an hour or so of playing on the Leapfrog toys they put them away for another time. And honestly? To me, that’s a selling point.

All in all, even if I wasn’t inclined to like the products I’d say that LeapFrog did a great job at hosting a mom-blogger event. They fed us, they welcomed and engaged our kids, they listened to what we had to say and they let us bring home enough products that we can really see how they fit into our lives. Smart PR.

This post has already gotten much longer than I meant for it to, so I’m afraid I can’t tell the whole contact lens-opera singer-bar-pharmacist story. Suffice it to say that later that night, I went to a bar with some friends to enjoy live opera (it wasn’t as weird as it sounds). At one point my contact lens somehow popped off my eye and rolled itself up under my lid, at which point, a diverse group of helpful folk including two musicians who both also happen to be in the medical field took me in the bathroom and tried their best to remove it. Their efforts were in vain, but no worries–while I slept that night the lens, which had torn in half, returned to the correct place on my eye and I was able to pluck both the pieces out with no trouble. A weird end to a great, but exhausting weekend.