See, "metadata" is a slippery term.
Go ahead and do an innocuous google search. Once the results show up, take a look at the URL you've accessed.
There it is: your search terms right there, (in human-readable format, even) in the URL itself. Is a URL metadata? I'm sure the NSA would say "yes"

So, Google doesn't need to be complicit in any way. This is all unencrypted stuff that could easily be filtered and could theoretically be defended as being "metadata"

Kinda makes me wonder what else you might call metadata. Are the SMS messages that piggyback on phone packets metadata? (I'll admit I don't really know anything about that so this is just speculation)

I'd be very interested in other people's opinions on things we think of as communications content that could be argued as being metadata. Thoughts?

Before you bash MS too hard on this, you should probably check out the amazing game/engine they're providing to xbox, xbone and win8 users for free:
https://joinprojectspark.com/

It's meant for kids (though I'm sure adults will become engaged) and is basically the AAA version of Kodu, a programming language that was built by MS Research with the explicit aim of teaching kids to code.

First recommendation: let the OP parent however s/he sees fit. This isn't your kid and you don't necessarily know best.

Second, I do have a couple of apps to recommend. Disclaimer, these are my apps. I wrote them for my son when he was little. The voice you'll hear in Baby Animal Balloons is his.

Baby Animal Balloons supports a wide range of devices and is available across the board. This was the first app I wrote and I released it on iOS and Android (in google market, amazon app store and Barnes and Noble). It's super-simple, touching the screen causes a cute little animal to appear and start floating away. Touching that animal causes a cute child's voice to say its name and allows flinging it around.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.littlelaptime.games
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/baby-animal-balloons-little-lap-time/1107081455
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Animal-Balloons/dp/B005D7BKLI

Interestingly, I never got almost any sales on the Google or Amazon stores. I steadily get 1-3 sales a day on iOS. On B&N I was getting as many as 900 sales a month, though it's slowed down over the last year. For that reason, my next app targeted the nook family of devices. I released it on Amazon as well, simply because it didn't really take any more effort to do so.

Night Night Baby MusicBox is just meant to soothe your baby and get him/her to go to sleep. It plays 5 songs and has some minor (but cute) interactive elements.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/night-night-baby-musicbox-little-lap-time/1108563370
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Night-MusicBox/dp/B00711YP3O

I've been telecommuting for a little over a year now, so I thought I'd share some of my experiences.
First of all, a little background: I'm a software QA engineer for a networking company in Silicon Valley, I live in Brooklyn, NY. I lived in San Francisco for the first year that I worked at the company, so I got to know everyone and establish work habits etc. Some of my duties are things like writing test cases, writing Perl scripts as utilities or automated tests and actually running tests.
The first two of those duties don't require any special setup or speed, but the third requires quite a bit.
I need to be able to remotely control unix machines, NT machines... I need to be able to unplug network cables, power-cycle machines. I need to be able to communicate with developers and QA people. I also need to have a presence in the company. Here's how it all pans out:

Fortunately I have an extremely responsive sysadmin (read:kick-ass) who has set things up at the company side such that I can powercycle machines by executing simple commands, so that I can telnet into switches and dis/enable ports (simulates pulling a network cable). He has installed WinVNC on all the NT boxes so that I can run VNCviewer to control them (this requires pretty good bandwidth as it's basically a remote framebuffer). I have an UltraSparc sitting in a rack somewhere that is exclusively mine and I connect to it using GO-Global which works exceptionally well and doesn't require much bandwidth. Finally, we use Ravlinsoft's VPN. The company provides me with 384x384 SDSL which works great. Controlling my solaris box feels almost like I'm there. (for the first year I had 192x192 SDSL and it was also great. There really isn't much of a difference except where VNCviewer is involved.

Once you get the technical issues resolved, there's a lot more to deal with. You need to learn to allocate your time (at first I had trouble with not doing enough work, now I have trouble with spending far too much time working). Don't let yourself fall into the trap of pulling all-nighters (oops, looks like I'm pulling one tonight).
A couple of things to remember are: when you're in the office and you get burnt-out, you just go over to a co-worker and chat. At home, you should allow yourself breaks as well. Don't feel guilty about throwing in a quick game of Quake3 on your nice DSL connection, but don't let one quick game turn into nine.
Be sure to get out of the house. You will become trapped here if you let yourself. Make some friends at your new location and spend time with them.
Don't let the people you live with distract you. This one is really tough. I want to spend all my time with my SO, and she's more than willing to let me. You need to say "get out of here, I have to get some work done". I still have problems with that
Try not to procrastinate. It's very easy to say "Well, I want to watch TV now, I can always finish this up later" when your commute is so short (15 seconds or so) but I have found that the later it gets the more tired you become and the harder it is to get back on a roll. (Why am I posting this message rather than finishing up those tests... doh!)
In order to maintain a presence at the company, I am flown out there for about 2 weeks every two months. If you're company is willing to do that, it's pretty cool and be sure to eat steak often when you're expensing it. The problem with that is, I have gotten used to working in a mostly distraction-free environment (excluding the SO) and so being back in the office, full of people who would just love to take my time, can make it difficult to remain focused.

Try to minimize expense reports when you're at home. I found that I was calling the office a LOT but I'd never take the trouble to go through my phone bill and figure out what to expense. Once the company gave me a calling card, everything was much nicer. Along those lines, if you don't have a lot of credit or cash in your bank account, try to get your company to provide you with corporate credit card and car-rental card. This takes a lot of the headaches out of those trips to the central office.

So, the final bit: yes, it's possible- even when there are a lot of technical hurdles. The benefits are great, especially if your manager is a "results oriented" person rather than a micromanager. Note: if you plan to be a manager remotely, it's probably not too feasable. That brings up another point: working remotely can prevent you from progressing in the company. Assuming that you want to head toward a management position (which I don't) you might find that avenue limited.

I'm sorry this has been so rambling, but I hope it provides you with some useful information.