02Feb
One of the hardest parts of being a parent is figuring out the logistics. I remember being pregnant with Bean and sitting up all night long worrying about things like how I was going to get him from the car into the doctors appointment, or what I was going to do with him in the grocery store? What I hated most about being a new mom was feeling like everyone else knew how to do things and I didn’t, and so I wanted to figure it out before anyone knew that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing!
If I could tell new moms anything, I would tell them this giant secret of parenthood: We’re all new moms.
Every time Bean hits a new milestone or a new phase or a new age, I’m back to the beginning. Sitting up at night, trying to figure out how to do this parenting thing. It’s a continuous cycle of figuring things out. Your only real objective is to learn only slightly faster than your children grow. And you quickly realize, that’s just darn impossible.
But, it’s the figuring things out that makes parenting so rewarding. The first time Michael ran a fever and I didn’t freak out and have to call the pediatrician in the middle of the night, I felt like Super Woman. The first time Bean had a successful time out, I felt like Wonder Woman. The first time I took both kids grocery shopping by myself, I felt like She-Ra. Watching yourself learn and grown as a parent is sometimes just as exciting as watching your children learn and grow. So, if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by being a new mom (of children ANY age), take heart. We all feel like that sometimes. You’re in good company.
I thought today, I would share some random, simple, logistical tips that I’ve learned over the past two and a half years. There are a thousand different ways to parent, so some of these may not be the way for you. But maybe they’ll at least give you one option in a sea of many.
- When we’re in a parking lot and I’m trying to get the kids into the car, I always put Bean in first. He is the one who moves around the most and the one who would be most likely to bolt out in traffic, so I feel better when he is contained somewhere. Usually, I put him in his seat (now he likes to crawl up himself) quickly, without buckling him, and he plays around in the backseat while I walk around and buckle Gracie in. Then, I go back to Bean and buckle him in. This gets Gracie in her seat quickly, but it also keeps Bean contained.
- If you have two little ones and you can wing it, it makes things much easier to do dinner, bath, and bedtime all together. We have to do modified versions of this routine with Gracie so that she can hang in there with Bean (ex. she sits in her high chair and feeds herself bits of food while I get his dinner ready and then I feed her the actual baby food when Bean sits down to eat), but for the most part, we give them dinner at the same time and then we give them a bath together. Then, Chris gets Bean ready for bed and I get Gracie ready for bed and they both go down at the same time. That way, our attention isn’t focused on one child while the other has to wait. It also helps keep our evening routine from dragging out for hours. Both kids are in bed by 7:00.
- If you’re able, having two people at bath time when you have two babies in the tub makes it easier and safer. One of us takes one and the other takes the second and we get them all soaped up and clean at the same time.
- If you move a newborn into their own room for the first time and you find yourself unable to sleep because you’re listening to every twitch on the baby monitor, try turning the monitor off. Trust me, when babies need something, they make those needs KNOWN. If they truly wake up because they need something, you’ll be able to hear them cry without the monitor (provided your room is within ear shot of the nursery). I finally took the monitor out of our room with Bean because I was jumping wide awake at every noise he made. And then I realized that if he actually needed me, he would make enough noise on his own.
- When you’re putting on baby shoes on little, bitty, pudgy baby feet, try putting them on at an angle and then twisting them onto the baby’s feet, like you’re twisting the lid on a jar. The shoe will just “snap” into place.
- When at all possible, carry your infant in the car seat/carrier. I know it’s super heavy to lug around, but when you’re on the go, babies sleep better in their own space. Plus, if it’s cold outside, keeping them wrapped up in their seat with a good blanket keeps them much warmer than if you lift them out.
- Never go ANYWHERE without a burp cloth! No matter how long you’re going to be gone. Even if you’re just running out to the mailbox with your baby – TAKE A BURP CLOTH. Trust me.
- I don’t usually carry diapers in my diaper bag. I have a pack of them that I leave in the car, along with a changing mat and a pack of wipes. I found that whenever we were out and about and I needed a diaper change, I’d rather take the baby out to the car to change them anyway than change them in a public restroom. A word of caution, though, keep diaper wipes in your bag! You’ll use them for so many things!
- If you have babies in daycare, be sure you not only label their bottle, but you label the lids, too. We had so many lids lost or sent home with the wrong families before I finally got smart and started labeling the lid, too.
- This might not work for everyone, but for my babies, we tried to take them out for errands during nap time. When they are newborns and very young infants, usually they can sleep just about anywhere. So, I’d give them a big bottle, load ‘em up in their car seat, and on the drive to the grocery story, they’d fall asleep. Then, I’d just put the carrier in the seat part of the grocery cart and they’d sleep while I shopped. The only setback to this method is that when you get home, the baby will be wide-eyed and you’ll be wanting a nap! But, if you really need to get some things done, try doing it during nap time.
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This year, I am having a hard time coming up with Christmas gift ideas for Bean. He’s in that in-between age where he’s too old for toddler toys, but he’s not quite old enough for preschool toys. I’m also stuck because he has strong preferences for a few different kinds of toys (mostly match box cars and little figures he can carry around) and I don’t know if I want to just buy more of things he already has because I know how much he likes them, or if I should branch out and try introducing him to new toys.
The solution I have found to these predicaments is to just shop more for Gracie.
If Bean is at an awkward age for buying toys, Gracie is at the perfect age. She’s easily entertained, infant and baby toys are widely available, and they are usually pretty inexpensive. I had a few key things I wanted to get her, though. And, so far, I’ve found just what I set out to find.
Fisher Price Bright Beginnings Stacking Action Blocks, $10.99
First, at Gracie’s age, she’s all about picking up things and manipulating them with her hands. She’s working on that eye/hand coordination and so she really likes picking things up, waving them around, putting them back down again, then doing it all over. She’s also really close to the age where she’ll start stacking things. For those two skills, I got her a set of brightly colored stacking blocks. I liked these because they had bold colors. And I really liked the mirrored sides of the blocks and that there were sides with things that popped out, giving her more to manipulate with her hands.
Fisher Price Friendly Firsts Turtle Shape Sorter, $12.99
Along with her new interest in waving things around and working her hands and fingers with smaller objects, I also got Gracie a shape sorter. It will be a long time before she is able to figure out the shape part of this toy, but I think she’ll have a good time banging on the turtle and waving around those shapes until she’s ready to put the pieces in the correct place. Plus, every kid needs a shape sorter, right? It’s, like, a law of parenting.
This is Gracie’s “big gift,” though it isn’t very expensive and it doesn’t do anything really flashy or showy. I actually got this idea from (where else?) Pinterest. I ordered a set of 100 ball pit balls for her. I thought about getting her a ball pit to sit in, but they are so darn expensive for what they are and I don’t have room in my house for a big ball pit! Shoot, you can sit Gracie in a laundry basket and she’ll play happily for an hour (which she did this weekend when I sat her in a laundry basket while we cleaned out the garage…). She won’t even know where she is, so I opted out of the ball pit idea. Instead, a Pinterest user suggested using a Pack ‘n Play for a ball pit. You just fill the Pack ‘n Play with balls, set the baby in there, and – voila! – ball pit! Santa is going to set up the ball pit on Christmas Eve so that Gracie can jump right in on Christmas morning.
Gracie is also getting a few board books, some new bottles and binkies, and a really cute plastic purse with these plastic accessories that you can put in it, like money, lipstick, and sunglasses. As for Bean, I’m still at a total loss. Any ideas out there for a two and a half year old boy?????
04Dec
Anyone whose been around these parts long enough knows of my love and slight obsession with Pinterest. I can’t look away. I can’t stop. It’s become a problem. But it’s also been a real blessing, too. I have found some really great gift ideas (a few I’m using next week for my Secret Santa exchange at work that I’ll blog about), some excellent food ideas, and some fun activities for my family and kids.
Last week I was cruising around Pinterest and found this incredible website called, “Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers.” The website is as simple and straightforward as the name implies. It is a list of activities for toddlers, plain and simple. But these activities are really fantastic.
From what I can tell, the website belongs to a stay at home mom who does the best she can to do stimulating, educational activities with her toddler every day. I’m loving her website because it isn’t complicated. She blogs straight up about kids activities. And none of them are crazy complex or complicated. Most can be done with things you have laying around your house. My favorite was one with a bowl of water and a paint brush – super simple and Bean would love it!
Today, we were outside putting up Christmas lights for most of the afternoon. Gracie was taking a nap in her crib, so it was just Bean out in the front yard with us. We played with sidewalk chalk in the driveway and colored in his coloring books for a while, but I thought this would be a perfect time to try an activity I had found last week on the Toddler Activities blog.
It takes several plastic containers and a pitcher of water. That’s it.
The object of the game was to let Bean practice filling containers with water. It works his fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and helps him start to learn about how and when to pour and stop.
I sat with him for a while, showing him how to pour and when to stop. Then, I’d sit back and just talk to him while he did it himself, saying things like, “Can you fill the rectangle bowl now?” or “Be careful! It’s almost full!”
But after a short while, Bean had the hang of it and spent the next half hour playing in the front yard with his plastic bowls.
It was such a simple way to learn while doing something Bean loves – water play is one of his favorites.
This website has a ton of activities just like this, taking tools you probably have and using activities you’ve probably done before. One of my favorite parts of the website is that you can search the activities archive by age of your child. I clicked the Toddler (2-3 years) category under the Age Range page and it pulled up pages of activities that Bean would absolutely love and that I can’t wait to try myself.
I’m so glad I found this website! What a great mom she is and what wonderful activities she comes up with!
Bean is going through a little phase right now where he is scared of the dark. He used to say he was scared of the dark in order to get out of going to bed. He’d call us back into his room over and over again, saying things like, “Mommy, I need the cwoset light on,” or “Daddy, I need the door open.” We caught on to those games really quickly and after a week, we quit going back into his room and instead would just stand at the top of the stairs and call out quietly, “Michael, lay down, please.” 9 times out of 10, he’d actually call back to us, “Okay, mommy!” and he’d lay down and sing himself to sleep.
But in the past two months, it has become a lot more than that. He is really scared. He gets this panicked, frantic cry if the conditions aren’t just right for him. I can tell there has been a shift and that we’ve moved from playing a game to a real fear of the dark. I think it started when the weather cooled off here a bit and we were leaving our windows open at night. The first time I heard that panic cry from him was when I left his bedroom window open and the wind accidentally blew his door closed. He freaked out because he didn’t know what made his door move. Ever since then, he’s been really nervous in the dark.
We try not to coddle him too much because we don’t want to enable that fear, but I also recognize that a fear isn’t something that I want to push on him. Since we now know what makes him scared, we go through all the steps at night to make sure he isn’t going to be scared. We read books with him, then we turn on his music (an old iPod that plays Baby Einstein that we have on a speaker in his room), turn on his fan (he insists), put up his baby gate (its how we keep him from wandering around in the night), and then prop open his bedroom door. If we go through all those steps, he lays down and sings himself to sleep. But if we miss a step or if something out of the ordinary happens, he gets that panicked sound again.
This new fear sparked me to post on Facebook, asking if any of my friends had any good remedies for toddlers who were scared of the dark. My sweet friend, Ann, suggested the Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light. She has an autistic son who is Bean’s age and she says this has really helped him with nighttime routines. I trust just about anything Ann recommends to me and so I ordered one online that same day.
The nice thing about this turtle is that it is plush enough that Bean can bring him into bed with him and play with him a bit (he plays in his bed until he gets sleepy), but while he’s playing with it, it casts constellations onto the ceiling, which gives the room a little light and gives him some control over the darkness. It’s like a stuffed animal, a toy, and a nightlight all in one.
I also picked up a little Buzz Lightyear flashlight for Bean, too. This could be a great stocking stuffer or it could be the worst idea I’ve ever had. I got this idea from Ann, too!! Only, she was giving it as advice on a different parenting question! See? She’s one of those brilliant mom friends every parent needs in their life. Ann’s dad used to give his kids flashlights at night when they were little and learning to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The flashlight gave them some incentive to get up out of bed to go to the potty and it also lit the way. Bean’s still fairly far from having to get up in the middle of the night for potty yet, but I thought the flashlight might be a nice solution for the scared of the dark thing, too. Although, this could be a big mistake, so I’ll have to report back to you later. But for a $10.00 little stocking stuffer, I figured it was worth a shot.
Once I got on this theme of making the nighttime un-scary, I decided to pick up a few little gifts for Gracie, too. I knew exactly what I was going to get her right away. A Glow Worm. I had one when I was little. Just like Bean’s new turtle, it’s the perfect blend between a stuffed animal and a nightlight. And it’s super inexpensive, too! $10.00 and Gracie has a sweet little worm to keep her company at night.
I also put a nightlight on Gracie’s Christmas list, too. It’s one of her stocking stuffers. This one is more for me than it is for Gracie, actually. Gracie likes to sleep in pitch black darkness, so we’ve never gotten her a nightlight. But when I go in to check on her at night, I can’t see anything. This nightlight is perfect because it’s really cute, but also because you tap it to turn it on and off. So, I can basically use it like a little lamp when I go in to check on her without turning on a bright light.
One of the best parts of being a mom is being the one to make everything better for my kids and I feel really good about doing something to help Bean get through this scared of the dark phase. Although, I think Santa is going to get the credit for this one…
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