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The other day, a little fairy came and whispered into my ear that toddlers love playing with brightly colored rice.

Okay. Not really. I found this on Pinterest.

(sigh)

Because I’m addicted.

Since browsing Pinterest a few months ago, I have been pinning all these great, simple ideas and then doing nothing about them. Finally, in the past few weeks, I have started actually doing a lot of them. Mostly, I’ve been doing home organization tips, which I’ll share little by little on the blog in the next few days. Today, though, I did one of the ideas for kids and it was pretty cool.

Chris has been working a lot in the past week and the kids and I have been a little stir crazy on our own. So, today I busted out one of my pins… Colored rice.

First, you take four gallon Ziplock bags and fill each one with two cups of rice. Then, add two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol to the bag.

Next, add six or seven drops of food coloring to each bag. I used what I thought was a lot of food coloring and the rice still came out a little pastel, so be generous if you’re going for brighter colors.

Then, seal the bags and start shaking up the rice and food coloring, making sure that you’re evenly spreading the color throughout the rice. This is a fun part for your wee tot to help you with.

Next, line baking pans or big plastic bins or whatever you have on hand with aluminum foil or wax paper. Then, pour each color out onto the lining and put the bin in the sun so that the food coloring can dry. It was really sunny here today and so the rice dried pretty quickly – under half an hour, I think.

When the rice dried, I combined it all into one big tub, threw in some spoons and other sifting toys (including a construction truck…), and turned Bean loose!

All total, it took about five minutes to dye the rice, then half an hour to let it dry, and VOILA! A really fun, different activity for Bean to play with.

We spent the rest of the afternoon burying things in the rice and then digging them back out again and sorting and shifting through the rice bin. Even I thought it was fun! Rice feels crazy fun when you run your hands through it!

Even Chris played in it when he came home for a little break from working…

I have another pin that uses this same rice for a different game, I-Spy Bottles. You fill an empty plastic 2-liter bottle with the rice and stick a few little toys in there. Then, your tot can shake the bottle all around and try to find the toys in the bottle. I haven’t done that one yet, but we’ll probably try it tomorrow. Here’s a picture from Pinterest of what that looks like…

For now, though, we’re pretty content to shift and sort and pour and dig and bury with our brightly colored rice in a bin. We’re purists like that, I guess.

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For more info about this activity and for other fun ideas, be sure to check out the original post from Pinterest.

20 comments | posted in Boys, Fun with Mom, Parenting Ideas, Playing, The Romper Room, Toddlerhood | tags: parenting, toddler activities, toddlers

In the past few months, dinnertime with Bean has become increasingly…um…hellish? Disastrous? Unbearable?

D. All of the above.

Bean eats like most toddlers. He has a HUGE breakfast every morning. Usually he has two bowls of cereal, a banana, a piece of toast (sometimes two), and some yogurt. He’s like He-Man in the mornings. At school he normally eats all his morning snack and most of his lunch. His afternoon snack is when he starts winding down and he’s hit or miss as to whether he actually eats any. By dinner, he is not interested in food at all.

Our pediatrician said that as long as he’s eating a balanced diet most of the day, we shouldn’t stress too much about the light dinner. And I get that. But part of eating dinner is the sitting down as a family. That’s something I want Bean to learn is part of our household routine. Also, at daycare he’s getting balanced meals, but they aren’t SUPER healthy every day and dinnertime is how I make sure he gets some fresh veggies and fruit in his day. So, while I don’t require him to eat everything, he does have to sit at the table with us and eat a little bit.

And, therein lies the challenge.

I have been struggling with how to get Bean to eat without ruining dinner with temper tantrums (no small feat, I assure you…). Most of the time, he’s pretty good. I let him bring one toy to the table as long as he eats his dinner while the toy is there. Our dessert rule is that if Bean cleans his WHOLE plate, he gets a cookie. That actually rarely happens. Normally, he pokes at his meal for about half the meal while he talks to me and Chris. When he’s tired of sitting there (usually after 20 minutes), he asks to get down. If he hasn’t eaten enough, I ask him to take two or three bites and then he can get down. If he’s eaten a fair amount, I let him get down and tell him how much we enjoyed having him at the dinner table.

But there are those special nights when nothing works. He won’t eat anything and dinner looks like it’s going to be an epic fail in about 10 seconds. On those nights, we play The Game.

I accidentally came up with The Game one night when I was frustrated with Bean not eating his dinner. He had one of his toys on the table and I took it away from him because he wasn’t eating. When he asked nicely if he could have it back, I told him he could have it if be took one bite of veggies and one bite of chicken. He laughed like that was the greatest game in the whole world. So, I ran out to the living room and grabbed a handful of his favorite toys and put them in a bowl. Then, we started playing The Game.

The Rules:
- Bean can’t see what toys are in the bowl. It adds to the surprise when I pull one out.
- The toys much be pulled out with as much drama as possible. Extra points for silliness.
- The payment for each toy is based on the “value” of the toy to Bean. So, if it’s one of his favorite toys, he has to eat more food.
- The game ends when all the food is gone (which means I sometimes have to do several rounds in the living room collecting more toys) or whenever Bean gets fidgety.
- We only play the game once a week, at the most. It’s the novelty that makes it so fun to Bean.

Tonight I pulled The Game out because Bean hasn’t eaten a solid dinner for three nights now. This time, I had Chris video the beginning so you could see how it goes.

Getting toddlers to eat has to be one of the greatest parenting challenges. On those nights when I’m positive Bean is going to shrivel up and starve if he doesn’t eat dinner, this is my go-to game.

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45 comments | posted in About Beanie, Food and Eating, parenting, Parenting Ideas, The Romper Room, Toddlerhood, What I've Learned | tags: parenting, toddlers

Chris and I parent very differently, but with the same end result. We figure as long as we both end up at the same destination, what does it matter what road we each take to get there? I guess that’s a good thing? I’m not sure yet. Time will tell. Lately, the biggest difference in our parenting style has been timing. And it is about to drive me cah-razy.

How can I explain this? Chris moves at the pace of a turtle. Or as slow as a 90-year-old man. Roughly.

I, on the other hand, move faster than the speed of sound. Or as fast as a toddler on a sugar high. Take your pick.

He says he just likes to take his time and I say that I am just being efficient. Either way you slice it, we are polar opposites when it comes to our timing. Somehow, though, we always end up ready to go at the exact same time. Just further proof that we are meant to be.

Lately, I’m starting to notice this timing issue in our parenting styles, too. Chris’s job in the mornings is to get Bean up, dressed, and fed by the time I have to leave for work, while I do the same for Gracie. In order to get myself and Gracie ready on time, I get up earlier and get myself ready before going in to get Gracie, who is usually playing happily in her crib by then.

Chris, on the other hand, sleeps until the last possible minute, then goes and wakes up Bean, who has slept until the last possible minute. Then, they both stumble into the kitchen and stare at the box of Cheerios for fifteen minutes, trying to decide if they want milk in their bowl or yogurt. Finally, they make a decision and then sit down to eat. Which takes, roughly, thirty-six hours at least. Once they have sufficiently eaten as slow as humanly possible, they discuss the idea of going upstairs to get dressed for the day. This conversation usually lasts approximately 20 minutes and ends with Bean crying about how he doesn’t want to change his underwear. When they finally manage to make it up to Bean’s bedroom, they spend the next 10 minutes picking out underwear, followed by another 10 minutes to choose the perfect pair of pants (Bean insists that everything is too big, even when it’s not…), followed by another 10 minutes to find the appropriate shirt for the school day.

By the time those two yahoos make it downstairs, Gracie and I are packed, dressed, fed, and waiting. And you’d think we’d be close to leaving because – hey! we’re all dressed! – but you’d be wrong. Bean has to find his shoes. Both of them. And choose the correct pair of socks for those specific pair of shoes. At this point, I am gnashing my teeth with frustration and biting my tongue not to yell at Chris, “JUST PUT HIS DAMN SHOES ON AND LET’S GO!”

Perhaps this is why it is to our kids advantage that we have different parenting styles. I am great in a crisis. I move quickly, I react calmly, I get us in and out and on the way again. But I’m not so great at giving Bean the time to make his own choices. I know in my head that toddlers require extra time for things, but in real life I get frustrated and often times end up doing things myself rather than giving Bean the chance to try to do it on his own.

Right now, as I write this, Chris and Bean are getting ready for bed upstairs. Chris and been up there for almost an hour, talking over things like how much toothpaste Bean should use and which pajama pants go with which pajama bottoms. And once I heard Bean yell out, “But, Dad! I almost pooped!” Ahhhh…parenthood. It’s funny that most of us go through it, and yet we have such different responses and experiences. I’m glad that my kids will get two different experiences in their home.

Even if it does make me want to kill their father sometimes.

31 comments | posted in About Beanie, Fun with Dad, parenting, The Romper Room | tags: dads, Marriage, parenting