Tuesday's Toddler Tornado #3: Protein Snack

I love, love, love this book and have found so many wonderful ideas within its pages. Most recently, I served up one of the snack ideas it mentions and it totally hit the spot!

The book calls this snack, "Peanut Butter Pinwheels" but I think a better name would be "Goopy Protein Roll-ups".

Ingredients:

• peanut butter
• granola
• honey
• flour tortillas

Spread the PB, sprinkle the granola, and squirt the honey onto the tortilla shell, then roll. Slice into bite-sized pieces and serve. I made these during Little Bit's nap and chilled them until she woke up so that they would firm up a bit, thus cutting down on the gooey factor.

The first thing she said after trying them was, "More?" Which is always a good sign! However, these little bite-sized morsels of goodness are very filling and oh-so-very sweet. So, don't think you need to make a bunch at one time. I could only eat about two of the pieces before feeling like I'd had enough. I made two tortillas and it was more than enough to go around.

Enjoy!

 

Do you have any tips for parents of babies and toddlers, or even preschoolers? Parenting lessons you'd like to pass on? Snack ideas your just itching to share? Or a product you think every Mommy and Daddy of little ones should know about? Post your link here every Tuesday and check to see what others are doing!

 

 

A Place All Her Own

In an attempt to provide Little Bit with more independence, we decided to give up some precious real estate in our kitchen (actually, it was only being used to hold the gazillion phone books that we've somehow accumulated over the past six months). She now has her own cabinet filled with her own stuff.

I didn't have any shelf-liner handy, so I cut up some empty cereal boxes that were just waiting to be made useful, and put some poster putty on the bottom to keep them from sliding around. Then, I cut about an inch off the bottom of an oatmeal box and used it to hold her forks and spoons.

Now, she can get her own dishes out at dinner time and put them away when they're finished being washed. She loves being helpful like that :).

My next goals are to teach her to fold laundry and dust. Don't you just love the "Mommy's little helper" stage?

Themed Activities

I had always envisioned that once Little Bit got old enough, we would do fun projects together all the time. I got books and looked online for ideas, but we never really did anything...until...I started participating in Mom Unplugged's weekly themed projects.

For some reason, having a theme and a deadline every week has made all the difference in coming up with ideas and actually following through with them.

We planted a rock garden for the rocks theme,

made a memory book for the books theme,

and painted with pudding for the food theme.

It has been a blast! This week the theme is scissors. Since Little Bit is just shy of two-years-old, it will be a fun challenge to come up with something for her!

Even if you don't want to join the Unplugged themes, it would be really easy to do your own weekly themes. Just take some concepts, either as specific or as general as you wish, put them in a box and pull one out every week. Once you have the theme, you've got some direction on what to focus on in your search and the fun can ensue!

This is what's been working for me lately, and I have to give a shout-out to Seeking Imperfection for sharing it with me! To see what works for others this week visit WFMW at Rocks In My Dryer!

 

Lemme know: How do you come up with ideas for activities to do with your kids?

Links for New Moms

It seems like a lot of people have been getting knocked-up lately. A couple friends of mine are expecting babies over the next few weeks and one of them is a first-time mom. I recently sent her an email with a list of links that I found myself turning to time and time again. Of course, nothing beats following your own gut instincts on many matters (or a call to your ped), but when you want some quick answers here are some links that get the job done:

http://www.babycenter.com
http://parenting.ivillage.com/  (the message boards are great)
http://www.askdrsears.com
http://www.kellymom.com (awesome breastfeeding resource)
http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/animal-rhymes.htm
http://www.parenthacks.com/
http://www.preschoolexpress.com/
http://www.hipgirlclips.com/forums/  (if you're having a girl you may enjoy making her hairclips yourself)
http://www.oompa.com/  (when Toys R Us just ain't cutting it: "NO BATTERIES. NO BLINKING LIGHTS. NO CARTOON-THEMED TOYS. PERIOD")

And in case you're considering using cloth  ;)
http://www.diapersafari.com/diaperinfo/newtoclothdiapers/
http://www.cottonbabies.com/index.php
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-ppdiapers
http://www.diaperpin.com/home.asp

 

Ok...Did I leave any out? Tell me which sites or blogs about parenting you have found helpful. I don't have anything to give away, but I will be very appreciative!

Buying Gifts from Your Sofa, or Bed, or Wherever!

Hey kids! Let's all go to the mall! First, let's make sure we have a change of clothes for everyone, plenty of diapers and pull-ups, snacks, toys, the sling, pacifiers, and the stroller. Is everybody ready to go? Oops, Bitty Baby just embellished Mommy's shirt with spit-up. Mommy's gotta go change...Shopping is fun!

Going shopping with the little ones tagging along isn't always an ideal situation. Actually, I try to avoid it whenever possible, but it seams like there's always some holiday, birthday, baby shower, or wedding that I need to buy a gift for.

Problem solved. Thanks to the wonderful world of online shopping, I can usually purchase my gifts, have them wrapped if so desired, and add a personalized Hallmark greeting card all from the comfort of my own home.

Here are some of my favorite places to shop for gifts...

Amazon- As close to one-stop shopping as you can get. 

Uncommon Goods- I discovered this online store last Christmas and  immediately fell in love with it. Where else can you find a pair of "Freudian Slippers" and sassy little tampon cases?  You can find something for just about anyone here.

Think Geek- The ultimate shopping destination for the geek in your life. Products range from the practical USB Squid to the completely off the wall Giant Plush Microbes. Haven't you always wanted to snuggle up with a plush representation of Salmonella? Not a Christmas has gone by since my husband and I have been married that I haven't purchased something for him from this wonderful retailer.

Oompa Toys- Take a break from Toys R' Us and find some truly special  toys here. Their mantra? "No batteries. No blinking lights. No cartoon-themed toys. Period." I love their European made wooden toys and, if I could justify buying another stuffed animal, I would really like to get my hands on this little guy!

Hallmark- This is my favorite little secret. Yes, everybody knows that  you can get lovely cards and sentimental trinkets from your local Hallmark Gold Crown store, but what about if you just can't find the time to get out of your house and Valentine's Day is fast approaching? Did you know that you can purchase a real greeting card, have it personalized and signed by a real person, and have it mailed directly to it's recipient for about what it would cost you to go to the store and buy it yourself? The person you're sending it to will have no idea you didn't send it yourself. I have used this service several times when I knew I wouldn't be able to make it out before the particular occasion and it has been a real life-saver.

There you go! Save your gas. Forget about the hassle. Just hang out in your jammies and shop when the kiddos are sleeping!

Get Out of Your PB&J Rut

Sometimes I find myself making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Little Bit day after day after day. I get so bored just serving it to her, and I can imagine she gets tired of eating it, too.

So, on days when I feel like really shaking things up a bit, I bring out the good stuff. Here are a few alternatives to the PB&J blahs:

• Peanut butter, banana, and honey- Oh, so yummy. Ok, you don't really need to add the honey, but it really does add that special something that makes you go, "Mmm, mmm, mmmmm."
• Ham and cream cheese roll-ups-  Slather some cream cheese onto a tortilla shell, add a few slices of ham, and roll!
• Turkey and cranberry relish- Think Thanksgiving dinner between two slices of bread. Get some real turkey from the deli, sliced kind of thick, then add the relish. The cranberry adds a sweet touch to your basic turkey sandwich. (Haven't done this one in a while because I can't find a good store-bought cranberry relish, but if you can get your hands on some, it's delicious)!
• Burrito- Peel open a can of refried beans, add some shredded cheese, and fold a tortilla shell around it. Lots of protein!

These are some easy lunches that Little Bit really seems to enjoy. Have any other suggestions? What foods do you find yourself serving your little one for lunch?

Putting the "Munch" in Munchkin

With fork in hand, my husband aims towards our daughter's mouth. Her nose quickly turns up in the air and his efforts are thwarted with a decisive, "Noooooo."

What is a parent to do? Make separate meals? Cram the food down the poor girl's throat?

Thankfully, neither extreme is necessary. Through a little bit of trial and error, we've found a few tricks that have helped us get through many a meal without a struggle.

1. Hide the yucky stuff. A little bit of chicken can often go unnoticed in the creamy goodness of mac-n-cheese.
2. Do the dip. If our toddler doesn't like what we're offering we'll often try to find something for her to dip it in. Some winners include ketchup, BBQ sauce, honey, and good ol' ranch dressing.
3. One bite minimum. We insist that our daughter try at least one bite of everything on her plate. Only then can she decide if she really doesn't want something.
4. Play distracting games. We like to play Big Bite Little Bite. This works when your tot starts getting antsy and wants to stop eating because it's just plain boring. Being as dramatic as possible helps in this game (think very big and very little).
5. Never surrender. Eggs were our nemesis. Our daughter spit them out every time. But, after many "one bites" and a lot of ketchup, she'll now sit down and enjoy a plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast.
6. Put those little fingers to work. We have found that when we allow our toddler to feed herself she is much more interested in eating what we put in front of her.

Of course we've also found that it helps to sweeten things up sometimes, but that only works if your kid has a sweet-tooth!

Tell me what works for you!

The Toy Circuit

Interested in having different toys in your house every few weeks without having to dip into your child's college fund?

Start swapping!

We all know what it's like to see a heap of toys sitting around while our toddler seems absolutely bored out of his mind. But we can't just keep buying new toys all the time. Toys are expensive and that would quickly add up to big $$$.

One option to bust the boredom is to rotate toys. We have some toys that we bring out on the weekends, and others that we keep in bins to be changed out every few weeks.

You can add more variety, however, if you enlist some of your friends with young children to join into the rotation with their own toys. You trade your kid's toys for theirs and everybody gets to play with new stuff every few weeks without having to spend a dime!

Please keep in mind however that swapping toys can also mean swapping germs and other goodies, so it's a good idea to establish an agreement among your fellow swappers to clean up the toys a bit before the exchange.

Happy swapping!

To Bite or Not to Bite?

So one day that sweet little angel you've been caring for suddenly decides that the best thing to do with those brand new pearly whites is to chomp down directly onto your arm. How do you respond?

Your first reaction may be some indecipherable vocalization signifying pain. Some would immediately follow this vocalization with a swift return of one's teeth onto the predator.

But don't be too quick to react on impulse. The messages we send to our children regarding aggressive behaviors can have lasting impacts.

Drs. B. Terry Brazelton and Joshua Sparrow recently responded to a grandmother's recommendation to use the "fight-fire-with-fire" approach when addressing bighting (article). I can relate all to well with this woman, who for all intensive purposes could very well be my mother.

In fact, just a few years ago my mother did that very thing, only not on her own grandchild. It was my niece who was the victim of a biting toddler, and my mother took it upon herself not to confront the child's parent about the incident, but to go straight to the horses mouth, so to speak. Yes, she actually bit this little girl in an effort to teach her a lesson: biting hurts.

Sure, the little girl may, indeed, never bite again. But for what reason? What has she learned? Has she learned that biting is an inappropriate outlet for anger or frustration?  Or, as the doctors point out, has the child perhaps learned that the adult is out of control, unpredictable, and untrustworthy? Has she learned an acceptable way to express her emotions?

According to the article:

Learning self-control is a major goal for childhood, never more than now in our world of schoolyard shootings, road rage and orange alerts. This is a much more important goal than just teaching a child that parents can hurt back, and to suppress his stunned and violated feelings. Suppressing angry, hurt feelings just postpones them — until the time that the child is bigger and more powerful than the parent.

So what does one do? Well, it depends on what is driving the behavior to begin with.

When our toddler acts out for attention, we put a stop to the behavior by diverting her energies elsewhere. We then try to attend to her while she is playing nicely, thus reinforcing the appropriate behavior.

When she acts out because she simply doesn't have the resources she needs to express herself, we explain to her that what she did was not nice and we show her a better way to respond to the situation.

Kids act out. That's how they learn about the world around them. Teach them the tools that will help them throughout life rather than just focusing on stopping the behavior.

Paint in the Tub!

No...not with the water in it.

For Christmas some friends of ours got our 19 month old a pack of 10 ct. 2 oz. Bottles - Assorted Color Washable Kid's Paint by Crayola. They explained to us that they let their little guy complete his finger painting masterpieces in the tub before his bath.. that way clean up is fast and easy.

We thought it was a great idea and tried it ourselves. Our daughter painted all over the construction paper, the tub, and herself, and we didn't have to worry about the paint getting everywhere. She had a blast!

The School of Experience

This has pretty much been my mantra ever since my toddler was old enough to experiment with things. We try to maintain an open environment around the house so that our children can (safely) explore and learn as they go about their day. Boredom is dispelled by engaging in a wide range of activities from playing in their playroom, to pulling out and opening every DVD case in the entertainment center, to crawling under our cabinets and emptying out pots and pans which stack, nest, and have great sound qualities.

I try to afford my children with opportunities to discover their surroundings because that's how they learn, entertain themselves, and exercise their respective imaginations.

Gever Tulley seems to also embrace this notion and has developed Tinkering School for kids aged 7-17 to learn a host of lessons while "tinkering" on his property in Montara, California. He is currently working on a book entitled, "50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do." Last year Tulley introduced 5 of those things in a humorous and thought-provoking talk. Check it out!

Two Under Two: 10 Tips for a Seamless Transition

My first child, Little Bit, was about seven months old when I got a positive result from the First Response Pregnancy Test. While it wasn't a complete surprise, the reality that my baby girl would be only sixteen months old by the end of my pregnancy was daunting. I had no idea how I would adequately care for two babies by myself during the day or when my husband was traveling.

Most of the advise I came across was along the lines of, "start talking about the baby now" and "let the older one be a helper, kids love that." However, Little Bit seemed too young to understand that someone else would soon be joining our family, and she really showed no interest when I tried talking about what was growing inside my huge belly. She also doesn't really get that big of a kick out of being "Mommy's little helper" just yet. So there I was, about to experience the "joys" of childbirth again, with no idea about how I was going to make it all work out. What would be the best way to introduce our new baby to our family?

Now that I'm a BTDT (been there done that), I can look back and see some of the things that have helped me so far. There are definitely difficult days when I feel like I just don't have enough of me to give to either child. On the whole, however, I am very pleased with how things are working out for our little family, and I think there were some very specific things that I did that helped make our transition to four much easier than it might have been.

1. Don't blame the baby. Try to resist saying something like, "Mommy can't hold you right now because I'm holding the baby." That's a sure-fire way to breed resentment towards the little bundle. Your toddler doesn't need a reason why you won't do something. Simply state that you aren't going to hold/read to/play with him or her at that moment, and suggest another activity to occupy your older child until you can offer him or her the one-on-one time they want.

2. Change your routine as little as possible. Toddlers are more confident in an environment of predictability. Try not to rock their world even more by changing their schedule on top of making them deal with a new baby in the house.

3. Don't make everything about "the baby." In other words, don't continually shove the new one in front of the older one's face. It always drives me nuts when Little Bit is in the middle of showing off one of her newly developed skills (like doing a somersault) and some well-meaning family member is going on and on to her about "her new baby sister." I think to a toddler it's similar to changing the subject when you're in the middle of a conversation with someone. Your toddler knows the baby is there, and there's no need to continually remind him or her about it.

4. Get used to hanging out on the floor. Toddlers spend their time playing on the floor. Babies need play time too to develop their muscles and practice batting at toys and rolling over. Why not all hang out on the floor together and spend playtime as a family. When Baby needs to eat, just scoop him or her up right there and let them eat while you sit on the floor and continue to interact with your older child.

5. Allow some VERY supervised hands-on time. At some point, your toddler is going to want to touch this new little life that keeps hanging around. As difficult as it may be, try not to treat your infant like a delicate piece of glass that is not to be touched for fear that he or she may break. Allow your older child to explore his or her new sibling. Some eyes may get poked a little and limbs may get squeezed, but Baby will be ok in the end, and your toddler has had a chance to satiate his or her curiosity.

6. Don't consistently choose either one's needs over the other's. Sometimes the older one has to wait for you to tend to the little one, and sometimes the little one has to wait for you to tend to the older one. It's like I told my husband one of the first times I was going to be left alone to care both of them at once, "Everyone may not all be happy all of the time, but I'm sure someone will be happy some of the time, and we'll survive."

7. Subtly encourage affection between the two. Show your toddler how much you love this new addition to your family. Modeling is a powerful tool. As long as Big Brother or Big Sister is also getting enough attention, jealousy should not be an issue.

8. Limit the need for the older one to feel possessive by allowing him or her to play with Baby's things. If every time he reaches for the little one's toy he hears, "That's not yours, that's the baby's," then of course he's going to learn that the baby doesn't share and he doesn't need to either. At that point, everything that he deems as "his" is off-limits to the baby (e.g. his high chair, his bath tub, his Daddy, etc.). There's also no need for statements like, "That's the baby's toy, you don't want to be a baby do you?" Of course they do if it means they get to play with neat toys.

9. Make sure they both get plenty of "face" time and play time. Yes, you will be tired and it will be tempting to try to get them both on similar sleep schedules so you can also nap, but if one is sleeping and one is awake, think of that as an invaluable opportunity that you can use to provide the much needed one-on-one time that both children need.

10. Have people over. Entertaining guests may seem like the last thing you want to do; your home has to be presentable, your kids have to be presentable, you have to be presentable. But when there are one or two extra people around, that takes the load off of you and gives you a chance to breath a little bit while your visitors hold your sleepy infant or are entertained by your exuberant toddler.