Music Spotlight

This is a wonderful musical a student introduced to me! It's a Broadway musical based on the popular children's books. It's clever and adorable and goes right along with the stories! Both adults and kids will enjoy the jazzy vaudeville-style music and funny lyrics. Makes a great gift too!

What music does your family enjoy listening to? Have a favorite kid or family CD to recommend?

Mommy Exercise

Kids add plenty of changes and challenges to the lifestyle you knew before motherhood, and your health is no exception. Not only do they change your body with pregnancy and leave you with extra pounds but life with a child makes exercise difficult. I remember when my third child was born my mom was pushing me to go walking. I laughed in my head as I thought, "Walk? I don't have time to walk! I'm too busy running around to stop and walk!" I've tried to pass off my many trips up and down the basement stairs, chasing kids, and lifting baby and toddler as my exercise. And to some extent yes, but then some muscles are getting tired and others go unused. And I feel like I need a real workout so I can have the energy I need to be a better mom. So, any ideas out there? Whether it's losing baby fat or just shooting for a healthier lifestyle what do you do (or attempt to do) to keep fit?

Frosting Fun

Here's a fun way to teach kids primary and secondary colors from a lesson I taught while student teaching years ago:

1. Divide white frosting into three bowls
2. Add food coloring to each bowl to make yellow, blue, and red frosting
3. Give each child a spoonful of each color (in a triangle on paper plate to leave room for mixing between colors)
4. Talk about Primary colors ("starter" colors)
5. Take equal parts of two colors (i.e. red and blue) and mix with a plastic knife on the clean space between the two colors. Have your child guess what color they'll make.
6. After all secondary colors are made (and any other combinations-yellow and 2x blue) spread frosting on graham crackers for treat.

Got a fun craft, activity, or lesson? Share the fun! Leave a comment or send me an e-mail (with pics. if possible).

Lunch Makeover

Tired of the peanut butter sandwich and mac n' cheese lunch rotation? My problem with lunch is I don't really want to do much cooking or spend much money but I still want to keep it healthy. Here's a few simple lunches/snacks I do:

• cracker sandwiches (and ants on a log & fruit)
• leftovers (even when you have a little dinner left, it's often enough for kids)
• quesadillas
• peanut butter and raisin sandwich (and/or bananas)
• applesauce and graham crackers
• yogurt and granola (or other cereal)
• pb graham crackers
• goldfish/pretzel/raisin (or craisin) mix
• mac n cheese with hot dogs (yes, cook the hot dogs in the mnc-kids love it)
• grilled cheese and tomato soup
• Waffles with applesauce and fruit topping (When I make waffles I make a large batch and freeze the leftovers to toast later)
• Parents magazine had some good ones too: homemade lunches, sandwiches, power snacks

What do you do for lunch and snacks? Even your rut may be someone else's fresh idea.

Great Websites

My sister-in-law recommended this great website to us: http://www.storylineonline.net/
It has videos of famous actors reading fun books. My daughter loves it and keeps requesting the "stripe story" featured above. She just watched it a minute ago so I could go put the baby down for a nap. Go check it out.
Got a site to recommend (for the kids or the moms)?

Making Clean-Up Less of a Chore

Even very young children can help out with clean-up. The truth is it's easier for you to just do it yourself, but it helps them feel independent and proud to have helped and learning to contribute is important. These pictures represent one way I've found to make clean-up time a lot easier. I have crates and plastic drawers with pictures on them so every set of toys has a place and it's easy to put away. You can also cover cardboard boxes with fabric or construction paper. Even my two-year-old knows where everything goes and can clean up quickly. I also like it because when other kids come over to play they can put toys away too. I also put up a peg board to hang dresses and purses. Clean-ups at our house are so much faster now. Another thing I do to keep messes to a minimum is to have them clean up the toys before moving on to a new activity. If they want to go in the yard, have a snack, watch a movie, get a game, I tell them to clean up the basement first (the playroom where we keep the toys). So they clean up several times a day, but it helps keep the mess from becoming too overwhelming (usually) and teaches them responsibility.

What are your clean-up tricks? Got a great organizing tip, game, or rule that helps your kids pitch in? Share your ideas in the comment section! Or if it's better explained with a picture, send it to my e-mail and I'll include it on the post.

Best Sleep Advice

You love every minute of sleep you can get so it's hard to understand why your little one is so resistent to it. I realize eveyone has their own rules when it comes to what they will and won't do when it comes to their children's sleep, so I'm going to stick to the expert's advice that has helped me. I found this article years ago that really made sense to me and I still refer to it often (mostly the sleeping chart). I used this method with my son and he is a great sleeper! Keep in mind that the lady who wrote this article has a 10-month-old and is consulting an expert, so this is geared toward her 10-month-old but most of it can work for younger babes (and should be introduced much earlier). Here are the highlights:

-"If a child doesn't go to sleep at the physiologically appointed time, his brain will say, 'Fine stay up then,' and secrete a chemical called cortisol to help keep him awake. As result, it takes him longer to go to sleep when you finally get him to bed and thanks to residual cortisol in his brain, he'll wake up earlier than usual the next day, be overtired, and have trouble napping. It's a downward spiral. Sleep deprivation is cumulative-the less you sleep, the less you sleep."

-"Why can't I get my baby to sleep or back to sleeping through the night? The answer is simple: I'm not supposed to be getting him to go to sleep-he should be putting himself to sleep. All that nursing and rocking and back rubbing is not only useless, it's also detrimental. Putting yourself to sleep is a learned skill."

Babies should:
1. take naps in their cribs, not the carseat (this is hard for me). This teaches them that cribs are a place to sleep

2. be drowsy but awake when put down, fall asleep on their own, and if they wake up during the night, be able to drift back off without help

Babies need:
1. a room of their own while learning to sleep. Then teach siblings good "sleep manners" if they're moved back in.

2. room-darkening shades and insulation from household noises (white-noise machine or fan) are helpful

3. one true lovey (security object)-a blanket, doll, or stuffed toy to make the transition to sleeptime. Have an intended object of affection on hand while nursing and encourage baby to squeeze it instead of you. (for my boys this is their "woobies" little knit blankets my mom made. They snuggle them and wrap their fingers through the holes. For my duaghter it's "Sam Bear")

4. a consistent routine that will cue their brain that it's time to go to bed. Have the same series of things before every nap and at bedtime. The entire nursing and bedtime routine need to take place in one spot/room. Do not let them fall asleep while nursing; if they start to drift off , it's time to put them down.

Here's the steps the author took:
Days 1-3: After reading and nursing, put him in crib and sit right next to it while he cries for however long it takes to go to sleep. You can talk to him and pat him through the slats, but you can't pick him up.
Days 4-6: Move chair halfway between the crib and door and reassure him verbally from there.
Days 7-8: Sit right by the door and talk to him
Day 9: Leave the room as soon as you put him in crib.
(me personally, it's easier to leave the room right away from day 1, than to torture him by sitting in there not holding him, but I understand why that's hard on some people)

How much sleep does your child need?

age *night sleep hrs. #day sleep hours ^daily total
1 week *8 1/2 #8 (4 naps) ^16 1/2
1 month *8 1/2 #7 (3 naps) ^15 1/2
3 months *10 #5 (3 naps) ^15
6 months *11 #3 1/4 (2 naps) ^14 1/4
9 months *11 #3 (2 naps) ^14
12 months *11 1/4 #2 1/2 (2 naps) ^13 3/4
18 months *11 1/4 #2 1/4 (1 nap) ^13 1/2
2 years *11 #2 (1 nap) ^13
3 years *10 1/2 #1 1/2 (1 nap) ^12
4 years *11 1/4 #0 ^11 1/4
5 years *11 #0 ^11

Hope you find this helpful. I didn't follow this religiously, I had to adapt things for our house and family circumstances. As I mentioned, this writer started this when she was struggling with her 10-month-old but it is recommended that you start much earlier than that. Newborns can't be spoiled. They need to eat at night and take awhile to learn when it's nighttime. But once they turn 3 months they have the memory to be spoiled and know how to work mom. This is a good time to start teaching them how to sleep before they start developing bad habits you'll have to break. If you wait until they can stand up in bed it becomes even more difficult for them to learn to sleep on their own (you lose the advantage that they're already laying down). It may sound mean, but they'll learn much quicker earlier and it will be a lot less stressful and healthier for both of you! Feel free to enter a testimonial or completely disagree with this.

P.S. I had this lined up nicely but it decided to center on it's own and I can't do anything to change it's mind. Sorry. If you would like the nice-looking chart e-mail me and I'll send it to you, then I won't feel bad I took the time to make it only to find it wouldn't post.