Mom Stuff
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Gender Stereotypes
So my three are all less than two years old – why are we having this conversation? Because it’s happening already. It’s crazy! My son is often super proud of his cool shirts or wants to show people his favorite things so he’ll tell me or Grandma (or everyone he sees that day) “I have a fire truck on my shirt” or dinosaur or lion etc. and we’ll talk about what sounds they make. At which point my one year old daughter inevitably looks at her shirt excited to see what she’s got, sometimes it’s a ruffle, sometimes flower patterns, often just nothing because it’s really hard to find…
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To TV or Not to TV (with Baby)
For a long time we were a very strict no TV household when it came to our three babies. They just didn’t need it! They can play and read and hang out with us and we love every minute of it. They don’t go on phones or tablets either except to take or look at pictures or very occasionally listen to a song. When we go out to eat they are content to sit with us or a small toy and we were always very happy with that. That is until the whole family got a stomach bug. I’m talking buckets by everyone’s bed. Babies vomiting, parents feeling like…
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Birthday Parties!
As we begin to plan for our third 1st Birthday in two years I thought I’d share some of the tips I’ve learned on planning and enjoying first birthdays! For our water loving sons July birthday we had a pool party/bbq while our April daughter had a book themed party at our house filled with some of her favorite stories – food and decor to match. Our third daughter is kind of a mix and doesn’t have as many set preferences yet so we struggled in deciding what to do for hers. We ended up doing a traveling Minnie Mouse theme because she is our traveled little babe (coming to…
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What Really Puts Pressure On A New Mom To Be Perfect
As with every year when the Pan-Mass Challenge weekend finishes off I am reminded of all the true inspirational stories out there, kids celebrating another birthday, starting high school, starting a family, doing all the little things we take for granted everyday because the research and treatments are getting better. And they are – I’ve seen it with my own eyes but there is still a long way to go to a cure. I think about these stories often when I think about motherhood because I’ve lived it and I’ve seen it in my work with Child Life Specialists. I’ve been the person who sits and plays a game with…
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Living Waste Free: Steps in a Long Journey
So as you may have read in my last post by no means are we a waste free household. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the idea and think there’s some amazing stuff out there, but with three under two it’s just not feasible or realistic for me right now. I spend hours already getting food and bodily functions out of clothes – I can’t imagine trying to deal with non-disposable diapers (huge kudos to you who do). However, I do try to do some things like bring a reusable cup or reusable bags (plus some stores give you a discount woohoo!) and add to this list wherever I can.…
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When Something That’s Totally Wrong Is Right: Helping Build A Child’s Attention
One of my babies has always had a hard time with attention. Even as a baby those little arms and legs would be flailing all over the place – never that calm, serene, peaceful baby even at a few weeks old. We had early intervention from the very beginning to try to help with fine motor skills and build that attention up second by second. And then we moved and we had to move to a new early intervention. At first I was very worried when the new worker started working on gross motor skills the whole session. I always felt those were our strongest skills – walking and running…
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A Few Things Every Self Feeding Child Needs
Okay so we’ve been talking a lot about meal times, feeding and baby led weaning this week. Here are just a few of our favorite items for those of you just getting started with the feeding process!
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Why Did No One Ever Tell Me About Swim Diapers?
Why The Big Secret? Okay. Swim Diapers. Great idea right? Diapers that work in the pool and don’t get gross and weigh your kids down. Awesome! BUT. THEY. DON’T. HOLD. PEE. How is it that this isn’t well distributed information? Like baby 101 “By the way swim diapers don’t hold pee” C’mon Moms! C’mon Dads! Nothing quite like the first hand experience of walking home from the pool and having your kid pee all over you!!! What?!?! Now I change them back to real diapers the second we exit the water – which is a lot of back and forth when you have a toddler who decides he’s done and…
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“Positive Parenting”
The Bump featured a great article recently about positive parenting which I recommend you can read here. This is something I love and have been trying to explain to people for years, although we call it logical consequences. It doesn’t mean I let my kids get away with or do whatever they want! It’s simply putting a positive spin on a negative reminder. So instead of screaming “don’t hit the hammer on the window!!!” I give them something they CAN do like “let’s bang on the nail instead of the window” or “why don’t we use that hammer to fix the rocking horse instead!” Using language or modeling gestures as appropriate…
