Pregnant

So, sorry I haven't written in a while. Just found out recently that I'm pregnant with our third child. We're very excited and hope everything goes well, but to be honest, I haven't been feeling so well. Therefore, my blog is going on the back burner for a while. I'll catch up with you soon, so try back sometime next week.

Food Pyramid For Preschoolers

Making decisions as a parent can be difficult on a daily basis and deciding what and how much to feed your children can be even harder. Well, help is only a click away. There is now a Food Guide Pyramid for Preschoolers. Just follow the link, and you will find yourself on the USDA website for food pyramids. On this site you can actually plug in a little information about your 2-5 year old child and get some recommendations on what and how much your little one should be eating. There you will also find growth charts, activity ideas, and recommendations for picky eaters. It's well worth a look. You could even use this as a sort of interactive tool with your preschooler to introduce their Food Pyramid and healthy food choices.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Most likely your kids will be celebrating the birthday of Dr. Seuss sometime this week at school. So, maybe you should know a few facts about the good old Seuss. His real name is actually Theodore Seuss Geisel. The "Doctor" in his pen name supposedly came from the unfulfilled hopes that his father had for him...graduating from Oxford with a doctorate. He was born on March 2nd, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Although known mostly for his many children's books, Seuss also was a cartoonist and political cartoonist during WWII. Seuss is known mainly for the imaginative characters, rhyme and the trisyllabic meter he often used in his books. Seuss is a highly celebrated author and deserves to be remembered on his birthday! If you would like your kids to be able to explore Dr. Seuss outside of the books, send them to Seussville to play games with some of the Dr. Seuss characters.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Organizing With Toilet Paper Rolls

We have a couple of large bins of cords and cables that drive me crazy. They are all smashed in there with no sort of organization whatsoever and of course none of them are labeled. Thanks to the brilliance of my husband's organizational skills (sorry dear). At least we have most of them put in a bin. Right now they don't bother me too much because they're in storage until we move, so I don't have to see them for the next few months. But I do know when we move, they're going to drive me crazy and I am going to take over.

It seems that everyone is in to "Being Green" and recycling, etc. So, I found a way to recycle and organize our cords and cables at the same time. I'm going to use empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls (God knows we have enough of those) to organize the cables and cords. I'm going to wind them up nicely and neatly and squish them into the roll with just the ends peeking out, hopefully. The beauty of the toilet paper and paper towel roll is that you can easily write on the outside of them. So, I can label all of the cords that aren't obvious. Now, my husband would say they are all "obvious" and labeling wasn't necessary, but I'll have you know that things are going to be labeled. That way I'll know where things are for sure. So watch out cords, you're going to be "rolled" soon enough.

Standing Up To Pee

It's potty training time in our household, and we just started with our 2 year old son a couple of weeks ago. I've done this before, considering I have a 4 year old daughter, and if there's anything I learned from the first go around, it is to have patience, because potty training can take a while. So this time with my son, I feel a lot more relaxed about the whole situation. I do not feel stressed out by the fact that some kids my son's age are already potty trained, because I know he will get it done when he is ready.

So, although my son is not fully potty trained, he is very excited when he "goes" and seems to be getting it. But I had one dilemma. You see, I'm a woman. Therefore, I never had to learn how to pee standing up. I don't know what it feels like and I certainly don't know the proper procedure. As I find myself kneeling down aiming his pee stream down into the toilet while he sits, I feel a little uncomfortable and start thinking- When in the world am I supposed to teach him to stand up and pee?

Clearly I did not have to do this with my daughter, so I did a little research. I found that I really should wait until he masters going potty while seated before he moves on to standing and peeing. After all, I wouldn't want any poop coming out with his pee while he is confused and standing. Not only should I wait to introduce standing, but I should actually have his Daddy model good peeing behavior. Let's be honest, women don't really know the "do's" and "don'ts" of peeing like a man. I've heard things like, "Shake it more than twice and you're playing with it," but I really don't know all of the rules. If it were up to me, I would have him wiping it with a little square of toilet paper, but I KNOW that's a definite No-No and would potentially condemn him in the "man world" for life. So, I guess I can take the pressure off of myself and hand the reigns over to my husband when the time is right.

PBS Kids Island

Okay, I let my 4 year old daughter play on the computer. I actually think it's a great learning tool, as long as you are on the right sites. A new site that we discovered is the PBS Kids Island. This is a site for children from about age 2 to age 8. It allows the children to explore an interactive carnival by building different rides after they complete various levels. There are cool rides and great reading games. It is built around improving your child's literacy skills, including rhyming, phonics and letter identification. Not only will your child have fun while they are playing, but you can also track your child's progress with the Child Progress Tracker. If you've been a little weary about sitting your kid in front of the computer, check out this site for starters.

Friday's Cleaning Tip: Use A Timer

This is short, sweet and to the point. Use a timer when you are cleaning. If you tend to get distracted doing other things while you're cleaning and thus, cleaning takes you all day, set a timer to keep you on track. You could give yourself 20 minutes for each room or 2 hours for the whole house, whatever makes sense to you. Not only will you keep yourself on track, but you have a goal to meet each time you clean, taking your mind off the actual cleaning.