Need a cool kid craft?

My friend Sarah sent me the link to this great blog. I don't really know what the title stands for, but I looked through some of the posts and there are great ideas for fun crafts! For example, one post teaches you how to paint bread!! Then you can toast it for a fun snack or a great work of art sandwich. :-) There were several things that I came across that I thought were great ideas. So have some fun with your kids, who wants just plain old ordinary food anyway?

Insti-Bath

Ever found yourself staying somewhere without a tub and a very dirty baby on your hands who was in desperate need of a bath?? Well with a little planning you can take your tub with you! When we travel it feels like we have to pack up our entire house just to make it work, but we have honed it down to pretty much a science since we've done so much of it with our little munchkins. One thing I do NOT want to have to bring is a baby bath. So instead get creative and use a rubbermade tub to keep your vehicle organized, and then in the evening it can be a bath! Empty it of it's contents, set it in the shower, fill with warm water, add some bubbles, and "ta-da." It's that simple. My toddler is to big to comfortably fit in the sink, but he'd still fit in a tub like this just fine! If simple showers aren't going to work for you, give this a try!

Milk No More

My toddler has recently given up milk. Maybe it was for lent or something, but I never told him about it. :-) He doesn't fuss about it or anything just takes a sip, decides it's enough and won't drink it. I tried all the tricks that I used to get him to take it over formula to begin with, such as adding strawberry flavor, but to no avail. Hmmmm. So here's a few of my tips for sneaking in some calcium and such w/o a fight over milk.
Disguise it! My monkey eats oatmeal nearly every morning of his life, so instead of fixing it with water, I add milk to it. He doesn't care and it makes me feel better to know he's getting a little of the good stuff.
Substitute other dairy. I push cheese and yogurt to make sure that my lil guy is still getting some good dairy in his diet.
Lead by example. I drink milk in front of my toddler. It's worked some. He will occasionally ask for milk when he sees me or his daddy drinking it. It's great!
Try, try again! We all remember this mantra, but it holds true. I've taken a 'break' from milk with my little one for now, but I haven't given up on having him drink it and enjoy it in the future. For now he still gets his one cup of juice and the rest of the time drinks water. I will give him a small cup of milk from time to time just to test the waters, but I'm not pushing it. I think he'll come back around on his own eventually.

Spit Solutions

Having had the privileged of not one, but two babies who's main goal for their first few months was to see how many times they could burble on Mommy, I believe that I've come up with a few tips on how to deal with the unwanted spits!
Blankets are easier to clean than carpet! Use a blanket whenever you put your baby on the floor, especially for tummy time as the extra pressure tends to send up geysers. I even put a receiving blanket under baby's head when he's playing on the floor gym. It helps keep his hair dry as the mat is not that absorbent.
Dress baby in layers. Use a onesie under any outfit. This way if the top gets wet at least they will be dry next to their skin.
Use fabrics that work FOR you. I love the terrycloth rompers that float around baby departments. They are super absorbent! Perhaps that's not why they were created, but personally I don't like to change little clothes constantly just because some spit-up is involved.
Use bibs! This seems like a no brainer, but I have an entire drawer full of bibs, many that came to match outfits and yet I often forget to use these. It's much easier to swap out a soaked bib than to change an entire outfit!
Take a burp rag EVERYWHERE! In fact, take 2 at least! You'll find that just as soon as you think that you're "safe" from the "urps" they'll hit ya with a huge one when you least expect it. Have a rag within reach all the time to protect your clothing as well as the baby's.
Inevitably you will wear the "parent badge" of spit up down the arm, back, leg, shirt, or all of the above at some point, but when you look at the grin on that little face after it's just doused you, I doubt you'll mind THAT much.

Receiving Galore

It seems that one oft he staple items at a baby shower are cute receiving blankets. I've always been one to wonder what they really are for? It's not like to take them to the hospital to 'receive' the baby with them, and quite honestly when you get home and try to swaddle your precious pumpkin you learn that they are a little lacking. So I came up with some other uses for our plethora of receiving blankets. I'm sure they are not original, but if you, like me, ever wonder what to do with this odd sized thing then here you go.
1) Use as a changing table liner.
.This helps deal with extra "mess" that you may not have been expecting, and keeps the
changing pad clean.
2) Burp rags.
.If you have a little spitter-upper like ours have been, those little things labeled "burp clothes" in the store will do NOTHING for the geisers. So use the blankets instead! You can cut them in two or just use the whole thing folded over. Hey, more coverage means you get to wear YOUR clothes for longer too!
3) Disposable mess catchers.
. Yes, gruesome things do sometimes happen with little ones. For example, our toddler tossed his cookies when we were in the middle of a flight. We mopped up most of the mess with a receiving blanket and then put it all in a zip up baggie. Well, once at our destination, I had NO desire to reopen that bag, so just tossed the whole mess and didn't feel bad about loosing a "good" blanket.

Mommy Moments

They tell you that infants don't smile, and if something crosses their face that looks like a smile it's just from gas. I sometimes wonder where the "experts" get all their wealth of wisdom because I'm here to say that my baby smiles! Yesterday when he was 6 days old he was looking into my face and he smiled at me!!!! My first baby smile! Awwwwww... If I wasn't head over heels in love with him already I would have melted then! He smiles in his sleep sometimes too, and today I was laughing at him while he was eating and he smiled again! So phooy to those people who think that babies don't smile. My darling little lad does, and it thrills my heart to see it!

Boppy love? Not so much

When I was trying to come up with items for our baby registry with my first child one thing that came up over and over was this wonderful pillow called the Boppy! People raved about it to me, and so I registered and was given one of these pillows that is supposed to help support baby while nursing or even bottle feeding, or whatever. One of my friends said that maybe it would help me have that "extra" set of hands mommies are always wishing for. Now they even have Boppys that come in small, medium and large sizes so that everyone can find that perfect fit. I however haven't fit perfectly for some reason. With my first child I only nursed for 3 months due to complications, and thought that my fight with the Boppy was just part of the issues I was dealing with. Now I'm on the second round of nursing life, and realized that it's not ME it's the pillow! Actually it probably is me because of how many people have told me it's wonderful, but for me it just seems like more of a wrestling match to get the pillow and baby all where they need to be. So that's my basic "review" of the Boppy. Now the tip, just use a regular decorative pillow. It's true you'll need some support for feeding that little one, but it doesn't HAVE to be a baby related item. If it doesn't work for you, find something that does. My Boppy has become the baby's support when he's napping in the pack n' play, but for feeding, I just used the pillows we have on the couch.

Which side???

Now that I'm back in the land of the nursing moms I've found that at 2am it's difficult for me to remember which side I nursed last. I have tried to use the safety pin method, but again at 2 in the morning, the last thing I want to do once DS is finished is to have to fumble with a pin. I had several injuries to prove that I'm not so coordinated on a lack of sleep. So this time around I dug out of my jewelery box a stretchy bracelet that a friend gave me years ago. Now I simply switch wrists with the bracelet and voila! I know exactly where we need to pick up at 4:30am!