The Daring Book for Girls
Hot on the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys comes the next bestseller named The Daring Book for Girls. It looks like it will be released on November 1st, 2007 from Amazon, but you can pre-order it now.
In Praise of the Average Child
A neat post from a parent In Praise of the Average Child. Not everyone will have the next rocket scientist, sports star or POTUS and sometimes parents forget that their perfectly average child can be special in their own way! It is important to be proud of what your children can do and not always be worrying about what they can’t do.
AT-AT Imperial Walker Stroller
Someone was rolling around with a AT-AT Imperial Walker stroller on May 26th at the Star Wars Celebration IV convention held in Los Angeles. It looks like some cardboard or foamcore that was painted to resemble the Imperial Walker. Now there is a way for your child to be the talk of the town!
Book Review: The Happiest Baby on the Block
A friend lent us a stack of books before The Boy was born. One of them was The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp. This turned out to be our ‘go-to’ book for all things soothing when The Boy was an infant. That tricky time between birth and 4 months old can be frustrating in terms of soothing and sleeping. For both baby and parents.
Dr. Karp describes the first 3 months of life as the 4th Trimester. Evolutionarily, he explains, babies had to be born with smaller heads in order to not cause harm to the mother at birth. This 4th Trimester, then, is a time period in which babies should be treated to situations that are as womb-like as possible. Dr. Karp of course gets into much more detail in his book. He has developed 5 steps to create a soothing experience for your baby.
The 5 S’s are: Swaddle, Swing, Sucking, Side, Shush. We found that a tight wrap, or swaddle, on The Boy really calmed him when he was fussy and helped him to sleep through the night. We swaddled him during sleep times from birth until about 6 months of age. This gives the baby that tight, warm feeling of the womb. All during gestation, your baby was gently rocked by your movements. This is where the swing comes in. We used a musical swing for nap times for the first few weeks. Most infants need to suck. Many sucked on fingers in the womb and they instinctually need to suck in order to eat after birth. Dr. Karp recommends a pacifier for soothing infants. One position that babies often feel most secure is a side hold. We would sometimes swaddle The Boy and hold him ‘football style.’ Shushing (or a white noise machine) may sound like what the baby heard in utero. We also often shushed him loudly while he was falling asleep. In our own experience the white noise machine did not work as well as mommy or daddy.
Dr. Karp writes with humor and includes some funny cartoons. There are also many anecdotes and personal stories from his own patients included in the book. It is repetitive, but I believe that this just enforces the 5 S’s and other ideas that he has put forth in the book.
If you are watching your pennies, then check this book out from the library or scour your local garage sales for a copy.
NOTE: I was excited to read The Happiest Toddler on the Block when The Boy got a little older. However, I was not as impressed as I was with the first one. It is still an interesting read, but it didn’t hit home like The Happiest Baby on the Block.
Another “Cents”ible Website
Read about getting out of debt, raising your kids on a single income and finding garage sale treasures. Get Rich Slowly is another website devoted to sharing accumulated information and stories that may help lead you to financial freedom. Or at least financial security.
Free Diaper Bag?
As I was cleaning out The Boy’s closet this afternoon, it occurred to me that we really didn’t need to register for or buy a diaper bag. We actually own a total of five. One lives permanently in the car, the other four on the floor of The Boy’s closet. One diaper bag was lovingly knitted for us by my very talented sister, we registered and received two, and two came free from our hospital. The point of this post is to find out if your hospital gives away a free diaper bag and if it will suit your needs before going ahead and buying one.
We took a childbirth class (worth the $100 registration fee in my opinion) and received one free diaper bag there. The other one came home with us from the hospital when The Boy was born. Both free bags came with lots of free goodies, samples and information. They are both on the small side, but it would have been doable with just those two. I always over pack for every excursion anyhow. Another cool thing about the two free bags is that they both can double as a cooler bag. They are lined with easily-cleaned plastic and came with freezer ice packs.
Parenting as Leadership
I stumbled across this article by John Rosemond and found it quite thought-provoking. I then, of course, had to visit his website: www.rosemond.com. So far, I like what I see there, lots of parenting help for all ages including teen parenting!
He has an article under his weekly column for 5/29/07 titled ‘Savor the joy of a picnic.‘ I love it. It is a call to bring back the family picnic and it is quite appropriate for this website too. Instead of paying for your kids to play in organized sports (there is nothing wrong with Little League or AYSO, it’s just expensive!), start organizing a family picnic tradition on sunny weekends. Take the kids, dogs and frisbees to a park and enjoy each other! Also, check out his Bill of Rights for Children.
Saving the World With G Diapers.. Maybe.
Parentdish has an interesting article on G Diapers, the eco friendly alternative to those horrible disposable diapers we all use and love.
So these gDiapers. The deal with them is that they are allegedly more environmentally sound than the regular (non-cloth) disposable diapers. Apparently regular diapers don’t biodegrade for 500 years. 500 years. 500. Yes, 5-0-0. Makes using cloth diapers seem better every day. But, that’s not what this post is about. I don’t want to (yet) discuss the many virtues and otherwise of cloth diapers. The tale I am here to tell now is that of the gDiapers.
Budgeting with Envelopes
Sticking to a budget can be difficult and frustrating. As a single-income family, though, you may find it quite necessary to do just that. When we first embarked on this single-income journey, we found that using envelopes to budget each month’s cash worked quite well. The bills were all paid by check or online, but we still had groceries and household items to purchase, along with the occasional dinner out.
Everyone’s personal finances are different, but we started out with approximately $550 in cash every month. One of us would withdraw this amount from the bank and then we distributed it into 6 envelopes labeled for our various needs. The categories that we used were: Groceries, Household, Misc., Pet, Medical and Entertainment. If you choose to plan your budget this way, first determine the categories and amounts that you will need every month. As the primary spender (a.k.a. wife, a.k.a. mom), I kept the envelopes in my purse. We began by trying to keep the envelopes at home and then I’d just take the specific ones I needed, but I invariably forgot the envelopes altogether or needed cash from a different category. So eventually, all the cash ended up staying with me at all times. Once that was happening, I ditched the envelopes and found a wallet with three dividers for cash. I divided each of those with a brightly colored piece of paper and labeled each section. But we still have the same concept.
As the cash was spent from each category, we put the receipts in the appropriate envelope. In cases of no receipt available, we just wrote out our own note for the envelope. This process really helped us keep track of our expenses and watch our spending. By seeing exactly how much cash was left in, say, groceries, we knew what we’d be eating for the rest of the month. If there was cash left over in a category at the end of the month, it stayed there and was carried over to the next month. This was best for areas like Pet and Medical. The small amount of money ($40) in the Pet envelope added up each month and then covered her yearly vet visit and a bag of dog food every three months or so.
Occasionally, we would run out of cash in one category and have to borrow from another envelope. This usually worked out ok, as long as we left a note in the envelopes saying how much was owed and from which category. All the change was taken out at the end of the month and put in a separate ‘coin jar.’
The biggest problem with this type of budgeting is when you shop at a superstore like Target and you make purchases from several different categories. We didn’t like to make three or four different purchases, but that was an option. Another option was to pay it all from one envelope and then adjust the cash based on the receipt when we got home. It was because of this problem that we eventually moved on to paying almost exclusively with a credit card.
After about a year of using the envelopes and wallet with dividers, we had a much better handle on our monthly spending habits. Our credit card gave us vacation points with every purchase, so we decided to use plastic instead of cash. This is certainly harder to do in terms of knowing what you have already spent during the month. We make it a point to go over our budget plan together at least once a week to make sure we are not spending more than we earn. Cash is still occasionally necessary throughout the month. Therefore, we still withdraw approximately $40 in cash at the beginning of each month and carefully keep track of how we spend it. It is mainly used for tips at the local cafe, small grocery purchases and charity giving (girl scout cookies, etc.).
Juice Box Drinking Tips
I find little juice boxes to be quite annoying. Here are some strategies I employ to reduce the annoyance factor.
1. Take the first sip. If you hand a full juice box to a toddler, chances are that they will squeeze it just a tad too hard and there will be juice all over the place. If you have a clean freak child like I do, then you know that juice all over the clothes does not go over very well.
2. Replace the tiny straw with a normal-sized straw. The tiny straws that come with most juice boxes don’t actually reach the bottom of the box. I find this to be very wasteful – why am I buying the darn things if the kids can’t access all the juice?!? Also, the bigger straws are more sturdy in the hole and are less likely to be pulled out “accidentally.”
3. Drink it outside or at the table. I don’t want juice all over my couch or carpet thank you!
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