Learning ABC’s with Letter Tubs

A confined toddler on a tiny airplane could spell disaster.  My toddler has been on a plane four times in the last two weeks.  Luckily, half those times he was asleep.  Some of the places we have been include San Francisco, St. Louis and Miami.  My little 19 month toddler is BUSY and changing all the time.  We had to be very creative on the plane and in the airport terminals.  I packed a bag of new goodies that he hadn’t seen before and surprised him on our trips with these presents.  The LeapReader Junior was a big hit.  I also brought 5 new Matchbox cars.  I brought a old wallet and small calculator he hadn’t played with and I also brought a couple of old favorite toys, like our Ikea cars.  We made it but I’m ready for him to have his own seat.  Do you have toddler tricks for traveling?

One of our trips was to visit family, including Aunt Karen.  She is a big inspiration for this blog and a great resource for interesting challenges.  Some of her challenges to me have been to make my own laundry soap and date bars.  One this trip, I spent a day following Aunt Karen around her home learning very cool ways of staying healthy and saving money, all of which I will post about later.  Aunt Karen runs a daycare in her home and has years of practice keeping toddlers busy and learning to read.  I was very fascinated with what I call her “Letter Tubs” and plan to make some of my own.  She saved old yogurt dishes and labeled each one with a letter of the alphabet.  Then she filled each tub with tiny objects that started with the corresponding letter.  For example, the tub for “F” had a tiny fence, frogs, flowers, felt and feathers.  Each tub also had a big letter and small letter, which were usually magnet letters.  You can also make Color Tubs using the same concept.  I will post about the other activities Aunt Karen shared with me including sprouting, raising active yeast for bread, composting in the back yard, art projects, bike riding and play dough just to name a few.  Just as soon as I get back from my next trip to DC!  Any suggestions for long car trips with toddlers! 🙂

 

 

PB Crackers

Who needs Lance or Ritz when you have Mom?  Mom stuff is almost always better anyway.  I’m pretty proud of my PB crackers idea although I would not be surprised if I stole it inadvertently for another brilliant mom.  I would also not be surprise if you have already tried this 🙂  This week I made a new toddler snack – PB crackers – and it was one of those rare moments when I felt like a truly wise and creative mom.  I felt on top of the world!  Then my dog ate the poopy diaper I left in the bathroom and brought me back down to earth.  Ah yes, that’s more like it – chaotic, crazy, messy mom 🙂  So, my PB crackers are basically a homemade nut butter with tahini (which is a “complete protein” according to Super Baby Food book) and a little maple syrup mixed together and smeared between two crackers.  Let them sit in the freezer or frig until they harden and stick together.  In the end you have a great snack for toddlers.  Other options: graham crackers, honey or Nutella.  Any other ideas?  Stick a bag of them in the frig for the week and grab on the go.  It’s good to acknowledge the little successes in life.  And this was one of mine.  🙂

 

 

Asheboro, NC Zoo Trip

Love free family day trips?  We had a great time at the Asheboro Zoo last weekend!  Our Baby B is one and was old enough to see and enjoy most of the animals.  He smiled when the giraffes strolled around and laughed when the sea otter twirled in the water.  I really enjoyed seeing the two baby gorillas (Apollo and Bomassa) who were both born last August.  The Asheboro Zoo is about 1 1/2 hours from Charlotte or Raleigh, North Carolina but it’s worth the drive.  This zoo is very open and spacious.  There are 500 acres so there is some more walking for visitors than in a city zoo.  There is greater distance between the exhibit areas than you may be used to but this allows the animals to have large areas to roam and gives a more peaceful, natural feel to the entire park.  There are two continents that you can explore, Africa‘s grassland and North America’s Arctic coast.  You can park at either end and walk the entire park or take a tram or bus from one end to other.   We arrived at the park around noon and were able to walk the entire park before it closed at 5 pm, and that included stopping for lunch and time to play at the kids’ park.  We brought our lunch, although there were places to buy food.  I think spring is a great time to visit since it was warm but not too hot.  I recommend it for everyone!

The first animals Baby B saw were giraffes.  He loved them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we saw an old elephant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also saw some baboons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met a playful river otter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made time for lots of play at the very cool kids’ park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then we met more animals!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as we were leaving we saw the baby gorillas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time and look forward to going again soon!

Sprout Spring Sprout

My heart goes out to moms having a tough, long winter.  I’m right there with you!  It seems like there has been one bug after another.  As soon we get better, something else hits.  We even had the dreaded flu.  It wasn’t pretty.  I’ve been sick more often than my one year old!  He’s handling his first winter better than I am but that may have to do with leaving my job to start my own law practice.  I feel less stress but it’s still a big change.  I don’t usually handle change very well.  The weather hasn’t made life any easier.  It seems like most of the country has dealt with blizzards a good bit.  Here in the Southeast we had alot of rainy, cold weather.  So say with me: COME ON SPRING!  If you are like me – mad at the weather and stomping around the house trying to single-handedly bring about spring as fast as possible, you may want to try some of these ideas.  Buy some flowers for inside the house.  Get your spring tools and yard as ready as much as you can.  (I had the lawn aerated but you may be snowed in.)  Try a new “homemade project.”  I recently tried making my own sprouts, which is very easy and fun for kids.  I’m also going to try baking some homemade bread.  Start spring cleaning.  (I LOVE cleaning out closets and getting rid of old clothes.)  Plan next year’s spring vacation.  Those are my tricks for beating cabin fever.  I’m sure there are others.  Let me know what you think and hang in there!

SPROUTS

Clean out one or two glass jars.  Fill jars with about 1 inch seeds.  I like alfalfa or chia seeds.  Rinse the seeds and allow them to soak over night while covered with a towel.  Place a covering over the top of the jar using a permeable material such as cheesecloth or nylon.  I used nylon footies.  Drain and rinse the seeds 3x a day until sprouting is complete.  You can leave them upside down and at an angle to allow for continuous draining.  Keep the jars covered with a towel.  I left my in our drying rack.  The seeds only take a couple of days to sprout.  Make sure not to use hot or warm water to rinse and keep an eye out of mold if the jars are kept in a warm area.  Sprout are very nutritious and great in salads or on sandwiches.  Making your own sprouts also save money!

Dehydrating Queen

My “homemade” project this week is figuring out my dehydrator.  🙂  I borrowed one from my in-laws a few months ago but since then it has just been sitting there staring at me.  You see I hate to read manuals and this contraption appeared to require manual-reading.  I decided to pick a pumping session and flip through the manual.  No pressure.  Maybe I could figure it out through the pictures.  It’s pretty easy.  You basically plug it in and pick a temperature.  Fruit dries at about 130 – 140 degrees according to my manual.  When I got the dehydrator cleaned and ready to go, I started having fun.  Luckily, I did read that I could not submerge the base in water.  So no electric shocks.  Good thing.  I first did a round of apples, bananas and cantaloupe slices.  They turned out great!  The dehydrator is pretty loud and it takes most of the day so you should plan accordingly.  Just think, dried fruit or veggies without extra sugar or chemicals!  I also tried dried oranges for some sweet-smelling decorations.  Can’t wait to try some fruit leather!  Who needs fruit roll-ups?!

Homemade Bars – On The Go

Store-bought granola bars seemed like a waste to me.  A waste of money, a waste of packaging, and waste of calories.  They also seem to have an infinite shelf-life, which is always a big red flag for me.  They do, however, seem to save time.  They are great to grab and go.  You can eat them in the car or carry them in your bag.  You can store them in your desk at work or quickly throw them in your kids lunch.  They are filling and seem better than a candy bar – maybe.  SO, I tried to think of a homemade replacement to the store-bought bars.  I made some homemade granola bars with peanut butter, rolled oats, dried apricots, dried cherries, dried pomegranates  and chocolate chips (of course).  I added eggs and some brown sugar and baked the mixture in a pan at 375 for about 30 minutes.  You can vary the recipe however you want.  Then, I cut the baked mixture into bars and wrapped the bars in plastic wrap!  I put all the wrapped bars in a refrigerator drawer for easy access.  Quick, easy, healthy, and cheap!  AND homemade!

Homemade Vitamin Water

Do you save your cooking water?  Any time you boil or steam veggies or fruit, why not save the excess water?  We know that the most healthy option would be to eat veggies and fruit raw and straight from the vine or tree but that’s not always possible.  If you’re going to cook those veggies or fruit, why not use the water which contains all the cooked off vitamins and nutrients.  You can use that water for cooking rice or pasta.  You can put the water in your smoothie or protein shake.  You can put it in the frige to use later or you can put it in a water bottle to drink.  No need to spend money on store-bought vitamin water!  Veggie or fruit infused water is pretty trendy anyway.  I tried some squash water the other day and it was great!  I’m sure you can think of even more ways to use your cooking water!  🙂

Salty Crackers

I’ve been getting alot of positive feedback on homemade hummus and crackers so here they are again!  Yum!  My Dad is especially fond of the homemade crackers so I wasn’t surprised when I came home to a fresh batch today.  I was thrilled until my Mom suggested that I try them first.  My Dad had tested out some suggestions from the Super Baby Food book and added Bragg’s sea kelp – from the sea – along with the normal amount of salt and pepper.  The result was super salty crackers.  Pucker up!  Too bad I’m not pregnant!  I couldn’t get enough salt during pregnancy.  Your crackers were great, Dad!  We just needed to add some hummus!  (He refuses to eat my hummus.)

Super Baby Food

I’m loving this book!  In addition to being an encyclopedia on baby food, it’s also a great source of information on nutrition.  For example, I never heard of nutritional yeast, powdered kelp and desiccated liver.  And I NEVER would have thought to add these nutrient boosters to my baby’s porridge or yogurt.  Since it’s a pretty dense book, I’m glad I started it before my little guy is eating solid foods.  The book also include lots of recipes good for the entire family, such as homemade CRACKERS!

Check out http://www.superbabyfood.com/.

 

Cloth Diaper Service!

We love our cloth diaper delivery service…

http://www.ivysdiaperservice.com/p-37-why-cloth-.html

Why Go Cloth?

There are many truly excellent reasons to cloth diaper your youngster. At the end of the day, however, only you can decide whether to give cloth a try. To help you make the most educated decision we have compiled a list of reasons to go cloth. As always, please contact us if you have any questions about this page or any other section of our website. We are here to help!

Great Reason #1: The Health of Your Child

Our cloth diapers are 100% unbleached cotton. They are soft and cushy against your baby’s skin. Disposable diapers contain some nasty chemicals such as dioxin (a carcinogenic by-product of the bleaching process), sodium polyacrylate (a super absorbent gel similar to a substance in tampons found to cause toxic shock syndrome), and Tributyl-tin (a toxic substance known to cause hormonal problems in humans). All these nasty chemicals will be up next to your baby’s sensitive skin for at least two years.

Disposable diapers are made out of plastic made to feel like cloth. But it isn’t cloth. It’s plastic and it’s water and air proof. In 1955, before disposable diapers were even invented, it was estimated that only 7% of babies suffered from diaper rash. In 1991, after disposables had taken over the market, that number jumped to an alarming 78%.

Great Reason #2: The Environment

Everyone knows “going green” is all the rage right now. But if you sit down and do the research you will find behaving in an environmentally responsible way is in your child, your grandchild, and your great grandchild’s best interest. If you decide to cloth diaper your baby you will prevent one ton of untreated waste PER YEAR from entering our landfills. Fun factoid: every disposable diaper ever used in this country is still in a landfill somewhere and will be for at least another 150 years. Another fun factoid: 2 ½ years worth of disposable diapers for one child will use up 20 trees and 420 gallons of petroleum. Yet another fun factoid: cloth diapers can be washed and reused as many as 200 times before being retired for use as cleaning rags.

 

Great Reason #3: It’s Cheaper!

We’ve found that nothing helps our case more than cold, hard numbers, so here goes:

Let’s assume for our purposes that disposable diapers cost 30 cents each (that’s an average; some cost more, some cost less). Now let’s assume the average baby uses 10 diapers a day. That’s $21 a week. We have services as low as $17 per week!  In addition, due to disposables and products such as Pull-Ups and other disposable training pants options children are potty training later and later. The average age is now almost 3 years old! The average cloth diapered baby potty trains at about 2 years old. At $21 a week disposables could end up costing you $3,276 for up to 3 years of use. With our diaper service, you would only need to pay for two years of hassle free service! If you would like to know why cloth babies potty train earlier, please take a look at Great Reason #4.

Great Reason #4: Potty Train Earlier

Disposable diapers use an absorbent gel that soaks up the urine in diapers and holds it away from baby’s skin. You may think this is a good thing, but it’s really not for a variety of reasons. When it comes time to potty train your child has no idea WHY when she wears disposables. Your baby can’t feel when she’s wet so why would she have any incentive at all to learn to use the toilet? With cloth diapers your child is able to understand the cause and effect relationship, which helps teach your baby faster. Cloth babies potty train an average of six months earlier than disposable babies.

Great Reason #5: Support the Charlotte Economy

Our cloth diaper service is a small, local business located right here in Charlotte. When you use our service you are doing your part to help boost our local economy. Disposables, on the other hand, funnel money out of state and do nothing to help Charlotte.