Two geeky girls’ guide to the first year of motherhood.
From the category archives:
Did you know that you might have a puppet theater in your child’s room already?
Materials needed:
Crib
Sheet
Dolls or stuffed animals
Preschooler with a repertoire of songs
Any combination of parent, baby, and toddler to serve as audience
{ 2 comments }
When fellow parenting blogger and amateur fashion designer Mike posted about tap dancing with his daughter Emme, I knew Julian and I had to try it.
Mike gives Charlene credit, and she gives someone else credit, but it doesn’t really matter as long as Julian gives ME credit for the idea of taping quarters to one’s [...]
{ 9 comments }
My daughter loves to take the clothes off her baby doll, but mostly the task is too difficult for her. I wanted to make a dress she could take off by herself, and I came up with an easy pattern to share.
This baby doll dress (or robe) takes just a few minutes to sew. I [...]
{ 3 comments }
Live evergreen branches bring two dangers into your house immediately, one much more serious than the other. Over time, the pine needles dry out and get so prickly that you will cringe as you handle them. They poke your already dry hands, and you will actually need to wear work gloves when you go [...]
{ 1 comment }
As we barrel toward the holidays, it is easy for me to think “we have too many toys!” and my boys just don’t need a thing. Other times, we visit friends for playdates and I think the opposite. Maybe my sons have all the wrong toys. Ugh.
Here are some how-to instructions for doing an effective [...]
{ 7 comments }
With the economy totally sucking, we’ve modified our babysitter retainer model slightly and are trying to have a few more date nights at home. If you thought it was totally unrealistic when I told you to put your kids to bed before 7pm and have a date-night, I feel you.
Here are six slightly more inventive [...]
{ 7 comments }
Call me sentimental, but I am a fan of tiny baby feet on little coasters, mugs, and tiles. When Holden was 6 weeks old, we dragged him to a paint-your-own-pottery place to stamp his tootsies on trivets (the cheapest pottery they sold) and I already felt that I had missed his “newborn foot size.” In [...]
{ 1 comment }
An umbrella is a terrific gift for a preschooler. My toddler loves to hold her own kid-sized umbrella, and it gives us something to do on a rainy day – go outside and stand there with an umbrella over our heads.
I saw this rainbow umbrella for kids in a Museum catalog and thought it [...]
{ 1 comment }
Irony alert: I don’t let my kids play video games and I limit their TV screen time, but I’m usually willing to hand over my iPhone to pass the time.
I realized that I was a huge hypocrite on a recent flight from San Francisco to Cleveland when we let Holden (now 4) watch the entire [...]
{ 7 comments }
My kids are totally in love with the characters from the bizarro TV show Yo Gabba Gabba. Enchanted by the pink teardrop-shaped member of the cast, Scarlett called herself “Foofa” for about a month and was actually more responsive to instructions we gave her if we addressed her as Foofa. I know she’d [...]
{ 4 comments }
Julian is really really into dressing up. Every day he wears a costume for at least part of the day. He might be a chef, or Batman, a lemur, a scarecrow, AlphaPig, or a magician. While I have enjoyed the arrival of the costume catalogs over the past couple weeks, because each new [...]
{ 1 comment }
Holden and I used to cook together a lot. Before his little brother Milo joined our family, Holden would stand by my side at the kitchen sink and crack eggs, stir with a whisk, or rip greens for a salad. Unfortunately, I must confess, I now put the two of them in front of a [...]
{ 5 comments }
The Rookie Mom's Handbook: 250 Activities to Do with (and Without!) Your Baby
