We are big fans of the I Spy books, starting with the board book versions I bought when Julian was a baby. We play “I Spy” with regular books, too, and now we’ve graduated into Where’s Waldo? territory.

When Julian was four, he and I did a little photo shoot with big plans — still unfulfilled as of this writing — to make our own I Spy book. We ended up with unbound printed photos. (You can do it, that way, too.)

DIY I Spy Book

1. Set up a solid colored background on the floor. We used a foam play mat.
2. Gather a laundry basket full of {insert nice word for “junk”}. Include favorite objects and personal items.
3. Spread your items on the background as you like. Since there’s no wrong way to do this, let your preschooler help.
4. Try to talk your preschooler out of being in the picture himself. I failed. See above.
5. Photograph the scene.
6. Arrange new items and repeat.
7. Upload set of photos to your choice of photobook makers and order yourself a book.
8. Alternatively, cheap out and simply print the results on your own printer. Paper clip the photos together to make a set of I Spy cards for use in the car or on the plane.

Another fun version of this activity is to dump your purse and photograph the results.

This is part of our year-long series Makin’ It with The Rookie Moms. To contribute your own idea, click over here.

Like they used to say on TV, membership has it’s privileges. Both of the Bay Area children’s museums that I have been to are part of a consortium of Children’s Museums that have reciprocal memberships. This means that if you get a one-year membership at Habitot in Berkeley, for example, you can go to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito for a significant discount. Also, if you travel to a place with another children’s museum, you are totally in.

The point, however, is not the membership. The point is that these are destinations with rooms for crawlers. Usually they have mats on the floor or different textures and large scale shapes that babies and young toddlers can put their grubby hands on, in and through. The Discovery Museum Tot Room, for example, has at least four waterbed-type areas for babies.

If you live near one of these places, and buy a membership, consider it a mommy meet market. Go there when you and baby are feeling lonely, let down your hair, and have a juice box or two.

Your 47th weekly challenge is to seek out a children’s museum and make a special trip there with your baby. Tell us, how was it? (Baby too young for this outing? Start at the beginning.)

Photos: Minnesota Children’s Museum;  Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco

Nine months on, nine months off? Something like that.

Your 46th weekly challenge is to obtain some new-to-you clothes that you’ll enjoy along with an afternoon of girlfriend hilarity all for the cost of some cucumber-scented spa water. The end of the year is a perfect time to plan a clothing swap.

Whitney totally hates this photo series but I love it. To be fair, she was trying on outfits from the “pass-through” pile.

We’ve mentioned this idea here and there, but here are the instructions for how to throw a clothing swap on your own.

I have hosted no fewer than nine clothing swaps with my stylish friends and spawned at least three known copycats. For the record, this is better as a a no-kids-allowed event (or just pre-crawlers), so let Daddy take the bambino out for a hike while you get some well-deserved girlfriend-time. The whole event can take less than two hours.

Here’s the step-by-step to planning and hosting:
(kind of long, but I want to make it mindless for you)

1. Stake out a day. Work with your partner or a babysitter to find a good day for the swap. Plan around naps and try to avoid mealtime so that you are not trying to be Martha Stewart while you are running around your living room half-naked.
2. Invite the ladies. Send out an evite to all your potentially willing friends.
3. Purge. Set aside a good hour and clean out your closet of stuff you haven’t worn in a year or wouldn’t want to wear right now even if the proper situation presented itself. Be brutal. If you’re feeling those flipping annoying post-partum body issues, get a good friend to help. (Do your marriage the small favor of not asking your husband if your “butt looks big in this” because it probably does!)
4. Merchandise. Clean and fold the things for the swap. Bust out the iron even. Create a separate bag of clothes so ugly you’d be embarrassed for your friends to see (stained t-shirts for instance) — these can go in the pass-through pile (modeled by Whitney as “Before”)
5. Think about how you’ll set up your space for the event. Is there a mirror handy in the living room or will you have to tidy up your room too? Is there space for hanging clothes? If you have room to “merchandise” your stuff, it is a little more fun to “shop”.
6. Make little signs — use the computer or write on index cards what the categories of clothing are so that guests can sort their offerings. (Download our labels here.) And, have a few blank labels available for the day of.

On the day of the event: tidy up, wear cute underwear, get some appetizers or have your friends bring them, and wait for everyone to bring you new clothes! We usually start out browsing the piles casually enough and trying stuff on here and there. Once you try on a cute spangly dress, it is fair game for someone else to have a go at it. Let your friends decide who really looks best in it. I am notorious for trying to get my hands on everyone’s good stuff.

Afterward, get someone to help you load the car or take stuff directly to the charity.

Note: we often have a grab bag category, maternity, men’s clothes, shoes, and baby clothes.

If you’re still not convinced, here are my top eight reasons to host a clothing swap:

1. eat drink and be merry (just easy snacks and spa water)
2. enjoy a fun afternoon with friends
3. feel good about donating to a worthy cause
4. get a heap of new clothes for free (especially good if you have a changing-mom-body!)
5. get a license to buy a couple new pieces for all your thrift
6. play dress-up and get silly
7. purge yourself of unwanted clothes
8. re-gift your recent holiday loot (I like to hold mine in January)

… I’m getting off my soapbox now.

So, do you love or shove the clothing swap for moms?

I am so proud of our buddy Marie who has just published her first book. The team at her publisher, Wiley, who maintain a pretty solid crafty website themselves, put together an adorable package of Marie’s ideas and photographer Nicole Gerulat’s images.

As you can see in the table of contents above, the projects are organized by month. My own kids love making things in anticipation of upcoming holidays, so this layout would draw them right in.

If you don’t already know Marie’s site, head over to Make and Takes to browse the zillions of projects she and her contributors have posted. She often uses her own kids as models on her blog, and they each make an appearance in her book. Aren’t they the cutest?

If you need inspiration for unplugged time with your family, consider buying a copy of Make and Takes for Kids. If you’d like to win a copy, simply leave a comment before November 21 telling us what your go-to creative activity is with your child(ren). On 11/21, I will select a winner at random from the comments to receive a copy of the book.

Most classes for babies provide a free trial experience. Take advantage of these freebies before committing to a paid class. Try to talk your other mama friends into joining you so it’s the most fun for YOU.

Your 41st weekly challenge is to contact a local music, dance, or exercise class for moms and babies, and arrange to take a free class.

• Kindermusik Village classes are for babies under 18 months and each class is 45 minutes long.
• Gymboree classes for babies focus on either music or playing – you can choose.
• Music Together is mixed age classes up to age five and the classes are an hour long.
• The Little Gym starts as young as four months old with a general movement and socialization curriculum.
• My Gym is a children’s “fitness center” that starts classes with parent participation at age – get this – six weeks!

You may find that your local independent music or movement centers for kids offer a free trial visit as well. Have you tried any? Let us know!

Not ready for this rookie mom challenge? Go back and start with an easier one.

Today I thought I’d post pictures of what’s in my children’s costume stash. To say that our dress-up boxes overfloweth would be an understatement. But in my house, this stuff gets a lot of use. Some of the pieces are versatile and some are, well, just an astronaut helmet.

First, the headwear collection.

Wizard hats seem to be popular with our guests, but I cannot say enough how versatile a bandana is. Be a pirate, a cowboy, or a rock star. The kids also love goggles.

Here are my kids with our recent dinner guests after a deep dive into the costumes. Note the accessories such as the big girl’s wristband and my son (wearing the Mexican wrestling mask) holding a pom pom.

We also have some full head-to-toe costumes, but they do get outgrown quickly. Luckily, Old Navy produces new ones each year and the day before Halloween, they’re about $15.

These three will go to a children’s resale shop near us this year where we’ll turn them in for credit toward a new (used) selection of costumes.

See the clown costume above? I made that for Julian last year.

Note: How to turn any pair of pajamas into a clown costume for a kid.

Note the little things like crazy glasses and purses. These are what complete the outfits. The faux suede tunic was made for every guest at a birthday party Julian attended. They were pirates. It’s a brilliant and simple execution.  Funny, the host of that party loved to come to our house and wear the astronaut suit you see above in order to pretend to be a star hockey player. Okaaay.  The pink sweatsuit is the Foofa costume Scarlett wore when she was two.

An odd but useful element in the picture above is the pretend foam boots that can turn any boy into a man with authority, whether he is seeking to be an astronaut, police officer, or superhero. I am also a big fan of the pieces that have allowed my son to be a ringmaster and/or fairy tale character such as Jack and the Beanstalk. The Minnie Mouse dress is too small and will get swapped at Goodwill this month.

Finally, our capes. We have eight, it turns out, but I didn’t really know how to set them up for a photo. Capes are good for everything. A red one is wonderful for boys and girls alike. You older mamas might recognize one of them as a Continental Airlines scarf. My grandfather had a meeting with them once and brought home about 12 scarves which my cousins and I danced with and dressed up in for many many years.

The end. Would you like to come over and play?

Argh! Shiver me timbers, Monday is Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I offer a thematic scavenger hunt for little kids.

Some folks might tell you that to be a pirate, all you need is an eye patch. Or a parrot. Or a peg leg. But in my house, all you really need is the head scarf (and please, don’t call it a ribbon!) Holden got this little outfit as part of a pirate-themed birthday party he attended. And luckily Milo got a matching ensemble.

When we want to indulge our inner pirate, we don’t need to go any further than the house because a scavenger hunt can be as easy as you want to make it.

My friend Sunny says that she and her then-four-year old could wile away the minutes with their indoor hunts:

I make a list of things around the house (mirror, refrigerator, etc.) and ask him to find these things, then he crosses them off the paper. I try to challenge him a little by saying, “where do you see your reflection?”, “what keeps the food cold?”. You get the picture. He loves to cross things out. We did this one day for about 1/2 hour.

If thinking of household items is not your specialty, I have a brief list for you to adapt (oh yeah, worth noting, these are things you FIND, not things you grab and put in a box) — make it longer or shorter based on what your kid can handle:

1. bathroom mirror (where do you see your reflection when you brush your teeth?)
2. refrigerator (what keeps our food cold?)
3. front door (where do we leave the house?)
4. kitchen sink (where do we wash the dishes?)

++++
I originally wrote this post for the Savvy Source blog and it appeared there when my big boy was only three. Awww. I share it with you now as an attempt to be on maternity leave from my mommy blog.

A few weeks ago, a stroke of genius hit and I laid these “train tracks” down on the rug in Julian’s room. At four-and-three-quarters, he is over the whole Thomas thing, but larger scale train action definitely still turns him on.

All you need is a roll of painter’s tape, the kind that removes from walls with minimal damage.

As you can see, Julian has he has an extensive dress up collection (see his cowboy hat, santa hat, and tiger suit?) , and he put his engineer get-up on every day after school for about a week. We collected all of the stools and small chairs in the house and lined them up in rows of two. He sat in the front with a cardboard box that was his “control panel”.

The icing on the cake was the hole puncher we gave him. He passed out magazine reply card inserts for us to use as tickets. When he announced “Tickets, please!” we would present our paper for him to punch a hole through. Somehow this made it all very official. I think a toddler close to two would be inspired to play imaginatively these tracks, too, but of course without the hole puncher aspect.

When I was a little girl, I had no siblings. At my birthday parties, I frequently received board games as gifts, but they mostly sat on the shelf in my closet until I got too old for them. Sure my mom and step-dad and I played Monopoly from time to time; I played Sorry! with my next-door neighbor/best friend; and Candyland with my grandma. But, back then, the assortment was more limited.

After Scarlett’s recent birthday party, during which she collected quite a few board games, I was chatting with Heather about which ones our children really like to play. After we collaboratively listed out a bunch of them, I realized that three new companies stood out as excellent designers of preschooler games. Blue Orange, I Can Do That! Games, and eeBoo are responsible for most of the organized turn-taking fun we have around here. While I still appreciate Hasbro and the other old-school brands, I think it’s cool that there are so many new kids on the gaming block.

And of course there are more. Here’s the rundown of eight games that we personally own and enjoy:

1. Angelina Ballerina Dance With Me! Game. Children get up and perform the moves on the game cards. The board is a diorama of a stage. Not only is my 4-year old enchanted by this game, but my 6-year old son also likes to perform.

2. Zingo. I should add another reliable brand to the list of game producers: ThinkFun. We love this bingo-style game and the plastic game pieces are fun to play with for three-year olds, even when not engaged in an actual game. Find it at Barnes & Noble.

3. Honey Bee Tree. Another refreshingly gender neutral toy, this game doubles as a solitaire activity when no siblings are available.

4. Picnic Game by eeboo. Comes with a gingham picnic table cloth to set the mood. Players spin to fill their plates with main dishes, desserts, and drinks. This identical “spinner game” format is available in other themes: a tea party, building a robot, and fairy tales. Again the materials in the game can be used for open-ended pretending as well.

5.  Discovery Beach from I Can Do That! Games features Curious George and tests kids’ memory. A reviewer on Amazon wrote: The thing I enjoyed best was watching my 5 year old daughter help my 3 year old son to find things–they played together, rather than against each other.

6. Pengoloo is a good one from Blue Orange, as is Coocoo, an all wooden game in which you take turns balancing balls on a rocking clown. For kids who aren’t ready to compete, this can be approached as more a cooperative building activity than a game. (Refrain from yelling “In your FACE!” when your three-year old knocks the clown over with her naive placement of the balls.)

7. I Never Forget a Face is a memory and matching game. The kids faces are from all over the world, and it’s lovely to see all the skin colors and hair textures together in one game. Like I said, I’m a sucker for everything eeBoo. See all their products at Barnes & Noble.

8. Busytown – The board game is half the fun in Busytown. It’s longer than your preschooler’s body.

This is a search and find game where everyone works together. My kids loved it for months but when I tried to validate their opinions for this post, they claimed not to. (See Thingamababy’s review for details on this game.) We have another search and find game called Pictureka that was distracting them. I think they are both quality games and as my kids get older, even just month after month, they get more out of these.

What games do your kids like to play?

(Disclosure: I received Busytown and the Angelina game from my friend Kimberley, a rookie mom who does public relations for the company who makes them. Kimberley and I worked together at LeapFrog Toys well before our children were even a twinkle in our eyes.)

Misty’s found a way for her baby to enjoy some summertime water fun: Fill baby’s high chair tray with water for warm weather splashing!

I love this activity for hot, housebound babies everywhere (especially those of us jailed by an older napping child).

Baby Madeline’s high chair has a very deep lip, enough to hold about half an inch of water. Misty filled that with tap water, stripped her down, and let her splash around as she wants. It is amusing to see her reaction when she splashes herself, and her obvious enjoyment of the new experience.

[This fun trick discovered on ParentHacks]

Girl parents, I know: you didn’t think your little baby, so bald and androgynous for a whole year, would begin crawling, walking, then talking about princesses and demanding tutus — but it happened. Well, you just have to learn to live with it. But here’s an easy project – no sewing or glue – that will allow you to make a tutu in lightning speed. So you’ll have more time to spend lecturing your daughter on other, non-princess, career paths she might consider, like software engineer or urban planner.

Bonus for those who need an outing with their new baby (hit the fabric store) and a surprise to share with a little girl (or boy, although my son will not put on a dress even for dress up but says when he grows up he is going to be a daddy and a ballet dancer). Emily, a rookie mom to 10-month old Logan, highlighted this amazingly simple tutorial. You can make a tutu with just some strips of tulle (that’s light-weight fine netting fabric for you non ballerina types).

My son and I have made this tutu as a gift for several little girls’ birthday parties.

photo: courtesy GoPhotography

Call it gak. Call it slime. Just don’t call it messy, because this amazing stuff is easier to clean up than playdough and offers as much tactile fun as the dreaded finger-painting. So if you have found yourself saying, “I am not THAT mom, the one who does craft projects,” this is one that might be worth changing your tune for.

On a recent sick day, Julian and I made slime, and then thought it was hilarious to pretend our slime was a spilled smoothie. We staged a photo with an overturned cup.

Don’t worry, folks, this stuff peels right up and can be rolled into a ball!

We followed a recipe for making slime shared by our preschool director.

What you need:

1- bowl
2- teaspoon
3- tall canister or cup
4- measuring cup

I’m pretty sure you have these things in your house. Now when I say you need

5- food coloring
6- Borax (a certain type of laundry powder)
7- 4 oz of white glue (the size of container in the picture)

I know it sounds like a pain because you may not have these things, however you can find them at Target. Pick them up next time you shop, and store them for a time when you feel a surge of “I’m willing to try an unfamiliar project” energy. Or, assign the whole activity to Grandma on her next visit.

Instructions:

Empty glue into canister. (Rest assured, it does wash out easily.)

Add an equal amount of water to glue, along with a few drops of food color, if you like, and stir.

Next dissolve a teaspoon of Borax in water. We used a cup, but it seems like half a cup would have been fine.

Now, add colored glue solution to bowl and mix. This is the grossest-looking step.

After the slime began to form, I encouraged Julian to put his hands in there and begin squishing it together. I figured if it was a failure at this point, he was at least getting some gooey pleasure out of it. I quickly realized we could just pour out the excess water and we now had ourselves a hunk of slime.

Fun things to do with slime:

• Put small plastic animals, chunky beads, or pennies inside (for kids who won’t swallow those things.)
• Roll it into a long snake and make letters
• Cut it with scissors
• Stab holes in it with a plastic fork (protect your table first!) and watch the holes melt away

Things not to do with slime:

• Drop it on carpet
• Eat it
• Get it on upholstery (not tragic, but inconvenient.)
• Leave it out. (Store your slime in a resealable bag in the fridge.)