Review: Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad

My daughter recently received the Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad as a take-home gift from a birthday party. She has played with it before when she was around 2 years old and she did love it then but she would put the stickers in her mouth then and I had to keep an eye on her and she didn't quite fully get the concept back then. 

Now that she's 3 years old, she played with the stickers by herself for more than an hour and knowing my daughter, that's saying something. She picked each type of habitat and was happily removing the stickers and sticking them. The best thing is that the stickers are reusable and they only stick to the sheet which comes with the book - they are easily removable and repositioned. Also, this means less time spent cleaning up after her stickers for me. 

I anticipate that she will get hours of enjoyment out of this reusable sticker pad. 

There are other themes as well - My Town, Vehicles and Play House.

I highly recommend this sticker pad for 3 year olds and it's a great gift idea. 

What I've Read Recently: Trump, Bedtime Regrets and More

Heidi Klum to Donald Trump: Every Woman Is a “10” :- Recently I've been watching Donald Trump in the news a lot and I've been very put-off by his attitude towards women and his bombastic nature. I loved Heidi Klum's response - that you can't attach a number to a women.

The Post-Bedtime Regret Every Parent Has Felt | Babble: This one is so true - so many days I've been impatient with my daughter and then at bedtime when she's cuddling in my arms and I'm rocking and singing to her, I'm calm and I feel bad - I should have been more gentler and spent more time with her. I should be more patient.

When Life Feels Like a Mess, There’s Something We Can Do: Just read it.

14 Tips for Visiting Disney World

While we had a great Disney World vacation, there were certain things we did right and some things we did wrong.

What To DO:

1. Buy groceries online: We saved on time and money by order groceries from GardenGrocer and had it delivered to the Disney resort before we arrived. We bought plenty of water, milk, eggs, bread, jam and yoghurt. The prices were expensive and there's a minimum order of $40 but it was worth the time savings in getting a taxi & going to a grocery store and coming back. 
2. Take a portable induction cooktop: Our daughter's very picky and doesn't eat anything available at restaurants. So we brought an induction cooktop with us in our luggage and used it to make pasta, heat milk, make boiled eggs for her - I don't know what we would have done if not for this. 
3. Eat lunch early by 11:30am: We ate lunch on all days well before the crowd hit. We had no lines for lunch and were able to hit some attractions without FP+ during those times. 
4. Take a nap if possible: We went back to the resolrt for a nap on days when possible. On days where we could not do this, it turned out to be a disaster as my daughter could not handle it. Even though she napped in the stroller, she needed a break from the sensory overload and the heat. 
5. Get Gatorade Powder: One of the best things we did was to buy a box of gatorade powder and mixed it with bottled water to make bottles of gatorade. We would take 2-4 bottles of these to the parks and it really helped us to not dehydrate.
6. Wear good shoes: We walked a LOT!
7. Take snacks: We took snacks for my daughter so she could munch while waiting or walking around the parks.
8. MyDisneyExperience App: Download the MyDisneyExperience App and use it. It was great for FastPass+ and organizing our trip around the park and for information about various attractions and rides. We also used the DisneyWorld wait times app to get approximate wait times before walking to the ride.
9. Get there early: If possible, be there before the park opens. The shortest lines were from 9-10:30. 
10. Use Rolling FP+: We used the Rolling FastPass to get into attractions at Magic Kingdom and cut down on wait times - especially Pirates of the Carribean. 

What NOT To Do:

1. Make Stroller Recognizable: Attach something bright and unique to the stroller to be able to pick it out easily from the sea of strollers. Cast members kept moving strollers around - couple of times we thought for sure we'd lost the stroller.
2. Clip-on Fan: Take a clip-on stroller fan. It was HOT down there!
3. Ponchos: We did not take ponchos and had to buy ponchos for the three of us. Thankfully, I did have a rain cover for the stroller which really helped
4. Magic Kingdom Visit on First Day of Trip: We visited Magic Kingdom on the 3rd day and made a mistake as AGirl had started to get overstimulated at that point and tired with the previous day's visits to the parks. We should have gone to Magic Kingdom the first day after we landed in Orlando and gone there when we had the most energy

Early Potty Training: Review

I received the book Early Potty Training as part of the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle which I recently bought. As I was skimming through the list of books, I came across this one and chose it to be the first to read. My daughter's almost 3 and while she has been introduced to the potty and sits on it occasionally, she's not keen on potty training yet. My personal feeling is that she's not physically ready yet. 

The book is a short and fast read with tips on how to potty train a young kid - younger than the standard accepted age of 2.5-3 years old. While I personally do not want to potty train younger than 2.5 years, I believe in each to their own. 

The main steps for potty training that the author uses are:

1. Take child to potty as soon as child wakes up, before child goes to bed and at nap time
2. Start changing diaper every 2 hours
3. Then take child to potty every 2 hours before putting on new diaper
4. When child's dry most of the time, switch to training underwear or regular underwear
5. Continue diapers for naps and nighttime till completely dry when up after sleep

I read this book to primarily get some tips on how to potty train and how I could get started with my daughter. This would probably more useful for somebody who wants to potty train a 1-yr-old but the tips would apply to any age. 

What I've Been Reading Lately!

Financial Independence and Career Choices :- This was a great article by The Simple Dollar. It really made me think and get motivated about my career. It put things in a different perspective for me.

The Preschool Visit :- We're considering moving my daughter to a full-day preschool closer to our home in the fall after she turns 3. We're going to go and check out the place next and this info is helpful. I really love her current daycare but it's expensive.

Visit to Acton Children's Museum

On Friday, I took AGirl to the Acton Children's Museum. They are free for the public the first friday of every month from 4:30-8:30 pm. Though they have a Discovery Museum and Science Museum, we only explored the Discovery Museum. From the outside of the building, it looked very small and you wouldn't think that they would have as many exhibits as they did.

There were kids of all ages in there - from a 6-month-old baby to middle school kids.

AGirl had a blast - she kept running from one exhibit to the other. The pirate ship exhibit and the kitchen exhibit were her favorites. This is AGirl trying to climb the ropes (sails) of the pirate ship.

Unfortunately, it was so crowded that I couldn't take pictures. Plus, I was busy chasing after AGirl! But I will definitely go again and will try to take more pictures that time.

Parenting Difficulties - Getting your toddler to listen

These days, it's been a struggle to handle Agirl - she's 2.5 years old and doing everything per the book - testing her limits, tantrums... the works. I've been struggling with getting her to listen to me. She does all sorts of shenanigans to get my attention.

In desperation, I turned to the internet to find some help in what to do to get her to listen to me.

Most of the articles on the internet seem to agree on the following:

1. Avoid situations from being created by making sure they're not sleepy or hungry. 
2. Carry some small toys to distract their attention
3. Give plenty of attention
4. Praise them when they are good
5. Stay calm and don't yell
6. Get on his level and talk to him with eye contact
7. Keep your message short and to the point and clear
8. Follow through on warnings
9. Try a reward system
10. Try Timeouts if the child is old enough

Hopefully, these should work. They are certainly worth trying.

Some of the articles I read were:

Tips For Dealing With Toddlers Who Won't Listen

Getting Your Toddler To Listen

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate?

Over the last few days, I've read and heard so much about the measles outbreak and people coming out to talk on both sides of the issue.

I'm vaccinated and my daughter's vaccinated. My personal viewpoint is that parents should have a choice in whether they should vaccinate their kids or not and when making that decision, they should think about how their decision affects others too - not just their kids but their neighbor's kids, the kids they go to school with, anybody they come in contact with.

That said, here are some blog posts and other articles that I read recently that made me think more about this issue.

I Wish My Mom Had Vaccinated Me :- Talks about how she was not vaccinated as a kid and how she caught whooping cough, was not treated for it and suffers to this day because of side effects.

Enough is Enough with Blaming “Anti-Vaxxers” :- I have very mixed feelings about this one. I don't agree with a lot the author has to say but she has a few valid points too.

Dear Parents: There are more unvaccinated kids than you think

This Dad's argument for Vaccinations is a Game Changer

Chores for my daughter

My daughter's two and a half years old and I've been thinking for a few months now that she might be old enough for certain small chores. I've been experimenting slowly in getting her to do some chores. Sometimes she co-operates and most times, she doesn't.

After she drinks her milk, I've been encouraging her to put it in the sink instead of placing it anywhere. I've been asking her to put away her toys. I read some articles to get some ideas on which chores might be suitable for her age. I want to encourage her to develop these good habits now so it gets ingrained into her.

Here's some of the ideas I've had and ones I've read about.

• Put away her toys after she's done playing with them
• Put away any utensils like her sippy cup, plate, bowl, spoon, fork, etc in the sink when she's done. 
• Let her feed herself with spoon and fork and food in bowl
• Sort toys and put them away
• Dusting with a cloth or feather duster (keeping fragile stuff out of reach)
• Helping with laundry - putting dirty clothes into hamper, emptying washer and loading dryer, matching socks from clean laundry
• Dressing herself - will need help in the beginning. Try easy clothes to begin with
• Let her brush her own hair 
• Wash her hands by herself 
• Let her use a toy broom to clean up messes on the floor
• Help with preparing food and show how to measure food into bowl & let her do mixing
• Clearing and setting the table
• Water the plants

(Disclaimer: Most of these ideas are the WhatToExpect website. All credit to them)

Painted Rocks

I came across a bunch of painted rock activities recently and have been wanting to create the same for Agirl. It looks like it would be fun and I think she would enjoy it. The only problem I have is that Agirl still puts stuff in her mouth sometimes and I want the rocks to be big enough that she won't be able to put it in her mouth and swallow.

So what I did is this:

- Big enough river rock stones or pebble stones
- Buy non-toxic acrylic paints from any craft store - a bunch of colors

I painted both sides of the stones and dried them out in the sun. But the problem I'm hitting is that the acrylic paints don't completely cover the color of the rock itself. Either the paint is not thick enough or the stones I chose were not the right ones.

The black & red stones came out pretty well. But the white, yellow, blue and green ones are not that great. I'm hoping multiple coats of the paint will help with this but so far, no luck. I'm going to try another 4-5 coats and then give up if it doesn't work.

You can see from this photo from the black and red look good but the others don't.

Do you have any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Blogs on crafts for toddlers

One of my friends recently posted on Facebook about craft kits for kids and it gave me the idea of coming up with a list of blogs or articles about crafts for kids. Her son is around 3 - so I thought I'd make a list for toddlers.

1. Gift of Curiosity:- This website has a lot of articles with ideas for toddlers and preschoolers in particular. She explains the activities very well with lots of photos and has printables available for free which we can download and use. 
2. 1+1+1=1 :- This website has a lot of articles on homeschooling and parenting and also has printables for free.
3. 3 Dinosaurs :- Has a lot of great suggestions for activities  for toddlers and preschoolers and tons of printables. 
4. Toddler Approved :- As the name suggests, has a lot of suggestions for activities for toddlers
5. Kids Activities Blog :- Again, the name is self-explanatory

Food for toddler teeth

I've recently been getting a little concerned with my toddler teeth. I'm not giving her a fluoride supplement and our water doesn't have fluoride. However, she drinks water at daycare and I don't know if that water has fluoride in it. This is something I need to bring up with my toddler's pediatrician/dentist. I'm yet to schedule a dentist appointment for her.

Regardless, I'm having some major food struggles with her and I came across this article on food choices for better toddler teeth.

The foods which were mentioned in the article are:

• Cheese
• Sweet potatoes
• Oranges
• Cranberries
• Fresh or frozen cranberries
• Apples
• Water with fluoride (tap water)

Some meal/snack suggestions from this list:

• Cheese kebabs with strawberries
• Paneer Tikka Masala (go less on the spicy stuff but add flavor)
• Sweet Potato Fries
• Put pureed sweet potato in pancake or waffle batter
• Steamed carrots or broccoli
• Cranberry Bread or Muffins made with fresh or frozen cranberries
• Oranges and apples slices

Toddler Favorites

My daughter, who is 22 months old now, is very active and her personality's really coming out now. Her favorite word is "Noooooo!", of course as with all toddlers. 

She's really into reading books right now. She loves bringing me books and saying "Book" and plopping down in my lap. Her favorite nighttime books are currently "Goodnight Moon", "Time to Bed", "Goodnight Gorilla" and the "The Sleepy Little Alphabet". At other times during the day, she loves reading "Bear says Thank You" and "Barnyard Dance". 

Her favorite toys right now are her dolls. She calls them "babies". She loves feeling them du-du (milk) and putting her to sleep on mats (pillow) and covering them with a baby blankie. She also loves playing with her teapot and pouring into cups. 

She loves watching Barney videos and listening to Barney songs. Her favorite songs right now are "Pop goes the weasel", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Five little monkeys", "ABCD..", "I love you, you love me" and "Tap Tap". She likes so many songs it's hard to list them all out but these are her favorites right now. 

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