• Monthly Archive:: May 2014

    When my younger daughter was a toddler, she loved eating a bowl of soup…but the soup didn’t always love her. She’d scoop up a spoonful of hearty noodles, shovel it into her mouth and scream bloody murder because it was “tooooo HOTTT!!!” No matter how long I kept vigil over the stovetop, I could never get that temperature just right (even the ever-fickle microwave couldn’t quite master temperature effectiveness). It seemed I was doomed for a life of servitude: forever blowing and waving frantically over piping hot bowls…until my mother casually suggested tossing in a ice cube, and that was that (moms do know everything, don’t they?). But because ice cubes don’t work on solid foods, what’s a perplexed parent to do? Enter the Coolit, [&hellip

    Read More...

    Does your kid love Peg+Cat as much as mine do? My 6-year-old admittedly enjoys it more than her big sister, but they still both relish the opportunity to help Peg complete her mission du jour. Even in real life, we make a big deal about finding ways to make things work, from short-cutting a recipe, to fashioning a replacement part for a craft project. If you’re particularly proud of a recent accomplishment, why not share it with other like-minded parents? PBS Kids is hosting a Peg+Cat Problem Solver of the Week. Each Monday, fans are asked to visit the Peg+Cat Facebook page submit an answer to the question, “What problem did your child solve this week?”, along with their child’s first name, photo and hashtag [&hellip

    Read More...

    In just a few short weeks, I’ll have a kindergartner graduate home for the summer. She’s learned so much this past year, and I can only imagine how much she’ll absorb once first grade starts up. Because our school district has a half-day kindergarten program, we supplemented her education with an enrichment program a few days a week: a great way of extending the learning and enabling her to grasp new concepts not covered by the Common Core. Sure, summer gives us a breather when it come to the frenetic pace of the daily grind, but I like to think my kids can still maintain an education outside of the classroom, even when they’re not hitting the books. If you find yourself looking for ways [&hellip

    Read More...

    It’s hard to believe it, but Memorial Day weekend is already here. (After a seemingly endless winter, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it!). As the unofficial start to summer kicks off, that means plenty of sun, sand…and boo-boos. No matter where or how your family spends its days over the next few months, there’s bound to be a few bumps, cuts or scrapes and that means stocking up on bandages (Lord knows how many boxes we have stashed away on our medicine cabinet). How fitting then that Band-Aid would come out with Our Veteran Heroes bandages in time for the start of the summer season. Available in a stars & stripes motif, as well as an urban camouflage style, these specially designed [&hellip

    Read More...

    My favorite kind of books are picture books. I could spend hours in the children’s department of a bookstore, leafing through the pages of the gorgeous illustrations and uncomplicated verse. It won’t matter if my kids eventually outgrow these books, as I keep them on my own bookshelf just to peruse when I have a moment to dream and wonder. After all, isn’t that what a good book is supposed to do: allow you to enter a new world and escape reality for the time being? It doesn’t matter if that place is familiar or foreign, but rather that the journey of getting there transcends the present. For me, my latest excursion-through-books took me back to a time when I could remember what it was [&hellip

    Read More...

    A friend just took her first cross-country trip with her baby daughter…and boy, were her arms tired! No, this isn’t a classic joke set-up, but rather a comment on the reality of today’s parents having to lug too way too much stuff with them. Being on-the-go may sound carefree, but if you’re adding a baby to that equation, traveling is anything but easy-breezy! If you’ve got a family trip on the books this summer, it pays to do a little advance planning to figure out what you’ll need and when you’ll need it, so you can pack easily and have everything within your reach. For that reason, we love the lil’ traveler line from Miamica. This designer has found a way to streamline the travel [&hellip

    Read More...

    We know no greater monkey than Curious George…not that we’re friends with too many monkeys (wait, we actually are). This is one primate who knows how to have fun, no matter what he’s doing. Starting today, fans of his PBS Kids show will be treated to out-of-this-world series of adventures as George heads to outer space during “Curious George Goes to Mars” week. From now until May 23rd, this little monkey has his hands full: from making tortillas, to chasing stars and stripes and, of course, checking out none other than the Red Planet. A must-see week of kids’ programming, this is one show that has plenty of appeal! In a Nutshell: Quit monkeying around and set your DVR to record Curious George, with new [&hellip

    Read More...

    My newly-minted 6-year-old received a stuffed lemur for her birthday earlier this week. Because we don’t know too much about this species (except from what we saw in the Madagascar movies), it seemed like a perfect opportunity to learn about something new. But before we could hit the library, our local newspaper ran a story about a nearby university’s scientist who received an award for her research on…yup, you guessed it…lemurs. Naturally it got us to talking about these mysterious creatures who happen to be endangered species. That’s when things got a little tricky; trying to explain what it means to be a dwindling breed to a kindergartner is not as simple as recapping a lengthy article meant for adults. So, since the experts say [&hellip

    Read More...

    Hard to believe that in another month, school will be out for summer. While I’m not about to start singing an Alice Cooper song anytime soon, I do want to be ready–ready, that is, for the kids being at home and having plenty of stuff to keep them entertained before camp begins. We’ve been blessed with a big backyard, so as long as there’s no rain in the forecast, I am usually ushering them out to play, much to their chagrin. Since we know how challenging it can be to keep kids busy without breaking the bank, we love products that multitask like us moms. ALEX’s Gigantic 3-in-1 Net Set maximizes its worth by offering plenty of play options in one toy. An adjustable net [&hellip

    Read More...

    When my older daughter was a baby, she loved to teethe on a smiling-faced snail. At the first sign of pain, I fished him out of the freezer and popped it into her mouth. Before long, she could outmatch that snail’s grin…and that made me a happy mom. By the time her little sister arrived on the scene, that teether had outlived its life expectancy (do snails have long lives anyway?), and she found pure heaven gnawing unexpectedly on a board book (go figure). Today’s tots have so many more choices when it comes to teethers: a baby item that usually isn’t given much thought, but that proves its worth when the times comes. Right now, we’re all over Innobaby’s ez grip massaging teethers. The [&hellip

    Read More...