V-Day Playdough pretend "cookies"

I found these cute little heart trays in the dollar bin at Target (although I think the "dollar" bin is deceiving since they were really $2).  This weekend I got out some Playdough and our new heart trays and Munchkin Girl was THRILLED!!  She got her dolls all set up to watch (notice one in the other's lap.  That was her doing, not mine).

She used a lot of fine motor and strength to manipulate all that Playdough into each heart shape and it took quite a bit of time (at least 30 minutes).  We have been working on coming up with ways to make her fingers stronger since she still struggles a little with holding the pencil correctly.



When she was finished, she had to take it over to her "oven" for all the cookies to bake.  Gotta love a little imagination time on top of fine motor skill!

A Different Way to Practice Cutting

I visited a Montessori preschool last year and although it was too far to drive so we didn't end up going there, they had some really neat activities that I now do at home occasionally.  One activity they did with the kids was a new way to cut.  The teacher traced something onto a piece of paper and then the child used a push pin to make hundreds of tiny holes on the line.  I watched a kid spend quite awhile working on his line and now my daughter does the same thing.  We place the tracing on the carpet and then my daughter uses a large push pin.  It's fun to watch because it takes a lot of concentration and fine motor skill and I can just see her getting stronger and smarter!!



Once there are enough holes (and when my daughter gets bored), I can take over and use the Push Pin to "cut out" the tracing.  I just slide the Push Pin all around and the heart easily comes out and now my daughter is so proud that she "cut out" the hear using her Push Pin!

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Clues That Your Three Year Old is Growing Up Fast...Too fast...

1. When she says to you at a stoplight, "Mommy, the light was red.  You're supposed to STOP on red."   Sheesh, talk about a backseat driver.  Okay, I did coast through turning right on red but still.
2. When you take her shoe shopping and ask her to look in the mirror.  She says, "Stylin".  That's it.  Just Stylin.  As in Stylish, but she shortened it.
3. When she says she wants someone to play with.  "You can play with me," I say.  She shakes her head.   "No Mommy," she says.  "I don't want to play with YOU.  I want to play with one of my FRIENDS."
4. When she says, "Mommy, is there something I can help you with?"
5. When she says, "Mommy, can I borrow your iPad for a sec?"

Getting along with brothers is hard

Every night before Munchkin Girl goes to bed, she wants me to tell her a story about when I was a little girl.  I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I hardly remember anything about when I was a little girl, at least not anything specfiic.  The things I do remember are things I don't want to tell, such as when I got my name on the board at school for talking too much or when my Dad killed the snake that crawled from the sewer.  Not exactly inspiring so mostly I make things up.

The other night I told her about how I used to fight with my brothers, just like she fights with Littly Buddy.  But, I told her, a brother is your best friend and she should really try harder to play nice with him.  She responded with something slightly profound.

"But Mommy, he's so little.  I don't know how to play with him.  What should I do?"

I opened my mouth to reply but found that I was at a loss.  At 18 months, Little Buddy really is hard to play with.  He doesn't throw the ball back.  He takes toys away.  Hmmm...maybe that's why I always hear so much crying between those two.  Maybe they just aren't quite compatible yet.

I was quite happy today to see them playing happily together...just don't focus on the fact that they're playing in yucky dog water with no shirts on.  Kids will be kids, right??

Shopping in Pajamas

I buy clothes at Walmart.  And Kohl's.  If I'm feeling really crazy and somemthing big is coming up, like the first day of school, I'll make a trip to Gymboree (only with a coupon).  I don't even usually shop at Baby Gap.  Too expensive.

I do, however, always make sure the kids are presentable.  I NEVER let Munchkin Girl leave the house without brushing her hair.  I don't let either of them leave our house in pajamas, even just to go play out front in our own street. 

I'm the same way.  I'm not fancy at all, but rarely wear T-Shirts and sweats in public and my hair is only in a ponytail if I'm actively running.

Yesterday felt different.  I needed to run some errands and Munchkin Girl had just woken up from her nap.  I was feeling so cozy in my sweats and t-shirts.  I decided to get radical...


Check her out at Macy's...looking at perfume in...her PJs!!!  I have to say, it felt WONDERFUL!!!  Very liberating to break out of my normal routine. 

She actually got lots of compliments and thought it was entirely fun to be shopping in PJs.  When we got home my husband said,

"Welcome Home Bag Lady."

And he was just being honest...I really did look like a bag lady.  Shopping in PJs wasn't nearly as charming on me as it was on Munchkin Girl.  I probably won't start doing it all the time, but sometimes it's really nice to break out of your comfort zone.

Craft project on a rainy day

Hubby had to work this weekend and it was raining, so I decided to finally get around to a craft idea I'd been wanting to try out for awhile. 

This project is kind of like painting, but with a twist.  The idea at the end is to allow the kids to sort of paint, but have a paint "mixture" come out of squeeze bottles.  Stick with me, you'll see.  For it, we mixed equal parts of salt, flour and water.  I used 2/3 cup of each and ended up with two bottles with plenty of mixture.  At first I hated wasting so much of my salt, but I realized that an entire cannister of salt is only $.53 from the store so it's a really cheap project. 



Munchkin Girl loves to help me cook, but I'm a bit of a germ freak, so it's nice to have a project that we won't have to eat later. I let her do all the pouring and stirring.  


Once everything is mixed up, you pour it into plastic squeeze bottles.  I found some at Walmart for just a few bucks.  Then you have plastic bottles with this sort of gooey mixture and you can add Tempura paint so they have several color options.  Then you cut up some cardboard squares and she can now squeeze colored goo onto cardboard!  I used a cardboard box from some yummy dried fruit I get from Costco


Finally we were ready and voila!  Almost a full hour of fun of squeezing "paint".  She loved it and really like the final product.  This whole thing sounds like a lot of work, but only took about 10 minutes to prep and was definitely worth it!

Working Mom woes

I would really say one of my faults is being too early.  Well, that was a fault before I had kids.  When I first started my sales job 6 years ago, I wasted so much time because I got to every appointment almost an hour early.  I would sit in my car and watch the clock and wonder how early I could be without irritating the doctor or nurse or whoever I was meeting with. 

I don't have that problem anymore.

Every morning is hectic, no question.  But yesterday was one for the scrapbook (that is, if I had a scrapbook.  I gave that up a long time ago on account of that my scrapbook looked like it was made by a fifth-grader.)  Anyway, Munchkin Girl and I got home from our trip at 7pm and the very next morning both kids started their first day of school (They still have the nanny.  Munchkin Girl is starting pre-school and Little Buddy is doing one day of MDO at the same school).  Poor planning, I know. 

After we got the kids to bed, the real work began.  You know what it's like when you get home from a trip.  Bags everywhere.  Dirty laundry.  Plus I had to put the car seat back in the car and read through all the school paperwork.  The school gave precise instructions on what to bring: extra pair of clothes, extra diapers, crib sheets, etc.  Everything had to be marked with their names and all neatly placed in their backpacks.

So the next morning Hubby was able to get off work to help me drop them at school.  Little Buddy was almost too excited for school if you ask me.  I was really worried he would cling to us and cry and cry and I would have to go back and pick him up from school.  Not so much.  He barely glanced back at us before he dove for a ball and started throwing it around the room.  Munchkin Girl did well too.  She kept telling me she didn't want to go to school, but she forgot about her own fears as she put her arm around Little Buddy.

"Don't worry, you'll meet lots of new friends and the teachers will be very nice," she told her little brother.  Definitely a blissful family moment.  Until I looked at my watch.  9:20.  I was due at my customer meeting at 10:30 and it was over an hour drive.  Again, poor planning.

So, I went from doting Mom to sprinting career woman.  I gave Hubby a quick kiss and raced out the car.  No problem.  I should still make it as long as I drove fast.  Don't panic.  Road construction!  Speed reduced to 55.  Damnit!!  Seriously don't panic now.  I tried to tell myself and I needed to give myself a break.  I'm always early.  Usually everyone is late anyway.  I pulled in at 10:25 and ran down the stairs in my heels.  I was panting as I gave the receptionist my name.  And slightly sweating if I'm being honest.  The time was 10:32.  Only two minutes late.  Not bad. 

The lady took me down a hall and gestured toward the room.  At first it looked empty and I sighed in relief.  I walked through the door and was met with a conference table where there were already 10 people sitting.  They had started the meeting without me.  For someone who is ALWAYS early, there is nothing more excruciating than the feeling that you're very, very late.  And everyone is mad at you.  I'm a people pleaser, I can't help it.

The good news is that in the end, no one was mad and we got the sale.  And the kids loved school and Little Buddy even nodded at me when I asked him if he wanted to go back.   Probably couldn't have been a more hectic day, but it turned out fine.  Except for that nightmare I'm sure to have about being late to another meeting.

Gender Confusion

Little Buddy LOVES his big sister.  Sometimes she hugs him a little too hard.  Sometimes she pushes him when he tries to get her special toys.  But the the vast majority of the time his eyes lovingly follow her wherever she goes.  When they were younger, this was mostly adorable and we would laugh.  As they've gotten older though, it's become a bit of a problem.

Take yesterday.  Munchkin Girl gets a sticker every time she sleeps all night without waking us up.  She used to wake us up to literally play with her.  Or she'd remember a doll she left downstairs and want us to go get it for her at 2am.  Thus the creation of the sticker program, which has been great!  However, yesterday, I told her it was time to get a sticker.  Little Buddy isn't saying much yet so I keep making the mistake of thinking he doesn't understand quite everything I say.  I'm wrong.  He understands EVERYTHING!!

After Munchkin Girl got to pick out her sticker and put it on the fridge, he came over and started grunting at me and pointing at the stickers.  Even started stomping his feet.  I pulled off a sticker and handed it to him.  He went over the fridge with it, and pointed and grunted at Little Munchkin's sticker chart. 

"Hey Mom, he didn't sleep all night, he doesn't get a sticker, does he???" 

Conundrum.  He DID sleep all night.  In fact, he always sleeps all night.  Is he really getting this?  Does he really want me to put a sticker on the chart for him?  He literally stood there, grunting and whining while holding his sticker and pointing at the fridge.  Out of curiosity, I put it on the chart to see if that was what he wanted.  Sure enough, he grinned ear to ear, smiled at Munchkin Girl in delight, and walked away to find something else to do.  He's 17 months, so this was pretty shocking that understood this much and wanted to emulate Munchkin Girl this much. 

Sooo...., this brings me to the real issue at hand.  He is slightly obssessed with purses.  And earrings.  And teasets.



Don't miss the giant pretend earing he is wearing.  He FORCED me to put it on.  I swear.  Again, a lot of grunting and whining while holding the earing until I caved and clamped that earing on his little ear.  He wore it all during dinner.

Despite all this, he is ALL boy.  He romps in the mud, plays in sprinklers, his first word was "Ball".  Hubby is slighly upset by this whole obsession with Little Munchkin's things.  Everytime he carries a purse around, Hubby gets a little exasperated and starts kicking a ball at him with almost a bit of OCD behanior if you ask me, trying to entice him to drop his purse and start playing soccer.

But my theory is that he just wants to be like his big sister.  He LOVES her and watche her play with these things every day and he thinks that is just what people do.  Don't get me wrong though.  If pink turns out to be his favorite color, we will still loves him just as much!! :-)

What is up with those Crock Pot Girls??

Have you hit a running slump? Try CrossFit

I'm a bit of a dingbat.  I admit it.  A few years ago I hit a running plateau and decided it was time for a change.  I looked into classes at gyms and the Y, but decided none of them were for me.  Then I found a class at a local studio called Mixed Martial Arts.  I had no idea what that was, but I thought it sounded like a good blend of aerobics and kickboxing or something.  Right?  Well that's what I thought and I got the schedule.  The class was only offered at 5:30am.  That seemed pretty early but I was determined to get out of my slump so I went.  I wore my little Yoga pants and my pink Nike shirt.  I walked in and everyone STARED at me.  It was a room full of heavily tattooed men dressed in jean shorts and cut off shirts.  Welllll....turns out Mixed Martial Arts means Cage Fighting.  Like you might see on TV where they are literally in cages and kick and punch each other.  Oops!  I did not stay for the class.  I think of a few of them were actually slightly disappointed to see me go.

Since then, I have actually found something that is a great solution for that plateau.  Cross Fit.  Have you heard of it?  It's a bit of a secret but when you do find someone who does Cross Fit, they are incredibly passionate about it.  There are a few gyms in major cities that offer classes, but mostly it is something you do on your own, either at home or in the gym.  The reason I think it's a great option for Moms is that the idea is that you work out really really hard, doing specific things, but then you don't have to work out for such a long period of time to get results.  Seriously.  My husband, the orthopedic surgeon, does it every day.  In fact, it is the only program he follows and he has done one Ironman already and is doing another this fall.  When he first started doing it, it seemed a little intense to me.  But soon I became a huge fan because it shortened his workout time dramatically.  At the time, he was working at the hospital from 6am to 8pm every night.  Munchkin Girl was a little over a year and I was pregnant with Little Buddy, so the more time he was around, the better! 

The website is http://www.crossfit.com/ However, I have a better way.  If you have an iPad or iPhone, download the free app called XF Diary.  It's actually geared toward pregnant women doing Cross Fit, so it's a great way to ease into this intense program.  The app will give you a different workout every day.  At first, the workouts will seem like they are written in another language.  Words like Burpee, Good Mornings, etc.  However, the awesome thing about Cross Fit is that they have all kinds of videos on YouTube to show you how to do everything.  So, to get started, enter the daily exercises into YouTube.  Type "Cross Fit Burpee" and you will get tons of videos to show you how to do it.   Soon you will know everything by heart and won't have to look them up. 

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but really can be worth it.  The workout you get it is something more intense than you've probably ever experienced if you do it right and it doesn't take as long as a normal workout.  My husband decided one weekend that he wanted to run a marathon even though he hadn't exactly been training.  He'd been following Cross Fit religiously though so he decided to try.  And he got a personal record!  Of course, he doesn't do the app geared toward preggos.  At that point, he had graduated to CrossFitEndurance (http://www.crossfitendurance.com/) , which is another animal.  Same principles, but longer and even more intense. 

Now I don't exactly follow it 100%.  I still like to run so I have some running days and some Cross Fit days and it works out pretty well.  Check with me in a few months though! :-)

Mommy Guilt

I always thought I would quit working when I had kids.  Sometimes this knowledge can make women feel unmotivated to have a thriving career early in life.  After all, what's the point when it's only temporary?  However, for me it was the opposite.  I wanted to be really successful when I quit working so that I could go out on top and feel like I accomplished something.  Because of this, I worked like a maniac to try to break into the field of medical sales because that was my goal in life. 

After 2 jobs that were good but not great, I finally broke into medical sales.  I was nervous to drive all over the Midwest alone, and nervous to lose my work friends, but it turned out that I LOVED it.  And I thrived and became the top sales rep.  SO, when I had Munchkin Girl and it was time to quit, I found that I didn't really want to.  Not only that, but it just so happened that my company reorganized and I suddenly only had one state instead of three states.  I thought, Why not give it a try?  If I hate being a working mom, I'll quit.

It's been three years since I made that decision and I would say I now have a love/hate relationship with being a working mom.  This is all coming up at an interesting time because there was a segment on the "Today Show" this morning about the guilt that working moms have to deal with every day.  I thought it was ironic timing because just this morning I was thinking how absurd it was that I had just dropped the kids off at my nanny's house.  That seems reasonable, so you might wonder why that is absurd?

Well, my nanny lives 20 minutes away and we pay her to come to the house to take care of the kids.  However, I've found that when I leave my own house, they cry and carry on and I feel guilty all day for leaving them.  They beg me not to leave.  As I pull out of the garage I can hear the nanny struggling to get them distracted with promises of going downstairs or outside to play.  Little Buddy, my youngest, has a hard time getting out of a funky mood.  This means that I worry all day that he's in a bad mood because I had to leave. 

Alas, the miracle of discovering that they LOVE going to the nanny's house!!  She has a huge dog that the kids love.  Plus my nanny has a younger brother and sister who often are home to play with the kids.  So, instead of leaving 2 crying kids, they both hop out of the car with a smile and scurry inside to play.  It makes me so happy.  Then I can go about my day without feeling guilty for being a working mom.  My kids are happy and so am I.  Is it worth the 40 minutes out of my day that I squander so that my kids are happy?  Absolutely!  Well, most days anyway.

Should we force our kids to eat?

Ever since Munchkin Girl was a baby, she has been a terrible eater.  Even bottles she barely ate and I was always worried she wasn't getting enough nutrition.  She has also been a very busy kid and hates to sit still.  We had her three year check-up last week and I really was worried about how it would go since she looks like she's barely grown at all.  Of course she insists on brining her purse to the appointment, which just happens to be a fake Prada purse that I got in New York City several years ago.  At the appointment we sit next to a lady with her baby.  The woman smiles at me and glances at Munchkin Girl.  She suddenly sees the "Prada" symbol on the purse.  She raises her eyebrows at me and frowns at me really sour.  She looks away.

"It's not really Prada," I say.  I tried to resist justifying myself, but I couldn't help myself!  I'm not the kind of person that would buy my kid an expensive anything, let alone a Prada.

"Yes it is Mom," she says.  "It's a real purse."

"What?" I say.  "No, really it isn't.  She's just being silly."

The lady smiles, almost a pity smile.  Then they call her kids name and she walks away.  Munchkin Girl grins at me and starts searching through her purse and finds a small stick.  She pulls out the stick and carries it with her when they call our name.  

The nurse puts her on the scale.  Keep in mind she is three years old.  And the scale says....25.2 pounds!  Yes, that is less than my 17 month old weighs!  The doctor comes in, and we love him.  He sees her purse and then sees her stick sitting next to the purse.  He laughs and they talk for a few minutes about her stick and what else is in her purse.  Then he begins the exam, and Munchkin Girl is actually very well-behanved.  At the end, it's time for him to chart her weight and height.  He tells me she is in the 3rd percentile for weight.  Yikes.  But the 25th for height, so that's good news!  I ask him if I should be worried about her growth.  He shows me her chart.  From a small baby, she has hovered between 3rd percentile and 10th percentile.

"Nope," he says.  "This is totally normal for her.  Just keep doing what you're doing."

So that brings me to the question, Should we force our kids to eat?  Even though the doctor says she is fine, I know that she often is hungry and won't eat.  She will beg me for a snack, but when I tell her she has to get up in her chair to eat the snack, she suddenly isn't hungry anymore.  Even when she's in her chair, she'll eat a few bites, only enough to tide her over and then she'll say she's full and wants to get down.  Then without fail about 15 minutes later she says she wants a snack.  So the question is, should I insist that she eat more?

My grandmother had 8 siblings.  She says that she's the only one still alive for a reason (Yes, she's a bit of a skeptic and a very interesting old lady).  She says that she never forced herself to eat like the rest of her family and that's why she is still in good shape and still alive.  Although slightly morbid, I think she might a point.  I see moms who force their kids to eat every last bit of the pudding they brought for them to the park.  And their kids are slightly chubby.  Do we want our kids to go to school chubby?  For what?  So that we didn't waste the pudding we bought?  Plus, my friend was just telling me the other day how she forced her son to eat after he told her he had a tummy ache.  He went ahead and ate and about three hours later he promplty threw up on her.  Clearly he wasn't hungry for a reason, but she was worried about his nutrition. 

On the other hand, I know how frustrating it is to cook a meal, even macaroni, and have the kid not even want to touch a single bit.  Or worse, try a bite, make a face, and then spit it Mom's hand (that really happens a lot, I'm not making that up).

I think I've come to the conclusion that all we can do is try.  I'm going to really try to only offer healthy foods like lots of cheese, fruit, and veggies.  Whole wheat english muffins are actually a huge hit, and they will both eat them plain.  I'm also going to keep trying to always get them to eat in their chairs instead of while they wrestle (again, actually does happen sometimes).  Then if Munchkin Girl chooses not to eat, at least I know I've tried.  The good news is that at least the doctor says she's normal, she'll always be skinny, which she'll really appreciate when she gets older.  And at least I don't have this problem with Little Buddy.  That kids eats.  A lot.

What do you think?  Should we force our kids to eat?  Email me and let me know your thoughts!  I also have a poll on my home page.  I'm going to close the poll on September 1st and post the results!