Sometimes the TV is the best choice

Not all the time, and really, not very often.


But today is an unusual day. Today is the day my almost 3 year old found a pill box that belonged to a friend who was living with us until a few weeks ago.

The pill box had 3 clorazapan pills. After J found it, it had 1. I called poison control right away. Well, after I got through panicking. We don't ever have prescription pills and if we do they are hidden away and out of reach (and locked up).

Poison control wasn't too worried - they told me what to keep an eye out for, and said they would check back in an hour. They have actually called twice.

We're pretty sure she is going to be fine, but we're watching her very carefully just to make sure.

And until then, miss drugged-cranky-pants is snuggling with me while we watch Pingu.

What are your sick-baby fallbacks? Do you watch too much tv when the kids are sick?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Child-Sized: in the garden

I think one of the best ways to teach your kids about the earth is to let them play in it!

We took a trip to the local nursery in the spring and the kids got to pick out their own flowers, then we came home and planted them! It was a lot of fun, and the kids had a great time watching them grow.

Children like to work – to them, it is play. If we can capitalize on that, then we can help them grow to love work even as adults. Most work for me is play because my mother let work be my play, and now my favorite thing to do is go out and work in the yard, or build something, or write something, or solve a problem.

The best way to keep children happy “at work” is to provide child-sized tools for them to use in their work. When we bought our home, we had to go out and buy yard tools (shovels, rakes, etc). In our car on the way home were child-sized versions of the adult-sized tools we had just purchased. It is imporant that their tools are as high quality and of the same material we would buy. The yard tools we bought for the kids are made out of metal, not plastic. But you can expect them to work with a plastic shovel. You would never think of it. Having “real” tools requires a lot more adult supervision than most people like to give their children – for us it just happens, because we are always supervising our children.

What life-like, child-sized tools do you provide your children? Do they have child-sized kitchen utensils? Shop tools? Cleaning tools? How are you capitalizing on your child’s play?

Hopscotch and Sidewalk Chalk

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is good is draw with sidewalk chalk. This particular time we drew fishes and whales (and the latter eating the former…)

And then I had a stroke of genius. Teach my kids hopscotch!

So I drew a simple hopscotch board (complete with numbers) and taught the kids how to play. Baby mostly just jumped up and down the squares, but Little caught on to dropping the rock, skipping it, and picking it up on his way back. It was a great activity to help with gross motor skills like jumping, standing on one leg, and bending over to pick things up.

An added benefit was learning the order of numbers, and my favorite – they were wiped out and completely ready for naps afterwards!

Wednesday Wanderings – LDS Church History Museum

Remember to link to your Wednesday Wanderings post! It doesn’t have to be something that occurred on a Wednesday, nor do you have to write about it on a Wednesday – just link up to a post about somewhere you went!

Several months ago, we went to the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, UT with some friends. We spent our time in the children’s exhibit - A Book of Mormon Fiesta: A Latin–American Celebration – where we learned about all sorts of faithful Latter Day Saints from Latin America.

The exhibit was a lot like a children’s museum, but with a gospel focus. The kids loved it, and so did I!

This dump truck was a big hit. The kids loved putting anything and everything they could find (mostly puppets from the “rainforest” area) in the back. The story about the dump truck was fun – there was a man who would drive his dump truck to church because they lived so far away from the chapel, and they would often pick up people on their way to church and give them a ride in the back of the truck! How fun would that be to ride to church in a dump truck!? Okay, probably not as much fun as riding in my comfy car – but still, I bet the kids had a blast!

And of course, we better plant a garden! They had carrots that were shaped like a pyramid, round onions, and the potatoes were a rectangular block, so the kids would “plant” them into the shape that matched! Educational and fun! Not to mention great for learning about gardens. I think he ended up feeding some of the carrots to this lizard puppet.

And then Baby and I had to dress up and dance! They had little videos that would teach you some basic steps to a Latin dance, complete with costumes for dress up! Baby didn’t really like having the dress on, but at least I got moving!

The museum was a lot of fun, and on our way out, we passed by a life-size replica of the angel Moroni statue that graces the top of every spire of the LDS temples. Vince knew exactly what it was (we’re blessed to live very close to several temples, and pass them frequently).

Ratings:

Value –   Can you say “For freeeeeeeee!” (if you don’t get it, go watch Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories – seriously, it’s a cute movie – I have no idea how they got Adam Sandler to do it, but it was fun and clean!) You may have to pay for parking if you don’t want to walk super far (it’s in downtown Salt Lake City), but hey, $2 isn’t bad.

Location –   Four stars because a I have a love-hate relationship with downtown areas. Love – the culture, the sites, the fun, the buildings, the actions. Hate – parking, keeping my kids from darting into busy roads, pollution, etc. But there is definitely more love than hate.

Fun Factor – So much fun! And we got to talk about the gospel, the Book of Mormon, and the examples of some really great Saints!

Now it’s your turn!

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Wednesday Wanderings – Acord Ice Center

First, a word about Wednesday Wanderings. I started Wednesday Wanderings as a way to talk about the places our family goes, and review them for other families in case they want to check those places out. I rate the outing based on Value (bang for your buck), Location (good neighborhood? easy to get to? easy to find? central?), and Fun Factor (how much fun me and the kids had). I always include explanations for my ratings, too, because not everyone’s family is just like ours.

We use Wednesday Wanderings to get out of the house and explore our neighborhood and community, and to help with our “preschool.” So, if you take outings with your preschooler, then write about it and link up!

Last week we went as a family to public skate at the Acord Ice Center in West Valley City, UT. Mr Einstein and I have our own skates (Mr Einstein plays hockey, and got me skates for my birthday a few years ago). We have two pairs of Babyskates because the smallest size of single blade skates we could find was a size 6 pair from CCM (but apparently Bauer makes one too). The Babyskates are nice, though,  because even the smallest walker can wear ice skates. We took Little E out on the ice with a size 3 pair of Babyskates just after his 1st birthday (he learned to walk at about 10 1/2 months). Baby E had her first night on the ice last week. After LE finished his tantrum, she loved it!

Ice skating is great for your preschooler’s gross motor skill development. It’s also great for them to have a new experience on something other than “dry land.” Exposing them to different “walking” surfaces early I think will help them develop good balance, and help them understand how to be comfortable when the ground under them doesn’t feel quite “right.”

I wish I had checked out some books from the library about ice skating and hockey so Little E would have been a little more prepared. He was really excited to go ice skating, and even did a great job walking around in his skates before we got on the ice, but as soon as we were on the ice, he was freaked out. Next time we’ll do a little bit of talking about how different it feels to be on the ice.

What new experiences have you been giving your toddler/preschooler (or even your older children!)? Do you encourage them to try new things? Do you expose them to different environments so they can learn more about the world and their bodies?

Ratings:

Value – At $3.50 for adults, $3 for youth, and two quarters for kids 5 and under, it’s a pretty good deal. We have our own skates (except for Little E – but he’s getting some for Christmas – shh, don’t tell!) we don’t have to fork over another $1.50 per person for skate rental. And, if we get a “Premium” pass to the Salt Lake County recreation centers, public skate is freeeeee! Since we live less than 2 miles from one of the rec centers, we’re going to get a pass in January.

Location – It’s on a main road, but in West Valley City (which is super far out west of SLC). It’s not too bad for us, so we like it. However, there are several other ice rinks in Salt Lake County. We’ll be checking those out soon. (that pass I mentioned gets you in to ALL the SL County ice centers!)

Fun Factor – Ice skating with little people is hard. Baby E cried because Little E was crying, and LE spent nearly the entire time on the ice flopping around crying on the ice. It was depressing. Once he was okay with it, though, Baby E was okay, too. Weird how that works...

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