Disneyland Tips with a Toddler

Thanks to the wonderful offer Disneyland has going this year, where you can get in free on your birthday, we got to take our son for his first trip. For my 23rd birthday yesterday, March 30, we spent the day at the happiest place on earth, and it truly was a great time with our 18 month old toddler.

Our first trip on the train didn't work out so well because we ended up getting stuck on the tracks for 20 minutes. That's not a fun experience with an antsy toddler who is all full of energy and ready to go. We made it of course, but all the while I was debating whether this was a good idea since any ride could get stuck at any time and we'd have to deal with keeping him happy while they worked it out. But I didn't let my fear get the best of me and we carried on.

His first real ride was the Haunted Mansion. We went on Small World, Pirates, Nemo Submarines, Tom Sawyer Island, and watched the fireworks. It all went by so fast and we ate twice. Although it doesn't seem like we did that much, the day was long and full. Our son did amazingly well and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

I did plan ahead and there are some things which greatly help

• Plan to do a lot when you get there so they get tired. They will pass out for a while so try to plan a time where you eat or relax during their nap and they won't miss out on too much fun. You can also let them sleep on you while you wait in one of the longer lines.
• Use overnight strength diapers so you can have a lot less bathroom stops.
• Bring plenty of sunblock and/or an easy sunblock stick for quick application.
• Bring a change of play clothes and a change of warm clothes. Don't forget a blanket.
• Unless you want to spend a huge fortune on food, aside from the huge fortune you spent getting in, pack a lunch for your whole party. This can save you up to $100 or more.
• If your kids like the stuff then bring some Pedia-Sure so you can help them get nutrients during a day which they just might lose their appetite to excitement.
• Bring your own stroller, it's much easier to find in a sea of rentals.

Don't forget to look up http://www.snopes.com/ for all the awesome secrets and scoop about Disneyland myths, facts, and legends.


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Celebrating Earth Hour

So last night was the big "Earth Hour". We participated, it was nice. At 8:29pm we had all the candles going and we shut out the last light and turned off the TV. I Wasn't to sure how my son would handle this whole deal, in the darkness and all, but he did very well. In fact, it was so pleasantly quiet and calm that he thought he had to whisper and so that's how he spoke the whole time. It was very adorable.

I started off my hour by doing the dishes in the candlelight, and to be honest, they didn't get cleaned very well. Next I moved onto bath time. My son enjoyed a quiet bath in a much darker room than he is used to. Although, with the mirror the bathroom ended up being the brightest room in the house. Once your eyes adjust it's not that bad anyway. He liked his dark time bath and lot.

We played around for a while in the candlelight after his bath. Then I set him up with his usual milk on the couch before bed. Most of the time he will get down and turn on the TV before he relaxes with his milk. I was quite surprised that he didn't try to turn the TV on at all. He sat wrapped up in his blanket nuzzled between two pillow and just peacefully consumed his milk. It was very cute. When he was done he showed me it was empty and gave me the "all done" sign. So off to bed it was.

It was 9:30PM by this time, so earth hour was over technically, but it was so nice and since my husband was already asleep and my son was just going to sleep I kept everything off. My son is still in our bedroom so I put him in his bed and I stayed in there as well and did something I haven't done in ages....... I had an hour long phone call. I didn't have to do any chores throughout the conversation either. It was so nice to just lay on my bed chatting with my girlfriend just like I used to when I was a teenager.

Once that fun was over, I took a shower by candle and let myself distress from the day, the week,and the technology. I went to bed feeling good, and slept all night. Thanks earth hour!


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Arts and Crafts with an 18 Month Old

It's never to earlier to start arts and crafts with your child. The sooner you start, the more they will enjoy doing it. Although, to be honest, I think most kids will enjoy it whenever they start because art projects are just so much fun.

One of the biggest reasons I can say I may refrain from doing certain projects, is the mess. It's hard to just set your toddler up with all these different ways to make a gigantic mess for you to clean up. Really, art projects are a great thing for parents and kids. The kids get to enjoy the work, creating, painting, and fun while making something they can look at and be proud to say they made. On the other hand, parents have to endure the mess and learn that it's worth cleaning up to see the happiness the project has brought their child. Not to mention all the great skills they learn from doing it. So we parents do need to learn to let go a little.

I have already done so many wonderful crafts with my 18 months old. I'd love to write about them all but quite frankly, I might as well start a whole separate blog for them all. Which actually sounds like a great idea to keep in mind.

What I would like to recommend is a great book that got me going with lots of ideas to do fun artsy things with my son. It's called "The Everything Toddler Activities Book". It's not just for art either. There are fun games, songs, party ideas, and much more to entertain your little ones. Now, there are a few things inside of it I have learned are no good. My example is the play dough. Some of the recipes in it are just no good so you might have to do a few trail and errors on your own. Perhaps something the author did not do. But you will find plenty of great games your child will get a kick out of. I suggest while reading it that instead of going by her age range, go by what you feel your child is capable of. Many of the activities are said to be good for an 18 months old, but some of them I know my son is not ready for. When children lack some of the skills needed to complete a task they can get very frustrated and therefore discouraged.


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They Wonder Why There is Childhood Obesity??

I was sitting down enjoying another great episode of "How Clean is Your House?", Awesome show! During this show I caught a ridiculous TV commercial. At first I thought this commercial was so funny showing three children watching and being mesmerized by the TV which was slowly pulling them closer via a green ray. Who hasn't seen the TV do that to their kids or Husband? Anyway, in walks a Dad with a large flat box (which I thought was pizza) and some drinks. The he announces that food is here and the kids come running just in time to watch their dad open the box of Dunkin' Donuts. They claim to be "bringing the family together".

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So basically, while you are gone the kids are watching so much TV so in order to get them away from it you should bring home some donuts which lack all nutritional value. Way to go America! I know why there is morbid obesity now!!

Eating Bubbles is a Puke of a Good Time

So everything was just fun and games as I sat there with the camera waiting to catch the perfect shot of my son blowing bubbles in his Grandpa's lap. It was so adorable how he held onto the bubble wand and dipped it in the solution, then pressed it to his lips and blew. I caught some very nice shots though.

It really was great, but then it was nap time. When we are at Grandma and Grandpa's leaving their sight for anything is usually the last thing my son wants to do. Falling asleep? Forget about it. Needless to say he cried not to sleep when it was highly noticeable that he was overdue for one.

Just less than his normal nap time of two hours his Nino came out holding my crying boy, whose too big for him pants had fallen off a little. As he got closer I realized there was some white mess all over my son, and then the smell hit. My son had puked all over his bed and himself. While daddy when and cleaned the bed I took care of my son.

He wasn't sick and hadn't shown any signs of feeling ill. The first thing that popped up into my head was the bubbles. He hardly had any in his mouth, at least I thought. I guess he got enough nasty soapiness in his tummy to upset it and it all just came up. A smelly time later he had been feeling just fine and is now sleeping soundly.

I now know, to carefully watch him with bubbles...

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Reading with the Kids

Instilling a love of reading is something we all need to set as our mission with our children. Reading is a very important skill to learn in itself. When you can read you can learn and there will be no limit to what you can achieve. Learning to read is a very proud moment for any person. Being read to can help you bond with your child. When your child sees you read on your own he or she will also be encouraged to read themselves to be just like you. Reading is an amazing gift we have been given, the written word. Now how do we get our children to love reading?

So far we haven't had to struggle when it comes to reading and our son. Both his father and I absolutely love reading and do it quite often. OK, so I do it a lot more than he does, but I am so very addicted to learning. I also enjoy reading some great stories. Since the day our son was born I have been reading to him. Even though he was just a baby and many would say he doesn't know what was going on anyway, I kept doing it. When my son was very young I would read any story or book I wanted to read. I knew he didn't understand our language yet and it gave me the opportunity to get in some reading during my busy new mom schedule. What my son did understand was that Mommy was making sounds and holding an object.

As my son grew he got very comfortable with the fact that before nap time and bedtime I would pick up this object and make sounds. Hearing the sound of my voice for a long time would eventually lead him to dreamland. This was working wonderfully for me because I was reading my books, he was getting used to reading, and I was improving my read aloud ability. This was definitely a win win scenario.

Once he turn one and became a toddler he was walking around and moving toys around, being a lot more active. I have continued to keep up the reading, although now I read mostly his books. He can see and understand his books now. I still get to practice my read aloud skills and he get so excited when I or anyone else reads him books. For the last 6 or 7 months his grandparents and his father have joined in the reading train and they love spending time reading him a book and watching him laugh. I think they just waited until he was more active in the actually reading process. Perhaps they felt he didn't get it anyway before a certain age. Still that won't stop me from reading to all my newborns and up. Now he comes up to people with a book and tries to climb on your lap anxiously awaiting the story inside the pages. It's so adorable.

When we go to thrift stores, book stores or any other place with great books, well I usually pick at least one up for him. I let him pick books as well. He got quite a few as gifts this last holiday season which was wonderful. His doctor gives him a new book each time we go see them. A great way to soothe the pain of a shot, maybe.

His collection is far too large, and yet we have read them all. The ages range from boards books to novels and he loves each one in it's own way.

Old Floor Heaters in the Home

To start this off I will inform you that we live in a very old building that has one of those in floor heaters. About three weeks ago we had our carpets cleaned. That was a story in itself, but not the topic of this particular entry. The next day when we turned on the heater there was a bit of a funky smell coming out of it. My husband had told me the carpet cleaner sprayed something on the carpet to clean it so I figured some had gotten into the heater and was burning off. And that was the last I thought about it.

Two nights ago, since we had been doing so well keeping the thermostat down low, we decided to spoil ourselves and turn it up to 75 for an hour or so. We began to smell a horrible burning smell which I thought smelled just like the chemical that had been sprayed on the carpets. Since we hadn't really turned up the heater after that one day, I just thought there was more that needed to be burned off. After all what else could it possibly be? I seem to have forgotten we had a little boy running around.

The other night the smell seemed to get worse and I kept telling my husband it was starting to make me feel sick, how could it be so strong? I just could not comprehend how anything else could be causing such a smell. So I told him I'd just turn it up high the next day to help burn it off and air it out. That day was today.

Being a nice warm and sunny, California winter morning, I opened up all the doors and windows and turned up that thermostat. The smell began, and got stronger and stronger. I was opening mail and handed over a couple cards to my 18 month old. I just happened to glance over at him near the heater in time to see him pushing those cards into the heater slats. Ofcourse I freaked out and grabbed him away, told him no and immediately turned off the heater. Then I found the true surprise.

I took off the slatted cover to reveal both of those cards, one already scorched from the heat. Papers that had been burned, and the culprit of the horrible smell: one of his wooden puzzle pieces that I had turned into a magnet. The paint, plastic, and wood were all burning away and had been for a couple days now producing this rank and most likely dangerous chemical smell. How could I be so ignorant? At the very bottom of the heater lies one of the measuring spoons I gave him and an old credit card. Both of them are very melted and stuck to the bottom, not that I can reach them if I wanted to.

I learned today, just as I have mentioned in other blogs prior to this, that you cannot ever be certain your home is baby proofed. Babies and especially toddlers, find a way to get into trouble no matter how many locks you have, how many switches are blocked, and how many rooms are closed off. You have to be on constant lookout and even then, they can cause trouble.

I'm pretty good about keeping an eye on him but I never thought about the heater, and never caught him doing that until today, thank goddess. I'm now planning a much better way to protect this dangerous heater from my sons torment. He could have burned down our home and with it would go his Uncle's home in the back.

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Baby Proofing Supplies That Don't Work

So as any parent would do I started to buy baby proofing supplies to be sure our son wouldn't get into dangerous naughty things that could cause him harm. Of course I also enjoy looking forward to keeping him out of certain cupboards for the simple fact of saving myself the mess to clean up. he has quite enough toys to play with anyway right?

Well, over the course of having my first son start moving to now we have gone through quite a few different baby proofing items for the whole house. I have yet to find any one single piece that did it's job keeping the baby safe and not malfunctioning at all. Currently we still use a few of them and they work to keep him out of trouble, but I feel with the cheap quality it's just a matter of time before he figures out just how easy they come off and he works his way into a large mess of trouble.

Let's see now... we bought those drawer locks that stop the drawer and then you have to push it down to continue opening it. Those were a huge pain to install and you weren't able to install them on most of your drawers... they would probably be best for doors that swing all the way open. We currently have only one of those installed and if you pull just slightly hard the door opens all the way.


We tried some clear straps that are designed for appliances and doors. Two small round plastic knobs stick to the surface and a cheap clear straps attaches through a small hole. The work at keeping doors closed but even a toddler has strength enough to pull them open. Oh well.

We also tried some similar locks that were all plastic and more sturdy locking mechanism. These were certainly baby proof and sometimes cannot even be opened with one adult hand. The problem is that they suck at sticking to the surface. The bonus though is hat you can screw them into the wall or cupboard. Unfortunately the item I wanted to use them for wouldn't hold a screw. These might have worked well on an appliance.

Then there was the oh so ridiculous toilet lock. With two rubber suction cups it is supposed to stick to the back of the toilet and curve over to block the lid from being opened. There is a unlock feature that allows adults to move it to the side easily so the lid can be opened and the item stays installed. Now this item is actually great... if only it would stick to the toilet. The only way I could get it to stay was if I wiped down the back with cleaner and dried it completely then installed it. Any type of moisture in the bathroom (a shower) would cause it to slip when touched and therefore making it useless because it would then slip off even under the toddlers touch.

We have a very large opening from our kitchen to our living room and we needed and extra large gate to block it off. We got a great one. The problem with it though? The screws they give with it to attached to the wall are not long enough and combined with our lack of a sturdy wall to attach to the gate has ripped out of the wall quite a few times.

That's all I'm going to complain about right now. The best piece of advice I can give with all of this information is to completely rearrange your house and place the dangers up high and the not so bad down low. Example: in the kitchen place plates and cup down low and cleaning supplies up high. Use safety items but never trust them completely and always check on your baby every few minutes that way if he gets hurt you'll find him fast or if he starts to make a mess you can catch him before it's a huge mess. And also these could only apply to me so try them if you need to and see they just might work for you.


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Naked Time

It's a very important thing to go naked. Something many of use refrain from doing. Why is that? My best guess is probably that with the way our society is we have learned to feel ugly and hate our bodies, therefore we want to cover them up and hide them. Especially once you become a mother, you might feel unhappy with your body and choose to hide rather than show it off. But this blog is more about letting the baby go naked than the parents.

I'm certainly one of those anal parents that would rather not let my children do something then to deal with the mess of letting them do it. But I fight that so they can learn and experience. One thing that falls into that category? Nakedness. The trouble with letting little kids go naked is that they aren't potty trained so you end up with mess all over the floor. I have never minded changing diapers, but it's a bit more difficult when it's all over the floor. And far worse once they get hold of it too.

Going naked gives your child a free feeling. They were born naked, they know that. When they are naked they are usually happy to be so and they run free laughing and having a great time. It's a beautiful thing to watch actually because they haven't yet been taught to hate their bodies. It's a really wonderful lesson to adults too if they pay attention to it. Airing out the booty from the diaper is also a wonderful way o keep skin fresh and prevent or cure diaper rash.

Now one downfall, the mess. Yes, if your child isn't potty trained they will surely go on the floor. I catch myself not taking of my sons diaper sometimes to prevent messes but I haven't been as bad as I thought I would be. We came up with a great routine that after dinner since his clothes are usually messy we strip him completely and let him run naked until bath time. If it's longer than 20 minutes he will most likely stop to pee. We do have carpeting but I'm always right there to catch him and I soak it up with a towel right away. Febreeze and/or Resolve cleans up any mess nice and quick on a carpet. We have had this routine petty much since he started eating. First he crawled around naked, then he cruised around naked now he runs around naked. Each and every time he has been so thrilled to remove all his clothes. We are lucky however that he still hasn't learned how to remove his clothes on his own.

In the whole 18 months that we have had the joys of letting our little man go naked, we have only had less than 5 times when he pooped on the floor. We were also very lucky that the stools were firm each time,or at least firm enough. The worst part of it all is when the baby gets a hold of his own poop and does something like start to paint with it. The wonderful news is that there is a cure for that! Pay attention to your child. It's going to be 20 minutes, or more if you wish, so just walk away from the computer, set down the phone and turn off the TV. Watch your child rejoice in his nakedness and be right there ready to clean up any mess that magically appears from your child's behind. And yes, I learned this the hard way.

Now on another important note, your child runs around free and happy when he is naked, wouldn't it be nice to keep it that way? At least the happy with the naked part? As with most things your child is going to mimic what you do. If you walk around criticizing your body or anyone else's for that matter, sure enough your child will pick up that same behavior. If you refuse to be seen naked, they too may become shy. I was actually quite surprised that from very early my husband was alright being naked in front of our son. To be honest I didn't think he would be, but I am very thankful he is. He teaches our son that he is OK in his own skin and hopefully he will be too. I can say I am not always happy in my skin, but my husband boosts my self esteem and gets me to go naked more.

Of course there are certain boundaries, and you need to teach your children that nakedness is only OK to do when you are at home, but they will learn that especially since they never see you go naked outside of the home. Teach them to value their body and allow them that fun time to live and explore in all their skin as nature intended them to do.


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Baby Sign Language and First Words

Before my son was born I had planned to study all the baby signs so that I could teach him to communicate with us very early and hopefully also improve his memory and education levels. However, life seemed to just happen once he was born, and I never sat down to learn. A friend of mine had given us some great flash cards and I can honestly say I looked at them a few times and tried to learn them. I ended up doing all this when my son was only about 3 months old though, and he hardly knew that he was even moving his muscles, let alone able to control them.

He had been given a few Baby Einstein DVDs and other educational videos as well at a very young age and I thought I'd try them out when he was an infant. I found out right away that he had a huge fascination with with the TV screen, even at his very young age. I also fell in love with the Baby Einstein DVDs and quickly had them all downloaded. He never has liked all of them but Baby's First Signs surely was one that he enjoyed. I thought it would be my ticket for him learning the signs as well. Somewhere on the sidelines in my brain I knew that unless I was going to be teaching him this stuff with first handed interactions that he wasn't going to learn them. And I was right, at 1 year (typically said three months into the time period that baby's are able to sign) he still didn't know any signs.

At 16 months I bought a great book call The Everything Toddler Activities book. It gave me the simple idea to teach my son to raise his arms high when I ask him "How big are you?" That is a baby sign, and that is right about when I realized how easy it would be to teach him simple signs, how cute it was to see him do it, and how fun it was for him. Of course his older age probably had a lot to do with it.

Tonight he amazed me. Sitting on our couch this evening and watching Ni Hao Kai Lan right before his bedtime he shocked me with his amazing little sponge brain. At this point (Him being 17 months old) he responds to "How big are you?" Waves bye and hi often, flips his hands over when he is "all done", and points to his nose and ears.

A little back story in this very long blog just to get you to where you need to be to appreciate this... a month or two ago we bought a hat/mask set from IKEA. A great little green dragon set for kids to play make believe with. My son loves it and Daddy ended up teaching him that Dinosaurs say, "Rawr", which he will say on command. When we say what does dinosaur say? He growls and points to his mask.

So back to the couch and Kai Lan...

The episode was about the dragon festival and they were racing some boats across a lake. He smiles and laughs all throughout the show and at the end a real dragon comes out. That's when he turns to me and growls, the same dragon way he does when we ask him what dinosaur says. It was brilliant, and maybe that's just his mother talking, but the way it all went down was so beautiful and inspired me to re-try the whole sign thing.

I tested him following that to see what he can absorb at this point. I showed him the sign for milk and he took it right away, then I showed him where his eye is, and he took it right away.

The moral of this story is never underestimate to ability of your child's brain, and never wait too long to test them again for something because you might miss out on some of that precious learning time that you could be spending enhancing and educating their lives.

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Babyproofing Mistakes

As most first time parents do, I prepared our small apartment to be baby proofed well before our son was even able to get into anything. Something my husband may have wished I waited on since getting into some of our cupboards has proven to be "parent proof" as well. Still, I enjoy having things done early and being well prepared for anything that may come my way. And then our son got big enough and I found out where I went wrong.

First I took the knowledge I had from when my younger siblings were babies. I remembered the push down locks for the cupboard doors and the safety gates that keep little ones from entering rooms. When I started looking around on some websites for baby safety such as http://www.onestepahead.com/ , I found lots of other great ideas ranging from VCR shields (one of my sisters did in fact get her fingers stuck in a VCR once) to stove knob covers. Eventually, I had completed my collection of baby proofing items and felt confident that everything he could get into was protected from his little hands and we'd rest easy knowing he couldn't get into anything dangerous. Boy, was I wrong.

What I didn't realize was that once my son mastered crawling he'd crawl up onto things and gain a few inches to get closer to that book shelf or the toilet. We worked with that, and then found out some more news. Once toddlers master walking they also seem to master climbing. I found out that the couch leads him straight up to the DVD shelves. The table becomes a dance floor. The TV can be turned on anytime he wishes. And nothing is safe on top of the desk. I have to completely re-evaluate our apartment to figure out what my 3 foot toddler could reach not only from the floor, but from on top of each piece of furniture as well.

Unless you plan to keep your children locked up in a padded room with no windows and no doors, be advised that you will have to keep a very close eye on them no matter what baby proofing you have in your home. And even then, I'm sure the curious little monkeys could figure out a way to carve out the padding and do something dangerous with it. Remember the cavemen created fire.... today's toddlers are far more advanced.


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