Since early age, my son has been a very active and curious boy. Right after he started walking by himself I was in trouble because every appliance with a door or buttons was a target for him. We realized that electric plugs were a high risk issue so we bought safety caps that could only be removed with a piece of metal. Sometimes when I needed to use a certain plug I used to remove the safety cap, use the plug and immediately insert the safety cap again. I must say that the safety caps I used were very narrow and for the few times I forgot to put them back after using the plug my son ended up with them in the mouth and this scared me a lot. Although it never happened to my son, it was very easy for a baby / toddler to chock with one of those.
I’m glad George DeCell invented SafetyCaps. Having a daughter himself that chocked with one regular plug, he, more than anyone, knew the urge to find a safe electrical outlet safety plug.
Safetycaps have the ideal measure (greatest diameter of 2 1/3″) and have air holes to prevent kids from choking. This is a totally safe product that can save your kids life.
One whole house can be totally protected with only $10.99 (or for $9.99).
Thank you George for invented SafetyCaps that are really safe.
I must confess…lately I’ve been lazy when it comes to tell bedtime stories.
I use to tell a story every night to my son and daughter but lately, with the hurry to go to bed, with our conversations (that are also important) bedtime story has gone to a second third plan. I confess this is something I’ve been thinking about lately because I’m afraid my kids will lose the “reading feature” we should all have.
For some kids reading can be a natural feature but for others reading is something that has to be learned-to-like. Not reading to my kids might transmit a negative idea and although they see me reading all the time, reading a bedtime story is something experts say: it’s a “must”, it’s essential to read to our sons and daughters.
I’ve done a little research about telling a story and what I can do to make my kids wanting more stories and I come up with a few important points:
Have Fun: The main objective of telling a story is to have fun, create a bound between the parent and the child.
Learn to tell a story: For a child, a parent that is able to tell a story without a book is the best parent. The story has to have a meaning and we can’t hesitate while we tell it. The child must be aware that the parent knows the story as well as the characters he’s/she’s talking about.
Repeat as per request: Anticipating what is going to happen is good for the child development. We should keep the story for how long the child requests it but we can add small details that will keep the story interesting to the child.
Know how to choose a story: Be aware of the child’s age when choosing a story. Most stories have details that will only be understood by the child years later but that’s a good think as long as the story adds something to the child’s life.
Forget the story moral: Don’t resume the story in one sentence when finishing reading it. The message should be transmitted on the story context, not at the end. If the child doesn’t understand the story maybe it’s not an appropriate story for his/her age. Years later, without notice, they will understand it for sure.
Read before telling: Read the story before you tell it to the child, this way you already have the idea when you should change your voice, make a pause, raise or lower your voice. Remember, if you make a special voice for each character you have to keep that until the end of the story.
Of course there are other important points I must be missing here and therefore I’m willing to receive your feedback. Please take a few seconds and answer to my poll:
Leave me a comment if you would like to add suggestions/opinions regarding “Telling a Story Time”, I’ll post them on a different post in a few days.
Those following my blog know that English is not my mother language. I learned English at school but mostly through a Correspondence English course and later on a Language Institute where I got some certificates from Cambridge University (English as a Foreign Language).
Nowadays English is already incorporated in 3rd and 4th grade, my son could have attended on 3rd grade but he didn’t because those classes are after school and he had to stay there a couple hours after school classes twice a week and I thought it was too much, however I think English is a “must to learn” language nowadays.
Last year I found a great online English teaching program that my son could attend at home but we had to pay for it, I’m talking about: Globalenglishkids.com (best view with Internet Explorer). My son did the free trial of 7 days and he loved the course and keeps asking me to subscribe to the complete version.
I’ve been doing a little research online and out of nowhere, without notice, last weekend I was Stumbling Upon pages and I came across StarFall.com. This is an amazing learning site that caught immediately my attention as well as my son’s.
This site is ideal for those that, having English as their mother language, can have their first contact with letters, sounds, words and sentences. It’s useful for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first and second grade.
I took a look around the site and I also find it very useful and even excellent for kids that want to learn English as a second language and it’s free. My son loves the site and it’s a deal that in September, when school starts, he will also start leaning English at home with this program. Once my daughter is already in kindergarten I hope she gets interested too and starts leaning English with her brother.
The site has also available the StarFall Store where we can find high quality educational products.
Being a full time worker, everyday I struggle with cooking. Cooking is important for the family and even more important when there are kids involved. Keeping the meals attractive can be difficult therefore I always make an extra effort to innovate.
Keeping the kids involved in the confection of the meals can be interesting although most of the time they make me waste a lot of time preparing them. The easy way to overcome the waste of time is to choose recipes that are easy to prepare and in which the preparation of the ingredients keep them busy while we take care of the dangerous parts like hot oil or boiling water.
From now on from time to time (I still have to establish that…) I’ll posts recipes that will help our kids to grow up healthy and some recipes specially arranged for “family cooking” where the kids are the “chefs”.
I saw this easy recipe at FamilyFun.com that can be done “in family”. Let your kids help you and you’ll be glad to see a smile on their face.
EASY AS A APPLE PIE
RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
8 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced thin
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 refrigerated double pie crust
1 egg
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, toss the apples, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugars, cinnamon and nutmeg. Sprinkle with flour and mix to coat evenly.
2. Place the bottom pie crust in a 9-inch glass baking dish, pressing it firmly against the sides of the dish. Pour the apple mixture into the crust.
3. With a sharp knife or aspic cutter (tiny cookie cutters), make cutouts in the top crust. Gently place the top crust over the apples and fold excess top crust under the bottom crust. Flute the edges with your thumb and forefinger. Whisk the egg with 2 tablespoons of water and gently brush over the top of the pie; bake in preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes. Yields 6 to 8 servings.
I posted about this Shoe Wheel on my Buy Better and Have a Better Life blog but I though about posting about it here too because this gadget can be very interesting to store our children shoes.
This seems to be very practical and easy to use.
easy shoe insertion
expandable pockets
tension control
holds up to 20 pair of shoes (depending on the shoes)
mounting is required but the instructions are easy to follow
I read a post at The Domestic Diva called Parents tune into your Kids, this was an interesting post to read. Take two minutes and read it than come back please.
I agree with what is said by The Domestic Diva, completely, we must give our children our best attention and provide them with quality time. I couldn’t agree more.
Now talking about my situation and most full time working mothers with no one to clean the house, to help with the meals, to go shopping, how can we give our children quality time when, even on weekends we have the house to clean, shopping to do and we are so tired that we can’t even walk because our legs hurt so much.
I try to give my kids most of my free time but there are those days that, no matter how much I want to be with them. I’m not 100% with them. There are those weekends when I take them to the park but I just want them to play alone because I’m too tired to walk and play with them. However most of the times when my attention is requested, although tired and not wanting to, I manage to drag myself and play with them. Is it quality time? Maybe for them it is, they don’t even notice that I’m not ok, but that’s for sure not quality time for me. Do they deserve the effort? Yes, of course they do. They are away from me 10 hours a day and they surely deserve a mom that spends time with them and plays with them even if that’s not what she really wants, I mean, I want to, but the tired side says: go to bed, rest and let them play alone.
Most moms (not all of course) I know from blogs are staying or working at home mothers, although I know it is not easy to handle a house and kids full time, at least they are at home and they can prepare some house stuff during the day.
When I come home at 7pm I still have laundry, cooking and some cleaning waiting for me, besides all the other activities (baths, playing) that involve the children. Am I proud of being a working mom? Of course not, my dream (which is slipping through my fingers) has always been to spend more time with my kids, pick them up at school, do the homework with them but the reality is different, I have to delegate those tasks to other people because…I’m working.
Should I have gymnastic classes or swimming classes to easy my stress? Of course I should, but when do I have time, when I should be asleep?
Of course I’m aware there are full time working moms in the US, moms with a career, with high status inside a company, but do they have time to blog? Probably not. The reality I see on blogging world is about moms that follow their kids, who have the computer on all day, who have time to socialize, to participate in forums. I tried to do that but I’m going down the drain, I’m tired because I can’t put up with that because I have little free time.
I’ve been blogging less lately because I’m so tired I can’t stay up everyday until 2-3am and get up at 7am in the morning.
Do I want to be a full time mom? Yes I would love to, but European reality is much different from US. Even if I blog for money, the reality is not good, two years ago if I earned 300US$ I would earn 300€, now 300USD$ means 192€ and it’s getting worse.
Do I want to work from home? Yes, I would love too but in Portugal there are no companies providing that type of work.
If there is a US company that wants to offer me a job I can do from home I will be pleased to accept! ?
I’m not criticizing anyone, on the contrary, I would love to hear from working moms to know how they manage time. I want to improve my parent skills, I’m always looking for ways to be a better mother, that’s why I sometimes instead of writing my own posts I read other mom’s blogs because I learn so much from them.
Are you a full time worker? Leave me your blog URL and I’ll be please to read about your daily life, I’m sure I will learn important lessons from you.
I’ve been having some problems getting up my daughter in the morning on working days. Although I try to get up early to have time to wake her up, I always end up stressing and leaving home already late.
I bought a clock for her room some time ago and I was hoping to wake her up with the alarm clock, but the problem is that the clock has a loud Tic Tac and she can’t sleep well at night. I’m looking for other options now and the Teach Me Time! seems to be a good option.
This clock changes color and when it turns green it means the child can get up. This won’t work of course if the child is asleep, therefore we need to set up the alarm. The alarm works as a normal grown-up clock, we can even press snooze to have the alarm going off a few minutes later.
The Teach Me Time Clock is also very interactive. How does it teach children the time? The child presses the left toe button and the analogical clock will show the time than the child presses the right toe button and the Teach Me Clock will say the time and will display the time in the digital format.
This clock has other features like five levels of learning (we can start with easy level and increase as our child increases his/her knowledge), it can show analogical, digital or both type of clocks, etc..
I thinks this attractive clock will help me with three situations:
I guess spring, although still shy, is finally arriving. I’m really tired of rain and cloudy sky, I want to get out and be able to walk without worrying about carrying an umbrella or getting wet shoes. It has been a hard spring for the kids because the weather is never good for them to play outside. Most of their free time is spent in the computer, video games or TV.
My daughter likes to color and draw so it’s easy to keep her entertained inside the house, my son, well is a boy and therefore likes to play soccer and more outside related activities. With the weather change and bigger days we will be able to play more outside. Although we arrive at home at around 7pm we still have daylight and if the weather is warm than they can play in the back or front yard.
I’m not that kind of mother that worries about dirty clothes, dirty faces, dirty hands, everything can be washed so I just let them play outside freely. My daughter loves to catch bugs and worms (ugh! yes worms), one day she even arrived at daycare with one on her hair, a black one, she didn’t noticed and she must have touch her hair while having a worm in her hand and it just stayed there.
One thing I don’t like is when they come inside after playing and wet the floor or forget to rub the sand away from their legs and feet. This is something I have to start imposing once they start playing outside for good.
For those wanting to spend some time outside, in the nature, in the backyard in the woods the booki love dirt! is the right book for you to buy. It shows activities we can do outside no matter if we live in the city or in the country.
Quoting:
I Love Dirt! is a call to parents, educators, and caregivers to help children recover one of the great joys of childhood. Through fifty-two activities, readers will find a wealth of creative ways to actively engage children, ages four to nine, in nature. Each project is meant to promote exploration, stimulate imagination, and heighten a sense of wonder.
Organized by season, and appropriate for both urban and country settings, each activity is accompanied by a fun fact to help further a child’s understanding of the natural world and open up a conversation.
We must be aware that in outdoor activities we must protect the children’s body: appropriate clothes for the weather temperature and a sun protector. Be careful with sunburns.
Lori from A Cowboy’s Wife is having a Giveaway and the good news is that I can enter the contest. Why am I referring this? Because most Giveaways are US ONLY and this one is open to Europeans too, so I’m in.
Lori is giving away 3 copies of Walt Disney: Classic Caballeros Collection DVD. This DVD has four stories and it will for sure entertain children and grown-ups. To participate you just have to leave a comment on Lori’s post until April 30, 2008 around 10:00pm CST. I’m heading there now to leave my comment.
I know I’ve been away from this blog but fortunately I’ve been having a lot of paid work on the others, and I barely have spare time to write on this one.
Last Friday the daycare party went really well. The kids where fabulous, all of them.
First there was the Ballet class with the “Spring” dance:
Then, after new clothes and make-up, my daughter danced an “Ali Baba” dance and she was dress like the Ali Baba fairy tale.
My son danced HipHop and he was dressed (more or less) like a HipHop dancer. The trousers are really old but…he likes the way they look.
Before the end of the show a known Reality Show “star” from
around here sang a song and the kids where
all back on stage to dance with her.
After the show there was a lot of food for everyone (each person took something to eat) and I can say we had a nice evening.
With this theme I can’t locate the photos in the right places, sorry!
I’m having a little trouble in controlling my son’s cell phone money. When he has money to spend he sends messages to his friends especially to his girlfriend. Even being both at school, (of course they don’t date, they’re 9 and 10 years old) and they even barely talk so they send SMS messages. Can you believe this? Of course this is a curious situation once they are so young but it’s getting annoying to me.
Another unpleasant situation is that he calls me 2, 3 or 4 times a day while I’m working. I usually cancel the call and call him from the office phone but sometimes I’m so busy and the bosses are next to me that I’m caught in a difficult situation. I already explained this to my son, he understands but he just wants to say Hi or make a silly question.
My big problem right now is the real use of the cell phone: emergency situations or really important ones, once he gets out of balance too quickly he’s not able to call me if something happens. We’ve had several conversations about this, he says he understands but he keeps sending SMS and calls his friends. He was grounded 4 days without cell phone but he keeps using the cell phone and spending money.
I’ve read some articles regarding teaching our children how to use money but although I know he’ll get there it’s complicated. I’ve been having a hard time with this situation.
I must confess…lately I’ve been lazy when it comes to tell bedtime stories.
Being a full time worker, everyday I struggle with cooking. Cooking is important for the family and even more important when there are kids involved. Keeping the meals attractive can be difficult therefore I always make an extra effort to innovate.
I posted about this Shoe Wheel on my 
Lori from 
