Last week I talked about the gifts we were getting/considering for Edward, who is turning 8 next month. This week it’s Elizabeth’s turn: not “girl gifts,” but gifts for a child who is, as it happens, a girl.

Owl apron (photo from Amazon.com). The one I bought her was from Home Goods and has an all-over pattern of owls, but I can’t find it online and this one is cute too.

Personalized street sign (photo from Amazon.com). She’d expressed enthusiastic interest in it a number of months ago as a gift idea for a friend’s birthday party, saying she’d want one for herself, too. But then we realized with the shipping time it wouldn’t arrive before the friend’s party, so we gave up on the idea. When Paul and I discussed still using the idea for Elizabeth’s birthday, we got hung up on not knowing what the quality of the sign would be like, and not even knowing if she’d still want it now—especially if her friend didn’t have a coordinating one. Plus, I know this is a gift for HER and SHE likes the pink, but if _I_ were getting a personalized street sign I’d want it to be GREEN. And I’m not sure that shade of pink would go well with her magenta walls. So anyway, we’re not getting it for this birthday. But maybe I’ll mention it to her again and see if she still wants it at Christmas.
Read the rest of this entry

Every summer I like to buy an assortment of fun things and little treats. (Buying things: it’s how I cope.)

Our first treat this summer was a selection of Hostess items (Twinkies, cupcakes, Sno-balls, a fruit pie) for cultural literacy. (Verdict: no one liked them as much as they’d expected to, but it was fun to do/try.) We also tried the York Peppermint Patty ice cream bars (verdict: pretty good) and the Reese’s Cup ice cream bars (verdict: two kids didn’t finish theirs and the others thought they were fine; I thought they were VERY YUM and I gladly ate the ones the two kids didn’t finish).

Then I bought the game Scrambled States (photo from Amazon.com). William got an “area of concern” marking in U.S. geography this past year, so he and I are working together on our geography dislike/difficulty. (My grandfather was a cartographer. You can imagine the pain he felt when, for example, he would ask me if I knew where Egypt was. Me: “Let’s see. It’s not in North America or, like, near England. …Wait. Right?”) We’ve been playing the game for a couple of weeks, and it’s a really good one. It’s marked “8+” and it’s definitely perfect for Rob and William (and, er, me), but it’s easy enough that the 7-year-old twins can play it with us too as long as I keep reassuring them that the rest of us have already LEARNED our states (…theoretically) so of COURSE we’re better at it.
Read the rest of this entry

Tara writes:

My daughter is OBSESSED with music (and noise in general), and currently her instruments of choice are two metal mixing bowls she drums on with bamboo spoons, but she also really loved a little piano at a friend’s house. We are celebrating her in June (when she’ll be 18 months), and I’ve been thinking about getting her some baby/toddler instruments! Any ideas (preferably that won’t cost me $1M)?

I bought a set of Schylling Musical Hand Bells for my niece for Christmas, and they have been a success. Each bell makes an actual note (the note is labeled on the handle with a sticker, which may need to be replaced by permanent marker), so an older child can use them for reals after using them for just-shake-those-bells-any-which-way play as a younger child.

My brother is very musical (I am more the sort who gets completely stumped as soon as flats/sharps are introduced), and I remember him asking for Music Eggs one Christmas. They’re a….rhythm instrument, I think.
Read the rest of this entry

(Also see last year’s summer fun post for more ideas.)

We don’t go on many special summer outings (this year, with the youngest turning four, I am just starting to wonder if I might be able to handle taking all five of them somewhere fun on my own), so every year I like to buy a few fun things to make an at-home summer vacation more fun.

Last summer I bought the Wubbzy soundtrack (photo from Amazon.com) and we listened to it on our way to and from swimming lessons each day; it became the soundtrack of our summer.

For this summer, I bought the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack (photo from Amazon.com). I’d been watching it go up and down in the $8-10 range since before Christmas, and this week it went down to $7.73 with a free $1 MP3 download and I sprang. (I might get the Summer Belongs to You MP3 album, too.)
Read the rest of this entry

Do you guys play the “What if you had to spend $100 RIGHT NOW?” game at your house? We play it all the time at ours. It’s almost always Rob, the sixth-grader, who wants to fantasize about shopping, and I’m happy to play that game. Today’s answers (from me, clearly, because what he wants is video games):

John Derian nest coasters (photo from Target.com). I wish these were plates instead of coasters, since I never use coasters.
Read the rest of this entry

Oh, good, school’s out. No more lunch-making, bus-catching, homework-nagging. Now we turn our attention to scrabbling for ways to alleviate boredom.

Orb Factory Sticky Mosaics (photos from Amazon.com). Beth recommended the sticky mosaics, and I got the jewels one for Elizabeth for her birthday. Not only does Elizabeth totally love it, _I_ totally love it. I don’t usually like to do projects with children, but we’re on our fourth mosaic and I’m still having to prevent myself from working on it after she goes to bed. I bought the dinosaur set for ME to do (I’ll use the resulting pictures to decorate the room of dinosaur-loving Henry), and I can’t wait for it to arrive.  I wish they made sets for grown-ups.

They’re not CHEAP, it’s true:  about $17 for a box that includes 4 or 5 mosaics.  But after hesitating over the first set, I wouldn’t hesitate again:  well worth it for the fun, the fine motor skills development, the finished pictures (the three we’ve done so far are all on Elizabeth’s wall), and the project I LIKE doing with a child. If they sold them individually instead, for $3-4 each, I’d probably put one in my cart every time I went to the store.

Read the rest of this entry

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s trying to cut back on superfluous spending lately—cramped budgets! Looming holidays! Insane daycare costs! Medical co-payments! Babysitters! Pants for my son who keeps getting taller but not wider so nothing ever fits, ever!—so I thought it would be fun, and possibly even useful, to share a few of the things we’ve bought lately that have been worth every penny and then some. Caveat: these have to be things we’ve bought for ourselves, not for our kids, okay?

I’ll go first:
Read the rest of this entry

The majority of the workouts I do are either accompanied by the cheesy synth-pop exercise video soundtrack (Jillian Michaels, I’m scowling in your direction), or whatever’s blaring through the speakers at the gym. When I run, though, I’m addicted to listening to the loudest, most upbeat stuff I can find. I know, I know, safety rules dictate you leave the iPod at home when you go for a jog, but what can I say, music makes the difference for me between “running” and “collapsing in a heap on the cement”.

I recently huffed and gasped my way through a 5K, and these are the songs kept me going:

Read the rest of this entry

Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.
Read the rest of this entry

My 2-year-old has never been particularly interested in music, unless you count his current interest in telling me to turn the radio OFF, Mommy, it’s TOO LOUD. (Note: it is NOT too loud, kid, I save the eardrum-bleeding stuff for when you’re not around.)

I do have a number of playlists on my iPod dedicated to kids’ tunes, though, just in case he stops being such a wet blanket about music sometime soon. Some of my favorites:

Read the rest of this entry