Parenting Children

My son had gone a little too far in the deep end in the pool last month and freaked out. He didn’t want to return to the pool without floaties. I would be fine with that if he wasn’t 6.5 years old and already knew how to swim!
What did we do? We signed him up for swim class to gain back his confidence.
It is working, at least it was working until he hit his face on the side of the pool yesterday and needed a stitch!

How can you teach your child to swim at your local pool, lake or Y? Follow these steps:
Hold the child beneath the armpits and walk him around in the water to develop a feeling of comfort in the water, your child already trusts you, so this will be easy.

Have them hold onto the side of the pool and practice their kicking, Remember to have them kick with their whole leg not just with their knees.

Have your child blow bubbles in the water, to get him used to putting his face into the water.
Gradually have her put his whole head under the water. If he is getting water up his nose, tell him to hum- this will not let water go in his nose.

Hold your child around his waist and begin having him stroke with his arms making his hand into a “cup” shape. Make sure he keeps kicking!

Let your child swim a short distance from the wall to you. Gradually increase the distance.

Let your child jump off the side of the pool to you, eventually adding distance.

Remember: Take your time with each step and don’t rush your child.
The first day, only do the first step. The second day, do the first step again and then add the second step. Start each new lesson with a review of the previous lessons and advance to the next step, but only if the child is ready.
Make it fun and don’t have the lesson last too long or it will take the fun out of learning!

Most important- make sure you are CPR and infant CPR certified!

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The official start of summer is here for us and I know how hard it is to keep kids entertained all summer long. I found that making a list on my calendar helped me pick a fun thing to do every day. Here are 45 cheap or better yet free, great ideas for summer fun for you and the kids:

Catch fireflies

Decorate t-shirts outside with paint or dye

Have a tea party outside

Make a birdhouse

Make your own ice pops

Bake a pie or cookies

Feed the ducks

Go swimming

Plant a garden or a herb garden

Play with water balloons

Play with water guns

Go on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood

Play hide and go seek in the dark

Find a new playground

Have a picnic

Make S’mores

Learn how to knit and teach your kids, maybe even take a class

Visit the zoo

Visit a museum or children’s museum

Let your children play outside in the rain

Make a theme day, like a “red day” wear red eat only red foods (tomato, apples, strawberries, polish your nails red) or “dinosaur day” (read about dinosaurs, color dinosaur pictures, eat only veggies that day)

Write a letter to a grandparent or friend

Have a lemonade stand

Pick fruits or veggies at your local farms

Make an indoor sand or (Rice!) box
Find free movies in your town

Play hopscotch

Draw with sidewalk chalk

Make a tent indoors with blankets

Play with bubbles, have a biggest bubble contest

Race some bug you find on the ground

Join a reading club for grades 1-6

Have a “day of beauty” paint nails, have masks, give your kids a massage

Go to a free reading time

Buy a hammock and take a nap together

Play with a remote controlled RV or boat

Visit a day fair or carnival

Go for a hike

Can berries for the winter

Grab your sleeping bags and sleep on the floor together

Do some arts & crafts

Grow butterflies (My kids LOVE this!)

Visit a neighbor

Make a bubble pool in your backyard

Make ice cream

Check out free classes at Lowes or Home Depot

Make a trip to a board walk

Bowling!

Have movie day at home complete with popcorn and candy

What are your favorite family summer fun ideas?

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Last year I reviewed The Daring Book For Girls, which I loved. It had pages upon pages of fun things to learn, games I played as a child and facts and tips. Now they have a sequel to the popular book, The Double-Daring Book for Girls.

Again, this book is perfect for girls of all ages and perfect with the long summer months ahead of us. From how to tie a sarong, picnic games and dyeing your hair with Kool aid to how to make a sundial and moon lore, this book is packed with great information!
I love these books and have purchased them as gifts for my nieces. This is an easy, inexpensive way to get all of your children, not just girls, some summer fun and excitement. It also makes a great gift idea for hard to buy for girls (all of them!).

How about a little challenge. There is a section of this book called, “How to Hula-Hoop”. I was a hula-hopper from way back so I thought this would be no problem. I had to get my rhythm back and I finally made my best time with 18 times around before I nearly tripped and fell.
Can you beat me?
Try your best and leave your best hula-hooping skillz in the comments!

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Now that schools are letting out for the year and summer vacations are upon us, I am always looking for some family friendly things to do. At the end of the day when the kids are worn out from their fun, television is a great go to activity for our family. I try to watch TV with my kids and monitor what they watch as well. During the summer, the networks will all have on reruns and reality TV that is not appropriate for little ones, and there is only so many times I am willing to watch Finding Nemo.

Starting this month, TCM is launching TCM Essentials Jr., bringing families together by making moving watching a family experience. TCM Essentials Jr. will have classic must see movies every Sunday night suitable for the whole family. This year it is hosted John Lithgow and it gegins Sunday, June 7 at 8 p.m.

Tony®, Emmy® and Golden Globe®-winning actor John Lithgow is coming to Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to host this summer’s edition of TCM’s ESSENTIALS JR. Lithgow, who has also earned acclaim as a children’s author, will present 13 classic films ideal for parents to introduce to their kids, beginning Sunday, June 7, with the musical classic Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). The following is a complete schedule:

June 7 Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

June 14 To Have and Have Not (1944)

June 21 Father of the Bride (1950)

June 28 The Philadelphia Story (1940)

July 5 Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)

July 12 The African Queen (1951)

July 19 An American in Paris (1951)

July 26 High Noon (1952)

Aug. 2 Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Aug. 9 Notorious (1946)

Aug. 16 It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963)

Aug. 23 Gaslight (1944)

Aug. 30 You Can’t Take It With You (1938)

I also love the book The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide For Watching Together and would be a good companion to these movies this summer!

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I am just culling my kids’ books from our move. Some of their books are baby-ish and others don’t hold their interest anymore, so I put them aside for baby K. Then I came across our big old stash of Wild Animal Baby magazines from the National Wildlife Federation that my children got as a gift from their Grandmother. My kids were wild about this magazine and I know baby K will love them too.

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Kiss My Face National Endangered Species Day is today, May 15th. Celebrate National Endangered Species Day with Kiss My Face by visiting http://www.kissmyface.com/kids/index.html, where kids and parents can learn about endangered species and try their great kid-friendly activities including a coloring page, videos and games!
Kiss My Face launched the site to celebrate the launch of its collection for kids, which features endangered species like Terell the Tiger and Preston the Penguin on its packaging. Not only is this a fun site for kids to go to, it is a learning tool for you and your child.

The kids’ collection packaging highlights various endangered species and provides facts and tidbits on each animal. Inside, parents will find products free of artificial colors, fragrances, parabens and SLS, and boasting natural ingredients such as Organic Green Tea Extract to protect against sun damage, Nettle Extract to stimulate hair growth and improve the condition of the scalp and Tea Tree Oil to kill germs.

Kiss My Face created the kids collection because they know parents want to teach their child/children on how to make good decisions naturally. Whether it is about what they eat, wear or put on their skin, today’s parents are teaching their kids the importance of choosing natural products whenever possible. Kiss My Face, a company that has believed in making natural products since they were founded in the 1980s, uses natural ingredients to create products that won’t harm the earth, or your skin! The packaging was designed to bring awareness of endangered species and the importance of making a conscious effort to help preserve the environments these animals live in, with the goal of getting these animals off the endangered species list one day.

I love using Kiss My Face products and I love using them for my kids because I know there is no harmful chemicals in them. I know it is safe for my kids and I love the way they smell!

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I always try to stay away from too much candy and junk for Easter because I don’t want my kids to have too much and I don’t want to eat it either! This year will be no different and we are trying to keep our Easter “green”. Here are some alternatives to candy and junk and some tips to be more Earth friendly for your Easter.

Say no to plastic grass. Grow your own. This is easy and looks great in a basket or for a table centerpiece. I have seen edible grass in Target that you can use as an alternative. Have your kids color or paint some paper and shred it for their baskets.

Use natural dyes for eggs. Boil your eggs in water with vinegar and one of these ingredients below, then let simmer for at least 15 minutes:

Purple grape juice (for lavender)
Red cabbage (for blue)
Spinach (for green)
Carrot tops, orange peels or lemon peels (for yellow)
Yellow onion skins (for orange)
Beets or cranberries (for pink)
Red onion skins (for red)

Skip the candy. If you have to use plastic eggs (we use the same ones every year) fill them with coins, almonds or raisins. Or you can just hide the dyed eggs.

Skip the toys. Don’t you have too many toys anyway?
Instead maybe buy books, puzzles, outdoor chalk, phthalate free bath toys (bunnies or ducks are perfect) or bubbles (you can even make the bubbles yourself).

What do you plan on doing to make your Easter a little more “green”?

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Moving from New Jersey to New Hampshire in the middle of winter wasn’t the best idea. It has been all snow all the time here. We are just catching some reasonable weather and the snow has been melting (finally!) and now there is rain!
I can’t complain because I would rather have rain than snow any day! Rainy days can be fun for the whole family!

If it is warm enough, go ahead and let the kids get wet. My kids love when I let them go outside in their clothes and just run in the rain and splash in puddles. Go out there and get wet with them, I promise they will remember it always.
Bring your bath toys outside and play in the puddles or collect the rain water in your buckets. Find a “stream” and race a light toy in it. Use your outside chalk and “paint” in the rain.
Here are ideas for fun with water inside or out like making your own little boats.
See who can collect the most worms.

Here are great indoor fun ideas for kids of all ages, and some of these ideas will maybe let you get some things done around the house while the kids are busy too!
Make a tiara

Lastly here are some fun craft ideas for Easter or Spring.

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I have noticed just how expensive board games can be. Were they always this expensive and I never noticed? I love board games and I love playing them with my kids.
One of my favorite games as a child is so easy to make: Memory. Making it can be a family activity and then playing it is a whole other day of fun!

You can buy a box of blank index cards or a cut out cards from a sheet of cardboard all exactly the same size. Let the kids decorate the cards with pictures but make sure they make a match for each card!

Or you can find old photgraphs (upload and print some pictures using free photogrpahs for new members from a lot of the online photography sites), or photos in a magazine and cut them in half, this way the player doesn’t have to find the match but the other half!

Lay all the cards down, photo side down.
Each player takes turns turning over two cards each time. When teh player finds a match, they put those in their pile and take an additional turn.
Game ends when all the cards are gone and the winner is the person with the most matches!

Very fun game and can be played without an adult-which is fantastic for me somethimes!

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My twins just turned six years old! My family had been asking me what to get them for their birthdays and I told them to get my kids board games. Perfect for winter indoor fun or for travel, board games are more fun than ever.

Log Jam
1-4 plyers
4 and up

Each child takes turns pushing plastic logs out of the dame, trying to collect two of each color. IF the pile is moved too much, the beaver’s teeth chatter and that person has to put his log back onto the pile. Very cute game.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go
2-4 players
8 and up

This game is based on the great Dr. Seuss book. Each person tries to get four cards to creat a life path and they have to make choices, like would you rather. IF someone guesses your answer you earn a card and that person gets a ticket, that can help them.
Very cute game to get to know freinds or family members.

Cranium: Family Edition
4 or more players
8 and up

This is my favorite game, hands down. Players are in two teams and you have to work yoru way aroud the baord completeing your various activities, like drawing with your eyes cloed or spelling backwards. This is a great game for adults AND children.

What are your favorite board games to play as a family or your children’s favorite games?

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Electronic Arts has partnered with board game and toy company Hasbro, announcing Hasbro Family Game Night, a collection of classic board games for the Wii and PlayStation 2. This game debuted late in 2008, and includes a wide assortment of your favorite Hasbro games you know and love. Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, Sorry, Connect Four and the newest game: Sorry! Sliders.

You get to play the classic games just like you remember or play the new version if you want a different way to play.
This isn’t just about teh games, you can also build and decorate a virtual game room, earn trophies, and play various mini-games, perfect for younger players.

Even though my kids are just starting out playing video games, we really enjoyed this game. This is a great game for some family time and you will never not be able to play because you are missing pieces!

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My kids are just getting into playing games on the computer. They loved the Thanksgiving and Halloween printouts and games I found for them. It surprised even me, how many things there are for them to do online, since they are only just beginners on the computer. Here are some things I have found that I know my kids love, we love and I know you will love too.

Go check out the Northpole for fun stories and activites. While you are there send a letter to Santa.

Whether you are baking Christmas cookies, putting up the tree or doing your homework play some Christmas music. This site has a ton of free streaming Christmas music stations.

This web site has all the answers to question you may have about Christmas traditions. It has Christmas tree facts, the history of mistletoe and Mrs. Claus or find out about Christmas traditions around the world.

If you are looking for some Christmas games to keep your kids occupied while you wrap gifts, try this site or this one.

Go elf yourself! Turn yourself and up to three other people into elves that sing and dance and is truly addicting. Call in and get your voice elfed too! This is so funny, we did our whole family and sent it to all of our family.

Lastly, get some Christmas jokes for your parties this year, track where Santa is on Christmas Eve, get the real lyrics to the carols you have been singing and do some crafts with your kids.

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My kids have been into making books lately. they started making small books at school and now want to make them at home. I think it is a great idea to get their creative juice flowing, a great way to introduce reading and spelling and it makes a great gift or keepsake.
Make your own books at home:

Easy Peasy Book: Just fold a few sheets of paper like a greeting card. Staple down the crease. Let your kids do the rest.

Advanced Book making: Do the same as above but dion’t use a stapler, instead punch two holes along the edge and thread a ribbon or old shoe lace through each hole and tie!

A Shape Book: Stack several sheets of paper and cut into a simple shape (heart, cat, egg, tree, cloud,) and just staple the left edge.

You can also laminate each page at Staples and then punch a hole through it to make a more durable book.
If you want to go high tech, scan your children’s artwork and add the story line text to a make your own book at shutterfly or ofoto.com, where small soft cover books start at around $6.00 or you can go to blurb.com and their books start about $13.00. Make sure you add your child’s name and date to the back.
Check out this website for more book making ideas!
Check out my other ideas for indoor fun this winter.

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I am traveling with my kids by car this weekend. I am going by myself and I have to say I am anxious and nervous. It reminded of me when we flew with our kids for the first time.
We first took our kids on a airplane when they were nine months old. Since then they have been on three other flights. I was always nervous about flying with them, how they would react, how they would deal with sitting for a three + hour flight. I have always been pleasantly surprised.

I had a plan. I would have bottles ready for them during takeoff and landing. I had baby tylenol ready to go in case someone was miserable. I put away some of their toys weeks before our flight so they would be all new to them when we got on the plane.

When they were a little older I worried they would want to get down and walk around, explore. They sure did but I redirected their attention to the new little toys I had bought at the dollar store before our trip like crayons, books, molding clay and toy cars. It worked. Snacks in your carry on or purse are like gold.
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Halloween is today. If that catches you of guard, that may mean you are a procrastinator. I understand, holidays can sneak up on you. I have some last minute costume ideas and fun games and things to do with your kids before it is time to go out and collect all that candy.

Do it yourself last minute costume ideas:

Tourist: Get a hat, sunglasses and hang a camera around your neck

Cookie: Dress in all brown and pin felt colored circles all over to look like M&Ms

Mummy: wrap your self in toilet paper. Enough said!

Athlete: dress up in a old jersey or uniform. Bring along a ball.

If all else fails call up family members, or neighbors and ask if they have a costume that you can borrow.

How about you make masks of everyone in your family and then trade them. Be your husband or daughter for Halloween and have them be you or their brother. This could be fun all year long!

This is a great site for simulating a pumpkin carving. It kept my kids fascinated for hours. Here is another one that is better for older kids.
Ben and Jerry’s has not only recipes and crafts ideas but also print outs and games.

Remember to go over safety tips with your kids and be safe out there!
What is your favorite last minute costume idea?

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