Tag Archives: Children
Bedroom Design: Trundle Beds
Post by Stephanie Noble.
A few weeks ago, I was settling into the couch after putting our almost two year old to bed. I was listening for the squeak of the mattress as the little man did his nightly trampoline routine that he did to wind down at the end of the night. He would generally jump for a few minutes while talking to himself, then go to sleep. I waited for the jumping, but it never came.
Instead, I heard a knock from his door, “Mamma, Daddy, Mamma, Daddy?” Our wee one had jumped out of the protection of his crib straight into the toddler sleep transition.
I went into his room, put him back into his crib and asked him to show me how he got out. He said, “One” and put his first leg over the railing. “Two” brought both legs over and my baby was suddenly dangling over the side of his crib. “Three” he jumped down and yelled “Hurray.”
His latest milestone was not greeted with the same enthusiasm that his previous accomplishments have been met with, so he kept yelling “Hurray” until I finally agreed with him with a hollow, “Yeah.”
We borrowed his cousin’s big boy bed and assembled it. I’m now going to share the parenting secret that nobody filled us in on. “Toddler sleep transition is so much worse than new born sleep deprivation.” Two years ago there was a schedule to the waking up, it was dependable and once the little man was full he’d go back to sleep.
Our toddler wakes up and thinks because he can get out of bed and wander that it must be time to get up and get started with the day.
The past month has seen us readjusting how we live to teach him how to sleep again. Currently, we alternate nights of responsibility so we know that even if we only get four hours of sleep one night, we’ll get a full night the next. That helps, but it’s still hard to go back to being mentally fuzzy most of the time.
When the call comes for parental attention, the responsible parent take the comforter off the bed in our room, throws it down on the floor in our son’s room and then sleep on the floor for the rest of the night with the boy. It’s like camping every other night. A joy at two, aching joints for the over forty crowd.
We decided that the whole camping out thing is getting old and have started looking for a trundle bed. It would be helpful not only during this time of transition, but also when he wants to have friends stay over later on. Everything in a small living space has to pull its multiple duty weight.
I was looking at the Charles P. Rogers website to get some ideas.
Here is my favorite.
I like the Chambord because it looks sturdy and would transition well from toddler to kid. It would also work later on in a library/guest room if we ever live in a bigger space. It also looks a lot more comfy than a comforter on the floor.
Bedroom Design: Decorating a sick room
Post by Stephanie Noble.
One of the best parts of being a toddler’s parent is that something new happens every day. Most days those new things are positive: discovering fire engines, going new places, and meeting new people.
Until one day the new things are dialing 911, riding in an ambulance to the hospital and meeting ER pediatric staff. Then there is nothing but fear of what –ifs, lack of sleep worries and watching for glimpses of normal.
Sometimes, the most important part of decorating a room is making sure it’s a good place to be sick and recover. Aesthetics are pushed out the door by necessity and comfort.
Here are four things to have around to make a sick room comfy cozy.
I recommend the menthol ones. Not only do they do a great job of cleaning up a snotty nose, but they smell awesome and do a great job opening up the sinuses. And after catching my son sucking on clean wipes and saying, “Tasty,” I’m glad they are alcohol free. (And yes, they are pretty minty tasting.)
A blankie, not just a random blanket from the linen closet, but the blanket that brings the patient the most comfort. My mom made quilts for my siblings and me one Christmas. Mine is a tattered yellow mess with batting hanging out of it. But it’s the one I pull out when I’m sick and want to wrap up in something soft and warm. My brother does the same thing and says it’s like being “wrapped up in your Mama’s love.”
Comfort movies. I watch the BBC Pride and Prejudice when I’m sick, the familiar words and beautiful scenery lulls me to sleep. I’ve seen it so many times that I don’t feel badly when I fall asleep and miss and entire disc. I can wake up and pick up from wherever the story is in progress. For my son, that movie is Cars. My husband and I are no completely prepared to enter any Car’s related trivia contest. We even looked up what the Ferrari says in Italian to Guido. Losing oneself in another world temporarily can take one’s mind off feeling miserable.
Comfort food. I have made stacks of pancakes in the past week because it’s the only thing that my son would eat. I found out a friend’s choice is mashed potatoes with cheese. Another friend’s is homemade biscuits with butter and honey. My husband’s comfort food is Indian food, as spicy as he can get it. Whatever it is that appeals to your taste buds is better than not eating and getting sicker.
Thankfully, our home is now in the recovery stage. I’ve noticed that there are dishes to be done, laundry to fold, flowers to plant and some airing out to do.
Cars has been replaced by Curious George and Fireman Sam. Ham and cheese omelets were dinner last night. And the blankie has been washed.
Most importantly, our son was laughing, dancing and a bit bossy this morning. Things are getting back to normal.
Bedtime Stories: Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Doctor Who: the visual by DK Publishing.
As always, the books I am exposed to are strictly at the mercy of my child’s whims. I feel pretty lucky, then, that my boy has pretty good taste. I have never been forced to recount those Disney stories, like Cars or anything about the dread purple shall-not-be-named dinosaur.
Thanks to my impulse purchase of a couple little Doctor Who figurines, my kid has developed a fascination by this newly trendy BBC science fiction. Unfortunately for him, this insanely awesome, flashy, full of weird monsters and robots and aliens show is TOTALLY inappropriate for a four-year-old. The old enemy of the Doctor, those weird metallic creatures, the Daleks, (one of the figurines I got was a Dalek) are cool looking and murderous. I can’t show him alien robots killing dozens of people!
To appease him, I tracked down a song from the 80’s about Doctor Who, and picked up this visual dictionary from the library. For hardcore nerds, this might be insufficient information; it mostly focuses on the last couple seasons of the series. For normal people, this visual dictionary, full of big full-color photos and brief descriptions of just about every aspect of the show, is fun to look at and far less scary for a kid than the show. And he gets to walk around shouting, “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!” without being exposed to actual human extermination.
Bedtime Stories: Stinky John and Stinky Skunk (or: made-up tales)
Post by Mark T. Locker
Sometimes you just run out of books to read. Sometimes you just can’t read THAT book one. more. time. Sometimes everyone is sick of every book in the house. And sometimes there just aren’t enough stories in the world to satisfy a hungry mind. I think a combination of these led to the creation of a new set of characters in the shadows of my son’s bedroom on Saturday night. The stories themselves are, needless to say, not remarkable. A fellow named John is stinky and loves stinky things: rotten onions, old socks, you name it. When he meets Stinky Skunk, their shared appreciation creates a new dynamic duo! I was going for the laugh factor here, and with a four-year-old, stinkiness is pretty low-hanging fruit.
My point here is more about the process. It’s sometimes utterly painful to try and make up a story off the top of one’s head. But the payoff is enormous. Letting my son input details into the story, like what kind of stinky stuff they like, or telling me what they find in a bush makes it much more fun. And he isn’t the world’s greatest literary critic, but seeing his eyes light up as I weave a silly, spooky adventure makes it all worthwhile.
So go tell a stupid made-up story to your kid or loved one today!
Breakfast in Bed: Bacon Biscuit Pie
Post by Alison Hein
My greatest inheritance from my maternal grandmother Emily is a pile of frayed newspaper clippings, notebooks, and handwritten, yellowed recipes. I take them out occasionally for inspiration, or for a good chuckle over popular recipes from the 1940s. But sometimes I find them frustrating – Grandma, is this page permanently marked for Glazed Baked Apples or Peach Cobbler? Who were you writing to in your handwritten Starlight Double-Delight Cake recipe when you wrote “Good luck, Little Mother”? Or were YOU the Little Mother?
Well, this time I hit paydirt when leafing through Heckers’ Household Hints. In addition to loads of great tips (e.g. – to take the place of a paper clip, go to the sewing cabinet for a dress-snap), I found many inspiring recipe ideas. Heckers’ suggests making a “Home Prepared Flour” to store in the fridge. Then, when time avails, use it to create a variety of yummy choices such as Pineapple Pom-Poms, Orange Fluff Cake, or Aunt Hattie’s Sugar Cookies. It was the Cheese Bacon Shortcake, though, that won me over. Modified, modernized and renamed for my fellow blogger friend, Bacon Biscuit (take a look at her great blog, coolcookstyle.com, I’m pretty sure the layers of crumbly, cheesy, buttery bacon-topped biscuit will grab you too. Thanks Grandma, for an inspirational breakfast in bed.
Ingredients
2 cups unbleached white flour
2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 ¼ cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 uncooked bacon strips, cut in half
Preparation
Preheat oven to 450°. Lightly grease pie pan and set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and mix with flour, using a pastry cutter if you like, until mixture resembles coarse sand. Stir vinegar into milk. Pour all at once into flour mixture, and stir until just mixed.
Roll out and press a little more than half the dough into a pie dish. Brush with melted butter and cover evenly with cheese. Pat or roll out the remaining dough into a circle slightly large enough to cover the bottom layer. Place on top of cheese. Place bacon strips on top, radiating out from the center in a star-like pattern. Bake at 450° until bacon is crisp and brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Serve immediately.
Makes one pie, about 8 servings.
