We eventually got to the alphabet workbook. My son was really excited about having this special little workbook just for him, but he was not able to grasp what a workbook was. I showed him how to use it but he was not interested in forming letter, he just wanted to draw spiders and vampires. So I put the alphabet workbook away until he was ready. Instead his interests jumped from musical instrument to musical instrument. He appreciated music more than anything else. after he turned two even though reading sheet music will be a long way off for … Continue reading →

Learning should be fun and self propelled.  I had witness my son easily find interest in learning abouts of things that he came in contact with.   I had yet to determine definitively whether or not I should take a more active and forceful role in my son learning the alphabet. By the time my son had turned two his interests had grown exponentially but he still seemed to lack an interest in learning the alphabet. I did not push.  We were getting ready to welcome our second child and I was focused on getting things prepared for her birth.  I … Continue reading →

Low and behold I did not have enough ice cream. I quickly cleaned out the ice cream freezer barrel (after my son scooped out as much leftover ice cream as possible) so that I could get it back into the freezer. Six hours later I took it out and started freezing the rest of the ice cream base. After forty five minutes the ice cream was not freezing to my utter dismay. I racked my brain for a possible solution. Clearly the barrel was not thoroughly frozen. My first thought was that I would have to wake up at four … Continue reading →

Making chocolate wafer cookie for my son’s ice cream cake was a bit different from the kinds of cookies I normally make. Wafer cookies need to be cooked long enough to be crispy and in my mind over baked. I am a huge stickler about over baking cookies because I like my cookies soft and gooey (they taste so much better). However, I had to go against my years of baking experience and “over bake” the chocolate wafer cookies! Once my over baked cookies cooled, my son and I smashed them into small crumbs, mixed the crumbs with melted butter, … Continue reading →

My son is obsessed with birthdays. He loves to see the birthday candles lit, he loves to sing, “happy birthday,” and he loves to blow out the candles. In theory he also loves to eat the cake but more often than not he will eat the frosting and leave most of the cake. Knowing all these birthday related thing about my son, I wanted to do something a little different for his birthday cake. In preparation for my son’s third birthday, I decided to make him an ice cream cake instead of the more standard birthday cake. While my son … Continue reading →

Vacuums have garnered the notoriety from small children for being terrifying monstrous machines. The sheer size of an average sized vacuum to a newly crawling or walking child is undoubtedly petrifying in their eyes. In combination with the growling loud noise the vacuum makes, it is no wonder that small children find this common household item to be so scary. Among the numerous young children that have jarring fears of the vacuum cleaner, I too have faint memories of running and hiding from the running vacuum cleaner. That fear eventually turned into mild amusement and finally mundane disdain (since I … Continue reading →

My two year old, who is almost three, is a really busy guy his non stop energy is …. well non stop! After a very busy morning of running around the house, jumping on the couch or his bed or my bed (I put a stop to that really quickly), dancing to music, playing in the sink with the claim that he is washing his hands, we begin our very busy afternoon with lunch. He will usually sit down to eat his lunch but in a matter of minutes he is up doing the next thing. Since it has been … Continue reading →

My son is a busy guy. His day begins when ever he wakes up (like most kids) usually around eight in the morning. Sometimes he will climb into our bed with some toys and play which always involves playing with his baby sister. Rousing us (the parents) at eight in the morning is sometimes difficult given how late we end up going to bed, but he does a fairly good job by climbing on us and typically putting his feet, knees, elbows, or hands in our faces. Now that he is potty trained, he will need to use the potty … Continue reading →

As I was helping my son fall asleep, I was thinking about the potential problems that I am created by actually helping him fall asleep. So many of the other moms of young boys that I know do no such thing as laying down in their son’s bed to help him fall asleep (I must be crazy). A small part of me wishes that I could get my son to just go to sleep on his own without being scared. Perhaps this is a behavior that I can teach my two year old, but as I lay next to my … Continue reading →

Before we began this potty training journey, I was positively terrified. I did not know what to expect and I did not know how successful we would be after several failed attempts. It seemed to be an arduous task that all parents have to tackle at some point in their child’s development. My only real experience with potty training was as a nanny. The parents did all the work, I just followed their instructions and never gave potty training another thought. It was quite different when I was faced with potty training my own child knowing that I would have … Continue reading →