Mama Bear Shares

Speed Cleaning Tips

2009-08-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

Back to School

2009-08-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

As the school year quickly approaches, with my 5-year-old starting kindergarten, my 2-year-old going to a new family daycare, and myself taking on three classes (instead of the usual two) this semester, I'm scouring the Web for back-to-school tips to help make our transition easier. I figure this is a good place to collect them all.

Lunch Ideas

Veggie cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
BBQ Chicken Wrap: sliced chicken nuggets, cucumber spears, BBQ sauce, spinach, all in a flour tortilla
Chicken salad sandwich from leftover chicken (awesome recipe from Todd English)
Pesto Pasta salad (Todd English again) Can add pieces of chicken/ham
Make a bunch of PB&J sandwiches at once and freeze them
Crackerwiches: skip the bread, and make a sandwich with crackers instead. Look for oversize or fun-shaped multigrain varieties, and serve with cheese, turkey, chicken, peanut butter, hummus, or cream cheese.
6 Turkey Sandwich Ideas
Stuffed baked potatoes: yummy even at room temperature. Microwave a small potato, cut it in half, and fill each half with chopped broccoli and cheese or black beans and salsa. Wrap tightly.
Sandwich on a stick
Wraps: possible ingredients are tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, blt, cream cheese, crunchy vegetables
Trail mix (or monkey mix)
Baloney Boat: turkey Bologna and cheese on a hotdog bun
Any sandwich in a pita pocket
Silly face sandwich
Other lunch and snack ideas from Family Fun

Routines/Systems

Set table for breakfast when clearing dinner dishes.
Set out clothes, make lunch, and pack backpack the night before
Create a night time and morning visual checklist to help kids prepare
Make pancake batter Sunday evenings (enough for several days)
Instead of nagging to get dressed, have a race to see who can get dressed first
Tips for morning routing from Family Fun

Other stuff

My Name Is Chicken Joe

2009-08-01T08:08:00.001-07:00

Open Animal Faced Sandwiches

2008-07-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

This is a scan of a handout that came home with my son from preschool. It immediately made me think of my friend Alyssa because it's just the kind of special cute thing I could see her doing with her girls (and now boy! yay! but he won't be able to eat the sandwiches for a while).

So the handout loitered around various stacks of papers in my house for a few months, and then it hung out in the van for a while, because I was going to xerox it and mail her a copy. And then it somehow made it back into the house and, if you can tell by looking at the image, got soaking wet in the kitchen. Instead of letting it dry and curl up, I decided it would be best to scan it while it was wet, and email it to Alyssa. Email is not as good as regular mail, but it's more likely to happen in this house, obviously!

2008-01-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

Baby-Led Weaning

2007-12-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Family Fun

I totally stole this month's Family Fun Magazine from my doctor's office because it's chocked full of fun, easy Christmas crafts. And when I say easy, I mean that from a busy working mother (of two)'s perspective.

Here's a link directly to the Christmas crafts.

2007-12-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

MomAdvice: Insight to Empower

2007-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

signingtimekids.org

2007-06-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sparkability

Out of Portland, Maine, this shop is full of just about the cutest baby gear and furniture I've ever seen and will never own, not even items on the sale page. But if I've got a wealthy admirer out there in cyberspace, the Goodnight Glider and Ottoman may just win me over...

2007-05-30T12:44:00.000-07:00

Relevant Times

Holistic Moms Network

I'm not sure why I get so mad when people call me a hippie. Maybe it's because I grew up making fun of hippies. Maybe it's because I've always strongly resisted categorization, which is kind of a hippie thing to do in and of itself...

All hippie tendencies aside, as a mother I surely lean further away from the crunchy end of the spectrum than toward it. I use disposable diapers, paper towels, feed my kids plenty of good old American processed food, and seldom walk anywhere. But as I watch Jonas grow, and think about all I've learned, and how it will affect this new life very nearly bursting out of my belly as I type this, I feel myself quietly, secretly, cautiously sticking my big toe in the un-polluted waters of social and environmental consciousness. After all, I want to give these boys the best possible fuel for their bodies and minds, and maybe even do my best to make sure the world is still around when they grow up and have their own children.

So anyway, as much as hyper-judgmental organic earth mothers annoy the crap out of me, I'm thinking of joining our local chapter of the Holistic Moms Network. Maybe I'll learn a few things, and maybe I will meet a like-minded mommy who's there for the same reasons, and we can laugh at the hippies together.

2007-05-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

thebabywearer.com

With baby #2 preparing to make his grand entrance in a few weeks, AJ and I have been talking about purchasing a sling. I used a home-made (in someone else's home LOL) upright carrier for Jonas and I would happily use it again. But babies always look so snuggly in their slings, we want to give it a try.

As with anything to do with tiny humans, the choices are practically infinite...and are likely not to make a bit of difference. But I have a hard time with choices, from ordering food in a restaurant to picking my children's names, and always need to feel confident I've made the "right" one.

So, after poking around online for 5 minutes in search of reviews for baby slings, I found this website. Although it borders on giving too much information (again, as with any subject relating to babies) it's a good resource for learning about baby "wearing" (so they truly have become accessories at this point?) from reviews, to instructions on making your own sling, to baby sling trouble shooting.

Now I have to go decide.

2007-03-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Working Mother

"Serving women boldly for over 25 years, Working Mother is the only national magazine that helps career-committed moms balance their personal and professional lives.

As the vibrant voice of 2.2 million working mothers, Working Mother supports and empower today's working moms in their pursuit of success--however they define it. Our three editorial sections You, Work, Family celebrate the complexity, humor and richness inherent in being a real working mom. And through our groundbreaking initiatives, Working Mother has proven itself to be a serious advocate for the issues that matter most to working women. "

100 Best Companies 2006 for working mothers.

2007-03-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

KidsHealth.org

My friend Alyssa passed this onto me.

KidsHealth is the largest and most-visited site on the Web providing doctor-approved health information about children from before birth through adolescence. Split into 3 main sections, KidsHealth provides a wealth of superbly-organized information for:

Parents - Practical parenting information and news.
Kids - Homework help and how the body works.
Teens - Answers, advice, and straight talk.

Thanks Lyss!

2007-03-01T10:43:00.000-08:00

What to Expect When You're...

I don't know if there's a single mother out there who didn't devour What to Expect When You're Expecting while pregnant, and other books in the subsequent series (What to Expect the First Year, the Toddler Years, etc.)

Heidi Murkoff must be vacuuming Cheerios out of the back seat of a pretty fancy car by now... Who'm I kidding? I'm sure she can pay someone to do that.

Well, as with everything, there's a website. It's pretty much one-stop-shopping when it comes to information about pregnancy and beyond. Too much to list here.

One neat thing I found on the site is the What to Expect Foundation which provides education and support to needy families "so they, too, can expect healthier pregnancies, safer deliveries and happier babies."

2007-02-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

Characteristics of Successful Single Parenting, by Dr. Stephen Duncan

Once again, in the sea of negativity aimed towards single parenting, here's another ray of sunshine. This article is one page long, and delivers exactly what the title says it will.

A collection of papers and articles about single parenting (Under "Papers" don't click on #1 unless you're looking for porn...Yes, yes, it's a sick sad world.)

2007-02-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Helping Kids Deal with Anger

More on this later. I'm too angry now. Just kidding...I gotta run.

2007-02-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

Parent Hacks

We parents rely on each other for quick, practical advice. Books and magazines are fine, but the real-world perspective of one’s friend, sister, neighbor, or the friend of one’s sister’s neighbor, is often the most helpful.

Parent Hacks is a collaborative weblog that collects parents’ tips, recommendations, workarounds, and bits of wisdom – their hacks – in a single pot so we can all partake. Here’s the stuff that would have been left out of the instruction manual. Oh yeah. There is no instruction manual.

We're not experts in the pediatrician-, psychologist-, or teacher- sense. We’re just out there, raising our kids, finding the little tweaks that make this crazy adventure go a little more smoothly.

(text taken straight from parenthacks.com)

2007-02-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Dr. Spock

Good ol' Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998) has been trusted for decades. Even after his death, DrSpock.com is run by a panel of experts and remains a valuable resource. This is always my first stop for quick, solid, up-to-date, non-alarmist advice. Between the vast archive of articles and message boards, there's nothing your kids can dish out that Spock can't take.

2007-02-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

PBS Kids

I'm a slightly reformed TV-Nazi when it comes to kids, and have grown to love PBS children's programming. Although I have yet to introduce Jonas to the world of computer games for fear of melting his brain and/or my hard drive, this is a PBS site and couldn't be that bad, right?

All kidding aside, this site is lots of fun. It has music, educational games, and coloring pages based on Sesame Street, It's A Big Big World, Reading Rainbow, Caillou, and all your other PBS favorites. At the bottom of the main page, you will also find links to PBS Parents and PBS Teacher Source. Good times.

2007-02-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

Coloring Castle

Without counting, I would guess there are over 100 free, printable coloring pages on this site, neatly arranged into categories, plus several links to other sites providing coloring pages. My favorites are the mandalas and geometric designs (that's right, I color.)

All you need are a box of crayons, the Adobe Acrobat Reader, and a printer.

2007-02-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

FamilyTLC.net: Tools to enhance the parent/child relationship.

This site is fantastic medicine for cabin fever. It's simple to navigate, and chocked full of activities arranged by age, yet it isn't overwhelming (it will not take more time to choose an activity than your kids will spend enjoying it.)

You will be prompted to select your child's age, then a type of activity: crafts, cooking, nature, music, games, winter, books...

The activities are fun, full of learning, with plenty of room for creative improvisation. And the cherry on top? Each activity lists a few related children's books!

2007-02-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Single Parent Bible

This Australian-published (free) online magazine created by single mother Tina Shaw, is specifically geared toward the single parent. The current issue (#8) covers subjects such as saving money, going back to work, dating, fun activities for kids, by kids, and single fatherhood, among many others.

Although I'm not sure these days, whether or not I still consider myself a single parent (in some ways I do and in other ways I don't) many of the articles in this magazine are helpful, regardless what shape your family takes. The articles are positive, well-informed, and well-written. Certain Australian specifics (products, organizations, etc.) unfortunately are not useful in America. The bulk of the publication, however, transcends cultural barriers.

Check it out!