Saturday Links – Two Videos and Fall Art Projects

Theory Links

Video: Are Your Family’s Routines Working? – This is exactly why we have routines for everything in our house.  Routines = expected, planned good times.  Lack of routines = panicky, chaotic frustration.

Video: Baby Teamwork – I’m working hard on letting my kids solve their own problems more.  When things like this happen spontaeously between a 1- and almost-3-year-old, it shocks me.  Check it out.

One-Sided Parental Vigilance – Although I’m not on the food hypervilance wagon, I have to agree that I would like to see more studies about kids and media characters.  Not all character play is bad, mind you–I spent a good portion of my childhood playing Sound of Music with a certain friend.  But it makes me sad when young kids are totally addicted to characters on everything they own by age 3.  Childhood (and adulthood) should be a little less branded.

Activity Links

Floor Block Puzzles – I really like the idea of free form puzzles.  Sort of an easy introduction to tangrams.

Display Seasonal Books on a Stuffed Animal Chain – Good enough to go in the family room, I say.

Fun Leaf Projects for Kids – A plethora of ideas for fall themed crafts.  I’m really loving the leaf mobile.

Parenting Book Review: Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect

After reading some interesting posts on Janet Lansbury’s blog, Elevating Child Care, I was inspired to read the book her philosophy of child care is based on: Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect by Magda Gerber.  I actually read the book about a month ago, but I’ve been holding onto my review because of vacations and visitors.  The delay has given me extra time to try out some of the methods in the book and think about their effectiveness.  Overall, my reaction to this book, and my personal implementation of it, has been quite mixed.

My main gripe was that the book contains a lot of mental coaching on how to think about a situation, but was somewhat lacking in how such a mindset might lead to concrete actions.  As I’m a person who demands implementable results, this wishy-washy mindset talk drove me crazy.  It’s all fine and dandy to say that you have to adapt to new developments in your child’s behavior, but how about some concrete suggestions on how to adapt to stranger anxiety or toilet training?  Where there were concrete suggestions, they were brilliant for the most part.

Saturday Links – Top Formula Myths and Duplo Painting

Theory Links

The Top Five Formula Feeding Myths, Debunked – As a formula feeder myself, I have certainly been (unintentionally) hurt by a lot of lactivist comments.  I think every mother should know the truth and get their facts straight, whether you breastfeed or not.

Dealing with Diaper Changing Disasters – Some good go-to places for the stage Sailor’s currently in, where a diaper change is the worst thing that ever happened to him.  Some of this advice seems to have worked over the past few weeks, so we’ll see how it goes.

Activity Links

Duplo Printing – We loved painting with cars so this is the next logical step.  What other plastic toys can I hit up?

Constructive Eating – I have to wonder if this would make dinner take  more or less time.  I think some modified “pusher” tool should become the fourth official utensil, because really, spoons can be tricky devils.

Fun Uses for Kool-Aid – Because at $.10 a pop, you can always use more.

Table manners come more easily when practicing them becomes a game – So obvious. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to compete.