Calendar fun

Do you use a monthly calendar? I always used a planner as a teacher, then started to rely on the calendar on my smart phone when I became a stay at home mom. However, I always printed a calendar to hang on the fridge so I could see what was going on. 

I was inspired by this post at Buggy and Buddy to start doing a calendar with Little Guy. In mid January we hit a calendar store in the mall and Little Guy and I picked out calendars. He found a National Geographic Giraffe calendar and I found one with big squares, a pocket, and a magnet to hang on my fridge.  It has now become part of our weekly and daily routine to look at his calendar, and I am loving having a big calendar to hang on my fridge!

What do we do with his calendar?

• Monthly: We use a highlighter to make a square around the days Daddy does not work.  We also will mark any days that are certain, like birthdays.

•  Weekly: We write all the events and outings that planned for the week.  We include things like Stroller Strides, story time at the library, play dates, and even things like going to the grocery store.

• Daily: We look at the calendar in the morning.  On weekdays, it is at the beginning of our Tot School time; on weekends it usually occurs after breakfast.  We cross off the previous day and look at what things are going on for today.  We also sing the days of the week song.  This version goes like this (sung to the tune "Down by  the Station Early in the Morning"):

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Saturday is the last day

and that makes a week.

Little Guy loves to look at his calendar and reminds me every morning that we need to look at it for the day.

Have you tried using a calendar with your tot?

Weekly Cleaning

As a stay at home mom (or as a person with a house to take care of), there seems to always be something to clean or straighten or wash or organize or...you get the picture.  To help me stay on top of my cleaning, I am working on a weekly cleaning schedule.  The start of a new year seems like a good time to solidify some good habits (or maybe even start them!).  While I am not the best housekeeper, I do like my house to look nice and put together, so having a schedule helps me to stay on top of the tasks.  I started out using the home management calendar from JustMommies, but found I needed to personalize the tasks based on my preferences and house.

There are things that get done everyday (like doing dishes) and things that happen once a week (like mopping).  I prefer not to do laundry everyday, but when it seems like I have a lot I wash all our clothes in one or two days. Most of my weekday tasks happen while Little Guy is napping (I don't really want him to help clean the bathroom yet).  The exception is vacuuming.  I don't like to vacuum upstairs while he is sleeping, and he actually really enjoys vacuuming! 

So, here is my cleaning plan!

Note: I know that blogging is not cleaning!  I decided to add it onto my list to give myself permission to work on my blog.  I shifted cleaning tasks away from Tuesday so they still get done, without me feeling guilty about the time I spend on the computer!

How do you organize your cleaning?

5 Tips for Flying with a Toddler

In the last month, we have gone on 3 trips, for a total of 12 flights!  Its been a busy month, and all this travel makes me feel like (somewhat) an expert on flying with a toddler.  Here are some tips!

Take along diaper change kits. 

Each kit includes:

• a small cloth bag to hold all these items (I used some leftover 9x9 squares, sewing 2 together and putting a hem at the top.)
• a diaper (Although we use cloth diapers at home, we use disposables when we travel.)
• a disposable changing pad
• a plastic baggie with about 5 wipes
• a diaper disposal bag

I  took along 5 kits every time we flew.  It made changing Little Guy easier, as I only had to bring one of these little bags with me to the restroom, instead of lugging my backpack and having to dig everything out.  Daddy also liked it, as it made it easy for him to change Little Guy.  Items that we did not use or could reuse were simply put back into the cloth bag.  These were also helpful once we reached our destination, as when we needed to head out we just grabbed a few kits with our other stuff.

Bring baby food pouches for take-off and descent.
Little Guy enjoys sucking on these pouches of food.  I had been told to take lollipops for him to suck, but since we don't do candy with him (yet), he had no idea what to do with the lollipop.  (We tried on our first flight.  We ended up with a pink mess down the front of his shirt, as he wouldn't swallow.  Yuck!)  An added benefit of these is that it helped Little Guy to get some fruits and vegetables on our travel days, as these items were somewhat hard to find airports.

Window clings!  

I found some window clings at the dollar store.  They are easy to take with you as they are flat.  When we were fortunate enough to have a window seat (since Little Guy was under 2 he still flew for free as a lap child), they were a great source of entertainment.


















Don't be afraid to ask.
Speaking of a lap child, on a least one flight each way, we were able to get Little Guy a seat next to us by asking the gate agent if there were available seats.  We discovered that most airlines have an agent at the gate about an hour before take-off, so be sure to be ready to ask!  It was nice for the flights when it worked out!

Take a variety of toys, books, etc.

Little Guy was interested in many things.  He enjoyed looking out the window, watching the people get on and off the plane, and fidgeting (he is only 23 months, after all!).  When we were in flight, we had many things for him.  Some things were:

• Quiet Book
• window clings
• books
• cardboard lacing shapes with shoelaces
• cloth finger puppets
• plastic finger puppets that help their shapes
• zippered pouches
• crayons, small notebooks, and stickers
• magazines (even SkyMall turned out to be quite entertaining)

If you have multiple flights, you can put some things in your carry-on suitcase, and change them out at the airport.  That helps to have some new and novel things for each flight.

What tips do you have for flying with a toddler?

Cloth diapers

When Little Guy was about 7 months old, I decided to give cloth diapers a try. I was looking for some ways to save money and thought that not buying disposable diapers every month would be a good way. I started with a diaper trial from Jillian's Drawers. This allowed me to see if I liked the cloth diapers and to see if I could keep up with the laundry before making a big investment. Well, I loved them!

7 months later we are still going strong. I have now built a big enough stash that I can wash diapers every other day and allow them to hang dry. Its easy to let them hang dry in the summer, I'll re-evaluate this fall and winter! Almost all of my diapers are pocket diapers. This means that I put the absorbent part of the diaper in a pocket in the shell, and it is ready to go!  This makes it easy to put a diaper on a wiggly toddler...it goes on just like a disposable!

Here are most of our pocket diapers!

I now own 34 cloth diapers.  We spent under $400 on our diapers, including the diaper sprayer and a few other accessories!  $400 would probably only buy disposable diapers for 8 months!  We should get about 2 years worth of use with these diapers for Little Guy, and will be able to use them on a younger sibling (when that time comes!)!

Daddy even got on board with the cloth diapers!  Even though I change diapers most of the time, Daddy is still willing to change the cloth.  Our daycare even uses our cloth, too!

In addition to buying lots of cute diapers, I even made a special diaper for Little Guys birthday! He wore it during his cake smash!

Here is the diaper I made!  Isn't my model cute, too?