happybirthday's Profile

I love this post. At our house, I would love to get rid of everything but the Legos/Duplos, blocks, marbles/marble tower, dolls, dress-ups, train tracks, and art supplies. Potato head could stay, too.

Alas, I'm not in charge of that (my husband would die), so in the meantime I just keep most of the rest of it locked up ;-)

One more comment though: when my oldest was a baby, I lovingly developed a collection of musical toys. I found a set of pretty hand bells, an accordion, a recorder, some drums, a tambourine, etc. Now, they live on a very, very high shelf until my kids show a little volume control or some type of musical inclination. What results is always an AMAZING cacophony of sound...which drives me absolutely bonkers. I wish it weren't so, but it sure is!

Yet...I'm still longingly drawn to the xylophones...and have to tell myself to step.away.now.

*we had to move him to another home not just because of the biting issue, but because we were moving out of state. The apartment complex we HAD to move into, no choice (my husband was in a grad student program, and as student housing, it was the only affordable option) had a strict no-dogs policy. THAT was a hard choice, too.

Someone asked this earlier but it was never addressed - what is the recommendation for bassinets? Most of them basically have built-in bumpers. And no open sides.

For that matter, the hospital bassinets don't have open sides, either (plastic buckets!), but I suppose very few 24-hour-old babies are rolling over...(my first was rolling over at 10 days, though)

I used a bumper with my first two. It was very thin, and I pushed it all the way down (so only a couple of inches was showing), just to prevent binkies falling out, and arms and legs going through (which they did, all the time, anyway). With a third in the planning stages, I'll definitely be reconsidering.

Oh....and the IKEA tub is only $6.99. So if it doesn't work for you - it's not a lot of money out of pocket.

We qualify for free lunch while my husband is finishing his PhD. It's not an absolute economic necessity, but my kindergartner was bringing home half-eaten lunches every day, begging to eat school lunch. And buying lunch food (even non-packaged food) to send IS more expensive than when we used to eat at home all together. So we decided to give school lunch a try.

I haven't actually tried it myself, but our school does have a decent salad bar with fresh fruits and vegetables, and my son loves it. They have 3 different entree options, including a vegetarian one. It's certainly not organic or anything, but I feel that 180 (minus the occasional sack-lunch and sick day) meals out of 1,095 a year is probably ok.

And I think it's definitely an improvement over the cafeteria fare in my day - which ALWAYS included some kind of dessert, like a cutie-pie.

So I don't know if our food is better than average, or if I'm deluding myself, but it's working out ok for us.

I can appreciate this for what it is...but it still looks like the 80s to me.

That said, I'm sure the fact that I have a rotary phone in my home makes my parents cringe in the same way *shrug*

I guess it's a sign I'm getting old!!

Growing up, my mom plastered the wall of a long hallway with maps. We loved hanging out there and looking at exotic places. Whenever I hear of somewhere, I still have a longing to go find it on my wall (not the internet, not on a tiny globe). When I was all pretentious at age 20, I thought she should have done it with beautiful, matching frames, rather than just taping it to the wall. Now as a mother of 2, I'm proud she just DID it without waiting for the cash and/or "perfect" frames to come along.

No link to actual recipes.

We saw these planter boxes in Sweden, and I've been in love with them ever since. We just have to figure out where/how to put them up at our rental!

Video games (and anything but public television) were forbidden at my house when I was a kid. My two sisters and I grew into (I think) nice, respectable, well-educated people.

Video games and most television (though nothing too violent, and in moderation) were allowed at my husband's house growing up. He and his four siblings turned into nice, respectable, well-educated people.

It made me feel funny when my husband bought a Wii, but we have spent some fun family time playing the sports/fit/driving games.

I am still opposed to violent video games, though.