roundabout's Profile

We also have a mad dash after work/daycare pick-up to make dinner happen. We get in the door as a family shortly before 6:00, and I have to IMMEDIATELY start preparing dinner. This is often a fraught time, as the kids are tired and hungry and want undivided attention. I've been doing very quick, easy things (pasta, soups, omelettes) that are ready in 30 minutes. So, we're eating closer to 6:30 these days and my 1.5 year old is going upstairs to bath and bed immediately after dinner (the 3.5 year old goes to bed later). It's a real crunch and I wish we could get home even half an hour earlier, but that's not possible so I'm hoping we'll just all adjust.

I love the aesthetic of this room — white with the pops of red. This is what I'd like to do for my daughter's room one day: predominantly white with some colourful accessories.
Philosophically, however, I don't care for the idea of a bedroom being a playspace. I prefer to keep the bedroom strictly as a place for sleep and quiet time. My son's room has a couple of stuffed animals and his bookshelves, and that's it — I don't really want him to be tempted to get up and play when he should be sleeping (and, as Dulcibella points out, when they are quite small, kids don't want to play in their bedrooms by themselves in the daytime either).

The year my now-husband and I moved in together, we bought a pair of stockings to fill for one another. I think they might have been from Restoration Hardware? They're both knit, and red and white (one with stripes and one with a snowflake pattern). They look slightly old-fashioned but are simple, which suits our decorating style. When our son was born, I bought him a handmade red wool felt stocking at a craft show. And then when my daughter was born, my childhood stocking (red, quilted, with an angel applique) surfaced and that's what my daughter uses now. So we have four different stockings that are all different in style, but they're all red so they look nice hanging together.

This looks so welcoming — you can spy all kinds of interesting things to do, but everything has enough breathing room. Very well considered and executed — I love all the little separate play zones. Lucky kids who get to play here!

This is adorable. I'm bookmarking this idea!

I kept a paper journal during my first pregnancy, and now for my second pregnancy (and actually I have continued them since then). I don't suppose that my children will be interested in them for a long time to come, but in the meantime, they're a great keepsake for me and a way to keep track of all the little details that I would have forgotten already.

I have several carriers, and I liked all of them for different reasons. I really loved the Moby wrap when my son was a newborn: it does have more of a learning curve, but once you figure it out, nothing felt cozier for me and my son. As he got older, the Ergo became our carrier of choice, and my husband will wear it too. Our other carriers I use only in certain circumstances: Hotsling in the diaper bag (for unexpected baby-carrying needs and hip carries), Babyhawk (for when baby is small, or for tying on overtop of a coat). For my next baby I am going to try out a ring sling.

We have the Edinburgh book, and I'd love to pick up some of the others. My son is not even two, and the text is way over his head, but he loves the illustrations. We just paraphrase what is going on in the illustrations. He calls it his "castle book."

We only did a small, family-only party for my son's first birthday, so party favours weren't an issue. There seems to be a trend at my son's daycare that when one of the children in the toddler room celebrates a birthday, the parents leave a goodie bag in every child's cubby to take home. The bags are pretty much filled with disposable stuff. I appreciate the thought, but I really don't want to dole out a bunch of throwaway toys to the entire classroom. Am I total grinch for forgoing this tradition? Of course the kids will never notice; it's the other parents.

We live in a small two-storey house (bedrooms and bath upstairs). My son is only 1.5, so he doesn't have very many toys yet. We keep a small bin of toys and a bin of books downstairs in the living room, and a few more books upstairs in his (tiny) room. We are in the process of finishing our basement, and our plan is to treat that as more of a playroom as our son gets older (for bigger toys). The bedrooms are really too small for much toy storage, plus I prefer the rooms to be as calm and clutter-free as possible to promote sleep.