Gather up Thing 1 and Thing 2: it’s time for a Dr. Seuss-themed birthday party
You can thank Atlanta-based Uzbin Photography for making your day this much better — they recently shot a Dr. Seuss-themed birthday party for a pair of three-year-olds and now they’re sharing it with all of us.
Safety concerns on playground apparatus
Children have broken bones and injured themselves since time began. It used to be a sort of rite of passage for children. But, as playground equipment has become more sanitized because of so-called safety (read: liability) issues, I hear about injuries less and less. On the face of it, less injury sounds like a good thing, right? But less injury actually might mean less meaningful play and comprehensive exercise.
How can I talk about death with my young child?
Before my daughter was born, two of my sisters had stillborn sons at full term. We still routinely mention the boys, and there are pictures of them in my sisters’ houses. At some point my daughter is going to start asking about who they were and what happened to them, and I’m completely at a loss for how to answer her questions.
A thrift store play kitchen makeover for a little kid’s room
I started the makeover by deciding what I wanted the kitchen to look like. I had already used apple red spray paint when I created Jax’s chalkboard, so I chose that for the main body. His table and chairs are aqua and lime (as well as the shelves I recently put in), so those became the accent colors. I had some leftover glitter paint from a Christmas ornament project, and I knew that would be perfect for hiding any water damage I couldn’t sand out.
Greeting a returning Marine — in photos
This session was shot recently by New Jersey-based Megan Gray Photography. Three members of the Caballero family were getting ready to greet their fourth, who was returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, at the airport. The father had never met his recently-born-son, and this was his first major deployment away from his three-year-old daughter. As you can imagine, much happiness and tears ensued.
What kinds of books are best for encouraging multi-lingual kids?
My husband has German as a mother tongue and we’re planning on him speaking in German to the future kids. While not pregnant yet, we’re tight on budget so we’d love to stock up on books slowly so we have one less expense when the time comes.
How a purple fairy helped our son ditch his pacifier for good
I noticed that my son’s addiction and attachment to his binky/pacifier (“smukk”) was starting to become just as much of a security blanket for me and my husband as for himself. We had great plans of keeping it to night — and naptimes only, but often it was brought out during extenuating circumstances like boo-boos, travels, car-rides, transitions times etc. Then it became a fight. We were not consistent about our rules, so the screaming and tantrums would often elicit more willingness to dig it out of the pocket.
Books explaining tattoos, piercings, and other body modification
My husband and I both have tattoos, and our son is just used to them. He likes fake tattoos (he gives them to himself and us with markers, and he also likes the rub-on kind), and is amused by our body decoration, but doesn’t really seem to care either way. I’m sure at some point he’ll ask why some people have tattoos, piercings, and so on and others don’t, so it’s cool to know these books exist.