Awesome iPhone apps!

Well I know I haven’t been around for a while.  Things have been overly crazy here and I have not had a free second to blog in, much less to think about things to blog about!  But I’m back, at least sporadically.

The iPhone has been the very best toy we have ever had.  Of course it’s not a toy, really.  But it is!  I keep a solid case on it to protect against drops, put some fun games on it for my daughter, and she love love loves it and is a total pro at swiping and moving things around on there.  There are tons of apps in the app store for toddlers, but some are more worth the time/trouble/cost than others.  Here are some of our favorites.

Adam’s Game:  Toddler Flash Cards
This game is really cute, and good for iPhone beginners.  My daughter (almost 3) is bored with it now, but loved it for a long time.  It shows 3 pictures of things, and says “find the ____”.  Find the apple, find the triangle, all different kinds of things.  If the child doesn’t get it right, a little kid’s voice says “Uh oh!”  If they do, lots of kids say “YAY!!!”   You can also program it with your own voice and pictures, which is a really cool feature.  Lots of fun, and only $.99.

Sid’s Microphone
By PBS, and free!  This game is exactly what it sounds like.  The screen turns into Sid’s microphone with all the buttons Sid pushes on the show.  Children can record and play back their own voice.   Cute!

Preschool Arcade
One of our very very favorites, this game has 3 little games reminiscent of our own arcade games from our youth.  One game is kind of like space invaders, except that a voice announces a letter, the child touches the right letter, and the space ship flies there.  It is so cute!  Another is like one of those claw games in arcades, except it is shape matching.  So it shows you the shape of a truck, you have to touch the truck, then the claw reaches down and grabs it.  Very, very cute!  I wish they’d come out with more games for this one.   The pinball game has not been as big a hit with Bella, but this one is worth the price for the other two games.

Preschool Adventure
Also by 3DAL (makers of Preschool Arcade, above), this one is a great first game.  It doesn’t require the child to do anything more than touch things and enjoy.  The voice that goes with the game is lovely, sweet, friendly, clear and easy to understand.   The numbers (dot to dot) game is a bit more challenging for those children who are ready for that.  This company also makes Make a Martian, which is really fun, and Preschool Music.  But Arcade and Adventure are IMO the best!

Peekaboo Barn
Peekaboo Barn (and now Peekaboo Wild) are absolutely adorable, easy, enchanting for little ones.  Lots of fun and very simple.   The barn sort of wiggles, and you hear an animal sound.  Tap the barn and the view zooms in, the door opens, and you see the animal making the sound.  Then it does it again with a different animal.  At the end all the animals are asleep.  Cute!  There are free versions of both Barn and Wild that you can try out.

The Little Red Hen
This is a story that can be read to your child or they can read themselves and it is ADORABLE.  The voice reading is a child herself, and bonus for us Americans who love accents… she has an English accent.  The story is timeless and lovely and the animals all make sounds if you touch them, including the mouse who says very quietly… “Squeak, SQUEAK.”  It is seriously so cute.   Bella loves this one!

First Words:  Animals
Well, we have Animals, but they have several other versions.  This is great.  There is a picture of the word, for example a picture of a Fish.  Four boxes for the letters to go, with a shadow of each letter for the child to see.  The letters are jumbled up at the bottom and the child needs to drag each letter to the correct box.  The narrator reads the word at the end.

ShapeBuilder
This game is *awesome.*  It is so simple, and yet is the single game that has held Bella’s attention for the longest.  But she loves puzzles, so if your child is not into puzzles this may not be a hit of the same magnitude… they have a free version so it is worth trying to see!

There are lots of other games we’ve tried, but these are our favorites so far!

Edited: November 20th, 2009

A spooooky work in progress…

A spooky mess!

Right now it’s kind of a mess, but what it’s going to be … hopefully, eventually, hopefully soon!  Is a ghostly, spooooOOoOOooky haunted house playset for Bella… complete with a family of little white ghosts!

She is very excited about this project and was determined to help paint.  She helped paint the actual house for 5 seconds flat before she was covered head to toe in black paint.  She painted the little wooden ghosts with gobs and gobs of white paint (for that 3D effect!) and when I told her how well she was doing, she kindly said to me:  “I can teach you Mommy!”

More pictures to come when the spookiness has progressed a bit…

Edited: September 25th, 2009

A fascinating story of gender, or lack thereof

I recently read this story, about a Swedish family who are not revealing their child’s gender until the child chooses to do so. It’s quite interesting and a few important points before you even begin to ponder this; the child is not being forced, the child is being provided with accoutrements of both genders and allowed to freely choose, the gender of the child is not being *hidden* from the child, just not shared with anyone outside the family.

Really interesting to me in light of the fact that last night was the first time Bella ever corrected my pronouncement of the gender of a character in a book. Since so many books (the vast, vast majority) are written about little boys, or using “he” pronouns throughout in the case of animals, I often switch it up and just say that the character is a little girl with short hair.

Last night Bella said to me, as though it were obvious; “NO Mommy, he is a boy!”

For the record, this is the book, and it is positively lovely.

This comes simultaneously with her telling me, yesterday, for the first time ever; that her favorite color is… pink!

I want her to be who she wants to be, but I worry so much about the exposure and influences of the world around her.  When a child chooses a thing, that choice is reinforced (or not) in so many ways. 

Say a little girl chooses a pink dress, and people go on and on and on about how pretty she is in her little pink dress, and isn’t she a little princess… and then at the bookstore walking around browsing, she sees so many books with little girls dressed in pink dresses or dressed up like princesses… and then she sees a few Disney Princess movies… and then she sees a few commercials featuring princesses…And the next thing you know, a princess obsession is born and your house looks like a giant pepto bismol spill.

Don’t get me wrong; I love pink. Just not too much pink!

I really hope that if my daughter chooses to be a princess, I can help her become one of the self-rescuing kind.

Edited: July 1st, 2009

Soooooooooo FRUSTRATED!

This is probably what I get for waiting until the very last minute to do what I wanted to do for Father’s Day, but this week has been cuh-razy… hence the whole no posting situation. So tonight I told my husband to go lie down, he is exhausted and wasn’t feeling great, and I’d stay up with Bella. So that we could…

Bake COOKIES!

Chocolate chip cookies, to be specific, because those are my husband’s absolute favorite. I don’t make them often because, hey… I love them too, and I’m trying to lose here, not gain. Also, self control? I haz none. So. Cookies! I made this recipe, and if I may say so; this is The Cookie Recipe. Oh, my gosh. They came out AMAZZZZZING. To die for, really, and I have made many a batch of cookies before for Charlie. But they just came out so big, so soft, so chewy, so perfect in every way! And I swear, I am not that great a baker.

While the cookies were cooling, I took Bella upstairs to her room to play. While there, she ran into the bedroom to poop on her little potty in there. (In our house, “her” room is her playroom, and the bedroom is all of our bedroom, and her upstairs potty is in there.) She had a ginormous poop, then ran back to play. I got everything cleaned up, went into her room to check on her. Lately, she’s gotten very very scared of our dog. This seems unrelated, but it’s not; every time she thinks she hears him coming, she runs to “hide” from him. Which is crazy because it is not like he comes up to her; but he is a big dog, and has accidentally run over her one time too many I think, in spite of my best efforts at prevention. Anyways, hearing him coming or thinking he is coming is really stressing her out lately.

I decided to run downstairs to plate up the cookies and make her a bedtime bottle, and closed the door to the bedroom before I went. I wanted her to know Tramp would not come and bug her in her room while I was gone for a few minutes. Just as I turned to go downstairs, she let out a HUGE fart, and I had this very brief flash of “Oh, maybe she needs to poop again.” But I knew she had just gone a HUGE one so decided she was probably just gassy.

Famous last thoughts.

I ran downstairs, made a gorgeous cookie tower for my honey, put his card there, and got her a bottle. I kept listening, but did not hear any hollering, shrieking, stomping, or other assorted panicky or distressed sounds. I even called up once to let Bella know I was almost done. I was only gone for about five minutes.

As I went back upstairs, I heard whimpering type sounds coming from the bedroom, and then as I reached the upstairs landing, Bella came running out to me saying “Mommy, I so FRUSTRATED! I did a poopy on the floor Mommy!!!!” Oooooooh, my! I said, “You did? Can you show Mommy?” She showed me, and. Well. It really wasn’t that huge a deal, honestly, but it was a pretty messy poop. Kind of adorable how there were a few specks on one side of the room and then the big end result in the corner, behind her playstand, like she went to go hide and poop in the corner.

This whole time I am thinking that this is my fault; I closed the bedroom door, so she literally had no access to her own potty. And I was having flashbacks to being about 3 or so and for some reason pooping on the floor right next to the potty, and getting spanked, and feeling so ashamed. So with all that running through her mind, I got things together (wipes, got her cleaned up, etc), and told her that it was not her fault, it was Mommy’s fault, and I was sorry, and that it was ok. She just kept saying “I so FRUSTRATED Mommy!” As I picked up the mess, she said “I feel better now, I’m happy now Mommy!” My sweet angel!

Then I put her on my back and attacked the carpet with the carpet cleaner, and now she is snoozing peacefully upstairs. My sweetie. I feel terrible that I put her in that position, but also so proud of her and that she was not ashamed, just frustrated, that she was not scared to tell me what happened, that she knew she could ask me for help. Those are all amazing, wonderful things. So much of the way I parent has to do with things that happened to me as a child (ie: aforementioned spanking), and the way those things made me feel, and the fact that I don’t ever want my child to feel those things.

The other thing running through my head is that I am a lucky lucky lucky Mommy to not have a child interested in painting with poop!!!!

Edited: June 20th, 2009

Leaping lizards!

My daughter is going through some developmental leaps, all of a sudden.  I am feeling a bit bewildered;  whether this is due to PMS or her ability to suddenly “read” so many books, I’m not sure.

When I say “read,” of course she is not really reading.  She is pretending to read books she’s memorized.  But the latest, “I like me,” really took me by surprise!  We’ve only read that about 10 or 15 times… a far cry from the dozens upon dozens of times we’ve read many of the other books she can “read” that way.

She put herself to sleep for the first time this week, making her mama proud and sad all at once.  I gave her a bottle and tucked her in on the couch with a tiny little pillow and a little stuffed panda bear given to us by a flight attendant on the way home from San Antonio.  She went right to sleep, believe it or not.

She now says things like this.  Me:  “Bella, do you need to go potty?”  Bella:  “NO Mommy, I just WENT!”  She sounds so grown up, I am not even sure how to deal with it!

Meanwhile, she is also tantruming more than ever, louder and harder than ever.  She is far less reasonable than usual, crankier, and more willing to fight.  I’m seriously bewildered and at my wits end.

So I better enjoy this nap while I can!

Edited: June 1st, 2009

And so it begins…

You want to eat whipped cream for breakfast? No, honey, no. Oh, you want mayo instead? No.
Begin 20 minute long kicking, screaming, shrieking, “DON’T YOU PUT MY MAYANAIZE ‘WAY!” spitting fury of toddler temper tantrum.
I actually wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry. A few times, I couldn’t help it, I had to look away and giggle a little… I mean the whole thing was just so ludicrous, and I did not put the mayo away, I never got it out. Not to mention the whole facet of the thing where what she is being refused is the right to eat mayonnaise with a SPOON, by itself. (Many thanks to Google for assisting me with the tricky spelling of mayonnaise. Two n’s? But, WHY?)
It really was her longest and most ferocious tantrum that I have been witness to, and I kept thinking she was just mostly hungry and if I could just get her to eat something, anything… well, anything but the mayo or whipped cream she was insisting upon, because, COME ON.
Banana? No.
Spaghettio’s? “NO WANNA SKETTIO’S!” Ok.
Eggs? “NO WANT EGGS!”
Applesauce?
Raisins? “NO LIKE RAISINS!!!”
Finally I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and she got interested and asked if she could make “ants on a log,” and of course I said yes, got out the raisins and let her put them on, and she sniffling, red-faced, tearstained, “I DID it Mommy!”
Oh, gosh, she is TWO isn’t she. I breathed a small sigh of relief and then she started smearing the peanut butter everywhere, threw a kidney bean on the floor, watched the dog eat it, then chased him demanding the bean be returned to her. I’m exhausted just thinking about it to write it all down!

Edited: May 20th, 2009

Post-nap musings….

Bella had just woken from her nap, and we were cuddling and nursing and chatting. Daddy was in the room with us, and I mentioned needing to run to the grocery store, and asked Bella if she wanted to go with me. (Charlie is doing tons of work from home right now and needs the peace.) She looked skeptical, so I thought I’d tempt her with one of her very favorite things… “You could get a balloon!” She looked at me with the most perplexed expression and replied, “But Mommy, I just GOT a yellow balloon!”
Charlie and I laughed until we cried.
She is right, too; we just got a yellow balloon the other day.
Then I said that I needed to get something to make dinner, and my husband asked her what she’d like for dinner. She put one finger on her chin, and said “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
She thought for a minute then said, “I want beans and rice and a spoon and some milk!” I was shocked, as she has never said what she’d like to eat before. Then she touched Charlie’s tummy and said, “You hungry Daddy! You need a soda! You need some beans and rice and milk for your tummy! That make you feel better Daddy!”
She is just talking our ears off lately and she has *so* much to say.
So I came downstairs and made an early feast for my family. White basmati rice, black beans, wagon wheel pasta with a little butter, and a pan full of sauteed veggies to put on top of everything, and a little parmesan on top. Yum.

Edited: May 3rd, 2009

Green bath toys…

Bella got this tea set from the company Green Toys for Christmas. These toys are made 100% from recycled milk jugs, which IMO is a pretty cool thing. I didn’t expect this to become our favorite bath toy, though!

I’ve had a very hard time finding stuff for Bella to play with in the tub that seems safe, green, and imaginative. So this is perfect. She makes coffee, tea, and sometimes, soup. She pours, fills, dumps, and has a great time. So far this is her absolute favorite bath toy, so much so that we took it with us to San Antonio when we went!
I’m not sure how I wound up first taking it into the bath tub for her to play with, but go in it did and there it has stayed. I am lusting after a pricey set from Djeco for her to play in non-bath situations, eventually.
PS, the water is blue because of food coloring. Every night she picks a color, and I put in a few drops of food coloring! Another bath game she loves!

Edited: April 7th, 2009

AAP Extends rear-facing seat requirements

News from the AAP:

New research indicates that toddlers are more than five times safer riding rear-facing in a car safety seat up to their second birthday.

Bella hated the car from birth; I used to laugh when my in-laws would talk about driving the boys (my husband and his brother) to sleep when they were babies. Of course, they were holding the babies in their arms back then, so it was a completely different thing. I spent more days sobbing at the side of the road because she would shriek every time I’d try to drive, than I can even tell you. It was absolutely brutal.
When she was about four months old, I switched her into a Britax Marathon convertible seat, also rear-facing, hoping that sitting up higher would help her be more mellow. It did, a little. So did the DVD player (as yet another of my mommy-ideals fell by the wayside in the face of a shrieking baby), a little. So did singing, a little. Nothing helped 100%, ever, not to this day, she still hates the car!
I had to turn her when she was 15 months as she reached the weight limit of her seat; 33 lbs for rear-facing! If she weren’t such a chunk she’d still be riding backwards. Honestly it didn’t make that big a difference in her hatred of being in the seat. She just hates being restrained and away from me, period!
Here’s a youtube video discussing this issue with some incredibly dramatic footage of crash-test dummies, illustrating the difference between forward-facing and rear-facing in a crash.

Edited: April 3rd, 2009

Beans go?

I made Bella a little boo-boo mitten. Just a mitten that was knitted, not very warm, she never wore it; we needed an impromptu boo-boo something one day, so I filled it with dried kidney beans, tied a string around the wrist, and tossed it in the freezer. I didn’t need it until last night when Bella finally did what we had been warning her about, and pinched her finger in one of our folding closet doors, poor baby! Luckily, it wasn’t too bad, but I had my husband grab the boo-boo mitten from the freezer; sometimes the distraction helps as much as the cold!
We quickly realized the mitten was too insulating for this purpose; it wasn’t really transferring any cold to those pinched toddler fingers. So we opened it up, took the beans out, and they were icy icy ICE cold, of course! Much to my shock and chagrin, Bella began eating the beans.
Well I know she loves beans, but come on! Frozen, dried kidney beans? Really???
Really.
She ate about half of them, and there wasn’t much we could do to stop her. I figured they aren’t poisonous or anything, obviously if they were I would never have had them near her. I thought they might give her a tummy ache, or some poop issues down the road, but more than likely they’d just… well… come right on back out! Right? So I didn’t make TOO big an issue of it. (She seemed fine btw, no tummy ache, no issues today.)
Flash forward to this evening, after her bath. I thought we had chucked all the beans while she was sleeping, but nope; she found the mitten, half-full of beans, and the eating (well, swallowing whole) commenced. She ate every. single. bean. in record time. I was shocked. Then, she stood up and said, adorably… (I’ll put my translation below her comments.)
B: “Beans go?”
M: “The beans are in your belly!”
B: Looks intently at her belly. “Can’t see them!”
M: “No, but they are inside your belly!”
B: “Beans come OUT!”
M: “Well, not right now… but they will come out in your poop in a day or so!”
B: “Beans come outta VULVA!”
(Aside: I’ve taught her vulva for the entire area, vs. vagina which seems way too specific for what we usually mean. But I don’t think we’ve had occasion to say it for a month or so! So I wasn’t sure what she was saying at first.)
M: “No, honey, the beans will come out your bottom in your poop! But you cannot eat them then!” (Having a nightmare in my mind.)
B: Touches vulva, proclaims “Beans come out my VULVA!”
M: “No honey, the beans come out your bottom.” Gently touches bottom… “This is your bottom. This is your vulva.”
B: Touches bottom. “Beans come out my vulva! Beans pop out, go OVER!”
M: “That’s your bottom!”
B: “Beans go?”
We went around and around like this for about 15 minutes; in the end I busted out “Once Upon a Potty” so that I could show her the drawing of the little girl and all her little parts, but I don’t think it quite sunk in. At the end of the evening I conceded that at least I will in future know when she says bottom, she means vulva, and vice-versa.
****Much to my dismay, I have found out since writing this post that raw kidney beans are, in fact, poisonous! We dodged a bullet on this one, but don’t make the same mistake I did… kidney beans need to be thoroughly cooked before eating. More info at this link.****

Edited: April 2nd, 2009