Resource Links

Every once in a while I come across a resource and I think "this is a neat X.  I bet I know other people who would find X useful as well." and then I do nothing about that.  Well, that's not entirely true; I do have several close friends who get to listen to me blather on and on about X until I'm tired of it, but for the most part I don't share my amazing discovery.

I think this is due in part to me believing that everyone else already knows all this stuff, and I'm the late comer to the party.  And while this is certainly true of many, many things in regards to parenting, there may (who knows, right?) possibly be times when I know something you don't know.  Or something.  So maybe you like to hear about this stuff?  I dunno.

Well, whether you are in the slightest bit interested or not, I'm going to start trying to record these things here (under the label 'resources', if you like to follow along) and hope they help someone.  Or at least don't make things worse.  Which also pretty much sums up a lot of my decisions.

So here's something I discovered the other day, and I'm liking it, and I wonder if you would.  Have you heard of Focus on the Family?  It's a Christian organization that, amongst other things, publishes a magazine called Thriving Family.  Now, the neat thing is that you can get a subscription to this magazine for free.  Seriously.  You just go on their website and subscribe and it gets delivered right to your door.  I pick up my hard copy at the church each month, so I can't attest to how great the online ordering is, but I looked at the page and it seems you can just call the toll-free number and that's that.  This month's issue had a section on devotionals for small children, and a large article on how to get children to participate in worship that I thought was pretty good.  They also profiled several adoptive families, including that of Christian artist Toby Mac.

Free magazine!  Neat!  Speaking of free magazines, there's a very cool online magazine that I've recently started paging through on occasion called Rhythm of the Home.  It's a natural parenting magazine, and although I've come across several articles that are way out of my comfort range, there are gems in the bunch.  And it's very well formatted and easy to read online.  I do like magazines.

There, two free things to look up today.  I'm glad I told you.

Works For Me Wednesday - Vol. 4

{This post was re-labelled under Resources}

Our little princess doesn't sleep very well on her own - and here's my new found solution!  Take the vibrating box off of one of those cloth seats that they make for infants, and then tuck it somewhere where it will make the crib mattress vibrate.  Solution: One slightly vibrated, completely asleep baby.

Check out the other Works For Me Wednesday posts.

Works For Me Wednesday - Vol 3

In honour of new mothers who have toddlers, here's something so, so very simple I can't believe I haven't thought of it previously.  In fact, it's so simple I honestly think it may not be worth mentioning as something that works for me, since surely I am the very last person in the world NOT to have realized this.  But here goes:

You know when you make homemade salt dough for your toddler to play with?  Well, I make a lot of it around here, and then I put it in a Ziploc bag in the fridge, we get a week or so out of it, and I have to toss it away because it starts to acquire a certain mushy patina.

BUT, three things have revolutionized my playdough making.  The first is that you can make up the dry ingredients, in the proper ratio, and keep those until you need them.  It saves the whole 'where is my salt, oh I don't have the right flour, I'm too lazy to get up and make this right now' step.

Secondly, if you put the food colouring in with the water, it mixes up so much nicer and smoother and doesn't require 10 minutes of kneading to achieve a uniform colouring.

Thirdly, I now only make one colour at a time, instead of a rainbow of them.  Maybe that's just my child, but honestly he seems quite happy with whatever colour I produce, and is more into molding and shaping than creating much in the way of intricate design.

It works for me.

Works For Me Wednesday - Vol. 1

{This post was re-labelled under Resources}

So, I'd like to keep the blog up to date during the post baby craze, but at the same time, I'd like to give myself a bit of a break if I don't feel like 'thinking up something to say', and to that end, I've been thinking about memes to join.

This is one of the ones I'm test driving.  Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by We Are THAT Family.

Here's my bathroom.  Well, part of it, anyway.  One wall.  Also the window and some shelves of stuff.  But focus, if you will, on the towels.  I've been having such a time figuring out the towel situation in this house for one big reason:  we don't have a linen closet.  I have alternately stored towels in a steamer trunk in my kitchen, on the white wire shelves you see in the background there, and in individual bedrooms.  This past week, I came up with this great idea.  I hope it's a great idea, anyway: colour coded towels for everyone, hung on the wall right by the bath tub.

They are white with coloured stripes, as you can see.  Samuel is blue, I'm green, David is brown and Clara is coral.  $3.97 each at Walmart, hung with some of those easy-off sticky hooks.  Total of $26 and I sincerely hope all of our towel issues are gone.  They HAD to be white, because stains are inevitable in my house and I needed to be able to bleach them to high heaven.

There you go.  Was that helpful?  I doubt it - but it works for me.