What is the weirdest thing your little one likes to eat?

My 4 y.o. son just asked me to put TurkeyHam in fruit salad!

I had this cookbook from walmart...there was a recipie for brownies in it, and they were THE BEST damn brownies ever. Here is a picture of said brownies:
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so now I can't find the cookbook. I don't remember all of the recipie, i know it called for chocolate chips, flour and sugar...not sure what else and how much of everything. The icing had more chocolate chips, powdered sugar, and the marshmellows of course. The brownies were so thick, they were almost like fudge! anybody happen to have the cookbook and email me the recipie please? it was like, a family cookbook that had recipies submitted from walmart employees all over the country.

TIA!!!

I'm sure this is a strange thing to be concerned about: my 6 month old has suddenly gone from napping 30 or 45 minutes at a time, to napping for 2-3 hours stretches. Even taking an extra nap, and he still acts tired! What is up with this boy? Growth spurt? Any of your kids do this?

At what age did your babies begin to hold their own bottle to feed themselves?

Hey everyone. Just thought I'd throw it out there that today is John Milton's birthday! Or at least it would have been if had lived for 400+years haha. I've checked the tags but I was hoping every one could throw out some links to their favorite Milton related tattoos or if you were to get a Milton tattoo what would you get?

I have 2 quote I have always grappled between, I would love to have either one someone on me.

-Here my hours are free to be dedicated to the quiet Muses; and my books, which are my life, quite carry me away. -John Milton
-"Freely we serve/ because we freely love, as in our will/ to love or not; in this we stand or fall" (Paradise Lost).

My first literary tattoo was "kerouac" tattooed across my left arm. I got in when I was 17. It's faded over the years and I'm not quite sure whether to re-touch it or just let Jack be....:)

So my 4 1/2 year old believes in Santa.

Today they had a Santa come to his Christmas program at school. He asked Santa for a Leapster game system and a "Thomas Clean up the Island" game.

Yeah...so on Christmas morning, how do I explain to him that Santa couldn't get him those gifts? I've googled the Thomas game, but I can't find anything. Does anyone know what the heck he's talking about!?

As for the Leapster, I have a explanation for that. We've already bought him a new Vsmile handheld to replace his "quirky" one, and I'm just going to wrap that as a Santa gift and explain to him that he got it in order to still be able to play all of his old games (and his new ones).

The last post got me thinking. My oldest turned two in August. She knows a lot of of words, and her vocabulary is on track for her age. She even had a bit of a verbal explosion in October where she was picking up a new word every day. She knows these words, she will use them properly on occasion and started string two word phrases together around the time of the verbal explosion.

And then my youngest started to learn a few words, basic Mama, Dada, baba, lala stuff. And my two year old stopped. She babbles, she mimics sounds her sister makes. I encourage her to use her words, I give her choices for snacks and drinks that she can say and try to get her to say them herself before giving her what she wants but she just doesn't respond to it. I can and have stood in the kitchen for an hour trying to get her to tell me juice or milk (both words she can say).

I know it's mostly some form of jealousy, she knows the baby doesn't have to use words to get what she wants so why should Ace have to? She still communicates what she wants/needs without using the words she has, so why does Ace have to? I just want to know if there's a less frustrating way to encourage her words. Especially since my youngest is almost 1 and will mimic the few words we still get out of her sister. I'm watching a 4year old and 6 year old all week and I was hoping that would help her but it doesn't seem to. We know lots of babies here but no toddlers.

On a related note, how old were your kids when they started saying some version of their own name? She knows her name (Aislyn, Ace, Acey are the common heard versions) but has only recently acknowledged herself [on the rare occasion she uses words] and refers to her self as meme. She knows the babies name (it comes out as Lala but she tries to say it). The baby however knows her own name/nickname (since Lala caught on) and says Lala. Also what does/did your 2 year olds call you? She used to call me Mum but now I am known only as YOU or HEY YOU.

How well do your toddlers listen? Extra points if your child is three.

Mine does reasonably well with directions (put your train on the table, bring me your shoes). If I try to have him repeat something back to me, he'll head off into left field.

Most recent case in point: he was bringing a book to me and stumbled over one of his toys. I said, "Watch where you're walking so you don't trip on your toys." I then asked him why we watch where we're walking, and he started to point out something on his book and ignored me.

Other times, I'll point out something and ask him if he sees it. He'll then go into some silly song or talk about something else entirely.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from him (and maybe this is annoying me more than usual right now because I have PMS), but I'm not asking him to describe how to calculate the final velocity of an object thrown three meters while accelerating an average of 3.8 meters per second squared. I'm either asking him yes or no questions or to repeat back something I said.

Gah. Thank you for letting me vent and for sharing your stories.

I'm going to go and have some ice cream.

On Saturday I got my fourth tattoo and a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.

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Enjoy,



Done by Jeff @Iron Age Tattoo and Piercing in St. Louis, MO

I want to take my toddler child on a walk today. I try to do this 3-5x/week, because I'm pregnant, and could use the exercise and fresh air. Right now it is ~35°F. I will obviously be bundling myself and kiddo up pretty well, but I wonder about covering her face. I've never taken her out in weather this cold before, and I would like to cover her nose (I'll be covering mine), but I don't know how to do so safely.

She'll be wearing a hat, hoodie with coat over, long pants and long sleeved shirt, tall socks, booties, mittens, and a blanket covering her chest and legs. Also, it's a jogging stroller with a wind shield on the sides and a canopy top.

Is it necessary to also cover her nose in conditions this cold? (I live on the top of a hill, and it is also very windy.) How could I do it? I don't want to risk her getting sick, and I also don't want her to be uncomfortable or suffocate.

Name: Valerie
status: So complicated
age: 25
location: Australia
children: 4 children, 2 boys, 2girls, aged 7, 5 , 4, 2.
hobbies/interests: Playing my piano, learning to drive, raising my 4 children
More about me: I was coping fine with my 4 kids. Then things went so very bad with their dad and I now suffer from post traumatic stress and anxiety. Nearly everyday I think of the hell my poor kids watched, and regret how bad it got before their Dad and I both realized that we were destroying them. I regret that my kids saw us at our worst, and wish I could have fixed things sooner. Now that things have calmed down, and their Dad is completely rehabilitated, I still feel the after effects. Although my kids are fine and show no signs of any emotional and mental damage, I still feel like I failed them. I still feel like I should have done a better job, and I still fear that things will go back to the way they were.

Kids are different. I get that. But how many times do I have to repeat that to myself before I stop worrying that my second born isn't as smart/fast/adept as my first? It's even more blindingly obvious because they're only a year apart, so I haven't had time to forget how old Nora was when she did X Y Z.

Our daughter learned things quickly, and I'm sure at least part of it was because as an only child we could give her 100% of our attention. I feel like because our kids are so close, and because my daughter as 20 months old and requires a lot of entertaining, my son is getting closer to 40% of our time.

My son is 8 months old now, and he's not crawling. He'll lie on his belly playing with something, and then when he wants to move towards a toy he'll get really excited, and just pick up his arms and legs and flail them, sort of bouncing in place. He'll do that until he gets frustrated, then he'll start crying. Did anyone else have a child that did this? Is there anything I can do to help him put it together? He also won't push himself into a sitting position on his own, though he'll hold it well if we sit him up.

I know 6-10 months is the typical range to start crawling, but it doesn't lessen my guilt over not being able to do for him what I did for my firstborn. Especially when she did it at 6. How do you deal with that guilt? I'm hoping when they're both running around it'll be possible to do things with both of them TOGETHER, and this will get easier.

Parents of very close kids, comments?

It would be so much easier if the faster learner was the SECOND born. Then I could be pleasantly surprised rather than biting my nails all the time.

My kid is in a dual provider, home-based daycare. That means I go to one of their homes and there are two amazing women who watch a great group of kids every day. Despite chatting with them at drop-off and pick-up, I don't know a heck of a lot about their personal interests (except that they love kids, mine in particular). They are a relatively new daycare and we've only been going there for a few months.

I'd like to get them each a gift, but lacking meaningful personal information about them, I'm not sure what to get. I don't want to get them anything business related--I'd like it to be something nice for them. I thought of gift cards, but then how much and for what?

What do y'all do?

My daughter has a yeast diaper rash and we have been using Clotrimazole a few times a day for the last few days. We've been layering A&D ointment on top of it. I've also been giving her some Acidophilus. From what I've read, I should continue with the Clotrimazole for a few days after the rash has cleared up. It seems to have dried out her skin A LOT and I'm not sure if that means it's working or if I should try something else. She seems more irritated now than when the rash was at its worst. She squirms around like crazy and seems pretty uncomfortable. I've tried a few applications of just the A&D ointment and she squirmed just as much. Any suggestions? I'll be calling the pediatrician when their office opens but in the meantime.....any tips would be helpful.

http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=208909f0def4bdbbeb110dba97b09f1c

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/12/09.html

ratiocination: the process of reasoning.

According to GHH2
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http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10056.html

don't know if anyone uses this, but figured i'd post and let it be known...