Conversations With My Toddler: The Birds and The Bees

Is it sad that I had my first sex talk with my son before he was even 3 years old? Well, it's true, and it went a little something like this:

Me: Alright Tyler, let's put your undies on and cover up your wee-wee
Tyler: No, cover up YOUR wee-wee
Me: Mommy doesn't have a wee-wee Tyler!
Tyler: Yes you do
Me: No I don't
Tyler: Yes you do!
(meanwhile I'm thinking Really?! You're going to argue about this with me son?) 
Me: No I don't, only boys have wee-wees
Tyler: Does Jules have a wee-wee?
Me: No, Jules is a girl so she doesn't have a wee-wee
Tyler: I have a wee-wee, Daddy has a wee-wee, you don't have a wee-wee, and Jules doesn't have a wee-wee

...yup, my child is a genius.

And even better was a our talk about boobies...

Tyler: Does Daddy have boobies?
Me: No, only Mommies have boobies so they can feed their babies.
*Tyler lifts up Jordon's shirt and sees his nipples*
Tyler: Daddy does have boobies!
Me: Well, those aren't exactly boobies...
Tyler: Does Jules have boobies?
Me: Well kinda...
Tyler: Show me your boobies!

I sure hope I never hear those four words out of my son's mouth again!

7 Reasons Babies Put Everything In Their Mouths

My daughter Juliana will put ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in her mouth. Today I had both kids out "helping" me weed the garden, and I spent more time pulling rocks out of Juliana's mouth than pulling weeds out of the garden. Then later in the day while wading in our baby pool, I caught her reaching over the edge of the pool trying to put gravel from the driveway into her mouth.

So I caught myself thinking, "why in the world does my baby want to put EVERYTHING in her mouth?!" I figure if I asked her, "Juliana, WHY are you trying to put that rock in your mouth?!" she would say...

1. You don't feed me enough.

2. Tastes about the same as that organic vegetable crap you feed me.

3.  I have pebbles breaking through my gums right now, so I think I deserve to chew on a few rocks.

4. I've been on this earth for almost 9 months already and I still don't know what a rock tastes like.

5. I don't get enough attention.

6. I'm on a low carb diet.

7. Because I want to.

And I'm sure I'll be getting plenty of #7 when she finally learns to talk. Oh parenthood, gotta love it!

Budget Busy Boxes

Being an professional pinner on Pinterest, I've seen information about "busy bags" often. Fill plastic baggies with one activity each and *boom* you have hours of entertainment for your little ones. In preparing for one of our recent road trips (we travel way too often), I realized I needed something along the lines of busy bags, but I didn't want to bother with several bags of activities. Plus I needed to include some other road trip essentials. I decided I could make busy BOXES and do it on a budget. I made one for Tyler (3) and figured I should make one each for my niece (7) and nephew (3) as well. For all three I managed to get by with spending under $20. Here's what I did:

The boxes I filled were old wipes containers... might as well not waste them! Then I filled them with snacks like peanut butter crackers, fruit snacks, and trail mix in plastic bags. I got some from the Dollar Tree and used some of what I had in the cupboard since I needed to use that stuff up anyway. There's nothing more grumpy than a hungry toddler, plus each snack will buy you about 10 minutes of "are we there yet"-free travel time.

Then I made a snack necklace kit to include in the box. I filled a plastic bag with foods with holes in them (pretzels, fruit loops, lifesavers gummies, etc). I also included chocolate covered pretzels, but for a summer road trip, I'd skip them haha. I pre-cut a piece of string and had Tyler string the snacks onto the string. I tied it around his neck and then he could snack! This kept him busy for a good 20 minutes.

I included some antibacterial wipes as well. The Dollar Tree has a 3 pack of 10 count Disney Pixar themed wipes which worked perfectly for the 3 kids. Those didn't buy me anytime, but I was definitely happy to have them after I realized what a terrible idea chocolate covered pretzels were in July.

I also put some stickers in the box so they could decorate the box (or themselves).

Finally I put together an on-the-road scavenger hunt list for each child and included it in the box. The items on the list were easy to spot things such as a McDonalds, a green sign (sort of a freebie for the little ones), a camper, a blue truck and so forth. For each item they found, they could pick a ticket which said either "toy" or "candy," without looking of course. Then they could trade in their tickets for candy (small things like Hershey kisses or lifesavers... some leftovers from Easter haha) or a toy (little things from the Dollar Tree that worked as entertainment as well like glow sticks, rubber band bracelet kits, coloring books, etc). Between the actual hunt and the entertainment from the prizes, I'd say I got an hour of distraction from this activity.

And the price breakdown for what I spent on my busy boxes (for 3 boxes):

Wipe boxes: free (thanks to my mommy friends!)
Snacks: $2
Necklace snacks: $5
String: free (I had it in my craft supplies)
Scavenger hunt prizes: $5
Scavenger hunt candy: free (we had a lot on hand)
Stickers: $3
Wipes: $1

$16 for about 2 hours of entertainment? I'll take that any day!

Salt Dough Prints

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching my adorable little niece (well, technically she's not my niece, but it is much easier than saying my "husband's cousin's daughter"), so I had to come up with something to entertain three little ones under three. A couple years back, Tyler and I made a salt dough handprint for Jordon for Father's Day and I had meant to make one with Juliana's handprint for Father's Day this year, but the whole two-kid thing has totally made things crazier and sometimes my plans don't happen.

I figured we could mix up a whole batch of the dough, which Tyler would enjoy, and make prints with both girls' hands. As expected, Tyler loved mixing the dough up... not so expected was his entertainment from burying some of his action figures in the dough (my motto... pick your battles). I split the dough that wasn't covering Captain America and friends in half, made circles (MUCH harder than you'd think), then got the girls to press their hands down for a print (also MUCH harder than you'd think!). They baked for awhile and ta-da! pretty prints! Then I spent an hour sweeping all the excess flour and salt from not only the kitchen, but the rest of the house where the kids tracked it. Nothing new in the Robinson household.

Here's the recipe (for two plaques):

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup warm water

- Mix ingredients (by hand is the most enjoyable and efficient way to do this)

- Shape into two circles (I press them into the bottom of a bowl, pull them out and then adjust as needed).

- Press hand (or foot) to make a print and write name/date (I used a toothpick) if desired

- Bake at 200 degrees F for 3 hours on non-stick cookie sheet

- Use plastic spatula to pull up plaque and let cool on cooling rack

Overall I'd say a pretty successful afternoon!