“NAP STRUGGLE.” This is the title I’ve scribbled on a sheet of paper, unceremoniously ripped from a spiral notebook, and tacked to my fridge. It’s my latest plan to eliminate the repeated obstacles we have to napping. And to stop spending all dang day on trying to get a nap. The paper says: G says she’s hungry soon after breakfast. Add fat and protein. [If she snacks through […]
Have you ever watched your kid gallop down the street, bop to music, wave both arms wildly, or randomly run around in circles … and wondered if that’s the amount of movement you’re supposed to be getting in a day? Nah–there’s no way you can keep up with that craziness. But sitting for large swaths of the day, like many of […]
“Nooooo!” My toddler’s anguished cry rose high into sky along with her shiny new balloon. “Balloon, don’t do that!!” Moments before, she’d been skipping down the street, holding the balloon with such care. She’d continually turn to look up at it with awe. She was so incredibly happy. And she’d refused to let me tie the ribbon to her dress or […]
Speak with your baby in a certain way, new research shows, and your baby is far more likely to pick up on language. The difference is big — more than double the vocabulary by age 2. How? Glad you asked, because “how” is what Zero to Five is all about. Three things: Speak in a sing-songy […]
Outlet covers. Cabinet locks. Furniture straps. We did all the usual baby-proofing. But something still wasn’t quite right. Our curious, newly mobile baby found plenty of other things to touch. At times, laptop power cords draped from our dining-room table to an outlet in the corner, an invitation to play a game of plug & […]
My 18-month-old struggled to buckle the straps on her high chair. “Almost,” she muttered as she tried again and again. “Almost,” I agreed, trying not to hover. When she got it, I exclaimed, “You did it! It was hard, but you kept trying, and you did it.” stripslashes(strstr(” “, “class=”) ? “” : “”)The way I praised […]
A playground near my house has a zipline-style swing. You (um, I mean, the kids) sit or stand on a little disc-shaped seat dangling from a rope, grab ahold of the rope, and have someone swing you down the zipline. One day, a boy, maybe 3 years old, perched on the swing at one end of the line. His dad gripped the […]
My toddler got some pink and purple Lego Duplo blocks as a gift. Around that time, GoldiBlox came out with pink construction toys designed to interest girls in engineering. I thought it was all a bit silly, the idea that girls needed their own girly color of blocks to pique their interest in the toy. […]
“Umm … now what do we do?” I distinctly remember having this thought a couple weeks after my baby was born. Her first days home were a flurry of us trying to figure out how, basically, to keep her alive. How to sleep. Where to sleep. How the heck to feed her. Trips to the doctor to check her […]
A friend and I were sitting on the floor with our 18-month-olds as they played with a kids’ construction set, and you can guess what happened next. My kid tried to bogart the hammer from her playmate, and her playmate declined to hand it over. My friend said, “No, no, we need to share.” She tried to take […]