Tag: parenting

A Few Favorites for National Children’s Book Day

Posted on April 5, 2016April 19, 2016 by Mama

Saturday was National Children’s Book Day and since my son and I love to finish our day with a good book (or two), I thought I would share a few of our current kid-approved favorites. Of course the go-to books on my five-year old’s shelf have changed throughout the years, but this list today highlights a few that we keep going back to as well as some new fun choices (in no particular order).

First on the list is the How Do Dinosaurs. . . series by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. We have owned How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten since my son was a baby and it has always been one of our favorites, but we’ve added to our personal collection through the years and anything in this series always seems to be a winner for a little one who loves dinosaurs.

Speaking of dinosaurs, one of our newest favorites is When Dinosaurs Came With Everything by Elise Broach. I judged this book by its cover and purchased it through the Scholastic order form from my son’s preschool last year, and we’ve read it so many times the staples are starting to give way. I really like the mom in this story, because she makes the most of a crazy situation.

Another Scholastic favorite is Millie Waits for the Mail by Alexander Steffensmeier. My son chose this book as one of his rewards during the library’s summer reading program a couple of years ago, and the older he gets the more he likes it. It’s a tale of a cow who likes to scare the mailman until one day it gets all out of control.

Since cows seem to make for good reading, it’s no surprise that Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin is another long-time favorite for the whole family. These zany, take charge cows make for quite the tale in this Caldecott Medal winning book. It might just make you take a closer look at your pets.

The next book on the list is The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone. This Little Golden Book holds a special place in my heart, because it was one of my own childhood favorites. Although I knew how it ended, I enjoyed this story over and over again, and I’m sure it is still floating around Mom’s house somewhere. I bought this one for my son early last year, just knowing he would enjoy it; and of course, it was a winner for both the reader and receiver.

The Bear. . . series by Karma Wilson is next on our list, because who doesn’t like to read about a big loveable bear, all his antics and every sweet fuzzy or feathered friend appearing in these books. From Bear Feels Sick to Bear Stays Up for Christmas, I think we own about every one of these fun, feel good books.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss makes our list (although I’m not a big D.S. fan), but my son enjoys this one more than I. I will say this is one of my favorites of the Dr. Seuss books, because it actually has a point and sends the message of, “Try it. You might like it.”

Another silly book making the list is Underpants Thunderpants by Peter Bently. I picked up this book on a lark one day and we have enjoyed it ever since. You’ll have a fun time discovering what happens to dog’s underpants when a storm scatters them “Over the ocean, the jungle and town. . .”

The next book on the list is I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt. While the title originally turned me off, a quick read through made it a worthy choice for my little one. My son loves this book and the storyline makes it a winner for me too. There’s apparently a whole series of Stinky Face books, but this is the only one we have read.

Nightsong by Ari Berk is one of our newest favorites. I have to admit that while my son enjoys this book, it probably speaks a bit more clearly to me. It’s a story of a mother who let’s her little one find his way, and the illustrations are slightly haunting and sweet.

Rounding out our list of favorite children’s books is the Little Blue Truck series by Alice Schertle. We have three of the books, including the Christmas one complete with flashing lights, and we have been enjoying this series for several years now. Even as my son grows older, Little Blue Truck holds a special place in our bedtime reading routine. If you don’t have Little Blue Truck, you really need to get it!

All the cover graphics came from Goodreads. If you click on an image, it will take you to that site for more information.

From Belly Buttons to Live Births

Posted on February 27, 2016March 21, 2016 by Mama

Last week on our way to swim lessons my son and I started talking about birds, mammals and cold-blooded creatures (thank you Dinosaur Train). Somehow that led to the question of how elephants have babies and my response that they had babies the same way humans do. This of course led to another question by my five-year-old son. “How do babies come out of belly buttons?”

Hmm, how to proceed here??? I carefully and concisely explained that babies didn’t come from belly buttons, but that mammal mommies have extra parts between their legs from which babies come. Mind you, all this while walking into the natatorium. My answer seemed to appease him and I was fairly comfortable with how the whole conversation unfolded. . . for the moment.

I later left my husband in charge of getting our guy home from swim lessons and ducked out a few minutes early for a craft class with a friend, and I honestly thought no more about the baby conversation until I called home later that night. On the other end of the phone, hubs said the rest of their evening went well except for the one poor parenting moment that he would tell me about when I got home. My response: ” Noooo, why don’t you tell me now.”

So this is how the whole after-swim-lessons thing went. My husband and son had a nice conversation about floating and sinking and hubs explained about lungs, holding your breath and such. Well our curious little guy wanted to see pictures, so when they got home my husband pulled up some pictures on the iPad and they looked at the lungs, hearts, etc.

So far, so good. Just wait.

My husband left our son looking at the photos and went to the kitchen for a few minutes, until he heard screaming from the other room. He ran to where our son was still quietly watching the iPad and saw that our little guy had somehow ventured to a new page and was witnessing a live birth. Yup, stirrups, screaming, crowning head and all. If that won’t give a boy, and his son, nightmares, I don’t know what will.

On the other end of the phone, I was briefly speechless. And that doesn’t happen much, y’all. I mean, what do you say? Poor parenting moment? Yes. Glad he made the mistake and not me? Yes. How do you fix it? Haven’t a clue.

All I could think of was that in just a span of a couple of hours my poor child’s innocence had been ripped from his adorable little head and he now knows that babies do not indeed come from belly buttons. I wondered how to explain his future questions. I wondered if he would have bad dreams. I wondered if he would ever want to have kids of his own. I wondered, I wondered and I wondered. . . and then I dutifully scolded my husband and reveled in the fact that thankfully this scar was not one of my own making. Isn’t that how parenting works?? The parent that does the least amount of damage, wins. Right?

It has been a week; our son has not mentioned the incident and neither have we. Maybe he is mightily trying to repress what he witnessed or maybe he’s satisfied because now he knows. At any rate, I keep thinking about that old saying, “the truth will set you free” . . . or might make you a priest.

photo credit: African Elephant 1 week baby with mom at Wild Animal Park in Escondido-167 3-18-09 via photopin (license)

Is Meanness a 9-1-1 Offense?

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Mama

My husband and I have been talking to our now five-year-old son about emergencies and dialing 9-1-1 in the event he needs help, but I wasn’t prepared for yesterday’s morning conversation. . .

As I tried to usher our son out the door for preschool, he asked to bring a toy to show his friends. This is a little something he often requests, and ever so often I allow him to carry a dinosaur, truck or train to school to show his buddies, then I promptly cart it back home with me. I try not to indulge this activity too often because it disrupts the start of school, but I figure as long as we make it quick, it doesn’t hurt every now and then.

So yesterday morning as coats are flying, lunch pails flinging and we are running a few minutes late, my son asks to bring a toy. Mind you, not a specific something, but just something. Knowing the search for the perfect toy would add several minutes to our departure time and he showed and told just last week, I nixed his request. To which, he ignored my nixing and headed for his room. More forcibly , I told him no and asked him to get in the car.

Other than a foot stomp (yeah, he’s five going on fifteen), his simple response was, “Where’s your phone?” Bewildered, I watched him walk round and round the kitchen and living room looking for my phone.

When I finally asked him why he needed a phone, he answered with a huff, “I need to dial 9-1-1, because you’re being mean.”

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