Teaching Kids to Make Healthy Food Choices

When it comes to nutrition, kids tend to have a completely different view on the subject than their parents. To a child, anything that looks, smells, or feels good must be good for you. They have yet to discover that just because something looks good does not necessarily mean that it is good for you. As parents, we become their primary examples and that is a scary role indeed. No matter how many times you tell a child to eat his fruits and vegetables, he will not actually do it if mom and dad are in the kitchen scarfing down forbidden treats. My 3 ½ year old tells me all the time, “Mommy, chocolate makes you happy” as a reason why he should have some, and while this is true, mommy probably eats more than her fair share of chocolate.

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Gingerbread Playdough

Gingerbread Playdough

You will need:
- 1 cup of flour
- 1/2 cup of salt
- 2 tsp. Cream of tartar
- 1 cup of water
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
- cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, etc.

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar together. Blend well. Mix the spices together until you get the scent and color you want. Add to dry ingredients. Mix water and oil together. Add water and oil mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix well. Cook the mixture in a pot for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. The playdough will start to pull away from the sides and form clumps. Remove the dough from the pot and knead until it becomes smooth. Cool.

Corn Painting

This is a fun one for Thanksgiving. Insert corn holders into both ends of an ear of corn. Have the kids roll the corn in paint and then roll on the paper any way they want. When they are done cut the corn in half and dip the ends in the paint. This makes cute flowers. These prints can be used to make cards for Thanksgiving or painted on a paper table cloth for Thanksgiving dinner.

Hmm. Bert? Really?

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

The Joy of Naptime

Naptime is gold. It is mine. I will fight for it with everything I have. In the early days of daycare I would sit in the room with the kids and rub the foreheads of the ones who had trouble falling asleep. I discovered that if I rubbed downward towards their eyes they would have no choice but to close their eyes and go to sleep. I’m tricky like that. They didn’t even realize they were getting tired. Now that we have our routine down the kids finish eating lunch and just know what to do. We change diapers and then they all go and pull out their own nap mats and lay down. They know the routine. Everyone knows what is expected of them. Parents tell me all the time that their kids won’t take naps at home. It’s a talent I guess. I can get anyone to fall asleep. . . with the small exception of my own 3 ½ year old son apparently. He told me a few weeks ago “Mommy, I don’t take naps anymore.” He wasn’t kidding. I don’t think he’s taken a single nap since he told me that.

The only thing that didn’t change with his announcement was the fact that he still desperately needs a nap in the middle of the day or we are faced with a very opinionated grumpy little boy. Right now the daycare kids are sleeping and I can hear my son upstairs playing superman on his bed. I’m happy if he stays in his room for now. At first he decided that since he didn’t take naps anymore, neither did anyone else. That was not okay. We had several clashes over that one. I would get all of the kids happily down for a nap and settle down on the couch with my daily ration of chocolate and Ryan would run around waking everyone up and handing them a toy to assure that they would not willingly go back to sleep again anytime in the near future.

Today, as long as I get my moment of peace, I am okay with him playing in his room. At least he is doing his own thing right now. This is my version of a lunch break for the benefit of anyone out there that has a normal job and is allowed to go to the bathroom without anyone pounding on the door asking what you are doing and if they can watch. It’s my 15 minutes break on the busy days and my hour of “me-time” on the better days.

People tell me all the time that their own kids never took naps when they were 3 years olds so I should just let it go. Besides the fact, that I’m not ready to give up my nap break just yet, a 3 year old screaming and crying that he most definitely is not tired does nothing to convince me that my son does in fact still need his nap. So for today I’ll let it slide because I’m too tired to argue with him and he tends to wake all of the other kids up anyway with all the yelling that he isn’t tired if I try and force him to take a nap. I’ll wait until dinner time tonight when he is fast asleep in the couch and angry that we are not letting him sleep.

Ziplock Ice-Cream

Ziplock Ice-Cream

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice-cream. Who doesn't love ice-cream? It is getting colder outside and everyone is pulling out their heavy coats but we eat ice-cream year round. This is a great activity to get kids cooking. They will have so much fun making their own ice-cream and learning what it is made of. Younger kids may need help if they get tired of shaking. Taking turns can help prevent tired arms. Turn on some music and dance around the kitchen while you are doing this.

Ziplock Ice-Cream

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup half and half
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 sandwich size Ziploc bags
1 one gallon size Ziploc bag
2 cups ice
1 tablespoon coarse salt

Put one small Ziploc bag inside the other and add the milk, half and half, sugar, and vanilla extract to the inside bag. Seal both bags securely, removing excess air. Add ice and salt to larger bag and place smaller bag inside. Seal firmly. Let the kids shake themselves silly -- shaking, tossing, and turning the bag. Ice cream will be soft and ready to eat in 5 to 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Puke and Poop and Snot, Oh My!

I tried to warn them. Ryan threw up all over the floor in the middle of my daycare day last week. The night before he had a bad run in with my air conditioning vent (never take a diarrhea filled diaper off near a floor air conditioning vent). I had assumed it was just something he ate but when he threw up the next day I knew we were in for a lovely little flu vacation. I gave the parents the choice about whether or not to pick up their kids and only one took me up on it. The rest swore up and down that they wouldn't catch it and they were sure it was just something that was going around. Now it is Saturday a week later and I am getting phone calls from shocked parents who don't understand why their kids are sick.

Don't get me wrong. I have a wonderful set of parents right now. They are very considerate of my family's needs and respect anything I need them to do. It was probably my mistake for not just telling everyone that I was closing but even after 3 years of this I still hate closing in the middle of the day. I think people just don't realize that there are some things I can't control.

Today I am enjoying my first entirely vomit-free diarrhea-free day in over a week. I took Richard in to the doctors yesterday because even though he never really came down with this virus that badly he was still throwing up all his formula over a week later. So it turns out that he had rota virus and in young babies too much diarrhea apparently empties the stomach of the enzymes needed to digest lactose. I put him on a soy formula starting yesterday and picked up some infant probiotics that are supposed to replace the good bacteria that his stomach is missing right now. Hopefully after two weeks of this I can wean him back over to the regular formula. I'm really crossing my fingers that it isn't permanent. The kid can't go through life without ice-cream. He hated his first taste of soy formula but he seems to be tolerating it okay now and he is finally keeping his formula down. He has lost a pound since his appointment two weeks ago so he is now happily back to putting on weight.

Starting a home daycare center

Opening your own home daycare center can be a wonderful way to spend more time with your family and enjoy a career working with children. Before setting off on this adventure, however, you need to determine what your motives are. If you are looking for a way to get rich it isn't going to happen. If you are looking for an easy job and a day lounging around the house you are in for a shocking surprise. Running a daycare is not an easy job and there is no place in this field for those who do not love children and have the patience and endurance that is needed to work with them on a daily basis.

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Bean Table

Buy an under the bed storage container and fill it with uncooked beans. I buy a big 10 pound bag from costco and replace it every 6 months or so. Kids love to run their fingers through the beans, dump them from cup to cup, or find small toys in the bean table. If the kids can't keep the beans in the plastic container it helps to lay a sheet out beneath it and then simply dump any spilled beans back into the container when they are finished.

Some things that can be put in the bean table:

empty film containers
plastic animals
small cups
paper towel tubes

EWWW! What is that? - Corn Starch and Water

I think I have more fun with this one than the kids do. You mix cornstarch with water until it has just barely dissolved. When it is the right consistency the "goop" should feel dry when squeezed but wet when released. This is great to just sit and feel the texture and the cleanup is fast and easy. The kids play with this for hours.

The Daycare Jungle

It has been 3 years since I quit my job teaching and opened my own daycare. Even though I spent time in high school working in a home daycare, it was nothing like I expected. But I survived. I had good days and bad days and went through a huge learning curve but I'm still doing it everything and don't have any plans to stop. My now 3 1/2 year old hates the thought of me ever stopping. He loves the fact that his friends come to his house every day. I often wonder who is in charge of the daycare, me or him. He is so used to things being a certain way that he makes sure everyone else in the house knows it too.

People think I'm crazy. They always say they don't know how I do it. The truth is it's kind of fun. You adapt. It becomes normal. Right now I only have 6 kids. They are all 3 and under. I love it. They are mostly preschool age except my own baby and they all get along so well. It's refreshing to see what imagination really is.

We do a quasi-preschool program. Sometimes we're organized. Sometimes we're not. We generally have fun with it though and it keeps us all busy during the day. This is my attempt to share what I have learned, both on the business side of running a daycare and on the parenting side of enjoying the time I have with my children.

In the beginning . . .

I hate first entries. Too much pressure. Lets just get this over with and cut to the chase. . .