Three Year Olds

Anyone else have a hard-to-handle three year old?  Julia is a pretty intense kid, and has been particularly challenging lately.  Here are a few of the things we are trying and some books I am reading.  I'd love any ideas you have to share as well!

Kid Cooperation - This is a great book that I picked up from our LLL library.  I love that Elizabeth Pantley doesn't try to push a rigid "method" but gives lots of tips, support, and things to keep in mind.  She comes from an attachment parenting perspective and is easy to read.  The book has plenty of examples and real life situations, which I find really helps me.  I'm actually not finished reading this book yet, but Ross and I are reading it together and discussing it as we go.  It really helps to talk things through with him and come up with a game plan.

(Elizabeth Pantley also has a newer book called The No-Cry Discipline Solution.  It contains much of the same information, and I will probably read through that one as well.  I do find that I like the layout of Kid Cooperation much better though.)

Adventures In Gentle Discipline - I am still in the middle of reading this one as well.  It is a larger volume, but easy to read.  It contains lots of quotes from mothers and real life stories.

Sensory Parenting - I actually received this book from the author for review.  It is interesting to read and think about all of the sensory input that might be affecting a child.  This is a comprehensive book with information on all aspects of parenting as relates to a child with a sensory disorder.  I thought the book had a lot of extraneous advice and could have been narrowed down.  Chapters 7 and 8 on evaluating your child's senses and therapies for the senses were the most interesting.  In the author's defense, sensory parenting is a huge topic - kudos to them for trying to tackle it!  Sensory Parenting is an interesting read.

We recently took Julia to the chiropractor/ kinesiologist that our family sees.  He did a very gentle adjustment on her and suggested some specific vitamins.  We discussed nutrition, focusing on feeding Julia food other than carbohydrates and working on keeping her blood sugar stable.  She has actually been somewhat better since our visit.  I am doing my best to keep our family's nutrition top notch right now and hoping that will help ...along with plenty of patience.  ;)

Do you have a challenging little one?  Any tips to share?

Plan Toys Horse Stable and Vegetable Garden

You probably already know that we love Plan Toys play food.  The vegetable garden and horse stable are both fun sets that we give two thumbs up as well.

Our dollhouse dolls have really been enjoying the Plan Toys Dollhouse Stable.  They are excited to have their own horses that they can actually ride on.  You'll have to excuse Maggie here, she's having a bad hair day, but she really wanted to take the horses some carrots from her garden.

She loves to go horseback riding.  Her little rope legs fit perfectly around the horse and she is learning to stay on pretty well.

Its a good thing the big horse can move his legs back and forth a bit to take her for a ride.  He can also put his head down to eat some grass when he gets hungry.  (Baby horse can turn her head back and forth but not up and down and her legs are stationary.)

Maggie can't spend too long playing with her horses because she has to get back to tending the garden.  She has parsnips, carrots, cauliflower, and turnips? to care for.  There might be something wrong with her cauliflower though because it turned yellow?  Her wheelbarrow is a little tipsy and hard to handle, but she manages anyway.

After much planting and digging, Maggie is exhausted.  (She would prefer a wooden shovel, but this one is plastic.)  Her watering can comes in handy, and she uses her pail to collect carrots for the horses.  All this hard work is making her want to go play.  Maybe she'll take baby horse out for a ride this time.

Not so fast, Maggie!  You still have to clean out the chicken coop!  A girl's work is never done.

Maggie is of course purely fictional.  She lives in our Plan Toys dollhouse and does not come with either of these sets.  The Horse Stable and Vegetable Garden are both available for purchase separately.  We received them from CSN Stores for review.  All opinions expressed are my own Maggie's. 

Top 5 Nursing Essentials

So what do you need to get started breastfeeding a new little one?  Here are my top 5 picks for breastfeeding essentials:

1. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - This a great reference book by La Leche League.  It is written in an easy to read format with tons of useful information.

2. Bravado Body Silk Seamless nursing bra - This is hands down my favorite nursing bra ever.  Its supportive, comfortable, and stylish.

3. Knickernappies Stay Dry nursing pads - These are a hundred times more comfortable than disposable nursing pads.  They don't leak, and they come in fun colors, what more can I say?

4. Mommy Necklace - You will definitely want one (or five!) of these.  A nursing necklace keeps baby interested while nursing and saves you from getting pinched and poked, all while making you look fabulous.

5- Momzelle or Boob brand nursing tops - I love the nursing opening on both of these brands.  Having a couple of basic nursing shirts in your wardrobe can really help you feel confident, especially nursing in public.

Honorable mentions: blush undershirt - makes any shirt a nursing shirt, sleep bra, nursing cover up or this one, earth mama angel baby nipple butter - so much softer than lanolin, milk saver - great for saving extra milk especially in the early days, pump - although I rarely use mine, nursing tank top

What would your top 5 be?  Am I forgetting anything?

This is not a sponsored post.  I did not receive any product in exchange for posting this.

Counting Fruit Seeds

One of our homeschool activities was to cut open various fruits and count the seeds, making a chart of the results.  We had so much fun with this activity and even tried new foods!

I had never tasted a pomegranate before but picked one up at the store just for this activity.  Lucy and Julia both really liked it.  Julia even said she loved it and wanted me to get her a pomegranate every day.  Here is how to open a pomegranate.  You eat the arils, sucking the juice out and either spitting out the seeds or eating them.

The girls both had so much fun eating all the different fruits and deciding which column for me to write them on our chart.  Lucy wanted to cut the apple in half so that we could see the star inside.  As we were working and tasting Julia said "Wow, mom, this is a fun day!"

Julia is normally a very difficult eater.  (Difficult may be an understatement.)  She actually tried avocado with garlic salt and liked it.  We have offered it to her many times and Lucy loves avocado, so I was thrilled that Julia finally tried it and liked it.  We are planning to make lemonade with the juice from our lemon and lime later this afternoon.  This was actually our lunch, along with some cheese and crackers.  Fun!