Strollerderby : lifehacker

No More Naps? Keeping Your Kids Perky Through The Afternoon

Patti — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:26:00 GMT

My kids, knock on wood, still nap after lunch. Or rather, they have an enforced quiet time that usually results in a nap for at least one of them, sometimes both of them. But it's not a sure-fire sleepy time for either kid, and whether or not they sleep there's no guarantee that they'll come out of quiet time in a good mood. It's the worst when they don't sleep, when they spend rest time lying down in their beds resenting the fact that they have to be there.

This Lifehacker tip is aimed at adults who feel a little post-lunch malaise, but I think it works for kids, too. The idea is that you can battle afternoon tiredness by getting up and moving around a little bit when napping isn't an option, and I know that when my kids get a little bit of extra running-around time in the afternoon it seems to refresh them enough that they stay in good moods until bedtime. Sure, they can't exactly go take a field trip around the office to visit people in their cubicles, but we can make a concerted effort to include activities that get us up and running around in the afternoon. Whether it's a trip to the park, a walk around the block, or a good tidy-up project that forces us to run back and forth around the room for a few minutes, getting the blood pumping and the body working makes for much nicer little girls (and parents).

It can also keep your day more interesting, depending on your habits: I tend to want to get everything done in the morning, and then I want to do less physical tasks in the afternoon until it's time to get up and get dinner going. Throwing a little extra physical movement into our afternoons isn't my natural inclination, but it mixes things up a bit and keeps us all on a happier footing.

Toy Hacks: Washing Stuffed Animals

Patti — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:52:00 GMT

Can I be honest? I'd like to round up every single stuffed animal in the house, throw 'em in a box, and ship 'em to Iraq. I've done it with a bunch and I'd do it with the rest, if it weren't for those meddling kids (and my husband, who would never give up his Teddy). They have attachments to a few of their toys, so we're keeping them for the foreseeable future. And they get gross. Nasty, matted, stinky, rotten little wads of fluff.

So, how to keep Teddy, Little Bunny Foo Foo, and Aunt Frances Elephant from becoming germ farms? Dollar Stretcher, one of the great go-to sites for economical DIY ideas, has a long list of tips for washing stuffies. My favorite is the suggestion to dry the toys in the sunshine; my grandma always said "sunshine sanitizes", after all. But with any luck, the soft toys will go wherever it is the socks go during the laundering process, and then I won't have to deal with them anymore.

(via Lifehacker)

Times Online's List Of Ten Great Parenting Blogs

Patti — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

UK news outlet The Times Online's Alpha Mummy blog has posted their list of the ten great blogs that every working mum should read--good to know that the US doesn't have the market cornered on the assumption that to be a parent means to be a mother, and the qualifier "working" is somewhat puzzling, as their list is not at all specific to working parents.

The list features a few of the usual suspects: Dooce, Parent Hacks, Kiddley. Also included are a couple of blogs that aren't necessarily parenting blogs per se, but that a parent could definitely benefit from reading: Lifehacker and The Happiness Project. Alpha Mummy rounds out the list with fellow Times Online blogger India Knight's Isn't She Talking Yet, the Wall Street Journal's Juggle, and new-to-me reads MamaPop and Motherhood Uncensored (sometimes I don't know where I am when everyone else is blogging great stuff).

Oh, and the top of the list? Just a little site called Babble.

And now comes the best part of any top-something list: What's Wrong With It. Who's missing from Alpha Mummy's top ten? Is this list really what it claims to be, the top ten blogs for working parents (at least one of the blogs, MamaPop, is written by self-described stay at home parents)? Where all my daddybloggers at?