Category: Family

What the Moms Club Means to Me

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Last week the Pottstown/Pottsgrove Moms Club held an open house at the Heather Place playground. Despite earlier predictions for rain, the day was beautiful.

Elly had went to sleep with a low-grade fever, but she woke up in good spirits. So, away we went to the party.

I joined the Moms Club when Elly was 18 months old because we would go to the playgrounds and nobody would be there. I felt like I either needed to have another child so Elly could have a playmate (and I so wasn’t ready for a 2nd child. Heck, I’m still not quite ready for a 2nd child) or I needed to find some other people who had kids around Elly’s age.

The Moms Club had a weekly playgroup for moms and their children that were around Elly’s age. It was great for Elly. She had always been a social butterfly, but she really blossomed when she finally got to make some lasting friendships.

Several side benefits occurred including learning how to share, experiencing time away from Mom, and learning kid games like tag and run away.

The surprise was learning how supportive the Moms Club was for me.

Elly had been a baby who hated sleep and thought most food was poisonous. It was so reassuring to hear that Elly was not the only baby in the world who held fast to these notions. More importantly, it was just a phase. Elly would grow up. She would learn to eat better and sleep better.

At 3, Elly does eat better. She is still picky, but she will eat more than just French fries although they remain her favorite food. She is a MUCH better sleeper too though she has still never slept through the whole night. But what started as a nightmare of waking up every hour on the hour now has turned into only waking up once in the night.

Now when Elly and I attend Moms Club activities, Elly runs off to play with her friends. I pull up a chair, relax and chat with some pretty awesome women whom I am proud to call my friends.

Perhaps feeling the way I do, it is only fitting that I have been nominated to be the next president of the Pottstown/Pottsgrove Moms Club.

If the Moms Club sounds pretty awesome to you, check out your local chapter.

Sunday Snapshots (of singing)

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Rest assured no singing was done by Dan or myself. We are both tone-deaf. We keep any singing limited to our small house and for the sole entertainment of our daughter. Surely nobody else wants to hear us sing. It’s not a pretty sound.

Elly, on the other hand, sings anywhere and everywhere.

She loves to sing.

LOVES.

Can she sing better than we can?

She does have a great memory for tunes. It’s amazing how quickly she learns a song.

As far as sound quality goes, well Elly is 3 and virtually anything she does short of whining is pretty adorable.

 

Yep. Adorable.

Sunday Snapshots (of playing by the river)

Marie HaighLeave a comment

The yellow flowers were all in bloom when Elly and I visited the Riverfront Park last week.

While I took pictures, Elly threw rocks in the Schuylkill river.

Then, she watched an older boy dig in the mud. Elly wanted to join in on the fun, but my dainty girl does not like getting her hands dirty anymore. (Thankfully, dry garden dirt is still OK). So, she grabbed a stick.


Getting her to leave was the tricky part.

Sunday Snapshots (of a new haircut)

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Cutting hair is not one of my talents. After my last attempt to cut Elly’s bangs, I knew it was time to call in the professionals.

Elly spent the entire drive to the salon telling me that she did not need a haircut. At the salon, Elly cried when I tried to get her sit in the chair. So, she sat on my lap. Very little hair was actually cut off. Elly really just needed her hair to be shaped.

After the haircut was over, Elly spent the next few minutes telling me she didn’t like her hair.

All that changed when we got home and Daddy told her how beautiful she looked. Now she loves her new hairdo.

Easter Eggs

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Dan was sick last week.
This week Elly and I are sick.

The house is a mess.
Very little food is getting cooked.
Sometimes we wear our pajamas until noon.

Yesterday was like that.

To pass the time, we dyed Easter eggs.

Elly dyed each egg a different color.

When they had dried, I encouraged Elly to add stickers to her eggs. The sheet inside the Paas kit has something like 50 stickers. Elly, ever the lover of simplicity, added just 1 sticker to each egg.

This year Dan and I decided that Elly would of course get a basket Easter morning but there would be no mention of the Easter bunny bringing it. Neither of us grew up with that tradition and it seemed like a hard thing to deceive her on especially since the eggs in her basket would be the eggs she dyed today. Surely she would recognize her own eggs.

Is the Easter Bunny a part of your Easter celebration?

Come On Spring!

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Winter needs to leave now. The cold weather is keeping me from my garden. Seeds for the garden arrived 2 months ago, but it’s still too cold to plant them.

The cold weather is NOT keeping Elly from doing what she loves to do:

playing in her sandbox

(note the boots)

and swinging

Balls of steel my girl has!

Organizing Toys and Kids’ Crafts

Marie HaighLeave a comment

The key to organizing toys or frankly anything that is starting to take over your house is to purge.

The rocking chair in Elly’s room that hasn’t been used in at least 2 years – moved to the basement.

The stuffed animals that Elly never plays with – stored in jumbo plastic bags and moved to the attic.

The baby toys Elly has outgrown – also moved to the attic.

The store bought blankets that were no longer needed because Elly has been gifted so many beautiful handmade blankets – donated.

Then, armed with a hodgepodge of old tins, mesh bags, baskets, buckets and plastic organizing bins, I start sorting. End result looks something like this.

        

I know many people like their containers to match, but I prefer the hodgepodge. First, it’s cheaper because you get to use what you already have. Second, it doesn’t require a labeling machine. Each toy gets its own unique home.

Tins are perhaps my favorite container to store toys and craft supplies in. I decided a long time ago that my life is too short to spend several minutes everyday to painstakingly inserting crayons or any toy or craft for that matter back into the cardboard boxes they are sold in. It is so much easier to just grab a handful of like items and dump. Pop a lid on and you’re done. It’s my kind of cleaning up.

The huge popcorn tins are perfect for storing legos. I’m sure I could organize all of Elly’s toys if I had a collection of these popcorn tins, but alas I don’t. Perhaps it is for the best, since Elly recently learned that rapping the tin with drum sticks makes a magnificently loud sound.

Baskets are great for corralling block collections. The size of the basket had to be upgraded after Elly got a set of foam blocks for her birthday, but the system still works. Baskets are also great for storing stuff that is too big to go anywhere else.

When Elly received a toy with itty bitty parts for Christmas, I balked and seriously thought about hiding them from her until I found this stackable container. Elly likes playing with the container almost as much as she likes playing with the toys inside.

Storing a variety of puzzle pieces in a large bucket is not for the OCD person, but I prefer it to the traditional method of returning the puzzle pieces to their original box. With this method, Elly can put the puzzles away. My trick to being able to distinguish the pieces apart is to draw a crude picture on the back.

Although Alex and Doug magnetic dolls are packaged in a wooden tray, I do not keep them stored that way because the wooden tray lacks a lid. Instead the dolls and all their clothes live in a plastic bin. These bins were designed to hold scrapbooking supplies, but they are awesome for kid’s toys. Check out the handle! Elly can tote her dolls from room to room. Plus they are transparent which is a necessity when your kid is too young to read labels.

Mind you this organizational system probably won’t last long. It seems that every few months Elly grows up on me, changes her mind about her favorite toys and then her room is in need of an overhaul.

It is true that at clean up time there is first a sorting process so toys can go back in their rightful container, but that little bit of extra effort means that Elly can always find the toy she is looking for. Plus I don’t seem to mind the massive amount of toys that Elly has accumulated so long as they stay corralled in pretty containers. It’s a win win. Elly keeps her toys. I get peace and harmony.

On a side note, the wooden tray from the magnetic dolls now sits in the drawer in my kitchen island and organizes all my small cooking utensils.