CreatifulKids | Creative Activities for Kids and Positive Parenting Tips for Growing Creative and Beautiful Kids

Crafts With Toilet Paper Rolls-Toilet Paper Christmas Tree For Kids

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Angela

If you’re looking for some Christmas crafts with toilet paper rolls, then check out this easy to make toilet paper Christmas tree.

Lately I’ve been building quite a collection of toilet paper rolls. So I’ve been looking for some fun and easy crafts with (lots of) toilet paper rolls that I could do with the kids. Since Christmas is around the corner, I decided with the kids that our next Christmas crafts with toilet paper rolls would be a toilet paper Christmas tree.

This is what you need to make a toilet paper Christmas tree:

32 toilet paper rolls (you can use less also, I just wanted to finish the stock I had 😉 )
Paint and brushes
A stapler to fix the rolls together (I tried also with tape and glue but did not turn out that good)
Christmas ornaments
A pair of scissors, to do small cuts in the rolls and fit the ornaments

First we painted….and painted ..and painted the toilet paper rolls. And then we painted some more 🙂

After painting the inside and outside of the toilet paper rolls, we had to let them dry for a day before we could finalize this great craft with toilet paper rolls.

After everything got dry, it was time to decorate our toilet paper Christmas tree. At this point my kids did some negotiation as they could not agree: Lukas (3 years) wanted to use the yellow ornaments and Victoria (4,5 years) the purple ones for their toilet paper Christmas tree.

Luckily, after some discussion and a bit of creative thinking, we reached a compromise and decided to have a toilet paper Christmas tree that changes color, depending on the side you look at.

So…taaadaaamm…. I proudly present you the result!

And if you look from the other side, you get this:

Cool right? It’s one of the easiest crafts with toilet paper rolls that you can do for Christmas with the kids. They just need to learn to be a bit patient as all those toilet paper rolls had to dry before we could build our toilet paper Christmas tree .

Besides having fun, this is what we learned from this craft with toilet paper rolls:

To be patient
Exercise our fine motor skills
Inclusiveness, cooperation and compromise

I like toilet paper rolls because there are many things you can do with them. We did a car out of toilet paper rolls and we also did a plane out of toilet paper rolls,! How do you play with toilet paper rolls?

Top 20 Educational Baby Toys (0 -1 year)

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Angela

With Christmas coming closer, 3 kids in the house and lots of toys to test, I’m often asked how I manage the Christmas presents. So I thought it might be useful to share my list of our favorite educational baby toys.

Between 0-6m babies are not yet mobile so the best toys for them are the ones that offer visual and tactile stimulation. From 6 months onward the baby toys that are most appreciated by the little ones are the ones that are stimulating their desire of mobility and to practice the fine motor skills.

All the toys featured below are either toys we have ourselves and love, or toys that got recommended to us by friends and family.

Visual stimulation toys

Freddy the firefly (1) and Jacques the peacock (2) from Lamaze: The big eyes and strong colors work great on babies. Babies, from newborn to about 3 months, are fascinated by the black and white contrasts on the back. Later on they get interested in touching and investigating the colorful front with all it’s features and textures.

The Mix & Match Activity Blocks (3) is the kind of toy that grows with your baby. First you can use the black and white parts as visual stimulation, and later on this can be used as a stacking toy.

Sorting toys ( fine motor skills)

Fisher-Price Turtle Shape Sorter (4) Among all the sorting toys out there, I particularly like this one because it is robust, simple (only 4 blocks) and most blocks have a rattle. If you want more blocks, the Sorter from Tupperware (5) is great as well. Another variant of the same toy but in a softer version is the soft sorter cube from Lamaze(6)

Rattling toys

Skwish (7) and Winkel (8)from Manhattan Toys are light and great rattling toys for little hands to hold and perfect to take along also as they can be easily packed in a baby bag.

Ladybird from Lamaze (9) was the favorite toy of one of our friend’s baby when she as 3-4 months old. It has shiny colors and is equipped with biting rings.

Stacking toys

Gowi Stacking Buckets (10): There are many ways you can play with this baby toy. Bigger babies exercising their motor skills while stacking the pots into each other or when building a tower. Smaller babies have fun destroying the tower you build for them and laugh ecstatically when the pieces all on the floor.

Totem stacker from Lamaze (11) This is the easier version of the stacking pyramid. Due to the magnets in all 3 totem pieces, they stick together easy which leads to less baby-frustration.

Other great stacking toys are blocks and depending of the day my kids would rather play with soft blocks (12)) or wooden blocks (13). All of them are very much fun!

Grab & squeeze toys

Sophie the Giraffe (14) and the Panda Bend and Squeak from Lamaze (15)are both amazing toys that are making a sound as soon as they are gently squeezed. One is of soft rubber and the other one of soft material, both of them very tempting to be sucked by little ones.

Toys that stimulate mobility

Cart with blocks (16): Having something like this was very nice when my kids got interested in standing up (around 9 months) as they had something to hold on to. Now we mostly play with the blocks and Elena (14m) loves to destroy my towers and tries to build her own.

Books

The soft photo album from Galt (17). It’s great to get them to know the family and exercise the names and we found that it protected the pictures very well.

Puzzle book from Lamaze (18): a wonderful toy that evolves with the baby. First providing visual stimulation with its high contrast side, and later on supporting the fine motor skills due to it’s simple puzzle parts.

Soft books (19) are great as a take along toy. Besides that they stimulate the baby’s curiosity through color, texture and noise, they are light, can be attached to the stroll and can be easily stored in the purse or bag.

And nr. 20, that’s me! Somehow, my kids consider me a great toy 🙂

Do you have other suggestions? If so, leave a comment so that we can add it to the list!
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Posted in Toys-apps-games | Tagged babies, baby toys, favorite toy | 3 Comments

How to turn your supermarket shopping trip into a kids game?

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Angela

In my previous posts, I already talked about making sure you are well prepared and I shared several tricks you can use once at the supermarket to avoid trouble with your toddlers. Here I want to tell you about how we turn shopping into a nice kids game for your toddlers or preschoolers!

I have recently tried out a new game concept and the kids just loved it. I picked up the idea somewhere from a pretend play game and just implemented it into real life.

The concept is fairly simple: Instead of writing down a shopping list for myself, I make a shopping list for the kids. Of course they can not read yet, so the trick for this kids game is that I use pictures instead of text. It’s now their shopping trip and you just have to help and correct where needed. If I have a long shopping list, I just give them a partial list with up to 15 or 20 items on it.

To make the shopping list, I google the stuff I want to buy and make a collage from it. You could do this in word or powerpoint, but I’m using a program called Photoscape to edit my pictures and it allows to make collages in a couple of clicks. It takes a bit of time the first time you do this kids game. But the next times it’s easy and fast as you can just build on the shopping list you have already made.

So how does this kids game work? First I print a copy for each kid and off we go.

In the supermarket, I get them each a trolley or a cart or so, this way they have something in their hands and they don’t start running.

Then they search for the items on their list. In the beginning I let them search the items all by themselves and they are usually very enthusiastic to find the right stuff. Below, Victoria just found the bananas 🙂

On the shopping list I also note the quantities we need, so then we check to be sure we take the right amount. For Victoria (4,5) this works great as she is learning the numbers, with Lukas (almost 3) we skip the number part.

Every time they find an item and put it in the shopping cart, they circle it off on their shopping list.

The nice thing when they are two is that they keep each other motivated and they discuss on what to take and who takes it.

And they each have their own list (which is the same not to make it a competition), so I am quite sure I won’t forget to buy anything on the list 🙂

Towards the end I might help them look for stuff to avoid them getting bored. Once we have all the items we go to the till and they are usually very enthusiastic to help me put all the items on the band. (Although Lukas is still busy checking his list 🙂 )

Result of our kids shopping game: A smooth shopping trip and proud kids because they have found all the items on their list.

In the meantime I have done this shopping kids game a couple of times and I find it is a great game because:

They get to help out, do “adult stuff” and so they are much more involved
The trip lasts a bit longer, but it is so much more fun, both for me and for them
You don’t depend as much on the patience of your kids. As they are busy with shopping, they don’t get bored and don’t misbehave
It is easier to say no to all the sweet stuff they would normally want to buy (it is not on your shopping list!)
You can use the game to train your toddlers in using the numbers

Do you have any nice ideas to turn a shopping trip into a nice kids game? Share them with us!

Posted in Parenting, Toys-apps-games | Tagged kids game, Parenting tips, shopping with kids | 2 Comments

7 tricks on how to deal with your toddler at the supermarket

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Angela

Tell me about kids and supermarkets and I spontaneously think of the durex commercial with the dad and his boy screaming over a bag of candies.

I’ve already shared some of my personal experiences, but let’s talk some more about how to deal with you toddler once you are at the supermarket. So here are some tricks I use:

Say no without saying “No”: Over time I’ve developed a couple of tactics that help me convince my toddlers not to buy the precious stuff they hold in their hands without getting into a tantrum. What about “Hmm, the mister of the shop put this bag of chips there, he will be very sad if we take it away and it’s not good to make him sad” or “these cookies are like the chocolate things we already have at home, just that those are much better, remember how much you liked them yesterday?”. Or else try “this is no good, if we eat it our bellies will hurt”, “this is only for big people”, …
Of course when they try to take healthy stuff, there is no need to find any excuse 🙂

Be prepared to say “Yes” sometimes, at least once: I mostly let them choose one thing by themselves, at best a product I wanted to buy anyway. Typically that would be some cookies for them to take to school for the breaks.

Put something in their hands: If you want to avoid them running all around the shop, it helps to put them something in their hands. Ideally a shopping cart, but you can also give them a bag, a basket, …

Give them choices, let them decide: You can consider it an alternative way to saying “no”. If they come once again with some stuff they’d like to buy I’d explain them that they already got their cookies and they cannot have both. So they have to choose and pick which one they want. You give them the power to decide, which is usually sufficient to keep things under control.

Influence the choice if needed: Let’s say their cookies are in the trolley and they come with some bag of candy and look at me with their begging eyes. I’d explain them that they have to choose between the cookies or the candies. But I’d also remind them that the teacher from school does not allow candy in the class, so if they pick the candy, they will not get anything to school for the cookie break. I assure you I never had to take any candy so far 🙂

Get them involved: You want to avoid them getting bored, but besides that, toddlers just love it if they can help you out and feel part of the club. So I tell them what I am looking for next and ask them to help me find it, I get them a little trolley and put my shopping’s in there, I have them help me put things on the band at the till and in the bags and boxes afterwards, … Give your toddler tasks all along your shopping trip and enjoy the great “teamwork”

Make it a game: This is the getting them involved at the higher level. Make the shopping an interesting game for the kids and enjoy the fun together with them.

These 7 tricks have had a great impact on my personal shopping experiences, but of course you might need to adjust according to your personal situation and the character of your toddlers. Do you have any special tricks you used successfully with your kids?

Posted in Parenting | Tagged Parenting tips, shopping with kids | 1 Comment

Warning: energetic kids at the supermarket!

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Angela

How to make shopping with kids a fun experience

When I had my first child, I discovered that my baby adores going to the supermarket. All the colorful things to look at on the shelves, it was fascinating. It makes the shopping a fun and peaceful activity. That until the baby turns into a toddler…

I still remember the time when – call it a clear lack of experience – I went to the shop with my two toddlers. Me, single adult, against two enthusiastic toddlers, in a crowded supermarket full of fun stuff, or dangerous stuff, depends on who you ask. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Victoria was very busy loading all kinds of sweet stuff in the trolley while Lukas was just running wildly through the alleys, seemingly unaware of all the other people in the shop. As a result my shopping trip lasted way longer than expected, I somehow missed on half the items on my shopping list, yet I had loads of stuff I didn’t plan to buy in the first place.

Since then, I’ve taken a different approach to shopping …

As a first I do much more online shopping than I used to. With a collect & go system, I order the stuff I want a day ahead and go pick it up at a specified time at a close by supermarket. Seems like a no-brainer, and I love it. It is even ok to take the kids along on the collect-trip; you practically go in and out, so there’s not much opportunity to get things messed up 🙂

I still do some normal shopping tough, but I kind of take it as a rule that I will never go on a shopping trip while being outnumbered by toddlers below the age of 5. So on our shopping trips there are usually as many adults as toddlers. That can still be challenging, but it is manageable, especially if you have a couple of tricks you can rely on …

3 tricks to prepare for a smooth shopping trip with your toddler(s)

Make your shopping list in advance: I do not recommend dragging your toddler along through all the alleys trying to figure out what to eat for dinner. Very likely your toddler will get bored and pull stuff from the shelves before you made up your mind.
Do not go shopping with a hungry toddler: Besides the fact that your toddler will want to buy the whole shop, you risk arriving at the till with half eaten stuff. If you have no choice, I suggest starting at the bread department and stuff your toddler with a baguette before you move on!
It helps if you know the shop: If you don’t plan to buy cookies, it helps if you don’t accidentally pass the cookie alley. Our close by shop has its cookie department right up the front on the way to the fruits & veggies. So if I don’t need cookies, I smoothly make a detour through the drinks alley where there is minimal temptation.

Sure, there are many more things you could do and prepare, but I consider these to be the basic three that make me survive our supermarket trips. For more tips, have a look here.

Posted in Parenting | Tagged Parenting tips, shopping with kids | 3 Comments

Marble painting for kids, a mess-free painting idea.

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Angela

If you’re looking for some mess free painting ideas for kids, try marble painting for kids.

This is how I thought of doing some marble painting for kids: My kids love to paint, and I love it to see them paint, but what a mess you sometimes get! Water splashing on the table, dirty brushes flying around, … and you consider yourself lucky if most of the paint ends up on the paper rather than on the carpet. Sounds familiar? What if you could just have mess-free painting?

I’ve successfully tried and wrote about some other painting ideas for kids using paint brushes that get very close to a mess-free painting experience. But I continued looking for some other painting techniques. I decided to try out something easy, completely different and guess what … mess-free! Are you in? All you need for this crafts activity is a low cardboard box, some marbles, paper and fluid paint to create your own marble painting for kids space.

To prepare and do wome marble painting for kids you need:

A box and some tape:For the box I used a big cereal box (but any big, wide cardboard box would do) I used some tape to make sure it stays closed, and then cut out one of the the wider sides.
Sheets of paper, paint and marbles: I put a piece of paper inside, sprayed some paint on the paper and added some marbles in the box.

Victoria(4,5) didn’t need much guidance to figure out how to do marble painting.

By moving the cardboard box, the marbles start to roll through the paint leaving lots of paint marks on the paper.

To continue the fun with marble painting for kids, once a sheet of paper was painted, I took it out and replaced it with a new sheet. This way we got ourselves some funny colored sheets of paper – real art work, don’t you think?

Victoria got so excited that she just had to add “one more” marble to the game – again and again- so we ended up with quite an army of marbles in the box (this taught me that next time we do marble painting for kids I’ll make sure that only few marbles are available).

This was our way of doing marble painting for kids. It was and so much fun that Victoria insisted we couldn’t stop until all the marble paint was over. Luckily I used some small paint containers; otherwise I think she would have painted the whole day!

So….is marble painting for kids mess free painting or not? My answer is YES, provided you agree with your kids on 2 points:

No hands involved in the marble painting process (first thing Victoria wanted to do)
Agree not to shake the box too enthusiastically as some full-of-paint-marbles will jump out of the cardboard box leaving color tracks on the carpet (luckily I spotted this fast and cleaned the paint immediately, so I had no stains)

Did you ever try a painting crafts activity like this? If you didn’t try out marble painting for kids and let me know how it went and how your kids liked it. Was it mess-free for you? I am curious 😉

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, activities for toddlers, Cardboard boxes, colorful play, crafts for kids, crafts with cardboard, Creative play, ideas for craft activity with kids, indoor activities for kids, painting | Comments Off

Mess free painting for kids, shall we use a brush or not?

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Angela

Recently we’ve done a lot of painting. We’ve done crafts and painting to make castles, cars, planes, drivers and many more. You have probably read some of that in previous posts. What you did not read though, and I did not talk about, is all the mess and cleaning work I had afterwards. From washing all the paint-brushes and containers as well as washing the paint off my kids, their clothes, the table, … Oh yes, a couple of times I fooled myself that they can be careful. I should have known better!

So what if we could paint with brushes, but we didn’t have to deal with the after-mess? This surely cannot be possible! …… Or can it?

About a year ago, in search for the right toys for our toy webshop, I discovered these cool brushes that have since become my favorite painting tools.

They are called squeeze-‘n-brush and they are at the same time a brush and a paint container. And what I like about them is that they do not need to be cleaned! It’s basically the concept of paint in the brush.

The fat brush is easy to grab for kids’ hands and the plastic top with cover prevents the paint from drying out in between 2 crafts sessions, without the need to clean it. Since the paint is already inside the brush, it means less mess when painting.

Painting with these is really as simple as: open the brush, squeeze it, paint and close it again … and to repeat this over and over again with different colors.

Victoria is the most intensive user of the brushes, and she has been using them since she was 3,5 years, but even Lukas (since he was 2,5 years) is able to paint with these pretty much mess-free 🙂

We’ve run into one problem tough. As most kids, ours have a favorite color and so the pink color was over much faster than the rest. But no problem, we unscrewed the pink container, put some of the red and white into it, steered with a long stick and we had pink again!

We’ve been using these “squeeze ‘n brush” toys for over a year now and I believe they are about the best painting tools around, because:

You get some (relatively) mess free painting play
You don’t need to clean the brush after use
They are refillable
The paint is washable
They are easy to take along on trips (If you fly, don’t pack them in the hand luggage)
They are easy to grab and to use, so kids can play with them from relatively young age

In case you are wondering, the brushes come in more sizes. We got ourselves a 12-pack refillable brushes with many different colors . You can also check out this other ones who have glitter colors. If your kids are older there is a finer version called Paintastics for bigger kids (as of 5 years).

Did you try these already? If not, try them out and leave a comment telling us how it went!
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Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, activities for toddlers, colorful play, crafts for kids, Creative play, painting | 3 Comments

St-Nicolas, between the deceit and the magic

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Angela

The days are getting shorter and colder. Soon St-Nicolas will be back in town and if you haven’t realized yet let me congratulate you on your ability to ignore the loads of toy-commercials we are being bombarded with. Are your kids taken by the magic of St-Nicolas? Or do you tell them straight away that the nice old guy is fantasy?

For me it’s the second option. Keeping up the lie just didn’t seem to fit with the way me and my wife want to raise our kids. Luckily we were both on the same page and so poor old St-Nicolas remains fantasy at our place. This approach seems to be somewhat exceptional tough based on the reactions I get around us when we share our view.

“But it’s about the magic of it all and why would you take that away for your kids?”

Truth is, I don’t see why you need the lie to get the magic. I don’t avoid St-Nicolas, I let our kids enjoy the celebrations as much as other kids do. Yet I am always clear about the fact that St-Nicolas is not a real St-Nicolas, but just a guy dressed up like the figure as part of the celebrations. I believe kids can enjoy fantasy just as much even when they know it’s not real.

In fact my kids love fantasy. Take for example role play. They play for hours pretending to cook and eat with their dolls and teddy bears and they would even come and offer me part of the “food”. Once I pretended to really want to eat one of the pieces of plastic – it was pizza I believe – they offered me, but i was immediately told off by my girl: “No daddy, it’s not real food, it’s just to play”!

Or I could tell you about the hours they spend hiding and running away from the crocodiles in the house. No, they don’t think that there are real crocodiles in the house. It’s all fantasy and it’s a lot of fun!

“But it’s about teaching good and bad!”

The St-Nicolas concept is obviously an easy tool to have your kids behave. If they don’t, Black Peter will put them in the bag. But wait … that seems to me like a leading by fear approach and that doesn’t fit the way we want to raise our kids either. I don’t feel comfortable to have my children’s motivation to behave depend on getting presents. And definitely not at specific moments in the year. What would the trick be then for the rest of the year?

So let’s try to teach them good and bad in a different way 🙂

“But your kids will spoil the fun for my kids …”

Maybe, tough I equally risk my kids to be the weird ones in class. Time will tell …

So that’s how we deal with St-Nicolas, what about you?
Independent from the approach, let’s try to do some St-Nikolas crafts in the coming weeks!

Posted in Parenting | Tagged Parenting tips, positive parenting tips, St-Nicolas | 6 Comments

Easy Crafts with Toilet Paper Rolls and Egg Cartons – Plane and Pilot

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Angela

If you’re looking for some easy crafts with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons, you’ll love this simple airplane craft idea for kids.

Spend 30 minutes in a creative way with the kids with these free and easy crafts with toilet paper roll and egg cartons.
Summer is definitely over and with some rainy days ahead, we declare the new easy crafts for kids season open! I’m always looking for simple and easy crafts for kids and this is exactly how this kids craft is: EASY and FUN.

I had some leftover materials from some other easy crafts for kids, so I wanted to do some easy crafts with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons. Inspired by our previous project, the egg carton car, the kids decided to make a plane and pilot this time. So we started off with our easy crafts with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons.

What you need for these easy crafts with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons:

An egg carton box for the body of the plane
3 or 4 toilet paper rolls : 2 for the wings and the rest for the pilot(s)
Scissors and paper cutter
A piece of paper for the hair
Water paint and brushes.

How to make an egg carton plane and toilet paper roll driver:

Cut the egg carton: Cut out a circle on top to make room for the pilot(s) and two lines on the sides for the wings. You might also need to remove some carton parts on the inside to make sure the toilet rolls fit inside.
Paint: Paint the egg cartoon as the body of he plane and 2 of the previously flattened toilet paper rolls as wings. The other toilet paper roll(s) should be painted a pilot(s).
Decorate: There are many things you can do to make your plane and the pilots look nice. The kids and I limited ourselves to giving some fancy hair to the pilots. To do so, we took a horizontal piece of paper, colored it and then folded it in two to cut out the “hair” on the edges. Notice how we gave our second pilot curly hair by using a different kind of scissors. For an alternative haircut, check this egg carton car driver with his fancy blue hair.

If you’re looking for easy crafts with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons, I’d definitely recommend you try this one out. It was easy and fund to do and the kids had some home made craft toys they played with for some days.

You can find here other easy craft with toilet paper rolls, but if you’d like to be kept up to date with our latest easy craft for kids creations, subscribe to our free updates.

Posted in Craft and creativity | Tagged activities for children, craft ideas, crafts for kids, crafts with cardboard, crafts with toilet paper rolls, crafts with toilet rolls, Creative play, Easter activities, easter crafts for kids, egg carton crafts for kids, ideas for craft activity with kids, kids crafts, painting, paper crafts | 4 Comments

How to (not) survive hopeless days with kids

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Angela

I am sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s about these days where you wonder what on earth have you done wrong to be part of Murphy’s “best of” collection. And of course this does not happen just whatever day. No, it happens when you’re home alone with 3 small kids!

But if you’re reading this in the hope to get some good advice or magical tips on how to handle days like these, let’s get something straight right away. When it’s you against the universe, forget the fight. Digg a hole, stay put and wait for the storm to pass.

Alarm bells should have been going off in my head long in advance. My lucky day turned out to be a Friday after a killing week at work for both myself and my wife. The kind of week where you’re agenda gets filled up with stuff by god-knows-who and you’re left to do your own work after hours. And so this morning, I was exhausted from the minute I woke up. On top both our companies had the great idea to put a company party on exactly the same day. Yes of course, today!

My party was a late lunch barbecue thing, while Angela’s party was an afternoon-evening thingy, so the kids were at my charge. 16h30 was my departure deadline (a little more than an hour drive to go). Purée (French way of saying s**t)! It was 16h30 already and I remember I am the photographer on duty and a group picture has to be made. Hurry hurry and it’s 16h55 when I step in my car, hoping traffic will be in my favor. 17h15 I call Angela to tell her I will not make it on time to school. 17h20 I feel bad for forcing Angela to leave her party (she had been sacrificing earlier this week, so she deserved her time off). I hit the gas, 17h25 I call her again to say I’ll probably just make it on time.

17h57 I race into the school. Lukas and Victoria are the last ones left, but I had seen a friend of them leave when I got in so at least they had some company to play with … “but daddy, you always come so late” is the welcome I get. Thanks Victoria for rubbing it in. It’s been a crazy week, haven’t spent much time with the kids and I’ve been missing them, so yeah rub it in some more. But of course she’s right, so I make myself a mental note to check my agenda for next week and schedule in a “get home super early” day.

Off to pick up #3 at the daycare. Half an hour later I’m home with 3 starving and screaming kids. Ok, let’s get efficient. Turn the oven on. Transfer pizza from the freezer to the oven. Make bottle for baby Elena. Catch the bottle on it’s way to the floor … wait a second … Purée! I just bumped a full bottle of hot water over my pants and on the floor. Exactly what you need while you’re having you’re 11-month old girl screaming her lungs out at 3 centimeters from your left ear.

Don’t remember what magic I did but some minutes and a new bottle later, we are feeding quietly on the sofa. While i have both hands busy, that’s of course the time that Victoria needs my help on the toilet and Lukas HAS to have his shoes removed by me right there right now. No, no discussion possible. Shouting alternately to Victoria to wait and to Lukas to calm down, I consider myself lucky #3 is silent with a bottle in her mouth. Some more magic later (nope sorry, no memories left of this either) I hang in the sofa, watch my 3 kids play and hope they won’t notice my batteries are running out.

About two hours after picking them up at school, all 3 are in bed and sleeping. It’s quiet in the house. Gosh these kids are cute when they’re sleeping! Sometimes people ask how I manage 3 kids, a fulltime job and a blog on the side. I guess my wife and me do fairly well, though every once in a while it’s life who manages me, not the other way around.

Posted in Parenting | Tagged positive parenting tips | 2 Comments