Monday, April 29, 2013

12 Non-Toy Gift Ideas for Kids


When birthdays or holidays roll around, it's usually a safe bet that your kids are going to get a lot of toys from friends and relatives, so parents or grandparents are often looking for ideas for non-toy gifts that kids will enjoy. Here's a list of 12 great gifts for kids that aren't toys!

Note: I'm including links for some of these. They're not necessarily products I endorse or have reviewed; they're just added to give suggestions for where you can find some of the gifts.

1. Bird Feeder
A friend in our neighborhood has a bird feeder outside of her playroom window, and the kids love watching the birds and squirrels that stop by, so I decided to get one for L with some money he got for his birthday. Ours hasn't attracted any squirrels yet, but we regularly see cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves, a bunch of birds I can't name, and two ducks! L loves watching the birds (he thinks the ducks are especially hilarious.) Our play area windows extend down almost to the floor, so it's easy for L to look out and see the feeder. If your windows are higher, there are bird feeders that stick directly to the window with suction cups so that kids can see the birds even from below the window. (I found a suction cup window bird feeder for $3 at Big Lots last week.) For older kids, you can combine this with a bird book written especially for children (Amazon has a bunch of them here) so that they can identify the birds they see, or you can buy a bird feeder kit so that they can build and decorate it themselves (with adult help, of course.)

Bird feeder tip - Our feeder was up for a week without a single bird visiting it, so a friend suggested that I cover toilet paper rolls in peanut butter, roll them in bird seed, and then hang them in the tree near the feeder. Within 24 hours, our bird feeder was the new neighborhood hot spot for birds.

2. Play Rug
A play rug brightens up a play room or bedroom and will give kids more options for playing with the toys they already have. I've seen play rugs at Walmart, Lowe's, Home Depot and Big Lots. You can find typical city or road style rugs, dollhouse rugs, maps of the United States, and even hopscotch rugs. You can get them as small as 1.5'x2' or large enough to cover a whole room. We found the 8'x10' Pottery Barn Kids rug that we use in our kitchen play area at our local Once Upon a Child store for only $48.

For now, it's mostly just nice that his play area is padded for when he falls (which happens quite a lot.) But when he gets older, he can drive toy cars on the roads and train tracks.


3. Family Photo Album
We don't have any family nearby, so I had been meaning to put some family pictures in an album for L so that he'd recognize his relatives when they come to visit, but I never quite got around to it. And then my mom made him this awesome book!
When I put the book on the floor to take a picture, he immediately ran  over to grab it.
You can see his shadow and his foot in the bottom picture.
Each page has a picture of one or more of his family members, and she wrote a cute rhyming story to go with the pictures. Included are pictures of L's grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and parents (that's Dan and me... obviously.) She printed each picture onto thick computer paper, put each page into a plastic page protector, and put them all in a three-ringed binder. L loves the book so much that I recently confessed to my mom that I've had to hide it a few times when L was demanding that I read it dozens of times per day. You could make this as simple as a cheap photo album filled with pictures, or you could write a cute story like my mom did.

4. Zoo Membership
We just bought a zoo membership for the first time this year, but we have friends whose kids get a zoo membership as a gift every year. It's educational and fun, and it gives you something to do when you all need to get out of the house for a while. If you want your child to have an actual gift to open, you can combine it with a book (purchased or homemade) of pictures of animals you'll see when you visit the zoo.

5. Books
This is a favorite in our house. L loves when I read to him, and I try to make it a point of buying him at least one book for every major holiday. Even kids who don't typically like books will often enjoy them if you buy high quality books with a subject that interests them. Some kids' books are poorly written or illustrated, and even my 14-month old will reject books that aren't good. If you need ideas for good children's books, check out Sandra BoyntonBarefoot Books, or Usborne Books. For toddlers and babies, books should have only a few words per page (one to two sentences is a good length) and simple pictures or they'll quickly lose interest. We have a great used bookstore in our town, and I've found board books that looked brand new for $1-2.

6. Kid-sized Furniture
Just-my-size furniture is fun for even really young children. Stores like Walmart and Target often sell inexpensive stuffed chairs for kids, or you can look for higher-quality pieces that will last for a long time. My parents gave L a rocking chair for Christmas, and he periodically goes over to it and demands that I help him sit on it (he hasn't quite figured out how to climb onto it himself yet.) Then he just sits there with a big smile on his face! I wouldn't have guessed that he'd love it so much, but he's crazy about it. As an added bonus, having his own kid-sized chair makes him willingly sit still long enough for me to get unbelievably adorable pictures like this one:
Seriously, how adorable is this child?

7. Clothes/Pajamas
This one is pretty obvious (and is usually the first thing people think of when they think of non-toy gifts,) but it deserves a mention. When a child doesn't have any older siblings to get hand-me-downs from or is the first girl/boy in a family, they can almost always use more of at least one type of clothes. (For several months, L had plenty of play clothes but no clothes he could wear to church.) To make it a fun gift for the child, look for clothes/pajamas featuring the child's favorite animals, characters or colors.

8. Backpack/Bag
For my nephew's second birthday, we bought him a little robot backpack with his name embroidered on it. He wore it around (with nothing in it) for at least an hour. It's a fun gift, but it's also practical for overnight trips or outings.

9. Dress-Up Clothes
I have a friend who keeps an eye out for potential dress-up clothes every time she goes to a garage sale. You can find Halloween costumes, party dresses, sports uniforms, etc at garage sales for next to nothing, and you'll add a new element to your child(ren)'s imaginative play. Remember: dressing up isn't just for little girls! Super hero capes, football helmets, or police and fire uniforms can be fun for boys or girls. L isn't quite old enough to play dress up yet, but he does think hats are really funny, so I'm planning to add some dress-up hats/helmets to his toy bin.

10. Lawn Sprinkler
Most kids love playing in water, especially on a hot summer day. Running through a sprinkler is also a good way to get your kids to play outside. Now that summer is approaching (hopefully!) a lot of stores have fun sprinklers designed especially for kids to play in, but the good old back and forth sprinkler that we all grew up playing in will work just as well.

11. Sleeping Bag/Bed Sheets/Blanket
Bedding with animals or cartoon characters can be a great gift for kids. Most children who are old enough for sleepovers would love to have a cool sleeping bag to take with them to a friend's house. I don't mean to brag, but when I was a kid, I had a Glow Worm sleeping bag that actually glowed in the dark. I was the coolest kid at every sleepover I attended! (Ok, maybe that last part was only in my head, but you get the point.)

12. Flashlight/Night Light
I haven't met a child yet who doesn't like flashlights. You can find inexpensive flashlights in bright colors almost anywhere. (Since they're usually fairly easy to take apart and contain batteries and small parts, make sure the child is old enough before giving one as a gift.) L has - and loves - this toy flashlight that he got as a birthday gift, but since it's a toy, let's pretend I didn't mention it in this list. Decorative night lights are great for older kids who are afraid of the dark, and maybe it's just me, but I think this nightlight is the coolest one I've ever seen.


Bonus: Click here for 8 more non-toy gift ideas!

Do you have more ideas for non-toy gifts for kids? Share them in the comments!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Letter to me...

Little man is sick. He has had a fever for several days and now he has some sort of rash. I got six hours of sleep last night, and then rocked a squirmy, angry, sick toddler for two hours this morning while we tried to get some more sleep. I haven't showered, and I think I probably stink. L is napping now, and I tried to nap, too, but between the giant cup of coffee I had this morning and constantly thinking that I hear the cry of a sick little boy who needs me, I can't fall asleep. So instead, I am writing this letter to myself, pre-baby. Please give me grace on any typos.

Dear Not-Yet-a-Mommy Bethany,

You need to know a few things. First of all - having a baby is going to be hard. Really, really hard. You are going to be tired. Scratch that. You are going to be exhausted. Plan on nine months of never once completing a full sleep cycle. Seriously.

There will be days that you wish you could run away from home. Go ahead and cry to Dan and your mom and your friends. You will quickly find out that they've all had days like that, and they don't think you're a bad person for feeling that way. They will make you laugh and tell you it gets better, and they'll be right.

You are going to learn a lot of things about yourself, and a lot of them are things you don't want to know. You are much less patient than you think you are, and a lot more selfish. You know how you're kind of a mess when you get panicked? That gets much worse when you become a mom, so you'll need to work on that. (When you are in Home Depot during a tornado and the employees rush everyone to the back of the store, do not stop pushing the stroller and try desperately to get Baby L out of it. Let Dan calmly push the stroller to the employee break room, and then you can hold your baby. You'll all be fine. I promise.)

But there's one thing I can't prepare you for, and that's how madly in love you're going to be with your child. You'll get your first small glimpse of that when you're pregnant and substitute teaching a gym class and you get hit in the face with a basketball. And your first thought, before "is my nose broken?" and even "wow that hurts!" will be, "thank God it didn't hit my stomach!" It won't be until hours later that it will suddenly hit you how strange it was that the first thing you felt when a basketball hit you in the face was thankfulness.

And when they hand your son to you for the first time after a long labor and an unplanned c-section, you will tell him that he was worth it.



And all of the bad stuff that I talked about before? He's worth that, too. So don't be scared. You are going to have bad days, but your son will be worth all of that and then some.

Now go take a nap; you don't have many more chances for that, so do it while you still can.

Love,
Bethany

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

In Honor of My Husband

I love my husband. I've never made a secret of that. I'm very much a "wear your heart on your sleeve" kind of girl. So if sappy stuff makes you gag, you might want to skip this post. Because I'm going to tell you why I'm thankful for my husband today.

Today I am thankful for my husband because he spent 20 minutes vacuuming the floor. Not because it needed to be vacuumed, but because our little man has a fever of 102.6, and the vacuum is his favorite thing ever. So Dan ran the vacuum to help L feel better.

This child loves vacuums.
Today I am thankful for my husband because last night he worked until 1 am and then came home and assembled a kitchen chair.

Today I am thankful for my husband because he gave me a back massage this morning while L was napping without me even having to beg. (Ok, I may have begged a little.)

As of this month, we have been "together" for nine years (married for six), and I'm still finding new reasons to be thankful for him. So this post is for Danny, who will only read it if I make him. Thanks, baby!

Who are you thankful for today?

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Nursery DIY - How to Re-purpose Crib Bumpers


I originally wrote this post for the blog Mommys Craft Obsession. You can check it out (along with my extremely awesome bio) by clicking here.

When I was pregnant with my son, I decided to decorate the nursery in a jungle theme. We chose to wait until L was born to find out his sex, so I wanted the nursery to be gender neutral (although it ended up looking more boy-ish then gender neutral, which worked out well in the end.) I found a cute bedding set that I liked and used the blanket as a decorative wall hanging. 


After I made up the crib with the sheet and bed skirt, I was left with adorable crib bumpers that I had no use for. We had decided not to put them in L's crib (since the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents don't use them,) but it seemed like a waste to just throw the bumpers in a closet (or even worse, in the garbage.)

I Googled a hundred variations of "how to reuse crib bumpers," but all of the ideas required both a sewing machine (which I don't have) and some sewing and design knowledge (which I definitely don't have.) Finally I found a post on an online forum that suggested using the crib bumpers as window valances, but there were no instructions or accompanying pictures. So I decided to wing it.

Since I don't have a sewing machine, it had to be a no-sew project. But since crib bumpers are already the right height and shape, they can easily be repurposed as valances even by those of us who can't sew. 


First, I took the two longest pieces of the crib bumper and cut off the ties on the bottom (as close to the seam as possible). Then I pinned them to the back of the top of the bumper in between the other ties with safety pins (very high-tech.) I measured the window and then folded over the edges of the bumpers so that they would be the right length for the window and then pinned them so they'd stay the right length. I didn't cut the bumpers because I knew we were planning to move within the next year, and I wanted to be able to use them again on windows of a different size. (The window in our old house was long, so I used two bumpers side-by-side to cover the top of the window.) Then I just looped the ties over a curtain rod and tied them in bows to hang them.

My grandmother made the green curtains for my mom when she was pregnant with my older sister. They were a little too short, but I loved the idea of having something made by my grandmother in the nursery, since she passed away when I was 15.

The finished nursery. I used the extra ties I had cut off of the bumpers to tie back the curtains.
If you can sew, you can make the backs of the valances look more "polished" than mine do, but since no one sees the back anyway, it will still look nice if you can't sew (like me.) Now I have valances that match the bedding, and I didn't have to spend a lot to get them.

Do you have any other ideas for repurposing crib bumpers? If so, please share them in the comments!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Just like me

One thing about being a parent that is both fantastic and terrifying is seeing the ways that your child is like you. It's fun to play the game "Whose eyes/mouth/cheeks/nose does L have?" and I'm thrilled that he shares my love of books and cheese (not necessarily together,) but I have a few personality traits that I'd prefer he didn't inherit.

For example, anyone who knows me well knows that I can be (the teeny, tiniest bit) over dramatic at times and that I have a tendency to cry fairly easily.

A short list of things that have made me cry: a tuxedo commercial, more books that I can count, the wedding episode of "My Fair Brady," looking at L, a fashion show at a bridal expo, being tired, and not cooking chicken for Dan. (Although to be fair, that last one was while I was pregnant, so my hormones were a little more out of control than normal.)

L is also over dramatic (and considering that all babies cry for no good reason, that's saying a lot), and I can't be sure if it's genetics or from observing me. Dan once said (jokingly... I think) that L was going to think that the normal way to talk was in a high-pitched, abnormally excited voice, since that's the way I always talk to him. Hopefully L will become more like his even-keeled daddy as he gets older. But heaven help us all if we someday have a girl who's like me! I don't know that Dan could handle two of me.

Have your kids inherited any characteristics from you that you wish they hadn't inherited? If so, what are they?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Thank God it's Friday! Oh, wait...

The other day on Facebook, I shared one of my favorite things about being a mom:



So in the interest of full disclosure, now it's time to share one of my less-favorite things. No weekends! I mean, weekends still exist, of course, but they're not a day off. And my brain seems to be taking its sweet time adjusting to that concept, so I still occasionally think, "Oh man, I'm so glad it's Friday!" and then I remember that Fridays are now meaningless and I don't get to sleep in late on Saturday morning.

Waking up to this face does help to soften the blow, though:
No, he doesn't sleep in that hat.

So happy Friday to those of you for whom Friday still has meaning! I'll probably have a wild, crazy night of watching Project Runway reruns while cleaning the kitchen. It's ok to be jealous.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Post number five, in which I explain why my child wasn't wearing any pants.

Last week, we had a fabulous time visiting family at the beach! But as every mom knows, packing for vacation with a baby or toddler requires at least twice as much luggage as a vacation without children, and you still inevitably forget something. Pants, for example.

Ok, so I didn't actually forget to bring pants on vacation. But one night we all went out to dinner at a delicious seafood restaurant (Sara J's), and Dan and I shoved a bunch of L's things into a little bag to take with us. Toys? Check. Cheerios? Check. Diapers and wipes? Check. Disposable covers for use on bathroom changing tables because I am grossed out by them even when they look clean? Check. Spare clothes? Um, no.

Under normal circumstances, I have enough spare clothes in L's diaper bag for at least five babies, often in a variety of sizes (since I shove outfits in there and then forget to take them back out until six months after L has outgrown them), but since we weren't carrying his normal diaper bag, I somehow forgot to pack spare clothes for the restaurant... which was 30 minutes away from my sister's house. We had also chosen this particular day to try out a store brand of diapers instead of the Pampers we usually use because they were buy one get one free and a "much better deal" (side note - it turns out that the cheap diapers are not actually a better deal if they don't prevent poop from coming out of the top and legs.)

At this point, you've already figured out what happened, but I'll tell you anyway. While we were waiting for our food, L started to get a little fussy in the high chair, so I took him out. It was then that my family noticed a suspicious stain on his onesie and pants. Dan and I then realized that neither of us had brought a change of clothes for L. My first stop was to the restaurant's gift shop to ask if they had any clothes for babies. They didn't, obviously. (Note to Sara J's- I would've paid an exorbitant sum for a toddler-sized t-shirt.)

So we ended up changing L's diaper in the trunk of my sister's car and then dressing him in... a jacket. And I got to be the awesome mom whose kid wasn't wearing pants. Which obviously had to be commemorated with this picture:

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

My extremely sophisticated homemade toys - Part 1

When you're finished with this post, check out part two here and part three here.

I always see these awesome ideas for homemade toys or games on Pinterest or on other blogs, and I always think, "Oh wow, I should make that for L!" Then I read the directions, and there are 47 steps, and step number 19 is something like, "Next, harvest organic saffron from your backyard herb garden," and I realize that I am not talented enough to even PLAY with that particular toy, much less make it.

So for those of us who do not own a sewing machine, woodworking tools, or a pottery  kiln, here are some homemade toys that are a little more our speed.

Jar lids in a container


We were over at a neighbor's house for a play date, and she had baskets full of high-quality toys for the kids to play with. Naturally, the only toy that L was interested in was a plastic yogurt container full of jar lids. Since then, we've saved all of our jar lids for L to play with. I cut a rectangular hole in the lid of a plastic container (it used to have Mexican cheese dip in it. See? Sophisticated.) and L puts baby food jar lids into the hole. I'm sure that at this point I'm supposed to say something educational like, "This is excellent for the proper development of hand eye coordination and fine motor skills," which is probably true, but it is also excellent for occupying him long enough for me to make us some breakfast. Before he was able to put the jar lids into the hole, I just left the lid off, and he loved shaking the container so that all of the lids flew out and then putting them back in. An empty coffee can would work well for this, too.


Fabric and ribbon in a wipes box



 I think that I originally got this idea from this blog. She is a very talented and creative mom... who has a sewing machine. And maybe woodworking tools or a kiln. So in her version of this idea, she appliqued numbers and letters onto uniformly sized scraps of fabric. As previously discussed, I don't have a sewing machine, and I'm not sure I totally understand what appliqueing is. So my fabric was a bit less... nice. Fortunately, L doesn't seem to mind. See the retro hippy flower fabric? That was from part of  a sheet set that I got from my mom, who got it second-hand from my grandma. One of the pillowcases was extremely threadbare in some spots and had a huge hole in it, so I cut it up. Just shove a bunch of pieces of fabric, baby wash cloths, ribbons, etc into a wipes container (Huggies containers are nice because the part where the wipes come out is made of soft rubber), and then let your child pull the pieces out. I first introduced this toy to L when he was about 7 months old, and he had no interest in it whatsoever, so I put it in a closet. I re-introduced it a month or two ago, and now he's a huge fan. Don't have a suitable wipes box handy? This would work with an empty tissue box, too.

The best thing about these toys is that I didn't need to buy (or harvest) anything to make them because I already had all of the necessary components at home. Stay tuned for more extremely sophisticated toys, and in the meantime, please share your ideas for easy homemade toys for babies or toddlers. And don't judge Dan and me for buying such a ridiculously large container of cheese dip. It was delicious.



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Don't forget to check out part two of my extremely sophisticated homemade toys here and part three here.