Baby Squared

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• The Land of Haunted Toys

  Do you guys have these toys, too? The kind that spontaneously start making noise or flash their lights or otherwise turn on out of the blue, when nobody is within ten feet of them? And make you feel, for a moment, like you're in some mediocre horror movie? Except, the haunted toys aren't so much creepy as they are, well, annoying?   We've got this roller push-toy thing that, when you push it, shouts out "A! B! Ceeeeee!" in this androgynous, nasal voice and then plays the alphabet song. That is, it's supposed to. But it got left out in the yard a couple of times over the summer and got wet. (Also, um, I got it from the curb of a neighbor's house on garbage day.) So, now it only works intermittently, and primarily when no one is touching it. Alastair and I will be sitting there in the living room after the kids are in bed, reading aloud to each other from Dickens or discussing macro-economics, or, you know, watching 30 Rock, and suddenly this little voice will sound out from the toy boxes: "A!"  (Actually, it's more like "A?") and we both jump.     Read More... Posted Feb 12 2009, 09:17 AM by Roper with | with 31 comment(s) Filed under: toys, entertaining toddlers, singing toys, broadway, haunted toys

• The Bean Box, and Other Delights

  Phew. Just made it through an entire weekend -- well, Thursday afternoon through today -- on my own with the girls, temperatures outside in the 20s, without going insane.   Knowing Alastair was going to be away, that the weather was not going to be outdoor-activity-friendly, and that I was fighting a cold and a potential backslide into depression (I won on both fronts -- Yahoo!) I planned out the whole weekend ahead of time. I lined up a trip to our local family network's drop-in playgroup, a playdate, a birthday party, a few hours of sitter time, and a friend over for takeout and a movie one of the evenings. It may sound a little anal and ridiculous, but I've decided that planning really is key to not going nutso over the weekends, especially when the weather sucks, and double-especially when Alastair is away. Structure, structure, structure!   I also created a new indoor "toy" for the gals, inspired by some of the suggestions you offered up in response to one of my posts from last week: the Bean Box. It is, as you might suspect, a box full of dried beans (I know; clever name, right? I'm a writer and stuff.) It's something of a variation on the indoor sandbox idea, except it doesn't take up as much room, and can be put away when playtime is over. Here's what you do: take a shallow box of some sort and put it on the kitchen floor, dump a few bags of dried beans into it (I used chick peas, kidney beans and intriguingly speckled Romas), add bowls, shovels, scoops and other containers, and you've got yourself at least a half hour's worth of toddler-tainment.    (A wine case for all seasons: it has served as toy box, stepping stool for the girls' climbing structure, and now -- the Bean Box.)   Read More... Posted Nov 23 2008, 04:29 PM by Roper with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: twins, depression, twin toddlers, toys, parenting and depression, rainy days, entertaining toddlers, Herb Alpert, winter activities, beans

• The best things in life

  On a few recent occasions, I've noticed that the girls have shown interest in other kids' "pretend" toys -- dollhouses, train sets, play farms, etc. -- so I started keeping my eyes open for something along the same lines to add to their toy collection. (The toy collection which, incidentally, is gradually overtaking our living room, spreading like a brightly colored, plastic rash.)  I did some Craigslist searching, bid halfheartedly on a Fisher Price Noisy Farm on eBay (and didn't win), and posted on my MOT club listserv, but to no avail. In the end, it was Freecycle that did the trick.   Freecycle, in case you're not familiar with it, is a network of community groups/ listservs for giving and getting free stuff. It's a great way to get rid of things you don't need any more but don't want to bother trying to sell or wouldn't be able to, and also a wonderful to score a whole variety of random stuff for yourself -- everything from computers to books to extra zucchini from people's gardens. Its main purpose is to reduce waste, but it's also a great way to save money. So if you're both cheap and green(ish), like me, you absolutely must check it out.    When I tried to explain the concept to my husband he was aghast. "You mean people just give stuff away? For free? Why don't they sell it? What's the matter with these people?"   Read More... Posted Aug 19 2008, 08:00 AM by Roper with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: twins, pictures, druthers, toys, dollhouses, green parenting