And the winner is… commenter number 20, Liz from Our Little Man.

This Tip Tuesday is kind of fun because I’m asking for your tips in exchange for the chance to win a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Teleflora for your mother or yourself. Come on. I know not every one of you gets remembered the way you’d like on Mother’s Day so no one will judge if decide to send them to someone VERY close to you.

I love flowers because they’re a classic elegant gift that you can give every year without coming across as lame. Teleflora has a great selection of flowers you can order and have delivered just about anywhere quickly because they contract with local florists all over the place. What you’re entering to win is this Mom’s Butterfly Bouquet.

I’m not being compensated by Teleflora in any way for this little plug. One of you will be. You can compensate me by giving me other great ideas for Mother’s Day gifts. Leave a comment with a gift idea and I’ll enter you to win the bouquet to be shipped anywhere in the continental US in time for Mother’s Day. I’ll choose a winner Wednesday night at 10pm PST.

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Dan and I have been dating a lot lately. It’s like being back in high school but I go out with the same guy every time and at the end of the night, he watches me brush my teeth and put on my muumuu. If he’s lucky, I also brush my teeth before the date and don’t put on the muumuu until after.

Dinner and/or a movie has been working well for us for months but we’re read to branch out and I’d love your suggestions. What are some fun date activities you enjoy with your shmoop?

I’ll give a couple.

Go to an arcade and play like you were little kids. Chuck E Cheese would even work for this. Sometimes it’s fun to go to places you normally take your kids but without them. You can actually enjoy yourself instead of following them around taking pictures and watching them have fun. That can be good too but sometimes it’s fun to enjoy yourself without worrying about who that weird creepy adult guy is crawling around in the tunnel maze with your 3-year-old.

Spend some time at a bookstore, browsing new sections and reading together. Dan and I had to stop reading a particular book last time we did this because we were laughing so hard we were worried we’d get kicked out and Dan was embarrassed by his own laughing man-tears.

Go kayaking in the Puget Sound… or other substandard body of water closer to where you live. We’ve done this once and it was a blast. Hopefully when the kids are older we’ll have the time and money to do this more often.

Okay, now you go. Tell me what we should do for our next night (or day) out.

A few years ago, I started having a weekly tip smackdown on Tuesdays and after a while I got sick of it and petered out. But I’ve been missing it for quite some time (Oh how I love harvesting your minds for ideas!) and so I’m starting it up again. Today we’re talking about one of the never ending chores of family life, feeding the people so that the people can live.

I get sick of making dinners but unlike Tip Tuesdays, I can’t just discontinue dinner. Someone might notice. Someone might complain. Someone might call the authorities.

So I try to make it as easy as possible. Here are a few of my tips.

1. Make a plan. If I wait until dinner time rolls around, things will get grim. Boxes and cans that should really be saved for the apocalypse due to their shelf-life, lack of nutritional value, and imperviousness to nuclear radiation are often brought out and combined in unappealing ways. These meals can involve canned meat. They never involve happiness and satisfaction.

First I have a list of emergency meals I can make in a pinch. These include scrambled eggs, quesadillas, sandwiches, spaghetti that I boil and then pour the bottled sauce on top and let the noodles warm it, pancakes, etc.

Then I plan a week’s worth of “real” meals and shop for them. So, I’m never left wondering “What’s for dinner?” and even though I may decide not to really cook one day, I can use one of my fall-back meals.

2. Form a Dinner Co-op. I’ve talked about dinner co-ops and super swapping before on this blog. I’ve done this off and on for years and I love it. It’s really saved me during this pukey part of the pregnancy. Once a week I’m forced to cook a really nice main dish for a few other families and deliver it to their homes. Then the rest of the week warm delicious meals magically arrive at my door and all I have to provide are the veggies to go with them.

We all buy matching pyrex and tupperwares and pass them around as we cook so we never worry about getting our dishes back. We have a scheduled drop-off time so we know when we can expect to be fed. Once a month we send a list of the meals we’re planning on making to the scheduler, who makes a calendar for the month, spreading out the foods so that we get a good variety each week. When you’re only cooking once a week, you bring you’re A-game so we get some really delicious food. We save money buying in bulk. I don’t have to worry about dinner most of the week. It helps the kids feel a sense of community as we deliver and receive meals from various families. Each night they ask who the dinner came from. It’s like a commune but with more frequent deodorant usage.

3. Have an emergency back-up plan for crazy times in your lives. I found this in the form of a book by Mary Jo Rulnick. The book is called The Frantic Woman’s Guide to Feeding Family and Friends. It does all the planning for you, complete with shopping lists, recipes, meal plans and preparation tips for every season of the year. It’s really a great resource even if you don’t follow all of her recipe plans but if you do, it’s like a brain vacation for dinner preparation. She does all the planning and all you have to do is follow her daily instructions for shopping, prep and cooking. The recipes are simple and it’s the perfect answer for those times in your life when you just don’t have the energy left to plan one more thing.

She also has great general tips on saving time and effort in the kitchen and sections on what to do with holiday leftovers, an entire week of ham recipes and an entire week of leftover turkey ideas.

So here’s the part I like best about Tip Tuesday, the part where you leave your tips in the comment section. What do you do to make dinner time easier or more enjoyable? Do you have any simple meal ideas you can share with us?

HELP! We’re planning what will possibly be the most magical week of our princess-obsessed lives. I know a lot of you have been to Disneyland recently and I’d love to hear your suggestions and tips to have the most fun possible for the most reasonable cost.

We plan to fly down and stay in a hotel.

We want to be in the park for 3 days.

We want our brains to explode all over the park with the joy of it.

We want to have enough money left in our bank account afterwards to buy food for the rest of the month once we get home.

Spouses? Spice? Spizals?

This Tip Tuesday is about tricking your kids… in a good way… in a way that helps them become better people because they have no clue what’s really going on with their parents… in a way that masks your neuroses so that they can develop neuroses of their own without having to resort to following in your oh-so-strange footsteps.

Dan hates mushrooms and olives. I, on the other hand, have taste buds. When we were first married, Dan would pick things he didn’t like out of his food, while I sat mortified until I exploded and said that once we had kids he could NEVER NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. I would not raise finicky kids. Period.

This was a sore spot in our marriage. Then we had Laylee. She didn’t talk much, drooled frequently and seemed unfazed by Dan’s mountain of black olive bits. So he carried on. Eventually I could see her eyes beginning to focus, she began speaking in full poetic verse, complete with 5-syllable words in iambic pentameter and I knew it was time but Dan was reluctant to change.

So we developed a system for picky spouses/spice. When I make something that contains a rogue element which Dan finds repulsive, I will dish his portion carefully to avoid giving him too much of the hated item. I will then make some comment about how tasty the mushrooms are and beg him to share his with me… for love… and chivalry.

He always concedes to do so, thus looking like a hero instead of a Picky Mickey. The children see how desirable the item is if I’m begging for it and grow up to be happy mushrootarians. And the peasants rejoice.

I know you all have weirdness. How do you hide it from your little peeps?

The internet’s been down all day here so Tip Tuesday is gonna be mostly on Wednesday this week but I know you can roll “wid” it because y’all are cool like that.

When Laylee was first born, I read to her obsessively. I had all kinds of reading goals, plans and agendas and I loved the way we bonded over our favorite books. Now that Magoo has joined the posse, I find myself armed with books as a weapon to encourage naps, bedtime and something like quiet behavior in church.

He doesn’t seem to have an attention span worth mentioning and since most of our books don’t growl or explode, they’re of very little interest to him.

Laylee still loves stories but she wants to pick her own now and they’re often either so long or so annoying that I try not to suggest story time unless I’m trying to bribe her into narcolepsy.

I’ve felt guilty about our mounting family illiteracy but not as guilty as I’ve felt about my many other areas of personal parental inadequacy so I’ve let it slide. Sometime between 6 months and 10 years ago, Sourcebooks sent me a review copy of Reading with Babies, Toddlers and Twos: A Guide to Reading, Choosing and Loving Books Together.

I finally pulled it out last month and found it was really a quick read and much to my surprise, it did not make me feel a bit guilty, only encouraged to do better. It’s full of great tips, quotes and stories about reading but the best part is that it’s crammed with lists of books for nearly every early age, stage and personality type.

I enjoyed the book and the renewed excitement my kids and I have found for reading so much that I decided to send it on to my sister-in-law as a baby present… But I couldn’t part with all those fabu lists so now I have to go and spend actual money on the darn thing.

My 3 favorite tips from the book are:

-Relax and let your kids enjoy their books, even if it means letting them love Curious George to a pitiful paper monkey death.

-Have your kids grab a couple of books on your way out the door so they have something to occupy them in the car. This will build their bond with books and may give you a couple of seconds’ peace as you drive or a helpful diversion in a checkout line.

-Take small chunks of time throughout the day to sit down and read with your kids, not just one big fat story marathon and not just at bedtime.

What tips do you have to encourage reading for children of all ages?

What books should no children’s library be without?

Shannon says everyone’s doing giveaways and maybe she’s right…

Since moving to Seattle we’ve put thousands of miles on Vinny, driving back and forth to visit stubborn family all over the country who refuse to pick up stakes and move in next door.

I was even insane enough to travel alone with 2 kids, 14 hours each way to visit my parents this spring. Very seldom do I come across breakthroughs in travel with offspring. This 4th of July week, I came across two.

1. Wash the Car — Every time we stop for gas, the kids want to get out and run around. This usually involves yelling at calling loudly with love and logic to them as they dodge semi trucks in the parking lot, wrenching away the candy that they are loudly clutching to their bosoms in the convenience store and helping them collect cigarette butts in the “field” behind the trash bin.

No more!

We now play a new game entitled “Wash the Car” in which the children, in fact, cleanse the family vehicle. While Mommy’s pumping gas and daddy’s powdering his nose, the kids each get their own squeegee and are instructed to clean the car as well as they can until the car wash timer clicks. (It sounds a lot like the handle on a gas pump releasing.)

They love it, especially when the washing fluid is pink, and I feel a bit better paying $10/gallon for gas if they throw in a couple of gallons of fun for free.

2. Toobs of Joy — Until this trip, I had yet to find a toy that would keep my toddler busy for more than 30 seconds while he was strapped into our mobile torture chamber.

At the drugstore in our little town, the drugstore where the pharmacists have a baby swing and a pak-n-play behind the counter to keep their kids close at hand, I purchased a toob of joy.

Magoo sat with the Farm Toob on his lap and joyfully emptied out each animal, identified it loudly and then shoved it back in again. He continued like this for at least an hour. As far as I can remember, Magoo has never done anything for an hour since he spent that long keeping himself plugged in my nether-regions during child birth. Apart from one minor incident with a rooster wedged under his butt for a couple of hours, the Farm Toob experience was one of bliss and joy. They’re detailed, well-made and perfectly pudgy-fist-sized.

The Farm Toob is my favorite all time road trip toy and now I want to collect them all.

Sadly they included no gift for me, but then I already have the Farm Toob and the memory of an hour of joy on the road.

Leave a comment to be put in a random drawing for the gift packs. I’ll draw 2 winners Friday July 20th at midnight PST.

I’d love to hear your road trip ideas, but you can just say, “Hi,” or, “Give me plastic,” and you’ll still be entered.

If you don’t win, you can buy them here, here, here and here. I’ll be buying them from ye olde tiny drugstore down the street.

***Update – The winners are comment #91 and #99, April C. and Seabird. Congratulations and thanks for all the great tips!***

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The random winners of the Roadtrip Giveaway are April C. and Seabird. Congratulations and thanks to everyone for all the great tips!

If for any reason they are unable to fulfill their duties as plastic tube winners, we’ll draw more names at random.

”˜Tis the time of summer. Lots of people have birthdays in the summer. I think most of them are first or only children because after a mother’s had one third trimester during the hottest part of the year, she likely learns to… ahem… time things a little better the next time around.

Anywho, many of you are likely planning birthday parties for your small comrades and I think the rest of us should help you out. Today is a day of tips. I will describe 2 birthday parties and invite you to share your ideas too.

1. Faerie Mania — This was a spring party for us but I think it could have been even more funnerer in the summer. Laylee only invited 4 friends because she was turning 4 and also to limit the intake of stuff into our house. The girls were asked to come dressed up in faerie clothes (Princess attire would do in a pinch.). As they arrived, I put wings on those who were unwinged and took their pictures in front of this startlingly realistic woodland backdrop. I read them a book of faerie “FACTS” and crossed my fingers that their parents weren’t anti-Santa-Claus-ites who would take exception to their mythical indoctrination. Faeries are most likely to be found in forests or living in flowers. Each flower is home to a faerie. If you look really hard, you can see them. If you can’t see them, you’re not looking hard enough or are possibly a very naughty little girl who needs to stop picking on her little brother and start brushing her molars more vigorously.
We then printed out their faerie pictures, pasted them onto foam frames and let the girls decorate them with glitter. If the glitter got on their hands, clothes, or up their nostrils, we applauded them for their new improved glittery faerie-like appearances.

We hunted for “faerie money” which was actually stale chocolate coins with menorahs and Hebrew words on them, clearance priced as a post-Hanukah special. Luckily none of the girls could read Hebrew.

Click here for more great faerie party ideas.

2. Magoo’s Fantasy Fire Station Extravaganza — I like my new neighbors for many reasons but mostly because they invited us to their son’s birthday party this weekend and it almost made Magoo’s head explode… in a good way.

The party began with a tour of the fire station, which contains FIRE TRUCKS!!!!!, FIRE BOATS, and MO MO FIRE TRUCKS!!!!!!

All the kids got cheap plastic fire hats, which Magoo held onto with both hands. This was smart thinking because it threatened to fall off every time he would get a glimpse of a MO MO FIRE TRUCK, gasp, tremble with maniacal ecstasy, and YELL.

The tour included a chance to walk through an ambulance and the cab of a fire engine. A fire fighter even put on all his gear and shook the kids’ hands while talking like Darth Vader through his helmet. Each child was given a station trading card with a picture of a FIRE TRUCK!!!

I won’t even start to describe the spread of food that followed back at the ranch because I don’t want you all stalking my neighbor and therefore coming a little too close to stalking me but let’s just say it was amazing.

How would you party this summer?

Currently I am reading a PZ4 selection for my book club. I’ve never been much of a PZ4, never quite made it to a jousting tournament or medieval feast and I cut my hair every few years. However, I can stand some good fantasy every now and again. The book we’re currently reading is The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart.

When I’m reading it, I want to keep reading to find out what will happen next, but when I’m not currently reading I have trouble convincing myself that I care about what happens to Vortigern, Morginstern and Häagen-Dazs of the House of Googinesh. But for the love of my good friend, I will press on.

That said, when I’m finished with this, I need more. I feel the need, the need to read.

Here are a few suggestions from me for summer reading:

These is My Words by Nancy Turner — page-turning frontier adventure and romance
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger — excellent prose, amazingly rich characters, faith promoting
Moonraker’s Bride by Madeleine Brent — fun fluff, a light, romantic, action/adventure

A while back I asked for your favorite books of all time. Now I just want one or two from each of you that will keep me interested and coming back for more between running through the sprinkler, pushing kids on the swings and deciding how long the laundry can really wait before we’ll all need to go out and buy new clothes.

I’m open to pretty much any genre but hardcore romance. Hit me with your best shots. What’s worth reading?