Life with Kids is Easy!
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Having put our little daughter to bed, I am hurrying to the kitchen to my husband who has recently come home for lunch. Already from the threshold of the room I am starting to tell him (as we all have very little time 
), “The other mummies on the playground say… (I suddenly stand still seeing something on the table) how beautifully you have cut the cheese!”
I was amazed at my husband’s Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advice, ideas, lifehack, parents, personal development, productivity
I think we have found a perfect way both to improve our state when we feel tired or gloomy and the state of our little daughter when she starts misbehaving or crying.
It was in Sahaja Yoga that I first learn about the beneficial influence on the organism of baths for feet . Negative energies that we could “pick up” during the day go into the basin with water and salt. Peace sets within, negative thoughts and emotions leave us, sleep improves. And imagine how surprised I was when I found out that doctors also recommend keeping our feet in the water of comfortable temperature where some sea salt is added. Moreover, they advise to do it both for adults and kids.
Last month, the doctor who came to make a professional massage to our toddler told us something about footosoaking. Our little girl (17 mo) keeps her feet in the basin with water and salt two times a day since she turned 1 year old. She does it at the same time with us (in the morning and evening). The masseur explained to us the benefit of this activity from medical point of view:
In fact, if our daughter is in a gloomy mood it is just enough to do the footsoaking together with her for her state to improve for the better.
And today the neurologist who we attended on a routine basis prescribed our little girl the same method for strengthening her legs. When I asked the doctor what the benefits salty water are, she answered that Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advice, children, family, ideas, kids, parents, personal development
*Elevators/lifts in Russian multistory houses are quite narrow.
Our son was born in winter. Preparing for it, we bought the pram – a spacious one, with a big cradle for the baby to feel comfortable in it in 20 winter pieces of clothes and warm blankets. What we did not thought about then was the elevator in our 9-storey house. Our pram turned out to fit it only when the doors of the elevator were pushed to the sides with one’s hands 
. One had to be a magician-acrobat-bodybuilder to ride the pram into the elevator at the same time pushing the doors to the sides and not waking up the baby.
At that time we were new, not-experienced and not very witty parents. Thus, the problem was solved in a very simple way – Arseny had to walk at the balcony, that’s it (at least, it was easier for the mummy ).
But time passed. The sun started to warm up our balcony on the southern side of the house. By the middle of May there was the atmosphere of a Finnish sauna there. The issue “pram-elevator” appeared again. But once again we solved it in a simple way: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advice, do-it-yourself, ideas, lifehack, tips
After the birth of our son many new things appeared in our apartment.
Some of them have not been used at all like, for example, the anatomic seat for the baby’s bath – Arseny did not like it. Others, on the contrary, were enjoyed by all of us at first glance use and have become an essential part of our life (I am speaking about the rocking-chair here). Some things were not used according to what they are meant for but were appropriate for other activities. The baby’s bath and the pram (its main part) became a storage for toys and a bottle with olive oil for the massage lives in the foam-plastic thermos for baby’s bottles due to which 1) the bottle with oil has become non-transparent for the vitamins to be preserved and 2) it can be dropped onto the floor now .
By the way, to find new functions of things is one of my favourite activities. The thing which turned to have the largest number of functions in my parental practice is a… syringe. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advice, children, home, ideas, kids, lifehack, parents
“I bought 3 rolls of brown paper from RIOT the other day. They were on sale: $1.99 for 5 metres roll. What a great bargain! I have been planning on doing this project for sometimes now but I never had the chance to do it.
Stella loves painting; we have a huge pile of her painting. So the idea is, for her to paint her heart content on the brown paper roll and I will use the painted roll for wrapping paper.
Tags: advice, children, Creative Work, design, do-it-yourself, early-childhood development, ideas, kids, presents
When our daughter had just turned 2 months old, we got a parcel (by post) from our Moscow friends. There were beautiful suits, toys and… inflated balloons. At first I was surprised. It seemed Volodya did not want to be trivial. But in two minutes I suddenly realized the importance of the balloons: there had been much free space in the box and for the things not to fly about the box (not to break and rumple) our friends decided to inflate balloons and occupy all that space with them.
Then Nadya, Volodya’s wife, was telling me: “The post office was closing already. And we had to go to the station. So, we were packing quite quickly what Read the rest of this entry »
That’s it – always ready! As both the mother who has a little baby and the mother who is “packing” her child for school and hurrying to work do not have time for cutting, boiling and frying! But malnutrition, as we all know, is not good for our health.
Natalie and I have worked out a list of products (with no semi-finished products!), which can provide a good breakfast being used together or separately:
* Oatmeal. Natalie’s method: put rolled oats into the dish, cover it with boiling water and eat the dish in 3 minutes. Anastasia’s method: put rolled oats into the dish, cover it with cold water, put the dish into the steam cooker together with the vegetables for the baby, add raisins and eat. The method of Anastasia’s husband: put the oats into the dish, add cold water, put the dish into the micro-wave and add mashed banana – then you can eat it.
* Boiled buckwheat. Anastasia’s method: put buckwheat into the saucepan, add cold water, leave it on fire for 10 minutes. Natalie’s method: Read the rest of this entry »
The wardrobe of our newly-born Sonya was being filled up, basically, due to the presents of our relatives and friends. Everybody wanted to see the baby, to smile at her but how one can come without a “present”!
We, in our turn, wanted to thank the generous guests for the beautiful clothes (from crawlers to dresses) and entertaining toys (from rattles to construction sets).
Tea with sweet things was an ever-present attribute of the meetings. Of course, I had neither strength nor time for a substantial “feast” but why not have some tea?
And we also found the way how to express our gratitude for the present to each guest in such a manner that Read the rest of this entry »
Today we are answering the question of Daria, a reader of our blog:
“So far, I have not been able to think out how to make table and a home playground for our elder daughter (24 months) for her to be able to make crafts and other creative things as we also have one ore baby (12 months) who will bother her. It is not possible to leave all the things like paints, pencils and plasticine on the table for them to be reached by he girl at any time as then you will get tired to collect all thi stuff about the room”.
We have asked mums who have also got toddlers with 1-1,5 year’s difference of age between them what solution they’ve got concerning this issue.
Vera, the mother of Bazhena (4,5) and Kyrill (almost 3):
«Kyrill started crawling late, when he was about 8 months old. Till some certain time, we could play (study) peacefully with our daughter. But I decided in the very beginning: the things which are really not to be touched (by both the children) should always be in boxes on the refrigerator in the kitchen: everything for plasticine modeling, puzzles, pencils, brushes, watercolours, etc. I bought these boxes in “Ikea” but you can also
Tags: advice, children, early-childhood development, family, home schooling, ideas, kids
Starting from the age of 7, I used to look through the album with the pictures of me as a baby and my “sayings” which my mother had made. I studied how I had been changing while growing, how “wise” my comments were when I was 3,4,5 years old. I remember the album to make me joyous when I was not allowed to leave my bed because of a cold or flu:
“A TV set is working in a dark room.
- Mummy, I like this light so much. And I can say that this light is state*!” (4 yrs. old)
* “state” here means “belongs to the state”
“-Mummy, let’s start keeping a dog.
- When we have a bigger apartment, then we will get ourselves a dog.
- When I am a grown-up, let’s start keeping a dog?
- OK!
- What is OK, mummy?
- We’ll start keeping.
- Who will we start keeping?” (4 yrs.old)
«-Anastasia, how long will it continue?**
- I do not know. Think yourself, long or not.
- And what do you think?
- I do not think. I have a day-off». (5 yrs. old)
** about my misbehaviour
When a daughter arrived in our family, I wanted to make something similar for her.
And at that time, Natalie, whose son Arseny was born only 3 months before our Soniya, suggested an idea. She turned out to have bought a thick writing pad and to be writing down some notes about the development of their baby by hand there. And, the main thing, she was drawing sketches there. Moreover, she also had photos and video. It was she who told me about scrapbooking.
But my approach to making the book differed from Natalie’s one. I decided Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advice, children, diary, do-it-yourself, ideas, kids, parents, presents
Life with kids is easy! Wonderful ideas, parents’ tricks and tips, lifehack and wisdom – invent with us to make life with the kid more harmonious and easier… >>>
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