Friday Five - Interactive books, slow cooker recipes & DIY art displays
Plus - a trick to stop meltdowns that actually worked!
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The third trimester elephant in the room
I’m 32 weeks pregnant right now and this major thing that felt so far away just a few months ago doesn’t feel so distant anymore. In fact, there are many moments when I feel like a deer in headlights staring a due date right in the face as I try to cram all of the things into the remaining few months.
Being pregnant in the third trimester is a strange feeling because you essentially stop making any major life plans after an obligatory date on the calendar. Come the end of April, everything in life will change dramatically and instantly.
But everyone around you is still making plans and living their lives. At work, meetings, major campaigns, and events are being discussed for May and June when I know I won’t be there. Friends and family are starting to plan out summer vacations and Memorial Day events and house projects.
But for me, life is just divided into two phases — things that will happen before the baby comes and then this whole other life with all new routines and schedules on the other side.
So while everyone else in my life is busy making plans, I am just here — feeling very, very pregnant and keeping my calendar completely wide open after the end of April.
Meanwhile, here are five other things that caught my eye this week:
Interactive books for toddlers: I’ve been saving numerous posts on Instagram recommending interactive books for Annie. She will often read independently, but is even more likely to do it by herself if the book has some interactive elements in them so I’ve been building up a shopping list. These three look very fun and like ones that she would like.
The Goodnight Dog flashlight book lets kids use the flashlight to shine lights on each page to find things.
The Cheerios Play book has spaces on each page where kids can insert cheerios to tell a story.
And the Boo Boo Book comes with reusable band-aids that kids can put on the pictures in the book. My band-aid obsessed child will love this!
When a parenting meltdown trick actually works: I saw this video online a few days ago about tricks to diffuse meltdowns and stop tantrums.
One of the tricks in the video talks about how you need to capture the logical part of their brain to stop the emotional part from freaking out during a meltdown. We went to the pediatrician office on Tuesday and when we were leaving, Annie started trying to run through the parking lot so I picked her up which led to yelling and kicking. Thinking about the video tip, I spotted a FedEx truck driving by us so I said, “Look Annie - it’s a bus!”. She immediately stopped yelling and said, “No mommy, it’s a truck!” I then asked her what color the cars are that were driving by us and she spent the rest of the walk to the car pointing out car colors. Meltdown ended instantly. Not all parenting advice about toddler behavior works and it’s often so hard in the moment to remember what to say or do, but when it does work and you successfully defeat a meltdown, you feel like a parenting genius.
Routine chart: As I lamented in my last issue, we’ve been having lots of issues at bedtime with bedtime stalling that leads to big feelings and meltdowns. The internet’s general advice was to get a routine chart to help Annie predict and know what is coming. While I would love to splurge on a Charmspring board, they are not in the budget right now. I attempted to make my own using Lovevery flashcards tapped to a piece of paper. Annie was very into them and they did help move us along from bath to pajamas to teethbrushing, but she also covered them in stickers that I couldn’t get off and got it soaking wet in the bath. My friend Steph just bought her son this routine chart on Amazon that I am very intrigued by. I think Annie will love to check off each task on the list. I might try one more DIY solution, but if that fails, I will be getting this one from Amazon.
Kid art storage: Annie’s been in daycare since she was four-months-old and has always come home with lots and lots of art from school. After it got too overwhelming for just hanging on the fridge, I DIYed this hanging art display wall in her playroom using small command strips and clothes pins and it has been a huge hit.
She likes picking out which art will get hung up and we switch things out fairly regularly. Naptime Kitchen just posted about a similar system that she uses in her home where she fills a wall in a long hallway with kid art.
She then transfers the ones she wants to save to a bin organized by child and age. I want to follow her lead and find a bin that I can use to store them in once I take them off the wall instead of the ever growing pile of them stacked in our basement.
And finally, the three best things I read on Substack this week:
I very much related to
’s list of the things keeping her sane right now as a very pregnant mom with a toddler. I agree that the ease of the Nespresso and everything showers are amazing. I am not as good as her about getting to bed at an early hour as I write this at 10pm… Being pregnant is tiring. Being pregnant with a toddler is incredibly tiring so it’s nice to read about other moms in the same boat.With a support system or not, taking care of a toddler full-time while daring to create another human along the way is kind of audacious. And yeah, it’s hard.
The newsletter that made me laugh the most this week was
’s issue on her “tips” for solo parenting that include getting the stomach flu, not having daycare, teething and refusing naps. We can all relate! Her newsletter is very much worth a subscribe to hear her stories about raising her daughter in Amsterdam.There are no rules. Four bananas before 11:30 am? Ok! Elsa? Let’s watch one of the movies each day and make sure to have the soundtracks playing on the Sonos at all times.
And finally, we are a big slow cooker family. Post daycare it is a mad dash to get dinner on the table so having things prepped ahead of time in the slow cooker makes everything so much easier. I was excited to find some new recipes I wanted to try out in
’s and ’s Substacks this week. Emily’s recipes are true dump and go recipes when you are very short on time for prep and Caroline’s are a tad more complex, but are still relatively easy to put together.
I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. We had strep this week so our week was thrown off, but the spring-like 60 degree weather here in Virginia has been so restorative. My plan is to be back Sunday with a deep dive into the new trendy baby products that I missed between pregnancies and then back with a “Weekly Recs” issue early next week.
Oh my gosh honored!!!!!! Glad to know I’m not alone in the chaos parenting 💕💕💕💕💕