tips for the day

Put your metal walk in door to good use as a memory jogger. Using magnets (gimme’s work best because they are so strong) attach your family’s calendar, notes, school projects or "to do" lists to the door. As you leave the house, you will see the attached papers and will "remember" what you previously forgot. A great way to use your otherwise unused door.     
        

Place a blank piece of paper on the fridge. Every time your child does something right or good, give her a sticker. When the paper gets a full, tell her she will get a toy surprise. She is always motivated and rewarded for good behavior.

Punish the child who fought last. It is a simple matter of twisting words to fit the logic. To prevent himself or herself from being the one who fought last, they will not fight back when provoked. That stops the fight before it even begins and you can still punish the one who started the fight because then he or she would be the one who fought "last".

Next time you are planning a family vacation, don’t tell your kids where you are going! See how excited they will be when you wake them up and get in the car or go to the airport for a secret destination. Of course you will have to have bags packed when they aren’t around but it is worth it. They will be so excited that the car or plane trip will be much easier as they try to guess where they are going.

We use old small boxes from food or deliveries and cover them in brown paper. Draw "bricks" on them if you want and you have building blocks that can make a large castle and be recycled when done.

Have your kids plant their pacifiers into pots. Later on go remove the pacifier’s and place seeds in the pots. Kids will think it’s cool that their pacifiers grow plants/flowers. It’s also a cute idea if you plant flowers that are the same color as the pacifier.

I use the hangers that come with my new clothes to make mobiles with the kids. It’s fun to make different ones for each holiday. A week before the holiday I take out the projects from the years before, and decorate the house. It makes the kids proud of their past work and shows them how their crafting skills have progressed.

Put a Post-It note over the sensor and it will prevent the toilet from auto-flushing. After she’s all done, wiped, and left the stall, you can remove the paper to let the toilet flush.

Have children write down, or dictate if they’re too young, questions for their grandparents. What was life like when you were a child? Who were your friends when you were little? What did you think when you first saw me? Then mail them off to the grandparents and let them fill in the answers, and return. Then, make copies and have the books bound. Great gift for anyone in the family.

For parents who bottle feed their newborns, taking time to warm those bottles during the first few months can be time consuming. There is no need to warm the bottles; if given cold bottles from the very beginning, most babies will not object. We checked with our children’s doctor, and he told us that there is no medical reason for giving babies warm bottles, that it was just a matter of preference. This certainly made a difference for us in terms of the ease of bottle feeding.