Traveling with a Toddler

Our family just went on a such a beautiful fall road trip. Living in Central Florida, we don't see much differences in the various seasons, so we love driving up north a bit for cooler weather, apple orchards and family farm fun! 

Check out our YouTube video of our trip for some ideas you can try out with your own family!

On our road trips, we travel with two elementary age children and my toddler age daughter. In this blog I'll share some ideas on how we keep them happy and busy during long stretches of driving!

Toddler Tips

• We are very fortunate to have four adults in the van, so there's always someone to keep our toddler entertained. Her car seat sits between two adults. 
• She loves sticker books (and so do I)! I usually hand her the stickers, but sometimes she tries to pull them off the page. I find really cheap sticker activity books to use. This activity lasts about 10 minutes at a time.
• On this trip, I also brought about five coloring pencils. They won't melt like crayons and won't make marks all over the place like markers. I only bring a few so I can keep track of them. At this point, my toddler isn't purposefully picking various colors, so a few are just fine. She enjoys it when I color with her.
• My sister bought all three girls some No Mess coloring sets by Crayola. These are markers, but only make color on the actual "magic" pages! 
• I brought a few toys that are all inclusive and one piece. The Dimpl Dot by Fat Brain was a huge hit this trip. The worm on a string in the apple toy kept my toddler busy for bits at a time too. Both toys help with fine motor skills and I have done other videos/posts about them both.
• We are also very fortunate to have a little TV in the van, that we use for the days we are driving 12+ hours. We pretty much only watched Bluey on this trip. Be sure to choose a calm show that is slow paced and doesn't have a lot of loud music and fast transitions. We didn't use an iPad on this trip, but the last trip we did, and we kept it at least 12 inches from her eyes.
  
• Any time we stopped for gas or food, we all walked around and made sure our toddler did too.
• We keep her water bottle filled, toddler snacks ready in the diaper bag patience in our pockets!

What other ideas help for traveling with toddlers? Comment on my posts with some more ideas! I would love to try them out.

Fun books to read with your toddler!

Looking for fun books to read with your toddler and preschooler? DK Publishing has a series of pop up peekaboo books that kids love to read! They also introduce and teach concepts such learning to count, identifying colors, baby faces and feelings, animals, holidays, bedtime, vehicles, places like farms and the ocean, and first words. These books are touch and feel, lift the flap, and pop up! Each book is so engaging! It's a great way to get your young one to love reading and ask you to read together. In this video, I'll share a few of the books and how you can make reading a fun activity to do together!

Daily Schedule Ideas for Babies/Toddlers and Kids

It is summer time! And for a planner like me, I like to schedule out the days to include as wide a variety of activities as I can. One of my friends asked for some ideas of a schedule, so I decided to make a blog post about it. I’ll share ideas and tips on what to include in your own schedule, how you can adapt it for your own kids depending on age, as well as share a bit about my own schedule. My hope is to help you be a mom (or dad) boss so your child will the smartest kid on the block!

Whether you are home all day, one day or part of a day with your baby/toddler, you can pick and choose from the following ideas to keep your young one active, engaged and learning.

Morning Routine

When my daughter wakes up, we have a little routine in such a way that she knows what to expect and what comes next. After getting myself ready (sometimes with her and sometimes before she wakes up), I put an outfit on my daughter. (I pick out the week’s outfit on Sunday evening.) Then she points to her feet to get her socks and shoes on. We usually read a book that she chooses and then head to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Finally, we will eat breakfast together. Sometimes she sits in her high chair while I prep it and sometimes she is in the kitchen with me.

Remember to take care of you, too!

As a mom, it is easy to forgot self-care and taking care of ourselves can easily fall to the bottom of the list. My goal this summer is to go on a bike ride or stroller walk after breakfast each day. My daughter loves both activities and it is a great way to get in some exercise.

The Daily Schedule

This summer, my two nieces who are eight and five, will be spending the day with us so I have a detailed schedule for each day. I purposely include play time that incorporates the five stages of child development: cognitive, social and emotional, speech and language, fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Here are just a few ideas of what you can include from each stage. Many activities fall into more than one stage.

Example Schedule:

An example of a day’s schedule at home might look like this:

8:30 Wake up, morning routine, breakfast

9:00 Bike ride or walk in stroller

10:00 Play time - cognitive activities (puzzles, sorting toys, stacking toys etc)

10:30 Arts/Crafts/Coloring/Sticker Books - fine motor skills

11:00 Music Time, listen to music, play music, play musical instruments along to music

11:30 Lunch

12:00 Gross Motor Skills, Recess: Walking, Running, Dancing - physical activity for child

12:30 Reading Time - speech and language skills

1:00 Nap Time

3:00 Snack, playtime (cognitive activities & social and emotional skills)

3:30 Exercise together (gross motor skills - playing outside, walking together etc)

4:00 Relax together, my daughter enjoys Sesame Street and Beat Bugs


You’ll discover what your child enjoys doing and where you can repeat activities. As your child grows, her ability to play independently will increase. In the meantime, relish in the time together! Do what you can and if you miss an activity one day, it’s okay! Learn more about the stages of child development and see what other ideas suit you and your family best.

As always, I hope this blog post gave you some ideas for engaging in learning and playing with your child.

Making Your Child's Birthday a Special Day!

Birthdays are a huge deal in our family. And by huge deal, I mean HUGE. Growing up, my parents made birthdays a big celebration for me and my siblings. We had family and friends over, fun food, games, activities, cake and lots of presents. As adults, my sister and I have continued that tradition with our own kids. We remember feeling so special on those days and we wanted to carry on this birthday tradition.

Since my nieces recently celebrated their birthdays, I wanted to share some tips to make your child's birthday a special one! No matter how big or small you celebrate, you can make your child feel special, important and celebrated. You'll not only be a mom (or dad) boss, but you'll help create a confident and well-rounded child with a healthy self-esteem.

Here are some ideas to make your child feel special on her birthday.

Picking a Theme

My nieces love to choose their birthday theme each year. One chose Snow White and the other chose Lego. We create games, treats, goody bags and activities centered about this theme. Allowing your child to pick a theme fosters their creativity! Usually, they will help create food label titles, goody bag decor and treats, table treats and games. 

Think of Surprises

Incorporate surprises! Creating surprises requires thoughtfulness and preparation. When you show your child you thought in advance about her, this makes her feel special. Think about your own life and when someone surprised you with your favorite meal, coffee, flower, outfit or anything! A surprise can be a game you're going to play, the cake you make or buy, the present you give- anything! In fact, my niece didn't want to plan some of her birthday details because she asked to be surprised! 

Getting to See Their Social Interactions

Pre-pandemic, they invited all of their friends and one day we will get back to that. But no matter the guest list, it is fun to watch your child interact in a social way. You get to observe how they interact with others, the manners they use, and the excitement they share - things that usually might only happen at school around their peers. During the pandemic, we had family only and still were able to observe these behaviors. 

Presents - Bought, Homemade or Experiences!

Whether you have a big or small budget, presents add more attention to the birthday child. And guess what? The best presents are the experiential ones - the kind that require time spent together. We got free passes to a local amusement park and gave them as a birthday present to our nieces. It was such a fun time that didn't even require any money. We've made presents in the form of scavenger hunts. Sometimes, when the girls would give a present, they would re-wrap something around the house - no cost! As they say, it's the thought that counts!

Birthday Kid Chooses the Food

My nieces get to choose the meals of the day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes it's a place to order from and sometime's it is a home-cooked meal. What makes it fun is that they are choosing! Giving your child the ability to make choices develops their leadership skills and decision making. Who would have thought such a small gesture could do this. Think to your own life. How many times have you or someone you're eating with had a hard time deciding on where to eat?! 

Play Games and Laugh Together

In an earlier bullet I mentioned games. Our family makes up the silliest games and we love playing them! When you can laugh together it shows your child you enjoy their company and want to have fun with them. No matter your budget, you can buy pre-made games or create them yourselves. My niece recently learned about a game and figured out how to create a version of it herself! No cost involved whatsoever. For our Lego party, my sister froze lego figures into ice cube trays and we had to melt it the fastest. On the other hand, my sister and her husband are very creative and built a gem mining station for my niece's Snow White party. So, it depends on your resources. The important thing is to have fun together.

These are some of they ways we celebrate birthdays. Of course there are tons of other ways to make your child feel special. You do what you can and your child will appreciate it! That's what it is all about: showing your child the magic you felt the day she was born, the miracle of her birth or reliving the first birthday you spent together - remembering those beautiful memories and creating new ones each year.

Fine Motor Skills Toddler Toys: Dimpl Digits by Fat Brain

 Have you heard of the Fat Brain Toys brand? I have several of their toys and each one has a valuable play while learning concept to it. In this blog post, I'll focus on the Dimpl Digits toy. There are a few ideas I will share that can help you help your toddler be the smartest toddler on the block!

1. This toy requires some finger strength from your toddler. This will help with fine motor and gross motor skills, while strengthening your toddler's fingers. I love this because I will eventually teach my daughter how to play the piano and she will have strong fingers to rock out like Billy Joel!
2. As you pop one circle, you have to flip over the toy to pop it back. It is a never-ending cycle. This introduces the idea of cause and effect. Cause: you pop the circle; effect: the circle caves in.
3. As your toddler becomes more familiar with the toy, she will learn to flip the circle over and start again. This helps with critical thinking skills. "How can I pop the circles again?" Even though it is so simple for us to realize this, simply tasks like these are critical to develop your child's thinking skills. Let her explore the toy and its features. Model how to play the toy, but be sure not to flip it over for her each time. 
4. This toys makes for a great travel toy! No batteries, no little parts and no mess.
5. I've mentioned in previous posts how much I love multi-level developmental toys and this is one of them! This particular toy is numbered 1-10, in English and Spanish. Sometimes I will sit with my toddler to pop together and I'll count the numbers out loud in both languages. It also has raised dots representing each number. Once my daughter is ready to learn counting, I will have her trace her finger over the dots and count with her. On the "one" spot, there is one dot and so on until ten. So not only is she popping circles, but there's a math element to it.
6. Lastly, you can help your toddler identify colors. At first, you can pop one and say, "I'm pressing on the yellow circle." Eventually, you can ask your toddler to pop a certain color, "Where is the orange circle? Press the orange circle." As your toddler starts to talk, you can point to a color and ask what color that is.

And there you have it! A simple toy by Fat Brain that helps develop your own toddler's brain! As always with my posts and suggestions, try one idea out and see what works for you. Your toddler will love playing together with you.

Build A Bear Workshop - Teaching real world budgeting

Our family recently discovered Build-A-Bear Workshop and we love it! We have been there long ago and have seen it many times walking through the mall, but to go with young ones is a whole new adventure. 

In this blog, I'll share how we turned our second trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop into a budgeting lesson for our young ones. I want to help you be a mom (or dad) boss so you can help your child be the smartest kid on the block with plenty of real world applicable learning.

We first went to Build-A-Bear a few months ago and found out about the "pay your age" special. This means that your child can choose a birthday bear and pay $1 for each year old she is. For example, we got one for my daughter and it was only $1 because she turned one! This is something we will do every year!

Now that my daughter and two nieces had their birthday bears, we planned a second trip and I gave them each $10 to spend. (My nieces got some more money from their parents.) But knowing the amount before going to the store help them be in a mindset of picking and choosing what they would want. My eight-year-old niece did really well with this concept!

If you're going to Build-A-Bear Workshop, here are some tips to make it an enjoyable experience! Check out our videos and watch our experiences from our first trip and from our second trip!

Before

• Watch our video on YouTube to have an idea of what to expect in the store! Here's a video of our second trip there.
• Check out their website. If you're budget conscientious, you can go at a time with certain promotions and during your child's birthday month.
• Set a budget and help your child understand how many items it might buy. If they are too familiar with monetary concepts yet, let them know how many items they get to choose (for example, one outfit and one other item).

During

• Take a tour of the store and show your child all that there is available to buy. There are several stations in the store and LOTS of up-sell options. You can add outfits, accessories, voice boxes and scents just to name a few.
• Have a piece of paper with the total budget on it and subtract the items as your child picks them out. If you have a child in at least first grade, they will have a better idea of this concept and might grasp it easier. For preschoolers, you may have to say they get to pick one outfit and one toy for the bear.
• The first time we went, my eight-year-old niece got a voice box and this second trip, my five-year-old niece wanted the voice box with her budget. This company is great for allowing stuff to be added to the bear after the fact, like new stuffing, voice boxes and of course the clothes and accessories. Having already bought our bears last trip helped us save money this second trip.
• Be present and help your child make choices. It can be such a fun experience to enjoy together.

After

• Play pretend together with the new Bear your child has picked out.
• I love watching my one year old pretend to feed dolls. After this last trip, she was pretending to feed with a baby spoon, blew on the teacup to cool it down and actually folded her hands to pray like we do when we sit down to eat! My one year old learns a lot from her two cousins. Your baby will benefit from pretend play with you too!
• Letting your child have a Bear or any dolly for that matter is teaching your child responsibility and taking care of something. This is also teaching life skills, how to care for others, being aware of others and using her imagination.

What you thought would be a simple shopping experience to Build-A-Bear can actually be quite a fun learning experience with lots of real world lessons!

What other ideas do you have? Be sure to comment on my Instagram @Michelle_Holly_Recommends.

Learning colors, sorting and counting with your toddler and preschoolers