Some ideas I've had

We got a white outdoor table a few years ago, and this summer I pulled it out so we could use it easily for nice backyard dinners. Unfortunately, we have an east-facing house, and in the afternoon our backyard has its own Death Ray. So when the cool Fall weather finally hit we had a backyard meal for the first time.
We have pancakes about once every two weeks. It's not that we love pancakes so much, but I got about 12 boxes of pancake mix a few months ago for 40 cents a piece. And it's easy.

Oh, I guess I should say that Nathan and I think pancakes are okay with eggs or something else. Annalee doesn't care what she is eating as long as it has syrup on it.

A few months ago I was having a lot of stress about Annalee staying in her room. We would tell her that she could have her door open (which she wanted) as long as she stayed inside. If she came out, we would shut and lock her door, unlocking it after she screamed herself to sleep. I didn't like this situation very much, but I wasn't sure what else to do. She would wake up in the middle of the night and want her door open again. But I didn't want the door to be open in the morning because the light coming in from windows around the house would wake her up earlier than I wanted to get up. If her door was shut, it was dark and she slept longer. But we had already established a shut door as a punishment, so how could I shut it and punish her when she didn't get out? But if I didn't shut it, I was punishing myself!

I was so tired in the first trimester of my pregnancy that I would allow her to climb in bed with me when she woke up in the morning, just because I couldn't deal with putting her back down. I always slept poorly after she joined me. Sometimes it was 6:30, then 6:00, then 5:00, then any time of night. I knew I had to stop it--it was just making me more tired. Finally I read something in a parenting magazine that I thought might work.

I found an old, ugly alarm clock at a garage sale for 50 cents. I taped over all the number but the second hour number.

Then I wrote the number "7" over all the tape. I set the clock so that when the visible number turned to "7" it would actually be 7:10. Then I showed the clock to Annalee. We practiced identifying the number 7, which looks much different than 4, 5, 6, or 8, so it's easy, I think. I told her she could come out of her room when it said 7.

It didn't work right away. Every time she would wake up early or in the middle of the night I would ask her what time it was. She would say "I don't know." So we would go look at her clock together, and I would tell her what time it was, and that she had to wait until 7. It took about 2 weeks, but then one morning she came running in saying "It's seven! It's seven!" And we went and looked, and it was. She has been very good about staying in her room until 7, even if she is awake. What a relief this is to me--I really need the sleep!

Before we banished the tv, Annalee's favorite show was Dora. She doesn't think about Dora much anymore, but she's still enamored with backpacks. If I have a backpack, she wants to carry it. She is drawn to other kids' backpacks. She points to them in stores.

I've been keeping my eye out for a cute, cheap backpack, but couldn't find anything that fit the bill. For one thing, the school backpacks have to be big enough to hold a folder. They look big and ridiculous on kindergartners, but downright impossible on a toddler. Plus, despite waiting for the school supplies to drop in price, I couldn't find one for less than $9.

Then one day at Walmart I saw a bin of insulated lunch bags. They were cute, and just the right size for my daughter's little back. They didn't have back straps, just handles on the top. But after studying them for a while I felt like I could fix it. My sweet brother dived into the middle of the bin and dug out a pink one. At home I cut the handle off the front and then cut it in half. Then I cut the handle on the back in two and attached the handle pieces from the front to the ends to lengthen them. I then fastened them at the bottom of the bag.

It fit perfectly! It is just the right proportion for a toddler, and she can even carry her afternoon snack in it when we are out an about. It only cost $4!

Of course, last week at Walmart I saw them marked down on clearance to $2. ;)