High Maintenance Mom

This winter highmaintenancemom.com and Good Manners Kids' Stuff Press is giving away The Kids' (and parents', too!) Book of Good Sportsmanship: An easy-to-read guide for families , by Leslie A. Susskind. Now that my kids are getting out of parallel play and the oldest even into organized sports, it is time to talk about being a good sport. I first realized it needed to be addresses when my oldest was playing a board game with another friend and got very sad when the friend won. I was giving the friend high fives and big smiles but not my daughter. We talked about it (how does it feel when you win, how must it feel when your friends win, you love your friends, etc) and it sunk in well. I told my husband and he jumped on the good sportsmanship bandwagon too....(more)

I am a huge fan of good manners. I am not talking militant manners but the basic good manners many kids and even adults lack. My 4 year old loves to write so with the Make Your Own Thank You Notes she got for her birthday we have been writing thank you notes for some time now. My 2 year old son likes to add his drawings. Here is how I engage my kids in writing thank you cards...

My daughter is old enough now to know all about Santa Claus and presents and while we do not overload the her with toys and she watches very little television (and PBS at that) she still asks when the presents are coming and if she has been a good girl this year. I did some thinking and came up with a few ways I am going to try to make this holiday season less about material things and more about the family traditions I am eager to start. Don't get me wrong, we will still have presents after all we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas so both kids will see some gifts. Somehow my parents managed to do both gifts and traditions so here is what I learned from them and some of my own ideas.....

It's that time of year again! I know we have posted about traveling with kids before but I am asked about it a lot and thought it was relevant with just a week until Thanksgiving. Traveling can be so much fun but add energy filled kids, traffic and long lines and it can be (as I like to say) like a root canal with no novocaine. I think after all of these years of flying to and from my in laws twice a year I have it down to a science. With my organization & packing skills and my husbands flying expertise, we seem to make these trips relatively unscathed....

I watched the season 40 show highlights at http://www.pbs.org/parents/sesame/about_ss_season40video.html and laughed the entire time. It's really worth a look. Celebrities continue to make special guests appearance with relevant topics that kids of all ages can relate to. Sesame Street and I were both babies when I started my love affair with Aloysius Snuffleupagus or snuffy as most of us call him. Now I have 2 small children of my own and they love Elmo and Abby! I also came across Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street in my online readings and thought it looked like a great book for Sesame Street fans. Mostly, I just like that I can trust the show to be educational and funny. It (along with PBS as a whole) is a sure thing and nowadays...that's a big deal.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) has persuaded the Walt Disney Company to offer a full refund to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein DVD in the last five years. "As a result of our 2006 Federal Trade Commission complaint, Disney stopped claiming that Baby Einstein videos were educational for infants...Recent research shows that screen time is not educational for babies. Now parents who purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, mistakenly believing the videos would make their babies smarter, can recoup their money." The refund is only available for a limited time. Click here to learn more about the refund. Below is more information about CCFC...

I love positive books especially for my kids. I was very happy to find this one, I Can Do Anything! (Can Do Kid) by The Luster Family and illustrated by Tina Sedonne. My daughter, 4, took to it right away and even my 2 year old son reached for it at bed time. The message is simple, I can have fun, I can love my pet and I can be a good friend, I can!...

With two kids of different ages and skill sets, I was having trouble finding games/activities I could play with both kids at the same time. I went online and found The Siblings Busy Book-200 fun activities for kids of different ages by sisters Lisa Hanson & Heather Kempskie. I read the book and tried many of the activities with my own kids. I love the section Rainy Day fun and found all of the suggestions helpful. I contacted Meadowbrook Press (www.meadowbrookpress.com) and they helped me set up an interview with the authors...

HMM's Book of the Month for July (yes, this is a new feature) is Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys . I completely agree with The Washington Post who on the cover of the paperback version writes, ..."required reading for anyone raising a boy....".

Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success discusses how summer vacation is a disadvantage for poorer kids because the more wealthy kids go to camp, read books, and have other advantages during the summer. Kids who do not have these advantages often enter school the following year behind their peers. Summer reading programs can help narrow the gap. Reading is an incredible gift and helps kids find / explore their interests. Some kids need gentle assistance in learning to love books. They need to be read to, they need to see others reading, and they need to be given books that are not too challenging or too frustrating. I've found our local librarians are very helpful in finding reading materials for our kids. Most libraries have a Listening and Reading program where kids meet some type of goal to earn a free book. This is N's first year in the "Reading" program and he loves being a "big kid". Barnes and Noble also has a summer reading program for grades 1-6.