So, what do you have planned to keep them occupied during the break? Are you doing fun family activities or going outside to play (weather permitting) or are you letting them sit around playing computer games and watching television.

Not that there is anything wrong with the occasionally movie, TV show or computer game, but according to a recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation a large number of the children polled

“about three in ten young people say they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV (28%) or playing video games (30%), and 36% say the same about using the computer.  But when parents do set limits, children spend less time with media: those with any media rules consume nearly 3 hours less media per day (2:52) than those with no rules.”

The report goes on to highlight that children as young as 8 now spend an average of 7 hours to using electronic media of some kind.

Maybe it is about time to change that, why not start on spring break? Why not limit the amount of time spent with electronic media and focus on other activities.

This year I thought it would be a good idea if the kids left the Leprechaun a note to remind “him” to leave chocolate.

It is amazing how the Leprechaun can forget something so important. Then when the Leprechaun realizes his mistake, he has to make an emergency stop to buy chocolate, isn’t able to get chocolate coins, and has to settle for Rolos. Not to mention that while hiding the chocolates at 5a, the Leprechaun is almost caught by the children-thus abandoning the package of Rolos on the counter.

The kids still talk about the year they almost caught the Leprechaun.

Anyway, this year the Leprechaun planned ahead and hid the coins the night before (all though there was some worry that the kittens would steal the chocolate during the night)

At precisely 7am, the kids thundered out of their room and zoomed around the house looking for the golden coins. They found every single coin in record time. Honestly, I didn’t even have my slippers on before they were ½ done.

I helped my son look for chocolate, which the girls complained, gave my son an edge. Which I pointed out he needed since between them they had almost all the chocolate.

While eating breakfast they counted how many pieces they found-which lead to a bit of sulking on one daughters part. I had to remind her that it was supposed to be fun and that we would ultimately mix all the chocolate together in the candy drawer anyway.

That didn’t sit well with the girls; they stuffed their chocolate into Ziploc bags and wrote their name on the outside.

How about you, do you have any silly simple traditions that are a really big deal?

Hey, for me that is a big deal-I find it very hard to tell one kid from another-with the exception of my own kids, of course-and even I sometimes mix the girls up.

Come on, I bet many other moms feel the same way. Seriously, all the kids look alike! I had to make up little memory tricks to remember who was who (like Phil looks like a filbert-just try remember not to call him filbert).

If was a fun but exhausting time, exhausting because the kids treated it as a speed challenge. You would think it was the amazing race with prizes for the team that made it through the museum the fastest.

The kids raced from exhibit to exhibit. Our museum is not HUGE but it isn’t tiny either and I swear we saw all three floors in an hour!

Then after our lunch break, we turned around and did it again! I don’t think I need to go to the museum for a long time.

If you have multiple children, do you make sure everyone gets a turn to have you volunteer/chaperone?  With three kids, I have to plan my chaperoning very carefully.

Each kid gets a chance (if they want) for me to chaperone. If for some reason there are no chaperone opportunities-which does happened we are very lucky to have lots of willing volunteers at our school-then I have to find another way to participate at school.

For my son, I didn’t win the chaperone lottery so I volunteered to run literature circle. It was pretty cute. We read a book together, discussed it and then did a project based on the book.

While the kids did spend plenty of time outside sledding and building snowmen I spent all my time outside shoveling and while it is great exercise and it counts as “being outside“ it isn’t a lot of fun.

I am really looking forward to warm weather and not just because not only will the kids will get outside exercise but so will I. I don’t know about you but I am totally over winter! I know the kids are very tired of taking all their winter clothes to school every day and hauling them home every night, but about the time we left them at school, we would have a blizzard!

Now, with the sun melting the snow I am getting garden fever~ I can’t wait to get outside and dig in the dirt. Every time I step outside, I am looking for signs of tulips and daffodils.

The girls on the other hand are looking for signs that they can ride their bikes. I know they have missed riding their bikes, in fact, the other day when it was nice and sunny and warm I sent them outside to play in the snow and I found them riding their bikes (in their winter clothes). They were riding pretty good despite the snow pants and gloves.

They wanted more room then just the driveway to ride their bikes so they made a bike path across the front yard.  They used shovels and rakes to flatten out the snow but despite their best efforts, their bikes sank in the snow. I have to give them an “A” for effort.

My son isn’t all that interested in biking he is more interested in basketball. When it was really snowy, I caught him outside trying to dribble the basketball in the snow, which definitely did not work. The melting snow means he has a clear driveway to dribble his basketball so he is happy as a clam.

So what does spring mean for you?

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The AAP also calls for more stringent labeling of those foods, and there has been a flurry of internet activity talking about redesigning the hotdog.

So, how do you feel about this? Should food be labeled dangerous for little ones? How about that hot dog redesign?

I know I didn’t let my kids eat grapes at all for the longest time-when I finally deemed them ready for grapes and I cut them up and I did the same with the hot dogs.

I just cut the hot dogs length wise and then into half moons, I served the cut up hot dogs with cheese cubes, fruit and pretzel sticks. The kids loved stabbing all the food with the pretzel sticks.

I even cut the hot dog lengthwise before putting it on a bun (although my kids usually ditched the bun anyway).

One thing I can’t recommend enough is taking an infant/children’s CPR & First Aid class. All mothers get nervous during pregnancy about their ability to care for their baby, I was no exception and when I learned I was having twins I got twice as nervous.

I decided that I would be much more comfortable caring for two babies if I knew CPR and first aid.

Since, helping an infant or small child that is choking is a lot different from helping an adult, taking a class geared specifically for children is a great way to make sure that you are prepared in the awful event your child (or someone else’s) begins to choke.

So, it is with more then a little trepidation that I greet the third grade math unit on multiplication & division. Not so much because of the actual math itself…I can after all use a calculator and refer to the answer key…no I am worried because this means shortly they will venture into territory I am totally unprepared for like Geometry and Algebra.

At our school the math units are presented in a spiral meaning as each new item is presented they incorporate review of previous items…so the chapter on arcs and radius included some addition and subtraction. Yay! Because after referring to the answer key on all the geometry problems I could check the addition and subtraction without using the key-at least I didn’t feel like a complete dope.

Do other parents (who don’t use geometry and algebra for work) feel this way? I vaguely remember geometry and I was so bad at algebra I had to do it twice…I don’t want to pass my math-phobia on to the kids, yet…I have no idea what I am doing. I feel like I should enroll in a math refresher course just so I can help kids with homework.

So is it the last day of school? Nope, it is just another “party” for good behavior. The good behavior rewards can vary from popcorn or pizza parties, assorted snacks (like ice cream and popcorn) to extra recess or a movie.

To me the best and most appropriate reward is the extra recess. Now, I know my school isn’t the only school that does this. Nor am I the only parent who wonders why behaving merits such huge rewards.

My kids collect points in school for doing such amazing things as behaving in the hall, not talking in class, getting their homework done. The kids collect a certain number of these points and TA DA they get a party. It seems they are always having a party for good behavior.

Shouldn’t I be happy that they are behaving? Well, yes and no. It troubles me that most of the parties focus on food. Yes, occasionally the class will elect to have an extra recess but really if you give a roomful of kids a choice between extra recess (especially in winter) and ice cream which one do you think they will choose?

This seems a little self-defeating considering the schools are very concerned about obesity and good nutrition and yet they have parties that reward good behavior with snacks.

I also wonder why behaving isn’t reward enough? I expect my kids to behave at home, do their chores, be kind, not sass off, and eat their meals for no other reason except that is what they are supposed to do. When they are good, I praise them for being good. Other then that I do not intend to reward them for behaving.

Do you think rewarding good behavior, which is really just how your kids should be acting, with special treats (especially food) is a good idea?

Grandma was kind enough (or crazy enough) to take the kids to see it. Needless, to say the kids loved the movie, which even if the movie horrible makes it all worth it. Okay almost worth it…because it is annoying when they are repeating lines from the movie 3 weeks later at the dinner table (for the 100th time).

I really love going to the movies with the kids, our local movie house has a few “love seat” type seats in each theatre, obviously for couples, but all three kids fit quite nicely on the bench. They can easily share the popcorn and fountain drink.  We have such a good time watching the previews and deciding which upcoming movies are must-sees.

Between the fact that there aren’t that many good children’s movies released in the theatre and that it is really expensive (even with a matinee) we do movie night at home once a week.

In winter, movie night is Friday night so it doesn’t interfere with homework, during the summer it is whenever we need some quality snuggling time.

We do the whole thing, popcorn, chocolate milk, lights dimmed. It really is such a fun time. The kids always start out on the floor surrounded by pillows, blankets and stuffed animals and by the end of the movie; they are up on the couch snuggled with me-especially, if the movie is scary.

It is awesome to see them wide eyed with wonder at the story and it is so funny to see them cheer for the good guy or complain about the bad guy.

Right now, we are working our way through the whole Air Buddy series-who knew there were so many!

Yes as an adult, I can feel my brain shriveling a little bit at some of the cornier movies, but I have enjoyed some of the kid’s movies and I have enjoyed watching some movies from my childhood.

So are you a parent that is willing to suffer through a not so great kid’s movie? What are some of your favorite kid’s movies and is there one movie that was so awful that you left the room?

There are many reasons to breastfeed and I did breastfeed the twins for the first month or so. It was very hard at first; I did get better at it. What I really found hard was pumping-to me there was just something so awkward and uncomfortable about pumping that I just couldn’t do it-and since pumping was an essential part of breastfeeding as a working mom I just stopped.

There are also reasons why women don’t breastfeed. For my son, complications from the birth due separated me from him for the first 3 days of his life-everything eventually turned out fine, but the ensuing pain from the complications and general chaos of a house with 2-year-old twins and a baby pretty much kept me from breastfeeding.

This post from Taylor Newman at Parenting is a very thoughtful post on her decision to try breastfeeding.

At first, she was reluctant to breastfeed “Considering breastfeeding, at the beginning of my pregnancy, at first yielded a definite “no” from me. I know it can be tough at first as both baby and mama figure out how all of the machinery works. I’ve also heard it can be painful. And, new babies eat every two hours! After nine (plus) months of hormones and handing my body over to a grueling (and also fun) natural process, I was sure I’d be ready for physical independence by pregnancy’s end“

She ultimately decided to give breastfeeding a chance as she explains “My decision to at least try breastfeeding is not about saying my body doesn’t belong to me anymore or something. Of course my body is mine (and if breastfeeding doesn’t work, or just makes me miserable, I will switch to formula). But this decision does represent a shift in my understanding of myself in relation to other people. My relationship with my child is significantly physical right now. While I may not be able to bend very far in any direction at the moment, I have become dramatically more flexible in other ways.”

Please share your thoughts and stories on breastfeeding or not breastfeeding.

Still, I remember when not so long ago with the babies, when I had no choice but to spend sleepless nights. I remember how many colds I got and how I felt generally run down, so I really try to keep late nights to a minimum.

Therefore, I am sure you are not surprised that I have an early bedtime for the kids. I know I send them to bed earlier then their classmates-as they have told me.

I do this for two reasons-1) I know the kids will goof around for at least and hour after I put them to bed. 2) It is also self-defense sometimes they are so wild and crazy that sending them to bed is the only option (aside from running out the house screaming).

I let them read in bed or even play very quietly with their stuffed animals. I love winter only because the early sunset is conducive to bedtime. In summer well, you can imagine the trouble they get into all of it in their own room.

We all know that a well rested child is happier and healthier in general but this post at Parenting Squad on recent study by John Hopkins specifically highlights the correlation between a good nights sleep and childhood obesity.

“The study, published in the journal, Obesity, found that each additional hour of sleep decreases a child’s risk for obesity by 9%, indicating a clear association between the duration of sleep and the risk of becoming overweight.

Researchers analyzed numerous published studies that linked sleep duration to obesity and found that children who slept for the shortest duration had a 92% higher risk for being overweight or obese. Short sleep durations were defined as 9 hours or less for children under 5, less than 8 hours for children between 5 and 10 years of age, and less than 7 hours for children over 10 years old. The strongest association between getting enough sleep and reducing their risk for obesity was more strongly associated with boys than with girls.”
What do you think of this study? How much sleep do your kids get a night? Do you try to get them to get more sleep?