Here’s a little known tidbit that we learned from our wonderful pediatricians at Union Avenue Pediatrics during Reilly’s first year: dryer sheets are poisonous! Yes, POISONOUS!
Here’s a little known tidbit that we learned from our wonderful pediatricians at Union Avenue Pediatrics during Reilly’s first year: dryer sheets are poisonous! Yes, POISONOUS!
We’ve been shopping at Dave’s Meat & Produce Market on I Street almost every week since it opened.
With its wide variety of organically grown fruits and vegetables, dairy products and breads Dave’s is very convenient for the quick stop on the way home for dinner supplies.
But of course, being your typical carnivore, I love having a full service meat market within walking distance of our house. The pre-cut and seasoned pepper steak for stir-fry is great; add in some mushrooms, celery, carrots, bean sprouts and you got yourself an awesome 10 minute meal. They even supplied us with our Christmas turkey. I’m still hoping they add a fish selection in the future, but they don’t have a lot of space to expand.
Don’t forget to say howdy to Dave, he’s probably the gentleman behind the meat counter helping you out.
So Ruth and I decided we needed to start our restaurant tour of Tacoma. Please excuse us if we repeat some info that has previously been talked about on some of the other local blogs. I thought we’d start with a couple of our favorite Mexican restaurants. (more…)
Mike and I are parents who would like to eliminate large plastic toys from the world. Or at least make sure they really get recycled and used enough to be worth it. We have vowed to only buy these items, if Reilly absolutely must have them, at garage sales and on Craig’s List. We have avoided the big plastic toy outlets as much as possible and found some really great toy stores here in Tacoma.
If you share my love for really well designed wooden toys, check out Teaching Toys and Books on N. Proctor. There’s a lot of great stuff packed into a small space here. They have a great book selection, an entire line of Brio trains, great baby toys and gifts, and they gift wrap! My personal favorites are all the colorful Haba blocks and fanciful characters. Reilly likes the train table tucked into the back.
Any day you don’t feel like paying to get into the Children’s Museum, take your child into The Learning Sprout on Pacific, instead. I took Reilly in while Christmas shopping and he played for an hour and a half at the little tea table and other little stations set up throughout the store. They have a great selection of toys and games here, and tables with little fun items by the front that remind you that toys are not the exclusive domain of children. (I got a lot of presents for grown ups, too.) Of course, the toys are so cool that you will end up spending more than the Children’s Museum admission on something before you leave, so maybe this is not a bargain, but it is a great toy store.
A news article from the Chicago Tribune about studies using flu spray instead of shots for vaccinating children. A quote from the article,
” …found that children from 6 months to 5 years old got 55 percent fewer cases of flu when they were protected by the nasal spray vaccine rather than shots.”
I like the idea of not having to subject our son to more shots, ask Ruth about his first round after he was born and having to abandon the shopping cart in Metro Market.
Here’s the original link
Before we start talking about books, I have to confess that we are the type of parents that went out to buy The Ring trilogy, the Harry Potter series, the Chronicles of Narnia and several other classics as soon as we learned we were pregnant. So we may be a little overboard in this department…
This NPR story isn’t directly related to the other topics on our blog, but we definitely think it is important to do our part in saving the environment for our children.
Do Fluorescent Bulbs Light the Way to the Future
If you hit the “Listen” button you can hear the audio version of the story.
Don’t forget to visit One Billion Bulbs
Here’s a great story on NPR about why kids hate dressing up in the cold weather.
If you click on the “Listen” button, you can hear the audio version.
Ruth tends to be the typical mother wanting to bundle our son up, where as I’ll let him “experience” weather if he so chooses :).
…If you define “success” as one parent being able to finish 90% of their dinner while the other gets about 75% complete, and this being accomplished in about 80% of restaurant visits.
1. Pick restaurant where there will likely be other kids under 5
2. Order drinks
3. Choose from the menu as soon as the drinks arrive
4. Bring snack along which child can eat while waiting for dinner
5. Favorite book/small toy can sometimes be successfully used to distract while waiting
6. CRUCIAL STEP - As soon as dinner arrives, ask for the check
7. CRUCIAL STEP NUMBER 2 - As soon as check arrives, pay for it
8. Have a great time watching child make complete mess of dining area
9. If you want to make some good wife/husband points, take child on tour of restaurant while your wife/husband finishes their dinner/margarita/beer
10. Bonus step - If you want good service again the next time you visit, pick up rice mounds, stray french fries or mac-n-cheese from under the table before exiting establishment (oh, and a nice tip helps too).
Good luck and Bon Appetit
With a rambunctious kid bouncing off the walls and rain pouring down, even the most zen among us can lose all vestiges of calm. The answer, I have found, is the Point Defiance Zoo. The promise of a ride on the new carousel gets my son out the door every time. We also really enjoy the aquarium — particularly the tucked away little coral beach exhibit, which is tropically warm and full of brightly colored fish. The seahorse exhibit, which has lots of good flaps to lift and dials to turn, is another favorite, though the painted path on the floor inspires Reilly to run through the place like it’s a track.