Kiddobeans

Raised Garden Beds

Inspired in equal parts by the Obama kitchen garden and Chef Pasketti from Curious George, Phil and I embarked on a gardening project this year.  Last year, we had a surprising amount of fun with a crowded 3'x3' garden clearing over-planted into near-oblivion.  This year, Phil decided he wanted to do things right.  Phil doesn't do anything half way, and immediately began researching gardening options for our sizable lawn.  With three kids plus a dozen-or-so neighbor kids who stop by on occasion, our backyard gets a lot of play time.  Therefore, it was imperative that there still be room to run even when the gardening experiment was in full swing.  Phil found an excellent solution--the raised garden bed.  He followed plans from this great garden planning website that proved to be a lot of fun.  

Raised beds are easy and very cool.  Phil built four of them, 3'x6'x1', along the driveway side of our lawn.  These serve as a combination fence-line, landscaping, and kitchen garden.  Since they're contained in beds, they don't seem to overwhelm the yard, the way that a large single garden would.  Plus, raised beds are easy to weed, hold water well, and prevent little feet from stomping through the veggies.

As late summer approaches, we are now (literally) reaping the benefits of the garden plan.  We're getting at least six ripe tomatoes every day, which I get to season with our own home-grown basil.  Our cucumbers are filling out salads, our squash and onions and peppers are tasty on the grill, and our carrots are making yummy snacks after a quick pull-and-wash.  It's cool enough for Phil and me as we eat out of the garden.  It's even cooler for the kids, who were beginning to think that all veggies come from Super-Target.

Of course, we'll be making some changes for next year.  Number one among them, Phil's going to build four more beds for the opposite side of the yard.  We'll be adding strawberries to the mix, and expanding our sugar snap peas, carrots, and radishes which proved to be great for snacking.  I also found that I rarely got around to searching through the viney cucumbers and green beans to actually harvest the veggies, so we'll be cutting down on those.  Also, our timing was way off.  By the time our tomatoes and onions were ripe our cilantro had already gone to flower.  We'll have to stagger the planting if I want to make that homemade salsa I was looking forward to.

I've seen various websites and stuff that talk about how much money you can save by gardening.  I'm not sure that I've saved a whole lot, but that wasn't really the point.  Home grown vegetables (especially tomatoes!) just taste better and eating out of the garden is really fun.  Sometimes I feel like I'm in that great scene in Willy Wonka where the kids can eat all the flowers and things growing alongside the chocolate waterfall.  You know, the "World of Our Imagination" scene.  To paraphrase, "If you want to eat a vegetable, simply reach around and eat it."  Or, to quote more literally (but more hyperbolically) "If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

Review: Peel and Stick Appliques

I have found the best thing for decorating a kid's room.  As I mentioned in my last post, I just did Little Man's whole room in Curious George.  The entire room cost me $25.00, took just minutes to complete, and is 100% reversible.  How awesome is that?

I used these adhesive wall murals called "Peel and Stick".  First, I bought the full-sized mural.  It shows a life-sized George clinging to a bunch of balloons surrounded by clouds and bees with a couple of trees on the ground below.  For $15.00, I was totally delighted.  It is 40 inches high and adds a lot of interest to the basic plain blue walls in Little Man's room.  I've attempted large scale sticker appliqué before (for a stained-glass effect on a window) it was a total fiasco.  It was so big and sticky that I couldn't do it by myself and ended up just making a mess of the whole thing.  That was $30 down the drain.  In spite of the large format, however, this appliqué was super easy.  I put it up in a few minutes with the kids clinging around my ankles as excited distractions.  I removed and repositioned it a couple of times to make it perfect, and my finagling did not in the least affect the stickiness.

Little Man was so happy with George on his wall.  The first thing he said to me every morning for a week was "George!" as he pointed excitedly at the mural.  Little Miss, though pleased with George, had another concern.  "Where George's Man-with-the-Yellow Hat?  George want his Man-with-the-Yellow-Hat."  Her queries took me back to Target looking through the murals again.  $10 bought a package of several sheets of the same peel-and-stick material featuring figures of George and "his" Man-with-the-Yellow Hat varying from about 4" to 8" high.  These little guys formed a great border around the room.  Conveniently tall Phil helped me place the figures in a line around the top of the wall.  We created a solid border around the entire room.  In the process, we created a new game.  I'll ask, "Where is George with the ice cream cone?"  The kids glance all around until one of them spots the 6" tall George holding a tower of ice cream.  Then they cheer and I encourage them to find another George.

Little Man is not going to want a Curious George room forever, and when he tires of it I can simply remove the appliqués without repainting.  I could even reuse them in a different room if I want to.  And the price can't be beat. The only down side is that the appliques would look best on a white or very pale wall.  The bold blue of Little Man's room does dampen the bright colors of the mural just a  little bit.

Our local Target had Spider Man, Thomas the Tank Engine, Barbie, butterflies, animals, flowers, Hello Kitty, Bratz, and a few other kid oriented things.  They are found in the Home Improvement aisle and not in the Kids' Bedroom Decor aisle as you might think.  Unfortunately, nothing really strikes me as perfect for Little Miss' room, but I'll keep looking.  I just ran through Target's website, and they also have dozens of sports teams and logos available, though those are going for nearer $100.00.  I guess they must be going for a different market with those.  $15 and $10 respectively are just about perfect for me!

Bargain Hunters

I am looking for a Christmas dress for Little Miss on ebay.  I like cute clothes, and I like to have the kiddobeans well dressed, but I just can't see spending $30 on a dress that a 2-year-old is going to wear only once.  I found a great deal on her first Christmas dress (at right) on sale a week before Christmas for $8.  I loved this one because she could wear it the rest of the winter (excepting the antlers).

In general, I don't like to spend money on kids clothes at all They just don't wear them very long, and they are so likely to get ruined by a spare splotch of prune juice or an overzealous attack on the mac and cheese.  So, like my own Mom before me, I am an avowed bargain shopper.

I live very near two of my sisters-in-law and we all have 2-year-olds.  It's interesting to me to see how these three bargain-hunting Mommies with similar incomes and similar needs approach the child clothing dilemma.  I'm all about the used clothes.  I love it when people give me things for the kids to wear, then I supplement with exciting safaris at Thrift and Dollar where a good huntress can find a onesie for as little as 40 cents (on half-price day).  I just got a great pair of Stride Right shoes there, for Little Man, that cost me $1.00.  When I want something nice, I go to ebay.  Just an FYI, there are toddler Christmas dresses listed right now that would go for $30-$40 in a store, and are selling for less than $10 shipped.

My husband's sister, LM, does a lot of garage sale shopping.  She bought a whole layette for her new daughter by clearing out the baby clothes table at a local garage sale.  But, I've also noticed that she frequents Old Navy and other stores with higher quality clothes, then pounces on a sale and buys in bulk.  This summer her son had three identical rompers in different colors--the result of such a purchase.  The up side of this plan: her son's clothes look and feel nicer than my kids clothes, and they tend to last.  The down side: even on sale, the clothes are still more expensive than Thrift and Dollar (but then again, what isn't?)

My husband's sister-in-law, RH, likes to buy a season ahead.  At Target, Kohl's, and so many other places, unseasonal clothing is marked way down.  RH plans ahead, and buys ahead.  Like LM, RH's little guy's clothes are new, higher quality, and long-lasting.  I've considered doing this, but I always pause on fear.  What if the clothes never fit in the right season?  How do I know how the kids are going to grown next year?  Granted, her son is six months older than Little Miss and more than a year older than Little Man, so his growing has slowed down a bit and is probably more predictable.  The other problem I have...instant gratification.  I always put on my new clothes right away, and I've found that I like to do that with the kids, too.  Read my "New Sock Day" article--I think it's pretty clear that new clothes make me happy.  So the thought of buying clothes that aren't going to get worn for a whole year (with the nagging fear that I'll forget about them or they won't fit) has dampened my enthusiasm for this plan.

Every parent has to make the clothing budget work for them.  What are your tips?  How do you keep your kids clothed in the face of the new-parent budget crunch?

Tivo: Family-Friendly TV

As I've said before, Phil is a tech guy.  Computer-y things are his job, and also his hobby.  This means that we are usually the first people on the block to have the latest techno toy.  Such was the case with Tivo.  We got Tivo in 2001--on the day we moved in to our first house.  Phil could not wait to try this out, and I have to say, right from the get-go I was with him on this one.  Tivo is just cool, no matter how you slice it.  For years, we had the Tivo/Direct TV combo, but in an effort to simplify our lifestyle and our budget we now have Tivo without cable or satellite.  We just Tivo our regular old antenna TV.  Yes, you can do that, and it's only $12.99/month (plus the purchase of the Tivo hardware).

So, Tivo for two swinging newlyweds was definitely cool.  Tivo for the growing family, however, is absolutely fabulous.  I cannot recommend it enough.  My reasons for loving Tivo are twofold.  First, I have complete control over what my children watch.  Second, Phil and I control the timing of our favorite shows.  For a young family, these are very important assets.

I currently Tivo only two shows for the kiddobeans, Veggietales (weekly) and Curious George (daily).  I keep several episodes of Veggietales on hand, saved on the Tivo harddrive.  I have the episodes of Curious George record over each other, so I always have one available.  If they are sick or we have a string of bad weather, or some other extenuating circumstance, I will set the Tivo to record Sesame Street or Caillou.  We don't have to channel surf, we don't watch commercials, and we aren't controlled by what happens to be on TV at the time we want to watch (usually while I'm making dinner, which can vary from 4:30 to 5:45 depending on what I'm cooking).  In fact, I don't even know what time our favorite shows on on TV.  I also don't have a huge library of 30-minute-long children's DVDs, and its easy to keep track of how much TV has been watched.  I try to keep an hour as our absolute maximum (30 min. is preferable), so if we've watched both Veggietales and George, well, then they are unequivocally done for the day.

Of course, Phil and I watch shows that would not be appropriate for children, so we want to watch TV after the kids go to bed.  I like some shows, notably Dancing with the Stars, that Phil finds completely uninteresting, so I can watch those during the day if they nap well.  Since prime time is also bedtime, we'd be cramming diaper changes and bedtime stories into commercial breaks--or missing our favorite shows-- if we only had regular TV.  Timing is everything.

Probably most of you are at least aware of Tivo, if you don't actually have it already, but I just thought I'd through out one Mom's perspective.  For me, ditching the cable/satellite and keeping the Tivo was the most practical and cost-effective use of our TV.  Who needs 600 channels when the network TV shows are at your fingertips whenever you want to watch them? 

For those of you who are mechanically minded, Phil has generously offered to do a complete technical review of Tivo, so stay tuned for that!  If you have technical questions about Tivo, throw those my way and our resident technical expert would be happy to address them.

Improvised TV Button Cover

Phil is a tech guy.  Little Man is a tech guy in training.  He loves to figure out how things work; he loves to push a button and see what will happen.  Now, I don't mean to squelch his budding career, but the button thing was driving me crazy.  The laptop, dishwasher, radio, and keyboard were bad enough, but the TV was the worst.  Every five minutes he would hit that button, then plant himself in the middle of the floor to watch whatever appeared on the "magic screen."  I'd be in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and suddenly hear, faintly from the next room, the theme song for MASH, or some Spanish-language soap opera.  I felt like I was always scolding that little boy over the TV.

"Where are all of those wonderful baby proofing items now?" I thought.  Surely there must be something commercially designed to block that pesky TV button.  Well, if there is, I couldn't find it.  Various attempts with cardboard and tape proved fruitless because the button is slightly raised.  Little Man seemed to enjoy the challenge of hitting that cardboard cover just right to compress the button underneath. 

Then, one day while the kiddobeans were playing with Legos, I had a brainstorm.  An epiphany, if you will.  I placed a small square Duplo over the button, and it fit perfectly.  The shape of the Lego allowed for the raised button, but the solid plastic wouldn't compress when Little Man hit it.  Perfect!  For two days, I secured it with masking tape, then Phil insisted on trying super glue.  Much to my surprise the super glue is holding fast, in the face of repeated man-handling (or rather, Little-Man-handling).  It's been a full 24 hours, and glue is definitely triumphing over toddler.  I'll keep you posted as the match-up continues.

Anybody else have any creative button-covering or baby-proofing tips?  I'd love to hear them!

AllRecipes.Com

I have a friend who, whenever we would exchange recipes or food, would always ask, "Have you tried allrecipes.com yet?"  I had tried other recipe sites, foodtv.com and cambellskitchen.com were my favorites, so I always thought to myself, "Thanks for asking (again) but I'm covered on the recipe front."  Then one day I wanted to make baked potato soup, just like I love in a local restaurant.  My friend's tip came to mind.  I went to allrecipes.com, typed in the soup, and came up with ten different recipes, each one rated and reviewed and usually with a photo attached.  I was immediately hooked.  I created my online recipe box, and started searching.

I am not a super-dooper homemaker (or as we would say in my family, I'm not the "Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow".  My Mom won that particular dubious distinction when she was in high school in 1968.  Although not a "home ec." student, she took the "Betty Crocker" test just to get out of class--and got the highest score.  So along with valedictorian and newspaper editor, she was also the "Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow."  It was announced at her graduation.  I think she's still embarrassed.).  I don't cook in high heels and pearls, and I don't collect recipes.  I cook because its cheaper than going out to eat, though I suppose I do take a certain amount of pride in putting a complete meal on dinner table every night.  So I'm not really one to read through cookbooks looking for new recipes and techniques.  Surfing through an almost unlimited database to find out how to cook almost anything I've ever wanted, however?  That's kind of fun.  What should I do with polish keilbasa tonight?  Type in "keilbasa" and you get back 49 hits (I just checked) from the mundane to the ridiculous.  I succumbed to creativity and once made a crock-pot dish with keilbasa, sour kraut, and noodles.  Another time I made sweet potato soup.  Ok, so these weren't the biggest hits on the taste-o-meter, but it was fun to try something new and quirky for once.

The internet has freed me from cookbooks and recipe cards and magazine clippings.  I just depend on allrecipes.com.  They have ALL recipes--what else do I need?  I know this isn't the funniest story or the most helpful parenting hint or the philosophical take I racism that I sometimes put forth.  But, just for now, you'll have to settle for that slightly-nagging-friend part of me.  Have you tried allrecipes.com yet?