A few days ago, we got a little care package in the mail from my mom.  I suspect she was at Babies R Us, shopping for my sister-in-law’s baby shower, and couldn’t help herself.  The items were, to say the very least, a big hit.

Daniel adores his (it’s actually a set of Superman pajamas), and though he completely soaked the shirt at lunchtime, insisted on wearing the cape again after nap, so I ended up safety-pinning it to another shirt.  Rebecca had to be coaxed out of her “spinning dress” for nap, and asked to put it back on again within 30 seconds of waking up (though neither time did she want to remove her other clothes to put it on – it’s a onesie with attached skirt).  There was a major bedtime tantrum when she had to take it off for the night.

I honestly wasn’t sure if my kids were old enough for dress-up, yet, but I guess the answer is YES!  Rebecca and I went to Joann’s today and got some fabric to make a cape for her, too.  I suspect there’s some elastic and tulle in my future as well…

I can’t really complain.  Ever since sleep training at 6.5 months, my kids have generally been very good sleepers.  A hiccup here and there, but overall solid.  Whatever combination of good luck and good habits have gotten us there, I am grateful.

Especially so that my kids tend to start the day at the incredibly reasonable hour of about 7AM.  Sometimes they wake up earlier and chat for a while, sometimes they sleep even later and don’t require my attention until nearly 8. (Insane! I know!)  The trouble is that, every now and then, Rebecca will wake up extra early (like 5:45 or 6AM).  Not only have I grown so used to the luxury of 7-7:30 that I can’t handle the sight of a 6 on the clock, but she tends to be pretty cranky if she gets up at that hour and clearly needs more sleep.  And yet, shockingly, my attempts to tell her that it’s “too early” or “not time to get up yet” have fallen on deaf ears.  Since, brilliant though my children are, they cannot yet tell time.

Enter: the Good Nite Lite.

My friend Rebecca got one first, on recommendation from someone in our twin club.  After hearing her raves, and a few extra early (and cranky) mornings, I hopped online and got one for myself.  The deal is that you set your bedtime and wake-up time on the clock.  At bedtime, the light turns on and is a blue moon.  The blue moon stays on all night.  At wake-up time, it changes to a yellow sun.  The sun stays lit for a couple of hours, and then turns itself off for the rest of the day.

Want to know how long it took my kids to adjust to their new light?  Approximately 15 seconds. Seriously.  It arrived in the mail, I set the time and put it up in their room.  That night, I told them that the blue moon means it’s nighttime and time to sleep.  When it turns to a yellow sun, that means it’s morning.  They thought it was very cool.  And the next morning, at 7AM on the nose, the excited shrieks came from their room.  “MOMMY!  Sun is yellow mommy!  Means it’s daytime!  MOMMY! Sun is YELLOW!”

A couple of times, Rebecca woke up cranky while the moon was still blue.  I went in the room and asked her what color the light was. “Blue.”  And what does that mean? “Nighttime.”  It wasn’t an ungodly hour in the middle of the night, so I didn’t really expect her to fall back asleep.  But I offered her a book to read in her bed, and told her to tell me when the light turns yellow.  And then I walked out.  And that was that.

This is genius for toddlers and preschoolers.  It gives them a way to understand daytime and nighttime, even if sunrise is early (though we do have blackout shades in their room) and they can’t read a clock.  They have the independence to figure it out for themselves, and it removes the burden of argument.  It’s not that mommy is making me go back to bed.  It’s that the clock says it’s nighttime.  End of story.

The only down side is that the days of sleeping in (or, at least, lounging contentedly in their beds) seems to be mostly gone.  While I don’t think the yellow light is enough to wake them up if they’re asleep, I suspect much of the time they’re already quietly awake, and see the change of color, and immediately feel the need to notify me of this event.   And on the “minor annoyance” front, the light does have to be plugged in, but does not come with a long cord (just the outlet plug coming straight out of the back).  So I kind of had to jerry-rig an extension cord to hang it on a mostly un-used lamp.

But those two small complaints aside, I love this thing.  It resolved a somewhat minor but annoying issue in our sleep routine (and, as we know, better-rested kids are happier kids, and happier kids make happier moms), and removed a power struggle.  At this age, I will be grateful for small victories.

Disclosure: I was not compensated, or in any way asked, to write about this thing. I just like it, and thought you should know!

I think it must have all started when the kids saw someone riding a motorcycle and remarked that the man on the motorcycle was wearing a “hat.”

“It’s a helmet,” I told them. “It keeps your head safe.”

From that point on, every time we saw someone riding a motorcycle, both kids were thrilled to announce that the person was wearing a helmet.  And that Gramps (my dad) wore a helmet on his motorcycle.  Keeps his head safe.  Then, they noticed people on bicycles were wearing helmets, too! Would you even believe it?! Oh, the excitement that can bring to two-year-olds!

At any rate, my mom decided to get the kids a pair of tricycles for their birthday (blessedly with attached parent-push-bar to save my back).  I assembled them yesterday morning and they were thrilled with their new toys. I decided to pull my car out to block the street end of our driveway and let the kids ride their bike on the pavement.

As I brought them over to ride their bikes in the driveway, Rebecca became rather distressed. “Need a helmet! Need a helmet!”  Daniel chimed in, “keep-a head safe.”

Damn. Guess they were listening.  You know, it’s not like I saw a motorcycle and thought to myself, “hey, there’s a teachable moment, I’d better capitalize on it!” No, I just kept talking and explaining just like I always do when they’re in the back seat of the van. Looks like they take it in, huh?

At any rate, it took a couple of different stores, but eventually we located toddler-sized bike helmets. Purple for Rebecca, Sesame Street with Elmo for Daniel (it was slim pickings, let me tell you).  They kept them on for the rest of the afternoon.

And you thought bunnies reproduced quickly.

It all started innocently enough.  There was the swingset, a much-loved hand-me-down from my aunt that the kids use every day it isn’t raining or snowing.

And late last summer we took Snickollet up on an offer for some free outdoor push toys.  The kids were big fans.

After much drama, we added the play house from my mom.

Then we were housebound for a few months while everything was buried under a foot of snow and ice.  But eventually it melted, and just like my hastas get miraculously larger every single year, so does the population of kiddie stuff in our yard.  The newest additions include the wagon we scored at the twin club sale.

And the bench my dad couldn’t resist buying on a trip to Lowe’s (at least it isn’t plastic).

Plus, a kid-sized picnic table, which theoretically sits eight. Hey, when nearly all of your mom friends have twins, it doesn’t take long to add up a playdate to that kind of number.

And then my in-laws came to town. And went a little nuts in Toys R Us.  What with the crab-shaped sandbox…

And the dueling Cozy Coupes they’ve been wanting to get for a year.

Thank goodness I have a giant yard, but it’s beginning to look a bit over-run.  I at least try to “park” some of the toys in a more out-of-the way corner of the yard.  Not like I could hide the fact that a pair of toddlers live here, but at least I don’t have to look like I’m constantly prepping for or recovering from a yard sale.

Don’t be fooled by the Crocs that we got…

He’s still, he’s still Daniel from the block.

Oh, and Rebecca loved her new purple shoes so much, she nearly refused to take them off for naptime.

The temptation was too much to resist at Whole Foods this morning, so they picked their own colors and are now the proud owners of the first pairs of Crocs to ever grace our household.

— — —

P.S.  You didn’t forget that tomorrow is Thursday Theater, did you?  Theme: Giggles!

My MOT club had it’s semi-annual sale this weekend.  I did a full write-up over at HDYDI, if you want to read (and behold photographic evidence) all about the madness that was.  The long and short of it is that it was a smashing success, both for me personally and for the club.

I sold for the second time.  My van was pretty full upon arrival for setup on Friday night.  Two high chairs (nice timing, right??), a diaper pail, a bunch of toys, and a big Rubbermaid crate filled to bursting with clothes.  And then, my friend was selling her Maclaren.  It was in such lovely shape… and the Peg Perego that was so bugging me was right out there in the van….  I ran out, wiped it off, brought it in, and slapped a tag on it (for the same price I was about to pay for my friend’s Maclaren).  I called M on the way out to the car, and I could almost hear him roll his eyes when he said “do whatever you want, honey.”  Heehee.  So the nice black & red Maclaren was sweet loot purchase #1 on Friday night.

Saturday morning, even more people arrived with even more stuff.  I knew immediately what I wanted, and was glad that my very early arrival meant I was 5th in line.  I tried to pretend I had some pride, and barely restrained myself from running when we were allowed in (not everyone is so restrained, trust me…).  I made a beeline back to the large equipment area.  SCORE!  THE WAGON IS MINE!

Heh.  It was all good after that.  Got a couple of books and an item or two of clothing for the kids.  The sale was absolute madness, and it appears that nearly every single thing that I brought was sold. There was almost a fight over my stroller, and it was sold within the first 20 minutes.  Glad my friends convinced me to bump up the price from my initial thought!  Three hours later, with the exception of one toy and a handful of shirts, all of my stuff was gone.  I’ll find out later, but I’m going to guess that I’ll be getting a check for over $200. Wohoo!

In the meantime, the kids friggin love their new wagon.  Especially, for whatever reason, the cupholders.

And now, for something completely different!

I’ve gotten such a cool opportunity for a giveaway, I’m all excited to share it with you.  You see, it’s National Reading Month, and I’m not sure there are many causes more worthy of celebration.  M and I were both big readers growing up, wasting pair after pair of batteries in our flashlights, reading entirely too late into the night.  We can only hope to inspire the same willful disobedience in our kids, who seem to be getting a good start as they ask for more and more stories every night (and morning, and afternoon).  For as tiring as two toddlers can be, I can never turn down a request to read a book.

Well, the folks at LeapFrog are all over this.  Head over to their National Reading Month page and you can pledge to read a certain number of hours with your kids this month.  And to celebrate, they’re letting little ol’ me give away one of their Tag Readers.  It comes bundled with three books, including The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs & Ham.  How cool!  I think it’s great to have more ways for different kids to interact with books, and this is a nifty tool to help encourage independence in young readers. (Not to mention like a $75 value……)

Here’s the rules for the giveaway. First, check out Christy’s review at About.com’s Family Computing site.  Leave a comment below between now and Sunday, March 22 at 5pM Eastern, telling me one thing you learned about the Tag Reader from that review that you didn’t know before, and also what book you most hope they have included in their library.

For additional entries, you can tweet all about it (just don’t forget to include me: @etowndz), and/or write your own blog post and be sure to link back here.  Just leave an additional comment for each additional entry (no more than one Twitter entry per person, per day, please).

Remember, this ends next Sunday!  Good luck!

Also, be sure to check out Christy’s Family Computing blog for lots of super info and reviews on technology and kids.  And, check out the other mom blogs featured that will be participating in this giveaway!

3 Carnations
So Much More Than a Mom
What about Mom?
Parenting by Trial & Error
My Sweet Baboo
Verbatim
Miss Britt
Stop, Drop and Blog
Callapidder Days

[By the way, you guys rock with the questions, I'm so impressed!  Keep 'em coming!]

One of Rebecca’s favorite new words is “on.”  As in me saying “Would you like me to turn this on?”  And she responds “haan-ah.”  She’s even starting to say it unprompted, grabbing a toy and holding it up for me, saying “hann-ah?“

But, since last week’s storytime meltdown, her new favorite thing to put haan-ah is her Harness Buddy.  Yep.  The oft-maligned baby leash.  She finds that cuddly dog and brings it to me.  “Haan-ah?”  I take it from her and she holds out her arms for the straps, and then proudly walks around with it until I insist on taking it off for breakfast or to get in the car.  I guess that’s what the manufacturers were going for, making it all soft and cuddly.  She adores that thing, and it’s hilarious to see her going about her morning (or afternoon, or evening) with her little doggy backpack on.  It’s really just entirely too cute for words.

Back later with a real post, but I wanted to post a great link for those in need of better gift purchases than the cheap plastic crap at the Big Box stores.  Cool Mom Picks has posted their Safer Toy Guide.  It’s not the least expensive stuff in the world, but it’s all gorgeous and… real.  Just real stuff.  Real materials.  I’d better send the link to the grandparents…   I’ll put their button on my sidebar, too, so you can click there once this post is buried.  Happy shopping!

First, thanks to all for your comments on the whole foot surgery business.  I do think I’ll go ahead and try to have it done next month, and figure out the childcare situation as best I can.  Hrm… maybe I should ask for a TV for our bedroom for my birthday.  You know, if I’m going to be “resting” and all.

On a completely unrelated note, I continue to be in the crafting groove.  I even (speaking of early birthday presents) got a spanking new sewing machine.  Wohoo!  I’m all but finished with the quilt for my niece, and have another one ready for sandwiching as soon as I decide what I’m actually going to do with it.  I was itching to work on something else, so I pulled out fabric I had cut and started for a quilt ages ago (probably over two years ago).  Turns out, the combination of fabrics I picked back then was ugly as sin.  So I saved the big pieces for my scrap stash, and just plain ditched the rest.  Alas.

And then, lightbulb!  I remembered a project I thought of a few months ago.  Taking up much-needed storage space is a stack of the kids’ old recieving blankets.  Well-loved, frequently-washed flannel with somehow nary a prune-juice-spit-up stain on them (thank you, Oxi-Clean).  A little too ratty to pass on to someone else, but too full of newborn memories (to think, we used to be able to swaddle them in those blankets!) to throw in the trash.  Out comes the ruler and the rotary cutter, and the dozen or so blankets are rapidly becoming stacks of six-inch squares, destined to become rag quilts.

My only debate right now is what kind of blanket I’m aiming to make.  Do I want the warm, snuggly kind that you curl up under on a chilly night?  Or do I want a smaller, lighter one that can be dragged around and slept with as a comfort item?  It’s a difference not only in size but also in construction.  A heavier, warmer blanket would have batting in between the layers for warmth and weight.  A little lovey blanket could just be two layers of flannel with nothing in between.

And, while they’re starting to learn new words and signs, I can’t exactly ask my kids which they’d prefer. Maybe a little lovey blanket, since they already have their other quilts…  Crafty moms of older kids, any thoughts?