I’m a bag lady of sorts.  I’m past being embarrassed about it because it works for me.  I have most of my own life activities and my kids’ extra curricular activities in separate bags.  Many, many bags – because, well, the kidlettes and I have many, many activities and errands to attend and accomplish on a weekly basis…

The following bags are always at the ready in the house: Swimming, Soccer, Skateboarding, Karate, Snacks, Pre-School nap bag, library book bag, on the fly sleep over bag, spare diaper bag, and finally, the “I had an accident” bag with extra clothes for each child (can’t wait to outgrow this one, though living by the beach, sometimes clothes just get sandy and wet.)

These bags are always in the back of my car: Travel potty bag, diaper bag, reusable grocery bags (thanks to California’s state law banning plastic grocery bags), restaurant activity bag (with crayons and travel sized games), bag with extra shoes for both kids (Do your kids leave the house and hop in the car without shoes on?  Mine do… ALL THE FRICKIN’ TIME), non-perishable snacks bag.

Whew!  And all these bags are separate from my daily diaper bag for the little one which does not always double as my purse for my own crap.  So yea, if I included my laptop bag, it seems like wherever I go, I have at least three or four  bags on my person.

I know it sounds a bit insane, but here’s how it works for my family.  On a moment’s notice, I can grab a bag and go.  When the laundry is done, the uniforms and stuff goes straight into the corresponding bag.  This way I’m never looking for that rogue soccer sock, those skateboard knee pads nor do I ever forget to bring a towel to swim practice.

No need to be fancy if that’s not your deal.  Just make sure your kids know which bag goes with which activity.  When I say, “grab your ____ bag, even my almost 2 year old knows which bag I’m talking about because every week, that same bag goes along to that specific activity.  It never changes.  They know and I know a snack is always in the car (so I never get too hangry) and they are ready to be outfitted for the activity for that day.  Done and done.

So what kind of bags do I actually use?  Meh, I’m not too picky, but I like to be able to wash the bags on occasion, so I tend to use fabric bags that I made.  Except for the reusable grocery bags.  Those have been a free for all as of late.

Just a note: Finding the perfect place to store the various bags in the house so they are not out all over the place is important too.  Make sure that all the bags are in one place.  Preferably hidden behind a lovely hall closet door or in cute baskets in a mud room if you have one.  In our current “shoe box” house which has neither a hall closet nor a mud room, the bags live on a low shelf in the kids toy room.  Not my ideal, but for now, it works.  You bet I definitely designed “bag storage” into our mud hall for the new house though!  I find that just how the consistency of ‘which bag is which’ is important, consistently in keeping all the bags in one spot is key.

So go get organized by bagging it all up!

-K

I have made this bag a total of 4 times.  Three are in constant use and the other one was gifted.  You have to look past the not so cute fabrics shown…  I swear, it’s a great size and shape for stashing all sorts of stuff.  It also has a magnetic clasp on top to hold things in.

Find the pattern here.

 

 

You can get this bag here.

I have an honest admission.  I did the bare minimum when it came to child-proofing my home for both my children.  Even with #1 when practically everything else made me neurotically protective, I somehow didn’t feel the need to change the look or layout of our house.  The truth is, I didn’t want to look at foam bumpers everywhere…  And thank goodness we have not had any crazy head smashing accidents… yet. (me: knocking on wood as I type)

But, I did put plastic covers on ALL of my outlets and ’til this day, they are still in tact.

Because dear friends, things like this happen on a daily basis…

And they happen in a split second.

This photo (which almost gave me a heart attack) was taken by a dear friend, who stayed at the Montage Laguna Beach with her husband and three gorgeous children this past winter when they visited from New York.  Their kids are amazingly well mannered, but they are kids none-the-less and she took this photo in her hotel room and texted it to me saying, “This is us right now.  Leaving hotel soon.”

Two seconds.  That’s all it took.  She literally looked away from her 2 year old for 2 seconds to tend to her youngest.

THANK GOODNESS there was that plastic piece on the head of that key!

So when child-proofing your home, go nuts and do as much as you feel necessary to protect those darlings!  It’s such a fleeting amount of time that they are so little.  Those awful edge bumpers and corner guards won’t be there forever.  But if you are like me and don’t really want to child-proof everything, in the barest of minimums, please, please, please, cover your outlets.  And throw a few plastic outlet covers into your bag when you are traveling.

Other musts when childproofing:

• Safety Gates (installed securely) at the top and bottom of staircases.  Sometimes as in our case, also at the front door because we had a runner/escape artist and we live on a very busy street.
• Locking mechanisms on cabinet doors and drawers containing hazardous products.  They sell ones that can be mounted to the inside of the doors/drawers so you don’t even have to know they are there! (like these)
• Secure laundry and other chemicals out of sight and out of reach.  I know it sounds stupidly obvious, but I’m totally guilty of leaving Costco size tubes of Clorox Wipes out on counter tops.  We are past the ‘put everything in the mouth’ stage, but it’s a good habit to maintain.  Put them away!
• Bolting Bookcases and drawers to the wall.  And please, take the few extra steps to find a stud.  There is no point in drilling into crumbly drywall which will support nothing.  (IKEA Malm drawer tip-over lawsuit)
• Secure medications in out of reach, preferably lockable medicine cabinets.

For me, the number one greatest tip on child safety would be – talking and warning your children about the dangers around the house.  I truly believe this is what has prevented me from having to transform my home into a padded asylum.  From a very early age, the boys knew what absolutely, without compromise, was off-limits and why. Knowledge is power right?  The more they know, the smarter they can be when making choices of what is appropriate to play with, on or around, jump off of, or what can be consumed and what things are strictly a no-no because of the potential life threatening dangers.  Or more like the wrath of the tiger mom.

Keep those kidlettes safe and healthy!

-K

 

My brother-in-law gifted my husband and I and Echo Dot for Christmas last year.  ALEXA is the bomb.  Well, most of the time.  When I open my ALEXA app on my phone, two things prevail.

1. Weather in Redondo Beach
2. Lullabies from the Movies

These two things are constants because ALEXA lives in our children’s room and those are the two things that we ask her do to on a daily basis.  But ALEXA does so much more.  Shopping, Radio Stations, NPR, Sports stats, Wake-up/Bed-time alarms…  But what I personally think ALEXA is great for, is an extra voice to handle my child’s incessant questions.  If you have young inquisitive children, you may relate, because my 4.5 year old is a talker.  He talks all day, and talks all night, and the kid has a kajillion exhausting questions about the world around him.  Our conversations are peppered with questions.  About everything.

Enter ALEXA.

If I honestly don’t know the answer to something, “Go ask ALEXA.”  If I’m too tired to give a crap, “Go ask ALEXA.”  Just a word of warning though: ALEXA does not always have “good” answers for everything.

Example –

R – “ALEXA, what’s a paleontologist?”

A – “A paleontologist is a specialist in paleontology.”

Well no shit.  I could have told him a better answer.  How about, “a scientist who digs up and studies dinosaur bones.”  I mean, come on.

So yes, sometimes she necessitates more talking that I have to do, but all in all, we love our little hockey puck gadget.  We definitely have fun using it and get a good laugh once in a while.

R – “Mommy, why is the four legged land walker an AT-AT?  Wh—-y?  Are the land walkers with two legs an AT-AT?”

M – “A what-what?  What are you talking about?  What do I look like? An encyclopedia?  Go ask ALEXA.”  (Oh, no… I set myself up for this one…)

R – “What’s a psycho-pedia?”  “ALEXA, what’s a psycho-pedia?”

A – “Sorry, I couldn’t find the answer to the question I heard.”

Right… so now my kid thinks I’m a psycho.  Actually worse, a psycho-PEDIA.

M – “ALEXA, what is an en-cy-clo-pedia?”

A – “The word ‘encyclopedia’ means a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty.”

And then on and on with the million questions about what ALEXA just said…

 

BTW, not that you care, but a four legged Star Wars AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport and a two-legged land walker is called an AT-ST (All Terrain Scout transport) or an AT-DP (All Terrain Defense Pod) Thank you GOOGLE.  And I guess there are many many others that it honestly makes my brain turn off.