There are many, many great things about having my sisters in town, not the least of which is having four extra hands to help with Henry. However, sometimes knowing that there are other mature, responsible, supervising helpers in my life, I get a little laxed about things like diaper changes and my knowledge of Henry’s whereabouts, trusting that he’s probably safe and squared away with either Kate or Halley. The manifestations of my heedless mothering are pitiable. Like a few evenings ago, we were all ready to leave on our evening walk and it suddenly occured to me that I hadn’t changed Henry’s diaper all day. I was pretty sure that someone else had, but just to be sure, I asked everyone as we were strolling away from the house, and was mortified to discover that we were all making the same errant assumption that someone else had done it, when in fact, no one had! Poor soggy, stinky, totally saturated little Henry had been sitting in the same soggy, stinky, totally saturated little diaper all. day. long. And the most heart warming/wrenching part of it all was that as I was changing him, he kept apologizing, “I’m sow-wy,” in a barely audible little moan. No! No! No, Mr. Soggy Britches, there’ll be none of that; I am sorry! Read the rest »

Clever Parents Children: Ah, the joys of toddlers. See how a train destroyed our master bedroom. Also, we’ve discovered a fabulous Spanish / English for children program with Boca Beth and Clever Parents introduces the online boutique of the week. Watch the vidcast on Clever Parents TV.

Yep, you read that right, a train destroyed our master bedroom. Although, not in the “CNN is outside filming the wreckage now”, kind of a way. The offending train wasn’t from Amtrak, it was from Thomas and it didn’t derail, it flushed. Or almost flushed. Which is exactly the problem.

For those of you reading at home, one toilet, two little boys, a Thomas the Train wooden train figure and a bunch of toilet paper equal disaster. You see, Thomas the Train wooden train figures don’t flush down the toilet well. And once they’re jammed, adding a roll of toilet paper and repeatedly flushing makes things worse, not better. (see picture of what’s left of our ceiling - above right) Read the rest »

Why yes, yes it is.

After putting both boys down for their naps (well, Henry is more into talking to himself upstairs, but I’m hoping I can stretch naptime for as long as humanly possible), I started to tackle an overflowing stack of laundry. Our basement is unfinished and that’s where our washer and dryer are. So after sorting the clothes, moving the clean stuff to the laundry table, the wet stuff to the dryer and the dirty stuff to the washer, I added my OxyClean and started to fill up the cup with liquid laundry detergent. The cup was about 3/4 full when I noticed a little tickle on my left pinkie toe. Looking down, I saw that a cockroach was trying to climb up my foot via said pinkie toe. AAAAAAAAACCCCCHHHHHHH! I simultaneously screamed and employing a brilliant defensive strategy, threw the liquid soap into my hair, onto my shirt and all over my hands, scattering many a bottle of detergent, soap and dryer sheets while the roach tried his best to crawl away. Ugh. Thinking about it still gives me the shivers. At least I smell good.

Well one of many of my not-so-clever moment would have to be when I was driving down the road with my son strapped into his car seat so safe n snug, when as I was going down a big hill, I applied the breaks only to see the entire car seat shuffle forward into the back of the front passenger’s seat…Apparently the night before when my husband borrowed the car seat to use in his car, he did not strap it back into my car, but rather just placed it back in it’s proper spot…so being the not-so-clever parent I strapped my son in the car seat never checking to see that the car seat was strapped into the car! I am grateful we were still on our private road and that I didn’t really have a reason to break harder which would have resulted in him flinging into the front seat rather then doing the car seat shuffle. Now I jiggle that car seat every time I put him in it, just to make sure. I hope my car seat snafu helps others feel better about theirs.

- Lindsey, Clever Parent to Weston.

The silence should have been my warning cry.

Henry and Will had been playing together nicely all morning with the exception of the occasional screech or territorial struggle over a tower of blocks.

So I really should have noticed the silence. Read the rest »