Process Art for Toddlers: Cardboard Birthday Cake

There's no shortage of uses for cardboard in my life. I always like to steal a box or two out of the recycled bin for a new project. Fortunately, Pearl's parents received three packages all gradually larger in size just in time to make her a birthday cake...that's right. A cardboard birthday cake. A couple of weeks ago…

How to Make the Best Baby-Safe Play Dough in 10 minutes

This stuff is incredible. You can make a ton of it for cheap in almost any color that food coloring comes in. It's also edible. Sure, it's not a great snack, but it's perfectly fine if your baby has a few bites. The natural ingredients will be a lot gentler to their tummies than the store…

Busy Girl Life Hack: Homemade Salads Packed for the Workweek

I'm not one of those people that are organized by default. I'm famous for misplacing keys, wallets, dropping phones in toilets and, most recently, the snow. But this is one life hack that makes my Monday-Friday, 9-5 job, as unusual as it is, so much better. Packed salad lunches = happy week. Every week I vary the salad…

8 Songs To Sing That Fussy Baby to Sleep (and none of them are by Raffi)

     The first time I couldn't get a fussy 3-month-old to stop crying threw me into a full panic. I'd gone through a checklist of all the most likely reasons he was fussy and texted his mother, sure that it was something catastrophic. A pro mother of three, she texted a simple "He's probably just tired. Try putting…

Playgroup Fun: Rainbow Spaghetti Party

Rainbow spaghetti is probably one of my favorite group activities. I first did it when I was teaching a baby art class right before I started caregiving Pearl. There's something just so whimsical and delightful about a huge batch of vivid rainbow spaghetti. What usually happens is the kids come in and stare at it in…