A brain dump of sorts…
- I want to replace all of the hangers in my house with skinnier versions. While I don’t hang a lot of clothes in the closet I do like how much space is freed up but using the thinner versions. Quite frankly the closets in our house suck. They are oddly shaped and unbelievably tiny. There’s a good and bad side to small closets. The good: You save money on stuff, because you simply don’t have anywhere to put it. The bad: It’s very difficult to keep things neat and orderly. A set of eighteen hangers cost $9.99 at TJ Maxx. I think I’ll need at least three sets of hangers to hang up the clothes and coats in our home. My husband doesn’t like the velvety feel of them, so his closet is off limits. Replacing hangers feels a lot like replacing perfectly functional storage bowls. It seems a bit crazy, but I’ve decided an organized home is well worth the money.
- My son was born in October, so shortly after wrapping up his birthday my family members are asking for a Christmas list for the little guy. Ugh. They are also asking for a list from me. I think this is one of the most dreaded times of the year for me. I don’t need anything and I never know what to write down.
- Speaking of toys I bought a vintage Lite Brite from a vendor on eBay. I plan to make this my son’s one and only Christmas gift. This is the second time I’ve purchased a vintage toy. The first time I purchased a bunch of old fashioned Playskool puzzles. I’d like to say that my son loves playing with them, but unfortunately he doesn’t seem terribly interested. He still loves puzzles but doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in the particular set of puzzles I bought. The good news is that I can probably recoup a good portion of the money I spent by relisting them on eBay. I’m not giving up on them yet, but I have a feeling they will end up back in the mail at some point in time. These days he’s much more interested in The Learning Journey puzzles I picked up for a couple of dollars at Ross.
- In other news my son appears to be struggling with a two year old sleep regression. I’ve tried singing to him for an extended period of time and providing him with an exorbitant number of hugs and kisses throughout the day and for two hours before bedtime, but when I walk out of the room he still breaks down. I lay down on the floor next to his crib and hold his hand, but the second I let go he wakes up and cries. The last two nights he’s fallen asleep after midnight. He’s been a great sleeper for nearly a year and a half now, so I’m not sure what’s going on. I placed a night light in his room and talk to him a lot throughout the day about settling down and not crying at night, but none of that seems to help. Any advice from parents who experienced similar sleep issues when their children turned two? It breaks my heart to see him so unhappy and for the time being I’m sleeping on his floor, which is not particularly pleasant or comfortable.
- I joined a book club for stay-at-home moms with small children. We’ve only met once but I absolutely love the idea of meeting monthly with a group of women to discuss literature. We’re reading a mix of books, including a few that are parenting related. I should have checked out the first book from the library, but I found a copy on eBay selling for $5 with shipping included, so I bought it instead. These days it takes me forever to read a book in it’s entirety, so it seemed like a wiser investment to buy the book and read it at my own pace, otherwise I would have needed to check it out multiple times from the library.
Re: #1: DO IT! I replaced all my hangers with slimline hangers, in the same color, a few years ago. Right away I felt that I could actually SEE my wardrobe — the hangers were no longer a distraction. It was an excellent use of about $40 (I also bought clips for hanging skirts and pants).
Re: #3. I’ve thought about getting a LiteBrite for my daughters, and from what I’ve read, the vintage ones are better. It’s a good fine motor skills toy. I would put the puzzles aside, not get rid of them. He’s actually quite young for this stuff. I know that sometimes my daughters have played with something, lost interest, and I donated the toy only to realize a year later or so that the toy would now be more developmentally appropriate.
Re: #4. What can you tell us about his daily nap(s): when does he go down, how long does he sleep, and what time does he wake up? Whenever my daughters have (frequently) had sleep problems and started falling asleep really late, I’ve gradually corrected the problem by putting them to bed closer to the time they are falling asleep (per Ferber), so that they re-learn how to fall asleep quickly and don’t associate bedtime with hours of anxiety and frustration, and then adjust the time they wake up in the morning, and then slowly bring bedtime back to its desired time. (You can wake up a child, but you can’t make him fall asleep.) It takes at least 3 weeks, but it has worked even with two kids at a time. Good luck!
Thanks for the thorough comment Ellen! I replaced the hangers and it made a world of difference in the closet. There is so much more room in there now and it’s so easy to see everything that’s hanging. This was one of those ‘why did I wait so long to do this’ changes.
I read terrible reviews about the newer models of LiteBrite, but the vintage one is just the way I remember it. I’m pretty sure my son is going to love it. I like the idea of putting aside the puzzles for a bit. I have noticed my son seems more interested in things after I put them away for awhile. And you are right he is still very young for these types of toys.
I think my son was going through a bit of separation anxiety, since he wanted to fall asleep while I was laying on the floor. Yesterday we talked a lot about not crying before bed time and that mommy sleeps in her own bed. I told him I would leave the door open so he knew I was in the next room. Sure enough he fell asleep at naptime and nighttime without a single fuss. Hopefully the peaceful child I know has returned. I think the daylight savings time changes and lack of activity after nap (we can’t go to the playground in the dark) have added to the disruption.