Messy Bun, Get Parenting Done
Being a mom is a little like being a ninja. You run and jump, fight off bad guys and strategically plan your escapes. Just like a ninja you need to dress appropriately. No, this doesn’t mean you have to resort to schlubby mom jeans.
I’ve curated pants that are as cute as they are comfortable. My criteria included a high waistband, good stretch, versatile and of course fashionable. And yes, I include some leggings as “pants”. You can fight me on this in the comments 🙂
If you loved our original edition of easy fine motor skill activities you will love this list too! Fine motor skills including cutting, coloring, ripping and eventually writing. These are skills that you can work on when your child is a toddler and into their teens, or even farther.
This list has fun crafts, activities, printables and more to help you have fun while learning these important skills. Your child will make flowers, move pompoms, play with stickers and other fun things he or she will love.
Check them out and be sure to take a look at my favorite fine motor skill toys too!
Dots and Coins Fine Motor Play from BestToys4Toddlers
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for supporting my blog.
I once had three toddlers (briefly at the same time) so I was always looking for ways to have fun and keep them occupied. When I looked for toys I looked for a couple of things. First, I wanted toys that would last a while. Not only because they were sturdy but the kids would actually want to play with them as they got older. I also love toys that target a particular developmental skill. Bouncy toys help core strength, sand and water toys help with fine motor, and balance bike target the skills needed to move to a bigger bike. Lastly, I look for toys that you get a lot of bang for your buck. Some of these toys are expensive but your kids will use them ALL the time making them price per use actually quite low.
I hope you love our guide to our favorite summertime essentials! Make sure to also check out our fine motor skill tools and basement toys (for those rainy days)
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for supporting my blog.
Well, by never go shopping I mean never drag your newborn, your sick child, or your three super active little boys to the store if you do not want to. Like most moms I enjoy a good stroll through Target by myself. I’m a little less enthusiastic about dragging tired twins to the grocery store when they’d rather be doing pretty much anything else. Here are my favorite programs for shopping while keeping your sanity by not having to actually go IN the store. Because that toy aisle at Target is always RIGHT in the middle and hard to avoid and really, why waste time shopping with your kids when you can go to the park instead.
There are several great options for getting groceries to you without going in the store. My current favorite is Marianos Clicklist (it’s also offered by Kroger stores). You have to go in the store, but not INTO the store. You order online and pick a time slot you want to pick up. You the drive up, call a number and they bring the groceries out to the car. Perfect for a napping child or a quick run to the grocery store on your way home. I like Clicklist because the groceries are picked by store employees. They know where things are so I find there are less “out of stock” items and the produce quality is the highest. There is a fee by delivery or by month/ year. If I know the kids are going to be off school and I won’t have time to shop in peace I’ll turn on monthly then go back to just by trip. You can use the code LEPSTEIN at checkout for $10 off your first order.
This does not solve the problem of when you don’t want to or can’t leave the house. I like Instacart but I don’t love it. That said I actually used it today so it’s my favorite of the don’t leave your house at all options. I was planning to grocery shop after the kids went to bed but my husband got stuck at work and Instacart rescued me for pretzels and strawberries I need for tomorrow’s lunches (and a bunch of other stuff too). Better planning would probably have solved the whole issue but you’re on a blog call The Messy Bun Life so we can’t expect perfection. I like the ease of Instacart. It comes right to your door and is usually pretty quick. The fees are about the same as Clicklist. The problem is that for some stores the prices are significantly higher. But some are comparable and sometimes I have a sick kids, or poor planning, and just need my groceries. The other problem is that the you are at the will of the picking skills of your independent instacart shopper. Sometimes they are fine, and sometimes they aren’t. As long as you doublecheck and provide feedback when necessary instacart is a good option for when you can’t, or don’t want to, go anywhere.
Well, Amazon
I may have mentioned I love Target. I actually grew up in downtown Chicago and we didn’t have Target until I was in my mid-twenties (gasp!) which is probably part of my obsession. I don’t usually love taking my kids to Target. I have three boys, a 6 year old and twin 4 year olds, that have more interest in the pokemon section then guest bedroom bedding sets or the amazing array of dry shampoo. The order online, pick up in store option has always been my favorite way to do quick target runs. When the drive up option started rolling out I was a little skeptical if I would ever need it. Then my twins got sick. Not super sick but that grumpy, needs to nap but doesn’t feel well enough to comfortably sleep sick. Then we ran out of pretzels (this happens a lot) and were running low on everything else. Plus I was looking for a reason to get the twins in the car so they would take a good nap. So I tried the drive up and it was awesome! It’s like it sounds: you order online, then drive up and they bring it out. My biggest concern was how long it would take once I stopped before they came out. I didn’t want the twins to wake up. It was quick. Future trips, which now happen regularly, were equally fast and it has become my go to for small to medium size target runs when I don’t have time but I am driving somewhere close to it. Prices are the same (and right now they seem to be running a lot of specials), they pick perfectly and the selection is most of your everyday stuff you would buy from Target. Target for the win!
I hate clothing shopping in store. Honestly, I hate going clothing shopping with OR without the kids in a store. That’s why I’m sort of obsessed with Stitch Fix. If you aren’t familiar Stitch Fix is where you fill out an online style survey including sizes and the approximate price you want to spend (items range from $25 to $500). Your personal stylist sends you five pieces to try based on your preferences. You pick what you want (and pay for it then) and send back what you don’t want. There is a $20 styling fee that is applied to your order. I have my account set for an automatic box every three months so I have new clothing seasonally but you can order on demand or set up an autoship.
I did not realize until someone brought it up how much of my wardrobe staples are from them: my favorite shoes, jean jacket, sweater, and jeans are all Stitch Fix. Those stylists are pretty good. I have never had an order where I didn’t love something and sometimes they are dead on. You provide feedback every time so the more you shop, the better the boxes become. You can get $25 off your first order here!
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for supporting my blog.
As this pandemic was getting worse I was talking to an aquantance who grew up in the UK. She said that she never knew that the IRA was constantly a threat. While I think that our children should absolutely know what is going on, we should hide our fear from them. This doesn’t mean lie but do not let them see your panic when the grocery store is out of frozen food. They see it too already and are worried and will look for you to comfort them.
I know my children can sense when I am upset or dysregulated. They then proceed to get dysregulated too. I do not want to be stuck in my house with a bunch of hyper, worried kids. I am going to do my best to reassure them despite my own fears.
School is out in many places. While I will try to provide educational activities. It is not the same. My son who has special needs has an IEP and extra supports that I cannot fulfill or provide him. I have also had to suspend my children’s occupational and speech therapy. Even though we will work on things at home I worry that the progress they have made will go away. Our vacation is cancelled, Passover dinner may just be us, and my kids will slowly drive me insane BUT this is important. We need to stop the spread of Covid- 19 even if our lives are inconvenienced. But, it’s also okay to say that it sucks. Tell your spouse, your BFF, probably not your kids, but maybe your mom too.
We have a months worth of food just in case, we have a lot of toilet paper (but we always did because we buy it when it’s on sale at Costco), and we have some basic medicine. But while my husband was stocking up on milk I was finding ideas and activities for the kids. I went to the dollar store and got whatever crafts they had, bubbles and glow sticks (if I give these to my kids they disapear into the basement for hours)
My oldest son is seven and his school is doing e-learning but that is probably not enough and he needs more educational activities. I ordered him an extra Minecraft workbooks (we already had a few) and will be encouraging him to use our Osmo more. I have also set the computer up with all his school websites to use and also Khan kids. If you have not seen this website/ app it is a great source of free educational activities
[Read more…] about Parenting During the Covid- 19 PandemicDisclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for supporting my blog.
This week we got our first Kiwi Crate! It was a holiday present to my 4.5 year old twin boys. But before we get into the details of the box let’s talk a little about Kiwi Boxes in case you are new to them. They are boxes full of fun STEAM activities! They come in different age levels (ages 0-104) that have different focuses. You can purchase a monthly subscription or just a box. We decided to go with the Kiwi Box. This is for ages 5-8. My twins are a little young for them but we got a one year subscription so they will be 5 halfway through.
Well first I was surprised by how small the box was. Once we opened it up I did realize that there was enough materials to have a lot of fun! The box included a manual for the project. We got the arcade project. All the materials to make the project. An “explore” magazing that had related projects we could also do and, because this was our first box we also received a mini poster where we could put stickers on every time we got a box!
The Arcade box project was to make a claw game. This is the game you see at arcades where a claw comes down and you try to pick up a stuffed animal or other prize. We started with claw itself and spent about 30 minutes piecing it together. I was impressed by the design and even though they were young for the box they were able to help. EVERYTHING was included in the box which was nice. We didn’t need to find the right glue or any other supply.
Next up was making the prizes. These were two little “monsters” (complete with googly eyes) that were made out of string and a pipe cleaner. It was super clever and easy for them to understand the simple instructions. At this point my twins completely took over wrapping the string around the guide. It was a great fine motor activity in itself and had an adorable finished product. Because the twins did this part of the project 100% by itself this took another half an hour bringing the project total to 60 minutes.
The biggest thing my kids love was really being able to do it themselves. Despite being on the young end of the age range for this box they could, with me reading the directions and a bit of hands on help, do the project themselves. It also made a cool physical product.
First off, it was exciting. It related to something they see in real life (or Buffalo Wild Wings has a crane machine) so they were immediately excited to do it themselves.
I also really loved that the project had the right number of steps. It was divided into separate parts with natural breaking points (perfect for a snack or run around break) and each part only had a handful, or less, of instructions. The instructions were easy for the twins to understand so they didn’t get lost or skip ahead.
The Explore! Magazine was also great! The twins are excited to build a crate for the crane game using the instructions in the booklet and they loved the cartoon at the front. It was a fun extra and adds additional value to the crate.
Overall, I would highly recommend the Kiwi Crate to anyone looking for a great STEM activity that is hands on and fun. They are $14.95-$19.95 per month (depending on how many months you sign up for) and they are now 30% off with code SHARE30 I hope you found our Kiwi Crate review helpful! Let me know if you have any questions and be sure to check out our basement toys review too!
