Ayn-Monique is a lifestyle editor and writer who's worked for Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, FamilyFun and more. She loves lattes, jogging and hanging out at the playground with her husband and daughters.
Getting kids to eat veggies is often a challenge. Pasta, rice, and bread are easy, but lots of kids shy away from the more complex — and healthy — stuff. I’ve been lucky with my girls: They mostly eat their vegetables (sometimes even with gusto!). Still, if they had a choice between cheese and crackers or spinach? Yeah, they’re going for the crackers.
When my first child was born, my husband’s coworker gave us a wooden step stool as a baby gift. It was a beautiful: solid wood, about 12 inches tall, white with lavender treads and our daughter’s name carved in it in a sweet font. That’s nice, I thought, but why would anyone ever gift an apartment-dweller such a large gift?Well, obviously she was an experienced mom!
This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. When I asked my daughters if they would be interested in testing some products from Trader Joe’s, the answer was a resounding yes. After a year of ordering groceries online, the idea of perusing shelves in-person — and picking up something other than the same-old — appealed to us quite a bit.
When it comes to cooking with kids, there’s the vision (little hands rolling perfect little balls of cookie dough!) and the reality (flour on the counter, on the floor, in their hair — everywhere). “There are so many reasons to get kids into the kitchen, but I do think they can develop a real pride in their self-sufficiency,” says cookbook author Jenna Helwig.
From new twists on blocks and puzzles to design-minded collectables, independent toy store owners have a pulse on what their young clients love. And with real humans at the helm, each store has its own specialty and point of view—meaning, find the shop that speaks to your child, and you’ve got a curated selection of items to please them. We reached out to seven independent toy shops across the country to see what they’d recommend for holiday gifts for 2020.
When I was growing up, we didn’t eat meat on Fridays. Instead, in our household, the sad alternative was usually fish sticks. I don’t have particularly fond memories of them from back then — the standard ones we often bought were usually pretty bland and soggy — but nevertheless, we ate them for dinner and got on with it. I now can honestly say that frozen fish sticks don’t have to be sad. In fact, they have come a long way since the days of my youth.
As busy as they are, kitchens are just about the germiest places in our homes—especially all those handles. You touch food, you open the oven. Your kids come in after touching who-knows-what and head straight to the fridge (or maybe it’s just mine?). With all that touching comes the risk of cross-contamination of foodborne illnesses and the spread of germs (in addition to all our fears about coronavirus, flu season is coming!).
