Monthly Archives: April 2011

Knock It Off!

Posted on April 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today I feel like the worst mom. Ari, Samara and I went to the playground this morning. Ari wanted to take his scooter with him. I told him that was fine by me, but he had to promise that he would ride it or walk with it all the way to the playground and all the way home. He agreed enthusiastically.

When it came time to go home, he did not want to leave the playground, which wasn’t much of a surprise.

“Ari, we have to go home, when we get home, we’re going to see Chesca.” Chesca is Ari’s cousin, and it was true, she is coming over later today.

We started walking home, and that’s when the trouble started. He paused in the middle of the street and stood there unmoving.

“Ari you need to walk or ride your scooter.”

“No.” He whined

“Ari, I’m not in the mood for this right now. We need to go home and you need to walk.”

“NO!” He yelled and started crying. I tried to reason with him:

“Ari, I can’t carry you because I’m carrying Samara. So you need to walk.”

At this point Samara started crying, and I knew she was hungry.

He walked a little bit, and then started crying in the middle of the street.

“Ari, you need to walk.” I repeated.

He just stood there. So I walked ahead of him, figuring he would follow once he saw I wasn’t putting up with his defiant behavior.

My attempt at tough love failed. I walked ahead of him and he did not follow. So I walked back with the baby on my chest crying loudly and got him.

After several more attempts to get him to walk home, reason went out the window and I lost it. I knelt down and yelled at him:

“KNOCK IT OFF!”

He cried louder and still refused to walk.

“Okay,” I said “If you don’t walk home, you can’t see Chesca this afternoon and no playground for the next three days.” That got his attention.

He begrudgingly held my hand and walked home crying all the way.

When we got home, I told him he did a good job walking home and that he would see Chesca and go to the playground after all. But I felt awful, because I lost my cool and yelled at him. I don’t know how people stay calm when their kids are throwing monster tantrums.

What do you do when your kid sits in the middle of the sidewalk and refuses to walk?

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Posted in Anecdotes

Liz At The Library

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last week my dad helped me lead Story Time while the librarian is on vacation for three weeks. This week, my mom helped me read and sing to 0-4 year olds. She is a former ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher for elementary school children, and also has a public relations background. Essentially she’s great with kids and an extrovert! It figures that she’s a Leo.

Liz, my mom, is pictured above with the list of songs and stories we did for Story Time. She inspires me to be organized.

Ari was busy reading while we were getting ourselves ready for our 10:30am performance.

My friend Leah drove down to Brooklyn from upstate NY with her step-daughter Kinneret, age 2, to join in on the Story Time fun. She also took all the pictures of us reading, singing and being silly.

I was in a rush this morning, and therefore hastily selected my books. My mom’s two books were a hit. They were:

Eric Carle’s “From Head to Toe”

This is a great book. It goes through a list of animals and things they can do with their bodies. For example “I am a giraffe, I can bend my neck. Can you do it?” And then then the kids bend their necks in response.

Her second book was called “Barnyard Boogie.” She got it second-hand at a thrift store up in Nyack, NY. That’s where she gets the majority of her books and toys for the kids.

This is a fun book. It’s actually a book and a puppet show all in one. Each page becomes a different animal. On one page the puppet mouth is a duck, and on the next it becomes a moose. The words to book are rhythmic and can be made into a song if the reader likes. Here’s my mom reading “Barnyard Boogie” to the kids.

Then I decided to bore the kids to death by reading them a book about how penguins grow!

Boring! Ari loves this book at home, but I should have realized it’s more of a one-on-one book and does not work for large groups. Leah pointed this out later.

Here’s a picture of me boring the children about the growth of penguins from egg to adult.

Leah was on the job taking pictures!

Here we are singing “The Wheels on The Bus”

We had fun, my mom and I.

After Story Time ended, Leah and I drove over to Borough Park and had some delicious kosher pizza at Mendelsohn’s while my mom watched Samara.

So…what songs should I sing next week? Ideas?

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Posted in Grandma, Library

The Mazel Tov Giveaway From Little One Books: Win a $15 Gift Certificate!

Posted on April 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

Mazel Tov, in Hebrew, means congratulations. As many of you know, I recently had a baby girl named Samara.

After Samara was born, I’ve received many “Mazel Tovs.”

In honor of my new baby girl, I’m co-hosting a $15 gift certificate giveaway with Little One Books.

Little One Books sent me two baby books to review. After all, I have a target audience here to test them out on.

The first one is called “I Went Walking.” Samara seemed to like it.

I Went Walking is a great book for babies. It’s simple, but introduces a variety of animal words and colors, including a green duck, a red horse, a black cat and a yellow dog. The book’s words are rhythmic and catches one’s attention with it’s rhyming couplets.

The second book I received was Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book.

I read this to Samara when she was sleepy. This book features silly looking cartoon animals getting ready for bed. They’re doing all the routines associated with bedtime, like putting on their pajamas, taking a bath, and brushing their teeth. However, there is a page in the book that is questionable:

The animals are exercising before they go to bed, which is nonsensical. But it’s cute and funny to see cartoon elephants, moose and other animals working out. I’ll give Ms. Boynton a pass on that one.

After we finished reading The Going To Bed Book this happened:

Now for the fun part. Enter here to win a $15 gift certificate to Little One Books. Here’s what you have to do to enter.

1. Post a comment with what product(s) you like from the Little One Books website
2. Follow my blog (either with feed reader, or Google Friend Connect)
3. Like Little One Books on Facebook here.
4. Like Old School/New School Mom on Facebook here
5. Follow Little One Books on Twitter here.
6. Finally, sign up for The Little One Books newsletter. The sign up is on the upper right hand corner of their site.

Good luck! The winner will be selected randomly and be announced on Wednesday April 6th!

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Posted in Giveaways, Little One Books, Reviews

Poop on The Floor - A Good Omen

Posted on April 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

This morning I woke up to Ari shaking me vigorously.

“Mommy!” He said “I went poop!”
“Okay…” I said in a very sleep deprived state. I wasn’t sure what the urgent state of affairs was.

Then I rolled over in bed saw saw that he had removed his diaper and pooped on the floor. I have to say that this was not the way I would have chosen to wake up.

I hazily tried to collect my thoughts.
“Uh…that’s okay. But next time, tell me before you have to poop so you can go to the potty.” I countered back.

“No.” He said in a matter of fact way. With that he ran down the hall naked from the waist down. When I finally caught him, I gave him a bath, diapered him and went on with my day.

When we came back from grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, we had lunch, and then, according to the schedule, it was quiet time. When I announced that it was quiet time, he announced back at me:
“I have to pee! I wanna go on the potty.”

I presumed this was just an attempt to avoid napping, but I acquiesced and put him on the toilet. I gave him some privacy and five minutes later he said:
“I peed!”
“Good job bud!”
I looked in the potty and he had actually pooped!

I went wild with praise. I told him he was awesome, and he grinned from ear to ear.

After he got off the potty he said:
“Okay, quiet time!”
I wanted to say “Excuse me? Are you my son? The same person who once hated anything to do with the toilet and avoided naps like the black plague?”