Mom Picks

So I was thinking, a large majority of the people who frequent our blog are past, current or future cool, hip moms (at least I think they are) who are all compiling little lists of their kiddie-faves.

Ladies (and gents, in all fairness to our fatherly friends out there), it's time to start shairng:

What toys, books, clothes, websites, etc. have revolutionized the child-rearing experience (or at least have survived more than five minutes of play before being broken or discarded)?

I'm going to kick things off today with my newest Porter-find:

Crayola Twistables

Why do I love 'em?

Porter loves to color but he seems to break even the thick clunky crayons within the first few rounds of scribbling. The twistables (we use the minis as opposed to the full, pencil-sized version) seem to be easier for his little toddler hands to use (he colors longer and the scribbles are much darker), and best of all, they can't be broken (at least until he figures out how to twist the crayon all the way up and then break it off from its casing...I have to remind myself to do the twsiting behind my back).

So that's my first mom pick.

What are yours?

Post 'em in the comments; we can all use a little inspiration every now and then.

C-sees

Those of you who haven't been with Porter in our house since he started crawling may not know of his love for Andy's CDs. And those of you who have never been in our home may not understand how big of a problem this can be. With years of work in a record store, Andy's got more C-sees, as Porter calls them, than we have room for, and we literally have an entire wall full of CDs. As you can imagine, this is a constant battle with an almost-two year old.


Until today. I am proud to report that for the first time in his life, Porter listened when I said "No CDs" as he was running across the room screeching C-seeeeeessss!


Based on Porter's prayer hours later at dinner, I guess Porter was as surprised as I was that he listened. The prayer went like this:

Me: We're grateful for our family.
Porter: Yeah. (This is the standard Porter-prayer)

Me: We're grateful for the fun day we've had.
Porter: Yeah.

Me: We're grateful for this food.
Porter: An no touch-a da C-sees.


Yes Porter, I am very grateful you didn't touch the CDs. If only it would last.
To continue the Porter-is-a-good-listener celebration, I told Porter I wanted to take his picture in front of Daddy's CDs because he was so good at not touching them. No sooner had I positioned him in front of the shelves and stepped back, then, as you can see, his little fingers crept behind his back to grab the CDs.

Dirt!

Ever since Porter started talking, animal names and noises seem to have become the constant white noise in the Burt home. Whether he's playing with his koo-la bear in the Fisher Price zoo, watching "baby condoo-oor" on Dora or jumping across the living room like a frog, Porter always seems to have animals on the brain. In fact, he and Andy were visiting me at work Thursday afternoon, and as we were walking through the student center, Porter stopped in the middle of the hall, dropped down to the ground, and started wiggling his legs and hissing like a snake. He wouldn't get up until both Andy and I had acknowledged that he was indeed a snake.

So, when making weekend plans, Andy thought it'd be a good idea to take Porter to the St. George Wildlife Museum. Fun? Yes. Predictable? No. With Porter, just when you think you've found the perfect activity, his interests shift. On this particular trip, the dirt on the ground of the exhibit proved much more exciting than the real animals just a foot beyond his grasp.

He did like the mountain goats though, which he called "rein-dur" (since Christmas, everything with a horn is a reindeer).

And he also got a kick out of the "buffleballs" (in case you can't see it in the background--this pic is kinda dark, a buffleball is a buffalo.

Maybe we'll try again in the summer. I'm hoping the dirt was so captivating simply because it's the end of winter and Porter hasn't seen piles of dirt for a while.

Pick your Candidate

I don't often stray from the standard Porter picture posting. But I happened upon a site that was interesting and thought I'd share it with all of you.

The below link will take you to a candidate calculator for the 2008 Presidential Election.
http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

In a nutshell, you simply answer whether or not you support a broad list of political issues, ranking the importance of each of the issues as you go. Once complete, the calculator matches your interests with the most closely-aligned presidential candidate.

Now before you say anything, no, I am not planning on letting this calculator tell me who to vote for. BUT, it is a good tool to help you see what issues you may not know much about, and it does give fairly unbiased explanations of each of the election issues. So, if you're feeling uninformed as November draws ever-closer, this site should help jump-start your voting know-how.

Get informed. Vote with your head.

Like a Weed

So my posts generally tend to stick to a theme. But this time, with no big holidays or events to speak of (except SUU basketball games and a string of colds and the flu), I've just got random Burt-moments to throw at you.


After a few days of trying to decide whether I should do a lot of small posts or just do one big jumble, I opted for the jumble with a catch-all theme: Porter is growing so quickly that the milestones (or at least notably cute behaviors) are stacking up.


Here we go...

We discovered a new trick to traveling with a toddler on a recent trip to St. George: Give Porter whatever he wants (in this case, my sunglasses), and all is well.

Porter knew what a bat was until Andy taught him how to dance the robot
Now Porter calls these his "robAt" PJs.

What'd I do on my birthday?

Dinner with my two favorite people. They even dressed up for the occaision (though the hat didn't stay on for long)

You have to listen carefully for Porter, but if you can hear beyond the banging, he's singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Ok, enough showboating for now.

Have a great day!