So What Wednesday!

This week I'm linking up with my pal Shannon for So What Wednesday!

So what if...

• I planned out my swimsuits and cover ups for swim lessons the next 8 days. Swim lessons are the most exciting thing that has happened around here in awhile.
• I lay awake at night thinking about what I will write in this post.
• I am feeling left out because no one has tagged me in WIDN on instagram.
• To hate proving I'm not a robot to be able to leave a comment on a blog. I squint and have no clue what I'm looking at.
• To also have a new hatred for the monthly baby update posts. All I do is compare Chase to them and feel bad.
• To hate when I get a blog comment from someone with a no reply blogger email! I want to email my lovely readers back!

Things have taken a hateful turn so I should probably stop.

Tips and Tricks Tuesdays for moms

It's Tuesday! I told you I was bringing back Tips and Tricks Tuesdays for moms!

Today, I'm talking about toy rotation! I had heard about toy rotation on a blog I think. So of course when I saw a pin about it I had to pin it and was excited to check it out. The pin takes you to the Little Stories blog. The subtitle is early speech and language development. Which gets my little teacher heart so excited!

This is the best explanation of how to rotate toys. My short version is you categorize your toys into 3 categories. 1) thinking toys like puzzles, shape sorters, and stacking rings 2) moving toys like balls, instruments, and ride on toys and 3) pretending toys stuffed animals, phones, or at our house cardboard boxes. Then you pick 3 toys from each category and that is all they get to play with. Put the other stuff away and rotate every couple weeks. Easy peasy!

We have a tri level house so Chase (aka spoiled rotten brat) has three play areas. Before I organized his toys I did rotate things around and hide some things so he kept interested.

Here is his play area on our main level in the kitchen now. On the left is the pretending toys: carboard boxes, my breast pump bag that he likes to carry around and we call it a purse or satchel and his snake toy that he chases us around the house with. Then there are his thinking toys in the middle: blocks, a puzzle, and an apple from the very hungry caterpillar book that has a caterpillar and fruit in it. Then on the right are his moving toys: a ball, a keyboard, and his musical turtle with wheels.

You might have seen a tweet from me about @lilstoriesblog. You all need to follow her! She tweets about speech and language development stuff and gets back to you quickly which I love! She tweeted me and asked how toy rotation was going and I asked her what category that musical turtle with wheels that Annie and I have would be and she responded right away.

Here is Chase's play area upstairs. Thinking toys: the shape sorter turtle, puzzle, and stacking rings. Pretending toys: his puppy, the phone, and the construction ramp. Moving toys, bats, drum, and basketball hoop.

The play area downstairs. Moving toys: ride on fire truck, lawn mower, and ball. Pretending toys: his shopping bag with food, his workbench, and another phone. Thinking toys: puzzle, blocks, and the thing behind the lawn mower it has a shape sorter and different knobs and stuff to play with.

I had a lot of fun organizing his toys. Like I said it makes my heart happy to feel like he is learning while he is playing. I know we shouldn't compare our kids but when I read that Melissa's 13 month old can stack blocks I panic and start trying to get Chase to stack blocks.

Has toy rotation stopped him from going behind the tv or climbing on the coffee table? No. When he woke up from his nap and his toys were all organized he was excited to play with everything. Since I went through everything and made sure all the pieces were where they should be there were some things he hadn't played with in awhile.

I also leave board books out for him to read. He loves to have us read to him. I just separated them out so there are 4 or so in every play area.

Got any tips and tricks for moms? You don't have to be a mom. You could give hair tips because we all know I have serious mom hair. Write a post and link up!

I'm bringing it back!

No, not sexy. The tips and tricks Tuesday for moms link up!


After Chase was born I hosted this link up to help out myself and other new moms. As Chase got mobile and I got busy, I stopped doing it. Well, I'm bringing it back!

So on Tuesdays write about tips and tricks for moms. It could be toy rotation, a pinterest art project you tried, or maybe some advice for us annoying mom bloggers!

Then grab the button and link up!

Let me know if you have any questions.

So excited! I have to go clean up Chase's toys and take pictures for my toy rotation blog this Tuesday.

Can someone send a copy of Romy and Michelle to my high school pres?

I haven't told you guys about my 10 year high school reunion that is coming up! Makes me feel so old! I probably won't be going because I hear they are doing it at a deli. So stupid. They also decided to have it in December which is so weird. Have they not seen Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion?

I can't believe I have been out of high school for 10 years and out of college for 5! I had an extra year for my teaching credential, not that there is anything wrong with taking longer than 4 years. I'm not sure if any of my readers are still in college. But I figured some of you might be or might be thinking about going back. Maybe some of you have kids that will be heading off to college soon!


I wanted to tell you about this awesome website campusbookrentals.com. Remember when you were in school you just bought books from the book store? Well, on campusbookrentals.com they are 40-90% cheaper than the bookstore! There is free shipping both ways. You can highlight in the books. They even have flexible renting periods.

Click here to see what it would cost to rent a Child Psychology book. $41 for a semester instead of paying $149!

I know where Chase will be getting his college books from!

I was compensated by campusbookrentals.com for writing this post.

Blog Star!

I had to join in on the fun today!

I'm Meagan. Wife to a wonderful Hubby and mom to the cutest boy ever, Chase. I've been blogging since May of 2009 when Hubs and I were engaged, living in Southern California, and Chase was a twinkle in his Daddy's eye. All our prayers were answered in the fall of 2010 when we found out we were going to have a baby and Hubby got a job transfer back to Northern California where our parents live. We bought a house at the beginning of 2011 and Chase arrived in May. I thank God every day for each and every blessing in our life. One of the big ones is that I have been able to stay at home with Chase.

I blog about whatever is going on in my life. Lately it has been getting back in shape, baby #2 fever, and all things summer. We have a busy summer planned and I go back to substitute teaching part time in the fall. I am looking forward to our future and I hope you want to follow along with us!

You can find me on twitter, facebook, instagram (username meags7827), pinterest, and probably hotornot.com.

One and done?

Happy 4th of July! Today Hubby has the day off and I'm not sure what we are going to do.

You might have been guessing from Monday's post that baby fever has been hanging around our house for some time. My pregnancy with Chase was easy. I want a belly again. Labor wasn't pretty or easy but I would do it again in a heartbeat. We want a big family. I've mentioned before that Chase is an attention whore and I feel bad having another one for him to share the spotlight with.

Then, I read this post by Lucy. For some reason this post made me want to stay a family of three.

Chase has been sick and I think is now teething. Isn't that always how it goes?! Hubs had a super busy week at work and had been out of town. We all had to adjust a little to having Daddy around again. Hubs just wanted to love on C and play but C wasn't really into it. We went to the park and Hubs got to see the terror that I have been dealing with every evening while trying to make dinner. C went to bed fine then around 9pm he woke up. I got him back to sleep and returned to RHOC and at 9:15 he was up again and would not go back to sleep.

We prefer to use cuddles instead of medicine if we can so we brought Chase into our bed. At 14 months old he is still a pretty big mama's boy. I was shocked that he rolled over to his Dad's side of the bed and wrapped his little arms around his neck. I seriously got a little teary!

Above was written on 6/24. Below was written on 7/2.

I caught baby fever so bad I wasn't cherishing my time with Chase. That post was a wake up call that I will be so happy if Chase ends up being our only child. The three of us fit pretty nicely in that bed and I need to cherish all these moments as a family of three in case we are blessed with another child.

I know in the post on Monday I said I have, "...been complaining on twitter...". I received an anonymous comment that said I shouldn't complain about not being pregnant with my second. They asked if I take into consideration that my readers may be struggling with having their first. Since this comment was anonymous I wasn't able to respond by email. Please know I welcome any and all comments. I love all the comments that I received on this post from people who have children, people that are trying to get pregnant, and people who have recently suffered a miscarriage. I was able to respond by email to all of these comments and none of them seemed offended.

I have read posts about people struggling to have their second and was surprised to read that it has a lot of the same heartache as the first time. It is one of those things that you can't really tell me how to feel or what to do if you aren't in the same boat. This is my blog and I will always be honest and I do think about my readers. I think most of my readers know I am not heartless.

Something in the water?

If you follow me on twitter you have probably seen me complaining about the non stop pregnancy announcements on facebook. Seriously, it is like every day.

A lot of the announcements are baby #2 announcements from the mom group I joined when Chase was around 3 months. I was telling Bekah the other night at dinner that I never thought about how these announcements would affect me. I think part of the reason is I thought we would be some of the first ones pregnant.

I mentioned the other day that we want our children close in age. I even discussed trying for #2 with a nurse when Chase was around 5 months old. The nurse told me that the dr would tell me to stop nursing. This is one of those topics that every doctor will tell you something different. Anyways, we are cheap and didn't want to have to buy formula so we decided I would nurse Chase until he was 1 and then start talking about baby #2 again at that time.

Most of the moms in the mom group I am in have kids close in age to Chase. There are 96 members in the facebook group but I only know like 30 I think. I think 11 or 12 of them are pregnant! That's a lot!

I wonder if people think about things before they post them on facebook sometimes. I'm not kidding you one mom said, "I guess I should have waited longer than 2 weeks after weaning my daughter to get pregnant."

There have also been some friends from high school that are pregnant with their first making their announcements.

I can really only think of 2 friends that announced their pregnancy on facebook before I got pregnant. One posted her positive pregnancy test the day she took it. Another had someone spill the beans for her and ended up having a miscarriage. We kept things private online for awhile for several reasons. We announced on facebook after we found out we were having a boy. The announcement was nothing exciting. It was before the times of pinterest and cute announcements.

I also told Bekah that I had pinned cute #2 announcements but wasn't sure if I would do them. I know first hand how hard it is to log in to facebook and see them. Bekah encouraged me to do one because they are pretty cute :)

I have to share the most recent and cutest facebook pregnancy announcement with you guys.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star
Christmas time is not that far.
A bundle of joy in Santa's sleigh...
BABY (I'll keep their last name private)LAY is on its way!!"

Isn't that the cutest?! What do you think about facebook pregnancy announcements? How did you handle it? What will you do for #2? Is there something in the water?!