Parent Hacks

Parent Hacks admin: Holiday peace

We've come to the end of another year together, and, as usual, I'm feeling rather reflective. 2007 has been a butt-kicker for my family in many ways, so to give a cheerful holiday letter-style wrapup just won't cut it. What I will say is that I've learned more about parenting,...

Read more →

links for 2007-12-25

The Twelve Principles for finding a lost object If at first you don't succeed... DeliciousBaby Journal | Step By Step: Babyproofing a Hotel Room MyThings - Product Recall Interesting way to streamline tracking product recalls. bubbalulu.com: make things and have fun! Turn your kid's art into custom shirts and bags!

Read more →

Shred wrapping paper to use as gift bag filler

From the Hengsts: We shred our used wrapping paper to use as filler in gift bags. Our kids love to help us get the paper ready to put into the shredder. If the pieces are too big, they get to rip them into smaller ones, without getting scolded :) It's...

Read more →

Spread out the gift-opening to keep Christmas morning manageable

Another holiday hack from Mel, who seems to have the realities of holiday logistics well thought-out: I know everyone has their own treasured and time-honoured family traditions, but....since we have one young child and an older child who is easily overstimulated (leading to meltdown!), we like to spread out the...

Read more →

links for 2007-12-24

Apartment Therapy ohdeedoh | Free Printable Gift Tags In case you've got a few gifts left to wrap... TED | Talks | Gever Tulley: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do (video) A reminder to dismantle some of the childproofing, philosophically speaking. Via flagrantdisregard.

Read more →

Color code gift tags to streamline distribution from under the tree

Mel's gift tag hack (for those of you madly wrapping gifts tonight): I had the kids make tags for Christmas gifts out of plain cardstock. We store all the gifts under the tree until they're ready to leave the house (it looks so pretty!). To minimize time spent scrutinizing names...

Read more →

Holiday craft: Bread dough ornaments

There's still a bit of time for holiday crafts now that vacation is underway! Margaret shared her recipe for homemade dough ornaments: The holidays bring out the crafty in me! Here's a recipe for bread dough ornaments. I still have some from when I was a kid, and they go...

Read more →

links for 2007-12-23

The Four Things Children Really Want for Christmas ∞ Get Rich Slowly Mm hmm.

Read more →

Salvage wrapping paper scraps and rolls for a fun toddler diversion

Sarra's hack reminded me how fun it can be discovering what a toddler finds interesting: After I was done with my Christmas wrapping, I had a bunch of empty wrapping paper rolls and bits of paper too small to use. I cut the paper into small squares, and applied lines...

Read more →

links for 2007-12-22

Catalog Choice - Eliminate unwanted catalogs you receive in the mail Thanks for the link, Betsy!

Read more →

Creepy, irritating children's books

It's amazing how well-aligned our opinions are about creepy or just plain irritating children's books. And here I thought Hayley and I were the only ones who had a problem with Big Nutbrown Hare! Based on your comments, Parenthackers' least favorite books are: Love You Forever (creepy!) Guess How Much...

Read more →

Make a pomander or an ornament out of an orange

Mmmm, smells good. From Katherine: Take one orange (or clemantine, or whatever... but full-size oranges smell nicer) and stick whole cloves into it, pointy end through the skin. You can lay these out to make a picture, or abstract lines, or whatever, and it smells heavenly (try setting one on...

Read more →

Organizing a collective gift for your daycare providers

May's simple solution for treating her daycare helpers: There are about 5 or 6 people that care for my kids in some capacity at the daycare. Trying to buy gifts for everyone is a sure-fire way to generate hurt feelings. So instead, I buy the center a gift certificate to...

Read more →

Salvage batteries when weeding out old toys

I had a DUH moment when reading Duane's hack and realizing how many perfectly good batteries I've thrown away: If you're like us, part of the approaching holiday season is weeding out the older toys to make room. Before you go putting toys into the attic (or trashing them), take...

Read more →

The original recipe from the movie Ratatouille (from an insider)

This may be the only gourmet recipe I ever publish on Parent Hacks, but who could resist? A wonderful followup to Rosemary's hack from Candy: My husband works for Pixar. This is the recipe we received when we asked how the ratatouille in the film was made. Too much work...

Read more →