Since children grow so fast, I wanted to capture the 10 best things my toddler – now 22 months old almost 23 months old – has said to me this past year that has warmed my heart and still does every time I hear them. 1.  “Ma Ma” 2.  “Da Da” 3.  “Wuve you.” (Love You) This warms my heart every time I hear this, which I usually hear several times a day. 4.  “Nite Nite” Both Brett and I love to hear this. C2 usually says this when he is going to bed and waves good night. 5.  “Da Da race, Ma Ma Race” While Brett was racing the Ironman Cozumel in November 2011, C2 would lay in bed when he didn’t want to go to sleep and talk to himself for an hour about racing. 6.  “Go fast” C2 loves to run, so when he runs he says “Go fast”. 7.  “Brovers” (Brothers) Referring to our two lovable labs Parker and Cole who we refer to as “The Boys” or his brothers. C2 does not recognize that his brothers are dogs. 8.  “Yeah, did it” He usually claps and cheers for himself after he accomplishes something like jumping off a stair or his interpretation of jumping. 9.  “Go, Go, Go” C2 loves to play chase and when you run after him, he yells “Go, Go, Go”. 10.  “Oh, no” When C2 was 15 ½ months our Au Pair started teaching him when he drop something to put his hands on his head and go “oh, no”. Although, as we know,  toddlers can be challenging, but I think the good times, toddler hugs and kisses outweigh any of toddlers trying...

A friend asked me this morning if I had any suggestions on last minute newborn holiday gifts. Luckily, for parents with newborns, you do not need to spend a lot of money because you only “need” one or two gifts. The baby will not be able to open the present themselves and probably will not aware of the festivities. Every day for a newborn is festive. Yes, “need” is in parenthesis because most newborns do not need any toys, but if most parents are like me they want to spoil their child during the holidays regardless of their age. Here are some last minute gifts that you can pick-up at Buy Buy Baby, Babies R’Us, or Toy’s R’Us. Of course, you can purchase them on Amazon, but with only two days left (including today) until Christmas and Hanukkah has already begun, you will not get them in time.  The list is derived from my own personal experience and friends. C2 loved anything that played music; he could chew on, or had bright colors. Leap Frog® Twinkle Twinkle Little Scout Activity Gym Kids Preferred Eric Carle’s Developmental Plush Toys Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Fun with Friends Muscial Table Fisher Price® Precious Planet™ Kick & Play Piano Baby Einstein® Roller Pillar Activity Balls Baby Einstein™ Sea Dreams Lullaby Soother by Kids II® LeapFrog My Pal Scout Vulli Sophie Giraffe Soft Rubber Toy Kids II® Baby Einstein™ Take Along Tunes 1.  Leap Frog® Twinkle Twinkle Little Scout– $17.99 Only available at Buy Buy Baby or Amazon 2.  LeapFrog My Pal Scout – $19.99 Available at Buy Buy Baby, Babies R’Us, Toys R’Us and Amazon 3.  Kids II® Baby Einstein™ Take Along Tunes – $9.99 Available at Buy Buy Baby, Babies R’Us, Toys R’Us and Amazon 4.  Baby...

  Traveling with an infant can be very stressful especially with a new born not knowing what to pack and how much to pack.  For me, it was the first time I had to worry about packing for someone other than my husband and me. I was told that I needed to bring two outfits per day in case my son had a blowout or threw up.   Wow, that is a lot of clothes.  Like a new mom, I took the advice only to realize after several trips that I did not need two outfits per day and came home with a lot of clean clothes. OK, maybe that is not such a bad thing on the laundry front, but not good in trying to minimize bags. This is great advice, especially if you are traveling via car and you have no place to wash laundry, which the first couple times we traveled via car this was the case for us.  But in order to reduce my luggage, I developed my own rule of thumb, one and half outfits per day.   For example:  a six day trip, I would take 9 onesies. I am no pro at traveling, but we have done several long road trips with our son including a 50 hour car ride in 10 days and crossed 13 states, so after preparing for that trip, I feel more equipped to provide a infant packing check list. I developed an infant packing check list of necessity items that I needed  to remember when traveling with my son. Your list will become more modified and honed over time based on your baby’s needs and yours, but hopefully, this is a good starting point for you.   For additional packing resources check out BabyCenter.com....

  Picking a pediatrician is extremely important.  When we were born our parents chose a pediatrician based on their parents and friends recommendations; not much has changed.  You will still receive the majority of your recommendations through your family and friend network.  But what has changed since our birth is now you interview the pediatrician. With so many of our friends having babies, I found it only appropriate to write about how to go about choosing a pediatrician. I am no expert, but this was useful information that was passed down to me when we were expecting from many mommy friends and sisters who all had to go through the process of choosing the right pediatrician. You should begin your pediatrician search in your sixth or seventh month of pregnancy.  Most pediatricians now have new parents informational sessions or “meet and greets’ with the pediatrician. If not, call the office and set up an introductory appointment.  They will generally not charge you for this appointment.  My recommendation is that if the pediatrician does charge, then you might not want to go with that practice.  To me it is just like any other business, you do not charge prospective clients; it is considered business development and it is the cost of doing business. When you begin calling the offices to set-up a time to meet the pediatrician consider the following: How long does it take to get through the phone system?  Were the people answering the phone polite, knowledgeable and helpful?   How long did they put you on hold?  If you choose one of these offices, you want to ensure you can speak to someone in a timely manner because if there is an emergency you want to know they will be there for you....

  The holiday season is just around the corner and it one of the busiest seasons for airlines; like millions of other people you probably are considering traveling to see your family and friends.  And if you are anything like me you want to carry on to avoid checking in bags, if at all possible, especially now that airlines charge you for checked baggage. As I stated in my post on 15 Tips for Flying with a Lap Infant, I am not an expert flying with a toddler, but have done it many times in the past 20 months since C2 was born. To provide additional value, I have partnered with another mom, Kristy Wood stay at home mom to 20 mos. old J. Kristy travels often with J and has been on 14 flights with him. We are two moms that want to share our tips and experiences with other parents in hopes that our tips will make your travel experience a bit more pleasant and less stressful. Here are our top 10 tips on how to Travel Carry on Only with a Toddler. 1.  Research. Research. Research. Purchase. Prior to purchasing any items for travel, research and think about the items you really need versus the items you want. My husband and I travel a lot, so when we found out we were expecting we knew we had our work cut out for us. I hate to check baggage with a passion, so this also fueled my need to pack smart, and buy products that served more than one purpose, or were compact. Every trip that we went on after we found out we were expecting became a research trip. We would look around the airports, planes, and at families traveling with...

During the next two weeks, I will be spending some well needed time with my family and will not be writing as much, so I’ll be running posts from the olden days, starting with…15 Tips For Flying with Lap Infants.   Don’t worry though Stroller Runners, I will continue to update the stroller friendly race calendar on a daily basis. For Updated October 2013 United States Domestic Airlines Stroller Regulations, check out Flying the Stroller Friendly Skies. ___ Flying with kids of any age can be very stressful, but flying with kids under the age of two seems like you are embarking on an epic journey. It does not have to be that way. I am no expert in baby/toddler travel, but I have driven several thousands of miles with my son and flown more than 8 times with a “fly free” or lap infant in the past 20 months, so I feel I might be able to provide some useful guidance and tips on traveling with a toddler.  With the holiday season coming up and families are considering traveling to see friends and relatives; I thought this would be an appropriate topic to broach. Here are my top 15 suggestions for parents with lap infant or “fly free” kids (children under the age of 2 years old) to make you and your baby have a more relaxing trip. 1.  Fly when your child seems to be the most relaxed. This might require trial and error. Some parents say flying the red eye is best, or flying during nap times. I have flown during my toddlers nap time; did not work because he was too excited. I have flown a red eye (night time, think that would work); nope he was up the entire flight....

  While on my three month maternity leave, I educated myself on teaching a hearing child baby signs and giving my baby the ability to express his important needs and thoughts through gestures.  What is “baby signing”?  Baby signing refers to the use of signs from American Sign Language (ASL) or other native languages—but with mother and baby modifications: that is, adjusting signing space, signing size, and sign duration or length to emphasize a salient sign and/or word. A dear friend of mine taught her daughter basic signs and I found it remarkable how her daughter – then one year old – was able to communicate her basic needs via sign language with her mom without the presence of any tantrums or frustrations. Of course, she got frustrated when she was not given what she wanted all the time, but the same is true for all toddlers.  I wanted to be able to communicate with my son at age when he still was not able to form words or vocalize his needs.  No, I did not have unrealistic expectation that this would happen overnight nor did I expect him to start signing prior to 9 months old, but I thought this was worth a try. Especially, if the possibly existed that we could potentially minimize frustration and tantrums.  Furthermore, I know this approach is not for every family. Over the past couple years, basic baby signs have become more widely used in day cares and nursery schools, but still remains to be a very controversial issue.  Some of the controversy relies around whether teaching a hearing baby/toddler sign language prior to learning to speak prolongs their verbal development.  Actually, according to Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn’s federally funded research showed that using baby signs actually...

  A year and half ago, I discovered Rent the Runway (RTR) in my favorite weekly gossip magazine Us Weekly.  As most new moms can attest, you do not always feel beautiful after giving birth due to weight gain, body changes and major life adjustments.  For the majority of moms, we also do not have the time or energy to shop. My first experience with RTR was five months after giving birth to my son. My grandparents were having their 60th wedding anniversary party and like most moms and women, I waited to the last minute to decide what to do about a dress.  I had been thinking about it for awhile, but procrastinated too long. I wanted something new, but I only had a week to buy something and I really did not want spend too much money.  The concept of renting a designer dress for minimal cost intrigued me.  After visiting RTR website and reading more about the concept – brilliant by the way – I decided that I was going to give it a try even though the word “rent” does not always say classy, clean, chic, etc. to me or most other people I know. I worked with the stylist online, which was much more fun than expected and did not take much time to find something that would fit my personality and style.  I placed an order for your dress two days prior to leaving on my trip.  They shipped me two sizes for free (RTR’s common practice, if both sizes you choose are in stock), which is great because I found in almost designer piece of clothing the sizes varying from one designer to the next.  I received the dresses at my hotel the day before the event,...

  I have been waiting since February 2011 – nearly 7 months – when MSNBC reported on the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Apptivity iPhone Case that supposedly would be toddler proof iPhone case that would become available to the general public.  My son had just turned one and never used the iPhone before, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before he was introduced to it. I do not view the iPhone as a parenting substitute, but a tool to help maintain control and provide a piece of mind for moms and dads while traveling with a baby and/or toddler – which we do a lot. Here it is! Finally the second week in September, I received the Fisher-Price catalog in the mail and it highlighted the Apptivity iPhone case. I was so excited – not only because it was released – but it was only $15. The next day, I ordered directly from the Fisher-Price website and received it a couple of days later. With shipping and handling it cost $20.99 ($15 for the case and $5.99 for shipping).  This product can also be ordered from Amazon for $14.99 not including shipping & handling and will be available in retail stores in October 2011. This case has been tested by my 19 mos. old son. This Apptivity iPhone case has not let me down; I am in love with it and so is my toddler.  Here are some of the highlights that I love. 1.  With the Apptivity iPhone case it eliminates any fear that if your toddler drops the phone that the glass will break.  Most cases, including mine, do not have a protective front cover. 2.  You do not have to worry about your toddler constantly touching...

  I received my weekly email from Baby Center on tips and tricks in dealing with my toddler. Today’s email focused on how to ensure your toddler is happy, how to keep your toddler engaged and stimulated.  The email had a link to a quiz on how much do know about reading to your child. I thought, I am educated person, both my husband and I read a lot to C2 and we are always encouraging any form of reading. C2 loves books and at any given time of the day, he will walk over to the books and just sit and “read”.  So, I figure I knew a great deal about reading to my child. I take the quiz pretty confidentially that I am going to get an 8 or 9 out of 10. I am an over achiever and always did well in school. I got 6 out of 10; 60% correct what? If this was a school quiz I would have received a D-. After taking the quiz, Baby Center provides the answers with an explanation. So, what did I learn? 1.  Although I knew you should read to your child daily, I did not know you should read preferably at a regular time of day.  Of course every night before C2 goes to sleep he gets 4 or 5 bed time stories, but like I stated above he has access to books all day and regularly visits them. 2.  “Children younger than 18 months often find it difficult to understand complicated illustrations that adults recognize easily,” says Jim Trelease in the Read Aloud Handbook.  Young toddlers aren’t quite able to grasp the idea that a small flat picture of an apple represents the shiny red three-dimensional fruit they saw on...