Road Trips and Pit Stops - PlayPlaces App

PlayPlaces - Ultimate Kids Road Trip App

By AppAvenger

I need to share this amazing app that Eliana and I used on our most recent road trip - PlayPlaces.

Eliana and I took a 10 day road trip.  Jonathan was traveling for work and we decided to visit family while he was gone.  Our destinations included: Centerville, OH (to visit Grandma and Pop); Chicago, IL (to visit Aunt Nicola and Uncle Matt); Clearwater, MI (to visit Aunt Linda, Uncle Bill and Aliya) and then back home.

Before the trip I downloaded an app called "PlayPlaces".  I crossed my fingers and hoped it would live up to my expectations - it did.

Eliana is a great traveler!  I am guessing it is a combination of her temperament and that we have traveled with her since she was an infant (she got her first passport stamp at 4 months and we traveled domestically even before that!)  Even though she is wonderful on road trips, she is still an 18 month old and she needs to move periodically!

The app simply allows you to find any type of play space that is near your current location.  For example, on our way from Centerville - Chicago (about a 5 hour segment), Eliana started to get restless around hour 3.  I simply used the app to find a McDonald's play place on our route.  Eliana was able to crawl around on the McDonald's play set for about 45 minutes and then we got back in the car to finish our trip.   Even if the overall trip ends up being 5 hours and 45 minutes - I would add a little time to any road trip if it means I have a happy and content baby/toddler in the back!

Above is a screen shot (from an Android phone, but the app is also made for iPhones).  It allows you to find: Rest Areas, McDonald's Playplace, Chick-Fil-A Play Areas and Chuck-E-Cheese Restaurants.  You can narrow your search and look for only one or two of the above or you can search for "All".

Before we had this app, I would look for a Mcdonald's on the highway signs and just hope that it had a playplace inside.  Most often, they don't.  Now I can specifically look on my route for a play space - brilliant!

Pittsburgh Pass

If you have ever been to Chicago or other big cities they often offer a bundled deal so that you can go to multiple museums/venues for a cheaper price.  Pittsburgh now has a very similar option!   It is called the Pittsburgh Pass!

You would pay $116.93/person, PittsburghPass price $83.99/person
SAVE UP TO $131 on a family of 4

Order Now!

Hurry! Offer Ends June 12th

My friend Miranda, came up with this brilliant idea!  She wanted to take her daughter to all of the Pittsburgh attractions rather than buying a seasonal pass to just one or two parks.  She took the initiative and called these five venues in Pittsburgh and created a packaged deal.

To check out the website and buy your PITTSBURGH PASS go HERE

Venues:

 

Baby-proofing the Fire Places

One of the reasons I fell in love with this house was for its charm.  It is an older house with a unique layout.   And, it has three fireplaces that I love.

At the time we didn't have children, so we didn't realize that fireplaces were also baby magnets.

How much fun to crawl into the fireplace (a fun cave!) and play with soot...

They sell fireplace screens and grates.  They also sell metal or glass doors that can be installed into the fireplace to make them safe and more "off-limits".

Most of these cost (surprisingly) hundreds of dollars.  And I really didn't want to screw anything into the fireplace surrounds (brick and wood) knowing they would only be temporary.

So I searched for baby gates that would fit inside the fireplace, but they were hard to find - every baby gate seems to advertise "extra long" or "extra tall".  I needed a pretty narrow baby gate that was also short enough to fit inside the fireplace opening.  So after perusing the web for hours and coming up with nothing I stumbled upon these very cheap gates at Burlington Coat Factory.  I had seen others similar to these, but most were too tall.

They aren't the prettiest, but they do the job.

I told myself that I would spray paint them black so that they would blend in.  I haven't done that yet.  I would still like to get around to it at some point, but for now I am just happy that Eliana is not able to crawl into our fireplaces!

They aren't too bad, but if they were painted black I think they would (almost) blend into the black mesh we already have

******UPDATE***** I spray painted the baby gate.  It does look so much better painted black - better than I thought - it blends in so well that I sometimes forget we have a baby gate there!  See pictures below!

I put the adjustable arm on the inside so she can't get to it.

So, just in case you are also struggling with how to child-proof your fireplace (or any other narrow and short space), here is a cheap solution!  Good Luck!

I think the only area I need to child-proof now is our steps down to the basement...wish me luck!

Baby-Proofing the Wet Bar

Sometimes you have to get creative when baby proofing.

I posted earlier about baby-proofing our cable box.  And also our fireplaces.

We also needed to baby-proof behind our wet bar.

It actually ended up being an easy fix.  I was having trouble thinking outside the box... and then it dawned on me... use an expandable gate and attach it a little higher to just cover the open cabinet.  I originally thought I needed a gate to fit the entry into the bar.

The problem is that they don't sell baby gates that are that narrow.  I looked everywhere!  Plus, this is one of the first things you see when you enter our house, so I didn't want a baby gate to also be the first thing you would see.

Her hand can fit in, but not too far...

And it opens up and swings out of the way for easy access to all our glassware and other bar supplies!

And the outside of the wet bar hasn't been touched!

Other Baby Proofing Projects:

• Fireplaces
• Cable Box

A Parent and A Therapist - Coloring and Crayons

When you are a Mom you are always wondering if you are making the right decisions. Knowing your parenting choices will impact your child, you wonder if it was the right choice or the wrong one. Of course children are resilient, and particularly in the first few years, they allow you to learn and grow as a parent too.  So will one small wrong parenting choice hurt your child forever?  Most likely, No.  So it is funny to think that I even agonized for a millisecond about the crayons I gave Eliana to play with today.

As a pediatric Occupational Therapist, I had the benefit of working with children prior to becoming a Mom.  I think there were several benefits to this - for example, I am familiar with child development.  The problem is that sometimes I can be too aware of how children develop.  I tend to analyze every toy to make sure there is some type of benefit.  I ask myself, "Is this toy helping her fine motor, visual motor, sensory motor development?"  I sometimes have to remind myself that playing just to play has its benefits as well.

For example, today we were coloring.  I looked at the crayons I had given her to use and realized I had given her crayons that were "too advanced".  Then almost immediately I thought "Danielle, you can't really give a child crayons that are too advanced".  The Mom in me picked the crayons that were most convenient at the time.

I had given her crayons very similar to these:

The reason I first thought "why did you give her the double sided crayons?" is because the therapist in me would use these particular crayons with an older child to work on a skill called "in hand manipulation", more specifically "Complex Rotation".  This is the ability to rotate an object in the pads of the fingers without the assist from the other hand or another object (body, table, ect).  To visualize this skill think about wring with a pencil and deciding to erase the last word you wrote.  You need to flip the pencil from the pointed end to the eraser end - that is complex rotation.

So does it hurt for Eliana to play with these "too advanced" crayons?  Of course not!  But is she getting all the benefits the crayons have to offer? No.  Actually she ended up breaking two of the crayons.  These crayons look fancy and fun in the store so they are a little more expensive.  At this point in her development all Eliana really needs are fat regular crayons.  Developmentally she doesn't have the fine motor skills to color with anything more than a "gross grasping pattern" (fisted palm around the crayons with pinky side toward the paper).  At most, she will use a "palmar grasping pattern"(fisted with thumb toward the paper).

So when you go to the store and see the vast displays of coloring apparatuses don't be overwhelmed and or think you need to buy the most expensive flashiest crayons.  When first starting to color thick (fat/chunky) regular crayons are great.

These "chunky crayons" above are great for first timers!

For the next stage of developmental coloring you don't even have to buy new crayons!  I will post on how to make your own developmentally appropriate crayons for the next stage - it is super easy - I promise!

I think this is how two of the crayons were broken... :-)

More on "container play" later.  Why the therapist in me puts toys inside baggies and other containers :-)

Creative Toy Making

Our very own repurposing.  I guess we are "Green" or maybe it is just practical and logical.

We got a new computer a few months ago.  

We moved from a Dell desktop to an Apple desktop.  

You may be wondering why we still have desktops....doesn't everyone use laptops now-a-days?  Well, I will write more on that later - it will fall into the "Logical Parenting" category.

So, what better to do with an old keyboard and mouse than to let Eliana use it!  Everytime I am typing, she is on the floor playing beside me.  But, often she is interested in also touching the keys I am typing on.... 

....so now Eliana has her very own keyboard and mouse!  And an old cell phone we had lying around - when cleaning out desk and organizing to install the new computer I found an old cell phone - she is loving it.

The old keyboard, mouse and phone.

Eliana's favorite new office toys.

They were pretty old, so they still had the wires attached (a.k.a. were not bluetooth enabled). So we had to cut the wires off for safety reasons.  No biggie.  Problem solved with a simple pair of scissors.

Mommy and Daddy's new keyboard and mouse!  Yay!

My Mini Sous Chef

Mommy's Little Helper in the Kitchen:

Creating a Positive Mealtime Environment AND Positive Lifelong Associations with Foods

I love to let Eliana help when she is able to and when is a better time than in the kitchen?  By watching me cook, she is becoming familiarized with the smells, sights and textures of foods while they are being chopped, steamed, baked, sauteed, toasted, food processed, etc.

We are heavy on taste testing during the process.

We feel as though if she is involved in the process then she is more willing to eat the food.  Rather than it mysteriously showing up on her high chair tray during meal times, she knows where it came from, and was in one way or another, part of the cooking process.

Also, she then sees me cooking and is learning by example, how to provide balanced meal and snack options and develop a healthy mindset about food and how it is part of everyday life - the vegetables AND the cookies!  It is all part of our attempt to create a positive mealtime environment and lifelong positive associations with foods.

Eliana's basket of fake fruit/veggies, pizza and food containers

We keep two baskets of wooden velcro fruit and veggies and a variety of empty food/coffee containers on a shelf near the floor so that Eliana can always play and pretend cook while I am cooking in the kitchen.

Even though Eliana is only 1 she is my "helper".  If I use a whisk, then she uses a whisk.  If I use a measuring cup, then she uses a measuring cup.  If I stir a wooden spoon in a pot, then she stirs (or makes music) in a pot.

Eliana stirring with a spoon

While Mommy stirs with a spoon

Sometimes she helps while sitting in her chair at the counter.

Keeping Mommy company while Eliana enjoys a snack

When she was younger she helped while in her bumbo.

Helping Mommy measure flour.

And most often she helps while sitting on the floor in the kitchen.

Helping Mommy get a can of tomatoes

Helping Mommy get some chipotle peppers

Pretty much, if she is interested in helping, then she helps...

Helping Mommy get an oven mit.

We eat dinner at home most nights.  That means I am cooking most days.  For us, cooking for dinner usually happens in small spurts throughout the day.  Meaning I chop the vegetables in one spurt, saute in another spurt and finish up late afternoon/evening.  That way we aren't in the kitchen for 1.5 straight.  Instead, while Eliana eats a snack I do part of it.  If I am not done, then she becomes my "helper".

We are silly in the kitchen.  Mommy often times gets on the floor with Eliana.

We sing songs and dance while we cook - it would be quite the free comedy show if someone were to look through our windows.  :-)