My 2-year-old has never been particularly interested in music, unless you count his current interest in telling me to turn the radio OFF, Mommy, it’s TOO LOUD. (Note: it is NOT too loud, kid, I save the eardrum-bleeding stuff for when you’re not around.)

I do have a number of playlists on my iPod dedicated to kids’ tunes, though, just in case he stops being such a wet blanket about music sometime soon. Some of my favorites:
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The books Riley wants us to read over and over are Good Night Moon, Curious George Visits a Toy Store, and any of the Dr. Seuss tongue-twisters. As children’s books go, I figure it could be much worse—at least he likes the classics. He’s got more than one book in his collection that would have to find its way to the recycle bin if he wanted to hear it every day, such as the odious/preachy I Love You Mommy.

I’m sure most of us are up to our ears in kids’ reading material and don’t need a whole lot of suggestions in that arena, but I wanted to share a few of the title that have a special place on Riley’s bookshelf. A couple of them are many years old, from when I was a little kid, and I hope that Riley one day enjoys them as much as I used to—and maybe even passes them down to his own kids. If they survive his childhood, that is, which given the state of some of his much-loved tomes seems doubtful.
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I hope you’ll indulge me in another post designed entirely for my own benefit, but I so enjoyed reading what foods are a constant hit with your kids, I was hoping we could talk about a similar subject: what activities are guaranteed to distract your children?

You know, when you’ve got dinner on the stove and the laundry is whumping around in the dryer for the fiftieth time to ‘de-wrinkle’ and the phone is ringing and you seriously have to pee and you just need five. Damn. Minutes? And you’ve got a whiny, bored kid following you around making his whiny, bored noises, and he’s watched all the kid’s programming you can ethically deal with for the day, and what you’re looking for here is an Ooh, Shiny to throw in his direction?

Here are the ones that work for my whiny, bored kid:
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You’ve probably heard of the chemical known as Bisphenol A, which lurks in various water bottles and beverage can liners and other products we regularly put in or near our food-holes. There doesn’t seem to be conclusive proof that this stuff is bad for us, but there’s certainly some worrying information out there.

To be honest, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time stressing over this issue because, I don’t know, I’ve got a finite amount of headspace to devote to the various subjects that freak me right the hell OUT. But I have started thinking about it lately, as I re-evaluated the bottles I’ve been using with my newborn. I used plastic bottles with Riley — I’d never even heard of BPA at that point — and I just figured I’d use the same ones with Dylan, but after warming a bottle for the fiftieth time the other day it occurred to me that I could make a fairly simple consumer choice to eliminate one more kid-related worry. Specifically, the nagging question of whether or not I was POISONING MY BABY with his bottle.

As I consider some of the plastics we use on a regular basis in our house, I’m thinking it wouldn’t hurt to upgrade to a safer alternative. Especially for the things we run through the dishwasher over and over, etc. Here are some of the kid-friendly, non-BPA products I’ve been looking at:
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I recently wrote a post over at ParentDish about how capricious my kid’s approach to toys is — he’ll fall madly in love with one object and lust over it for a day or two, then abandon it altogether in favor of some other beguiling wonder.

I really try not to fall into the trap of buying too much crap for him, because if he’s not doling out equal attention to all of his stuff why should our house be jam-packed with it, you know? One two year old should not need the entire contents of a Toys R Us to make it through the afternoon, and yet it’s obvious I don’t always follow my own best intentions because toys, toys, TOYS. We have so very many of them, and the majority are things he doesn’t actively play with — he just hauls them out of the box every now and then in order to throw them around.

The best piece of advice I’ve ever received when it comes to dealing with Kid Crap Everywhere is to cycle through toys, and we have gotten pretty good about doing this. If you put about half of your kid’s playthings away somewhere long enough for the child to forget about them, you can bring them back out on some rainy day, and lo! The squeals of delight and wonder! This keeps the clutter to a minimum, and also gives you the opportunity to sneakily get rid of that battery-powered dancing Bob the Builder that Grandma gave him.

There are a few toys I always keep out, though, because for whatever reason they have staying power that the others don’t. The stuff I’ve found that he’s consistently interested in:

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This year as a little holiday present for myself, I replaced our collection of hoopty mismatched dinnerware with a couple of Sango sets, and it’s one of those things I can’t believe I didn’t do years ago. Having bowls and plates that actually go together is surprisingly pleasurable—who knew? Next thing you know I’ll have sheets that match my pillowcases.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about whether or not it would be useful to have some separate kids-only plates and bowls for Riley, because while our new bowls are very sturdy and hard to tip over, they also seem too big and bulky for him. He’s still eating at a highchair, but I imagine he’ll be sitting in a booster seat at the table soon, and in that case it might be nice to have some dinnerware that doesn’t slide around very easily. Here are some things I’ve been looking at:

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Hey look, it’s ANOTHER holiday gift guide post from Milk & Cookies! Please tell me if you’re getting sick of these, because even though I’m deriving an odd sort of window-shopping pleasure out of finding various things to buy, buy, buy, I’m also happy to change the subject. To things you should buy for me, that is. Like this. (Hee! IT WEARS THE MONKEY AND IS TETHERED TO MAMA AT ALL TIMES OR IT GETS THE HOSE.)

Today’s List of Random Gift Ideas is for the kids on your shopping list, assuming they have been at least marginally more nice than naughty this year. For children that fall into that second category, may I recommend this lovely lump of coal? Look, you can wash out their mouth with soap and give them a crappy holiday present at the same time!

No particular theme here, but I did try to pick out some somewhat unique gifts that encourage creativity and most importantly, DO NOT MAKE NOISE. (No batteries required is my new favorite phrase.) Most of these toys are ages 3 and up.

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When I was a kid my mother and I lived in Virginia while my grandparents lived in Michigan, and every holiday we either visited them or they came to us. My grandmother used to say, “If Mohammed cannot come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed”. Then she would bow deeply, a gong would sound, and she would disappear in a cloud of smoke.

Not really, but that particular phrase makes it sound like she was all mystical and stuff, doesn’t it? She also had a saying about sitting in the corner and sucking on a mop, so obviously she was a woman of many fine colloquialisms.

Anyway, if you have small children I hope that the mountain is coming to your Mohammed during this week’s holiday, unless of course you enjoy traveling with small children, in which case may I suggest having an arterial blood gas test? YOU MAY BE DANGEROUSLY LOW ON OXYGEN.

Unfortunately, we have a road trip on the agenda, although on the plus side our destination is one of my favorite places ever. As I’ve been thinking ahead to what we need to pack and how many cups of juice one small boy can be expected to consume during a 6 hour drive (answer: as many as you will foolishly give him, until his diaper explodes with an heart-sinking kaplooey noise), I thought this might be a good time to review a few products that help make car travel with kids just a tiny bit more tolerable.

(Not reviewed: Benadryl, as I cannot with good conscience recommend this course of action, but I certainly know many parents who swear by the Dope ‘N Drive method.)

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I know the day will come all too soon when my son will be using his computer—by then perhaps a nanochip embedded directly into his cerebral cortex: the iLobe—to perform functions that will blow my crusted, hopelessly-behind-the-times mind, and when it comes time to needing help with his homework he’ll take one look at me and roll his eyes, because Mama still uses a physical keyboard instead of the latest basal-ganglia-implantation, GOD HOW LAME.

For now, though, Riley’s main interest in technology has to do with what sorts of interesting things might be happening on my Macbook screen, especially if they involve pictures of him (he LOVES Flickr). I don’t let him actually play on my computer, because my computer cost money and he’s, you know, TWO, but I do enjoy sitting with him and looking at stuff together.

I’ve found that looking at websites together is a good activity for those boring stretches of time when the prospect of reading “Eight Silly Monkeys” one more time threatens to make my head explode, Scanners-style. Plus, it helps assuage my guilt for trying to sneak in some work while he’s coloring or whatever—my rule is 1) it’s okay to do some work if he’s otherwise occupied, but 2) if he starts clambering up to see my laptop, I switch from TextEdit to a toddler-friendly site. Win!

Here are some sites I’ve found to be entertaining (for him, anyway), at least marginally cute, and not too heavily slimed with advertising:
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MARGINALLY USEFUL BLOG CONTENT:

1. I’m pretty sure this is the best advice I’ve ever read on the internet. There’s a bucket of post-Halloween candy dregs sitting in my kitchen right now, and I think I know where it’s going tonight: into a mondo batch of the most fattening cookies this world ever did see.

2. Have you guys bookmarked/RSS’d Mighty Junior yet? LOVE.

3. Does your child have an aversion to the admittedly often-disappointing combination of raisins and baked goods? Perhaps he or she needs this shirt.

4. Need a new book for your counting-obsessed toddler with illustrations that don’t make your eyes bleed? I highly recommend Little Monster’s Book of Numbers, which Riley loves and despite having read it 2958371265821 times now, I still enjoy it too.

5. For last-minute, no-brainer gifts (think clients, far-flung relatives whose birthdays you nearly forgot, baby showers, get well presents, etc), bookmark these folks. I’ve used them a few times now and their stuff is awesome.

NOW FOR THE NON-USEFUL STUFF:

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