One of your baby's favorite toys is his feet! They're soft and wiggly, and close at hand. And they feel funny when they're touched! Have fun with Happy Feet as you combine nursery rhymes with toe touching.
Materials
Soft blanket
Words to songs and nursery rhymes
Your fingers and your baby's toes
Instructions
Choose a favorite nursery rhyme that can be played with your baby's feet and toes.
Lay your baby on a soft blanket and kneel beside him so you can reach his feet.
Play one of the following Happy Feet games:
This Little Piggy
This little piggy went to market, (wiggle the big toe)
This little piggy stayed home, (wiggle the second toe)
This little piggy had roast beef, (wiggle the third toe)
This little piggy had none, (wiggle the fourth toe)
And this little piggy cried, "Wee, wee, wee!" all the way home! (wiggle the baby toe)
Gobble Gobble
Wee wiggle, (wiggle baby toe)
Two tickle, (wiggle next toe)
Three giggle, (wiggle next toe)
Four sniggle, (wiggle next toe)
Five-gobble! (pretend to gobble up your baby's foot)
Pitty Pat Pony
Pitty pat pony, (pat the soles of your baby's feet)
Look at her toes. (hold baby's feet and wiggle them)
Here a nail, there a nail, (poke the bottom of baby's feet)
Gid-up and go! (pat the soles of your baby's feet again)
Safety
Don't tickle your baby too much. As you probably know from personal experience, excessive tickling becomes uncomfortable.
Healthy Care Booster Seat
The Fisher Price Healthy Care Booster seat is a portable, folding booster seat that keeps baby's feeding surface clean and sanitized. Three height adjustments allow for a custom fit to any table. It comes with a removable feeding tray, that can be placed in the dishwasher.
Your baby begins to respond to touch immediately after birth. The first welcome your baby receives is the tactile comfort of your touch as you hold him. Provide your baby with a Baby Massage so he can delight in the pleasure of your soothing hands.
Learning Skills
Body awareness
Enhanced sense of touch
Social interaction
Materials
Blanket or towel
Baby lotion
Instructions
Spread a blanket or a towel on a soft carpet.
Place your naked baby on the blanket, on his tummy.
Pour a little baby oil into your hands and rub your hands together to warm up the oil.
Gently massage your baby from his neck to his shoulders, down his arms to his hands, down his back to his buttocks, down his legs, and to his feet. Use a gentle touch, not too firm and not too light.
Turn your baby over on his back and repeat, using more oil.
Safety
Use a soft touch so you don’t cause any rug burns! Be sure your baby isn’t allergic to the oils or lotions you use. Avoid touching your baby’s face so the oils don’t get into your baby’s eyes.
This is a projection mobile with a canopy that brings the light show closer to baby. A delicate canopy hangs overhead of baby with four plush characters attached to it. The mobile attaches to the crib with our new, improved mechanism and comes with a remote control.
Dora the explorer, has captured every little kid’s heart and taught them how to count and alphabetize while taking them on an adventure every day. It is nice to see a cartoon that has an wholesome appeal to the kids whilst engaging them in a wonderful world where they learn to retrace, remember, relate,recognize, share andgiving mommy time to cook!
Fisher-Price introduces a range of toys inspired by Dora
Stylish scents Dora :
This is the Everyday Dora with a new twist. Each doll has a scent to match her theme. Peppermint Twist, Lemon Drop, Cherry Swirl and Looking Sweet! The doll is designed to have a soft body and rooted hair which your little ones can keep her looking neat and tidy with the brush that comes along with Dora.
Style your own phone:
Every girl’s dream is to own her own phone with all that glitz; with the my design cellphone girls can personalize for any adventure with glittery stickers and a charm! Dora & Boots also talk to them when they call her through stored messages! The phone also comes with a ringer giving you the option to press the music note button and hear the ring tunes.
My Talking Backpack :
This refresh includes accessories to great more adventures: a video camera, a compass, Map & a view finder with a cool "bug eye" effect. All accessories store inside Backpack. Backpack sings and says six phrases
Everyday Dora Asst:
Dora comes in three flavors- Fairytale, On-the-Go and Cowgirl. Each doll comes with a soft body and rotatable molded head. It also comes with the brush to comb her hair.
Dora’s Mega Tunes Guitar :
Bring out the Rock star in your kids with the Mega Tunes Guitar. Strum the real strings to add guitar riffs or to step through your favorite Dora tunes. The special Fiesta Trio guitar pick will help you hear from the Fiesta Trio themselves! The guitar also has fun phrases from Dora, Boots, Swiper and Isa. Lights glow to the beat from the star behind Dora when the guitar is played.
Magic Hair Fairytale Dora:
A butterfly wand will help you to magically grow or shorten Dora’s hair. Dora also says phrases and sings a Fairy Tale song as lights on her crown twinkle!
Talking Surprise Dora :
Standing at approximately 10" tall, Talking Dora Surprise has a rotatable head, rooted hair and a soft body. She says three phrases when you squeeze her tummy. Dora comes with a surprise camera in her backpack too!
The DORA Fold up Kitchen:
It is the perfect size for little girls 3 YEARS PLUS with a DORA kitchen styling. It can be easily folded and stored away. In addition to the 18 accessories, it also includes a fridge, oven, stove top and removable sink. The knob on the stove activates boiling and sizzling sounds creating a real play cooking feel. The kitchen also features a frame on the fridge to personalize with a picture or artwork and a phone.
Dora Collectables:
Dancer Dora:
This tiny dancer is making her big debut! Dora is dressed in a beautiful dance outfit and features poseable arms! Dora’s small size makes her the perfect friend to accompany you on all adventures!
Coral Dora :
Go on adventures with Dora under the sea! Dressed in a beautiful coral colored outfit she smiles her way into your hearts!
Ice Skater:
Dora is a beautiful ice skater! This new fashion comes with ice skates, possible arms to skate away to find new adventures.
Snow Princess:
Go to a magical place with Dora as a beautiful Snow Princess.
We couldn't decide which we liked better, the crunchy outside pieces or the gooey inside ones. Leftovers are unlikely, but you can store the brownies airtight up to 1 day.
PREP AND COOK TIME: About 1 1/4 hours.
Yield: Makes 35 squares
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (3/4 lb.) butter
3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
14 ounces (40 to 50) square caramel candies such as Kraft or See's, unwrapped
Preparation
1. In a 3- to 4-quart pan over medium-high heat, melt butter, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat.
2. Stir in sugar, then eggs and vanilla, until blended. Stir in salt and baking powder. Add flour and cocoa and stir until batter is smooth.
3. Butter a 12- by 20-inch piece of foil. Line a 9- by 13-inch pan with foil, buttered side up, letting foil hang over pan ends. Scrape batter into pan. Evenly space caramels over batter.
4. Bake brownies in a 325° oven just until a toothpick inserted in the center (not in a caramel) comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes. Let cool.
5. Lift brownies with foil from pan to a counter. Peel back sides of foil. With a long, hot knife, cut between caramels into 35 squares; occasionally rinse knife in very hot water and wipe clean.
Bring out the rock star in your kid with the Mega Tunes Guitar
Strum the real “strings” to add guitar riffs or to step through your favorite Dora tunes! Then use the special Fiesta Trio guitar pick to hear from the Fiesta Trio themselves! You’ll also hear fun phrases from all of your favorite characters - Dora, Boots, Swiper and Isa! As you play, lights behind Dora glow to the beat.
Bettye M. Caldwell, Ph.D.
Professor of Pediatrics in Child Development and Education
Well, the holidays are over. The wrapping paper that was saved is all put away for next year. Hopefully, thank you notes have been written and thank you calls made. Some bills are even paid. No one was stranded in a snowbound airport, and there wasn’t a single major quarrel at the big family gathering. So, why do you feel let down? A little depressed?
That feeling is very common in adults after the holidays. Some years ago, Peggy Lee recorded a poignant song dealing with this sensation. In it, she asks: “Is that all there is?”
That’s what we sometimes ask ourselves. The feeling is so common that it has been given several names, including “The Winter Blues” or “Post-Holiday Stress Syndrome.” Some have concluded that these seasonal blues are a function of the reduced light available to us during the winter. You can even buy special lamps designed to help combat the condition. Whatever the cause or name, it’s something many of us have experienced.
Children Feel It, Too
Mark walks into the kitchen shuffling his feet and complains to his mother, “I don’t have anything to do.”
“Why don’t you go outside and ride your bike?” Mom suggests.
“It’s too cold.”
“Well, how about playing with your new robot?”
“It needs a new battery.”
You might as well not stop what you are doing to find a battery. Any suggestion you offer is likely to be met with some reason as to why it won’t work. This little drama illustrates the fact that young children also experience a post-holiday letdown. The high level of excitement is over. Indulgent grandparents have returned home. The new toys they received as gifts sit on the shelf unattended.
Parent Engagement Is Essential
During this letdown period, parents need to help the young child readjust his internal “thermostat” to a reduced level of excitement and stimulation. I have a few suggestions to offer.
Find some time each day to sit with your child and let him “demonstrate” how an exciting new toy works. If it is a toy designed for solitary play, he will probably play with it after showing it to you.
If there’s a children’s museum in your area, take your child there. Make sure that the trip is not rushed or hurried, and allow plenty of time for every light switch to be turned on and off, every lever to be pumped and every ball to be dropped from its perch. Go to lunch together afterward.
Spend time outdoors. If the ground is covered with snow, make a snow person. If snow never occurs in your part of the country, take a neighborhood walk and look for bulbs breaking ground. Talk about the weather. Check your outdoor thermometer and help establish a connection between certain numbers and how cold it feels.
Allow a telephone call to a favorite teacher, if you have the number and that sort of thing is permitted by school rules.
Help your child write (draw, scribble) thank you notes. Children are never too young to learn the importance of this simple act of kindness.
Indulge her in a long-distance call to grandparents. Give a little coaching in advance to make certain that the words “I miss you” get into the conversation.
Have him help make a scrapbook of the pictures you took over the holidays. Let him dictate captions to be put on the pictures.
Let her dictate a short story about what the family did over the holidays. Write or type it and put it in with the holiday pictures.
Such activities will help your young child get through the post-holiday letdown. And you know what? They’ll help you, too.
Our parenting advice is given as suggestions only. We recommend you also consult your healthcare provider, and urge you to contact them immediately if your question is urgent or about a medical condition.
Stack around Silly Town
Bright colors, smiling faces, pop-up action & dancing lights offer visual stimulation.
Fun music & sounds stimulate auditory skills.
In these rather less than jolly economic times, despite media announcing that the recession has ‘ended’, we hear more and more parents talking about budgets and belt-tightening and this weekend it was our turn. Several life/job changes have meant that everything needs to be re-examined, re-juggled and slackened spending habits pulled into line.
All this with the school holidays and an overseas visitor coming to stay for three weeks – how does one entertain children and visitors on a restricted budget in Chennai?
Where to start? As the kids get older, experience tells us that (a) it pays to be prepared with lots of ideas (b) you need to get your kids on board and enthusiastic about said ideas and (c) You can enjoy the holidays so much more and find them vastly more relaxing if you are flexible about not ticking everything on my list off or pinning my hopes on doing certain things.
The Criteria
The Plan must be relaxing for everyone. A holiday is after all supposed to be a holiday! We know that you would like to do some touristy things for the sake of the visitor but it doesn’t have to be all go-go-go.
It doesn’t have to be completely free. The theory is much like sensible dieting or buying clothes, if you do as many free or cheap things as possible, you can afford to splash out on one or two special activities. You don’t want to be remembered by your kids as ‘Mum who wouldn’t spend any money on anything’.
The holidays do not need to be scheduled from dawn to dusk with every minute accounted for. A maximum of one activity a day will suffice and it doesn’t have to be an all day event either. The Plan of Action
There are 14 days in the holidays, if you wrote down a list of different things you could do together, asked the kids for their input (you would often find that they would come up with great creative fun that hadn’t even crossed your mind), you could print it out and stick it on the fridge. Then when you heard the dreaded whiney-voiced 'I’m bored!' you could point them to the list and pick something off it.
Once the inspiration started to flow, you will find it hard to stop! Here are the first 21 things we came up with, what would your list include? Costs are based on a family of four. Some activities are based in or near Chennai, but similar activities can be found in most regions. 1. Plant some veggies or herbs together. Even if you have no garden, you can have so much fun collecting recyclable pots, decorating them, filling them with potting mix and planting seeds. Our advice is to do this at the beginning of the holidays and choose something fast growing so that the kids can water them and watch them grow over the holidays. Cost Rs.40 approx. 2. Visit Dakshin Chitra. Cost Rs.90 for kids & Rs.130 for adults 3. Day at the beach. Cost Rs.0. 4. Visit MGR Flim City. Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.20 for adults 5. Rollerblading/biking in local Park. Cost Rs.0 6. Visit Children's park where the main attractions are elephants & pony rides Cost Rs.1 for kids & Rs.5 for adults plus the ride money 7.Camp-out in garden or living room depending on weather. Cost Rs.0 8. Visit Birla Planetarium & amuse your kids with science They present audio visual programmes on astronomy Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.20 for adults plus show tickets optional 9. Kids Bedroom Make-over. Every kids room needs a sort out once in a while and a new ‘look’. School holidays are the perfect opportunity. Search the op shops and internet for cheap ways to update their room. www.designdazzle.com is a great starting point for gorgeous ideas and links to other sites but even just moving things around is great fun to do with kids. Cost from Rs.0-you decide. 10. The No Particular Reason Party – invite as many of your kids friends as you like to bring a plate of finger food & a bottle. Cost Rs.0 11. Invite a playdate around. Cost Rs.0 12. Visit Valluvalar Kottam Dedicated to Thiruvalluvar, plenty of space for your kids to run and explore. Cost Rs.1 for Kids & Rs.3 for adults 13. Explore the National Art Gallery & Museum, Inject a little culture into the holidays.Built in 1906, as memorial to queen Victoria. It has bronze exhibits dating from 10th to 13th centuries and paintings of Rajasthani and Mughals of the 17th century. Established in 1857, the museum can justify its claim to being one of India’s best. There are large sectiors devoted to Archacology, Anthropology, Geology, Numismatics, Zoology and Botany along with comprehensive collections of arms and armour. There are also small parks to amuse your kids Cost Rs.10 for kids & Rs.15 for adults 14. Visit the snake park: Adjacent Childrens’ park is the city’s interesting snake park. The snake park houses a vast variety of reptiles, ranging from the dark deadley ‘King Cobra’ ‘Banded’ Krait’ to puff adders’, vipers, pythons and allegators. Cost Rs.1 for kids & Rs.2 for adults 15. Visit Anna Tower: This is the highest and biggest park tower in Chennai, located at Anna Nagar Park. It has cyclic stairs. Full view of the city can be seen from Top of the Tower. Cost Rs.2 for kids & Rs.3 for adults 16. Write an adventure story together. Cost Rs.0 17. Get the kids to put on a fashion show & join in. Make sure you film it or take photos for posterity, it’ll make great memories for the future. Cost Rs.0 18. Make Christmas cards together – Grandparents and friends will love the creativity of your kids. Cost Rs.0 19. Breakfast at the beach. Cost Rs.0-you decide. 20. Picnic in your local Botanic Gardens, there are always some never very far away and what is more relaxing than taking an armload of stories and a picnic rug and spending a lazy morning doing absolutely nothing much. If your kids are old enough, you may even have the luxury of being able to take your own novel and enjoy the beautiful silence. Cost Rs.0 21. Fairs & markets. Do a bit of research on the internet and find out where the spring fairs or farmers markets are happening near you and spend the morning exploring one. Cost Rs.0
| Do you have anything you can add to the list? Leave your school holiday idea here
Why not make them play doctor with the Medical Kit from Fisher-Price?
A red colour variant to the current Medical kit with updated color palette to be bright and fun for preschoolers; and we are making the stethoscope even better because now it really works!
Pieces include stethoscope, blood pressure cuff with "working" pump, odoscope, thermometer, syringe, bandage play piece and softgoods bag.
Every year I make a lot of handmade gifts for people who appreciate the effort. So naturally when my little bundle of joy came along my mind started buzzing with crafts I could with him. Here’s a simple craft that you can do with your little one.
Hand Printed Tie [successfully crafted @ 10months] This one’s a keeper for Dads n Grandpas! You’ll need:
A light coloured tie
Some fabric paint [Fevicryl Hobby Ideas, Acrylic Colours did not result in any rashes or allergy for my son, but it’s always advisable to do a patch test first.]
Two or three thick paintbrushes: #8 round or square bristles [it’s best to have one paintbrush per colour]
Baby wipes
Cover your baby’s palm completely with paint and press evenly on the tie. You can do several prints of the same colour at different angles before you move on to the next colour. Start with the lightest shade and then move on to the darker ones. Overlapping two different coloured handprints will give an interesting effect, as well as a third colour where the prints overlap. Let the tie dry on a hanger for 24 hours. Iron on the reverse side. Voila! You super special, extra personal, handmade gift is ready to be wrapped!
PS: I have discovered that the key to doing crafts with kids is to keep it simple and not worry too much about the outcome. Whatever your little one makes will be a keeper. Choose your time for the project well. It helps immensely if baby is well fed, well rested and happy. Right before bath time makes it easier to clean up. All the required materials are available at any stationery/arts supply store. Fevicryl Hobby Ideas, Acrylic Colours one 15ml bottle is sufficient. @Rs 15.
The Laugh & Learn Peek-a-Boo Cuckoo is full of surprises for baby with sung songs, lights, and lots of activites.
Press on the button on the top to meet the friendly peek-a-boo light-up bird. Baby can bat at the sun/moon dial to learn about times of day, or press the light-up nose to hear a counting song.
Bat a the clock hands, play peek-a-boo with the mouse, or turn the key--there's lots of ways to play with the Peek-a-Boo Cuckoo!
The Fisher Price Healthy Care Booster seat is a portable, folding booster seat that keeps baby's feeding surface clean and sanitized. Three height adjustments allow for a custom fit to any table. It comes with a removable feeding tray, that can be placed in the dishwasher.
