Free DIY Toddler Toys

I'm cheap, especially on the subject of toys.  Sometimes, it's just really hard to know if your kid is going to love that thing they want at the store.  I'm sure we have all been burned on this before.

My son is almost 2, so these are toys for toddlers.

1. Cars through a tube.

You do need to have some cars on hand for this one, but we seem to collect them without much trouble.  If you really can't find any you can afford, then ask someone who has older boys if you can have or borrow two or three cars.  This could also work with other toys you have around -- small bouncy balls, small plastic figures, etc.

The tube is a photo tube we got in the mail when we ordered a large print from Snapfish.  I like it because it is sturdy and has caps -- so, we can clean up by stashing all the cars inside the tube.  But, a wrapping paper or toilet paper tube could work, too.

Putting cars through a tube is about 800% more fun than playing with cars when you do not have a tube.  It's a tunnel, a slide, or a thing to look through depending on the mood.  Also great fun at the park, where you can half-bury it in the sand or dirt, or just stuff it full of mulch.

2. Pennies into the slot.

My son loves to put money into the piggy bank, so I made him this toy so we could do it whenever he wanted, instead of whenever we had change on hand.  Technically, this toy requires some pennies, but consider it a 10 cent deposit, since you can have them back later.

I used a container we got at the grocery store with some bulk raisins, so technically we did pay for it.  But, they have them there for free, and if your grocery store doesn't have these, you could also use a cheap tupperware or cardboard box. I used a kitchen knife to score the top on both sides and then popped out the slit in the top.

3. Color matching game.

I got this idea from Pinterest.  That user got really cute Disney color cards and them modge-podged them onto cardstock.  I could not find cute Disney paint.  I went to Home Depot and was planning to get some of the paint chip/sample cards and cut them up, glue them to cards, etc.  BUT, when I got there, it turns out that they have these fancy extra large color-saturated paint cards that are perfectly fine to use all by themselves, no gluing or anything.  Just get two of each main color: red, orange, yellow, etc.  Yes, they all have the name of the color written on the back, but I figure by the time my son can read this game will be long gone anyway.

The best part is, he has gotten excited about naming all the colors since we started playing this last week, so he is learning at the same time.  Yay!

4. Stacking cups.

These cups were left over from a party we had last year when we catered in some food from a BBQ place.  Any plastic or paper cups will work; they do not even need to be the same size (although, if you want clean up to be neat and tidy, it helps).  We have others from an annual beer festival, and a few from nearby restaurants ... if you don't have anything on hand, ask around.  At my old job, the kitchen cabinets were full of these from business lunches and no one ever remembered to use them.

Simply begin stacking them into a pyramid and your child will be drawn to the need to kick it or smash it to the ground.  If they get bored of that, let them stack them up and you can smash them down.  Endless fun.

Fireplace Into Book Nook: A Plan

Our house was built in the 50's and at some point, someone added on a room to the back.  It's nice because it adds onto our square footage, but other than that, I feel like this room is pointless.  Whoever added it on did it with some mysterious purpose in mind that I haven't been able to figure out (pool table?) and every time I try to figure out how to use it, I run up against problems.

The placement of the doors and windows, plus the fact that there are several built in cabinets, makes it impossible to put furniture in it.  There's room for a couch against one wall ... and other than that, everything else has to be in the middle of the room.  Irritating.  The wall outlets are in stupid places, the light switches don't go to anything, and then there is the fireplace.  The stupid, stupid fireplace.

We've built a fire in it exactly once, because it's hot where we live and fireplace worthy days that fall on a weekend are truly once-a-year things.  The rest of the time, it just sits there, unused, and because whoever added it to the house was a jerk, it takes up an entire corner.  As for why the hearth juts out to the left halfway along the wall, making further unusable space, I have no answers.

Last weekend, we converted it (or finished converting it) into a play room.  There's nothing else to be done with it.  We moved a few toys in, including the beloved train table, and added a bookcase.  Note that the bookcase has to go in front of a built-in because there's no other place to put it.  That cabinet is full of Christmas stuff, so we don't need to access it all that often.

I want to turn to fireplace into a reading nook.  Or, a nook for any purpose, really.  Anything will be better than a fireplace.  First I'll have to figure out how to remove the screen, and then deal with how filthy it is.  I would love to tack up some fabric and be done, but I'm not sure how a person attaches fabric to bricks.  I welcome any and all ideas on how to figure this out.

What I Learned About How My Kid Eats

1. You don't have to buy baby food in jars, or in pouches, or in anything.  You can make your own.

2.  You don't even have to make your own.  Baby-led weaning is way easier and lazier.  Mush up a banana, avocado, or baked sweet potato if you want to give it a try.

3. If he likes something right now, he might not like it later.  Avocados, we had fun, maybe we'll see you again someday.  Ditto, sweet potatoes.

4. Some fast food places have actual child-friendly halfway healthy food.  Whataburger is not one of these places.  I don't even think the one we stopped at on our way back from the beach had milk.  We never really eat at these places, especially with the baby, so I had no idea how bad it was going to be.

5. The day you buy a five pound crate of oranges is the day your kid refuses to eat them.

6. Most kids need to try a food twenty or thirty times before they will decide they like it.

7. Getting food into his mouth, even if he spits it right out again, is a victory.

8. Someone else's snacks are always better than your snacks.  See also "someone else's toys."

9. If my kid won't eat anything, I take the exact same stuff to the park and he'll eat it with gusto.

10. Having a good eater is kind of like having a good sleeper.  They are rare and often exaggerated and if you have one of them, you probably feel like bragging ... even though you probably didn't have much to do with it yourself.

Cure Your Ugly Feet - For Cheap

I am the owner of some sad, sad feet.  I wear sandals every day in the summer, and this makes them dry, calloused, cracked, chipped -- I mean, they are just terrible.  I enjoy a good pedicure, but I have been unable to find anyone willing to really scrub off all the old, dead skin.  I have tried explaining to the nice pedicure ladies, "please keep going!" but I still don't get what I want.  Meaning, when I leave, I can always scrape a fingernail along my heel and come away with more skin that needed to be removed.  Disgusting, I know.

Then I saw this article about how to cure cracked heels and I got excited.  I am a sucker for DIY with "household items you have on hand!" and I have gamely followed just about every suggestion for around-the-house products down the rabbit hole.  I tried their solution and it did seem to be on the right track, but they left out a few key steps.  So, here is a revised "How to Cure Cracked Heels:"

What You Need:
- shaving cream or hair conditioner (I use free sample size hair conditioners, the little packets you can get in the mail ... they are impossible to open when you're actually trying to wash your hair, but they are just the right amount to treat two feet)
- listerine
- warm water
- a big bowl
- two hand towels, big enough to wrap each of them around one of your feet
- a pumice stone or a heavy duty foot scraper thing like this
- maybe some help; this whole endeavor requires some dexterity
- 30 minutes or so

Combine equal parts (like 1 cup of each) listerine and warm water in a bowl.  Soak two hand towels in the mixture.  Slather your feet with the shaving cream or hair conditioner, then wrap in the soaked hand towels and rest for half an hour.  When your time is up, use the hand towels to wipe off your feet a little and then go to town with the pumice stone.  You can also take the cuticle trimmer on a nail clipper to trim off your cuticles at this point; they should be nice and soft, too.

The article I originally read said to let your feet air dry in order to prevent fungus from growing on them.  But I am a fan of finishing up the whole thing with a heavy layer of lotion and clean socks.  I mean, my feet air out all day every day, that is kind of the problem.  You should only do this treatment once a week or less, since it removes a fair amount of skin.

My "Open Door" Policy

My husband has a thing about "stuff."  He hates it.  He doesn't like things that are without function and he especially hates things that are made just to sit on a shelf.  Every Christmas, my mother complains about this.  But I have grown into it.  There is something to be said for a house that picks up easily, where there is room for everything you have, simply because you don't have that much stuff.

Having a kid, though, seems to fly directly in the face of this.  Kids need a lot of stuff.  The stuff they need is constantly evolving.  When you find cool stuff for your kid, you want to keep it around in case you need it again, like maybe if you have another kid someday.

Much to my husband's chagrin, I'm sure, I decided pretty early on to have an "open door" policy about kid stuff. Meaning, if you have something to get rid of, I will take it off your hands.  I tell most of my friends about this if it ever comes up in conversation.  "Even Barbies?" a good friend of mine asked.  I have a little boy who does not seem like the kind of kid who is going to be into Barbies -- but I said yes anyway.

I'm glad I did.  The Barbies came in a bag with some clothes her own son had outgrown, some books, a child-sized mop and broom, and a red plastic fire fighter hat.  Score!  Maybe if I had turned down the Barbies, we would have gotten all this other stuff anyway, but maybe it was just easier to put everything in a bag together and give it to one person.  She had mentioned she had some clothes, but the broom, the mop, and the hat were all extras.  Extra awesome, if you ask me.

My open door policy doesn't mean I keep everything.  I couldn't.  Our house is already full without taking in spare Barbies that need a home, or jeans with holes in the knees, or the 12-month-old santa suit I found in the back of the closet not too long ago.  I don't know who gave that to us, but someone will think it is awesome, right?

I give away a lot of the extra stuff that doesn't fit with what we need.  I tend to keep the clothes I think we will grow into, and toys that look like they will be a hit (somewhere, I have a playmobile dollhouse that I am only marginally convinced will ever get any action, but I keep hoping).  I belong to a few local mommy listservs and I have a wide circle of friends with kids, so I feel like I can almost always re-home something if I need to.  Right now there are two large boxes of infant clothes in the living room, ready to ship out; and this morning I gave some worn out pants to a crafty friend of mine because she said she likes to convert them into shorts.