Coolest Toddler Trends

BabySquirrel's favorite tshirt - Amazon.com : Cincinnati Bengals Toddler Football Player T-Shirt - Grey (4T) : Sports & Outdoors

Meltdown every time I don't let her wear it.

 

sometimes you just have to wash it, should have bought her 2

 

I bought it in the next size up too......I didn't think I'd need two of the same size.

I love how much of a Bengals fan she is though. I hope dada will let her watch the game on Monday while I'm in class.

 

We don't actually buy a lot of clothes for our little guy: we mostly use hand-me-down clothes from cousins (all of which are in excellent condition). On the very rare occasions we buy him clothes, we're pretty pragmatic, and mostly interested in keeping his clothes free of commercialized images (including some muppets we don't like, and other kid shows-- the exceptions to the rule being some superhero images and Star Wars images that I enjoy giving him as a geek dad).

We have no TV except for one in the basement (and the kids basically are never downstairs), so basically he never watches TV. On rare occasions, when he's miserably sick or we absolutely have to distract him in some other way, we show him clips of Sesame Street or Thomas the Tank Engine on our phones. So he knows they exist, and he likes them, but so far he hasn't really figured out that they are shows that people watch on TV sets.

Instead, we read to him a lot, and he loves books. Just last night he came over to me with a stack of books he could barely hold (like half a dozen little books), and asked me to read. And sat in my lap, listening to me read, for probably a good forty-five minutes. Right now the hits are things by Arnold Lobel (the Frog and Toad books, Mouse Soup and Mouse Tales, Owl At Home, etc.), Dr. Seuss, the Fancy Nancy books by Jane O'Conner and Robin Preiss Glasser, a few other classics (The Snowy Day, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Katy and the Big Snow, Blueberries For Sal, etc.), and various kid books about Jewish holidays and Jewish life. He wants to read every single day. We not only credit his love of reading to not having competing screen time, but we credit his increased attention span, too: not only will he listen to books for a long time, but he will play on his own for 20-30 minutes, easily, sometimes longer.

He doesn't do board games yet. He sometimes likes puzzles, but mostly he's all about playing with toys and playing outside. We and his grandparents got a swing set with a slide and little rock climbing wall for the back yard, and he loves it. He wants to play on it like every day. But even before we got it, he liked going to the park, going to walk in the botanic gardens, going to the Children's Museum, and other kinds of activities like that.

As for toys, he loves cars, trucks, trains, planes, and Tonka-type construction vehicles, and has a lot of them. He has a couple of play houses with little people figures he enjoys playing with. He likes building things with blocks sometimes, but he loves loves loves Magnaformers magnet building sets-- they're maybe his favorite toy right now. He has a little balance bike he likes to ride around. Those are the mainstays.

He likes music, whatever we happen to be playing, as long as he isn't feeling grouchy, and then he demands we turn it off. But if he's reasonably happy, he likes music. We play folk rock, classic rock, various kinds of folk music, Jewish music, alternative, a little hip-hop, and he seems to like most of it. He got totally addicted to "Happy," by Pharrell Williams for a while. We scrupulously avoid Disney music and that kind of crap, though he encounters it a preschool (for a while, he liked "Let it Go" from Frozen, which he consistently sang as "Let it Go Away"), and don't play him the usual children's music-- no Rafi or whatnot. The exception is that the woman who comes to do music at his preschool gave out CDs, and he is fanatical about hearing it. Every time we're in the car, he demands it. Mrs. Levite and I play it for him, because they're Jewish songs that teach him stuff about Jewish life and observance, and he really is learning from them. But the fucking CD drives us up the wall, we hate it so much.

 

I have some pretty cool toddler buddies. I watched quite a few episodes of Doc McStuffins while babysitting, and I thought it was cute. I also love the Llama Llama books, which BabySquirrel introduced me to. I'll be getting a stack of them for SuperDude (close friends' almost-one-year-old) for either his birthday or Christmas.

 

Oh @levite your little one and my little one could be friends.

She doesn't have any cartoon character clothing...mostly because I'm out of touch and don't know what any of the shows are these days. The only time she watches TV is when we're all watching football together. Baby girl is obsessed with the Bengals and I'm sort of sad that she's staying with Baba instead of coming with us to San Fran next month. The Bengals logo is the only one I can think of that adorns her clothing. She does have TMNT socks though. Those are cool.

She's book obsessed too. It makes getting ready in the morning difficult because that's all she wants to do. Also a fan of music. I tried Toddler Tunes, but they're hit or miss. She's a fan of the 90's alternative station or 90's dance music. Her favorite song of all time though is "Gettin Jiggy Wit It" by Will Smith. Makes her dance every time.
--- merged: Nov 13, 2015 at 12:13 PM ---

Might I suggest the Llama Llama Little Library: Llama Llama's Little Library: Anna Dewdney: 9780670016488: Amazon.com: Books

I may or may not have some of those memorized.

 

Ooh, perfect. Thank you!

 

It's nice for that age because it's short and repetitive. Parents can memorize it quickly for when the child wants you to read it, but won't let you read it. The other Llama Llama books are good for Sandra's age now. She has a bit better attention span.

 

There are some awesome sensory activities and learning activities that I get from Pinterest site. I am a toddler teacher and I'm constantly looking for fun activities to do with the children.
--- merged: Nov 14, 2015 at 8:39 AM ---
Robert Munsch is a great children's author I love how when I read Mortimer to the toddlers they will act out the thump thump sounds. Also any book by Eric Carle especially Brown Bear Brown Bear is a great hit for learning colours.

 

Posted this on another thread a while back.

 

That's a thing? I need to have that magazine!

 

Someone gave us several Curious George books, which Little Levite adores, and always made me squidgy. I couldn't put my finger on it until we were at the library, and I saw the original first book: the man in the yellow hat essentially captures George while on safari in Africa, brings him home and civilizes him. And I realized: these motherfucking books are about glorifying colonialism.

The man in the yellow hat is a fucking imperialist, raising this little infantilized African in the West, like he's shouldering the white man's fucking burden!! The books make me sick now. Fortunately it's subtle enough that we can get away with letting Little Levite continue to read the ones he has or that we let him take out of the library (we're not buying any more), thinking they're just stories about a mischievous little monkey. But holy mother of fucking fuck I hate them.