Here’s a quick tip for drying out mittens (assuming that your house has ceiling vents)…

Simply grab a magnetic clip from your refrigerator, clip is to the glove/mitten, and then hang it beneath your air vent such that the cuff is in the midst of the air stream. No fuss, no muss, and no extra energy expended. Check out the picture below to see how it works.

Note that some of our clips have weaker magnets so we had to use two to keep one of the gloves up. However, these are my gloves, and are thus much larger/heavier than those of most kids. Try it out, it works great!

For those of you that haven’t been following along, we just got over a nasty bout of Helicobacter pylori. The treatment for H. pylori is the so-called “triple therapy” of 30 mg Lansoprazole (Prevacid), 500 mg Clarithromycin (Biaxin Filmtab), and 2 x 500 mg Amoxicillin. This regimen is taken twice a daily for a total of 60 mg Prevacid, 1000 mg Biaxin Filmtab, and 2000 mg Amoxicillin per day.

The problem

Unfortunately, swallowing all of those pills is a pretty tall order for a kid. By far the worst was the amoxicillin, which is a huge capsule that tastes (and smells) like rotten eggs. And you get two per dose, for a total of four per day. Ugh. Not a fun experience for our ten year old. Our doctor suggested that we open the caplets and mix them with either apple sauce or ice cream, but that just resulted in a big nasty bowl of apple sauce or ice cream.

The solution

Fortunately, we hit upon a winning combination: the pills, a big soup spoon, and a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup… Simply place the pill on the spoon, cover it with a generous amount of chocolate syrup, and go. The chocolate syrup masks the taste and make the pill slippery and easy to swallow. Once we stumbled onto this combination, it was smooth sailing.

So… If you have to give your kids a big nasty pill, remember that a spoonful of Hershey’s syrup helps the medicine go down.

Soccer season is just around the corner, so this is for all you soccer moms (and dads) out there. You know as well as I do that soccer game days can be very hectic. Wouldn’t you like to lose a bit of the chaos? Here’s how…

1. At the beginning of the season, tape each kid’s game schedule to the inside of a cupboard door. This makes it easily accessible and you will always know where to find it.

2. When writing the games in to your planner or on your calendar, use a color code system to keep siblings straight (e.g., blue for one kid’s games, red for another, and so on)

3. On the evening before, lay out each kid’s uniform, cleats, shin guards and ball on a chair. Each kid will then know exactly where everything can be found, and you’ll know that it’s clean and ready to go.

4. Place clean and empty water bottles by the kitchen sink in preparation for filling the following morning.

Follow these four simple guidelines for a less stressful day of soccer fun. I promise that 8AM game won’t be quite so hair raising. Have fun! Play hard!

Son #4 had some “intestinal distress” on the drive back home from Disney World. Since we had been visiting Florida, I hadn’t packed very many pairs of long pants. As we drove further north the weather became very chilly. Unfortunately for him, he had exhausted his supply of long pants because of the illness. What to do? I decided to use my big cozy sweatshirt to keep him warm. I turned the sweatshirt upside down, stuck his little legs in the arm holes, and pulled the rest of the sweatshirt up and over his body. It worked perfectly! He had a warm and cozy “bunting” to snuggle in for the rest of the journey. (And thankfully he didn’t soil the sweatshirt.)

One of the most hectic times during a birthday party is when it’s time to serve the cake and ice cream. Someone needs to cut the cake, someone needs to scoop the ice cream, and someone needs to serve everything. If you don’t have your heart set on a particular decorated cake, then I highly recommend cupcakes. Just plop a candle in one so the Birthday Kid can blow it out after a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. Afterwards, just pass out the cupcakes… No knife needed, and maybe even no plates if you really want to streamline things. And the best idea of all… Pre-packaged ice cream cups… No scooping involved! Just toss a cup to each kid and tell them to dig in. These tips are especially useful if you have the party somewhere other than your house but still need to provide the dessert. Try these two simple steps and you might be able to enjoy the cake and ice cream yourself for a change!

While we tend to drink a lot of water and milk in our household, we’re also not averse to the occasional soft drink. For the kids, this is a huge deal… They don’t get soft drinks very often, so it’s quite the treat when Mom and Dad relent. While we’re not crazy about letting them suck down sugar water, we don’t do it all that often, so that’s not a huge concern. The bigger issue for us is the mess that results when one of them inevitably spills. [more]

If you’ve ever flown with kids, you know how nice it is when they conk out and take a nap for most the your time in the air. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t necessarily have to resort to sedating your kids to get them to sleep when you’re travelling. Rather, whenever we fly, we tell our kids that we’re on a “Nap Flight”. A “Nap Flight” is defined as a leg of the flight when everybody has to take a nap — except, of course, for the cockpit crew and the flight attendants. Granted, we don’t travel by air that much, but to this day, our eight year old will still ask, “Is this a nap flight?” before boarding an airplane. If your child is a little more skeptical, start pointing to people on the plane and say, “Look… He’s going to take a nap. She’s going to take a nap.” And so on, until they’re convinced. You’ll be amazed. This has worked wonders for us, and may work for you too!

A popsicle is one of the messiest things for a kid to eat. To avoid an arduous clean up, I highly recommend serving popsicles during bath time. Drips fall right in the tub and sticky faces and hands are easily cleaned with the bath water.

Given the number of kids that we have running around the house, mornings can get pretty crazy around here. And lunch-packing before the schoolbus arrives just adds to the craziness. In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, we’ve had to come up with creative ways of streamlining our morning routine. Probably the simplest of these steps has to do with sandwich making. (Full Disclosure: While this tip works great when you do it, I’m actually pretty bad about sticking with it.) [more]

What’s a kid hack, you ask? Simple. It’s a clever (or at least we think it’s clever) parenting shortcut that’s designed to make your life easier. We’ve run across a few of these in our time as parents, and we’re continually discovering more. Thus, we thought that it might be worth creating a dedicated category for these little tidbits. If you have anything that you think might fit into this category, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment, or drop us a line using the contact form. And keep an eye out for the first-ever kid hack — coming soon.