Just about every frozen treats on sticks, homemade or bought, drip everywhere. Unlike us grown-ups who race to finish our treats before even wasting a drop, our kids dawdle, savor every lick leaving a big sticky mess all-over. Keeping them from enjoying these delightful popsicles is simply not an option! Finally, I found a work-around to satisfy both my kids and me.

A few years back, I found these push-up pop molds
that were great from a parent’s standpoint. They come apart so it’s easy to clean and they keep the frozen treats from dripping down the sides. The problem is they sometimes drip from the inside down the handle! But with a slight modification, these molds are still my favorite to use for all our homemade frozen treats.

To make these push-up pop molds not so messy,

• take the handle and enclosure apart;
• cut approximately a 3″ x 4″ rectangular piece of rag – cotton terry cloth soaks well;
• fold in thirds and wrap around the handle and assemble.

A side benefit (at least for me) is this setup naturally lessens how much frozen treat can be packed in!

There are many contraptions to this simple experiment. In general, it involves suspending a weighted string or wooden skewer in a glass with the sugar solution. I like to use a short cocktail glass and toothpicks stuck in a piece of wire mesh screen. It’s less time consuming to set up and you can make several small sticks of rock candy per glass. You can find the wire mesh screen in rolls at Home Depot for under $8. Besides serving as a toothpick holder here, these mesh screens have many other uses such as lining the bottoms of your plant pots, repairing window screens, and patching wall holes. In other words, they are handy to have around the house and well worth the $8.

To make the sugar solution, start with:

• 1 part water
• 2 parts sugar

by volume. I.e., one cup water to two cups sugar.

Sugar crystals after one week.

• Heat the water in a saucepan until just boiling.
• Add the sugar and stir continuously until all the sugar is dissolved. Optionally dissolve extra sugar, a spoonful at a time. A well saturated sugar solution speeds up the crystal growth. If you add too much sugar and not all is dissolved, simple add a little bit of water at a time.
• Let cool a few minutes, occasionally stirring.
• Pour the mixture into clean, dry glass.
• Dip toothpicks in the sugar solution and roll them in sugar. Let dry. These tiny ‘seed’ crystals jump starts and accelerates the crystal growing process.
• Cover glass with prepared toothpick in mesh screen and wait.
• And wait and wait and wait. It will take at least a week for the crystals to grow to a good size.
• If you want to add food coloring or flavoring, add it after the first week when sizable crystals have formed. Otherwise, it will take much longer for the crystals to form. Let the crystals grow for at least another week.

At first, the kids were super excited and would check on the rock candy every day. By the second week after adding the color and flavor, they almost lost all interest after I told them they had to wait at least another week before they can eat it. But the longer they wait, the bigger the candy and well worth the wait!

Rock candy is just one of many experiments to show how crystals grow. Here are a few sites that explain the science behind it.

• Rock Candy Basics
• Grow Sugar Crystals
• Temperature Effect on Solubility and Supersaturated Solutions

Footies keep feet warm at night and two-piece pajamas come in handy when your kids are old enough to begin night-time potty training and you want to encourage them to get up and go by themselves. Plus, kids with eczema like mine need to keep wearing footed pajamas to discourage them from scratching their feet at night.

IKEA Potty

This past weekend, I found stackfuls of one-piece infant potties at IKEA for $3.99 but were on sale for $1.99!!! They looked stable and easy to clean. I’m glad to see how readily available they are now, about four years too late for me. Maybe they’ve been around for awhile but I just don’t find myself at IKEA often. Infant potties are a must not just for potty training but for kids-on-the-go in our fast-paced modern world. I always carry one in my car.

Borrowing another great restaurant idea: oil cloth (vinyl) tablecloths. Primary reason? Easy to clean. You can purchase the fabric by the yard from Fabric.com and simply sew fitted tablecloths so that your tots can’t easily pull them off!

Get your kids durable tableware from the most unlikely place: restaurant supply stores. Take note from kid-friendly restaurants. They are all about stretching the dollar and serving kids in tableware that can be used and abused. In Austin, head to Acemart Restaurant Supply Store.

Here are my top picks:
• Silverware by the dozen – $2! I especially like the dessert spoons and forks. They are perfectly sized for kids. Kids also prefer the shiny metal silverware over the plastics.
• Fast food trays – colorful, multi-purpose; great for eating or crafting. Kids are messy – it’s all part of learning. At least with trays, you can tell them to try and keep the food on the tray. It also contains much of the mess and spills.
• Durable plastic ‘training’ cups. Sippy cups and spill-proof cups may be convenient from a parent’s perspective. But the best way to teach them to use real cups is to let them practice, practice, practice. If you serve them water (or ‘bubbly water’) most of the time, then there’s no harm in a little spillage here and there.
• One-piece booster chairs (and high chairs). Durable and very easy to clean.

Photo via Sara Atkins

Use them all! Potty training doesn’t have to be a strict philosophy or for non-working parents only. Anyone can do as little or as much as he/she wants. This morning, I came across another article on successful early potty training and points out that the greenest option is to be diaper-free as soon as possible. So, I thought it was time to revisit this topic and give you an update on my daughter’s path to early potty training. Here’s my previous post on early potty training with the booster/potty combo.

My daughter has been daytime diaper-free since 22 months. We still put her in a diaper at night. To sum up, here’s what we’ve been doing since she was nine months:

• Put her on the booster/potty combo four times a day, after the 3 main meals and afternoon snack.
• Travel with a little potty in the car.
• Have lots of underwear and easy to pull up/down pants. Patterns here.

Other resources:
• Recent article on early potty training.
• Dy-Dee Diaper Service’s Story
• Diaper Free Baby
• Here’s a pattern for split crotch pants that people use in other parts of the world in case you’re interested. I personally prefer to change lots of full-coverage pants. Point is, there are lots of options out there to adapt infant potty training to our fast-paced modern world.
]]> http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2009/potty-training-with-cloth-disposable-and-no-diapers/feed/ 2 http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2009/how-to-say-no-to-your-kids-without-saying-no/ http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2009/how-to-say-no-to-your-kids-without-saying-no/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:13:03 +0000 Wabi Sabi Baby http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/?p=709
When you’re constantly telling your kids “No!”, the effects wear off over time. Besides, it’s not always clear what you’re saying ‘no’ to. Instead, try speaking with:
• brevity. Instead of just repeating “no” by itself, be a little more descriptive. ‘No hitting’, ‘no touch’, ‘not for babies’, etc…
• ambiguity. Statements like ‘maybe later’, ‘not now’, and ‘we’ll see’ postpone the action without possibilities of breaking any promises.

Then, there are things they will do no matter what you say, like throwing rocks. In those cases, redirect their energy. Phrases like “rocks with rocks”, “dirt with dirt”, and “away from people and things” give the kids an outlet while setting some acceptable boundaries.

]]> http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2009/how-to-say-no-to-your-kids-without-saying-no/feed/ 0 http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/grow-your-own-edible-sprouts-no-gardening-skills-required/ http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/grow-your-own-edible-sprouts-no-gardening-skills-required/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:18:47 +0000 Wabi Sabi Baby http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/?p=172


Day 0: Soak





Day 1: Seeds doubled





Day 2: Sprouting





Day 3: Ready to eat

Here’s something fun you can do with your kids that’s educational and results in something useful. Sprout seeds! To get started, get an economical, small seed sprouter tray so that your kids can take part in the action. I bought a Thompson and Morgan seed sprouter for about $10. The instructions are simple:

• Soak seeds overnight
• Rinse
• Evenly spread the seeds on the trays
• Rinse and drain seeds twice a day to avoid mold forming
• Sprouting seeds are ready to eat in 2 – 7 days!

Not only will your kids visually learn about growing food from seeds, they’ll also learn a little about patience.

You can buy most seeds at the grocery store. I get a large bag of organic mung beans to make the bean sprouts pictured here. They are great in just about any stir fry dishes and soups.


]]> http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/grow-your-own-edible-sprouts-no-gardening-skills-required/feed/ 0 http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/infant-potty-training-with-the-booster-chair-and-potty-combo/ http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/infant-potty-training-with-the-booster-chair-and-potty-combo/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:45:56 +0000 Wabi Sabi Baby http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/?p=173
Why would I want a booster-chair-and-potty-combo, you ask. For starters, it’s very handy to have when you’re traveling. Most of us will do without one or the other. After all, traveling with kids usually means flying to get there fast or staying at someone’s house. But if you’re on a road trip, this can be very handy and a space saver. Ever had a toddler not wanting to use the scary rest stop bathrooms? Or ate lunch at the park and wished you had a booster chair for that picnic table?

Traveling aside, the real motivation behind this concoction came about as I decided I would start potty training my daughter before she turned one.






She was nine months when we began using the booster-potty. Up until then, we had been cloth diapering her 90% of the time, changing her diaper as soon as she was wet or soiled. I felt quite in tune with her need to eliminate and decided it was time to take it one step further. At nine months, she was sitting well but not yet crawling. Her schedule was, for the most part, regular; she ate and slept/napped at around the same time every day. She would usually have a bowel movement right after she wakes up in the morning or after her meals and snacks. So, I started a routine of putting her on the booster-potty every morning after breakfast. Most of the time, she would eliminate. Gradually over the next week, I began putting her on the booster-potty four times a day, after her 3 meals and afternoon snack. The booster-potty sits on the floor and I would snap the tray in place and put toys on it. At first, I stayed in the same room doing my own thing, not looking over her shoulder and not making a big deal out of it. Now, I leave the room for a few minutes while she sits, plays, and stares out the window as she does her business. We would always give words of encouragement in the beginning. Nowadays, we simple describe what she has done; ‘tee tee’, ‘poo poo’ , ‘tee tee poo poo’, or ‘nothing’. When she does go in her diaper, we simply tell her “it’s better to go in the potty” and not fuss over it.

She’s 18 months now and we’ve probably only changed 5 poopy diapers over the past two months. At home, we leave her diaper free after pottying as much as conveniently (for us) possible.

The idea of potty training her at nine months didn’t come overnight. My parents tell me I was potty trained by one and that was the norm. I have also been reading about elimination communication and wanted to give it a try. The belief that babies are born aware of their bodily functions makes sense. The first year is the sensitive period for babies to learn to use the muscles that control their bladder and bowel movements. By diapering them, like any other muscles that are not exercised, they loose that ability as we ‘train’ them to go in their diapers, thereby making the ‘untraining’ much harder later on. How are babies around the world potty trained? Or in the pre-disposable diapers era? Besides not enjoying changing poopy diapers, my other motivation stems from the fact that my daughter has eczema and very bad diaper rash, whether I use disposable or cloth. Humans like any other animal are not meant to sit in their feces and urine.

The booster-potty is just one of many ways of adapting time-tested toilet training technique to our fast-paced modernized world. Elimination Communication (EC) works and doesn’t have to be a full-time commitment – you can do as much or as little as you want.

Here are two resources on elimination communication:
Dy-Dee Diaper Service’s Story
Diaper Free Baby

And if you’re an EC’er, share with us your stories, concoctions, hacks, etc…

]]> http://www.wabisabibaby.com/blog/2008/infant-potty-training-with-the-booster-chair-and-potty-combo/feed/ 3