Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Developing Imagination

My almost 3 year old (can he really be that old already?) has quite the imagination. It makes me laugh out loud quite often. Like it did today when he picked up a plastic Easter egg, opened it, held it up to his chest and said, "Look, Mommy! I got boobs!" Yes, he's my son. No, he didn't get that from me. :)

Imagination is something I think a lot of kids today are without because they sit in front of the TV or video games and are endlessly entertained, leaving imagination unneeded.

Reading is a great solution to that. My sis-in-law uses making up stories with her kids as an imagination development tool. I love both of those things.

What are some things you have done/do/plan to do to promote the use of imagination in your children?

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Sleepless in Nevada

This is my cry for help!

Our 4 year old daughter has never slept through the night. Sure, there's been small periods of time (mostly when she was tiny) that she would sleep great. But the last, oh, year, has been a nightmare. She will fight us to go to bed. Screaming, crying, yelling, etc. She usually falls asleep, but only after making a hundred demands. ("I want COLDER water! With ICE in it!") We try not to give in to these demands...but we have an almost 2 year old who is already asleep at this point. Daughter #2 is the most incredible little sleeper. She has slept through the night since she was brand new...

Anyway, big sister finally falls asleep and just a few short hours later, she is in our room crying and making demands again. She was up from 12-1 last night. My husband works at 5 in the morning, so fun for him. Does anyone have any advice? We have tried literally everything we can think of. She has a sleeping bag on our floor because I won't let her sleep in our bed anymore. I can only imagine what it will be like when she starts preschool with no sleep at night...:(

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Sleepless in Nevada

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A "Mommy" shopping site...NOT to buy from

Let me share with you an experience I just had with a pretty well-known shopping site catering to mom's: Totsy dot com.

At the beginning of March, I received an email from Totsy providing me with a $15 credit to use towards any purchase.  I thought, "Hey!  Awesome!" and went to their site to check out the merchandise.  I found a toy that both of kids would like for a great deal - $3.85 for each toy (and they usually run for $8-$10).  Having the $15 credit, I ordered 4 of them, and only paid for shipping.  Not a bad deal.

That was March 5.

When I had finished ordering the toys, the confirmation page came up and it had written on it: "estimated shipping date: April 1."  I was a bit shocked at the SUPER late shipping date (really? one month after I order?), but I knew that this site took the orders on their site, then when the sale was done (the special prices last about 4 days each), they placed orders with the vendors of the product.  So, a month?  I could wait.  Easter was nearly 2 months away.

On April 1 (the estimated shipping date, remember?) I received this email:

"We are experiencing a delay due to the increased volume in demand for orders intended to ship from our warehouse at this time.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Our warehouse is working quickly to get your shipments out within the next 5-7 business days."

Seriously?!  Yeah, so...another week wait.
On April 10, I wrote to the customer service email asking about my order.  Two days later, still no reply, so I wrote ANOTHER email to the customer service people.  I received a response today (April 13):

"Thank you for contacting us.  You will be pleased to know that your order has just been released to UPS.   Unfortunately, there are two items that are unavailable, which is the sheep and unicorn.  I will submit a refund back to the payment method you supplied for these two items.  My apologies for any inconvenience."

Can I please emphasize two points of this email that bugged the heck out of me?
1) "your order has just been RELEASED".  To me, this makes it seem as if my order has just been sitting around (for a month and a half, mind you), waiting for me to ASK THEM to send it to me.
2) HALF of my order will not arrive?  Yeah, that's an inconvenience, seeing as the half you're not sending are the two toys for my daughter.  Ridiculous.

Later today, I received THIS email:

"Unfortunately, items Sheep , Zebra  and Unicorn  from 
the Lubies event, is unavailable for shipment due to a shortage of inventory from our vendor.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you."
 
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?  (See how cute the toys are?  Yeah, not happy they're not 
coming.)
 
So, only 1/4 of my order is coming.  And Totsy is blaming the vendor for a shortage.  This
 bugs me because, according to the way the Totsy places orders, there shouldn't BE any shortages, 
since orders to the vendors are placed AFTER they are placed on Totsy.
 
Needless to say, I'm less than impressed with my experience.  If you google "Totsy" the reviews
 are, in the majority, negative.  Seems my experience is the norm.
 
So: I DON'T recommend this site.  At all.  Not worth it.