Dentist here we come!

No Friendship Friday this week!

We are going to the dentist tomorrow and we have been reading Going to the Dentist, from the First Steps Series.

This book tells the story of a little girl's trip to the dentist. Dora, along with her stuffed alligator Allie, explains what can happen during the visit. She sits in the waiting room until her name is called. It is now her turn for her teeth to be cleaned. She mentions the dentist chair that you can sit on and talks about the tools that you may see. She says, "Some are very noisy!"

This was helpful to us because Jelly Belly is the one who often covers up her ears when there is too much chaos around.

This book taught my daughter that cavities are tiny holes in her teeth at a very young age. She learned the importance of brushing her teeth and eating healthy foods. It includes pictures of how to brush your teeth and also came with stickers.

Overall, the book is wonderful to read before a dental visit. It is thorough and filled with detail. My daughter enjoys the real pictures because she can relate to them. We read the book several times a year, especially when she gets into one of her "I don't want to brush my teeth" phase.

Tomorrow is our third or fourth visit to the dentist. I think Jelly Belly started her check-ups right before she turned 2. Oh how I wish I would have started blogging when she was much younger. I am so forgetful now.

She has done pretty well at the dentist and this book really helped all of us prepare for it. The first time we experienced some tears, but only because there was a screaming child right next to us. But it's been an overall okay experience for her. We have not gotten X-rays though and she will be 4 in September. Her dentist says her mouth is too small for them. I am worried and so is she. We have had a few discussions about cavities at home and at school. This kid eats too many sweets. Somewhat my fault but we were only able to avoid C-A-N-D-Y for so long.

Wish us luck tomorrow and be sure to leave some tips on how you prepare for your little one's dental visits.

Just the Way I Am

Just the Way I am (The 7 Habits of Happy Kids) by Sean Covey

I couldn’t believe it when Jelly Belly found this book. How many years have I known about this author and the 7 Habits of Effective People, Effective Families, Effective Teens. I have gone to classes, workshops. I think I can recite them. Okay maybe not. But there I was sharing this with my daughter and I loved the message. Talk about building up some self-esteem. Pokey the Porcupine learns to accept the way he is. He learns to walk away from Biff, the school bully, who makes fun of him on a daily basis. Pokey decides that “He was not going to let Biff ruin his day.”

A short, sweet and to the point book that teaches the child to Be Proactive: You’re in Charge of your feelings. If Pokey the Porcupine learns to accept the way he is then so can I. My favorite part is The Parents Corner. It was a great tool to practice reading comprehension and to have valuable discussion. For us it went something like this:

I ask her... Name 3 things you like about yourself

1) I like my hair

2) I like my hands

3) I like my arms

"Mommy, your turn, what do you like about yourself?" And then I froze. It took me a minute. I really struggled. Yikes! I need to revisit these habits.

1) I like my name

2) I like the color of my eyes

3) I like being a mommy

She says, “My turn…”

1) I like my hair

2) I like my hands

3) I like that you are my mommy

And my heart melted.

Highly recommend this book. This book is a great way to prepare young kids for the inevitable. Kids can be mean. Chances are someone will make fun of her at school, the park, or somewhere when I least expect it.  It’s up to me to teach her how to handle these situations before they happen.

What will you say when someone asks, "What do you like about yourself?"

Book Review

I decided to read this again today right before nap time, and I am glad I did. Let me tell you that the first time I read it, I cried really bad, and had to go in another room so Isabella would not see me. I told myself it was an awful, awful book because it made me cry and I was not ready in anyway to explain the concept of aging and death. My husband agreed. I was also expecting this book to be about Potty Training because my friend who gave it to me also gave me some other ones after a brief potty training discussion (and the big toilet on the cover!) Says alot about how much I knew about the author. Today, I felt better about it. I remember it being much sadder than it actually was. Maybe because I was more prepared, maybe because she is a little older or I am a little wiser and stronger. Either way, I think it teaches great values.

Float or Sink?

We did this a couple of weeks ago. I checked out a book from the library from the Think About Series called Floating and Sinking by Henry Arthur Pluckrose which gave me the idea to do this. We had been reading the book for a couple of weeks before we did it, so she was super excited. She had fun finding all kinds of objects to put in our bowl of water; she loves playing with water these days and picked up the concept pretty quick. She also flipped through the pages of the book to get ideas of what she could test out in our little experiment.
What I loved most, while she was looking for objects...I was folding laundry, and this activity kept her entertained for almost an entire hour.

Saguaro cactus

Today is Thursday, and that means it's story time at the Library. We have been going to the library since she was about 4 or 5 months old. Today the theme was the desert and I was excited because I recently checked out a book about a Saguaro cactus. Not quite her favorite because it is a chapter book, but I was surprised to see how much we have gotten through. The librarian asked the kids if anyone had ever seen a cactus, and Jelly Belly happily replied, "Me!" So today we checked this book out (among many others) and decided to read it during our picnic lunch on my empty dining room.
She seemed to enjoy it! We learned about coyotes, rattlesnakes, roadrunners and pack rats and of course our Saguaro cactus. Here is pic of the one in our front yard, and I did regret my great idea to go out in this Arizona heat in the middle of the day. It is hot today!

Picture taken by Isabella:

While searching for the image of the book, The Seed and the Giant Saguaro, I found some info about the author and some great teaching tools. I did not try the discussion guide yet but I will next time we read the book. Curious to see how she responds, it may be geared towards older kids.
http://www.jenniferwardbooks.com/Teachers.html