I had a chance to do a Guzzie and Guss Stroller Review recently, and it didn’t come a moment too soon. I actually thought my stroller days were over for good given that my little guy is almost 4, but whoa, was I ever wrong.

The scene of the test? Downtown Seattle on a blustery spring day. We were heading from Giant Wheel to Pike Place and everywhere in between. The weather? Typical Seattle. Showers with Showers and a light sprinkling of rain and wind.

The Guzzie & Guss Goose was a stroller that both he and I loved to go for a joy ride in. And a joy ride it was – With full suspension, cable brakes, and a comfy fully reclining seat, he was a happy little guy when we blasted down the streets in the pouring rain. I bumped up him the cobblestone streets on the way to the gum wall (no comment) and through Pike Place with complete ease, even though the trek to the gum wall was all uphill and would have been difficult with my other tank of a stroller.

The cushy bumping from the full suspension even bounced him to sleep at one point, which meant there was more time to sit and enjoy Seattle’s amazing coffee in peace and quiet. When we were finished for the day, I packed the stroller up, tossed it in the back of the car, and was ready to head out in about 3 minutes.

Check out my full review of the Guzzie and Guss Goose and the Guzzie and Guss Lynx on Plug In.

My child is a late talker.

I’m watching my 3 year old son haul Christmas decorations out of the corner of the garage. Although the sun is blazing in the sky and we’re experiencing one of the warmest days on record this year, my little man is singing Jingle Bells as he sets his Santa and ribbons up on the grass. As I sit with him, he chats a mile a minute:

“Gogo wants to make Christmas Mommy.” “Are you having a good day Mommy?” “Gogo wants to ride his bike.” “Ouch, there’s a bee!”
For me, this is pure music to my ears. I haven’t quite gotten over the thrill of listening to him talk. When I wrote ‘2 years old and not talking. New Study says not to worry‘ several years ago, I worried that he never would. After all, I had friends, neighbors, and relatives telling me I should have him checked for Autism (I did, they said he was a late talker), spent hours researching things like Einstein Syndrome (I love history anyway), and had his hearing checked by his doctor and a specialist (Now I wonder why I worried, because he can hear a train coming before I even register it myself). We’ve gone and will continue to go for periodic checkups with speech therapists, because my older kids had speech issues when they started school and the resources are available to us.

It was slow progress. I’ve read that some kids just suddenly start talking at two or three, that there is an explosion of speech in a non-talking two year old and they were having full conversations. It didn’t happen like that for us. There was one day when I was chatting with him, asking him questions, and he was responding with something that sounded like “Of Course.” So I kept asking, and he kept replying that way. To this day, if you ask him a question, he’ll answer “Course” as the affirmative. It’s cute. I’m sure he’ll outgrow that too, just like my now 7 year old used to call his elbows ‘kneeballs.’

Other interesting ways he’s phrased language include talking about himself in the 3rd person. He calls himself Gogo, which is not his name but I’m OK with this. It suits him, because he’s one of those kids that will jump, run, climb, and ride over anything. He even ditched his training wheels last week, and he’s not even 4 yet. He’ll also have an entire conversation with anyone about Pirates of the Caribbean and Captain Jack Sparrow, although he hasn’t seen the movies. He just loves Captain Jack, and will talk about gold doubloons, scurvy pirates, and the Jolly Roger all day.

So for us, the study I based “Two years old and not talking?” on seems to have rung true. He has almost caught up with other kids his age, although there are certain things we still need to work on, and I’m sure by the time he starts school he’ll be exactly the same speech wise.

If you’ve had a late talker who’s bloomed over the past few years, what’s your favorite part of watching them grow up?

School district #35 in Langley, BC recently through a curve ball to parents in the district, asking us to vote within the next few weeks about possibly implementing a year round school year. They’ve offered one of three options, including keeping the current calendar, adding an extra week onto the school year at the end of August to balance out Spring and Christmas break, and a third option of sending our children to school for the entire month of July in order to facilitate year round school.

For those of us in or near Vancouver and/or live in Langley, you can follow this discussion on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #sd35calendar or joining in on the various news outlets who are hosting live chats and commentary.

My thoughts are pretty opinionated about this. For one, I use the summer to travel with my kids. We don’t always go very far, but taking them hiking in good weather, spending days at the beach, and not having the stress of homework and having to get up early for school is, in my opinion, good for them. After they have grown up, when in their lives will they be able to do the same thing?

Two, let’s face it, our weather here is horrendous most of the time. I’m not letting some school board take away a minute of sunshine and warmth from my kids.

Let kids be kids for as long as possible, and trust in the parents to continue to facilitate education after the doors close on the school. I don’t think my children will remember what they did on any given school day, but they’ll definitely remember when I took them to the Mining Museum or we played in tide pools while the sun was shining.

Weigh in on Twitter or check out Langley school district for more info.

Only 400 square feet, but I’d like to live here with my family of 6 for a summer.

If you’ve never heard of Tumbleweed Houses or Tiny House listings, you’ve been missing out. I stumbled upon the tiny house revolution when we were considering moving to an acreage and I was looking for a place for my parents that wasn’t a big, ugly double wide. I found Tumbleweed Houses, bought the book, and have been in love ever since.

These sweet, character houses can be as small as you’d like them, but most of the models on wheels run around 100 square feet. Because my mom is a cat hoarder, this would probably be too small for her, but it really got me thinking.

Anyone who knows me knows that I find the climate in the Pacific Northwest a little, shall we say, depressing, weather-wise. While I try to keep my focus on feeling blessed that I have a home, a healthy family, and my husband has a job, I find myself longing for the sunny coast of California. It has all of the things I love, including history (Old Hollywood anyone?), sunshine, amusement parks, and the wide open, sandy space of the ocean.

Because my husband is a sales rep who doesn’t work in the summer, last summer we managed to spend almost an entire month in Southern California.

We were sort of like Snow Birds, but the opposite. They really need a new catch phrase for something like this. I’ll have to mull this one over.

Anyway, I happily spent my days hitting the beach, touring Griffin Park, seeing the stars on Hollywood Boulevard with friends, and going to Disneyland as many times as I wanted to. It was, for me, complete and total bliss, and as a writer my creative energy was recharged to a point where the ideas came in a flood.

Except for a few small issues. The earthquake that hit the first night we arrived (I thought someone drove into the wall) wasn’t so bad. I can deal with that, although I did sleep with my contact lenses in for an entire month (I’m not joking) because if another hit while we were sleeping, I wanted to be able to see well enough to grab the kids and make a run for Canada.

No, the real thorn in our side was hotel living. It was so expensive and we hated it. The hotel we choose had great reviews on Trip Advisor, but ultimately turned out to sort of horrifying. The least of the issues was that they didn’t even recycle, which for a Canadian was pretty hard to take. (Yes, I was that lady with a bag of bottles in the back of my van, looking for somewhere to recycle them).

When you think about it, most hotel rooms are really small anyway. Even with the added kitchenette we had in our room, we were living in about 400 square feet for a month. That’s a small space for a family of 6, including 3 boys who drop their junk everywhere and two road bikes that couldn’t be left outside for fear of theft.

So obviously, after a long fall and what’s amounting to a long and rainy winter, my mind has turned once again to this upcoming summer. There’s nothing like palm trees, sunshine, and constant stimulation to help the creativity flow, so now my challenge is how to get my family of 6 back down to California, this time for the entire summer?

And the solution, I think, is tiny houses.

Tiny house on wheels

Download the book and you’ll be treated to a ton of very cool tiny houses, some on wheels, some large size cottages. For someone like me, with 4 kids, it would be an amazing challenge to see if we could all fit in and live happily in a small space for a few months. I’ve already imagined the bike racks I’d mount on an outside wall, the storage I’d create for the kids toys, and the desk I’d design for myself to write. I’d even trick the thing out with Belkin WeMo switches and control the entire house from my iPad. Then, I’d like to chronicle the entire experience on here or in an eBook, and give first hand tips on what works and wouldn’t work for tiny living with a big family.

Could your family live in a tiny house for the summer? I’d certainly like to try. Even if you’re not in the market for a relocation of some kind and just want an in-law suite, usable cottage, or rental accommodation on your property in Canada, Tumbleweed Houses and Tiny House listings are definitely worth a look.  And a few daydreams.

If I told you how many visitors we get on Survive Parenthood that come here searching for, “What to say to my wife” or “Things I can say to my wife”, you’d be really surprised. The numbers are high.

I wrote an article called “Things you should never say to your wife after she’s had a baby” last year. It was more of a tongue in cheek look at leaving the hospital, but the amount of people looking for real advice has increased dramatically. So I’m going to give you some.

Relationships are part of parenthood, but the relationship between you and your significant other is often one of the first things you’ll stop focusing on after you have kids. Life can get in the way of even the most amazing happily ever afters.

As a woman, I’ll be the first to admit the female gender can be difficult to deal with at times. It boils down to one simple thing: Women look at the world in a different way than men do. And when you have kids, that perspective changes again. It can be hard for a guy to keep up.

After doing some research, sourcing out different books, websites, and opinions, here are 3 very general things that may help you talk/understand/support your wife even if you don’t have kids.

Never say ‘I’m going to do…”and then not do it

I know for a fact that it drives women insane when you say you are going to do something and then get sidetracked. And I understand being sidetracked, it’s easy for that to happen when you have kids running around or your house is in chaos. But when you say you are going to do something like a. Take out the trash, b. Paint the fence, or c. Fold the clothes, your best bet for making your wife happy is to actually go through with it. If you do, it’s a win-win. If you don’t, she’ll silently resent you.  And probably bring it up during another argument. And quite possible make you feel really bad about it.

And you don’t like feeling bad, do you? No you don’t. So be sure to fold those clothes.

Give her a break

The fundamental difference between men and women after parenting is that most women will put the kids first. Their lives change so drastically they will get caught up in the daily grind of taking care of children and they will not come up for air unless you force them. Or the top of their heads blow off, whichever comes first.

You don’t have to stop going out with your friends or stop playing baseball or stop doing what makes you happy. What you have to do is pause before you go do those things, and think about your wife first. Has she been at home all day with a crying baby, has she seemed a little down lately, have you noticed that she’s not managing the house anymore (aka, it’s a disaster). If you notice anything off, anything at all, you should give her the break first. Even if you go home, give her a break, then go out and do your thing, its still far better than just going out and never bothering to check in at home at all.

Open your ears and listen

It’s easy to get into an argument over the most mundane things. Most arguments start because of something that is brewing under the surface. Maybe you were late for dinner. Maybe you left your socks all over the bedroom or didn’t put your plate in the dishwasher. It could be anything really, but the worst thing you can do is come out with guns blazing.

It’s hard to stop and listen to what someone is really saying, but to have a better relationship with your wife all you have to do is say one simple phrase:

“You talk, I’ll listen.”

And then shut your mouth for awhile. Don’t open it again until you can at least understand where she’s coming from. I’m not saying she’s going to be right every time, or you will be right every time, but it’s important to just listen and try to understand. It’s also important for her to listen to you, so be sure you get your say.

There is nothing that feels so diminishing than feeling like no one listens to you. I’ve heard of moms who will tell their story to anyone (at school, on the playground, even their kids), because they don’t feel like the people who love them most are listening.

~~~

I’m not saying these three things are relationship ‘fixers’, but they do go a long way to helping you get along. And some days, getting along is the only thing anyone can ask for.

Very occasionally, I’ll stumble across an app that will keep my kids entertained for longer than 10 minutes. When I find it, I covet that app, because it gets me through crazy moments when all four of them want something at one time, everyone is talking at once, and I feel as though my head has the ability to pop off my body.

The app in question is Toontastic. It lets you kids create cartoons based on various themes, and it is amazing for stimulating imagination. They get to move their little characters across the screen and give voice overs, and its even laid out in story board format so they feel just like the director/producer of a real movie.

I paid for my copy months ago, and it was worth the money. But lucky you, you get to try it for free!

I’ve got 9 promo codes for Toontastic. To get one, just like our Facebook page and comment here or there. I’ll randomly pick 9 people out of those who like our page.

Just remember, you need an iPad to use Toontastic.

When you’ve got kids, you tend to choose hotels that have the convenience and accessibility required to get your family in and out of the hotel with relatively little scarring. And for many of us, these hotels also offer up a breakfast bar. While some may think this is a great perk to your hotel stay, I find that my toes curl up inside of my body when presented with a breakfast bar. And why is that? Let me share with you a few reasons why I dislike the breakfast bar:

One word: Waffles

Why, oh why do people just freak out at the sight of the waffle maker? The lineups for those machines is a mile long. Yes, I can see that the hotel is not offering up a different ‘main course’ for your breakfast other than hard boiled eggs, but is it necessary to wait a half hour for a waffle you could buy for $3 up the road? I actually heard a discussion taking place in a waffle lineup with two girls who were talking about how they wouldn’t ‘waste their time’ working for less than $10 per hour. The irony that they were going to stand in a lineup to for 30 minutes to score a ‘free’ waffle was obviously lost on them.

During our last hotel stay, my daughter made me wait in that lineup because she was on the waffle bandwagon, and when we got to the front the batter in the machine ran out.  You should have seen the irate people behind us. I was actually scared to leave my spot to go and grab someone to refill the machine, just for fear that I’d be side checked out of the way. And what’s even worse? It wasn’t a GOOD waffle anyway. For the amount of time it took and the lineup behind us, you would think that Wolfgang Puck was serving up those waffles with a side of caviar and perhaps a gold coin as a bonus. She took two bites and said it tasted plain. I tried it and found it a bit on the gluey side. Moral of the Story: Your time is worth more and the Waffle is often not worth it.

Tiny Cups

I know that the goal of the hotel is for people to have a light breakfast, but putting out tiny cups in the hopes that someone will only have 2 mouthfuls of juice or coffee borders on ridiculous. Use normal cups and I will only go back once or twice. Use tiny cups and you will see empties all over the place like a bunch of party animals had a bender in the hotel common room. I’ve seen someone crush a cup after drinking it, just like you would a beer, and toss it in the wastebasket then go for more. Moral: Tiny cups will not discourage coffee gluttony

Cow Herd Mentality

I’ve often wondered how the chronological order of departure is decided in a full elevator. Who gets to depart first? The back, the sides? Does the pushiest get the spoils, meaning they get to get out of that tiny box before everyone else? The same can be said for the breakfast bar. The pushiest really do get the best treats. There can be a lineup to get into the breakfast room, but once you get in there its every man for yourself. Seriously, grab your kids, because Heaven help the person who tries to get in the way of the herd when new Cinnamon buns have been put out.  The lineup for the conveyor belt toaster and juice machine goes straight out the window and there is pushing and shoving all over the place.  For this very reason, I leave most of my kids in the room and just grab them what I can. I’d starve before I’d shove someone for a cheese danish.

Uncaring Staff

I cannot blame these people. This must be the most stressful job in the hospitality industry. That guy that brought in the waffle batter when the machine was empty was widely reviled by the crowd. Mutterings of “It’s about damn time” and heavy sighs were what greeted him, and I honestly felt sorry for him because a.) I didn’t give a crap about the waffle in the first place, and b.) in the grand scheme of things, waffles are about as low on the totem pole as cold hashbrowns. They just aren’t worth the anger directed at these poor souls. This young man retaliated by taking 10 minutes to fix the waffle batter spout, which was clogged with what I can only assume was the glue that would bind the whole thing together.

The bottom line is that there is a common belief that you save money by not having to buy yourself breakfast in the morning, and it’s just easier to eat the hotel. It’s good to note that the breakfast isn’t ‘free’, the cost has been worked into the cost of your stay as an convenience charge or some such thing. Yes, it would be more expensive to eat elsewhere, but you should ultimately decide for yourself if the hassle of the communal breakfast bar is worth it. For me, not so much.

There isn’t a mom out there who wasn’t looking forward to the end of the school year. For many, the grind of driving back and forth, day after day after day, takes on an entirely new dimension of stress. Not to mention having to be the driving force behind homework, baths or showers, earlier bedtimes that no one but you seem to want, and a whole slew of social drama that will have you reaching for the Advil.

You look forward to summer vacation, and even more so, you look forward to summer long weekends because the entire family can be together and go and do something fun. You envision smiles, laughter, late nights eating smores over the open fire. But it never quite turns out like that does it? Despite the fact that we’ve learned time and time again that motherhood means that you need to adjust your outlook and shoot for a middle of the road type of experience, we go into summer long weekends like a kid running through Disneyland for the first time.

There are as many different types of long weekends as there are families. See which one of these applies to you:

Your favorite long weekend is camping somewhere with your tent trailer and a bunch of bicycles

An outdoorswoman, you probably spent a lot of time camping before you had kids. Back when you could sit in front of the campfire until 3 am and not have to worry about the early bird peeping in your window, because you could just throw something at the window and he’d fly away. When you camp with kids, the early bird is actually your child, and the peeping means he or she is hungry/bored/ or just really energetic despite the pre-dawn wakeup.

The key to surviving camping with kids? You have a few choices

1. Give up your previous camping ways and embrace the early mornings
2. Put up garbage bags on the windows of your camper and keep it as black as night. This isn’t good if you like fresh air
3. Don’t take them camping until they are old enough to not run away into the forest or at the very least, sleep straight through until a reasonable hour in the morning

Your favorite long weekend is at a luxury hotel in some trendy city

A spa mama. I like your style. You most likely spent many a long weekend sleeping on 400 thread count Egyptian cotton and wandering from cute store to coffee shop. Now, if you want to take your family away on one of your favorite long weekends, you’ll have to be sure that no one throws up on those pretty sheets or you’ll be paying for them.

How to survive and enjoy a weekend away at a nice hotel, with your kids?

1. Reserve a double room or a room with a suite. That way, after they go to bed, you can go into your room and pretend that you are away for a relaxing weekend.
2. Plan things the kids like to do between things you like to do. This means buying them 3 cake pops each for every time you go into Starbucks.
3. Add an afternoon at the hotel spa to your list of things you must do, and leave the kids with Dad in the hotel swimming pool.

You enjoy amusement parks

You like a thrilling ride on a roller coaster more than anything, and your idea of the perfect long weekends is 16 hour days at Disneyland or Disneyworld, only stopping during shows and for character greetings. You pretend that the vacation is ‘for the kids’ but really, it’s all about you.

This is my favorite type of vacation, so I find it really inhibiting when everyone can’t keep up. I mean, come on, everyone wants to have their 4 year old on Splash Mountain at midnight, don’t they?

There are a few ways to make such an excursion easier for the entire family:

1. Go a few days ahead of your entire family. Get it out of your system.
2. Reserve a hotel right on site and leave your family there for naps, rests, recharges, etc.
3. Bring along a relative that is willing to hang out with your kids in the evening, so they can rest and you don’t have to

You too can survive a summer long weekend with the family. The secret? Lowered expectations.

Just as we know that your life is never the same after you’ve had children, we also know that the day to day differences are what add up the most. A simple long weekend, one of your very favorite things, turns into a circus when you add enough little people to the equation. Just adjust your expectations, and you’ll end up being grateful for the most inconsequential things.

And if you need some quick stain removing advice, I’ve heard club soda works well.

With the daily updates about the Casey Anthony case ,and doom and gloom around every corner online and on TV, don’t you ever wonder why no one reports good news? Luckily for us, Cracked.com does. And although this might not be the venue you normally look to for up-to-date news (good or otherwise), they certainly have shone a light on a few happy things that have slipped through the cracks.

7 pieces of good news that nobody is reporting is a good read to wash away the online stank you may feel from the Casey Anthony trail, the subsequent feud with Nancy Grace, the reappearance of OJ news, and even if you just feel not so fresh from watching Fox News at any point in the past week.

If you have no time to click on over to Cracked, here is a quick highlight of good news nobody is reporting:

7. The Gulf of Mexico is rebounding nicely from the rampant oil spill of April 2010. In fact, the Gulf is almost back to pre-spill working conditions for the shrimp et all that are still being scooped up in buckets.

6. Thanks to anti-viral drugs and other medical advancements, AIDS is no longer an immediate death sentence.

5. The Ozone hole is actually shrinking.  No, its not safe to bring out your can of Aquanet (for a multitude of reasons), but the Ozone is actually a flexible hole that grows and shrinks on its own. Who knew?

4. Car accident fatalities are down: Despite the wingnuts who still text and chat on their cell phones as they cruise down the highway at 100, deaths resulting from car accidents is at the lowest point its been since 1949.

3. Teen pregnancy is at an all time low: This is good news, despite the fact that MTV continues to toss money at young girls who are still getting pregnant and glamorizing it to a point while at the same time showing the downfalls (Good job MTV, it must be hard to show all ends of the reality TV spectrum and still somehow make it OK to show one of those teen moms after she got breast implants with her salary).

2. People get happier as they get older: Hmmm, I have a hard time believing this one. I’ve encountered some seriously grouchy old people recently who have criticized my yard (um, my hanging baskets are much nice than yours, thank you very much) and told us to stay off their lawn. If there are happy older people, I’d love to find them.

1. We are all living a longer, healthier life: You can thank food creators like Kashi for this type of health improvement. Also, be sure to thank Nike for the athletic revolution, thus making us feel as though we are missing out if we aren’t keeling over on the side of the road from our 10K run.

Click on over to Cracked for more.

It’s time to strap on your light saber and head back to Hoth. Unless, of course, you are one of ‘those people’ that wear your Han Solo costume on a weekly basis and constantly twine your wife’s hair into Cinnamon buns. For the rest of the world, June 3rd was the day Star Tours: The Adventures Continue began transporting guest to Coruscant, Naboo, and the Death Star to name a few.

Replacing Star Tours: Tour to Endor, the all new motion simulator attraction features over 54 different options for your in flight experience. Star Tours is not the only new attraction to hit the Magic Kingdom this summer. The long awaited Little Mermaid attraction has opened at Disney’s California Adventure, and work continues on the all new Cars land that is being built near to the Tower Of Terror.

With all of the renos and grand openings, it is no wonder that there doesn’t appear to be a 5 day for the price of 3 ticket discount on the horizon this summer.

For those of you planning a trip, here is a quick video that will make the days drag by. If you have no plans on visiting Disneyland in the next few months, enjoy a little Disney magic anyway.