Handy Family Tips: Bathroom Art

Children are very artistic and love to draw. The problem is that they seem to love drawing on the walls. I am not sure if you have ever tried it, but it is much more fun than drawing on a piece of paper. Do you remember the times when you were younger, when you went to the teachers’ blackboard (yes, it was black back then) and tried to write on it? For some, this was the highlight of the day. Teachers know how exciting it is for students to write on the board and they try (well, those who understand and are not control freaks) to give them opportunities to do it.

Drawing on a piece of paper requires fine motor skills (delicate use of fingers) while drawing on the walls has a different feeling altogether and requires gross motor skills. The problem kids have with drawing on the walls is that this fun activity is usually accompanied by the pain of anger and disappointment from frustrated parents or teachers who prefer their wall or board clean and ready to use.

The simplest solution at home is to buy a big whiteboard and position it at a height that will allow kids to use it as much as possible. I have discovered that this is a great solution for kids who continue to practice their graffiti skills, no matter what you tell them (sometimes with permanent markers).

This post is part 16 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: How to Peel Avocado

I love avocado. Always have. And I am very happy that my kids love avocado as well. I love avocado, but do you know what I do not like? Waste, clutter and buying products that only fit one specific purpose (well, that is a kind of waste).

A few weeks ago, I spent a week running workshops at a conference in the north of the country. The conference organizers booked for me into a serviced apartment, because they thought I would be more comfortable making my own food. Since I worked most of the day, I hardly had time to cook for myself, but in the evening and at night, when I felt hungry, I could make myself simple, yet tasty, things to eat.

When I checked what was in the apartment’s kitchen drawers and the cupboards, it hit me that everything was so organized. I compared it to my own kitchen cupboards and drawers. Ouch! That hurt!

No, they did not have all the utensils I had at home, but I could manage with everything just fine.

This post is part 15 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Make a Note

When I took a course in journalism, one of the tips in the course was to have a writing pad everywhere. Since I am a very good student, I did whatever they said. I had a writing pad in the car, in all my bags and even next to my bed. It is funny that only after you use a handy tip for a while, you realize how much you need it. Originally, this tip was meant to help me with my work, and it did, but I never thought it would be so beneficial for us as a family until I realized that the note pads I had put in so many places around the house were being used by all the members of my family.

With the very hectic and full lifestyle that we have today, remembering everything that needs to be done occupies a very important and limited space in our memory. If you ask parents to sit down and write the entire to-do list for the week, most of them could do it for 3 hours straight.

Of course, the more kids you have at home, the more memory space you need for your timetable and tasks. You need to remember the dates of rehearsals, what to bring to school, when to pay for the dance class, to call your sister, say happy birthday to your friend, coordinate an outing with your partner, get a babysitter, have enough money in your wallet/purse when you go to the market, to buy a gift for the party your daughter is invited to on the weekend, go over the spelling with your child before the exam, send the right uniform on the excursion day, change the pickup time, dentist appointment, add turmeric to the shopping list for the Moroccan dish planned for Friday and … the list is endless.

We have a good friend that says, “The opposite of forgetting is writing down”, but what happens when you need to remember something while you are driving or when you are in bed, ready to go to sleep?

This post is part 13 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Topsy Turvy World (3)

US gun ownership vs. gun deaths by state

As with the other posts in this series, the points below show that in life, there is no gain without a loss and no loss without a gain. Life is just wonderful that way.

Some of the points were inspired by Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, a high recommended book Ronit and I have been reading and discussing lately. Other points were just inspired by life.

Should police be armed better or will this lead to more violence?

Should possible offenders be chased down and captured or will this lead to unnecessary damage?

Do you really know why? What would happen if you had to explain yourself?

Is it better to be safe or does being safe sometimes make you sorry?

Do social media sites help us make friends or lose the ones we already have?

This post is part 3 of 4 in the series Topsy Turvy World

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Handy Family Tips: Electric toothbrush

Yes, the toothbrush does a great job.

Yes, the ability to change brush heads is a great idea.

Yes, the family pack is a great idea.

Yes, a single charger for two motors is excellent.

Yes, having 4 little compartments to hold 4 brush heads is awesome.

But…

What is that silly idea with the colorful rings at the bottom? When the heads are inside the container, how can you tell if this is your brush or belongs to your partner or child?

This post is part 12 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Glass jars

In the last few years, I discovered that glass containers were cheaper than plastic or metal ones. If I buy tomato paste in a glass jar, it costs almost half the price of buying it in tubes, sachets or sealed plastic tubs, so I decided to start recycling glass the way I had recycled plastic. It is even easier to remove the labels from glass containers, because they can stand heat and I they are dishwasher safe.

So I wash them, take the label off and use them to store things in my cupboards. One clear advantage of glass containers is that you can easily see what is inside them.

If you buy the same product regularly, after a short time, you can have a whole set of glass jars. For example, we use one kind of mayonnaise, so now our cupboard jars look like a set.

Basically, everything I buy in a large quantity, I transfer to a glass jar, because it is easier to manage. When I buy a bag of something, as soon as I open it, I transfer it to a glass container – I like to see in the container and it saves me having to deal with many bags and clips.

This post is part 9 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Treasure box

In most home, space is a very limited resource. We all wish our house was half empty with only what we need. Every time our family moves (and I have moved 27 times already), we discover how much we have accumulated. 17 years ago, Gal and I moved to another country with 3 suitcases, 2 boxes and a little girl. Today, we would probably need a 40-foot high-cube container.

Accumulating things is part of life. We accumulate things because we think we might use them (later) or because they have some sentimental value. Just a while ago, I wrote about how hard it is to get rid of kids’ artwork to clear valuable space for new creations. Taking digital photos of many of our things can be one solution to saving space, but there are always things that we cannot throw away as parents, or that our kids, partners or other family members need to decide what to do with them.

When I was 16, I made myself a treasure box and put all my treasures in it – cards I had received from people, special show tickets, photos and awards I had won. Having that box, which I made out of a shoebox, was a great way for me to monitor what I was keeping and what I was not. The space in the box was limited, so I could not keep everything.

This post is part 8 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Smelly bins

I hate it when we are ready to take the rubbish bin outside and it drips. Yuck! I remember when we lived in the USA and there were garbage disposers (insinkerators) everywhere, I never had that problem. Oh, how I loved it. Without the garbage disposer, I have a feeling our home is a garbage production facility, exactly like the animals thought in the movie “The Hedge”. We have so much trash it is not funny.

Rubbish is not something people talk about much, but in a business course, the instructor once asked us what would happen if for one week, one week only, the cleaners (or garbage collectors) did not come to work?

It is different when we talk about a family, but in a sense, a family is like a small business, so what happens if one day, the cleaners do not show up for work or when the bin is overloaded?

Smelly bins are something I really hate and over the years, I have tried many things to overcome the smell.

This post is part 7 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Keys

I do not know why, but I have always had a problem with keys (not with the keys themselves but with keeping them). When I was a kid, my parents worked so much that when I came home from school, I had to use my own keys to get in. My siblings (I have 4) and I never had a good way of keeping our keys and most of the days, we would count on one of the others to open the door for us or used the spare key at our neighbors’ house.

Some people hid their keys under their welcome mat so their kids could enter the house while they worked long hours, but that was not really hiding at all, since all the kids in the neighborhood could find them easily.

The only thing on my mind was how expensive it was to make a new set of keys and the hassle my parents had to go through to get me new keys (not to mention the look on their faces saying I have failed them).

Never in my childhood did my parents or anyone else teach me how to make sure I could always find my keys. As a kid, I need that as part of life. As a teacher, I find it alarming that kids are not being taught how to be organized with their possessions (among oh, so many other useful skills).

This post is part 6 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Handy Family Tips: Kids’ Artwork

Sooner or later, every parent faces this dilemma: what to do with the kids’ drawing or art creation? When I had an early childhood center, I ran workshops for parents to explain how important it is to keep a record of their children’s development. If you have more than one child, you know that we forget.

This is a lot like taking photos of the first child, but not as many of the second and only capturing the third child on special occasions (I do not even envy those with more than 3 kids). Keeping a record of our children’s progress and development gets harder with every child.

In all the early childhood centers I have managed and directed, I used to send home all the kids’ artwork every week and record it. I created a folder with the kids where their parents could keep all their work to make sure it does not get lost. But the folder filled up so quickly that after a very short time, they had to clear it to allow more room for new artwork.

So how can all this artwork be kept without overflowing?

This post is part 5 of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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