TGIF

Fridays always feel good to most people. Maybe it's because we know it is the end of the work week and that two days of freedom lie ahead of us. Well, most of us, anyways. Even without having to go to work, weekends are still work for parents, especially parents with little ones, but I always look forward to Fridays. Fridays have a mellow feel and for me I know my husband will be home earlier than normal which is always nice and the weekends usually involve alittle bit of a break for me in some way-a night of takeout and no cooking, getting to sleep-in just once, or a self-indulgent pedicure without a baby boy in tow.

To help spread my joy for Fridays to others, I have decided to designate Fridays as Tips and Good Information Fridays (TGIF). At the end of the week I will wrap things up by sharing some of the helpful tips or good information that I have learned throughout the prior week.

For example, this week I learned that baby powder takes sand right off of little bodies. How great is that? I now keep a bottle of baby powder on my back porch so that when my son and I get back from the beach (we live on a lake and there is a beach a block from our house) I just dump the baby powder on his feet and brush him off. It's a lot better than trying to hose him off and then having to deal with him being all wet and soggy.

Another fabulous tip that I learned this week is that dryer sheets are mosquito deterrents. Place a dryer sheet in your pocket before going to the park or heading out to that BBQ and the mosquitoes will be repelled by you. I especially like this one now because we all know how yummy pregnant ladies taste to mosquitoes and frankly the stench of the bug spray is too much for me. This method smells better and is cleaner in my opinion, plus you can use it to keep the mosquitoes away from your infants who you definitely want to avoid spraying with OFF. Just tuck a dryer sheet under the liner in their car seat and they should be bug free at the park as well.

I hope that you find these tips helpful and begin to look forward to Fridays so that you can learn new tidbits of info each and every week. Let me know what tips you like (or don't like) and why.

I will try to mix them up so that some relate to kids, some relate to the house, and some focus on you. All of them are offered as part of the Mom Machine's ongoing effort to share: motivation, education, and preparation methods with other parents and caregivers trying to navigate the world of parenthood.

Have a great weekend!