leaving the house with young children: 5 ways to help it go smoothly and avoid meltdowns

One of the biggest comments I get when I leave the house with my toddler and the twins is, "I can't believe you're out and about with all three kids and no helpers!" First of all, it's so nice of people to focus on the fact that I came and graciously ignore the fact that I'm a hot mess or my babies are only wearing onesies or I definitely did not do my toddler's hair that morning.

Because here's the thing. For my sanity, I need to leave the house daily. I just do. Motherhood can be very isolating, and working from home can be very isolating, so I make a conscious effort to get out every day. I think it's good for the whole family when we get out, expand our world, talk to new people, have a change of scenery, and experience things besides our daily at-home grind of diapers and begging mom for more screen time.

Plus, at this stage of life when my children are so little, we don't have school, sports or other activities that facilitate a get-outside routine, so it's up to me to provide that structure.

But the reality is that leaving the house is often the hardest part of the day. Between packing diaper bags, changing diapers, hunting down shoes, buckling carseats, and then trying to keep everyone happy when you're out, it can feel much easier to just stay home.

Here are some things I've been doing over the past nine months (since the twins were born) that make leaving the house easier and more enjoyable for everyone.

1. SET BEHAVIOR EXPECTATIONS

This is probably the biggest thing I learned as a teacher that translates to being a mom. No matter where we're going, I set behavior expectations with my toddler. Simply put, we have a conversation about what will happen and how she's expected to behave. Even if we're just going to the grocery store, I tell her we're not buying any special snacks, and she can choose to sit in the front or the back of the cart, but she's not going to push the cart today.

When I forget to do this, there is a 100% chance of a meltdown when my daughter wants to push the cart "all by self" and inevitably straight into the flower display. Every. Single. Time. A twenty-second positive and clear chat about behavior expectations goes such a long way in avoiding meltdowns.

2. GET INTO A DAILY SCHEDULE

We have a rough schedule, and stick to it every day, and it's helped our sanity so much. That means last month when there was a blogger opportunity at 10 am just down the street from me, I said no, but it was easy to say no because I knew it was right in the middle of naptime and trying to wrangle two fussy twins who should be sleeping is not on my happy list. But when they went to lunch afterwards at 11:30, it was easy to say yes, because everyone is up and happy at 11:30.

Some moms are great at having no schedule, but for me, a schedule has helped us add structure and routine to our day, and also plan good times to leave the house when there's the highest chance all three kids will be happy.

3. ANTICIPATE NEEDS

There's a reason diaper bags are a thing (and hallelujah that diaper bags are actually cute these days). When I anticipate what the kids might need while we're out and pack it in the diaper bag, I can stay out longer because a dirty diaper or a chilly baby can be solved by a quick diaper change or pulling on a jacket. Take the few minutes required to pack an extra bottle, a favorite teething toy, and whatever else you need to keep your kids happy.

When I'm prepared and packed, little hiccups don't turn into big disasters. I can quickly find the pacifier or fish out the burp cloth without derailing the entire trip (and having to listen to a screaming child the entire way home).

4. PRETEND YOU NEED TO GET THERE 10 MINUTES EARLY

Please tell me I'm not the only one constantly surprised at how long it takes to leave the house with more than one child? I honestly tell myself it starts ten minutes early, because then when my toddler has to go potty again when we're getting in the car, or when a twin spits up everywhere and requires a quick outfit change, I can take a few minutes and still be on time (or at least not terribly late).

5. BRING SNACKS

We don't have many snacks at home, but when we're out, snacks are a huge sanity saver. I like to pull one out when my toddler is hungry, fussy for weird reasons like her left shoes itches (not her foot but her actual shoe??), or wants to go home a few minutes before it's time. We stock up on these Gerber® SmartFlow™ pouches and have at least one in the diaper bag at all times (my 10-month twins love these so much).

Gerber recently redesigned their pouches with a SmartFlow cap that prevents dribbles and messes when your kids are feeding themselves (which is a genius move, by the way). It's the best, and makes snacks and meals so much easier and less messy. Click here to see the new SmartFlow logo so you know what to look for. There's even a coupon for your local Kroger or Ahold so you can stock up for a sweet price.

HONORABLE MENTION: LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

This one sounds weird, but honestly when I lower my expectations for going out with three small children, I end up much happier. I give myself a little pep talk about how the twins might be fussy and I'll have to push them around in the stroller instead of chatting with the other moms at playgroup. That way, when they're only fussy for 5 minutes at the very end, I'm feeling really good that they lasted an entire hour instead of feeling frustrated that they're fussy.

Photos by Kylie Pond

What tips and tricks do you have for leaving the house with small children?

I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to make it easier 
and more fun for all parties involved. :)

P.S. Click here for the coupon for those pouches if you don't have it already!

best toys for one year olds (that they'll play with for years to come)

Now that the twins are nine months and mobile, I'm suddenly realizing they're in the older baby category and fast approaching their first birthday. I've started thinking about a gift or two each twin might like to celebrate the fact that we kept them alive for a year (let's be honest, parents are the real MVPs of first birthdays, am I right?).

For birthdays, we follow the minimalist present system:

Something you want
Something you need
Something to wear
Something to read

I think I already failed in the "something to wear" category. Last fall, I saw some darling 4th of July outfits on major clearance and bought them for the twins to wear around their birthday this summer. But of course I didn't take into account that one twin is still in her 6-month clothes and the other is growing into his 18-month clothes. So probably neither of their outfits will fit.

I'm determined to do better in the present category. For the past few weeks, I've been paying extra attention to the type of toys the twins like to play with, and the toys we got for my oldest when she was one that she still likes to play with two years later. I've been watching cool toys at friends' houses and the library too, and I've read a few present reviews and gift guides.

Here's a list of best toys for one-year-olds that they'll still play with when they're two and three. This list ranges from $20-$50, making it great for your child's "big toy" gift of the year.

Bead Maze
When we go to the library, there's always a kid playing with this toy. When we come home, one of my kids is always playing with this toy. When we have friends over, they always play with this toy. Plus it's fun, educational, and helps develop fine motor skills.

Drum + Instrument Kit
This one is a major hit whenever we have friends over. The main feature is a drum complete with a shoulder strap, but inside are rattles, shakers, and cymbals. All kid-friendly, all shaped like different letters of the alphabet, and all designed to make sure you go a little bit insane from the noise by nap time.

Magna-Tiles
I've read review after review after review about the cheaper off-brands of Magna Tiles, and no other brand comes close these cool magnetic tiles. We don't have these yet (it's on the birthday list for all three of my children, hint hint grandparents), but a friend has them at their house. We had two 8-month-olds, a 1 year old, a 2 year old, and a 5 year old all playing with them together (fight free!) for a long time.

Pop-Up Tunnel
We got this one for Christmas last year, and whenever we bring it out the kids go crazy over it. It folds up to store really easily, and it's big enough to be fun without being so large that it doesn't fit inside a living room on a rainy day.

Sit or Stand Learning Walker
All three of my children still play with this toy every single day. And when I say play with, what I mean is fight over. (ha) Clearly we're still learning how to share, but between the detachable play panel, the two wheel settings when learning how to walk, and the way it can zoom around the house at top speed, this toy has been used every day for two years and is still going strong.

Ride-In Car
I have never ever met a child who doesn't love these things. One year olds are too young for a tricycle, but they're just the perfect age to scoot around Flintstone-style in one of these all day long. My older child still fits in and loves these as well. It's on a major sale right now too!

Little People Farm
We love the Little People brand, and this fun farmhouse is a great place to start. Tons of imaginary play ideas, and it's not too advanced or gender-specific. Comes with a farmer and six different animals! We used to have one at our local library, and it was literally always being played with.

Honorable mention: popper vacuum
All kids love these. It's the most coveted toy at my child's church nursery. Lots of toys on this list make noise, but for some reason I just can't stand the noise of these popper toys at my house. But if you have more patience than I do, this one is so great at soon as your little one starts walking.

P.S. If you're stuck in the "something to read" category, here's a list of favorite rhyming board books.

What would you add?

What are the toys your one-year-old plays with every day?

The Memories Captured Project: leading lines and where to find them in your neighborhood

Welcome to the Memories Captured Project, a series designed to help parents take beautiful pictures of their children. See more in the series here.

Today's post was lots of fun to write, and it applies not just to parents, but to everyone who wants to take better pictures. The subject? Leading lines.

Leading lines are lines within a picture that naturally draw the viewer's eye to the subject. Leading lines are one of the major compositional tools photographers use.

Take for example this little snapshot of my toddler at a picnic area:

Here are all the leading lines found in the photo:

Do you see how many elements of the table and seats draw your eye to the subject?

Leading lines can be either found in nature or found from the architecture of your setting, and are emphasized by strategic placement of your subject.

Here are a few pictures I snapped of my toddler in our neighborhood last week. They were snapped in the hour before bedtime, with my crazy toddler and my twins in the stroller, just around our house. But hey, if I can find leading lines without even trying, imagine how much easier it will be to find great leading lines when you have no other distractions and are purposefully focused on your goal.

Another example:

This is a little snapshot I took of my youngest daughter crawling last week. Do you see any leading lines?

Even the grains and grooves in the hardwood floor help draw the eye upward toward the subject.

The great news is that leading lines are everywhere. Everywhere! In the middle of nature, in the middle of a city, inside your own home.

Here are a few good places to find leading lines in your own neighborhood.

+ roads
+ sidewalks
+ pathways and walkways
+ stairs
+ playgrounds
+ fences
+ anything with multiple iterations in a row
+ shadows, clouds, or light bursts

A great place to start within your own home is your couch. If you take a picture of your child sitting on a couch from a straight-on angle, there's not many strong leading lines. But if you scoot your child to the side of the couch, and then take the picture from the opposite side, you'll find leading lines going straight to your subject. Then head outside and crouch down to take a picture of the sidewalk. See all the lines drawing your eye down the sidewalk to infinity and beyond?

Two examples of leading lines in rural settings:

The good thing is that, once you're thinking about leading lines, they are absolutely everywhere, and easy to find. It's a fun and easy way to really improve your composition and make your photographs more visually appealing.

And now I want to go out again, sans kids, for a fun leading lines shoot. Anyone want to come?

Does this help introduce leading lines?

I'd love to see your favorite leading lines pictures!

fun toy Easter basket stuffers for toddlers

Honestly, at our house, we skip right over many holidays when it comes to celebrating with the kids. The kids went to bed at the regular time for New Year's. Valentine's Day might mean a few heart-shaped decorations and one fun family dinner, but mostly it means a babysitter for them while mom and dad get a date night. My children literally don't know what St Patrick's Day is yet (don't I sound like the most fun mom ever?).

But Easter? Hey, we actually do something with the kids for Easter! Easter is a thing at our house. We love to get fun spring outfits, do an Easter egg hunt, and give everyone an Easter basket.

On Saturday I went shopping for a few things for Claire's Easter basket. Which basically meant Cadbury mini eggs that we can only hope I have the self-control to not open before it's time to put together her Easter basket.

I realized I wanted something for her basket to offset all the chocolate. There was a little $2 bin at the store, but honestly the toys in there looked like they'd be broken even before the Cadbury mini eggs were gone.

So I searched Amazon when I got home, and wow, I didn't know there were pages and pages of awesome Easter basket stuffers. Here is a list of a few of my favorite Easter basket stuffers for young kids.

These are all under $10, small enough to fit in an Easter basket, will last way longer than anything in the cheap bin at the store, and are educational and fun to boot. Oh, and also they're all on Amazon Prime so you can buy today and have it show up on your door two days later, just in time to pack those Easter baskets. (If you don't have Amazon Prime, you can get a free trial here to get the free 2-day shipping.)

4 puzzles in a box: We purchased this set about a month ago, and they have been so fantastic in teaching Claire how puzzles work. The easiest puzzle is only two pieces and the largest is eight pieces. The pieces are nice and big, easy to hold and manipulate, and brightly colored.

Tangle Jr Fidget Toy: AKA the How to Keep Your Kid Quiet in Church toy. It's even fun for me to twist and turn these little toys and make fun shapes.

Light-up Spike Ball: Really, to make a kid's day, all you have to say is "light up" or "bouncy ball." Luckily, this is both of those things. This listing comes with a few, so each kid gets one and you can have an extra in case the dog think it's his toy.

Bubbles: We've been needing to replenish our bubble supply, and an Easter basket seems like the perfect opportunity. The bottles are small enough that they fit most Easter eggs, and this listing comes with 24 bottles (hello birthday party favors!).

Bathtub Crayon: A fun crayon with six different sides and colors for the bathtub. UPDATE: When I first made the post, it was on sale. The sale has now ended, which makes this product actually a little over $10, sorry. It still looks cool though.

Bookmark Timer: This one is for all the school-aged kids. It's a bookmark with a little built-in timer/stopwatch so kids can track their reading time. I would have killed for a few of these in my classroom when I was a teacher.

Play-Doh: The classic. Who wouldn't like some fresh, new, not yet dried and crusty colors in their Easter basket? We are down to one or two lone Play-Doh colors that are still malleable, so we need to restock. And 10 colors for $7 is pretty darn good.

Liquid Motion Bubbler: I remember getting to hold one of these at the dentist when I was getting a fluoride treatment at the dentist, and something about them is super mesmerizing.

Hair Chalk: Another fun one for the older kids - and hey, maybe the adults too. This hair chalk is bright, fun, easy to put on, and not permanent. It would also make the perfect birthday party favor.

Doodle Pro: We LOVE this. Claire will play with this forever, and loves how you can swipe away the drawing any time you want. We also use it for learning time, and it's the perfect car trip toy too.




Hope you like these as much as I do! If you buy today, they'll be at your doorstep by Wednesday so they can go straight into the kids' Easter baskets and you don't have to make another trip to the store. Happy shopping!

Do you do an Easter basket?

What do you put in it?

Any more good fun + educational stuffer ideas?

Contains affiliate links.

baby-led weaning: how we never bought or made baby food

When my oldest was six months old, I hadn't done much research on feeding babies, so I did what I kind of assumed you were supposed to do: baby oatmeal cereal added into formula or breastmilk, and then months and months of store-bought (and a few homemade) purees. And every single time I fed my baby, I thought, "This is so gross."

Have you ever tried baby food? Never. Taste. Them. (Although my baby was used to drinking formula, so I guess anything's an upgrade from that.) Plus they're super processed, they're not like real food humans eat, they are dang expensive, and they don't teach your baby what real food feels or tastes like. But I thought it was just what you had to do, so I did it.

Then, when my baby was nine months old, I heard about baby-led weaning, and since the day I researched it, two more kids later, I have yet to buy another puree, puff or yogurt melt.

If traditional pureed baby food is what works for you and your baby, absolutely go for it. But here's what has been a much better fit for our family.

B A B Y - L E D   W E A N I N G

In a phrase, baby-led weaning is all about babies feeding themselves real food.

Instead of buying or making pureed foods, give them real foods. Instead of spooning bites into their mouth, put the food on the tray and let them feed themselves. It's that simple.

When I first heard about baby-led weaning, I was feeding my daughter a tupperware full of sweet potato puree with one hand while also scrolling through a friend's blog post about this "babies feed themselves" crazy talk. I put down the phone and opened the fridge to see what I could experiment with. I found an avocado, cut a big slice, and put the whole slice on her tray. You guys, she was SO happy, and the entire thing disappeared in about 30 seconds flat. (In fact, she ate it so quickly I was convinced she was choking.) (She wasn't.) The next food I introduced was a third of a banana, and then a steamed baby carrot.

With my younger babies, I've been doing the same thing. We start with avocado, and then gradually increase to other foods, and all three of my babies have been quite enthusiastic. They all got into it at slightly different ages, but once they were interested in real food (aka once they started dive bombing for whatever food I was eating), they've all done great.

THE PROS:

+ Your child gets exposed to more fresh fruits and vegetables and less processed food.

+ Your child gets used to different textures and flavors early, and lots of studies have suggested this makes them less picky eaters.

+ It's much cheaper because you don't have to buy baby food.

+ The prep time is practically nothing because you don't have to make baby food; your child literally just eats what you're already eating.

+ Your child learns better hand/eye coordination and fine motor "pincer grasp" control.

+ Eating becomes something your whole family does together. There's no kid food vs adult food, there's just food.

+ It's easier to go places, because you don't have to pack up special food for the baby in addition to whatever you're already bringing or buying for yourself.

THE CONS:

+ Your baby will sometimes gag when they're just starting. Gagging is different from choking, and babies actually gag as a way to move food around in their mouth. It's totally fine and normal, and gagging is what helps their gag reflex develop normally. Obviously you have to be watching your children when they eat no matter what, and I don't give large whole grapes, or any other food that's a choking hazard in the beginning.

+ Usually, with baby-led weaning, you start at around 6 months old, when your baby is better at sitting up unassisted and picking things up by themselves. Sometimes, with purees, you can start as early as 4 months, so if you're super anxious to have your kitchen be a disaster every time the baby eats, I guess it's a con that you have to wait a month or two. (I get it, as an excited new parent it's sometimes hard to wait for the next milestone.)

+ It is MESSY in the beginning. Brace yourself that at least 50% of the food will end up on the floor or smushed into your baby's hair in the beginning. But I promise it gets a lot better very quickly; these babies really do pick up this whole "eating real food" thing faster than you'd think.

GOOD FOODS TO START: (anything 2-3 inches long and fairly soft is great to start)

+ fresh vegetables: avocado, peeled cucumber
+ fresh fruits: banana, strawberries, apple, pear, mango
+ steamed vegetables: carrots, sweet potato, broccoli, green beans, zucchini
+ protein/ dairy: scrambled eggs, black beans, turkey, chicken
+ puree-like real foods: applesauce, yogurt (I'll sometimes break my own rule and spoon feed these to my babies to avoid a mess)
+ grains: crackers, whole-grain cereal, veggie straws, bread, pasta

The other day we were FaceTiming with some family during dinner, and they were like, "AH! Addison got her hands on a a huge thing of broccoli! Help her!" It was a nice, soft piece I purposely picked out from our meal to give to her. I explained she's eaten broccoli before, and then naturally we spent the next five minutes watching her gnaw on it and grin and drool green drool everywhere until the whole thing was gone. (Family: the only people who are remotely interested in watching your daughter eat broccoli.) 

See the baby-led weaning website here, or just google for more people's experiences and ideas of first foods. We love these cover-all bibs and also these easy-wipedown silicon bibs to help contain the mess. Everyone alive recommends these super cheap IKEA high chairs (which sadly are permanently out of stock at my local IKEA), so we have these ones that attach to a chair instead. They're also cheap, and I love that the tray can go straight into the dishwasher.

PIN FOR LATER:

That's been our family's experience with baby-led weaning.
Easy, cheap, no prep, and everyone eats together as a family.

Any other fans of baby-led weaning out there?

my favorite trick to keep flowers fresh longer

Technically, flowers have an extremely low return on investment. I mean, you buy them, they sit on your table for a week, they die, and that's it. Right? But for some reason fresh flowers make me so happy. They brighten up the room and bring a little bit of outdoor cheer inside.

I used to think having a vase of fresh flowers on my table habitually was a habit for people with much more expendable income than I. But my friends convinced me that spending a few dollars for my happiness/ mental health was worth it.

I also found a killer trick that helps flowers stay fresh for two and a half to three weeks. And I don't mean high-end, expensive, still-budding flowers either. I usually buy a $5 bouquet from the cheapest flower tin at my grocery store.

First, I cut off all the leaves and and thorns that are below the top of the vase. This isn't news to anybody, but if a leaf gets submerged it will rot and mold and make your entire bouquet go bad quickly. I do a thorough trimming of everything below the top of the vase.

I also make sure to trim the end of each flower. Sometimes I'll run the ends of the flowers in hot water for 30 seconds because this is supposed to open up the water absorption passages in the stem.

But my main trick? I use Sprite instead of water. Sprite (or 7-Up) has citric acid, sugar, and water in it. The water is the main food source, the citric acid helps flowers absorb a lot of liquid, and the sugar acts as food. I have tiny bottles of Sprite in my pantry, and every three weeks when I get a new bouquet I open one bottle and pour it in. If I need more liquid I'll just add extra water. (Diet Sprite won't work because it has no sugar.)

It's worked like a charm for six months now, and I have yet to get tired of fresh flowers on my table throughout the day.

I've also heard putting the flowers in your fridge overnight helps keep them fresh for about an extra five days, but I always forget to try it out. If you are more diligent than I, try it and let me know.

The Memories Captured Project: how to get your baby to smile for the camera

Welcome to the Memories Captured Project, a series designed to help parents take beautiful pictures of their children. See more in the series here.

Today's post is all about those baby smiles. The question I get most often is how I find good light in my home (see the answer here!), but the second most frequent question is how I get my kids to smile for the camera so often. 

First of all, baby personalities do have something to do with it. My oldest was probably the most smiley baby on the planet. And of my twins, one is way more likely to smile at you, while you have to really earn a smile from the other one. 

That being said, I'm happy to share what I do to get my babies (and my photography clients) to give a big gummy heart-melting smile for the camera.

HAVE A SECOND PERSON HELP YOU

This is my trump card and number one tip! Babies are social creatures, and they're way more likely to smile when somebody else is there to say "Hi!" and "Boo!" and make ridiculous silly noises. Babies are much more likely to smile for a familiar face than a strange clicking camera. In the picture below, my toddler was standing right next to me making the babies smile.

PRIME THE CONDITIONS

Babies don't understand that if they smile for ten minutes, THEN they'll get fed. I like to take pictures when babies are the happiest - usually in the mornings, after a nap and a big meal. This picture was taken right after my daughter woke up from her morning nap, during the five minutes when she's just happy to be alive and doesn't realize she's hungry. Find what works for your baby and prime the conditions.

I was recently at a wedding and the photographer offered to take a snapshot of my family after the big group pictures were over. Honestly I told her no thank you, because we had a baby who had missed her nap for the wedding and was about thirty seconds from a breakdown. I knew if we tried to get smiles out of her it would only end in tears from the baby and stressed out faces on the parents. 


DON'T USE TOYS OR LOUD NOISES

If you're photographing a toddler, toys are a huge hit (especially toys you can whack yourself in the head with). But in my experience, if you pull out a toy mid-photoshoot, the baby will just get distracted and want to reach out to grab and drool on the toy. The exception: I once had great luck hiding behind a teddy bear and playing peek-a-boo with the baby I was photographing.

GET IN THE PICTURE

First of all, I say this because I absolutely cherish the three pictures I have of my mom and me together, and I so wish she had been in the frame with me more before she died. Please, parents, do yourself and your children a huge favor. Get out from behind that camera and into the frame with your children.

On a more practical note, babies are happy when they're being held and played with, so holding your baby + tickling them + swinging them in the air is a great way to get them to produce huge authentic smiles for the camera. 

BE PATIENT

All babies have off days. On some days, for whatever reason, babies are more tired and fussy and don't want to smile for anyone, much less the camera! I know some photography studios that will book a two-hour block for a half-hour newborn shoot, so you have some flexibility if your baby needs one more feeding in order to be happy. At-home photo shoots are much more flexible, so if your baby is not feeling it, try again later!

THE BEST PICTURES AREN'T ALWAYS CLASSICAL SMILING PICTURES

Some of my all-time favorite pictures of my children don't involve them smiling at the camera. Capture their tiny toes, their wide-eyed curious face, the little pout they make when they want to be picked up. You don't need a smile to call it a perfect photo. Exhibit A: my twins holding hands in this detail shot.

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY PICTURES

Unless you're shooting on expensive film or have a super old 4GB phone, there is no such thing as too many pictures! In the picture below, I had basically given up on getting a smiling picture. The twins were NOT having it that day. So I let them roll around for a bit, and then they rolled themselves together like this (I just had to adjust my daughter's head a bit) and gave me these cute smiles. Even if you take 100 pictures and keep 5 from a shoot, it's worth the effort to capture those priceless memories.

Do you have any magic tips for me to add?

How do you get your babies to smile for the camera?

And what do you want to learn next?
I'm already planning a post about getting your toddlers and older kids to smile.

favorite rhyming board books (that you won't get sick of)

Today I'm back to talk about children's books again! Specifically, rhyming board books for pre-readers.

Why are rhyming books so great for babies and toddlers? A few reasons. First of all, young children really respond to rhythm. They're more likely to be engaged, involved and interested when there's a strong rhythm. Secondly, rhymes are fantastic in developing phonological awareness and language structures (a.k.a. it helps kids understand that syllables make up words, and words make up the English language). Third, rhyming/ rhythmic books are great for memorization, an intermediary step to reading. All in all, they're fantastic. And fun too!

But don't some rhyming books just drive you crazy? If the rhythm isn't great, or if you can tell it's a forced rhyme, it's hard to keep reading. And it's a law of nature that your child will fall in love with the one board book you hate the most, and request it millions of times per day.

Confession: The rhyming book I can't stand is Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? I get that it's a great book. It has rhyme, it has rhythm, it teaches colors, it teaches animals... But something that that book makes my eye start to twitch just thinking about that darn purple cat and blue horse and goldfish.

The solution? Get some of these rhyming books now and save them for your child's next birthday / holiday / potty training reward. They're short, they're fun, and they won't make you lose your mind when you have to read them 10 times in one morning. And if you have Amazon Prime like me you can stock up now (these are all under $6 currently) and get them at your door in two days. Here are our favorites:

Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! by Sandra Boynton

I can't say how much I LOVE Sandra Boynton and her board books. If you pick only one rhyming board book author to have in your home, pick her. This book is fun and funny and teaches opposites through fun rhymes. Our other two rhyming favorites are Barnyard Dance and Pajama Time.

There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr Seuss

This one's on sale for only $3.50 right now. It's such a fun way to introduce rhyming with nonsense words. It's definitely a most-requested book at our house! (But did Dr Seuss have to pick a title that prompts so many inappropriate subtitle ideas? haha) We also love Mr Brown Can Moo. Can You?

Silly Sally by Audrey Wood

This book has a fantastic rhythm and the rhymes never feel forced or manipulated the fit the structure of the book. And I die over toddlers trying to pronounce the title when they can't say their r's correctly ("Si-yee sa-yee"). Older children have fun looking closely to spot what's coming next.

RELATED: FAVORITE WORDLESS PICTURE BOOKS FOR PRE-READERS

Peek-a-Who? by Nina Laden

This series is great for very young children because it's short, there are very few words, and the pictures and colors are eye-catching. Each page has a cut-out so you can guess what's next (shown is Peek a Moo with a cow on the next page). It's fun and engaging, and makes you wonder why you weren't the one who thought of the idea and is now making millions off this simple, easy and fun rhyming series. Love the mirror on the last page too.

5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow

I almost left this one off the list because it's very repetitive and some may get sick of it. For me, the fun illustrations make up for the repetition. We had a play date last week at our house and both kids' moms said their children were obsessed with this book too. Also, it's one of the books my 2.5-year-old can read all by herself (meaning she has the whole thing memorized and will read it aloud to herself). Funny little last page too.

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw

The rhyming structure and words are fairly brilliant in this fun one. This book is requested allllll day long at my house. Sheep Out to Eat is fun too, and I've heard the other ones in this series are good, but this is the only one we own and between the relentlessly good rhyming and the fun illustrations, it's already a classic.

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What are your favorite rhyming board books?

I'm always in the market for new recommendations!

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