Big Brother Present

As I've been getting ready for our baby girl I've been preparing the house and the boys for being taken care of by church family while Colin and I are at the hospital.

One of the ideas I had was to wrap a present for the boys and put it out ahead of time and tell them they can open it when Mommy and Daddy go to the hospital.

I didn't want to spend a ton of money, but I wanted it to be a cool enough present that they would be distracted by it while we were away from them for a very short while.

As you know from my previous post, my boys love GeoTrax. I was able to to find THREE tunnels/bridges for the price of one on ebay the other day. I plan on giving one of them as a future present to their cousin in Iowa who shares the same passion for trains, but these two are wrapped and waiting for the day I go to the hospital to give birth to our little girl.




I really want to celebrate the life of our new little girl, but I also want to celebrate this new phase in the boys' life. Micah becoming a big brother for the very first time and Jackson taking another sibling under his wing.





Colin and I have been stressing the importance of their roles as big brothers to take care of their little sister. They are the princes and she is the princess. I believe they are up for the challenge and I can't wait to see what that looks like in reality.

Motion Sickness

Colin had it when he was a boy and I still have it and it seems like the day Jackson turned 3 years old he inherited it too. MOTION SICKNESS! Here are a few things that have worked for us when it comes to motion sickness in the car:

1. Always keep a large cup in the car. It's even better if it has a lid just in case you have no place to stop and rinse it out once it's been "used."

2. Cover the window adjacent to the child's seat with a thick blanket to block out any motion in their peripheral. We've found that by putting Jackson behind the driver's seat we can tuck the blanket in such a way that the driver can still see out of his blind spot.

3. Just recently we got Jackson a Leapster2 to play while we travel and bought kid friendly ear phones like the ones pictured here to go with them and that seems to have made a HUGE difference. I'm not exactly sure why, but it did.

4. I always keep a pack of gum and a few extra munchies in my purse when we travel. I know a full tummy helps my motion sickness, so I figured it'd help him too.

5. Now that Jackson is old enough he can tell us when he is starting to feel motion sickness and we can tell him to close his eyes until he feels better. Colin will also crack the windows for a few minutes for fresh air and that seems to help too. We've avoided having to use "the cup" several times this way.

Those are the things that have worked for us. I'd love to hear solutions from others whose kids struggle with motion sickness.