Okay, so you probably won’t find this book in the Survival Skills section of any bookstore, but that is just poor, misguided oversight on the part of the merchandising department.

What this book is, is a series of very simple ideas that COMPLETELY SUCK A TODDLER IN AND CONSUME THEM FOR HOURS. The ideas are so simple, I would have never guessed they’d work. But wow! Do they ever.

For example, did you have ANY IDEA that a sponge is like the most fascinating thing in the universe for a two year old? A device that they might play with for ONE FULL HOUR? Or, for DAYS ON END?

It baffles the mind, I tell you.

Within a couple nights, I read through the whole (nicely organized, I might add) book and learned volumes about what’s going on in the noggin of that kid of mine. Then I spent another night going through the book again and choosing the activities that were readily accessible with things we already had around the house. I wrote out a wish list and stuck it on a box, so when we came across items for the chosen activities we could just toss them in.

When things get a little stir-crazy around here, I just pull an activity out of my magic box and we are good to go for the rest of the day. Can I even tell you how much I feel like Mary Poppins right now? I’ve got about 20 things to do in there. So even on rapid rotation, we are set for a good, long time. Do you hear my very loud sigh of relief? Sorry about your ears.

Here is Bastien, washing rocks.
Um, thank God for people who are smarter about toddlers than I!

Whilst we were clearing out the basement to make way for Jim’s new photography studio, we were left with a couple odd stacks of paperback books. No charity wants them, but it seems so wasteful to just toss them in the recycling bin (and who am I to insult another writer like that anyway?). But then I found paperbackswap.com.

Very easy to use, you just create an account, punch in the ISBN off the back of the books you want to get rid of and viola! you have free credits with which to pick new books. Better still, they get shipped directly to you. Fun! Well, it was fun until suddenly EVERYONE wanted my books all at once and I was up packaging them all night and postage was like a million dollars (well $17 if I’m being honest). But still, it got a little hairy there for a minute.

But then the insanity subsided and I was finally able to start looking for some new books we might enjoy.

Mostly what I’ve picked out so far have been children’s books. What is so great about this is that the mail arrives right before Bastien’s nap time, which makes it extra enticing for him to get right down to the business of getting in bed to hear the new material.

Our favorite PaperBack Swap book so far is No Nap Today, a Little Golden Book written by Iris Hiskey and illustrated by Karen Dugan. It came after a week of full-on nap-rejection (ouch!) and ever since, I swear to you, naps have been seamless. To the order of, I have to wake Bastien up for fear that he will never go to sleep again that night. That is one great book I tell you.

And oddly enough, it is out of print. So you can only find it in places like PaperBack Swap anyway. And no, I’m not getting paid to tell you this. But one of these days all this hyping’s gonna pay off. I can feel it!