Photo by PapaPaolo
I’m sure most of us have closets full of toys that our kids barely touch. Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of those toys to make room for the new Christmas and Hanukkah hauls that are about to descend on your poor, unprepared toy chests?

At the Mommy Poppins Toy Swap/Drive you can unload all the gently-used toys you want to get rid of and pick up some of the toys others are getting rid of. Maybe you’ll even score something suitable for under the tree this year.

This event would be free except that to get in you have to bring a new, unwrapped present to donate to our charity toy drive. It’s really a win-win-win situation. Purge, Splurge and Donate. All the swap items that aren’t taken by someone will also be donated to charity.

The Holiday Toy Swap/Drive would be held in Tribeca on Sunday, December 2nd.

In order to do this I need to know how many people would be coming, so I’ve set up a poll to let people vote. It’s right over there in yellow in the sidebar. If you are interested in this event please vote. If I don’t get enough responses I won’t do it.

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I can’t believe Mommy Poppins is coming up on its first birthday. And, like the overbearing mother that I am, I’m already thinking about all the things I can change to make my baby even better than it is.Toward the end of the year we’re planning a complete overhaul of this site with a new design (see a sneak peak of the new look in this image) and improved features. And you can help shape the improvements we’ll be making by giving us some input.Make your voice heard by taking the Mommy Poppins reader survey. Tell us what you love, what you don’t, what you’d like to see more or less of. What are your ideas for the site? We want to hear them all. We want to hear as much of your brutally honest feedback as we can get so we can make this site more of what you want it to be.For more info and September Hot Posts Read more »

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You don’t have to try to fool your kids into eating food that’s good for them. You just have to slightly more clever than they are. That’s where these five handy food hacks come in. Just little tricks that will help you get more vegetable matter into those little mouths. Read more »

Filed under: Eating, Parenting Advice | 6 Comments »

Way back in June the New York Times published what may have been the least helpful guide to making family meals I have ever read. It was something to the effect that mom should spend her weekends organizing and shopping and cooking meatloaves and roasts and other boring, but noncontroversial food. The real kicker was that even with this so called plan, the author recommended eating out towards the end of the week cause you deserve a break.

Nobody needs help figuring out how to spend their weekend cooking or how to order take-out. We need ideas that keep us from having to do that. Good thing I’m a very busy person because by the time I got around to calling to cancel my subscription it was the next week and they had the most glorious article entitled 101 Simple Meals in 10 Minutes or Less. Now that’s my idea of a family meal plan—beautiful, easy, delicious and healthy meals you can whip up when you walk in the door and feel like the SuperMom or Dad that you are.

Now, I know there are many kids out there who are not going to eat half the recipes in this article, but there are certainly enough recipes in the other half to give you a nice variety, especially if a little creative recipe tweaking were to go on. But just for kicks let’s see how many of our own simple 10 minute recipes we can come up with that are truly kid friendly.*

So here we go. The Mommy Poppins Kid-Approved Simple Dinners 10 Minute Recipe List: Read more »

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Fall is a great time for a fresh start. With the beginning of a new school year we try to get our acts together and get organized around planning simple dinners and easy lunches. We’ve got to organize all the various family members’ schedules. It gets the us A types very excited.

While we’re fantasizing about planning weekly menus, getting organized about keeping the cupboards stocked and all that, the cooler weather is also inspiring us to start thinking about cooking. So for the next week or so we’re going to be focusing on food here. We’re planning lots of tips for easy meals, simple meal planning and food shopping, plus hopefully a fun food excursion or two that kids will love. We’ll have some expert kid food tips, great meal resources and a fun surprise or two. So stay tuned.

Can’t wait to get jump in? I think some of this sites best posts have been published in the Eating category. Check them out.

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Running around and exploring New York is great, but sometimes with kids and toddlers on the scene you’d rather just explore the city from the comfort of your desk chair. This post is a collection of sites that take you to great off the beaten track places around NYC without ever getting off your…laptop.

Whether you use it as a little fantasy armchair exploring or to plan real excursions to tote the kids on, either way you’ll get a cool reminder of all the nooks and crannies that make New York City amazing and endlessly fun to explore. Read more »

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One of the freaky things about having kids is that you’ll be tooling along in your life when, WHAMM!, they’ll say or do something that just knocks your socks off and makes everything stop. If you’re lucky, you’re not too self-obsessed with blogging or reading headlines on I Can Has Cheezburger to notice and you do stop and appreciate the moment and figure out what’s really going on in those little brains. This happened to me this weekend.

While I was very busy in the front of the car doing something important like thinking of soup taglines, a little voice chirped up from the back seat. It said something like this:

“You know, I really understand why J is having such a hard time being four. Because I remember when I was four and I had to grow up a lot and go to big kid school and do a lot of stuff for myself and J was just born so he was a baby and got to have everything done for him and I was jealous and it was hard.”

OK so her grammar was probably better than my recounting of it, but that was the gist of it. Read more »

Filed under: Family Life, Parenting Advice | 2 Comments »

In the series NYC Nanny 101: The finding and care of your nanny Parts 1 and 2 I’ve tried to lay out some basic tips on finding a caregiver in New York, the interview and salaries. But there are lots of different perspectives on this issue. And some of them will make you wet your pants. Enjoy: Read more »

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I should never admit this, but when I was younger I kind of liked the idea of being a soccer mom. The image of popping my athletic kids into a station wagon and driving them around our little town to their various activities seem kind of nice. It does make the suburbs sound kind of appealing to think about little leagues and soccer games and all of that. But I don’t think I could have really done it. It’s just not in my DNA code. Luckily you can have all that team sport goodness right here in NYC—no car or mommy jeans necessary. Read more »

Filed under: Activities, Classes, New York, Sports | 2 Comments »

Mommy Poppins reader, Robin, says she’s found a few nannies to interview through other nannies, friends and craigslist (just as we suggested in part 1 of this series)…but, now what! As Robin plainly puts it, “My husband and I agree on one thing—we have no idea what we are doing.”

So you’ve gotten some names, what next? How do you conduct a nanny interview?: What questions do you ask? How much should you offer to pay? What are you forgetting? In part two of our series on the finding and care of your nanny we will answer these and other pressing questions. Read more »

Filed under: Childcare, New York | 3 Comments »