I remember when our eldest was born, I was absolutely overwhelmed by what THINGS we needed. What one friend would tell me absolutely made all of the difference in her parenting world another would tell me was just a waste of money. How was I to know? As a new parent, without a huge yen to shop for pretty much anything, I didn’t have enough experience with babies or little kids to know one way or the other. I soon learned two things: 1) there is actually very little stuff you actually need in order to be a successful parent, and 2) every phase in parenting has turned into the same do-I-really-need-to-buy-all-that situation.
There are a few things that I have found that I love to use that either support me in my parenting endeavors OR in my ever-morphing self care. Yes, many of these are all Amazon links; no, I don’t get perks from sharing these with you.
What works best for quality connections is getting off the screens. What works best to get off the screens is anything that gets us into the yard or playing games. These are three of our favorites. Sure, you might need a bit of skill with the disc throwing but luck is the primary asset needed.
I am not a huge fan of spending hours cleaning the house. If I can find tools that make life a little easier while getting the house clean, I am all for it! This mop is awesome: no bucket to lug around, easy to launder once you’ve cleaned and it has the little scrubby tool for corners and edges. Plus, it is novel enough with the squirting and ease of use that the kids actually don’t mind helping with the floors when they get to use it.
We love to bake. We love to bake cookies, cakes, breads …. Love it. The one tool I reach for over and over is my plastic bench scraper. For dough, sure, but also great for getting cookies off a hot pan, moving a cake round to a platter, scraping off the counter after making pepperoni rolls or pretzels, smoothing icing or frosting, and more.
I’m rather late jumping on the Instapot bandwagon, but there is something to be said about the speed with which you can use this tool to make a healthy meal (yay, beans!) or various other sides.
I also do love the airfryer but mostly as a way to get juicy chicken on the table.
I love my multicooker, too, and use it very often. Again, awesome for beans, awesome for chicken, awesome for those days when you know you’ll have a minute in the morning and then not even a second to spare for the rest of the day. Sure, you can order in, but if you make it yourself, it’ll be that much tastier.
These kitchen appliances are not inexpensive, I know, but they also help abbreviate your time in the kitchen while still allowing for amazing nutritious foods.
I often say for us all to spend less time on our screens. But. One of my new favorite things is listening to audiobooks. Best way to do this is with a Bluetooth earbud: you can park your phone/device someplace safe and then still do what you need to do with the earbud in. These are my current favorite. They work great for workouts, too.
We just got new Kindle Paperwhites for the family. While I do love love love reading an actual paper book, the convenience of reading on a kindle can’t be ignored.
These are kind of random suggestions, I know. Are they really parenting tools? Sort of. Sometimes a parenting tool is not so much specific to parenting, per se, but rather a way to save a minute or three that you would otherwise invest in doing a task, and instead, invest it in a quality minute with your kiddos.