Board Books for Book Nerds and/or Babies

Being a parent of little ones is fun for many reasons, but one of the most selfishly fun reasons is because you are the one in control of what your children own. You buy the stuff. You can buy them whatever you want! So, when you love books, you buy them books. When you really really love books, you buy them books about books. Therefore, I present this list of Board Books for Book Nerds and/or Babies for all my fellow bookworm parent friends and for anyone looking for excellent baby shower gifts. (And, it’s totally okay to buy these for yourself instead of your kids.)

That's a nice stack of bedtime reads

***Warning: This post may make you having you saying, “Take all my money!”***

Babylit Series

If you are a fan of the classics, you have to include some (or all) of the books in the fantastic Babylit series. These board books just make my day. I love reading baby versions of Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, The Odyssey, and Edgar Allen Poe to my babies because I can. There is sure to be an adapted classic for every bookworm. Babies have brains, y’all. Start ‘em young. Ha ha ha! Truthfully, these books are fun for book-loving moms and dads, but they do incorporate baby learning by covering colors, numbers, opposites and more.

                            

      

Les Petits Fairy Tales

Oh my word, these are fun! Back when I was a teacher, I loved to show my students “60 second Shakespeare” videos. Basically, these videos condensed the plays into 60 seconds. With this board book series, you have the same thing. The classics are brightly illustrated and the story is told with one word per page. Genius! My favorite is Rapunzel because one page simply says “Scissors.” Both of my kids learned all the basic fairy tales from these fun books.

         

        

Cozy Classics

Another terrific series, Cozy Classics, also focuses on condensing popular novels into one word per page stories for little ones. The difference with this series is the illustrations are actually made up of needle-felted scenes, so the characters look more puppet-like. If you want to go ahead and introduce your 6-month-old to War & Peace, this is the series for you.

     

     

Mini Myths

If you are a fan of myths, you must purchase a few of the Mini Myths series board books for your kids. They are so clever! These books combine allusions to mythology while also teaching children lessons. How can you resist titles such as Be Patient, Pandora!, Don’t Get Lost, Odysseus! and Play Nice, Hercules! I certainly can’t, which is why I am constantly adding more to my collection.

   

   

Haiku Books

I am a huge fan of haikus. When I hear the 5-7-5 pattern, my heart goes pitter patter. Just me? Ha ha ha! Seriously, though, I love a good haiku. And kids do too! They are often some of the first poems kids learn to write. You can start them early with these books.

     

* You may read more about these books on amazon by clicking on the titles or the book covers. These are affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my blog!*

Mom Fail #125 – The Time I Locked My Baby Inside the House

In honor of the upcoming one-year anniversary of moving into our new home, I’d like to share a special memory with you. By special, I mean embarrassing. It’s about the time I had to ask my new neighbors for help because I locked my toddler inside my house.

It was a beautiful summer day. I spent the morning rushing around the house cleaning and packing in preparation for our trip to my parent’s home in Georgia.

The packing alone is an ordeal. Mom has to make sure I have enough crap to keep those kids silent, happy and occupied for four plus hours while strapped into car seats. While DVD players are lifesavers, moms still need to plan for backup activities. And snacks upon snacks upon snacks.

After a quick clean up (enough that someone entering the home would not run out screaming), I did all the packing. All the diapers, wipes, medicines, clothing (and extra clothing) were stuffed into the bags. Then, I put my not yet two-year-old daughter in her crib in her bedroom for naptime.

My son decided to be my helper by carrying out bags and other necessities (by necessities, I mean crap from the dollar store) to the car. I had my handy dandy baby monitor placed on top of the laundry room dryer to keep an eye on my daughter while we went in and out to load the car. We turned it up full blast and left the door to the laundry room (which opens into the garage) open.

While I was busy and distracted with the DVD player set up, my son was playing in the garage. Or so I thought. When I pulled my head out from the backseat of the car, I noticed that I couldn’t hear the monitor’s constant static sound. And, then, I saw the door to the house was closed.

(IMPORTANT BACKGROUND – when we went to the closing for our new room, we met the former homeowners. They were very kind and helpful – and they pointed out things we did not notice when we did our walk throughs. Our new home was fitted with multiple safety locks. Locks upon locks upon locks. Floor stoppers, chains, deadbolts, etc. This is great for feeling like you have added time before an intruder busts into your home. However, these extra locks seem like fun play toys for kids.)

When I saw the door closed, I immediately got a bad feeling that my day was about to get a whole lot worse. Sure enough, I went to the door and tried to open it. Nope. I could not even push it open a centimeter.

My son realized he was in trouble before I even said the words and quickly confessed that he had flipped the door stopper down before closing the door. The only unlocked door to our house was now shut and could not be opened because of the heavy duty floor stopper. Inside the house were my keys, my phone, the baby monitor. AND MY BABY.

I spun around in circles and threw my body against the door several times before realizing it was no hope. Without a phone, I had no choice but to run to my new neighbor’s home and ask for help. I had to quickly explain that I accidentally locked myself out of the house and locked my baby inside the house alone. This was one of the very first impressions I made, y’all.

She passed her phone to me immediately to call my husband. Who, of course, did not answer the one time I have an actual emergency. I called every number for his workplace I could think of. Then, I sent 911 text messages. And I got nothing.

So, my pregnant new neighbor and her mother-in-law came over to my garage to see if they could help me break in. Yep. Break into my new home. To rescue my baby.

After what seemed like an hour, one of the women suggested finding something hard and thin enough to squeeze under the door to somehow knock the door jam up. We found a paint scrapper, and lo and behold, it worked.

I very awkwardly thanked my new neighbors and rushed inside to rescue my baby (who was still sound asleep). And to give my son the lecture of all lectures.

My husband called about an hour after the whole ordeal. Thanks, babe. The only thing he was helpful in was walking me off the ledge of “I’m such a bad mom and loser and our new neighbors think I’m a hot mess.”

After realizing I had blown any chances of faking my new neighbors out and making them think I have it all together, I actually felt a little relieved. No need to pretend here! I’m already the mom who locked her keys, phone and baby inside her house.

So, it’s been almost a year. This week, that neighbor showed up on my doorstep. She needed to borrow my phone. Her son had accidentally locked them out of the house and locked his baby sister inside. 

Happy in our new home being the mom who locked her kid inside