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  • Baby, Lifestyle, Motherhood, New Mom, Sponsored

    When to Enroll Your Baby in Swimming Lessons

    This post exploring when to enroll your baby in swimming lessons is in partnership with Goldfish Swim School!

    Although I grew up surrounded by beautiful blue water swimming wasn’t part of my lifestyle. I spent countless beautiful days on the beach playing safe along the shore but not adventuring out into the ocean further than where the water met my shoulders. I was fearful, but my goal is to raise three fearless children. I realize that waiting until my oldest was two and my second was three to enroll them in swimming lessons didn’t help much with the fearlessness. They had a little time to develop some fears, especially my oldest. As many of you know, they’ve learned to swim over the past year. As a new mom, I didn’t know when to enroll my baby in swimming lessons. This time around, I’m a bit more experienced, so I enrolled my third child in swim lessons at Goldfish Swim School when she was five months old. It’s been six weeks, and I am amazed at how much she’s learning. I wanted to share our experience in case you’re wondering when to enroll your baby in swimming lessons too.

    Here are a few reasons why I’m happy I enrolled her in swimming lessons at 5 months:

    When to Enroll Your Baby in Swimming Lessons | Rattles and Heels

    She’s learning Water Safety skills.

    Water safety skills are urgent and necessary! I know we all hate to think about these things, but I feel relieved that the baby is learning water safety skills during her lessons that can save her life. No, she doesn’t know how to swim yet but water safety is more than swimming it knowing what to do and how to behave in and around the pool, and that’s just as important. Since communication is mostly non-verbal at this point, I believe that these skills would feel more natural to her as she’s learning through repetition.

    She’s learning to feel comfortable in the pool.

    If you read my interview with a Goldfish Swim School instructor post, you know that one of the goals of the school is to help kids feel comfortable in the water. The baby is getting used to the water in her face (she doesn’t like it, but she’s getting a little better every lesson) and she’s even done a few dips which doesn’t seem to scare her much once her face is already wet.

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    It’s fun!

    They make the classes fun for the babies and parents. I enjoy singing and playing with her in the water. Her favorite part of her lesson is getting to make a big splash in the pool. Her instructor uses toys and music to keep her engaged, and she seems to love it.

    Socialization is healthy for her.

    Besides storytime, swimming is the only time she gets to see other babies her age and well socializes (in her case stare). The toddlers love saying hi to “the baby,” and she loves staring at them.

    I’m excited to share this journey of the baby swimming with you and happy to see her learning and having fun at Goldfish Swim School. I believe that the earlier that you can sign up your child for swimming lessons the better. At Goldfish Swim School, you can sign your child up from the time they’re four months old.

    When did you enroll your baby  in swimming lessons?

  • Activities, Motherhood, Sponsored

    Encouraging Kids Self-Expression Through Music With Violin Lessons

    This post is in partnership with Guitar Center via The Motherhood. 

    When my daughter started first grade, she came home one evening with a blue paper folded in half and as she handed it to me, she asked if I could “please, please” sign her up to take violin lessons at school. She said that she wanted to learn to play the violin so she could play her favorite songs and that was a good enough reason for me to sign the paperwork. I value self-expression, so I’ve always encouraged her even when that meant listening to her practice when she first started. My role is to plant the seeds so she understands how self-expression through music could help her be happy and develop essential life skills like stress management, self-confidence and unleashing her creativity. Conversations with her over the past few months gave me the indication that I needed to nurture her creativity and help her feel more confident about playing the violin. So I’m partnering with Guitar Center where she will be taking violin lessons with a pro-instructor for the next few months, and I will document the experience here on the blog.

    Encouraging kids self-expression through music with violin lessons.

    Rattles and Heels

     

    I looked into one other music school before but what stood out about Guitar Center is the custom curriculum that focuses on teaching theory through contemporary music. They have an impressive database of over 1000 songs she could learn that would help her self-expression through her music. Since, I can’t play the violin or help her, knowing that her instructor at Guitar Center has office hours means we can stop by if she wants to ask questions or to get feedback before a performance. I’m not sure if my daughter’s musical interest will expand to other instruments, but once I see that she’s serious, I will support her. It will be cool if she learns how to play more than one instrument. I think now that she understands the discipline and focus required and she has the musical foundation to try any instrument that she enjoys and create music as self-expression. Guitar Center also offers other music instrument lessons like keyboards, drums, bass, guitar, vocals and more.

    Encouraging Kids Self-Expression Through Music With Violin Lessons

    I’m excited to start this journey with my local Guitar Center store in Long Island City, New York. There are over 200 Guitar Centers with brand-new facilities all over the country offering everything from lessons to rentals to instrument repairs to flexible programs that allow kids to take lessons on the go with online resources and the ability to schedule at any location.

    If you don’t follow our Instagram stories, be sure to follow us on Instagram as I will share behind the scenes peeks into of her 30-minute individual violin lessons.

    ps: The Guitar Center curriculum programs are approved by the National Association for Music Education as well as all of the instructors are professionals who focus on helping your child meet their goals.

    Do your kids take music lessons? If so, what instrument?

  • Children's Books, Giveaway, Sponsored

    The Itchy Book! Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! Giveaway

    The Itchy Book giveaway is in partnership with our friends at Disney Hyperion! If you’re a long time reader, you know that we’re huge fans of the Elephant & Piggie book series. My son would reach for an Elephant & Piggie book almost nightly for his bedtime story so to encourage him to try other books; I started adding books to their collection from the Elephant and Piggie Like Reading! series. You might remember It’s Shoe Time! that I shared back in December, another book from this series. All of the books in this series are introduced by best friends  Elephant and Piggie and although they’re not the main characters in the books help kids who love them be open to a new story. The latest book in the Elephant and Piggie Like Reading! series is called The Itchy Book, and it’s hilarious. The first time I read it to the kids, we were all laying on my bed, and the big kids laughed so much that even baby started laughing too. This book is about dinosaurs, and I’ve yet to meet a child who isn’t intrigued by dinosaurs. It’s been on repeat over the past week as either my daughter or I read it to my son on a daily basis. If you have a burgeoning reader on your hands, this book is a must-have. You can shop for The Itchy Book for your little ones in stores on May 15, 2018, or preorder a copy here but be sure to scroll down to enter the giveaway so you can win a prize pack including The Itchy Book.

     

    Synopsis:

    They may be dinosaurs, but their gigantic discover still holds true three million years later. Itchy dinosaurs try to follow a very important, very prehistoric rule. A rule so important and so prehistoric, it’s written in stone. DINOSAURS DO NOT SCRATCH! Triceratops has an itch. . . so does Pterodactyl. . . and Brontosaurus. . . and T-Rex! But Dino-Mo reminds them all of the BIG rule: Dinosaurs do not scratch! What’s an itchy dinosaur to do? Find out in this hilariously charming beginning reader by author/illustrator LeUyen Pham.

    About the Author

    LeUyen Pham’s detailed and hilarious style is a perfect match for the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series. The Mo Willems/ LeUyen Pham collaboration will have fans itching for more! LeUyen Pham is the prolific and bestselling illustrator of many books for children, including Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio, Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore and God’s Dream by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Pham has also written and illustrated her own works, including All the Things I Love About You and Big Sister, Little Sister. A former animator for DreamWorks, she lives with her husband and two sons in Los Angeles.

     

     

    ELEPHANT & PIGGIE LIKE READING! GIVEAWAY One (1) winner will an excellent book pack including:

    • The Itchy Book;
    • 2 more Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! titles: We Are Growing! and The Cookie Fiasco;
    • The final Elephant & Piggie title: The Thank You Book;
    • branded back scratcher
    • PLUS custom THANK-O-RAMA “Thank You” notes!

      Giveaway open to US addresses only. Prizing and samples provided by Disney Hyperion. a Rafflecopter giveaway   Are your kids Elephant and Piggie fans?