Dial H-O-M-E

Dear My Toy Garden friends!

Walking around the ginormous convention center at Toy Fair in New York City, made me think of this week's topic. Let's talk about that gut fear that happens when you are out and about with your child and suddenly they have disappeared. You call their name and they don't respond. You rapidly walk up and down the aisles of the store searching and searching but no sign of them. Your heart races wondering where they are. What is one thing that might give you peace of mind at that moment? For me, it's knowing that my daughter knows my phone number and how to use a phone. I know that when she gets to a phone, she can call me and I'll know she's safe. From the age of 3, you can work with your child to know their phone number. Here are some ideas on how to do that! Before that, be sure to put your phone number in jackets, diaper bags on car seats just in case.

1) Put it to music - Pick a tune to a familiar nursery rhyme like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and changed the words to your phone number. Music has a way of imprinting lots of information in our brains!

2) Build it - Use clay like our Mama K's Aromatic Play Clay to build the numbers of the phone number. This adds a great tactile and visual element. Use our clay mentioned above and the sense of scent is an add to the memorization as well!

3) Stamp It - Use # stamps to stamp it out! Number stamps are great for lots of math activities as well. My Toy Garden has some great # stamps left in the 50% off table up front.

4) Make a bracelet - String number beads on a pipe cleaner or yarm and tie around the child's wrist so they have it handy to learn from. This is a great idea when going to an amusement park or someplace that separation is more likely.

5) Practice, practice, practice - My Toy Garden has a PhoneSmart Teaching Telephone that allows you to program up to 3 phone numbers to practice dialing along with record your own voice messages to reward correct dialing. What child does love playing with a phone? This "toy" could become a very important safety tool for you family!

Playfully,

Toylady Janet

The 2 Most Powerful Words

"To the world you may be one person but to one person you may be the world." - author unknown

There are stories everyday of people who do amazing things that seem to defy the odds of success. Heros bigger than life and epic movie material. People who seem very different from ourselves. This week I want to share with you a way that you can make a huge difference in the lives of many in a very simple way. By using two simple words...powerful words.

These two words when used on a regular basis with a sincere intent can alter the path of someone you love dearly or someone you crossed paths with only briefly. The 2 most powerful words are.... I like.

I like your smile. I like the way you helped pick up the toys. I like how you always seem to call when I need you most. I like. Two words that can't help but make your shoulders relax and corners of your lips turn upward. Hearing them is great. Saying them is even better! As a society, our default setting seems to be one that seeks things to criticize. Why is that? Why are we more comforable with pointing out what is wrong with things or people? Why is our default not to seek the positives? The likes?

My Toy Garden is very proud to carry a book that I know carries magic in its pages. It's called The i like book. A simple yet beautifully done book that invites you to write one thing a day...a week...whenever...that you like about your child. Begin it anytime and make it part of your daily routine to remember, recognize and savor something positive about them. One sentence at a time....you can do it! It only takes a moment to make an impact for a lifetime! As the end of 12 months, you will have created a keepsake that will be treasured forever. Full of memories and laughter and love. I started one of these books each for my two miracles and love them! My oldest loves me to read to her what I wrote. I love being that kind of role model for her! One of the greatest parenting challenges we face these days is a disconnect with our children as life is so busy and they enter teenage years with electronic devices buzzing nearby. This book can be a bridge to strengthen that connection and help you both through the snare of challenges ahead.

What about your marriage? Is it work somedays? There is also an i like book for couples. It has turned out to be the best Christmas present for my husband ever! We both have already come to look forward to seeing what the other has written in our book. We all want to be liked. To have it written down? What a gift!

I believe in this book so strongly and that every family needs one for each child that I'm giving some away for free! Simply come to My Toy Garden and buy anything, anything for a Valentine in your life and be entered to win an i like book of your choice!

To take a peek inside the pages and see sample entries from others, please visit http://theilikebook.com/why-it-works

Playfully,

Toy Lady Janet

Me Do It? No, You Do It!

The clock ticks toward 8 pm and the next episode of your favorite show is calling you. All you need to do is get the children snuggled into bed and then you get to settle on the couch for some grown up time. So close! The playroom is a disaster though...hmm... You have 2 choices. Choice #1: Pick them up yourself...again. This ensures that you will be the one picking them up tomorrow and the next day and the next. Choice #2: Use one of Toylady Janet's tips below to turn your child into a toy picking up machine making clean up time quick and fun and enable them to one day be able to live on their own. Which do you choose?

My secrets...

#1 - Follow the ideas from last week's newsletter of limiting the number of toys out and getting them organized into small labeled bins. Please see the My Toy Garden blog to read it again. By the way, we sell great bins for organizing at My Toy Garden!

#2 - Set a Timer - Races are so fun! Bet you we can't clean this up before the time goes off? Your phone has a timer on it with a fun sound. Set it to quack, buss, doink or vroom and watch the toys disappear. Timers work well with many of the ideas below.

#3 - Create a Pile - Push toys into 2 piles. A small pile is less overwhelming than toys strewn all over the room. Say, "This pile is yours to put away and this pile is mine. When you have yours put away, you get to blank." Make the blank something fun they want to do. Go outside, play a game, do a craft, eat a snack. Be consistent with your expectations and you'll see the pile disappear faster and faster with each opportunity.

#4 - Pick a Color - Try saying, "What color are you going to pick up?" or "You pick up the blue ones and I'll pick up the red ones" Giving a color helps them tune into a few pieces making the task seem more doable.

#5 - Pitch it - With toys with lots of pieces, it's much more fun to throw them than to pick them up. Keep blocks and such toys in buckets and then let them wind up their pitcher's arm and pitch them in. Keep score of how many make it in. Impromptu fraction lesson perhaps?

#6 - Special Basket - Have a special basket just for cleaning up. One for each child. Let them fill their baskets with goodies of the day and deliver them like a mailman to their proper homes. My Toy Garden carries cute shopping baskets that would work great for this!

Playfully,

Toy Lady Janet

Buried in Toys! Send Help!

The tree is hauled to the curb or stuffed back in it's box. The decorations squirrelled away for another year. The belt loosened a notch out and our gym pass moved a notch up. The toys...well...the toys. They have devoured the house like bubbles in a bathtub. They are stacked here and there and over yonder and spilling down the hallway. What's a family to do to tame the toy monster in their house? My Toy Garden to the rescue once again! Below are my top 3 tips for restoring order to your house.

#1- Only put out as many toys as you want to teach your child to pick up

This is key. If you offer your child a few items to pick and choose from, there's plenty of choices to entertain yet a small enough amount to maintain. If you put out all of their toys, they...nor you..can possibly keep them picked up. Get a small bookcase and put out 10-12 items. Put the rest away out of sight. Put them in a closet, under a bed, in the basement...but out of sight. If you have a big playroom, put curtains or doors over most of the shelves.

#2 - Use the Garage Sale Theory and Rotate Things

You know that picture that's hung on your wall for 4 years or that dress that's been in your closet for longer? It's time for them to go, right? You decide to have a garage sale so you move them to the garage and what happens? Oh, I kinda like it. Hmm...maybe I shouldn't get rid of it... You see it in a new light. Same goes with toys. Leave out all their toys all the time and they become invisible and you have a bored child on your hands. Put out 10-12 like I mention above and rotate a few of them out every week or two and you can have a small collection of toys that lasts for years. Of course, you'll want to have the imagination powered, versatile toys like we carry at My Toy Garden!

#3 - Avoid toy boxes and large totes or bins.

These are where toys go to die. What lives at the bottom of a toy box? A sea of lost parts only useful for fun collages. What size purse do you carry? Is it organized? To keep toys organized use individual containers. Clear ones ideally. Facebook Fan Stephanie says they use large ice cream tubs for their toys. Great idea! What ever you use, it should hold one toy and all it's pieces. Clearly label the outside with words and, if your child is a nonreader, a picture. Clip a picture from the box and tape in on or a photograph of the toy in it's happy new stage works great. Even a stick person drawing will help keep toys organized. Another great idea is to use drawstring bags with labels. Hang up coat hooks on one wall and poof! Tidy toys! So what do you use that toy box from grandma for? Pile it the stuffed animals or stuff it with dress up clothes for hours of fun!

More tips to come in future newsletters! Got more ideas? Join the conversation on our Facebook page!

Playfully,

Toy Lady Janet

Pregnant? With a Toy Store!

Pregnant? It was impossible. Surely the pain and symptoms I was experiencing were something else. You see, for 2 1/2 years we did darn near everything possible to have a baby to no avail. It just was not meant to be. We went on to adopt our two beautiful children who fill our days with joy and headaches. A third child was not in the plans and yet, somehow, someway, as miracles have a way of working, last January, I found that I had indeed gotten pregnant. This pregnancy though turned out to not lead to the birth of a child but instead to a birth of another sort....the birth of a long held dream...a business of our own...a toy store. My Toy Garden.

The story of My Toy Garden begins in an unusual way. It begins with a miscarriage. While such events have elements of sadness to them, this one has great joy as well. It was during a week of resting and healing that the tiny light bulb of an idea took root and began to grow. We had wanted to have our own business for a long time but had never found quite the right path. During that sad week, we knew what to do. Open our own neighborhood toy store. I remember the idea wafting to my thoughts and then electrifying itself like a marquee for all to see. This was it. The next pathway to follow.

The months that followed were full of doorways cascading open to help make the dream a reality. The right people, questions, answers, tools seemed to appear just I needed them. Obstacles would appear and then melt away. Literally 9 months from the day we decided to start the store, we celebrated the birth of our new creation. What a proud day!

We are so thankful to all who helped in this beginning in such a multitude of ways. For strangers and acquaintences who helped joined us for conversations helping research the why and how of the business plan. For friends who helped place orders, schlep boxes, unpack, sort, price and display items. For each of our dear customers who have added a sparkle to the space with your smiles, questions, laughter and repeat visits. Thank you!!! We had a fantastic opening and first holiday. The new year is going to be full of possibilities to get to know you more and how we can help make your life easier and making more and more new friends. We want My Toy Garden to be a part of the community. To be a place to learn, laugh, connect, be inspired. A place to make life easier and more meaningful. A place that makes a difference. Thank you for being part of this adventure! We love to hear your feedback and ideas! Please email us anytime at hello@mytoygarden.com or post a comment on our facebook page.

Happy New Year!!!!

TV Free Trips with Children

Do you have snacks? Pajamas? Blankies? Toothbrushes? Cash? Full tank of gas? Clean underwear? Time to hit the road for the holidays! Traveling can be stressful whether by car, train, or plane. Here are some favorite My Toy Garden tips to make travel time so much fun you might actully forget to turn on the DVD player in the car which I'm sure you only use on long trips anyway right? Enjoy and please pop over to our Facebook page with other great ideas that might help another fellow traveler!

1. Magnets are the best! We carry magnetic playsets that are perfect for travel. They feature a background scene for pirates, paper dolls, forest friends and more. The pieces stimulate the imagination for hours of on the go pretend play. My favorite is one with the tails of various cars and license plates to match for each one found along the way! Great geography lesson as well! Do you have magnetic pieces but not on the go board for them? Grab a pizza or cake pan and voila! Now you do!

2. Felt boards are another option much like magnetic boards that work great. We carry sets with rescue heros, horse back riding, Cinderella, a vet's office and other fun themes. Grab the handle and off you go!

3. Wrap small gifts and snacks to be unwrapped at various points of a long trip. Every 30 minutes or X number of miles, the child gets to open a little goodie that will entertain them for the next leg of the adventure. My Toy Garden has lots of goodies that will work great!

4. Map It! For an older child, print of a map showing point A to point B and let them highlight the trip as they pass by towns. Talk about fractions..we're 1/4 of the way there!

5. Create! Arts and Crafts are great for travel! Our Stephen Joseph art portfolios hold a pad of paper, crayons and pencils perfect for out and about art inspiration. Several other projects like the Thread It one pictured below would keep the brain busy and growing and free of a zombie induced TV coma. We also carry dot to dot books from 1 to 10 and ones for adults featuring up to 1400 dots in one puzzle! So addicting!

6. Write About It! On the way home capture the memories of the trip in a souvenior book. You'll love our 3 Bitty Books featuring a blank hard cover and blank pages ready to record the tales of this year's holidays. 3 books for $9.99 makes them a fun thank you to send to your host!

7. Beam Me Up! If traveling at night, bring along a small flashlight...key word there..small. :-) Kids love flashlights and they come in so handy when you need to pee in the middle of the night in a strange house!

8. Music soothes the savage beast is more than just an old saying. Just Sat. night, I calmed Nicholas down on the ride home from downtown by singing Christmas songs. "More sing Rudolph pweese!" Throw a CD in and put on your own car concert. We once also passed over an hour of a trip making up a song using words we read out the window. Hilarious! Our Tell Tale game would be great for that!

9. Emergency kit of post its, roll of tape, pipe cleaners, a deck of cards, a hunk of aluminum foil, a few books they've never seen, finger puppers and a pirate eye patch or other dress up items. When at your wit's end, before hitting the power button on the DVD player, hand your child one of the items and peace will soon follow.

What else do you do? Pop over to our My Toy Garden facebook page and help others! Click here for the My Toy Garden Facebook page.

Toys the Play with Children or Children that Play with Toys?

Which of the above categories do you find most of the toys in your house or on your holiday shopping list? Are they electronic ones that flash, beep and tell your child what button to push? Are they ones that foster creativity, problem solving and self expression?

As the grown ups in this world, we have the great joy and great responsibility to help guide our younger adventurers on a path of learning that can be programmed or packed with possibilities.

See Janet's Top 5 Toy Selection Suggestions to help you this busy shopping season!

Have another to add? Please share either in an email to me or on our Facebook page. Not a fan on Facebook yet? Over 400 fans in our first two months have been having a great time with sneak peeks, inside scoop and more! Come join the fun!

Janet's Top 5 Toy Selection Suggestions:

1. Durability - A toy should last and last and last. Look for items that can be passed down to younger siblings or to friends. When you buy an inexpensive toy that breaks in a few days, you teach your child that things are disposable and easily replaceable. When you invest in a toy that will last and last, you teach them to value quality. Not to mention the money it saves you in the long run.

2. Open Ended - A toy that can grow with your child is worth a ton! Finding a simple open ended toy that can be used in one way at 2 years old and another at 3 years old and yet another way at 4 years old fosters creativity. It also saves you money and eliminates clutter in your house. Why buy 5 toys that do 1 thing each when you can buy 1 toy that does 5 things?

3. Obvious Completion - Sometimes children need just the opposite of open ended toys. They need ones that have an obvious end to them. Click the last piece into place of a puzzle. Complete the last step of a craft project. Play a board game to the end. Starting, doing and finishing something builds confidence and gives a sense of pride worthy of a high five or a pat on the back! Perseverence is a great gift to give a child.

4. Requires Interaction - A toy that requires a child to move, ponder, have a conversation with another human being scores extra points! Great toys are ones that promote exercise and/or conversations with others. Our children look to us as role models on how to connect with others. Toys can open doors to lots of healthy relationship opportunities.

5. Be Fun! They are toys after all!