My favorite inventions for parents

Baby gates that don't screw into walls- We moved Savannah's baby gate to the bottom of the first set of stairs. She now has access to 5 stairs and the front door, but can't get all the way upstairs where she would have too much unsupervised area. My mom told me that since she pulled on us all the time to open the gate when it was downstairs, she was showing us what exactly she wanted and we were basically telling her we did not trust her by having the gate. Now she has a little more freedom and loves it. Yes, shoes do get thrown off the little shelf and onto the toy covered floor, but she does not pull on us as much. It is nice to have a little swing gate that I can move in a matter of seconds, rather than having to perform wall repairs.

Dust Busters- I swear this is the best invention. I am not the best about limiting snack time to the kitchen, so there are usually crumbs everywhere, and instead of having to pull out the vacuum for the smallest things, I can just pull my little helper off the wall and it takes seconds. I don't know how we lived without one. It cleans up after Noah too :)

Color Wonder Markers- So Savannah loves to color. Like most children, she will color anything. Come look at her table... its proof. I have to chase her to get crayons out of her hands all the time. I had a Color wonder set for her before, but she covered the pages in about 2 days, so to be cheap we moved back to crayons. No more!! I am fully converted to color wonder as her only inside coloring option. It does bother me that my child will probably have this delusional thought that she does not have to color in the lines because her mistakes will magically disappear, but after cleaning up crayon from almost every Little People set, the wall, and soon her table and chairs, I am ready for some invisible ink color time.