Best Summer Ever: Day 45

August 15
Get Your Daily Dose of Funny

Load up on funny stuff at the library.

Laughter is an essential daily nutrient for parents and kids alike.

Related:

The Children's Hospital: Encouraging Your Child's Sense of Humor

Booktrust: The Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2009 and the 2008 site

Kaboose.com: Comedy Movie Reviews

Best Summer Ever: Day 44

August 13
Set Your Sights on the Great Outdoors

Plan a camping getaway with another family.

It's the grownup equivalent of building a backyard fort with your best friend.

Related:

The Sierra Club: Green Tips for Summer: Eco-Friendly Camping

The Sierra Club: The Green Life: Getting Kids Outside: Backyard Camping

Construx Conversations: Building a Fort: Lessons in Software Estimation: Building a fort for your kids can teach you plenty about the world of work says this dad-blogger.

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 41

August 10
Give in to Funspiration

When you're hit with a flash of funspiration -- a sudden desire to take your baby for a walk around the block, start an art project with your preschooler, play hopscotch with your school-aged child, or to challenge your teen to a game of basketball -- go with the flow. You'll find that giving into that got-to-have-fun-now urge will up your joy factor for the rest of the day.

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 40

August 9
Get Back in the Game

Set the stage for ready-made fun. Keep a deck of cards and classic board games like Scrabble within easy reach so that you can play games with your kids whenever the mood strikes (as opposed to having to take time out to find or retrieve them).

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 35

August 4
Celebrate Summer With Your Kids

Plan to take in at least one summer festival before summer's over. They're a great excuse to get out and make the most of this all-too-short season.

Related:

Toronto.com: August event highlights

Toronto.com: Family Guide

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 29

July 29
Create a Summer Collage

Create a summer collage using some of the photos you've snapped this summer.

If you're looking for inspiration from other collage lovers, you'll find plenty of collage-related groups on Flickr, including this highly popular collage images group.

Related:

HowStuffWorks: Collage Crafts for Kids

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 28

July 28
Lighten the Load for Another Parent

Look for opportunities to lighten the load or advocate on behalf of a parent who is going through a particularly tough time.

If you've been through a tough time in your own life as a parent -- a time when you needed support from the proverbial parenting village in order to get through the most difficult of days -- you know what a difference such support can make.

Why not be that village for another parent?

Related:

Ontario Early Years Centres

Toronto Public Health: Healthy Babies Healthy Children

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 27

July 27
Your Top 10 List Revisited....

Think about the top ten things you really wanted to do this summer.

Have you been able to do some of those things -- or has life tossed a few too many curve balls your way? (Hey, it happens.)

What do you plan to do to make the remaining weeks of summer really count, before the crazy-busy month of September catches up with us all?

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 24

July 24
Summer Suppers

Dream up some quick and easy summer suppers.

Jot your ideas down before your culinary brilliance is lost forever.

Then share your inspiration with a friend.

Here are some recipes and family food resources to get you started:

• Mealtime Moms: Recipes
• Cooking With Kids: Recipes and Meal Planning
• Dietitians of Canada: Recipes from Great Food Fast
• Healthy Mum, Happy Baby website (sidekick to the book of the same name)
• Gastrokid Blog (watch for The Gastrokid Cookbook, coming soon)
• Mealtime Solutions tip sheet (tips on coping with sibling squabbles, food jags, and other mealtime malaise) (.pdf).

Photo Credit: Ann Douglas, 2009.

Best Summer Ever: Day 22

July 22
Keep Dinner Simple

All bets are off when it comes to feeding kids during the summer months: who knows what foods will be appealing on super-hot days and who will even be at the dinner-table at a time of year when schedules tend to get tossed out the window on a regular basis? Here are some suggestions that are high in kid-appeal and ways of taking the stress out of mealtimes during what should be a fun and low-stress time of year.

1. Keep it fresh.
Take advantage of the wide availability of farm-fresh produce while it's in season. Foods like blueberries aren't just delicious: they're also rich in nutrients and high in kid-appeal.

2. Get your kids in on the meal-planning act.
They’ll be less likely to gripe about what shows up on the dinner-table or go into great theatrics about how there’s “nothing to eat” in the house if they had a role to play in planning meals, drawing up the grocery list, or—better yet—helping you choose some fresher-than-fresh produce at the local farmer's market.

3. Stock up.
It can be hard to predict ahead of time how many extra kids will show up at your dinner-table during the summer months. And be sure to stock up on foods that can be enjoyed anytime, anywhere: cheese cubes, hard-boiled eggs, bagels, homemade muffins, and the like.

4. Get ahead of the game.
Do some food preparation ahead of time or look for items in the grocery store that can save you time on the food preparation front (e.g., salad in a bag, mini-carrots, etc.). Prepare foods as soon as possible after arriving home from the grocery store or the farmer's market. That way, your kids will have plenty of healthy foods to snack on when the munchies strike.

5. Plan meals that require minimal preparation and very little clean up.
Think grilled meat or fish or vegetarian protein; a baked potato; some fresh vegetables (grilled, raw, or made into a salad); and some fresh fruit. Hint: If you throw a few extra pieces of meat on the grill, you’ll end up with some tempting leftovers for meals and snacks the next day.

6. Go for quick and easy menus.
Look for websites and cookbooks that feature recipes that can be whipped up quickly and easily. (Ask other parents and your local bookseller to recommend their favorites.)

7. Beat the heat.
Aim for no-cook meals at this time of year or meals that avoid very little oven time preparation (to avoid heating up the kitchen).

8. Batch cook.
Make at least one extra meal on the weekends, either by cooking that meal all by itself and popping in the freezer, or by making “doubles” of one of your family’s weekend meals (e.g., a double batch of spaghetti sauce or lasagna) so that you can have leftovers during the week.

9. Have leftover night or make-your-own-dinner night at least once a week.
It’s a great way to clean out the refrigerator, give yourself a break from cooking, and allow your kids to make themselves something they’ll really enjoy. It’s a win-win situation all around.

10. Schedule family picnics on a regular basis.
Even if your kids try to convince you that they’re too old for picnics, encourage them to join in the fun anyway. Summer tends to whiz by in a flash: who wants to spend it being holed up in a kitchen?