Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers #4: Things that Seem Like Your Keys In Your Pocket, But Aren't

If you're like me, ever since you had kids things seem to get misplaced, broken, and generally transmuted at record speed. At my house, this phenomenon happens most often in the mornings, when we're all rushing off to school.

For faithful readers, you may remember a particularly absentminded morning when of all the things I could forget.... I forgot the baby.

So today's Really Helpful Tip for Wives and Mothers is a quick run-down on items you might have in your pocket that when you pat your pocket will feel exactly like your keys, but when you go to unlock your car door, or front door, you will find actually are:

This adorable Leon the Cat (from France!):

A Duplo block! Any shape or color can trick you into thinking they are keys!

And last, a small children's size tube of Hello Kitty nail polish - oh, it feels like keys but surprisingly, will not open the door.

As super-hilarious as it is to pull these things out of my pocket when I think they're my keys, being locked-out of my car and/or house with my three young kids just isn't that funny after the first, or second, or that's right... the third time.

So tell me... do your keys transmute on busy mornings too?

Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers #3: How to Survive School Vacation Week with Your Kids

This week my Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers has five ideas to help you survive school vacation week with your kids. These ideas may be particularly helpful to those of you enjoying the week with extra, bonus snow! Click on over to the JerseyMomsBlog to read What to do with your kids on school vacation week. With a pile of snow.

And please, if you have any ideas about what to do with the kids leave a comment and let me know.  It's Wednesday, and I've done everything I can think of short of letting the kids cover the baby in glue, roll him around in a pile of glitter and put him in a tutu and wings, so he'll look (as they put it) just like a real-life fairy! By Friday, I may not have any other options, so please help.  If not for me, for Ziggy, who I'm pretty sure doesn't want to be a fairy, even a real-life looking one.

Happy Vacation!

Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers #2: How to Wrap Presents without Wrapping Paper

This is my second offering in my new ongoing series of Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers. Last week's tip covered how to wrap a present without any tape. Since present wrapping season is still upon us, this week we will tackle the equally difficult prospect of wrapping a present without any wrapping paper. 'Cause if you're like me, you always think you have wrapping paper for any occasion, but when you look at your options they're newborn baby boy or Happy 50th Birthday!

But with this week's Helpful Tip, you'll always have wrapping paper at the ready, even when you don't.

Here are a few reliable, easy ways to wrap a present sans traditional wrapping paper:

• Cut-up a brown paper bag and add a twine bow for an old-fashioned, retro look
• Use tin foil for a more festive holiday look, this method is especially good if you also don't have scissors and tape - just fold and press
• Find some packing paper, decorate for a more personal touch
• Recycle reading materials made obsolete by the digital age - phone books, calendars, maps, and for the literary, the dictionary
• Locate a piece of fabric, anything from a bandanna to a dish towel will work, just make sure it's clean
• Empty a bag of potato chips - seriously, just cut along the seam, wash, dry, and wrap shiny-side-out.  Don't believe me that this is a real idea? It is - directly from MarthaStewart.com.

Photo from MarthaStewart.com

In fact, Martha has 46 great ideas for wrapping presents, from hand stamping with a wine cork to photocopying vibrant fabrics onto paper. I am clearly way out of my league.

Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers #1: Easy ways to wrap presents without tape!

With the holiday season upon us, more likely then not you have some presents to wrap. And, if you're like me, you can never find the tape when you need some to wrap a present. I used to spend precious minutes looking everywhere for the tape, but not any more! Now, I just use something else, and if you follow these really helpful tips, you too will be able to wrap a present without using any tape at all.

Here are just a few of the ways you can wrap a present without tape:

1. Use a glue stick.  These are usually easy enough to find around your home, and are actually the choice of many pro-wrappers - eliminates those ghastly tape marks that show with regular tape.

2. Use regular glue. This works too, but you need to make sure you don't ruin the present you are trying to wrap.

3. Paint with nail polish. Seriously, polish works as well as glue and looks nice too if you use a glittery shade.

4. Tape with sticky ribbon.  If you have this from other art projects it works great because it is pretty-much just tape with ribbon stuck on top.  An expensive alternative, but again, at least your finished product will be beautiful.

5. Tape with anything that could possibly be considered tape, even if it's not what you think of when you think of present-wrapping-tape. Packing tape. Electrician's tape. My personal favorites: spike tape and duck tape - just present the final project as chic-and-edgy and totally on purpose.  Recently I have gotten so desperate I have even used medical dressing tape - and I'm happy to report it worked just fine.

6.  Apply stickers. I use this option sometimes even when I can find the tape. Looks adorable, uses up some of the 1,893 stickers lying in, on and around every surface of my home, and best of all - if you have kids, they can help wrap the present without driving you completely bonkers.

7. Tie-up with a big piece of ribbon. If you have scissors (again, I usually don't and work with the crease-and-fold cutting system for the wrapping paper) this is even easier because you can cut the ribbon into two, or even several, pieces, and then tie a succession of knotted and bowed strings to keep the wrapper paper in place. This alternative is both easier to do and better looking then it sounds. Trust me.

Do you know other non-tape alternatives that work? Leave a comment below and let us know your favorite way to wrap a gift when there just isn't any tape.

Coming up next in Really Helpful Tips for Wives and Mothers: how to wrap a present beautifully without wrapping paper! Or scissors!