What went viral this week: A genius shopping hack + a reminder that 2-year-olds aren’t terrible
You have to see this Disney World commercial.
You've got a million unread messages, still have to make up the guest bed and figure out how to brine a turkey—Thanksgiving is nearly here and we are entering the busiest season of the year.
Yes, the next couple months will be magical, but they can also be challenging and can be super busy.
As many as 1-in-3 Americans end up feeling "holiday burnout" before December 25, and because so much unpaid work around the holidays falls to women, we are more likely to report feeling extra stress this time of year.
So if you need a time out from oven timers and turkey, here are a few good news stories that made us smile this week.
Picture this: You're enjoying a lovely day at your happy place ( Target, duh ) when something interrupts your shopping—and by "something,"we of course mean your sweet little child. Said child is pulling on your leggings and holding a toy up to your face while begging for the toy to end up in your shopping cart.
It's an all too familiar scene, right? Shopping with little ones is never easy, but when it's the holiday season and we're trying to get everyone's gifts while toting along tiny humans who want everything ... it's a struggle.
Luckily, one mama is here to save the day with an amazing hack. Kristina Watts shared her hot tip in a Facebook post that is (not surprisingly) going viral. "Once again my camera roll is FULL of pictures of Emerson with every single thing she wants for Christmas. Why...because it's the most amazing parenting hack ever and has stopped MANY meltdowns! If you aren't using this hack...listen up friends," she writes.
So what is the hack, exactly? Well, it simply involves taking lots of pictures of your kids. Which really shouldn't be a problem because...well, don't we all do that anyway ?
"Take a picture. It's that simple," the mama continues. "Pause for a second, comment on the thing they're pointing out, and say, 'Let's take a picture with it and send it to Santa so he knows you want it!' Note: you can send it to Santa, grandma, [an auntie] or whoever it is you can pawn it off on. Totally up to you and can be different every time."
According to Watts, this trick yields magical results from her daughter, Emmie. "Magically, Emmie smiles, says cheese, asks to see the picture, then PUTS THE TOY DOWN AND WALKS AWAY. It's magical. No tears. No tantrums (by either of us). And she forgets about all of them within minutes," Watts writes.
Um... this is genius. And so easy. And so painless!
"Maybe you've been doing this for ages, and you selfishly didn't share this tip with me...or maybe you're like me and this is about to rock your world," Watts writes. "For real, try it friends."
We don't know about you, but we will definitely be giving this a go over the holiday season .
Sometimes TV commercials touch us in unexpected ways. That's the case with a new spot for Disney World called "Only Little for a Little While".
It starts with a little girl calling to her dad to keep up as she runs toward Cinderella's Castle calling her dad to keep up. She finds and hugs Cinderella and it's every bit as magical a moment as trips to Disney World can be.
Then, the camera pans out an we realize the dad is watching this—it's an old video he's watching on his phone and his daughter is going off to college.
Pass the tissues, please.
Two-year-olds get such a bad rap but we've said it before, 2-year-olds aren't terrible—they're just learning how to be human.
That's what mama Mary Katherine Backstrom wanted to get across when she reshared a post by written by Dejah Roman back in 2017.
According to Good Morning America, Backstrom is the owner of the parenting website Mom Babble , and re-shared the "Diary of a 2-year-old" post this year along with a photo of her daughter, Holland. That's when it went viral, again.
The post reads, in part:
" I wanted to walk to the car and get in on my own but was told, "No, we need to get going, we don't have time. Let me do it."
This made me cry.
I wanted to get out of the car on my own but was told "No, we don't have time, let me do it."
This made me want to run away.
Later I wanted to play with blocks but was told "no, not like that, like this…"
I decided I didn't want to play with blocks anymore. I wanted to play with a doll that someone else had, so I took it. I was told "No, don't do that! You have to share."
I'm not sure what I did, but it made me sad. So I cried. I wanted a hug but was told "No, you're fine, go play."
As Dr. Tovah Klein writes in her book "How Toddlers Thrive: What Parents Can Do Today for Children Ages 2-5 to Plant the Seeds of Lifelong Success " parents can overcorrect or overwhelm toddlers, and it's important for us to try to take a moment to see the world from their perspective.
Klein explains:"As adults, we see our toddlers' erratic behavior as needing to be controlled because they seem so out of control, which, from an adult view, they might be. This is when we tend to fall back on generalizations about the classic 'terrible twos'—or threes or fours."
This viral post reminds us that 2-year-olds are not terrible, they're just trying to make sense of a world that doesn't quite get them.