Tot School: Week 1 (18 months)

 

This week I put together a sensory box. I did not have a theme for this one, it is very random. 

 Tiny brightly colored seashells, regular seashells, blue yarn pom poms, kink toys in many colors, a container with lid, scraps of soft fake fur, a smelly good eye mask, and a bottle with water and stones (tightly sealed). 

Raz really liked it even though it was really thrown together.His favorite part was putting the shells into the container and then pouring them.

We also put food coloring in bubbles. Raz could not get the hang of blowing the bubbles but he had fun trying. He did watch me make some bubble art though and I encouraged him to help by practicing blowing and also using the wand and mixture to paint it on. I think a few more times of bubble blowing and he will have it down!

 We also did a spooning activity withe rice. This is one of Raz's favorites!

We also had a great time playing with alphabet letters. Next week I will start getting more into it I promise. Even a little start is a good thing!, don't be afraid to start small.

Vasaline and hair do not mix...

This is what a Vaseline dipped baby looks like...after I blotted him with a towel.

Let me start by making one thing VERY clear...

Vaseline and hair do not mix.

OY!

Yesterday morning all I wanted was a few more minutes of sleep. Raz is an early bird so occasionally Gus and I will let him bring a few toys into our room  in order to get a few wonderful minutes of extra sleep. The moms and dads of the world get it...sometimes the world is a better place with just 5 more minutes. We thought that we would get a tiny bit more sleep, followed by a relaxing breakfast of course. 

What I woke up to was far from relaxing. SILENTLY in the span of 1-2 minutes Raz had managed to pull my vanity's chair out  and crawl up on to it to get a hold of a bottle of Vaseline. I guess I should be happy he did not get a hold of my favorite lipstick. The fact that stings is that we don't use Vaseline and so it was something I probably should have thrown away months ago.

Anyways I guess he has watched his daddy put hair product in his hair to much because I'm sure you can guess where that Vaseline ended up. Yep, his hair -at least half the container. After he gave himself a rather convincing faux hawk he proceeds to crawl down and let me greet the morning with a greasy surprise.

We had a water proof kid on our hands. All I could do was laugh and blot him with a towel before throwing him in the bath. Honestly I don't know why I thought giving him a simple bath would do anything, I mean I just said he was water proof. 

The blotting had accomplished getting the chucks out and the bath had accomplished, well, nothing. We ended up jumping on to 'good ol' Google' for some tips. 

Uhm cornstarch? Ok sure, we will try it. 

This is what we got...

He looks rad with white hair and that crazy punk style! 

Moving down the list we threw him back in the bath for another shampoo. The cornstarch actually helped a bit. It soaked up some of grease so I would recommend it.

We followed his cornstarch dusting with a good shampoo or two with dawn dish soap.It helped, but we STILL had grease!

By this time Raz was very annoyed with all the bathing. We mixed baking soda with our shampoo, we used ours because Raz uses California Baby and I did not think it would be strong enough. I then took a perry bottle of vinger and VERY carefully squirted some on his head. Maybe I just love the reaction of baking soda and viniger and this wan an excuse to do it on Raz's head...but in my own head it made since. 

We followed all of this with a vinegar rinse and another shampoo.

His hair was tsill greasy but we decided to give him a break, it was a lot better at least!

Want to see an annoyed kid with crazy hair?

I will be honest that the greasy hair made for an AWESOME faux hawk! That night during his regular bath we gave his hair a few really good shampoos. I think it will take a few days of extra shampooing before it goes back to normal. We may do Dawn again tonight. 

I would advise anyone who has the pleasure of washing vaseline out of hair to try all the things we did to spweed up to process. All of the craziness got the chucks out so we did not have a greasy smeary mess all over our home.  But I also advise not rushing it and embracing the crazy hair week and extra shampoos at bathtime.

Needless to say this is going in this years scrapbook and he will never hear the end of it. Aren't toddlers awesome!

Adventures with Ducks!

We are lucky enough to have a beautiful duck pond at one of our local parks. It is a lovely pond with big slopping heels for rolling down, green open spaces for picnics, winding paths for walking, and ,of course, plenty of bridges and docks to stand on while you feed hungry (and might i add greedy) little ducks and geese. Needless to say the pond is one of our most loved destinations. We visit so often that we can pick out most of the ducks and we know their behavior. One of the big black ducks has a unique way of getting his bread: he gets out of the water and onto the dock with you so he can beat the compaction in the water. The duck with the red bumps always gets right underneath the dock to catch fallen crumbs. And one amazingly cool duck has a white feathered afro!

We have been known to picnic by the water in summer, feeding the ducks the crusts of our bread as we lounge about in the green grass. Now that we have cooler fall temperatures we go with scarfs wound tightly around our necks and bags of leftover bread in hand. We have also spent many a Saturday morning eating bagels or doughnuts on the big benches, something that Gus and I often did before we even had Raz!

Duck ponds are made for kids, they can learn so much from these simple adventures.

Raz is quickly learning that ducks say "quack" and geese say "honk"

Pointing out colors on ducks is a fun way of breaking up the normal color practice. 

We also like to count the turtles that line up at the waters edge. Sometimes we will get lucky and have a tiny turtle by a big one so we can show Raz the diffrence between big and little with turtles!

Respecting animals is another big one. He is learning to gently toss the bread to the ducks and to respect their space. I think it is a good lesson since he is interacting with the ducks by feeding them while not being allowed to pet them or harm them in any way. It is a gentle way for him to learn these boundaries.

Also the boundaries of not getting to close to the water is good practice. It took me awhile to not be a nervous wreck every time he stood on the dock alone, I was always afraid he would fall in or get to close to the edge. I knew that he needed to learn the proper and safe way of standing near the water so I had to really force myself to relax and set clear limits. Keeping a close eye on him while still allowing him the chance to behave well on his own is a fine line but at 18 months he already knows that he needs to stay close to me and never try to lean over the rail. I will always keep a close eye on him near water but it is a good lesson for our children to know how to act near water! 

And of course tossing bread is a great activity all in itself!

If you want to feed the ducks a great way of collecting bread is to keep a bag in your freezer for leftover bread. If you have a few pieces that are about to go bad they can be put aside in the bag and easily thawed out to take to the pond when you are ready! We do this so we always have something to feed to the ducks when the mood strikes. And trust me, it will strike a lot!

Fall Leaves

I have an obsession with soft and adorable sweaters.

I adore orange leaves dancing through the wind.

I crave hot apple cider and pumpkin bread.

And I dream of warm socks with pretty boots. 

Needless to say I love fall...

Unfortunately I live in Texas, a state infamous for its moody weather swings. Every year we get teased with crisp cool days at some point in October - only to have them swept away with more heat. This year was no exception and made even more annoying because I had plans that were waiting on the weather.  Raz is walking and jumping now and I had one thing on my mind....

BIG piles of fall leaves being strewn all across my yard!

What is it about leaves that makes us want to rake them in lovely piles only to jump in them in order to make the mess all over again? To me it just screams childhood. Finally our weather has cooled off and we were met with the amazing site of big orange leaves dancing through the breeze and drifting onto the ground of our back yard. Sweaters with hoods in hand we ran out into the back yard as I introduced Raz to the glory of big piles of crunchy leaves.  

Plain and simple...he went nuts! 

We spent the afternoon pushing leaves into piles as I showed him how to jump in them. He was delighted with the process of sweeping and messing. He rolled, threw, burrowed, and jumped. Toddlers have such a mind of their own that it is a great treat when they are 100% into an activity that you planned. And wow was that treat amazing! We had a blast and he was so dirt and wore out by the time we went in. Personally I think dirty and wore out is a sign of  successful outdoor time.

Tribble Cat, forever following Raz around, was not to enthused with having leaves put on her. Raz wanted to lay leaves on her and berry her...kitty did not want any of that and retreated to clean herself. Naturally it took some coaxing and distracting to bring him back into the game of burrowing in the leaves like prairie dogs instead of torturing the kitty. But finally I won him over by making up a silly song about fall leaves complete with silly dance moves. We were soon tossing leaves about again.

Sometimes as adults I think we forget about the simple pleasures that nature gives us. We spend so much time and money searching for ways for our children to experience life that we forget to do the classics. Playing in fall leaves is one of those classics that you need to do...now...or first thing in the morning. Hurry up before fall turns into Winter! Our leaves are already all soggy and gross from today's drizzle. They go fast...at-least here in Texas (grrrr)!