July 2014

Month

Wed
30 ^th

What Puzzles Have Taught My Toddler & Me

Posted by Pinparent — 6 Comments

I think most mothers can agree that they feel a sense of pride when someone compliments them on their child, whether it is how cute they are, or well behaved, sweet or intelligent. It is nice to hear. I have been told for a long time how smart our daughter is. I have even had a few friends of ours with children ask for our secrets. I would like to take all the credit for it, but I do think much of it she was just born with. Of course we want to help our little one’s mind along & we do so by reading to her often, answering her never ending list of questions and by doing puzzles.

Kids learn to love puzzles from an early age. What’s not to love? They are bright & colorful with lots of pieces to play with and fun pictures. Puzzles aid in developing their fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and cognitive thinking. One thing that they taught me was I should not underestimate my child’s ability to learn based on her age.

At only two years of age my daughter knows all of her U.S states. She knows them by shape, location & name. She learned all of this from doing a puzzle. When we received the foam puzzle as a gift, I never imagined that she would actually be able to do it, but I would take it apart and rebuild it with her daily, pointing out and naming the states as I went. So sufficed to say we were shocked the day that she corrected her uncle as he was trying to place Idaho in the wrong spot. “No Uncle Pete, Idaho goes next to Washington.” From that day on she did her puzzle on her own without mommy’s help.

Don’t mind the fact that Massachusetts is missing.

From there we continued with the geography lessons. We introduced a new puzzle with all of the countries. The countries were all represented by animals indigenous to their region. “Look mama, the Panda bear lives in China.” Yes it does, baby. Yes it does. We now try to teach her everything regardless of how advanced it might seem. I will never underestimate my child again.

Mon
28 ^th

Pom Pom Pets

Posted by Pinparent — 37 Comments

I love our family weekends. Every six weekends the stars align & my husband & I have a full weekend off together. Saturday was a gorgeous day. We took Mai on an outing to the zoo. She loved every second and we got to enjoy a rare family day together.

We had more fun plans scheduled for Sunday. We were going to take Mai to a local fair, but alas the rain came & it was a gloomy day filled with thunderstorms & flash flood warnings. We did not go to the fair that day, but rainy days can be fun days too. It had been a while since we had done any of our crafts because we have been so busy enjoying the summer. I have to admit, I was kind of excited to stay in and have a rainy day craft day with my daughter & my husband was happy to get a much needed nap.

Mai loves playing with craft pom poms. We have a huge bag of multi-colored & multi-sized pom poms. We broke them out & decided to have some fun. My daughter is a fan of insects, especially caterpillars. She likes to line up the balls & make caterpillars with them.

She said “Mama make a caterpillar too.” & that is how it all started.

Pom Pom Pets

What you will need:

Craft pom poms

Pipe cleaners

Googly eyes

Glue

Caterpillar

Join the craft ball to one from the other size group. Continue this step alternating from small to medium until you use all the balls.

Add the antennas & googly eyes. Let dry.

Cut a piece of pipe cleaner and fold into a zig zag pattern. Glue the caterpillar over the top.

Spider

Cut three small pieces of pipe cleaner and fold into and arc shape.

Press the arced pipe cleaner into the craft ball & bend the edges of the pipe cleaners. Repeat with the other two pipe cleaner pieces.

Glue the head into place & add googly eyes . Let dry.

Lady Bug

Use one large pom pom & several small black ones. Glue the black ones to the red pom pom. Attach a medium sized black for the head.

Form a pipe cleaner into wing shape. Glue the wings on the top of the body & add the googly eyes to the head.

Ant

Mai put in a special request for an ant since she loves ants.

This is any easy one. 1 medium craft ball & 2 small. Attach all 3 together. Glue on top of a pipe cleaner using the same zig zag pattern as in the caterpillar. — This is an easy one. 1 medium craft ball & 2 small. Attach all 3 together. Glue on top of a pipe cleaner using the same zig zag pattern as in the caterpillar. Let dry.

Grass Hopper

Glue one medium sized ball to a large one. Cut two pipe cleaner pieces for the hind legs & fold into a v shape.

Glue the legs into place & allow to dry.

Cut 2 more pieces of pipe cleaner & fold into an arc shape.

Glue underneath for front legs & add googly eyes. Let dry.

It was my daughter that cleverly named our insects her pom pom pets. She loved them & even wanted to take them to take a nap with her.

Fri
25 ^th

Choosing A Daycare

Posted by Pinparent — 6 Comments

I was extremely fortunate that after the birth of our daughter I was able to take a year off from work & stay home with her during such a crucial period in her life. It offered me the opportunity to be there for all of those beautiful milestones that I might have otherwise missed out on. It gave me the ability to nurse her for a full year, to take daily naps with her, to grow our bond & to just soak up every second of her short infanthood even with all of its difficulties. What was even luckier than that was when I was ready to re-enter the workforce I had a mother-in-law that was willing to take on our child care responsibilities.

Under her Nanna’s care, Mai flourished. Together they would read books, go the park & library, do puzzles and built forts. Our daughter is bright, imaginative, caring and so happy & I know that it is largely in part of her time with her Nanna. There was only one thing missing during these past 2 1/2 years, social interaction. Sure we would play with her friends on occasion, but being an only child I found that Mai lacked a certain understanding in regard to waiting her turn, not always being the center of attention and sharing.

When we made the decision to put her in daycare a couple of days a week, I am not going to lie it freaked me out. It still is and she hasn’t even started yet. Being the helicopter mom that I am, I am extremely paranoid about entrusting my heart to a stranger. Choosing a daycare has been very stressful. I found that many were full or that they didn’t have the days available that I needed or the hours did not work with our schedule. Then I also found that I myself had reasons that I did not like the facilities. When you are picking a place that it going to be caring for your most precious of packages, you better be sure. It turns out I found one that I liked. I interview with them next week.

Here is my checklist in finding a daycare…

1. Figure out what is most important when choosing a facility. Is it distance, cost, curriculum, # of children? For me I wanted her to be in a smaller more intimate daycare where there was more attention to each child & the same educational values as we have with her at home.

2. Make sure that they are licensed & accredited. You can find this info online by state. Believe me that I stalked each daycare to make sure they were legit.

3. What hours do they operate? Is there a fee if you run behind? I discovered that many of the daycares hours were outside of our needs. With my husband and I’s schedules we would have to juggle a few things to make it work. What I did not realize is that some places will charge you an additional fee for picking up your child even a few minutes late.

4. Do they have a set nap schedule? This is something you should find out ahead of time. Mai is on a nap as she gets tired schedule. Many daycares have a set nap schedule. If you are thinking of putting your munchkin in daycare you might want to start them on a mid-day nap schedule right away to make the adjustment.

5. How many children do they have & how many workers? I opted for a smaller home based daycare. The one I am interviewing with next week only has 4 children at a time.

6. What kind of activities do they do? I was pretty certain that I found a winner when I saw all of the things that this child care professional did with the children. She puts a lot of focus on nature activities, does nature walks, lots of crafts and alphabet & number lessons. When I saw the photos on her site, it looked like things that I would do with Mai.

7. Meet the caretaker in person & check out the facility. This I will do next week. We have spoken several times on the phone.

8. What is the daily menu for meals and snacks? If it is Pop Tarts and Spaghetti Os 5 days a week than it is not for me.

9. Do they have a policy on toilet training. We are still in the process of potty training. We have taken a more natural approach and have been doing it slowly. Some daycares will not accept a child that is still in diapers. Be sure to find this out up front.

10. Don’t be afraid to ask a million questions. If they don’t want to answer then you probably do not want them there anyways.

Sun
13 ^th

Macaroni & Cheese Bites With Ham

Posted by Pinparent — 2 Comments

Being a working mom, it is hard to be away from my daughter all day. It is a struggle for me to walk out that door every morning. If I am lucky I get to see her wake before I walk out the door. Most evenings I do not return home until almost 6 pm. When I get home from work, I am so excited to see my munchkin. The last thing I want to do is spend all my time worrying about dinner & then getting into our usual battle over her not eating it. It is exhausting. I try to opt for quick kid friendly food during the work week. It is difficult with my daughter’s picky diet. It is honestly a roll of the dice as to whether she will eat or not. Even her old standby foods sometimes fail us, but still I try. I am always trying to re-introduce foods even the ones she hates in hopes that she will learn to like them. One food that she has never liked & has often puzzled me is mac & cheese. What kid doesn’t like mac & cheese? Mine apparently.

My daughter like most toddlers loves bite sized foods. For some reason it is not simply enough to cut the food into small pieces, it must be formed this way from the get go. I am not complaining though, I find the little morsels to be fun to eat as well. Our last experiment was bite sized macaroni & cheese with ham. Would this fool my little food diva into eating it? Let’s find out.

This is a quick & easy one.

Ingredients:

1 box of Velveeta shells & cheese

1 6 oz ham steak thinly diced (about a cup – 1 1/4 cup)

1 egg

Pepper to taste

Directions: Preheat the oven to 400. Prepare the boxed mac & cheese. Mix in the diced ham, stir until ham is evenly distributed. Stir in the egg & add pepper to taste. Spoon the mixture into a greased mini muffin tin filling to the top. Bake for 15 minutes. Use a spoon to slide out the bites.

Did my bite size treats impress my tough little food critic? Unfortunately this experiment failed me. She took a bite & said, “I don’t like cheese.” & then spit it out. The good news is they were a big hit with my husband. I did get Mai to eat at least an ear of corn on the cob. Back to the drawing board, but for those of you with mac & cheese lovers in your midst, they might enjoy these bites. The battle continues.

Sat
12 ^th

Granola Balls

Posted by Pinparent — 5 Comments

I have a sweet tooth problem. Like most women I know, I love chocolate. I would eat it all the time if I could, but alas, not only am I not supposed to eat a lot of sweets, it is not exactly kind on the waistline. One thing that helps me get my chocolate fix & feeds my sweet tooth is granola. I love making it. I make bars, squares or just straight up granola with chocolate in it of course. It is easy to make & my daughter loves helping me too.

But my favorite of all granola snacks that grace my lunch box are granola balls. There is just enough chocolate to keep me happy, but with no sugar added, I feel less guilty.

Ingredients:

3 cups of quick oats
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup of peanut butter
2 eggs
2 tbsp safflower oil
1 tbsp vanilla
3/4 cup of dark chocolate

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix in honey, oil & vanilla, stirring well. With a fork cut in the peanut butter until mixed well. Add chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed throughout the mixture. Scoop a spoonful of mixture & roll with your hand into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet & bake for 15 minutes.

Fri
11 ^th

How Having A Baby Changed My TV Viewing Habits

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

It is amazing how truly ignorant you are about the life of a parent before you have kids of your own. How many of us have watched our friends or random strangers with their children and thought “Oh, when I have kids I will never do that.” I know I did. One of my dumbest comments ever was “My whole life isn’t going to change just because I have a kid.” Oh, how I laugh thinking about that now.

“I will still make time for my friends, go out & do things for myself”, I said. Well part of that was true. I do still try to make time for my friends, but Oh how things have changed.

This is what a Saturday night out with one of my friends looked like before and then after kids. We went from nursing beers to nursing babies. What a difference a year made.

This was just one of many changes in my life. I think one change that you will see in any household after having a child is the presence of cartoons & sing-alongs on the television set. I find myself at work singing the theme song to Little Einsteins, & humming the Hot Dog Dance. The Bubble Guppies & the clan at Mickey Mouse Clubhouse are regular guests in our home.

What I didn’t realize is how much it would affect my television viewing after she went to sleep. Programming that I once found desirable suddenly has become disturbing and offensive to me.

It was not unusual for my husband & me to have weekend long Law & Order marathons. Now I can barely watch an episode without cringing. I already have irrational fears when it comes to my child, so to see a program that centers around crimes that are often committed against children makes me sick to my stomach.

My husband & I were big into Breaking Bad. There was one episode that showed a 6 year old boy getting shot and killed while riding his bike. If you watched the show, I am sure you know the one. The image of it haunted me for days.

It is not just the crime dramas that I can no longer watch. I now find some of my old favorites such as Family Guy to be offensive. I realize many people have this feeling already, but the truth is even with all it’s political incorrectness & crude humor it was one of my favorites. I now have difficulty sitting through a full episode. Is it because I have so closely monitored inappropriate content for my daughter, that I no longer feel that I can watch it? I am not sure. All I know is that I am thankful for re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, because that seems to be the only thing that I find suitable for myself to watch these days, that and Sophia the First.

Thu
10 ^th

Nature Painting

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

Mon
07 ^th

Mining For Gemstones

Posted by Pinparent — 16 Comments

*This post contains affiliate links*

I can still remember the first time I made my daughter a sensory box. It was last year & it was just a large Rubbermaid storage bin filled with colored rice, rubber insects & some scoops & cups. Mai went crazy for it. I could not believe this simple idea could hold my daughter’s attention for so long. She played with it for hours. It was the first time since she was born that I was able to peacefully cook a full meal without her attached to my hip. I was even able to clean up after too. It was amazing.

As amazing as it was though it was also very messy. I accepted this as long as it kept Mai happily occupied. A year later I will still find a stray grain of colored rice every once in a while. We continued with the sensory play, making holiday themed boxes, fossil brushing & her favorite which is water play. All of these activities were fun & all of them were very messy.

With the warm weather here, I am delighted to be able to move the messy play outdoors for a change.

Mai recently became obsessed with these little crafting gems that I have. She carries them all around & like the rice, I find them everywhere. I had an idea to make a sensory treasure hunt for her using some of these gems that she is so fond of. We recently bought her a sand & water table and this fit in perfectly with our plan.

What you will need:

A sensory or water table, an old pool or a large storage bin. Any of these will work fine.

Play sand

Water

Colored crafting gems

A sand sieve, shovels or scoops

We have a sand/water table, so I used this for our activity, but it would just as easily work in a large Rubbermaid storage container or an old pool. Throw your gems into the bottom of your container, add sand & water. Let your child dig out the gems using scoops or shovels, a sand sieve or even just their hands.

As with all of the sensory play, this kept my munchkin amused for quite some time. I sat on the grass, enjoyed the sun and watched Mai digging out her gemstones. She would dig them out, put them aside & them throw them back in & start all over again. She asked for a towel to clean them off with & then put them in a container that night & set them next to her bed. Like I said, she really likes those gemstones.

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Sat
05 ^th

Foam Shapes For Imagination & Creative Play

Posted by Pinparent — 9 Comments

*This post contains affiliate links for convenience*

It is funny how before you have a child, you take for granted the little things like having a few moments of privacy while you are on the toilet. It is very rare for me to be able to use the bathroom in private, so it was no surprise to me when my daughter came barreling in on me today when I was on the toilet.

Mai: “Mama, mama!”

Me: “Yes Baby!”

Mai: “Come look, I made Mickey Mouse.”

Me: “Ummmm, Ok, give mommy a minute.”

I could sense my daughter’s excitement, so I got out to the living room as fast as I could to see what it was that she was so excited about.

“Look Mama!”, she said to me pointing at the coffee table & beaming with pride. There on the table were 3 golf balls arranged in such a way that it resembled the shape of Mickey Mouse.

10525780_10203185113381937_6722431912025613794_n — This was the picture I took with my phone, so that I could text it to my husband.

I thought this was amazing. I loved that her young mind was able think & create in this manner. This is something that I want to cultivate in my child & watch as it grows. I wondered what other creations might be brewing in that little brain of hers. This gave mommy an idea for an activity that we could do together. Since it turned out to be a dark & rainy day & all of our outdoor activities were cancelled, it seemed like the perfect thing for a boring rainy day.

I grabbed some different colored foam sheets from our craft bin & cut several different shapes of varying sizes and colors. I cut out circles, triangles, ovals, diamonds, squares, rectangles & crescent shapes.

We laid them down on the floor. Immediately Mai jumped into them.

First she was just excited to share with me the shape names & the colors. I then grabbed 3 circles & copied her previous pattern with the circles & showed her that we could make Mickey Mouse with these shapes too. This intrigued her. She started grabbing at the shapes and laying down different patterns explaining to me her thought process as she went. “Look Mama, I make a club house.”

“You most certainly did. It is beautiful.”

I always like to play alongside her as well. As much as she likes to create, she like to learn new things just as much. She studies and absorbs everything & often is happy just to watch me as I do an activity. This is how she learned all her US states at only 2 years old. She simply would watch as I did a United States puzzle & named off each state as I placed them.

With my shapes I decided to start with a bus. The road that the bus is riding on was Mai’s idea.

Together we made pyramids, fish, a Christmas tree, a princess castle & decorated a birthday cake. It was wonderful to watch & listen to her as she used these shapes to create colorful & imaginative images. It was an easy & fun rainy day activity for us to share.

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Thu
03 ^rd

Phonics Lessons

Posted by Pinparent — 10 Comments

I know I have told you many times about what a difficult infant my daughter was. From the moment she was born, she gave me a run for my money. She cried all the time, all the time. I remember my first day with her in the hospital, when she first started and did not seem to stop. In a panic I started singing the first song that came to mind, the ABC song. It miraculously quieted her cries as she stared up at me taking in my song as I named off each letter. She listened so intently, her eyes fixed on my mouth as I sang. This became my go to song to soothe my daughter.

Now here it is 2 1/2 years later & it is still a favorite. Mai sings her ABC’s all the time. Many mornings we are awaken by the sounds of her sweet voice reciting her alphabet. We have been working on sounding out our letters for quite some time now. We do many activities and lessons to practice. At random, I will start pointing out objects and sounding them out for her. “Look Mai, hat. “H” hhhhhhhh. “A” aaaaaaaaaaaa. “T” ttttttttt, hat” We read, work on her ABC puzzles & she watches me write the letters out on her chalkboard.

One of my daughter’s favorite phonics games to play is a simple one. We like to have living room picnics, so we usually lay down a blanket and sit on the floor. We use her ABC magnets & put them in a pile on the floor. We grab them one by one and Mai will tell me the letter and a word that the letter begins with. As you can see from her video, she is very enthusiastic about this game. She is very proud when she gets them all and so is mommy. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that have the greatest effect. What is wonderful is we play this often and she comes out with new words each time. Sometimes she even says some that mommy doesn’t know. The other day, she told me “Q” was for quoll. I had to ask her a couple of times to repeat it. “Are you saying quoll?” “Yes, the quoll is sooooooo cute.” I had to Google it. A quoll is a little animal that kind of looks like a mouse. She was right they are pretty cute. I discovered later that one of her ABC Mouse activities featured a quoll. My little smarty is already smarter than mommy.