Toddler Tuesdays: Digging those dinosaurs

I've always joked with Craig that I didn't want a girl obsessed with horses or a boy obsessed with dinosaurs. Welp, I've got both. And of course, I don't care at all. I love their interests because I love them. And I have to admit, the dino thing is pretty cute when the obsessee is not even 2 and can barely pronounce "dino."

It all started when I picked up a toob of dinosaurs for our big road trip as a fun emergency situation toy. These were the surprise hit of the trip with both kids. After that, Jonah would get really excited whenever he would see dinosaurs. Tonight he just brushed his teeth with a dinosaur toothbrush (according to the box it might be a croc but it looks like a dinosaur and I'm not telling him so you all better not either), put on his dino pajamas and listened to his favorite dinosaur bedtime story.

Being in lazy summer mom mode, I hadn't planned on doing any dinosaur activities but a friend must have been planning a dinosaur themed birthday party because her party page started showing lots of dinosaur activities, a couple of which I knew Jonah would flip over and I couldn't say no to them if they fell in my lap, could I?

Books

Dig Those Dinosaurs was by far Jonah's favorite. It repetitive rhythm is just perfect for that 1.5-2.5 year old crowd but Lucy enjoyed it the first few times as well. Mom and Dad could use a break but I think it might be a while before we get on since Jonah's asks for it by name and searches the house to find it before bedtime, naptime, potty time, etc. His favorite part - the drawing of the boy making a face at the fossil poop. Every time Jonah sees it he says "dino poop - ack!" and sticks out his tongue. I did really like that it was so simply I didn't have to edit it (for creationist/evolution discrepancies) like some of the others we checked out that didn't make this list.

Tadpole Rex is really about frogs and their life cycle but it has enough dinosaur tie-ins to satisfy both kids.

The How do Dinosaur series by Jane Yolen. We got several of these - and a board book. They aren't fine literature and they don't really teach you much about what dinosaurs actually do but they sure are cute and kid's love them. Jonah quickly figured out when to say "No" and "Yes."

Tea Rex - This was a library request that didn't came until the day we left for our trip so we haven't had a chance to read it yet but I wanted to include it because it looks so cute. I've requested it again so I'll try and remember to update this once we check it out.

Sensory Bin

I didn't find one that I wanted to copy exactly but I had wanted to try that magic/moon sand recipe I'd seen floating around anyway and I thought that would work well with this. It's just one part cornstarch to two parts sand + water. I started with just enough water to make it into a thick paste because I knew the kids would be adding more. It went into one section of our water table, water in another and then let the kids pick what add ons they wanted. We did our dino toys, some sea shells, leaves and some grass.

The moon sand was pretty neat at the right consistency. It started out like plaster which wasn't so much fun but later we went too far the other way at which point the cornstarch dissolves in the water and you're left with just wet cloudy sand. If you can get it just right though, even the adults in the group probably won't be able to resist messing around in it. The good range was everything from moldable, which is nice for the neater kids who want to build things, to goopy but still mound-able which is perfect for making footprints then watching them disappear and for dramatic 4 year olds who want to pretend their dinosaur friends are drowning and need their other dinosaur friends to rescue them.

We haven't done a sensory bin in a while but I really need to keep it in our rotation as they always really enjoy them. This one was particularly neat because as the water evaporated, the ground really looked like it was dried mud and some of the sea shells left impressions. Lucy loves this part and wanted to talk about the fossil making process; Jonah just wanted "Mo wa-wa now!"

Homemade Fossils

For the dinosaur fossil craft, we followed rainy day mum's instructions and the first part worked very well using our same toob of dinosaurs.

We don't have a microwave so I cooked them in our toaster oven. The backs needed a bit more drying after that so I put them in the sun - and forgot about them while we were in North Dakota for the week. We came back to find that a rainstorm had turned them into a big fossil pile of yuck.

Oops! So we didn't get a chance to paint them or try matching our dinosaurs back. We might have to do this one again though, it really was fun and I think they would enjoy playing with the finished product if we can get to that point next time. And if Jonah's fascination continues, we'll have time for more of this craft and maybe even a few more.

Do you have any dinosaur books or activities that you'd recommend?

Toddler Tuesday: Mat Work

I've said before that I'm not a stickler for educational rules and theories. I like Montessori a lot but have no problems completely throwing out ideas that I don't think will work for us. But there are other ideas that I want to incorporate, but it just takes me a while to get to them. Work mats was one of those areas.

The idea of the Montessori mat is to give children a defined space to work. It helps them maintain order and gives them a way to save projects if they have to stop for some reason.

Mommy and Me time (reusing an older picture from the rowing Good night moon post - I'm even bigger now, haha!)

I just gave Lucy a work mat about two months ago and regret not having started earlier. She loves her mat and takes such good care of it - rolling it up and putting it away when she isn't using it and always saying "on my mat mommy" if we start to play something. I thought she would only use it for more "school' type but it is just as likely to have a tea set on it as a pouring set or counting work. I guess that makes sense because in her mind they are all "games." 

Color Tablet Fun - She figured out her pom-poms matched by herself and just had to include them so they are now a permanent part of the color tablet tray

I love it too. I really do see a difference in her play/work when she is using it. For more school-type activities, she can focused longer and keep things lined up nice and tidy. And it helps control the chaos that occurs during playtime. We've always had a "one toy at a time" rule and when it is just her and me at home she follows it  pretty well (when Craig is home it doesn't seem to work as well, probably because I am not as consistent with her - bad mommy). The mat helps reinforce that idea. If her mat is full, she has to pick up before she can get something else out. This is especially useful now that the rule is evolving into a "one game" at a time rule as she is engaging in more imaginative play and often plays with toys together - uses her blocks to make tables, chairs and beds for her duplo people or using her pattern pieces as pretend food. As long as it is still relatively contained by the mat, she is fine.

She's showing me her duplo town...a great example of what I consider "relatively contained"

Currently her mat is a small ikea rug that used to be in our kitchen. I believe it cost $3. It isn't quite ideal according to Montessori standards because it has a slight pattern but its red on red and I don't think it really detracts from her games/work. It was an ideal size to start with because it is fairly easy for her to manage on her own but she will also need a larger one though as several of her new tot school activities won't fit on the red one. But I've got plans so stay tuned!

This picture is basically here to prove that Lucy doesn't always run around in her undies - just most of the time :-)

Toddler Tuesday: Big Sibling Books

Lucy and I have been reading a lot of books about babies and being a big sibling so I thought I would share a few of our favorites.

I'll admit that I'm pretty particular about the big sister things I've exposed Lucy to. Far to often the emphasis in this type of books is on how annoying the new baby is or how he/she takes all the attention and it isn't until the last page that the big sibling decides the baby isn't so bad. Which means you've just spent 10 minutes playing up the negative and 30 seconds on the positive. Now we've obviously never added a little sibling to our household before but the more seasoned mother's I've talked to have said to make sure to keep the emphasis on how much of a positive event it is for everyone in the family - not that the big sib won't have moments of jealousy and impatience, but don't give them the idea to start with. So that is my goal. And for right now at least, she is super-excited about the baby.

Hi, New Baby by Robie H. Harris

This is one of Lucy's favorites. It is fairly realistic in that it shows new babies can be loud, boring and sometimes even gross but I don't think it is overly negative either. It also helps us talk up the big sister role - she has teeth and the baby doesn't, she can feed herself but the baby can't, etc.

Happy Birth Day! by Robie H. Harris

I guess you could call this the prequel to Hi, New Baby. It's about a babies arrival, what happens and how the baby looks and acts and most importantly, is loved by everyone. It was helpful in talking to Lucy about how the baby might look kinda smushy and wrinkle, how the belly button would look funny at first, that sort of thing. It shows a mother nursing and a daddy cuddling the newly swaddled baby and both of those pictures are similar to ones we have of us with Lucy which she enjoys pointing out. It's funny though, one Amazon review complains that this is only a good book if your birth goes perfectly but another complains that it is too focused on hospital interventions. I think its in the middle - yes it talks about ankle bracelets and the doctors "quickly" cutting the cord but those things are pretty typical so I'm not going to complain - it is funny to hear Craig read this and add his commentary though ;-)

The Baby Dances by Kathy Henderson

Not strictly a big sibling book but it does show a sibling relationship as the baby grows and the illustrations make it pretty easy to talk about sibling things - look, the baby wants to crawl towards the brother's toys, do you think you will share things with the baby,etc. And the brother is obviously very loving towards his baby sister which is a plus. Sweet and a big hit with Lucy.

The New Baby by Mercer Mayer

I don't really like the little critter books but this one isn't too bad. It's pretty simply so I wouldn't use if for anyone other than the under 3 crowd, but it it works to show a bit more realistically what a new baby might be like - they can't play games with you or understand jokes but the do like to be cuddled and tickled.

What's Inside Your Tummy, Mommy

A non-fiction book about how a baby grows over the nine months it is inside the mommy's womb (but there isn't any information on how the baby gets there and the only reference to the birth is that the mommy pushes and it's hard work - which I think is all she needs right now). It's responsible for the upside down baby in tummy drawings Lucy's started up with and now Lucy can say womb which is adorable. We don't always read this through but often just look at the pictures and talk about it. She's probably on the low side of it's age range but still really enjoys it.

Baby Brother by Tanneke Wigersma - This was a Lucy selection that turned out to be great. Lovely illustrations and cute story. Mia is writting a letter all about how her cat was acting funny and ended up having kittens while you see mom preparing for a new arrival herself and actually having a home birth which is rare in children's literature (but it's not at all graphic though, don't worry).

A New Barker in the House by Tommie DePaulo - This isn't about the birth of a new "puppy" like I thought it was when I picked it up but instead is a cute book about how the Barker Family (there is a whole Barker series) adopts a 3 year old from another country. I don't have any first hand experience but I think this would be a great book for any "waiting siblings" or anyone hoping to expose their little ones to the idea of adoption in a positive way - which should be every family!


I don't recommend:

The Berenstain Bears's New Baby 

Not bad if you can stand the Berenstein Bears other books but not really much about the new baby so just not very helpful overall. And I probably shouldn't complain about realism in books about bears that talk and wear clothes but Ma and Pa could probably stand to do a better job preparing poor brother bear for major life changes - they don't tell him he is getting a new sibling to mere hours before she arrives and they don't tell him he is moving until the night before the moving van comes. Poorly done bear parents!

Angelina's Baby Sister

I bought this for 10 cents at a library sale but didn't really get a chance to read it. After reading it a handful of times to Lucy, I snuck it out during nap time. It's just a horrible example of what I mentioned above - lots of jealousy ending in a huge tantrum where Angelina throws all her books and toys with no discipline other than an ''Angelina!" She evens says she hates her sister and wishes she would go away (but I skip that line, why in the world would I want to even bring up that idea!). It isn't until the last page or two that all is resolved but that isn't redeeming enough. Skip!

Of course, we probably have time for a few more..any recommendations?

Toddler Tuesday: First Family Portrait

About half way through cleaning up the mural mess, I realized I should have taken a picture of it for posterity's sake. It was actually a pretty good picture. Lucy has just discovered how fun it is to draw people. Of course, they don't always look like people but they are definitely getting closer. Craig says they are aliens while I refer to them as minions (only out of her range of hearing though - to her we declare them to be the best people we've ever seen!).

Here is the first family portrait she drew from last week. You might notice that there are is an extra person and an extra head but sometimes she adds the baby and the cat so that might be them although I've noticed if she isn't happy with how one is going, she just ignores it and makes another so that's another possibility. She told me the smaller circles were water bottles - we had just come back from a hike so perhaps she is drawing us on the hike with our water bottles?

I'll have to try and get pictures of her current ones, she's started adding hair which basically makes us all look like we are wearing awful toupees and she's started drawing my belly as a extra circle below my mouth. I can't capture the best part though which is sitting next to her while she draws them and tells me exactly what she is drawing. It's a lot harder to piece together what's she's drawn after the fact so hearing it first hand really shows how much thought she is putting into them. I never understood why mom's talked about how hard it was to throw away art until now, I love each drawing - as long as it's on paper.

Big Sister Sewing

When it comes to my accomplishing sewing tasks, inertia really is key. I'll put off even simply sewing tasks for months but once I get the machine out and set up, I'll get on a roll and start sewing everything not nailed down. So when I had Craig carry my machine upstairs last week so I could hem our new curtains, I was pretty sure what was going to happen so I made sure to have all my supplies ready and yep, I got everything done - and more!

My goals were curtains hemed, beanbags sewed, and some baby doll diapers made. I'll show you the beanbags later but here are the diapers - aren't they cute?

I used skiptomylou's pattern but I ended up enlarging the sides and using bigger pieces of velcro so Lucy wouldn't have to be so precise. The last thing I wanted was another "baby" that needed me to attend to its diapering needs. The fabric was just scraps I had lying around - quilting cotton on the outside, flannel and knit on the inside. 

My favorites are the pinks, the inside is an old nightgown I cut up. I'm waiting to give them to her until it is closer to Dewey's arrival but its so hard because I know she will love them. After that sucess, I added another project - a kid-sized ring sling and since I haven't really seen any tutorials for this only, I thought I'd share how I did it.

The only tricky part of this is getting the rings. I happened to have about 40 metal rings from when I bought curtain clips for our living room bay window but only needed the clip part. That was last year and I kept them because I just knew I could find something to do with them and finally I did. But even if you don't have them on hand, they aren't that expensive. Target has a set for $6.39 and it doesn't say how many are included, but I'm sure there would be enough for several slings so you might even be able to find another mom to go in with you or you could do what I did and end up having so much fun you make 4 slings! (Don't worry, Lucy's only getting one, the others are going to some other little girls I know). My rings measured about 1.5 inches in diameter and that worked but a slightly larger ring would probably work even better.

 The only other thing you need is a piece of fabric 10.5 in x 45in. This is approximate too. I just estimated based on my ring sling - mine is slightly taller than me, so I made Lucy's slightly taller than her but you could probably adjust it slightly without harm (but alas, I wouldn't go down to 36 inches no matter how tempting it would be to get away with only using 1 yard of fabric, there just won't be enough of a tail). I used a quilting weight cotton but anything light weight would work. Even a knit would probably be fine since safety isn't a factor. And part of the "wrong side" will show so if you care about that, pick a fabric that has a subtle wrong side.

Start by heming the rectangle on all four sides. 

Then lay it flat, wrong side up, and slide both rings onto one end.

Fold over that edge a few inches, right sides together and sew the end down. I just followed the hem line.

And that's it! It's really easy. Perfect for walks around the house or when baby needs attention but tea must still be served.

Of course, I'm assuming that you know how to use a ring sling since you care enough to make your kid one, but if you don't, check out Youtube, there are lots of tutorials. Between the fairly grippy cotton and the small ring, I don't actually have to adust Lucy's very much so I help her put it on one arm (she always tries to put both arms through but that doesn't work) but she can take it from there. 


This should go without saying but I'll say it anyway, these are directions for a child-sized carried meant to hold a doll, not a real baby. Because of that, I've left out a lot of the safety features a real ring sling would have so please do not size up these instructions to make a full sized ring sling. It wouldn't be safe or comfortable. There are lots of ring sling tutorials out there if you want to make one for yourself. 

Kid Kitchen

In response to MacKenzie's demand request, I built this play kitchen:

I made heavy use of recycled products to build this:

• The base is made one of these upper cabinets from our pre-remodeled kitchen. I turned it sideways and cut off the upper section (where the little door is). Then I took the main door and cut it up, discarding part of it and using the rest to make the two doors on the left above. I used the upper cabinet door to make the oven door.
• The faucet came from our old kitchen sink.
• The counter top is a leftover section of our island butcher block. This may be the only kid kitchen in existence with an oak counter top.
• It was painted with leftover paint.

The hinges and cabinet hardware are new, as is the dog bowl we used for a sink. The burners are wooden discs from Hobby Lobby, and the pot rack and pots are from Ikea. The window in the oven door is an acrylic sheet from Home Depot. I ended up using magnetic door latches to hold the doors shut; they are still easy enough for Lucy to open. Inside each door is a shelf resting on shelf pins.

Here is Lucy enjoying the kitchen:

 

Toddler Tuesday: Kid-friendly kitchen

When I was first designing our kitchen, I knew I wanted to make sure it was kid-friendly. The biggest thing we did in that area was what we call the "Craig pantry." They are a set of shallow lower cabinets under our pot rack. 

The cabinet on the right holds canned goods and pasta which a shallow shelf is perfect for because things don't get lost back. But the one of the left is probably my favorite - it's Lucy's cabinet. 

                                                   

The top two shelves are the ones she really uses. The white bins holds her silverware. We have this set but need to move up to this one. Then there is her utensil caddy which holds her mini whisks and spatulas although it looks a bit empty right now - she loves them and every time we mix something, she insists on using hers even though it isn't always very efficient to stir a double batch of pancake batter with a teenty tiny whisk. Below them are her mixing bowls - just the smallest two from a nesting set my mother-in-law gave us. These items pretty much stay in those places. 

The glasses are these Montessori weaning glasses but again, she is ready to move up to these. The bowls are pyrex custard cups that came with plastic lids - perfect for storing her uneaten yogurt or snack in the fridge for later. And her plates are just clear glass plates my mom had for when she hosted luncheons - she had about 50 so I "stole" 6. 

Lucy is responsible for keeping her pantry tidy and she does a good job. I didn't change anything when I took this picture. All the glass items tend to shuffle around since she is responsible for putting them away and she is often returning them to a empty shelf - but she does keep the bowls with the bowls and the glasses with the glasses, etc. And while you might think all the glass is dangerous but she has been using a glass cup since 6 months old and has only broken one glass and no plates or bowls so far. I wish I had that track record - I just broke a glass last night :-)

I take her dishes out of the dishwasher and stack them on the edge for her to put back on her shelf. She's been doing this for quite a while but until she was 2, it was optional. Now it isn't. Sometime she doesn't want to but I just remind her that it is her responsibility and we all help in our family and she's never really fussed after that (same thing with making her bed and putting her dirty clothes in the "dirty bin"). She also helps me unload the rest of the silverware which is nice since it lessens the amount of bending over I have to do. 

 The bottom holds wooden trays we use if we take our food outside for a picnic and some plastic stuff we use when other kids come over or for outside.

I also need to make room for a basket of kid-sized cloth napkins. She has just reached the stage where she wants to use a napkin instead of being attacked by a washcloth after every meal and depending on what we eat, that is normally a reasonable request. I just need to find the 10 minutes it will take me to sew up some. 

I've seen other Montessori toddler/preschool kitchen areas that have a dirty dish bin and sponge area but we didn't add that to her responsibilities until a month ago when we moved her from a high chair to a junior chair and she could get down on her own and now she is tall enough to put her dirty plate and glass on the counter after she is done with her meal so we do that instead. 

Putting together a kid-friendly kitchen took a little bit of planning but was well worth it. Lucy is able to be independent and I get some help that is actually helpful.

Toddler Tuesday: Tantrum Tips

I have to say that overall, I'm not much of an advice-follower in general. In fact, if someone pushes a book or movie recommendation too far, I often won't want to read it just because of that. Sad, but true. So when Lucy was coming around, I read a lot of parenting books and took a little bit of advice and spit out a lot. It's just my style.

But one piece of information stuck with me, even though I read it when Lucy was itty-bitty and it has to do with tantrums. Since I know many of the mommy readers are just approaching the tantrum stage and I have never heard this anywhere else (although perhaps it is just one of those things more experienced moms have just figured out?), I thought I would pass it along. It comes from the Science of Parenting which I highly recommend if you are looking for a "guy parenting book." In fact, Craig liked it so much, he even wrote about it here. In fact, he mentions the basic concept but at the time, I didn't realize how helpful that information would be.

Basically, it talks about two types of tantrums. The "Little Nero" tantrum is the one that is commonly thought of when you say "tantrum" - especially by those childless people who see your toddler in the store and give you dirty looks because you obviously can't control your child and if they had a child, they would be able to do much better :-) They happen because your child wants something and is trying his/her best to get it, even if the means are socially unacceptable. 


These need discipline. I won't even attempt to tell you how to discipline your child because 1) I don't know your kid and 2) I don't have enough experience. Maybe when my kids are all grown up and God-fearing productive members of society, I will have enough confidence to tell you but I wouldn't wait around for that day. I think the book says to ignore them but we don't. We take a more lay down the law/walk softly carry a big stick/that's not gonna happen so just try again missy approach which you can interpret however you want. We had a lot of these around 18 months but they have decreased dramatically since then. Every few months Lucy decided to try again so we have a rough week or so but we just don't let them work so they are going away.

The second type of tantrum is what the book calls a distress tantrum or what I refer to as the "It's too much" tantrum.This is when life is just more than your toddler can handle. They are little people , with big emotions and not very many skills to cope with them and frankly, that is just not a good combination.

And according to the book, and my experience has been similar, discipline doesn't do anything but make things worse in this case. This is more of a hug, snuggle/nurse, remove from the situation type of tantrum. Sometimes a nap or snack helps too. Actually, for a lot of these, Lucy just has to scream it out for a few minutes. She'll normally have to take a breather a few minutes in when I can step in and offer comfort and she will accept whereas if I try to do anything earlier than that, she just gets worse.

Of course, the problem lies in telling the difference. According to the book, the key is whether or not your child can tell you what they want while in the tantrum. Simple, yes, but not always easy to remember to do. It is so very easy for me as a parent to assume it is Little Nero tantrum because I know what triggered the tantrum, even if it has gone beyond that. Often times whatever started the "Too much" tantrum was really just a trigger and even if she gets what she originally wanted (not that I would normally recommend that but sometimes it happens) she is still so overwhelmed it does matter. She can't communicate what she wants, she doesn't even know what she wants, she just knows she is upset and I'm the mommy so I'm supposed to do something to help her. 

Example: While in DC, we took a shuttle to the Metro which meant Lucy had to ride on my lap for a little while. She didn't want to and started yelling to get put down.When I said she could get down when we got there, she completely fell apart - screaming, kicking, etc. It was bad. At first, I assumed when we got there and got out of the car, she would be fine since that was what she initially wanted, right? Wrong, that was just the trigger. When we got there, she proceeded to kick until we put her down on the ground and while I could tell she was just overwhelmed, sadly, there wasn't much I could do in the circumstances. She ended up trying to crawl into a corner and hide but there really isn't anyplace to hide in a metro station. Finally, when she started to calm a bit, I told her that we needed go get on the train now but when we sat down, we could have milk-milk. She looked up, took a big breath and said "oh-tay." It took a couple minute of her taking deep breaths on my lap before she was back to her old self but she was fine the rest of the night although Craig and I were a bit drained. I'd put it in the top three tantrum category (and yes, I can tell you exactly what all three of those were and they all involved stressful, busy, unfamiliar situations - airport, metro station and boat cruise).

The best thing about this information isn't that it gives you some magic tantrum stopping trick. It doesn't - as should be obvious by the situation above. The best part is that it helps me as a mom be confident in my actions. We run a pretty tight ship around here, we have clear boundaries on what is and is not tolerated in this house and we have high expectations of Lucy. They aren't unreasonable as evidenced by the fact that she lives up to them most of the time, but they are high. Perhaps because I don't always do thing the mainstream "Christian" way (as in we don't keep our marriage bed kid-free if by "marriage bed" you mean the queen sized mattress that sits in our bedroom and we let our babies "demand" to be fed even though according to some that will create a selfish child, etc), but I think I'm sensitive to the idea that we/she is/are undisciplined but sometimes punishment isn't what is needed and it is nice to be able to remind myself that I didn't decide not to take a specific action because I'm being lazy or irresponsible but because I'm doing what is best for my kid whether that looks good to others or not. In the metro, some people were giving us looks and probably thinking "shouldn't you be doing something?" but honestly, there were just as many people (mostly moms) who gave us knowing smiles.

Of course, I know lots of parenting "experts" who would say I am wrong and that all tantrums stem from a sinful selfish heart and need to be dealt with by corrective discipline. And I may have agreed with them before Lucy. But having seen her tantrums, I can't say that is the case anymore.


And really, we do "discipline" these types of "too much" tantrums, if by discipline you mean train or teach. We just don't do it in the heat of the moment. We are working with Lucy on understanding what emotions we are feeling and how to express them in ways that are okay. For her, books help a lot. She also roles plays a lot with her dolls which I can guide sometimes if we are having a certain issue. And we are helping her gain self-control in all areas of her life - sitting still in church may not seem like it has a lot to do with tantrums, but I think it actually does. There are times now when she is starting to get upset and I ask her how we can work together to stop her frustration and she'll ask me for a hug or milk-milk or even a book. Progress!

Tot Tuesday:Montessori's everywhere!

Lucy and I are tagging along with Craig on a business trip right now. While he's working, we've been exploring the city of Washington DC. We've having a great time so far, so much so that I'm too tired to write real posts but I just had to share these pictures.

When you keep your eyes open, Montessori really is everywhere. Lucy loved this rocket building activity at the  Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. She did it 5-6 times, and only stopped when another girl came up to give it a try. After the other girl was done, Lucy started up again. If she got it wrong, she would look at it then say "Oh, try again!" but if she got it right she would throw her hands up and say "One more time!"

I've been thinking that Lucy is almost ready for the pink tower and seeing her interest in the rocket confirms that. The pink tower is much obviously larger and more complicated so I think it will be a real challenge for her, but one that she probably will enjoy.

Should I be worried?

Waldorf is known for its emphasis on play and dolls. The doll is supposed to represent the child herself and allow the child to express emotions. I've heard similar things about children's play in general and how it is important for the parent to observe the play as it will not only reflect the child's experiences but how they are processing them and the emotions they are experiencing.

So should I be worried about how Lucy is reacting to all this baby/pregnancy talk?

No, upon questioning my dear little "mother", it turns out that baby was tired and needed to be put to bed but because this doll's eyes don't close, Lucy had to (duct) tape them shut. After I took these pictures, she carried baby over to her bed and lovingly tucked her in with a blanket.

But for a minute there, I was wondering what sort of underlying emotional issues concerning Dewey's arriving Lucy was trying to express. Maybe Waldorf doll theory only works with waldorf dolls, since they have those simplified faces that allow for that self expression :-)

Toddler Tuesday: Clean Sticky Fun

Sorry if Toddler Tuesdays are a bit art heavy lately but that has been my focus this spring. With the pregnancy, I knew I'd have to be selective about what I could accomplish so I picked one thing that I wanted to improve on and art was it. It is pretty easy to improve on just playdough so I knew I could succeed.

I saw a variation of this project on No Time For Flashcards and knew it would be a hit since she loves stickers. This is basically a reverse sticker project. Its so easy too - one of those crafts that seems so obvious you can't believe you never thought of it before. 

I already had contact paper and a brand new stack of construction paper just screaming to be opened so I cut out a butterfly and stuck in on a square of clear contact paper then trimmed the edges, letting her play with the extra contact paper I cut off. I didn't have ribbons but that worked out well since Lucy had just gotten her first pair of toddler scissors. I cut a strip of construction paper and helped her cut squares. Once she had a few, I gave her the butterfly and let her at it while I cut more squares, trying to keep up with her. 

When she was done, I added another layer of contact paper to seal it up. 

Normally when we finish a project,  I'll save it to to show to daddy and/or mail them to grandparents but she doesn't really care about the end result. This is the first project she really showed pride in.We hung it in our bay window but she kept taking it down to hug. And I know it is all about the process not the product but I she did an awesome job and I love how it looks in our window -  we did this several weeks ago and it is still hanging up. She had so much fun she even asked to do another one so I did the outline of a tulip. 

(And yes, she is wearing a stained pajama shirt - I'm keeping it real people!) 

And this picture is not at all related to the above craft but I don't have many pictures on the blog of her fully clothed, hair done, in an outfit that actual matches, especially now that she is in charge of selecting what she wants to wear, so I had to throw in this picture of her last Tuesday morning before we left for storytime as proof that she doesn't always look like a character from a dickens novel.