Nesting?

Could I possibly be nesting this early into the pregnancy?  I've been going crazy getting everything organized and I've made a lot of fun changes to the playroom.  My husband and I built this awesome ball pit.

L loved trying all the different tubes.  We plan to make the tubes more elaborate as he gets older but this is perfect for him now (13 months).  I also switched the sensory bin to homemade moonsand and bought a drawer set to house his blocks, hot wheels, and animal figurines.  Those three items are toys that get played with often so I decided to have them a permanent house in the playroom.  Everything on the shelves gets cycled through monthly (sometimes longer if I'm feeling lazy lol).  Anyway, L loved the homemade moonsand so much that I wasn't able to get his clothes off of him prior to him climbing in.  :P

  I've also been making busy boxes, an idea I took from the Play At Home Mom blog.  These busy boxes will come in extremely handy when I have to nurse the new baby, but I wanted to go ahead and make them now in anticipation of morning sickness.  If my morning sickness is half as bad as it was the first time around then L is going to need to be occupied for quite some time while mommy hugs the porcelain throne.  :(  Our first busy box is dyed rice and a few little condiment cups for scooping and pouring.  As you can see he liked it quite a bit but it's been put out of sight for now so that when the need arises it will be new and cool again.

New play ideas

With Christmas came all kind of great gifts for play.  We got water beads for L's sensory bin and he LOVED them!  I think he could have spent 12 or more hours in there if we would have had the time to let him haha.

We also did a glow bath on Christmas Eve night.  Can we say HUGE hit?  We put those cheap little glow sticks in the bathtub with L and turned the lights out.  He was entertained for quite some time with them.  He would lift out two at a time and compare them and then throw them back in the water.  :)

Another big Christmas hit was his fiber optic light.  He didn't really get to play with it until a few days after Christmas because we forgot to get batteries with it!  haha  He loved hitting the fibers as the lights would change colors, it looked really neat as if the light were making squiggly lines.

I think we did good this Christmas!

Big Announcement

Our family has recently made a big announcement.  :)  L is going to be a big brother!!

We are so excited that we can't hardly stand it!  L has been saying bay beh all day today.  :)  I think that he kind of knows that something is different because he has become super protective of me lately, and very affectionate toward me and other babies.  It's so sweet.

Other than that we've just been up to our usual activities.  We changed out the sensory bin and L was eager to help sweep up the mess we made while trying to dump the old sensory bin into a storage container.

Then we played in the new sensory bin: packing peanuts!

We made a new discovery recently:  seran wrap can keep a man busy for quite some time.

That's about all we've been up to lately, except for staying busy with all of the holiday festivities and the new pregnancy.  Merry Christmas!

Discipline

Discipline is something we're doing a little differently in our family.  We have decided to throw out the current model of rewards and punishments.  I believe it stifles the self discipline that is already present within each child.  I believe that children naturally want to do what is right and to use punishment or rewards to "teach" them right from wrong seems to contradict that.  So far the hardest part of this has been to not tell him "Good job!" for every little thing he does.  I have been working really hard to substitute in phrases like:  "Thank you," "You worked really hard for that," "You must be really proud of yourself," and "I can really tell you like to take care of your toys and keep your house clean!"  Since I believe that children naturally want to do what is right, I don't really have to resort to punishment right now (hopefully never).  My latest example of this is something we've been working on for months now.  L loves to get into the refrigerator and pull out the glass bottles from the door.  He's never been gentle with anything so we've had to work with him on that in almost every area of our lives.  Anyway, I have repeatedly demonstrated how to gently set the glass bottles in the floor.  He would always watch intently and then give it a try....except his try looked more like slamming the glass bottles on the floor LOL.  He has worked so hard to be gentle with these bottles and it has not been at all easy for him.  However, today I think it clicked.  It was so wonderful to watch him pull out a glass bottle and set it every so gently on the floor!

Another area we have recently made progress in is being gentle with faces.  L was really into hitting faces for a while (no idea where that came from haha).  Every time he would begin to hit my face (or someone else's) I would take his hand and gently stroke my face with it and say, "Gentle, aaahhhh that's nice."  Then I would take my hand and gently stroke his face repeating myself.  Lately he has been coming up to me at different parts of the day and gently stroking my face and saying, "Aaaaahhhh"  haha it's pretty adorable.  He's such a great little guy, I'm amazed by him daily.
Another big part of how we discipline is that we see mistakes as a learning opportunity rather than a reason to get angry or shame the child.  When he slams glass down on the floor I say, "Uh oh, it looks like it broke and made a big mess!  That's why we have to be gentle, here's a rag let's clean this mess up together!"  rather than, "See I told you that would happen, this is why I can't trust you."  Admittedly the latter is sometimes very tempting to say.  What I've learned though is that he DOES want to do it right, he's worked hard for months to do this right!  Another example would be when he throws food in the floor at dinner.  We respond by saying, "Uh oh, food doesn't belong on the floor, it belongs on your plate."  Sometimes he'll even start to throw the food in the floor before he stops and decides not to.  Yet another example was when I filled a pool full of dried beans for his birthday party.  He put a bean into his mouth and I said, "Oh those don't go in your mouth, these are all to play with."  I've done this with various different sensory bins BTW.  After spitting out the bean I caught him out of the corner of my eye beginning to put another bean in his mouth.  I pretended to be preoccupied and he stopped himself, threw the bean down, and kept playing.

A Night Off!

Last night my husband and I got a much needed "night off" from parenting and let grandma have some time with our little guy.  :)  I think that I have forgotten what it's like to not be sticky somewhere LOL.  On Friday we did quite a few fun activities.  After pulling out all of the books and reading them, L found the container of household items I put in his playroom a few days before.  It's amazing how much fun they can have with these things!

  I decided to get a little creative with our teething issue so I froze plain yogurt (one of L's favorite snacks) into Christmas tree shapes.  He seemed to really like it, I'm excited for next year when he can help me decorate the trees with frozen fruit.

We involved dad in our science work.  :)  We did a little demonstration that involved whole milk, food coloring, and dish soap.  You put out a pan of whole milk and put food coloring in different areas of the milk, then you add the dish soap and watch all of the colors spread out and swirl.  It's so neat!  Apparently dish soap is designed to break down fat and that is exactly what it tries to do in the whole milk.  It's neat to be able to watch it through the colors!

Afterward L helped his dad put together the remaining chairs to his table.

The end of the highchair!

Last night I couldn't sleep and I couldn't resist snapping this picture!

Anyway, today was great and packed full of activities!  Our first adventure was with colored vinegar and baking soda.  Here's the colored vinegar all set up.

L loved this little activity.  He was just amazed every time I put baking soda in and the vinegar would begin to fizz.  The blue was the only one that bubbled over because it was in a different container than the others.  He was seriously amazed though.  haha

L helped me do dishes and fold laundry after all of the excitement.  This evening his table came in!  We are all really excited about this because the high chair really wasn't working out for any of us anymore.  Independence is something we're working really hard to foster in our son and he really takes notice when things limit that independence.

I decided to join him for dinner at his table so he wouldn't be eating alone.  We had steak and sweet potatoes and he picked off every bite of steak from his plate, he's such a meat eater.  We have also been using shot glasses for his water because sippy cups never worked for us either.  He learns by watching us do things and he really took to a glass that was small enough for his hands to get around.  He isn't a fan of special baby things for him, he wants to be just like the adults.  He's so perfect!  Notice the table is crooked, he really enjoyed pushing it around between bites of dinner haha.

Cookies!

Today we made peanut butter cookies!  L really enjoyed watching the mixer blend all of the ingredients together.  I am so happy we have a learning tower!  He was a great helper, he watched me and kept track of the spoon I used to scoop the peanut butter out with. ;)

Peanut Butter is one of his favorite foods so he really loved these cookies!  I think he would have eaten every cookie we made if I had let him.

He loved doing dishes afterward, that's pretty much his favorite activity now.  He's also really into books these days.  I never can get a picture of that but it's pretty adorable.  He will go get a book off of the shelf and hand it to me to read and when I'm done he'll either grunt for me to read it again or pick another book out and hand it to me.
We also worked on a little color recognition today.  Since it's December I thought it would be fun to do Christmas colors!  I just used water and food coloring.

He really enjoyed touching the different colors and exploring both pans.  When he started losing interest I combined the colors to make a dark purple and I think that had him stumped for a while.

New sensory bin!!

Today has been really busy.  We started out the morning with a little cleaning, L was eager to help his dad do dishes...that's his favorite activity now.  :)

We did a Montessori inspired activity comparing warm to cold.  We had warm water in one pan and a block of ice in the other.  I had planned on doing this activity a few days ago but I had trouble finding two identical containers which is an important part.  Today I searched the kitchen and found two identical cake pans.

We ended the day with a new sensory bin.  While we were at Walmart today we picked up some Polyfill that is kind of beady and used to fill beanie babies with.  It's a "snow" sensory bin!  We had a great time playing with it too.  L spent forever playing in it.  He found the scoops and filled several of them by hand.

Work Work Work!

We got our learning tower in the mail yesterday evening and we've been hard at work ever since!  L has really really enjoyed being able to watch me prepare and cook meals.  He watches everything I do very intently!  This morning he helped me do all of our dishes and he LOVED throwing the next dish in the water when I finished washing one.  I got him a rag and he started wiping off dishes too, then he wiped the counter and his learning tower.  Water was everywhere but it was totally one of those messes that are worth making!

We got a bath and got dressed and he helped me fold a little laundry.  By fold I mean that he took each article of clothing out and put it on the floor for me to fold.  :)  Yes, it's a little messy but it's not a big deal at all since I have to pull it out and fold it anyway!  He loves helping out around the house and I love having his company!

My husband and I have really been making an effort to include L in our daily work.  Partly because we want him to learn to manage chores and fun for when he's older, but mostly because we think that it's important to include him in pretty much every area of our lives.  Here's a picture of L helping daddy hang his shelves in his room!

After we finished folding laundry today we went to a local museum with my sister in law and her two youngest kids.  We had a great time and I completely forgot my camera!  L really enjoyed playing in the big ball pit with his cousins.  One of his favorite parts was the huge magnetic board they had, he really enjoyed sticking various objects to it and trying to pull them off.  We had a great day today!

Playroom

I've been getting a few questions about how I have done my playroom since we recently gave it a makeover.  So here it is!

This was a bookshelf that was left with the house when we moved here.  We painted it black and turned it sideways, my husband recently built the little shelves you see in there now, actually L helped him out and really loved the drill.  :) As you can see there are no battery operated toys, we're trying this idea out so all of the battery operated toys are currently in the closet, since we haven't missed them a bit I'd be willing to bet that they end up at Salvation Army within a month.

Here is our sensory bin.  I think most people probably have a Tupperware like this around the house full of stuff they don't need anyway.  If not, Walmart sells them pretty cheap.  Currently in the sensory bin is different colors of crinkly (shredded) paper from the dollar store.  I think I spent 4 bucks to fill the bin.  On each side of the sensory bin are pockets from an old shoe organizer I cleaned out and cut up.  L is really into pulling things out of pockets and putting them back in so he loves those.  I'm having problems getting the one on the right to stay up though, obviously.  I'll have to find something stronger.

Here is the bed area.  We took out the crib and placed the mattress on the floor so he can have access to it at anytime and can climb on and off of it himself.  There's also a little drum over there with a few different musical instruments that he likes to play with.  The mirror over the bed came from target and was 6 bucks, I also bought a suction bath container that hangs on the mirror and holds window crayons, when he's old enough I'm hoping he'll have fun drawing on the mirror.

Here is our felt board that I made.  Super simple and under 10 bucks for all materials.  I got a thick piece of poster board and a yard of felt fabric from Walmart and cut and hot glued the felt around the poster board.  Underneath is part of my cut up shoe organizer and holds some felt shapes I've cut out.  I bought a pack of craft felt with tons of different colored felt and have been cutting out various shapes, letters and numbers to come!  We are also hoping for a magnetic board from grandma and grandpa for Christmas to put to the left of the felt board.  So that is how we gave our playroom a cheap and much needed makeover!  I seriously have not had more fun with my son and I can our relationship has improved leaps and bounds.  He has free access to everything in there.  We also have the light box in the picture below in our living room and a ballpit there as well.  There is also talk of getting rid of the TV because the stand would make such a great art table, and the bins below the stand would hold all the craft supplies really well.  I'll keep updating as we make changes!

The past few days have been SO much fun!  I got a huge box from Sears for L and poked holes in the top to put Christmas lights in.  We've had fun crawling in and out of there and observing the different color lights.

We have also had fun exploring the kitchen cabinets.  He was beginning to get bored with the bottom cabinets so we let him explore the top ones haha.

We've also changed out the sensory bin to colored crinkly paper from the Dollar Store.  We have had quite a bit of fun with that.  We make it "rain" paper and I also hid jingle bells in there once for L to find.  He had fun digging through the paper and finding a bell.

L loves to play piano with his feet so we've been indulging him lately and we've also spent quite a few days outside.  One day L was covered in mud (my husband and I were pretty muddy too) because we were all wrestling in the mud and leaves.  He also had a great time learning to balance and move around on a log, it's funny how much kids learn from little things like that.

A Thanksgiving Letter to my Son

L,

Today and every day I am so very thankful for the person that you are. Thank you for your love, persistence, fighting spirit, and fun nature!  Thank you for fighting me when I began to fall into the conventional method of parenting with too many illogical "no's."  Thank you for being persistent in your fight, I fear that if you had not fought I would have turned into a "no" mother instead of being transformed into a "yes" mom.  Thank you for teaching me to question myself before telling you no, I have learned that so many no's are so unnecessary!  Thank you for teaching me to slow down and have fun!  Thank you SO much for teaching me that life is not about having a clean house, looking good all the time, or having children who are "seen and not heard."  Thank you for teaching me that life is about making messes that are totally worth the clean up, being loud, and enjoying this moment.  Thank you for teaching me to trust you, thank you for showing me that you know your limitations better than I ever possibly could!  Thank you for teaching me that the sound of children is the sweetest, most amazing beautiful sound and the traditional "seen and not heard" approach to parenting creates miserable children and parents who miss the entire point of living.  Thank you for fighting me so hard that I was nearly at my breaking point as a mother and forcing me to look into other options as a parent.  Had you not been such a fighter I would have never looked.  I love everything about who you are, at a year old you are already so much wiser than I or most people that I know.  I pray that I only encourage your growth and never stifle it like so many in our current society do.  I know you will grow to be everything you want to be, but I have a few little tips.  Never lose sight of the kind of person you want to be.  Don't get so caught up in the daily drone that you forget to stop and have fun!  Always remember that it is NEVER too late to start being the kind of person you want to be.  True happiness spreads like wildfire so if you are unhappy it usually only takes one small change to start the cascade of changes into a joyful life.  Thank you so much for being the amazing person that you are, I am so lucky that you have chosen me to be your mother...for that I will be eternally grateful.  I love you so much.

Just another day in paradise :)

My husband and I have spent the last week or so running errands and going places, it's been so busy.  We both agreed that the rest of the week would be spent taking it easy!  Today was so wonderful.  We all gathered in for some play room time which is always amazing.  We changed out the sensory bin and put in some "magic snow" that I had found where you just add water and it forms this snowy gooey stuff.  L was not a fan, he touched it once and I think it grossed him out or something lol.  I took him on a piggy back ride through the house and he really seemed to love that.  He cracked up the whole time.

  We also had some "waller" time on the bed.  L and his dad love to wrestle and I'm picking up some fun moves from playing with them.  :)  I think the cutest moment today though was when L put his own bowl in the dishwasher after lunch.  I was starting to clean up the dishes and he decided to help!

I also caught a really cute moment where he was exploring the kitchen cabinets again.  That used to be his favorite activity and he hasn't been doing that for a little while, I was glad I got a picture of it today.  :)

Busy day

This morning and afternoon was really busy, but once things settled down we were able to get in some fun time!  We put up the Christmas tree today and it turns out that L is scared of it!  lol He won't go near it at all.  I hope he gets used to it!  We ended up in the playroom so we could avoid the living room and the giant scary tree haha.  He re-discovered the aquarium gravel in his sensory bin.  He had been ignoring it for the past few days and I was getting ready to find something new to put in there.  He had a blast though!

He also had a great time with his mirror that I put up at naptime!  I was super excited to find this mirror at Target for 5 bucks.  I got a little suction shower basket and put it on the bottom corner to hold all of his window crayons and markers.  He's a bit too young to appreciate window crayons and markers but I sure have a good time drawing on the mirror!  He enjoyed looking at himself and kissing himself in the mirror.

Playing with the mirror quickly turned into pushing his elephant walker around again....  :)

I'm so glad that he has taught me the importance of slowing down and playing even on the busy days!  He is such a wonderful person.