Indoor Active Play Grab Bag Ideas

Thanks to this crazy cold weather, Kaja hadn't left the house in almost 5 days and was going stir crazy! She was literally running in circles this morning, and I knew we had to do something! Now, there's a million ideas on Pinterest for indoor active play, and I've tried a couple, but I haven't had much luck finding ones that really capture her interest and keep her moving for more than a few minutes, and I was hoping to tire her out! She's very story and craft oriented these days, so anything that captures her creative/imaginative side helps! That, and just changing things up a lot!
So, I decided to do a "wiggle grab bag." with LOTS of active ideas. You pull an idea out of the bag, and everyone has to do what the paper says before you can pull out another idea. Each activity can be done in a matter of seconds, or, if it strikes your fancy, you can play at it for as long as you want. This is simple and open-ended so it can move with her.

I wrote down the ideas, drew lines to make a grid around them, and had her cut them out, so she got some fine motor practice in, too! ;)
Here is what we have so far:

• Toss a ball into a laundry basket (this was a favorite, she did this for a good 20 minutes)
• Lay down and do the bicycle motion in the air (slow, fast, to a song, while counting, see who can do it longer, etc. I got tired way before she did! Great ab workout!)
• See how long you can stand on one foot (then try the other)!
• Bounce around on a yoga ball or large stuffed animal
• army crawl across the room
• do baby push-ups (we have an infant, so we all do "tummy time" together!)
• Do 10 jumping-jacks
• crawl under all the kitchen/dining-room chairs
• balance while walking on a line (use masking tape or just the grout lines on tile floors)
• Hop in a circle
• Roll across the room!
• Climb up and down the stairs pretending it's a mountain
• Spin around 5 times
• Climb up the back/side of the couch
• push laundry basket around on the carpet (get 2 and make it a race!)
• Dance to a silly song (Hokey Pokey? Chicken Dance? Something with motions!)
• Walk backwards to another room and back
• Flap your wings and fly around the house
• Be a human wheelbarrow (one person holds ankles while the other walks on hands)
• "Crab walk" around the room
• Jump like a frog (could play leap frog!)
• Crawl to the other side of the room and back
• Line up stuffed animals (or pillows) and jump over them
• Play "Ring Around the Rosey"

I anticipate adding more as we go. We moved and jumped and played for about 30 minutes before we had to take a break, and we only used 4 or 5 ideas. We'll do it again tomorrow...

Learning to Read with "Sing Spell Read and Write!"

When I was a kid, I learned to read using the Sing Spell Read and Write curriculum by Sue Dickson. It's awesome, and covers WAY more than just reading/writing! I loved it, and always figured I'd use it with my kids. I bought the pre-K curriculum package, and would recommend buying their whole package if you're looking for a curriculum (if you buy nothing else, get the level 1 CD for all the phonics songs!) but there are plenty of free/cheap resources we found:

You can find tons of explanations and demos on youtube by typing in the curriculum name, but here are our favorite videos:

The Phonics Song: This is the alphabet with pronunciations instead of letter names. I started playing it when my daughter was a toddler, and she was trying to sound out words before she was 2! I love that there is a slide show with the letters as they're singing so kids can learn to associate the shapes with the sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asfVlQ0bmv4&list=PL32962BEB0218870A

Here's another version, with the chart/placemat that comes with the curriculum pack (worth making or buying one of your own):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXc-_hxRXlo

And here are 2 links of kids singing it, because it's adorable, and there is no better motivator than seeing other kids do it, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyXogrVY89o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70ZRbTOXFk

When they get more advanced, there is a song for the short vowels (which they've already learned in the alphabet song) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2k8xYMWMDc&list=PLTJdTUd9iEZtmh3Nn0yxab8_JGKTQhvGW&index=2

And new long vowel sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxIEIgbaWA

Once they've got the letter sounds, then they move on to 2-letter combinations, once again, using singing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC1yCleMLhc 

I did the above activity by writing the vowels on a magnetic white board, then swapping out magnet letters for the consonants.

It takes a while to get to the combination stage, but once they've got it, it's amazing to watch them take off! We used the BOB books after that to introduce really simple words, and she loves reading! (I bought the first set from Amazon, and they gave me the option to buy the Kindle version for .99 as well. The physical books were really important as she was learning to read, I think, but after getting through set 1, we used the Kindle Owner's Lending Library to borrow each set as we needed them. Yay for free readers!)

http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Books-Set-Beginning-Readers-ebook/dp/B00HDPOY84/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400968584&sr=8-1&keywords=bob+books 

Anyway, I hope that's helpful! We really enjoy the songs, and I made homemade  charts, books, and coloring pages by using black and white clip art for each letter (print each letter/picture combination and put them in a dollar-store photo album!).

"Pre-School" Lists

Last Spring I scanned through tons of "what your child should know before starting Kindergarten" lists (and a few "before 1st grade" lists), and compiled a "master list" of topics that I would like to cover with Kaja in these pre-school years. This is NOT an exhaustive list, nor does any Kindergarten teacher expect their incoming students to know these things (honestly, this is more like a Kindergarten curriculum, with several more advanced elements, too)! I DO NOT expect her to become an expert on everything on this list, and when I wrote it, I anticipated it would take at LEAST two years to get through most of it. Some items are a piece of cake for her, and some are extremely ambitious and probably won't be learned until she's older (the difference between a verb, noun, and adjective, for instance), but I put it on there as a reminder to help me work it into our conversations if it comes up, and to give me a goal to work toward, since I know she will need to learn it eventually. Who knows? She has surprised us plenty in the past!

Disclaimer: I'm not an educator. While some of these items came from education sources, this is purely my personal goals for my own daughter. This is literally just cut-and-paste from my brainstorming, so sorry for the discombobulated mess! Some items include suggestions on how to work on that concept, and at the bottom is my (incomplete) "wish-list" of supplies to play and learn with.

English/Language Arts:

• Rhyming words
• Telling stories from pictures
• Putting story pictures in order
• makes predictions about what comes next in a story (and why)
• Retelling and recalling story details
• identifies setting, plot, character, conflict (where/when, what, who, why, how)
• empathizing and talking about characters feelings and emotions
• "story stones" (making up stories including certain elements)
• Writes her own (full) name
• Concept of sentences, simple punctuation (period, question mark, comma, quotation mark, etc.)
• Title, author, illustrator, chapters, table of contents,
• basic word types (noun, verb, adjective)... do madlibs together?
• Fact vs. fiction
• Capitalize 1^st letter in sentence, and proper nouns.
• Tracing and writing letters and numbers

Math/Numbers:

• shapes (2D and 3D)
• Tell Time
• count to 30 (work in with months), 60 (work into minutes/hours), then 100
• seasons
• months of year?
• days of the week (this method using vitamins in pill organizers makes it so easy!)
• Yesterday, today, tomorrow, last week, other time words (work into vitamin lessons)
• Right and left
• sorting by size, color, shape, type, etc
• more or less
• measuring (length, width, height, weight, volume (liquid measurements), time, temp. etc)
• Money!
• Simple addition and subtraction
• working with a number line
• graphing
• ordinal numbers (first, second, third)
• simple fractions ("cut the cake in half")
• skip counting (2's, 5's, 10's)?

Science:

• Observations and hypotheses (prediction based on observation)
• use magnifying glass to examine items carefully
• 5 senses
• weather
• living vs. non-living (plants, animals, minerals, etc)
• What living things need to survive
• life cycles (like frogs and butterflies)
• classifications (bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, insect, arachnid, mammal, etc)
• plants: from seed (bean sprouts), grow a garden (from sprout to blossom/fruit), roots and root vegetables, different food sources (fruit, vegetable, grain, dairy, nuts/legumes, meat)
• stars, planets and solar systems
• Look at stars, talk about what they are, simple constellations, point out planets, etc.
• waterways (definition of: wells, springs, streams, rivers, lakes/ponds, oceans), currents, etc.

Geography/History:

• Understands different places have different climates, animals, cultures, languages, etc.
• 7 continents (list and locate)
• 4 oceans
• north pole, south pole, equator
• compass directions
• understand the difference between “city, state, country, continent”
• understands “Past, present, future” concepts, and the difference between stories and history
• Use timelines to show progression of time (seed-plant, baby to adult, progress of day, then history, etc)
• Talk about kings, presidents, governors, other authority figures

Life Skills:

• ROUTINE!!!
• Dress self
• button and zipper fastening
• tie shoes
• set and clear table
• help with cleaning tasks (sweeping, dusting, wiping)
• put away books and toys (sorting)
• early folding laundry skills (matching socks, folding towels, etc)
• sort her own laundry???
• Know her own birthday, address, phone number
• Know when to use titles of respect (Mrs., Mr., Pastor, Doctor, etc)
• help in kitchen (stirring, using the manual egg-beater, helping to pour/measure, use the food chopper or wavy chopper)

Gross Motor:

• bounce and catch ball
• skip
• hop on one foot
• climb ladders

Art and fine motor ideas:

• scissor work
• color blends (red+blue=purple, blue+yellow=green, etc)
• pipe cleaner and cheerio threading
• drawing shapes in different sizes
• using shapes to make a picture (start by using pre-cut shapes to make pictures, a-la funny face, eventually working toward drawing in the shapes freehand)
• stencils
• mist plants with spray bottle to build hand strength
• use an eye-dropper for coordination (fun for color mixing games! 2-in-1!)
• tracing in clay, cutting clay
• Recreating pictures, shapes, etc from looking at a model (no directions)
• creative modeling materials (toothpicks and marshmallows/raisins, etc.)
• Looking at and talking about different styles of art

Items/equipment ideas:

• Magnifying glass
• balance scale
• misting spray bottle
• eye dropper
• plastic test tubes?
• Small table/chairs
• low cupboards for her dishes/silverware
• Ideally, Kid-safe kitchen items in reach with a low workspace (hang a low shelf?) (wavy chopper, food chopper, manual egg-beater, plastic dishes/silverware, etc)
• Full-length mirror to hang sideways near ground (for baby), or larger/multiple mirrors (fun for dancing!)
• 5or7-compartmet organizer for laying out outfits for the week
• clothing hamper(s) for K
• trampoline (those small ones for exercising)
• tumbling mats (IKEA!)
• balance beam (again, IKEA!)
• items to climb, hang, swing, and rock on
• Hang a lower closet bar so she can reach her own clothes
• Tension/closet rod and bags with hooks for puzzles and sets of small things
• Chalkboard Paint! (magnetic?)
• Or giant, glossy sheet metal that can be magnet board and dry-erase board (oil drip pan?)
• The Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center is seriously the BEST thing ever! You can slide any 8.5x11 paper under the clear plastic and it becomes a dry-erase board! We use it for coloring, tracing, worksheets, mazes, you name it!
• play money
• letter stamps and stickers
• counting manipulatives (pebbles, bottle caps, glass beads from the dollar store, etc)

Felt Anatomy Set Patterns

Kaja has been on an anatomy kick lately, and I've been looking for some good hands-on ways to engage her interest. I've been seeing a lot of really cool felt anatomy sets on Pinterest, and I thought I'd make my own from random felt scraps laying around.

Ah, the digestive system. Her favorite part! She has to feed her "patient" once it's put together!

We still have a ways to go for the cardio/pulmonary system...

I couldn't find a pattern, so I made my own. I guess you could just trace an image from an anatomy book, but it's hard to find one good resource for that (and if you use multiple images, you have to scale them), so I'm posting my pattern, in case anyone else wants to try! The images are at the bottom of this page.

Here are the awesome things that inspired my project:

This was the first one I found, and I love how detailed the organs are!

Here is the printed felt set that we had when I was a kid.

This very cool person made an anatomy DOLL with removable organs. She even published a free pattern! How cool is that?! I appreciated her suggestion to start with smallest/most detailed part and scale and size everything else to fit. That made my project much more manageable!

And here are some other clever ideas that I may have to try soon:

Life-sized felt organs that will "stick" to your clothes,

this anatomy apron,  or this version, or make your own!

As an added bonus, I sized the organs to fit over a 2-page body diagram in one of Kaja's favorite lift-the-flap body books. So if you're looking for an educational book to go with the set, I'd recommend Usborne's "See Inside Your Body." 

Bones: Skull, spine/pelvis, ribs, collarbones, humerus (2), ulna/radius (2), femur(2), tibia/fibia(2).

Digestive: esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine

Cardiopulmonary: trachea, lungs (2), heart

Waste/other: liver, kidneys(2), bladder, pancreas (with gallbladder attached), spleen, and Brain!

Here are the patterns. Click on the image to view and download. Each one is sized for an 8.5x11" sheet of paper. When you go to print the image, just select the "fill entire paper"option for scale in the print menu.
For the body silhouette, I assembled the skeleton on a large piece of felt and used a piece of chalk to trace an outline around it. Pretty simple, really, and the chalk just rubs right off! :) I also used a sharpie to detail a few of the organs, shown on the pattern with dotted lines (small intestine and heart). 

Skeleton

Cardio-pulmonary

Internal organs

Skull/brain

An Adventure on Every Page!

Kaja's imagination is most active in the morning after breakfast. I always feel a little bit like a lazy mom, letting her play so long by herself, but I love to just sit with my coffee and watch her go! She's off in her own little world having "adventures" and the things she says and does are simply delightful!

This morning, as she does most mornings, she put on her favorite pair of shoes (that are still too big for her, so we can't wear them out yet) and announced "I'm going on an adventure now!"
Do you want to know where today's adventure is taking us? "To the LIBRARY!" Kaja set up an imaginary library by her bookshelves and is going back and forth, collecting a stack of books, "taking them home" to read them all out loud, then returning for another stack (we're still working on returning the books themselves to the library). She has most of her books memorized, and the few she doesn't know yet, she just wings it from the pictures, and that, too, is quite a show! I just love that her idea of an adventure is going to a place where she can read as much as she wants. She is currently working on book #19. And now she's pulled out another book with lots of words, and is calling me over to read with her. Warms my heart!

Who's Teaching Who?

I get to teach the Kindergarten-2nd grade sunday school class at my church once or twice a month. I love getting to spend time with the kids, and I've always loved teaching in general, but the thing I find most humbling is that, even though my audience is 5-7 year-olds, and the stories are the same ones I've heard since infancy, I am still learning and benefitting from the same truths that I am teaching to the children. The craziest part is that I usually don't realize how much I needed to hear that lesson myself until Sunday morning, as the words are coming out of my mouth and the Holy Spirit is pricking my heart and saying "listen!" It makes me marvel and rejoice at how timeless the truths of God are. It is simple enough for a child to understand, yet deep and complex and meaningful enough that we will never be able to plumb the depths of it's wisdom.

This week I taught the story of Jonah, and boy was I convicted! I felt like such a hypocrite, telling these things to the class when I myself hadn't been thinking about or following these words for much of my week. I'm so thankful to God that He never stops teaching me, and always finds creative ways to do it!

Here are a few of the lessons we all learned yesterday:

1. God wants us to marvel at His creation. And He wants us to remember that it all points back to Him. Anytime we admire stunning beauty, magnificent power, awe-inspiring magnitude, perfect order, mind-bending creativity, heart-warming goodness, or anything else that makes us smile or think "wow!" that it all comes from HIM, and is just a dim reflection, a tiny preview of His beauty, His power, His magnitude, His order, His creativity and His goodness.

2. God made the world, and He called it good, and he cares for everything He has made, but He cares most about people. He cares about even the WORST people. Jonah was angry at God for allowing a shade-giving plant to die, but the thought of an entire city being destroyed in a fiery explosion didn't bother him at all. Isn't that the same for me? Don't I so easily get frustrated when I lose something that provides me with comfort or makes my life easier? If I care so much about these things, then the least I could do is care for people more--even the hard-to-love people that drive me crazy. If God cared about the people of Nineveh, who were sworn enemies of God and His people, the same people who attacked and enslaved the Israelites, then I can show compassion on those around me, no matter how frustrated with them I feel.

3. Absolutely nothing happens outside the sovereign will of God. There are some things that He actively ordains to happen, and some things that He simply allows to happen (that's where our free will comes in), but if He really doesn't want something to happen, it simply cannot happen. God actively sent Jonah to Nineveh, and when Jonah tried to refuse, he was stopped in the most remarkable supernatural ways. Not only was there a storm that stopped as soon as he was tossed overboard, but he was somehow preserved alive in the belly of a giant fish for days before being vomited back onto dry land, of all things. I mean, seriously? There's no doubt in Jonah's mind how this all happened, and you'd better believe that the next time God told him to go, he went!

4. It is possible to obey God's commands with a bad attitude, but the only person suffering is you.  (see chapter 4) I really needed an attitude check last week, and this was a pretty good kick-in-the-pants reminder!

So what about you? What and how has God been teaching you these days? :)

What would YOU do?

Today, poor, stir-crazy Kaja was so excited to walk to the park, but decided to create a power struggle over her shoes, of all things! She LOVES shoes, and is so proud that she can put them on by herself now. I was shocked. You wouldn't expect "Come put on your shoes, please, so we can go to the park!" to incite rebellion, but today it did. I guess it was a reflection of the state of her heart at the moment, and a good picture of all our hearts, really. It seemed so easy: She wanted to go to the park, she likes to put on shoes, let's do one so we can go to the other. But she resisted. She just froze. When I called her again, she stubbornly sat down. When I asked her if she wanted to go to the park, she said "yes!" but she wouldn't budge. I gently reminded her several times that we couldn't go to the park if she didn't wear shoes, and she sat, immovable, silent. The more I coaxed, the harder she resisted until I finally announced that we weren't going to the park. You can imagine the devastation that followed.

I found myself throwing my hands up in frustration that my daughter couldn't see the common sense in the situation, but very quickly realized that, once again, I was looking at my own reflection.

Our Bible study just finished Deuteronomy, and I was struck by the clarity in Deuteronomy 30:11-20

 "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach... No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

It's so simple! Love and obey the Lord, because he is the source of life. Choose obedience and choose life. Any other choice is death. Shouldn't be hard, right? 

Right?

I recently illustrated this concept in the kindergarten-2nd grade Sunday school class this way: 

Imagine you're stranded out on the open ocean. There's no land in sight, you see sharks starting to circle, and you're sinking fast. Now imagine that a lifeboat comes for you. You scramble in and the captain says "I'm taking you home, all you have to do is stay in the boat and you'll be safe." Will you follow his directions? It would be so foolish to jump back in the water! The water means certain death, the boat is life.

It seems so simple, but over and over I make the choice to jump back in the water, to do things myself, to make my own way, under my own power. Every day I find myself treading water when there's a motorboat right there, waiting to take me home.

Colossians 1:16-17 says "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." He made me. He is the only reason these molecules are sticking together to form my body. How could I possibly think I am capable of doing anything apart from him? Moses put it so nicely above: "The Lord is your life."

Yet here we are, struggling to keep our heads above water, sinking fast in a sea of entropy and darkness, insisting that we are enough on our own. Oh, how we need a Rescuer!

Today, Kaja refused to obey my sensible request, so she didn't get to go to the park.

In my Sunday School illustration, the passengers who didn't stay in the boat never made it home.

In Exodus, the Israelites refused to obey the One True God who had proved Himself to them over and over, and an entire generation died in the wilderness, never making it to the promised land.

All of these stories have a destination, and so does ours. God is preparing an eternal kingdom, where we will live forever with a loving God in a magnificent and perfect world, free from all suffering and pain. But we've jumped ship. God is our life, our very source of being, but Isaiah says "everyone has turned to his own way." Romans says "all have sinned and fall short." None of us will make it to our destination if left to our own devices. 

When I look at it in this light, it seems so obvious. Rebellion is absolutely futile and foolish, yet our sinful nature constantly drives us deeper into our empty, helpless selves, and away from the promised Good that awaits. I watched my daughter shut down, throw up walls and grow increasingly miserable when she could have been playing in the sunshine at the park, all because she didn't want to put on shoes. Come to think of it, she probably did want to put on shoes, she just didn't want to obey me. 

When she calmed down, we talked (in a simplified way) about these things. I reminded her that when we rebel it is called sin, and that the punishment for sin is death. I confessed to her that mommy sins daily, too (she knows my shortcomings better than most!), but that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die in our place. He took our punishment so we don't have to die, and he came back to life so that we could live forever with him. He is our Rescuer, who has come to save us from the depths and lead us home.

Tonight, as I do most nights, I asked her what her "long name" is. "Kristjana," she answered. "Do you know what Kristjana means?" I ask. "Follow Jesus!" And with a kiss, I whisper into her ear the reason we gave her that name: "So you will never forget what is most important."

And that is what I pray for my headstrong, independent, capricious, feisty, stubborn, mercurial, determined, force-of-nature of a daughter: That when she finds herself lost and overcome (which, if she's my daughter, will probably be often), she will remember that whisper in her ear, telling her the Way home:

"Follow Jesus..."

Consonant Blends and other quirks

We have a remarkably articulate 2 year old who talks up a storm in a very clear and precise manner, so whenever she does have difficulty pronouncing something, we feel compelled to document it.

Some of our favorite quirks over time:

When she was 18 months, her vocabulary was already fairly substantial, and consisted of English, Mandarin and sign language, but for some weird reason, she couldn't say "water." She could sign it, but no matter what, she called it "Gaw." We have no idea where it came from, it's not close to "water" or "Shui" (the Mandarin equivalent), but that's what she would say. We worked so hard, saying "Wa, wa, WA-TER" slowly and clearly so she would get it, and she would lean in, raise her eyebrows just like we did, and reply very deliberately "Wa, wa, GAAAAAAAW" The funniest part was when her grandparents decided to just adopt her word into their vocabulary. I'll never forget hearing them say "Do you want some gaw?"

We just about died laughing when she tried to say "computer" and instead all that would come out of her mouth was "potato." That's the one we decided to adopt, and suddenly all our computers were renamed. The kindle fire even became our "hot potato." We were crushed the day she pronounced computer correctly. We're not changing our network names back, though. Those stay, a reminder of the adorable days of yore.

Her current and ongoing quirk is very specific, and no less cute. She can say the "S" sound just fine, but cannot pronounce it when it comes right before another consonant. If a consonant blend starts with "S," she will just say the 2nd consonant. In a cluster of 3 consonants, she can actually say the latter 2, but still no S's. It makes for some very cute (and slightly confusing) words!
Here are a few highlights:

scrubs = cwubs (oh yeah, she's also got the stereotypical r=w quirk)
stop = top
stretch = twetch!
stepstool = teptool!
story = towy
squish = quish
stinky = tinky
sticky = ticky
stuck = tuck
scooter = cooter
stairs = taiws
small = mall
smile = mile
snake = nake
sneaky = neaky!


If we really push her, she will sometimes make an effort, but it will either sound like "S, S, cwubs" or she'll blow air through her nose to approximate the initial S sound, but it ends up sounding more like a funny H. So occasionally you'll hear her say something like "hmall," or "hnake."

I doubt this is unique, there must be tons of toddlers out there calling people 'neaky 'tinkers, but I wanted to make sure I wrote it down somewhere. Because I know that someday, just like "water" and "computer," she'll be able to pronounce the initial S in a consonant blend like a pro, and I want to remember.

Thank you, Pinterest!

Today was a "sick day" for me. I've been fighting a cold for days and finally succumbed this morning. Nothing terrible, just your run-of-the mill sore throat, swollen sinuses, runny nose, headache and fatigue deal, but certainly enough to make me want a quiet day doing "nothing" at home.

Of course, my 2-year-old felt just fine and was wondering what new adventures we were going to have today?! Thankfully I've been collecting ideas for fun activities on Pinterest and happened to have the right supplies handy (didn't take much). Today's post is a photo journal of how I kept my toddler busy while I sat idly by and convalesced. 

We haven't really worked on lower case letters, but I made an upper- lower-case match-up card set and she caught right on! She really enjoyed putting the "daddy" letters with the "baby" letters (her words, not mine)!

Next, I cannibalized an empty cereal box and a sweet friend let us raid her yarn remnants for some lace-up cards!
Again, she's never done anything like this before, but got it pretty quickly.

"Hey! I was playing with that!"

Q-tip painting! Who knew they made such good little paint brushes?! Again, it took a few minutes for her to figure out how to paint in the little circles, but after that she was unstoppable! She could have done this all day!

Super cool templates found here:
http://therapyfunzone.com/blog/2012/12/q-tip-painting-with-templates/

Isn't that just delightful?
I cut the Q-tips in half to extend my supply and pack in a little fine-motor-skill oomph.

I'm so thankful for the creativity of others who are willing to share, and the resources we have on the internet! Not only did I keep my daughter busy so I could rest, but we also had quality time painting together and the day was filled with great educational/developmental activities. Honestly, in some ways it almost feels like we did MORE today than we usually do! Time to look around for more ideas in case I'm still under the weather tomorrow...

My Thoughts on Saying "No"

As expressed in the title, these are just my thoughts. I'm not suggesting a parenting method, just saying what resonates with me and seems to work with my daughter. I'm no expert, I just know my kid. Everyone is different, and my views may change someday when a new child comes along. Maybe you'll like it and adopt some of my techniques. Maybe you'll disagree and tell me the totally opposite method that you employ. Either way, I hope you enjoy reading it, and I'm always up for hearing new ideas!

I recently heard about a parenting philosophy that suggested parents shouldn't say "no" to their children. The concern was that it would stifle their creative spirit, or something. I would never want to crush my daughter's individuality by forcing conformity, but I believe that we all must learn to respect appropriate boundaries. I want my little one to understand that the world does not revolve around her, there are other people who deserve her consideration, and she simply cannot do exactly what she wants whenever she wants. Also, I would very much like to keep her alive as long as possible. "No" can help with that.

That being said, I have to admit I actually do make an effort to avoid the word "no." I'm not some wishy-washy parent who is afraid to confront her own progeny, though, I swear! Here, in no particular order, are my reasons for avoiding (not eliminating) the use of the word "no" in my interactions with my daughter:

1. If I said "no" for everything she wasn't supposed to have/touch/do/go/eat/say, etc. then practically EVERYTHING in her world would be "NO!" Or at least, it would seem that way.
2. I reallllly didn't want "NO!" to be her first word (it was her second...). I figured I'd hear her say it enough later on, I'd rather delay her acquisition of this vocabulary as long as possible.
3. She is extremely strong-willed, and when I say "no," she responds by throwing a fit. I'm not afraid of her tantrums, and I don't back down in this battle of wills, but the thought of dealing with tantrums all day, every day was terribly unappealing to me (see reason number one).
4. I want her to take me seriously when I say "no." Like the boy who cried wolf, if everything is "no," it would lose it's potency over time (especially if I became weary from all those tantrums!), and then where would we be when her response was REALLY important?

So, what does it mean to "not say no?" Unlike the suggestions I heard such as "try to redirect them" or "give them options" I simply rephrase my cease-and-desist order. The words are different, but the message is the same: "That behavior is unacceptable." But I hope the message is improved, because I try to include the reason why, or suggest a preferable alternative. The way I see it, "NO!" is like stopping a car with a brick wall: effective, but painful. I'd like to help her come to a halt a bit more gently. It will lower her gas mileage and extend the life of her brake pads. Here are some of my tactics:

• "That's mama's. Here, this one is yours." (not only does she learn to respect other people's property, but she learns possessive pronouns, too!)
• "It's not time for X" (An important lesson to learn from Ecclesiastes 3)
• "That will hurt you!" (pretty self explanatory)
• "Give that to mama please." (I have found this one incredibly useful as toddlers seem to really enjoy giving things to people!)
• "YUCK!" (we're still working on this one. She has actually learned to recognize things I might identify as "gross," such as trash cans, toilets, garbage on the sidewalk, drinking her dirty bath water, etc. but she thinks the yucky sounds I make are hilarious, so she will display interest in them just to hear my reaction. Thankfully she is starting to make her own yucky sounds, and I'm hoping I can reinforce the behavior that goes with the funny noise. Also, we have an alphabet book that uses "Yak" for the letter "Y." She thinks I'm saying "yuck." It's her favorite page.)
• "Come here, please." (someone once pointed out that when we tell a child "don't X," the only verb the child hears is the unwanted behavior (X). She suggested that we might try using--or including--the desired behavior as well. Makes sense to me.)

I still say "no" a lot, and she still doesn't like it. But I try to reserve "No" for when I really mean it (when you need to throw up that proverbial brick wall in front of your child). These are typically matters of health and safety (for her, or for those around her). Some things that are definite "No's:"

• Walking into the street. (I frequently explain to her that "streets are for cars, sidewalks are for people," but if she's making a break for it, then "NO!" or "STOP!" is what she's going to hear!)
• Putting things in the toilet (mainly fingers, but not exclusively. this is an ongoing struggle)
• Getting too close to the oven/stove (I used duct tape to draw a line on our kitchen floor. She knows not to cross that boundary. Of course, whether she conforms to that rule is another story)
• Picking up an object identified as "yuck" (I do NOT want my kid eating the cigarette buts on the sidewalk outside our apartment!!! Like the street, this one is explained in other terms first. The "no!" comes when she  pays no heed and goes straight for the nastiness)
• Pinching, hitting, and other forms of intentional violence. (I follow this one up with "That hurts! Be gentle!" in an effort to encourage the desired behavior. So far there is no progress in this regard. Any suggestions on how to deal with a child who pinches when she's frustrated?)

The nice thing right now is that she's still small enough (and slow enough) that I can physically stop her if she refuses to obey. I'm trying to teach her these lessons before that ceases to be the case. Progress is slow, but blessedly present. I often feel like I'm herding a cat, or raising a hyperactive kleptomaniac, but God continues to bless me with glimpses of obedience. Nothing makes me more proud than when my daughter demonstrates some measure of self-control. Given her temperament (we knew she was a stubborn and opinionated little fighter by the second trimester!), I have prayed she would learn self-control more often than any of the other spiritual fruit.

Of course, in order to develop spiritual fruit, you have to have the Holy Spirit working in your life. And to that end, the thing I pray for her the most is that she would one day come to the realization that seeking her own way will never lead to satisfaction or fulfillment; that when she follows her own desires she becomes a slave to them; that her attempts to live in complete conformity and obedience will also fail; and that no matter how sweet, brilliant, creative, thoughtful, determined or beautiful she is (and I believe she is all of those things!), she will never live up to the perfect standard set before her. At least, not on her own. I pray that these truths will drive her to the One who has seen her weakness, who knows her failings, who has felt her rebellion, and loves her just the same. 

"What's Your Secret?"

*Warning: This is a confession post. I have no brilliant tips or strategies except the advice that I need to be following myself.

"Losing the baby weight." My goodness, I had no idea what an obsession that was until I started gaining my own! Surf the web and you will find page after page of diets, exercises, and other contraptions to help you on your journey to get your "pre-pregnancy body" back. There are even photo galleries for mommies to show off their post-baby-bellies online!

Because several of my friends have also recently had babies, I've had the privilege of hearing all about the wonderful and creative ways they have found to get back in shape. I took notes as one friend shared what she is learning about healthy foods and how to make reasonable diet/lifestyle changes that will get her whole family on the road to excellent health; I've been inspired by a friend who trained for (and completed) a triathlon (talk about hard core!); and was delighted to hear about a friend who took up ballet again after several years away from the art. The creativity, research, discipline, motivation and extra effort that this takes is tremendous, and I just think it is so awesome to hear about everything people are doing for the sake of their health.

That's why I cringe whenever anyone asks me what I've been doing.

I lost all of my pregnancy weight within the first 10 weeks of my daughter's life. A year later, I weigh what I did back in high school. I grimace whenever anyone asks me what my secret is, because, honestly, I'm ashamed of my answer. I want to keep it a secret. I say this because I haven't really been doing anything.

Chocolate? What chocolate?

While my other friends are making smart choices, working towards a goal, and intentionally seeking things that will promote their health, I have not. What's my secret? My secret is a tiny, colicky task master who wouldn't let me sleep, eat, or stop moving for almost 12 months. There is nothing healthy about exhaustion. My diet was "grab whatever little bits you can while she's quiet." There were no meals, there was very little cooking, and grocery shopping usually ended abruptly due to a screeching infant, so my diet was mainly pre-packaged, non-perishable items, aka "junk food." Thankfully, I was never able to eat more than a few nibbles here or there, so at least my intake was limited.

My exercise plan was pretty similar. I think I have only intentionally "worked out" three times since my daughter was born. However, every day (and most of the night during the early months!) was spent carrying around a baby who was rapidly increasing in size and weight, dancing around and bouncing her up and down, in the only repetitive motions that seemed to soothe her. Add to that the fact that she loves the stroller (for a while it was the only place she would sleep other than my arms), and you end up walking EVERYWHERE! It's pretty typical for us to walk several miles in the course of an afternoon. I should get a pedometer... Did I mention that she starts to cry if you move too slowly? 

Our trusty Phil&Ted's jogging stroller that has traveled
 countless miles through rain, wind and snow, soothing a fussy baby!

Yes, I lost a lot of weight, and I lost it FAST, but it only came as a side-effect of exhaustion and mal-nourishment. I'm probably one of the least healthy mommies I know. 

I was thinking about that, and realizing that everything I said about my physical diet could be said of my spiritual diet, as well. Just like cooking and meals, I almost never had the time to sit quietly with my Bible, reading, studying, and praying. I would try to "grab whatever bits I could" by listening to the audio Bible on biblegateway.com, putting verses around the house, singing hymns I had memorized, and reading Bible stories to my baby, but I filled my time with a lot of "junk food," too. Watching TV while rocking a fussy infant seems appealing, but it's never as satisfying as you want it to be. I spend way too much time watching hulu and stalking friends on facebook, and not enough time making a conscious effort to consume healthy, worthwhile things. 

The weight loss that comes from physical starvation can be viewed as a pleasant side-effect if you're hoping to shed some pounds, but spiritual starvation only leaves you scrawny, weak, and hungry. Physically, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at me that I was unhealthy. On the outside I appear fit and active, but on the inside I'm missing all kinds of nutrients. I think spiritual starvation is more readily apparent. I can put on a good face for a while, but I just can't seem to grow those "fruits of the spirit" like I want to:

• Love? It feels like everything I do these days is out of a selfish motivation. 
• Joy and Peace? I'm constantly grumbling or upset about little things that have gone wrong, or expectations that have not been met (nevermind how many expectations I've failed to meet for others!).
•  Patience? I've lost count of how many times I've snapped at someone or lost my temper this week, and it's only Tuesday! 
• Kindness, Goodness, and Gentleness? If you're selfish, short-tempered and grumbling, there's not a lot of room for those things in your heart! 
• Faithfulness? Don't get me started on how many promises have been broken, how many commitments have fallen through, how many emails remain unanswered, projects unfinished, housework undone, the list goes on...
• Self-Control? Please, make it stop!

This cannot go on. I'm miserable, and my family is suffering, too.


My precious daughter has mellowed out quite a bit now that she's almost 15 months, toddling around, and able to use baby sign-language to communicate some of her basic wants and needs. She's still perhaps a little more "high needs" than other babies her age, but all in all, she is worlds better than she was! We're finally coming out of "survival mode" and beginning to figure out ways to help our household run smoothly. 

Feeding my family (myself included), physically and spiritually, is at the top of my list. For now, we're just taking baby steps (no pun intended... I think) like buying more fresh produce (I'm so very thankful for our neighborhood farmer's market!), keeping track of what everyone has eaten that day (how much has been protein, fruits, vegetables, junk food, etc), praying before meals, and reading a bible story together every morning. God also sent me a hidden blessing by crashing my computer's hard-drive, so there has been a significant decrease in the amount of time I have managed to waste online ("Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways." Psalm 119:37)! I can only pray that these small changes will quickly become easy habits, and we can begin to add more and more. 

I think I'll hold off on those marathon aspirations for now, "but the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day..." (Proverbs 4:18)

This little board book of the parable of the lost sheep is one of her favorites.
 I think it has something to do with the "baa!" sounds mommy makes...

A Work In Progress

***This is the first post in a series on lessons I'm learning through motherhood. The posts will probably be very spaced out (I don't have a great track record on regular posting), and there might be other posts in-between, but every once-in-a-while I hope to put up another post on the topic! Look for the tag "Work In Progress"

A few weeks ago, as I was wearily pushing the stroller at a brisk pace in frigid weather, bracing myself against the brutal Chicago wind, wishing I had remembered my hat and scarf, all in a desperate attempt to help my sleep-deprived little one get some kind of nap (she has always slept better in the stroller, but wakes up as soon as I stop moving or go inside), I began to reflect on all the things I've learned since becoming a mother. (phew! How's that for a run-on sentence?)

As my sweet daughter continued to sleep, I had ample time to tabulate a surprisingly long list. I believe I've grown more in the last 10 months than any other "stage" of my life. I would also have to say that these first 10 months of motherhood have easily been the hardest of any stage thus far.

And that was when I started to wonder why I always seemed to grow more in times of trial than I ever did in success. Honestly, my first thought was "How come God can teach other moms the same lessons and still give them babies who sleep through the night?!" My initial response was something along the lines of "Wow, I must be a really slow learner if God had to resort to such extreme methods! Maybe I should be praying for a more teachable spirit!"

But then I remembered how often God does exactly what I ask, but in a way that is terribly different from what I had in mind. For instance, I once asked for an extension on a midterm project and a break from responsibilities for about a week, never actually believing it would happen. But the next day I contracted shingles and wound up with a doctor's note for--guess what?--A week off of school (and yes, I got that extension, too)! Then there's all those times I've prayed for a humble spirit, only to turn around and get utterly humiliated. Yeah, sickness and public disgrace are certainly not what I had in mind, but you know what? I got exactly what I asked for. God's methods are always effective. Be careful what you pray for!

I have long believed that people are more willing to learn in difficult situations. Think about the classes you took in school: Which ones drove you to study harder and seek help? Easy classes are easy because we know most of the material already (or we think we do, at least). We study more in those difficult classes because we realize how much we have to learn. It's the same in life: When things are going smoothly, it's easy to believe that we have all the answers. But when things go wrong, we realize how much we need help. People are the most receptive when they are the most desperate. God sends trials our way not because He's a vindictive god who delights in watching His creation squirm, but because He cares about our character and education, and wants to make sure we learn His lessons well.

Well, that answers my first question ("why I always seemed to grow more in times of trial than I ever did in success"), but not my second ("How come God can teach other moms the same lessons and still give them babies who sleep through the night?"). I think I was heading east on Superior, into the wind, when I realized "We all learn essentially the same lessons, but in different times and different ways." Any good teacher will tell you that one method does not fit all. You have to tailor your approach based on factors like age, ability, classroom dynamic, learning styles, resources available, number of students, timeframe, and many, many others. One of the baby books I reference frequently ("What to Expect the First Year) repeats this adage in every chapter: "All babies are different." Well, all people are different, too, and I am so very thankful that our God knows and loves each one of us individually. Who better to tailor our curriculum than the One who made us, and took great care in every detail (Psalm 139)? I don't know what lessons those other moms need to learn, and I don't know what and how He has already taught them. I'm glad I don't have to. It is enough for me to trust that God is teaching them and teaching me. My job is only to learn. (Psalm 131)

As I was reflecting on these things before writing this post, I wondered if sometimes God uses difficult methods to test how willing we are to learn. It's easy to ask for humility, but you have to really want it if you're going to stare humiliation in the face and accept it as an opportunity to grow! I am fond of saying "it's not our circumstances that change us, it's how we respond to them." If you don't want to learn, you probably won't. But that doesn't mean God won't continue to teach you.

I want to throw in a disclaimer here: I'm not saying that the only reason we experience hardship is because God has something to teach us. He has many purposes for trials, and I never want to give the impression that all you have to do is "learn your lesson" and the hard times will stop! In fact, that is rarely the case. What I am saying is, no matter what your situation, God can always teach you something. Romans 8:28 is an often misinterpreted passage that reads "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." A lot of people assume that the "good" refers to things in this life, but if you keep reading, you discover what "His purpose" is: "...to become conformed to the image of His Son." (Romans 8:29) That verse doesn't mean God will make sure everything turns out all right in the end. It really means that our infinitely wise and creative God can use anything as an opportunity to help us grow to become more like Jesus Christ.

I guess I'll just continue to pray for a teachable spirit, even though I know that probably means I'll continue to learn my lessons "the hard way."

I'd like to share some excerpts from two of my favorite hymns. I have sung these to my baby girl every day since she was born, but I know I need these words far more than she does at this point. Both hymns were written by Karolina Sandell-Berg (a Swede!) and translated to English by Andrew L. Skoog.

Children of the Heavenly Father (verse 5)

"Tough He giveth and He taketh

God His children ne'er forsaketh.

His the loving purpose solely

To preserve them, pure and holy."

Day by Day (portions of verses 1 and 3)

"He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,

Gives unto each day what He deems best...

"Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,

E'er to take, as from a Father's hand,

Willingly, the days, the moments fleeting,

Till I reach the promised land."

Baby Talk

One of the fascinating and exciting things about nannying for a toddler is listening to his language skills develop. When I first started taking care of Reid 7 months ago, he knew three words: "Mama," "Dada," and "truck!" During the first few months, I would keep a little list of all the words he said/learned that day, so his parents could see how his vocabulary was expanding. It was an exciting day when I realized that I had to stop listing them, because there wasn't room on the page!

Now, at 21 months old, Reid is talking up a storm. Sure, he still has trouble making certain consonant sounds (s, f, and r are some of the trickiest ones. Think about it, how would you explain to someone how to say the letter "r?" It's a hard sound to make!), and he mispronounces words all the time (my favorite example is how he switches the consonant sounds for "couch" so it comes out sounding like "choke"), and any word over 2 syllables starts well, but dissolves into gibberish by the third syllable (it's kind of cute, actually), but he is so expressive in his communication!

It's interesting to notice how much he understands of what I say, even if he isn't able to say the same things himself. His grammar is pretty basic, usually just a few nouns and verbs, no conjunctions or prepositions, maybe a proper name (or even a pronoun, if we're lucky!), but I have been fascinated to see how he is managing to string words together to get his point across. Yesterday, he wanted applesauce, and he said "appleliddy, spoon, scoop, eat, please!"

But more than just hearing his vocabulary expand, it has been exciting because he's no longer just expressing needs or wants, like "food" "drink" "blanket," he's communicating thoughts and feelings. Last week, when his dad was on a business trip, he turned to me and said "dada come home, happy!" And he has been using his newly acquired skills to re-tell stories of what he saw earlier in the day, or even last week, which is a huge cognitive leap! It used to be that his brain couldn't comprehend much more than here and now, everything was "in the moment." Now, he is remembering his favorite things (like how the garbage trucks come on mondays to dump out the trash cans: "Monday, truck, stop, garbage, dump, dump, drive!"), and he is looking forward to things that haven't happened yet (describing the sequence of events for a walk to the library, which is across the train tracks: "shoes, coat, stroller, walk, library, train, bump bump, book!")

Now, these are some of the shining moments of Reid's linguistic skills. The communication barrier is still there, and I am constantly encouraging him to "use words." There is still a great deal of patience and understanding needed as I try to figure out what he needs and how he's feeling, but every time I get so frustrated and worry that he'll never communicate, he learns something new, and that is such a thrill. It is a very cool thing to watch his brain develop, and to be able to feel like I am talking to him, rather than at him. There's a smart, sweet, sharp, funny, clever little person in there just waiting to get out, and I get to be there to watch and help him break out of his shell! :)