Have You Seen This Baby?

This baby used to live with us: 

I'm not sure what happened to him. I think this child may have eaten him:

Happy third birthday to my baby!

Making it Count

I was struggling trying to figure out how and when to introduce the concept of zero to Doug. I thought that if I introduced zero first and he got a number surprise box full of nothing that it would seriously piss Doug off and put him off the number surprise box. I thought that if I delayed its introduction too long, that Doug wouldn't understand that it goes before all the other numbers he knows and not after and that it is indeed less.

 Then one afternoon, it hit me. A number line! I thought about how I wanted to construct it and then I fired up my trusty ole laminator. I used card stock and printed up numbers 0-20 using a rainbow of colors. After I laminated them, I cut them out and attached some velcro using the sides of the laminated pages as tabs:

A bit hard to see due to the camera flash, but nap time seems like its going to be cut short, so I don't have time to re-shoot. There are two tabs on the front side and two on the back side. They all fit very nicely together. I started with the 0-20, but we can add more, all the way up to 100, as we learn along.

Evidently the 20 is just off to the side of the frame, but you get the idea.

Doug loves playing with it. It becomes a roller coaster, a parking lot or train tracks depending on what he wants to drive over it. 

I like to play a number game with it. I put out the number line and we count up and touch each of the numbers as we assemble it, taking special care to point out our number of the week. Once it's all together I ask Doug to bring me the week's number in certain objects.

For example, I asked him to bring me eight cars:

And then eight fish:

And then we ran out of Disney/Pixar toys, but you get the idea. We never put anything on the 0 obviously, but we talk about how it's a place holder. I know that Doug doesn't grasp that concept quite yet, but I've begun to plant the seed. I plan to cover the number zero after we do the number ten.
Happy counting!

Am I the Only One....

Who wants to go and put a broom on the end of my cart and joust with other mothers in the store? 

I'm a Monster

I've been microwaving this adorable bear. The bear looks kind of depressed sitting on the plate there. I found these bears around Christmas. You can nuke the bears and they have corn in them which gives off a nice moist heat for aches. I bought one for a friend of mine and I thought about buying one for myself, but at the time, I decided I wouldn't really need it.

Anyway, this is my first winter since my fibromyalgia diagnosis that I have not been taking medication for it. I didn't really think anything of it, but apparently the colder temperatures mean that I ache much more than usual. After several night of hauling the heating pad into bed with me, I gave in and purchased one of these delightful bears.

Doug was very excited when he saw the Amazon box on our porch the other day. The last time we got a package, it had Beta Bet in it, so he was hopeful for another fun thing. I made the mistake of telling him there was a bear in the box. We opened it and Doug claimed the bear for himself. I told him that he could play with it, but that it was mine. I told him that it was a special bear that I could put it in the microwave and it would help me feel better. That just freaked Doug out, "NOOOO DON'T MICROWAVE THE BEAR!!!".  So alas, I feel like a horrible person every time I nuke it. Well, I feel horrible until I put the bear on my shoulder, then I feel much better.

Scientific Saturday

Last week we got a shipment of delicious Kansas City barbeque in the mail. The restaurant over nights the package and ships it in dry ice. Jeff was not home when the package arrived, so I put the dry ice in the freezer, because I knew he had to play with it later. So, later that night when Jeff got home, he got out the dry ice and placed it in a pot with some water. You can see the result below. 

Doug was totally enthralled with this phenomena of cold billowing gas. We began to explain to him that the dry ice was very, very cold, and putting it in the water made it get warm quickly and turn into a gas. Doug looked at me and said, "From the car?". I then explained that the stuff in the car is called gasoline, and is different. I explained a bit about what gasses are, but as to be expected, most of it went over his head. He really did enjoy playing with the dry ice though.

The whole experience began to set wheels in motion in my head. I decided that once a month we'd do a little science experiment or science observation with Doug. We can use these little experiments and observations to increase his knowledge of how the world works and help him develop some critical thinking. And just plain have fun.

Our first experiment involved floating and sinking objects. I took a large bucket and filled it with water. We gathered some objects that we knew would sink or float and would be water proof. We then asked Doug what he thought each object would do before he tossed it in the bucket. He was able to guess a few of them, and just had a blast.

 Floating and sinking was a nice, easy first experiment as he's already seen the concept in action. I'd like to do one of those exploding volcanoes some time. I think in the spring we'll also talk about gravity, using water balloons. We'll probably also do something with shadows too. Doug is very interested in the phases of the moon, so we'll see what we can set up to talk about that. I'm very excited about our new activity!

An Open Letter of Apology

Dear Parents of my former students,

I am so sorry that I bribed rewarded your child with stickers (many, MANY stickers). I too, now know the horror of having a child covered in a thousand small stickers. A sticker covered child is still better than one hopped up on sweets though, right?

My sincerest apologies,

A Mommy that has stickers EVERYWHERE! 


This is Doug's potty chart. Every time he uses the potty he gets a sticker for himself and a sticker on the chart. As you can see, about three and a half weeks ago, the whole potty training thing (well, at least half of it) finally clicked for him. We started running out of room on the chart.

 

 The stickers inevitably fall off his shirt though and end up all over the house and in the laundry. Here is Fillmore (from Cars, duh) on my kitchen floor:

Here is Chick Hicks in my living room:

Here is the much sought after Mater sticker on my dining room floor:

And then, of course there is this, which drives Jeff batty:

 the bottoms of my flip-flops that I wear around the house. They invariably pick up all the loose stickers that aren't cemented to the floor. I'd hate to see what the inside of our vacuum looks like!

Beta Bet

 Meet our new resident monster, Beta Bet! He just arrived this morning from Monster Land (Amazon). He really has an appetite for letters, but he likes to know what he's eating, so you need to tell him the name of the letter you're feeding him first.

This is Beta Bet's older brother, Alpha Bet. Alpha Bet is being sent back to Monster Land because his mommy misses him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's made out of mere paper and may not be long for this world. Doug loves feeding him so much that I couldn't just stop the game, and I really didn't want to have to make a new monster every few months. My knowledge of the Greek alphabet is quite limited.

 

 Doug loves Beta Bet now too. We'll probably use the cardboard box he came in to build him a nice cave to sleep in.

In case you're curious, Beta Bet is a Melissa & Doug product called 'Make Your Own Monster Puppet'. All the pieces are velcro, and much like Mr. Potato head, you can mix and match them. The only potential drawback I see so far is that it's designed for a child. My hand is a bit cramped working its mouth. I wonder how well Jeff will be able to use the puppet. Other than that, I love it so far.

That is all I plan to accomplish today. I have a monstrous cold and am going to climb back onto the couch! Ttfn!