The Quiet Time Bag

          Four o'clock in the afternoon seems to be the witching hour around here. Luke is usually down for a nap. Doug and I have typically just finished his homework. I am usually exhausted by this point in the day, but need to start making dinner soon. And Doug is usually full of energy and wants to yell and run around the house. In case you don't live in the DC metro, we've had over two consecutive weeks of rain, so throwing Doug into the yard hasn't been an option much. I ended up losing what little control I had left with Doug by this point in the afternoon. After several days of this, I thought to myself, "I can do better. WE can do better." I just needed for inspiration to strike, and it did.

                                                

    I give you: The Quiet Time Bag. It. Is. Awesome. I'm really not over selling it. I found some things that Doug can do QUIETLY, in his room, for about half an hour. Thirty minutes is enough time that I can regroup, take a brief break, and start dinner. Jeff typically walks in the door not too long after, which is a huge help.
Anyway, in the bag we have a note, Colorforms, secret market reveal pads, sticker books, Spirograph, coloring pages, blank pages bound together in a binder (he loves this, for some reason). Doug loves the bag. He will ask for it all the time. I try to limit its use to those afternoon times and Saturday mornings. We already had some of those things (paper, Colorforms) and some I bought in the dollarish section of Target. I save some things to put in later and plan to rotate things in and out so Doug doesn't get bored.

The note I included:

 

I also made a sign to put up by the baby gate. You can see what Doug thought of it:


 

So far, I'm pretty happy with how the Quiet Time Bag is working out. I 'll have to keep it interesting to keep his attention, but I'm happy he's doing something creative. And most importantly, I'm glad he can be quiet and I don't have to yell.

Doug and Herbert

     Doug and Herbert go waaay back. I got the duck that I named Herbert at Doug's baby shower; he was a gift from my mother. He's a soft, small toy, so we gave him to Doug when he was pretty small. Quickly, Herbert became THE lovey. Which was great and all, except that the manufacturer doesn't make him anymore. The internet has been scoured by multiple people in this family, but to no avail. Because of that, Herbert is a bit of a shut in. He's not allowed to leave the house unless we go on vacation. That hasn't stopped Dug from loving him though.

    Doug's affection for Herbert is rather intense at times. I have to say, I love that relationship (except at bedtimes when we can't find Herbert. Then it really sucks). Herbert has gone from only being a source of comfort to a companion for adventure, like Calvin's Hobbes. And boy, do they have adventures.

I think here they might be in a hot air balloon. Or a train. Who knows? When Doug is playing by himself, Herbert is his favorite buddy.

      Another interesting aspect of the Doug/Herbert relationship is that Doug uses it to pretend about things that are concerning or upsetting to him (I feel like Mr. Rogers would give him a gold star here). Last week Doug overheard me scheduling his flu shot and promptly freaked out. A while later, Jeff came in and told me that Doug had gotten his doctor kit out and that Herbert had received quite a few flu shots. In the middle of the night when there's a thunder storm, Doug comes into our bed not because he's scared of the thunder, but because Herbert is.

   Herbert also brings out Doug's nurturing side. He takes care and cuddles Herbert when he's 'sick'. He sings to him and reads Herbert stories when it's time for Herbert to go to bed. Lately, Doug has been telling me stories of  when he was 'pregnant with Herbert' (there's so many things wrong with that statement, that I just let him have it).

   I will be very sad when Herbert's reign is over. I don't know how long we have, but I'm going to enjoy watching. Doug is very excited to help pick out a lovely for the new baby, he understands how important that relationship can be. I will always be grateful for Herbert. But we are totally buying three of the same lovey for the new baby.

The Village

So Doug's been going to preschool at a local county's Parks and Recs program. He started in September for two days a week and has loved it. Half way through the spring he was going to age out of his class. Enrollment is done on a six week basis, it's a huge pain in the butt. So if we wanted him to continue, we'd have to put him in the next class up. We debated for a while about whether or not we wanted him to continue, but last week I realized that he really enjoys it and gets a lot out of it, so we enrolled him for six weeks in the next class.

One of the reasons Doug loved his class is because he adores his teacher, Ms. Beth. She's a maternal sort of woman and gets Doug pretty well. He can be some what quirky about things like finger paint. Any time we looked at preschool options for next year, Doug would ask, "Is this Ms. Beth's class?". So I was more than comfortable in letting him finish the year out with her.

We got to his first class of the new session this morning only to find out that our beloved Ms. Beth is not the teacher. I was instantly panicked, "How will Doug deal with this? Is he going to hate it?". I had promised Ms. Beth and she was not here. Luckily, the teacher's assistant was the same for both classes and Doug was comfortable with her. He seemed to be fairly calm, so I left.

I was so disappointed by this switch that I cried a bit in the car (ok, partly monthly hormones, but still). Aside from Doug's disappointment, I couldn't figure out why this was upsetting me so much. As I drove to get a much needed cup of coffee, it dawned on me. Ms. Beth has been the only stranger so far that I've entrusted Doug to. And I think that set up a bond between the three of us. Sure, Doug goes to his own Sunday school class and plays in the church nursery, but that's different. I know those women and so does Doug. Plus, I'm usually right nextdoor or down the hall. No big deal. But Ms. Beth was the first person I'd left my baby with for a few hours at a time. It was hard the first time and I think she helped us both through that transition.

Of course Doug was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing when I picked him up. I peeked in on him and saw him running a giraffe across the floor, clearly not a tortured soul. He was excited that he now gets to play on the 'big kid's playground'.

In retrospect, it was kind of a good lesson for him. He is blessed to have so many, wonderful and amazing people in his village. And sometimes those people move on. But they still helped a bit to make you who you are.

Advent Project

I had the dubious privilege of witnessing the most bizarre tantrum a few weeks ago. When we were at a pet store with my in-laws, my father-in-law gave Doug some change he had gotten back after he made his purchase. Doug took the change and headed back to the cash register area, looked around and then wailed, "There's no box!!!". We were all quite confused. I asked him what he meant. He explained, "There's no box, for the kids!". And then it dawned on me, "Like at McDonald's? When I give you my change for the kids in the hospital?". "YES!". I  told him that the pet store didn't have a box for that, but if he liked, we could drop it off the next time we were at McDonald's. He seemed to like that idea, but whined about it for a bit on the car ride home. I was finally at wits end with this and told him when we got home, I'd stick the change in an envelope and mail it to Ronald McDonald. He seemed to be satisfied with that.

I started thinking about it though and it seemed like this was an opportunity for one of those 'teachable moments'. When we got home I asked him instead if he's like to collect change until Christmas and then drop off a lot of change at once for Ronald McDonald House. He agree and we decorated an old bottle (with glitter glue, naturally). We've collected quite a bit of change and Doug is always very excited when Jeff and I give him some more. At some point tomorrow, we'll all go together and drop it off. I'm amazed at how excited Doug is about it and how well he's stuck with it. I think this is a nice Christmas tradition for us to adopt. I think we'll definitely pick a charity and do the same thing next year.

The Trade

Doug has managed to put many baby things away without complaint, the stroller, the high chair, his crib and quite an assortment of toys. But not the Baby Einstein Aquarium. He's on his third one. The first one broke within a year, and in a panic we ran out to buy one that night, because dude, we need sleep! The second one broke within a few months and I emailed the manufacturer, who sent me a replacement free of charge. That was about 18 months ago. 

We kept hoping that he would outgrow the need for this battery devouring toy. Every two-ish weeks we'd need to replace all four C batteries in it. We hoped when he went into a regular bed he wouldn't need it. No such luck. I bought him a Sleep Sheep (we've replaced its batteries twice in 18 months) in the hopes that just the soothing white noise from it was enough. No dice. Recently we'd taken to just asking him if he could possibly sleep without it. HA! I realized that he wasn't going to take it off to college, but I thought it was about time to gently disengage him from it.

Last week I saw our opportunity coming. I was singing him his lullabies, and I kept hearing a clicking sound. I noticed that it was coming from the infamous aquarium. There was a small tear in the background, and every time it went around it caught. I came to the conclusion that one of two things was going to happen in the near future: 1. it was going to just catch and tear off completely or 2. tear enough to impede the progress of the scroll. Either way, it was close to breaking.  I began to imagine a nightmarish scenario in which it broke in the middle of the night and we had an inconsolable child on our hands, possibly sleeping in our bed (which is a HELL no). 

I decided to be proactive and head this dilemma off at the pass. I turned to the old parental stand by: bribery.  I began looking for a toy so amazingly awesome that Doug would trade the aquarium for it. I found a game called 'Lucky Ducks' there are twelve ducks in a moving pond that go around Ernie from Sesame Street. There are four groups of  ducks, each set of three have the same shape on their bottoms, so it's a matching game. Doug is quite the duck enthusiast, so it was perfect! I ordered the game and oddly enough, it was delivered on a Sunday. We came back from church and a package was sitting on our porch. I told Doug it wa a surprise for him (always a sure way to get him all worked up). As I opened the box I noticed that the batteries were not included, it needed two C batteries. So we told Doug he could have this game, but only if we got the aquarium, because we needed the batteries from it. I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. 

I thought that Doug might hem and haw over this trade for a few hours to days, but I was willing to give him time. What I wasn't prepared for was him skipping down the hall to hand us the aquarium so we could butcher it for batteries. As you can see, Doug was clearly pleased with this arrangement: 

As I expected, bedtime Sunday night was a bit rough. Jeff has moved Doug's night light closer to his bed as Doug primarily used the aquarium as a night light when he woke up in the middle of the night. Doug asked to have a flashlight in bed, but I offered to loan him something else. I'd had a glow worm when I was Doug's age and when I was in college my mom gave me one as a nostalgic gift. I went and fished it out for Doug and he's able to give it a squeeze when he needs a little extra light. All in all, I think the trade has worked out quite well. 

Just the Two of Us

I cherish my one on one time with Doug. We go to story time together. I ferry him to his gym classes and to pre-school. We run errands to Target and Walmart and to the grocery store. We explore new places together, Wegman's, the bouncy place and new playgrounds. Sometimes we stop for snacks when we're out running around. We'll have some coffee and juice and split a muffin at Starbucks. We'll share an order of medium Mcdonald's fries at Walmart. He is my little buddy, my side kick.

 He wants to be like Daddy, but he wants to be like Mommy too. He insists on getting a box of animal crackers at Wegman's because he needs his "purse" (the box of animal crackers comes with a string handle). I feel like we're on a team when we're out and about together. As much as I'd love an addition to our family, I'm glad that Doug is getting so much one on one time with me. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

It's the Law

I thought our next science observation should be about gravity, after all, Doug's fallen victim to it many times. I thought that the most fun way to observe gravity in action would be with water balloons. It was decently warm enough over the weekend, so we gave it a go.

Doug's outfit is a bit eclectic here. He wanted to wear his new crocs and his sunglasses with stars on them. It's very Elton John.

We did experience an odd problem with the water balloons. Some of them were very resistant to breaking. We didn't use actual water balloons, in my experience, the mouths of the balloons are too narrow. Anyway, we really had to abuse some of them to get them to break. Jeff tossed some of them twenty fear in the air only to have them bounce when they landed. They were all over filled with water too.

Doug discovered than the concrete patio under the deck was a good place to burst the balloons.

Doug had a blast. He keeps asking about doing it again. This may become a favorite activity with him! I'm not 100% sure how much he learned about gravity, but it was fun.

Friday Fun

It's been a long week around here. Jeff's car rather unexpectedly needed to be replaced. The air compressor stopped working just in time for our 90 degree weather. We were hoping it was a simple cheap fix, but it was not and the car was 13 years old with over 130 k miles on it. Unfortunately I didn't leave extra padding in my week for 'semi emergency car buying' and I'm kinda pooped. But it all ended well and we have a nice actually new car. Due to the long week and a rainy morning, I decided that Doug and I would make brownies. Doug rather enthusiastically agreed. 

Chef Doug suggested putting mini chocolate chips in the brownies. I'm looking forward to the results.


While we were making brownies, Doug's new car-seat arrived. Since Jeff now has a reliable car, we thought we'd probably take it out as a family now and then and we didn't want to have to schlep the car seat back and forth.  I found a model that can become a booster seat in a few years, I thought it was a decent idea.

As you can see, Sir approves of his new car seat. 

Sir is also very excited about the box it came in.

And like many new home owners, he couldn't wait to make modifications on it.

Happy Friday! 

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!

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!

The 'A-B-Cindys'

The literacy project is coming along. We took a break for the month of December. We had started the letter 'F' when my in-laws came to visit, but then we got busy doing fun things with them, so I put 'F' on the shelf for a while. I decided to wait until the holidays were over to re-do 'F'. I probably could have moved on if it was another letter, but Doug was still confusing it with 'E'.  Doug is doing pretty well with the alphabet song too. He now only occasionally sings "A-B-Cin-Dee".  My God-Mother's name is Cindy, and Doug adores her. If you sing "A-B-C-D-E" it does sort of sound like you're singing "Cindy", so I can't blame him there. I once heard a small child sing the middle of the alphabet "EL UH MENTO PEE!". Doug does fairly well with that part too now.


Here's our new and improved surprise box:

Doug gets excited on Mondays when he sees it. I have a large foam letter 'F' from our alphabet mat in there as well as a picture to color with the letter and a fire truck. I also include about 5 things that start with the letter of the week. On the second day of the week, we watch a Sesame Street video on the computer about the letter. I also give him a laminated letter that looks like a  Highway that he can drive his cars on. Usually on Wednesday I give Doug an envelope with 'Letter' mail. It has a felt letter and objects that begin with the week's letter either made out of felt or laminated with a Velcro back. I usually do a worksheet on Wednesday too. I make them myself. I put about 12 letters, all capital letters, on a sheet and he has to circle the ones that are the letter of the week. On Fridays, I cut about 12 letters out, all the same, and stick them to the walls with tape and Doug has to hunt for them. When he's gotten them all, he has to feed them to 'Alpha Bet', the puppet I made. Alpha Bet needs Doug to tell him the name of the letter Doug's feeding him, because Alpha Bet is a picky eater. We also do a foam letter project, in which we create something that starts with the letter of the week using that letter:

I usually try to do one special activity a week with the letter. For the letter 'B' I blew up a bunch of balloons and wrote a large 'B' on them. For 'C' week we made cookies shaped like the letter 'C':

 I think Cookie Monster would approve!

 This was our special activity the first time we did the letter 'F':

I found some clip art of fish and then I enlarged the fish and put a large capital letter 'F' on each one. I then printed them out and laminated them. After that, I took some sticky back magnetic strips and put them on the backs. To make the fishing 'hook', I took a binder clip and put some very small, crazy strong magnets in them so they'd be able to pull up the fish. Because of the very small magnets, we never let Doug play with this unsupervised. Doug absolutely loved this activity! I think I'm going to try to come up with a new activity this time we do 'F'.

We've also started working with numbers. I have a different box that I bring out in the middle of the week to talk about numbers. It has a coloring page with the number on it and a corresponding number of things on the page. It also has a large foam number in the box as well as the amount of corresponding legos. I also give him a number worksheet that I make. It has the number printed at the top and three columns below it. Doug has to pick the column that has the number of objects in it that match the number of the week. I'm thinking of also integrating a video from Sesame Street into this activity too.

Just looking at all the various activities we do is exhausting. No wonder we took a break!

Christmas Magic

I think most people have a memory from their childhood that is magical. For me, it was my first major league baseball game. When I was very small, I loved the Baltimore Orioles. One day my parents put my brother and me in the car and told us that they were taking us to a surprise. They tried to see if we could guess where we were going, but we had no idea. I think we guessed a toy store and then we thought we might be going to see my aunt and uncle who lived in Baltimore. I don't think we ever managed to guess. At any rate they took us to see an O's game at Memorial Park. I don't remember much about the game itself, just that it was an amazing and fun surprise for us.

Having a fun memory like that for Doug is important to me. Last week we decided rather spontaneously to take Doug up to Strasburg to see Santa on the train. We'd done it the year before and Doug loved it. I was a little apprehensive about the 6+ hours in the car for us, there and back. I was exploring our options when I recalled the Red Caboose Motel which can be seen from the train. I checked it out and it was pretty reasonable. Moreover, sleeping in a caboose was going to blow Doug's little mind. We decided not to tell Doug where we were going, to make it a surprise.

Doug wasn't really able to guess what we were up to. He had decided that we were seeing Santa. I'd told him earlier in the week that we'd see Santa at my high school. Because of the trip, we ended up not going. In addition to Santa, Doug was also convinced that we were going to see some animals. I have no idea where he got this idea. Luckily for us, The Red Caboose Motel has a petting farm.

Doug was very excited when we pulled up to the motel. Jeff went in to check in and Doug was begging me to stay in a red caboose. I told him that I had no power to make that happen, but we lucked out and got a red one, thank goodness.

When we woke up Saturday we had breakfast in the Motel's dining rail car. The hostess wisely seated us next to the window so we could have a view of the tracks and the Strasburg station. Doug was quite pleased because he got to see the railroad crossing signal go down three times while they coupled the engine to the passenger cars.  He also got to see quite a few Amish buggies go up and down the road. FYI, according to Jeff, an open buggy is an "Amish convertible".

We decided we'd buy tickets for the train ride when we got to the station. The first train ended up being sold out, but we were able to get on the second one. We attempted to go and do some shopping in the railroad themed shops, but Doug would have none of that. He insisted on being outside to watch the train. It meant he wasn't begging us to buy things, so I couldn't really complain. He really has a one track mind.

Doug was absolutely delighted by the train ride. An interesting aside, Strasburg runs two Santa trains at the same time, half an hour apart. So at one point, the trains meet and stop so one can pass the other. When this happened, Santa had just walked into our car, and then he was gone! He had evidently ducked into the bathroom. We noticed that Santa couldn't be seen on the other train either. Evidently to protect the Santa story, the Santas hide, so that the children won't see two Santas at the same time or Santa on the other train.  I thought that was well done!

Doug got to meet Santa and had a wonderful time. Even though we'd told him many times we were going home, he was still disappointed when he realized we were almost home and wouldn't be sleeping in a caboose again. I fear that no other hotel shall live up to the caboose. I hope we were able to create a memory for him to cherish.

And That's Why We Have Turkey at Christmas

This is Doug's Nativity set. My mother gave it to him last year to keep him from playing with my nice set and much to my delight, it's kept him from trying to get to mine and he loves to play with it. It's become a nice learning tool for Christmas.

However, it has become a bit unconventional. Most of the things that came with the set are further back in the manger. Doug has been adding other toy animals to this set, as you can see. I'll admit that I placed them more strategically for this photo, Doug usually just lumps them all in there.

Doug's assortment of creatures helps answer some questions while bringing up other important issues. For starters, you can clearly see that in Jesus' time people were concerned about the environment. Case in point, the wise man opted for a compact camel. You will also undoubtedly notice the dinosaur present. Many people are very confused about evolution, Jesus, and dinosaurs. You can clearly see that there was a dinosaur present at his birth. The writers of the gospels left them out, probably because dinosaurs were so prevalent in those times that they were easily forgettable. Another item of note is the ginormous squirrel. Either there was some serious exposure to radioactivity in those times or evolution has made squirrels smaller. I'm afraid that one poses more questions than answers. You have probably also noticed the dolphin. The birth of Jesus was evidently so momentous that sea creatures were drawn out of the oceans and into the desert. I don't imagine the dolphin lasted long once he got there. And lastly, this scene finally answers the age old question, "Why do we have turkey at Christmas when we just had it at Thanksgiving?". The answer is simple: because there was a turkey present at the first Christmas. As you may be able to see, the turkey is standing very close to the cook fire. It may have been intentional to make turkey for dinner that night or perhaps the turkey was accidentally pushed into the fire. We may never know for sure.

The Man

Meet Charlie, our elf. He came to us from the North Pole (Target) to keep an eye on Doug for Santa (Mommy & Daddy).

I had seen these elves in the stores for a while now and I was hesitant about getting one. Other people's children either loved them or feared them. But after three time-outs on Friday night, I decided it was worth a try.

Doug was interested from the beginning. Saturday night he came out of his bath to find Charlie perched on top of the entertainment center. We read the story that came with him and reiterated several times that Charlie will see if you're being naughty or nice and tell Santa Claus, who will in turn bring you more or less presents. You can't tell Doug that Santa will bring him coal. He loves coal. He has a collection of coal he has found while watching trains with Grandpa. So rather than a threat, he'd be over the moon to get some more .

There have been several times when Doug's not doing what we told him (cleaning up, sitting down to dinner, etc) and we've said to him, "Charlie is watching you!". At which point he usually jumps up and goes and does whatever it is we've asked him to do. The other night we were having dinner at my mom's house and Doug was having no part of sitting down to dinner. Desperately, I showed him a large snowman salt shaker and told Doug that the snowman knew Charlie and would report back. Doug was not impressed. I've also told him that Charlie has friends in stores who can report back to him. This keeps him from running around the store like a maniac and heads off the issue of running into a whole display of elves (Charlie's friends. They're watching you!). I also make a point to tell Charlie how well Doug did something, so that Charlie doesn't become 'The Man' (Elf) and Doug won't resent him.

I have to say, so far I'm pleased with this new tradition. Doug's begun to clean up hos toys without much fuss from me. I think we may modify St. Nicholas Day to say that St. Nick sent the gifts via Charlie, who's seen Doug being good (hopefully) to help reinforce the message that Charlie reports back to the bog boss. Hopefully this will continue to work right up until Christmas.

You'll Thank Me When You're Literate

I've been debating for a while about when I should more formally introduce the alphabet to Doug. In my b.c. life (before children) I used to teach children to read.  Additionally, I love to read myself, so literacy is something that is near and dear to me. I put it off for a while to get potty training off the ground (still very much a work in progress). But Doug is now very interested in letters and mostly can sing the ABC song.*

Last week I was inspired by Jeff's cousin's blog. Alli is doing a theme every month and starting the theme with a box with items in that theme. That really sounded like fun and got my creative juices flowing. I decided that I would introduce a letter by putting items that began with that letter in a box, along with a coloring page, courtesy of  Sesame Street printables and a large foam letter (left over from our large alphabet mat. What a pain in the butt that was).

I have various other actives and crafts planned to go along with this. After we looked in the 'A' box this morning, there was a letter 'A' hunt. I had printed out twelve large and differently colored 'A's and stuck them around the basement for Doug to hunt for. When he came down the stairs and saw the first one, he proclaimed, "That's letter A!" (thanks you, Sesame Street). I thought each day we'd do a 15-20 minute activity involving the letter and spend a week or two on each letter. He's grasped 'A' rather quickly, so I think we may only spend one week on it. In addition to learning the symbol (I'm only showing him the capital letter right now) we're also learning the short vowel sound for the vowels. If he only comes out of this with a knowledge of the letter names, however, I'll be happy. I mean, he's only two and a half. So far so good with the short 'A' sound though. I've also decided to use Sesame Street videos about various letter skits (today it's 'A's Anatomy'). It's actually letter 'A' week on their website!

Here's some pics of learning in action:

I decided, just for the first time, I'd gift wrap the box (I'm awful at wrapping. If you get something from us that's nicely wrapped, Jeff did it.). Initially, I thought Doug would be mighty pissed off unwrapping a box of his own toys, but he was quite excited.

 And yes, we're still totally in our pjs. It's a rainy Tuesday morning.

Here Doug is examining the contents of his 'A' box.

Doug has found his first letter 'A' on his 'A' hunt! He totally loved this activity. 

So far so good :)



*As an educator, one of my biggest pet peeves is when an adult proclaims a child "knows their ABCs", when what they actually know is the song, not the sound to symbol relationship, which is far, far more important.  End of rant.

Reset

The summer has just flown by! I have to say, I'm glad it's done and almost fall. Summer is always a bit tough, I seem to be more prone to fibro flare ups, and indeed I had a nasty one in July. Just as I got over that, my thyroid decided to join in the fun too! I was worried about our trip, but my doctor was able to diagnose my low thyroid just in time! We went out to Kansas City for the last week of the summer. It was nice to visit with my in-laws and Doug always loves seeing them. I feel that we were really able to get potty training well under way while we were there, with four adults watching Doug, he was taken to the bathroom quite a bit. But we got to relax and more importantly get out of the rut that my illness had set us into. It was very cleansing. I think I'm back on track and I'm totally ready to enjoy my favorite season of the year: Fall!

Until next time, here are some pictures of our Kansas City fun!


This first set of pictures are from Lego Land. Doug asked to go back there just about every day.

In this picture he's helping his Pop-pop make a house out of tissue box sized rubber Legos.


There were small wading pool sized tubs of Legos and Duplos everywhere! They had some farm animals that Doug absolutely loved. However, they didn't have them for sale in the store!


They also had some cute Duplo cupcakes. They only came in pink however, Doug loved them regardless.



After going to Lego Land, my brother-in-law recommend this place for lunch, I think it was called 'Fritz's'. You meal was delivered via train and a basket. Both Doug and Uncle Matt were very excited about this!

Here's a shot of Doug looking at the trolley that went by our table.


Here comes our food on the train!



Doug's great grandmother, Nan, came over from St. Louis to visit with us for a few days. On one nice day, we went fishing. After about 15 minutes, Doug caught a fish. And then he was done.


Unfortunately, this cool park was right by the water, and after he caught his fish, Doug wanted to go slide and play.



The last two days we were there, the remnants of hurricane Isaac caught up to us. There was lots and lots of rain to play in!



The second rainy day we headed up to the mall to wear Doug out before we got him in the car the next day. The mall has this fairly unique two level carrousel.


We all had a good deal of bbq and fun in Kansas City!