(And All My) Work Be Praise

That dollar or so I spent on a bag of fuzzy pom-poms might have been the most useful dollar ever. Both boys continue to be entertained by pushing them through the lid of an old peanut container , an activity I pull out whenever there is an emotional crisis mounting. I've been collecting toilet paper rolls in hopes of doing this stick-counting activity , but I have yet to gather enough suitable twigs.  So I created my own conglomeration of several activities I've seen: Levi used small tongs to put the pom-poms in the tubes, counting to match the number on the tube.  He recognizes the number words one, two, three, and six, so I opted to leave the numbers off and let him figure out which tube "said" which number. Like my lazy masking-tape construction? :) I belatedly remembered that we've done a similar activity before to practice colors: I've got a set of toilet paper tubes with colored paper around them!  Not surprisingly -- that was six months ago -- ...

A few weeks ago, a friend casually asked if I thought Owen was going to talk any earlier than Levi did.  (You can find links to old posts about Levi's verbal development here ; basically, he said only a few words until 21 months old, and didn't start talking at a "normal" level until 28 months.  Now, at 31 months, he has more than caught up!) But back to Owen: it startled me a little to realize that I hadn't thought about it at all.  I spent so much time wondering about Levi's speech: not worried, exactly, but anxious, and sometimes fighting the tiniest bit of jealousy, and always feeling defensive about his "slow" accumulation of words.  The target number, so the books say, is 15 words by 18 months.  Owen is now 15 months old, and he has exactly two words: "hot" and "hat."  (Well, he says "bap" all the time as well, but I don't think it means anything specific, so I'm not counting it yet.)  It seems unlikely t...

I thought a lot about Valentine's Day and decided I wasn't going to do anything special.  I'm tired, we're busy, my kids are too young to know the difference, etc. Then I woke up this morning and couldn't stand the thought of doing nothing .  So, I donned my heart socks and improvised! Breakfast: cranberry-white chip muffins.  This was a mix given to me at Christmas . . . of 2010.  High time it got used, and I figured I could talk about the red-and-white theme.  My 2-year-old is extremely conscious of matching -- his socks to other articles of clothing, clothing among family members, etc. -- so he appreciated that our muffins matched my socks.  Hey, whatever works. (I could have at least taken a picture showing more cranberries, right?!) After breakfast, I declared that we would play a game with the bean bags .  I quickly cut some hearts out of scrap paper, and then in a flash of inspiration, wrote a sight word on each one (and, the, you, can...

A quick, random thought: Levi is very much in a phase where he loves to hear or do the same thing over and over again. Especially when singing songs he likes, we often get the response, "you should sing it again" or something similar. I keep expecting to be irritated by the repetition, but I find I'm surprisingly not. On the contrary, it's such immediate confirmation that I'm doing something that brings him delight that I am delighted myself. You never have to wonder where you stand with a toddler: satisfying or dissatisfying, he'll let you know. At this stage of the game, I appreciate that!

Levi and I did our first craft together this morning!  He's done some at other places, but today was the first time I felt brave enough to bust out the glue.  :)  Levi has been thoroughly obsessed with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star lately: he likes us to cram as many "twinkles" as possible into the first two beats of the song, so that we end up singing it something like this: Twinkle-twinkle twinkle little star, How I-how I wonder what you are . . . And so on.  He thinks it's hysterical.  In the end, I forgot to sing the song while we did the craft -- oh well!  This was nothing original on my part; you can find the blog I referenced  here . Cutting yellow paper into "stars" Dipping a Q-tip into glue (in the cap of an empty milk jug) Dabbing the glue-y Q-tip onto blue paper Putting a star on top of the glue spot So serious about his gluing. :) I had him write "Levi" and "star" at the top to complete our Starry Night!

I have to admit, I thought it'd still be some time before I was posting a blog about spending time outside with my little boys on their "bikes."  Levi did not have nearly the large-motor skills at Owen's age as Owen does now!  But with two appropriately-sized riding toys in the house, a 60-degree day in February, time to kill between lunch and naps, and a completely deserted cul-de-sac, it seemed the right time to start!  They had a blast. Setting out from the front door . . .  (That's a happy face, really.) Switch!  I thought they'd be happier this way -- height-wise, this makes more sense -- but Levi prefers the Radio Flyer and Owen prefers the horse.  Whatever works! Doing circles around Mommy.