Easter Egg-tivities

I had great plans for Easter this year as far as toddler activities go. Then my newborn started sleeping (or rather NOT sleeping) even more horribly, and my husband needed to go out of town for work for the third time in four weeks. So basically most of this past week leading up to the Easter Bunny's visit is now a bit of a blur.

Somewhere in there I managed to put together two brain cells on occasion to find some activities for Bugga to do that were Easter-related. I found some great printable activities online that were both Easter-relevant as well as educational, but not too old for her as a lot of Preschool printables tend to be.

Here's Bugga working on the Egg Matching Activity, which she shocked me by immediately being a whiz at. This explains why her strongest skill with folding laundry is matching her socks!

Here's the Carrot Activity that involves Bugga trying to figure out which big letter matches which little letter. This was a new way of thinking about the letters, as we have not really introduced "little" letters yet. This was our introduction.

These printable activities can be found here.

And of course, I planned to get in some egg decorating. We had a great time last year when Bugga was 15 months old so of course I was optimistic. I saw an adorable idea online that involved rolling the eggs in polenta - I had planned on using colored coconut - but that was a massive fail. The "egg wash glue" was not at all a glue so it was just a big mess. Apparently I forgot the sugar, which, logically is the sticky part. Oops.

While we were waiting for the eggs to dry to see if the coconut would stick, my toddler got impatient with the waiting, so I improvised with some plastic eggs and a glue gun.

Once I knew that the textured eggs weren't happening this year, I washed off the remaining coconut, and just went with the infamous drop-in-the-colored-water coloring. Then I just used my glue gun to attach the googly eyes and bunny/chick appendages. What I learned: If you use a glue gun on an egg that just came out of the refrigerator, the glue will be chilled and dry before you attach whatever it is you're trying to glue to the egg. Another oops. So here is the motley crew of eggs that we ended up with.

Let's just say I am looking forward to making egg salad tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Toddler Learning: The Alphabet

Bugga is currently just shy of 2.5 years old (that's 30 months, for those of you who do the months thing) and right now she is a sponge for just about any information we give her. At this point she "reads" all her books to us because she has them memorized, so it has been obvious to us for awhile that we need to help her get to the point where she can truly read. So we started with the alphabet.

We have given her exposure to the alphabet in many ways:

1. Alphabet decals on Bugga's bedroom wall over her changing table that is the object of discussion any time she lies underneath them.
2. Fabric alphabet magnets that she plays with almost every day.
3. Her own personalized Alphabet Book.
4. We have sung the Alphabet song three times while we brush her teeth since we started brushing teeth (I brush for two rounds, she brushes herself for the last round).
5. This great book called AlphaBlock
6. Alphabet puzzles - we have a great one from Melissa & Doug which I think is an earlier version of this.

At this point, she is building Lego "microphones", setting up her stuffed animals as an "audience" and singing her "A B Cs" to the crowd. I guess it's working. 

Toddler Project: Spring Tissue Paper Duck

I've been scrounging Pinterest for toddler-appropriate Easter and Spring crafts. Have I mentioned my apprehension with glue and my 2-year-old? I think she's not quite ready for that responsibility yet. But I still want her to get in on the crafting fun as much as she can. She has already had enough experience that she is quick to eagerly ask me, "Are you making me a project?" every time I go near my craft shelves. Yep, no question she is my kid.

Incidentally, here was some dialog during our project:
Me: "What does a duck say?"
Bugga: "Quack! What does a duckie say?"
Me: "I don't know, what does a duckie say?"
Bugga: "SQUEAK!"
Can't argue with that.

Tissue Paper Duck for Spring

Our first easy project required the following items:

• thick craft paper
• scissors
• yellow, orange and black tissue paper
• contact paper

1. Draw a duck shape on the craft paper. You can find images online, but I just eye-balled it. Cut out the duck. 
   
2. Cut your tissue paper into small pieces. Ask your toddler to help crumple each piece into a teeny, tiny ball.
   
3. Add contact paper behind your duck cut-out, sticky side up.
4. Start sticking the tissue paper to the contact paper.
   
5. Show off your finished product!
   
   

It's Not About Gwyneth

This is a repost from something I shared with my friends on Facebook. Hopefully my blog readers also know what I'm trying to say.

So this Gwyneth Paltrow working mom thing is all over Facebook. Yes, she said her job is harder than other working moms. And then a gajillion people responded that, no, their jobs are harder than that of a celebrity. 

On other days I see people post links to blogs about someone trying to attempt to equalize the struggles of working moms versus stay-at-home moms, and it just results in a Battle of the Miserable (seriously, read the comments on any of these posts). 

Am I the only person who is tired of hearing everyone try to tear each other down by one-upping others about how hard their life is? 

Of course the grass is often much greener on the other side, but everyone has their struggles, whether it be 9 months on a movie set away from your family, or working 2 daily jobs away from your kids to make ends meet, or struggling to find professional success. 

Yes, celebrities have a lot of money and freedoms that regular people might not have, but they are also people too, with families they can't be with all the time and marriages that fail no matter how many nannies they hire. Stay at home moms and working moms all have their own reasons to be jealous of each other's lives. 

I guess the bottom line I get from all this is stop spending so much time tearing down the Joneses and find your own happiness.

Baby Data

It's probably no surprise that I am motivated by statistics (the core of my undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering). I really find data fascinating and eye-opening...and baby data is no different.

A lot of people will tell new moms not to "watch the clock" when feeding a newborn, stressing over naps, or counting the minutes of what seems like endless crying. Well that doesn't work for me. I NEED the data. I need to see trending to find some hope of optimism in what is a very challenging period in my life with a newborn.

There are a lot of methods out there, but I think the easiest way to track the baby data is through an app (I use Total Baby), since nowadays your phone is always within arm's reach. Most programs will keep track of when and how long your baby eats, sleeps, and needs a diaper change, along with doctor visits, milestones, and even pictures.

Here's where I've noticed the big advantage of tracking: when you use it for more than one kid. I used the app with Bugga, and I'm now using it with Bella. As I go through the daily and weekly challenges with Bella, I am finding that I very much forget exactly how things went down with Bugga. Did Bugga wake up this many times at this age? When did we move Bugga to the crib compared to Bella? And I can just look it up in seconds. There's nothing like an instant point of reference when going through all these stressful moments where you feel like you will NEVER come out the other side because this moment is just the WORST...only to see that your first child acted the same way at this age and you lived to tell the tale...or at least the data did.

Toddler Crafts & Fun for St. Patrick's Day

Our family isn't Irish (except maybe a teensy bit on my husband's side) but I love celebrating St. Patrick's Day. In college this meant heading to Savannah for parades and green beer. Nowadays it's more about crafts, cookies and some creative meal planning. 

I actually put more effort into celebrating than I had planned. Aside from the themed mantle, Bugga and I made Shamrock Suncatchers to decorate our windows. She is very proud of the result and was excited to tell her dad repeatedly, "I made that!", pointing at her masterpieces.

We also attempted the Fruit Loop Rainbow craft that you see all over Pinterest. I think she had fun, but the glue concept was new to Bugga, and she preferred to glue the cereal pretty much all over the page. Oh, and by the way, there are no blue Fruit Loops, so I think that just threw us off anyway.

I tried some new recipes for our St. Patrick's Day Dinner (which I actually made last night because all bets are off on Mondays) - corned beef, colcannon and shamrock chips. It was actually all pretty good, and my husband ate every bite (which is saying something).

Bugga helped me make shamrock sugar cookies - everything from helping me bake them (she mixed the ingredients together and helped with the cookie cutter) to decorating, to of course EATING the cookies.

We had a lot of fun - Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone!

The Evolution of a Play Kitchen

When Bugga was around 11 months old, I started to notice that every time I picked her up from the gym daycare she was happily "cooking" in the daycare's miniature kitchen. Because I spend my days with my children, Bugga is in the kitchen for every one of her meals, and can watch the preparation from her learning tower. As children love to mimic what they see, my little monkey naturally wanted to "cook" in a kitchen.

I found this fantastic kitchen made my KidKraft at Costco. I am starting to like this brand for the creative designs, and they offer alternatives to all that kid plastic. Anyway, once I put it together (hear the pride in that, as it took awhile, but was worth it) Bugga has pretty much been playing with it ever since.

There are also about 7 billion kitchen accessories that are on the market for play kitchens. Between what we've bought for Bugga and what she's been gifted from others (pretty much the perfect gift for a 2-3 year old of any gender), here are some thoughts on what we have:

27 Piece Cookware Set - This is another KidKraft item (yes, it is plastic). My parents gifted this to Bugga this past Christmas. She uses it every time she plays in the kitchen, and the cups get dragged all over the house. This kid loves cups. To an obsessive level. Anyway...

Green Toys Tea Set - This is what started our home collection of dishes. I'm pretty sure most of the spoons have vanished at this point, but every single other piece is still in regular rotation. And it's GREEN - BONUS.

Just Like Home Toaster from Toys R Us - Not even going to give you the link for this piece of junk. We use a toaster every morning for Bugga's waffle breakfast so of COURSE she needs one for her kitchen. This one is great in concept but is terrible. An adult needs to push down the lever and it works 1 time out of 10. And the noise is horrendous. Don't buy this.

Pop-Up Toaster by Hape Toys - I bought this as a replacement for the first one. It's made of wood instead of plastic so even better. Plus, it has this cute stick of butter that can be "sliced" - I thought this would be a great way for Bugga to safely practice using a knife.

Duktig Fruit Basket and Duktig Vegetable Basket from IKEA - So many play food sets you see in toy stores include junk food, which is not what I want Bugga to be too used to. These fruits and vegetables are soft, healthy, and they've been very helpful for helping us talk about things like what goes into a salad, onto a sandwich, etc.

Just Like Home Everyday Cookware Set - This is a great all-inclusive set of pots, pans and accessories (despite the review of the toaster from the same toy line above).

Melissa & Doug Food Groups - Last week I noticed Bugga was serving less of her "imaginary" pasta and more "butter" as a meal. Yeah, so that had to stop. So I ordered this food group set to give her some common healthy proteins that she can learn more about without limiting herself to a bland butter-only pretend diet. Ha.

The final touch: the other day I quickly made some felt bow pasta for Bugga to put into her pots and she loves it. As I expected: she eats pasta several times a week, so this is a no-brainer for a toy. And SO east to make. Let me know if you need the instructions.