Skip to main content

Keeping a toddler entertained

The night before last I was haunted by visions of a Regency Era dress for maternity wear and when I saw the flat bedsheet Miss M was using to make a tent, it told me it wanted to be that dress. So yesterday, when I was supposed to be working on my SWAP, I cut out a dress for myself instead. It turns out, a queen sized flat sheet is perfect for the Regency dress pattern (especially since I needed to hack off 5 inches in length).  I cut out the whole thing and the rest of the garments for Miss M...good thing too 'cause I was having a few contractions bent over on the floor like that. I'm listed as "high risk" for pre-term delivery (Miss M was born at 36 weeks), so I don't need to be having contractions at only 6 months pregnant! Now that all the cutting out is done, I won't have to get down on the floor like that anymore!

It seems I woke up one morning, turned around, and my baby girl had morphed into a sponge, soaking up every bit of information and stimulation she could find. She's completely outgrown her baby toys and is in need of new things to do. Just about every day last week I came up with a new activity for her. One day it was a "sand" table consisting of my 9x12" cake pan and some old (uncooked!) rice.



Another day she asked to make pizza, so we she did. I really didn't do much other than premix the spices and even up the cheese at the end.



Her lola (grandma) had a birthday this weekend, so little Miss M made her very first greeting card. She even put the stamps on the "envelope" all by herself.



Miss M has always had advanced fine motor skills for her age. Even before she could walk, she'd crawl around and pick up the tiniest pieces of debris from the carpet -- amazingly, they didn't usually go in her mouth either!  So I've been wanting to get her some lacing cards since she first turned 2 -- even though they have "for ages 3-6" on the box. The cheapest ones I've seen are about $10 (Disney princesses, ick!) and they go up from there. I just couldn't bear to spend that much and it suddenly dawned on me to make my own!  I used a double-layer of cardstock, clear contact paper, a 1/8" hole punch, and some lanyard for the laces.



After I finished the first one, I was a little concerned that the holes were too many and too small.  Oh how wrong I was! All it took was showing Miss M once how to "find the next hole" and next thing I knew, she laced up a whole card!  I'll definitely be making more of these! In fact, I think I might make up a tutorial while I'm at it. These would make great gifts for a huge range of ages...both boys and girls.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener?  ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Letter posters with memory verses

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom.  I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter.  At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet.  They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge.  (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!)   The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file.  I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky.  (The laminator is a new toy!)  Enjoy!

Pilcrow pajamas

I finally finished a sewing project...it's been a while, huh?  Little Guy has outgrown most of his pajamas and bodysuits.  He has several onesies, but they're mostly short sleeved which isn't really appropriate for this time of year without a cardigan.  Ottobre to the rescue!  I had traced off the "Naava coverall" (Ottobre 6/2009, #3) but it was already a size too small.  I "remedied" that by simply cutting it out a little larger all around and keeping my original seam allowance...a bit sloppy perhaps, but time-saving! I actually cut out two at the same time from the same material.  I was going for practicality (something for the kid to wear!) rather than fashion.  The other one is nearly done - just the leg binding and snaps left to do.  Still, I needed to do something fun to spruce 'em up a bit.  The other one was voted by hubby to be video game themed, so I decided to make this one reflect my abject nerdiness personality....