Tot School: Not Every Week is Picture Perfect

Tot School Week 5
G is 18 months old.

My apologies right from the start, I did not manage to take a lot of photos this week. And those I did take, don't have the best quality. We're short on AA batteries, and the rechargeable ones I swore would ONLY be for my camera flash - have found themselves relocated to the wii remotes. (The wii is how we watch our tv...). I'm hoping to buy some more. very. very. soon.

Beginning of this week G & I went to visit our local Excel by 5 program.
This place is great. They have age appropriate rooms (0-2 and 3-5) filled with educational toys. It's great when we need a break from our house & our (lack of) stuff - not to mention it gives G a chance to interact with some other kids. And it takes some stress off Mommy who's been worrying that she's not interacting enough with kids now that we've moved away from everyone we know!

My favorite thing about this place is they have a toy library - we can take home an educational toy for a week. This will be a great resource for tot activities - because what I have at home is apparently very boring now.

To add to how awesome Excel by 5 is, they have a block building room, an art room, the staff is wonderful AND they send the little ones home with a snack, color sheets & a "goodie" from a small toy bin they have by the door. And the best part? It's all FREE!!  We walk in the door, enter our name on the sign in sheet & off we go to have some fun. Every community should have something like this place. Unfortunately, right now it appears as though this is a Mississippi thing.

We will probably go at least once a week, and it will become part of our tot school routine. As I become more familiar with the place & staff, I'll be sure to start taking some pictures.
Our first week we borrowed these sensory balls. They were meant for younger babies, but we had fun with them anyway.

Here she's hugging the "soft" ball.

In previous weeks, when it came time for tot school, I would sit down with G and offer her a toy or activity. This is the first week that I offered her a choice. I can now say that giving her choices does not work for us. Maybe I just gave her too many choices.
 I also tried to do a "art" activity with her, but she wasn't having it. She'd undo anything I did. Things just did not work for us, at home, this week.
Not every week can be a good week. But we did have some quiet moments:

Here she is reading Slide & Find - Colors

Melissa & Doug Rainbow Stacker is still a favorite around here.

She also likes using her drum as a seat.

We have lots of parks to choose from - between our neighborhood, on base & in the community; so that is a favorite activity right now. 

                      

Favorite Books: Though we did borrow new library books, I've yet to read one. We received our boxes from home - which contained the few books of G's I choose to bring down. I can't tell you how many times I've read Cock-a-Doodle Doo, Barnyard Hullabaloo or Itsy Bitsy Spider this week. But I'm happy she's happy to have some of her own books back. Though I have a sneaking suspicion we read Cock-a-Doodle-Doo so much so she can say "moo" on the cow page and "who who" on the owl page.

New Words: She did say "Mama I love you"...once. It was enough to melt my heart for awhile. I don't think I've heard anything else new out of her mouth. Though I love when you ask her a question and she'll say "ummmm....yes". :)

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Tot School: Back in the Swing of Things

Week 4 of Tot School. G is 18 months.

This week was all about getting into a routine & working in some tot activities. To go from working at the office full time, to being home & working when I can, has taken some adjustments. I find myself much more tired than I was sitting at a desk all day, but I am really blessed to finally have the opportunity to be home with my little G.
There was no *real* theme this week. Just sticking with colors, shapes & identifying things around us.



 She's coloring in some shapes I drew on a piece of paper. It took a couple tries. She didn't want the crayons, or colored pencils. Only markers please!

 

Placing foam shapes in her stacking cups. I got these shapes at the $1 section at Target!

First introduction to the color flashcards I made. She had to have all of them face with the word up, so I made a game out of it. I'd flip them over real fast and as she flipped them back I'd say the color.

Then it was time to match shapes up with the flashcards. I matched the first couple with the same color. Here she is doing the same with green.

G's Grandma bought a Cedarmont Kids Toddler Action Songs CD/DVD set.
Here she's marching along to "The Ants go Marching"...

We tried our hand at apple stamping. It turned into a regular finger painting session.

As part of our new routine, we go to the library every week. Very few books came to Mississippi with us, so of course the library books are ones she loves to hear multiple times a day.
G's favorites this week have been: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See, Curious George Goes to the Aquarium & Cock-a-Moo-Moo

New Words This Week: "M", "Outside"
And be still my heart I heard "thank you" & "yes please". Still not saying them every time they should be. However, to hear them come out of her mouth helps me to know she's listening. (For the time being, the sign for 'please' can go a long way in this house!)

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The Truth

Most of the blogs I come across seem to have Mom's who have more crafting talent in their pinky toe than I have in my whole self, come up with amazing projects for their kids and they actually come out cute AND they can cook incredible meals; they certainly don't burn applesauce either.

Their blogs are filled with pictures of perfection and you wonder how in the world they do it.
But, behind the scenes how many of them are really dealing with this......

Or this.....

Or even this.....

And you just don't know it.

So now you know why I burned the applesauce.

Homesick or How I Tried to Cure my Autumn Withdrawl

I have been very homesick this week, as well as desperately feeling like I was completely missing out on Fall. It's my favorite season, and I was missing all the fun.
So today I woke up with a fire under my butt and decided to enjoy Fall...er...Mississippi style.

First let me say...apples down here stink. When you've grown up in NY and can yank an apple off the tree to eat while you continue to pick apples to bake & cook with...you are an apple snob. The macintosh I found at the comissary were squishy & soft and not at all juicy. Sad. I didn't want to suffer through one more bite.

I decided to use them for applesauce instead.
Naturally the best thing to do when you don't like something...is to cut it up in tiny pieces & boil it.

Originally I had taken pictures as I went, with big grand plans to share my recipe in this post. I was especially excited because I was trying the applesauce with brown sugar, instead of white sugar this time around. I was drooling at the thought of some homemade applesauce. But I got distracted by a certain toddler...and it burned. It tastes okay, G loved it at least....doesn't look very good...lets just call it carmelized applesauce and leave it at that.

Okay...next activity...Apple Stamping!
Except...we don't have any paint. But that's okay...I've made finger paint before. We'll just do that.

Except I made it a bit too runny. But it was okay, we were going for the experience...not to make masterpieces.

Though, G didn't completely understand the concept of dip apple in paint, press apple on paper.

She got the dip part right, but apples are for eating....aren't they?

I finally gave up and we just moved onto finger painting.
I'm going to blame both lousy attempts on Mississippi apples.

I wonder where Mississippi apples really come from, and which state is actually to blame. I saw a sticker on my lemon, that was from Chile. Maybe these are South American apples too? Perhaps I should have measured my ingredients in metric form for better luck?

Our First Week

We've been in Mississippi, all together in our house, for a little over a week now. We're making strides in getting used to our new home & schedule. To be honest, I like the area. I've had a little home sickness - but I think it's more missing people, than missing home.  

I figured it was time for a quick update.

Here's what we've been up to our first week in our new home.

Somebody got new shoes.

I successfully cooked bacon, more than once. I'm now definitely a keeper in my husband's book.

It seems like G can make any toy into a phone. Including a foam #6.

She'll have wonderful conversations, but she'll never tell me who she's talking to when I ask. And she always clams up when someone on the REAL phone wants to talk.

Tyson has probably spent most of the last week putting things together.

Here you can see we finally broke down and bought G an outdoor toy. She kept peaking through the fence and crying when we wouldn't let her play with the neighbors toys. A travesty to a toddler.

What you don't see pictures is my first ever attempt to drive around base, IN THE DARK.

And for those who have heard me mention the echo in the house, and the lack of furniture and wondered how that could be....Below is a picture of our living room. And yes...that's a vaulted ceiling.

Do you like our "couch"?

So that's what we've been up to. I bought some supplies at the store yesterday to start up "tot school" with G again. We tried a playgroup on Friday, but I don't know if that's our cup of tea. G's too rambunctious in public, and I much prefer a more relaxed setting to get to know other mom's. It's hard to have a conversation when your daughter is pulling books off the shelf at Barnes & Noble. But we'll keep trying to find some friends.

p.s. I know I might have a little bit more family traffic around these parts. To make it easy for you guys, I've added a link on the top right side of this page. Enter your email address and you'll receive my blog updates directly in your inbox. So you don't have to worry about checking back everyday to see if there's something new.

Live From Mississippi!

We're alive. We're in a different part of the country.
Getting used to our new surroundings, weather (omGOSH is it humid! Worse than Florida!), and schedule.
Things will get back to normal soon, and that includes posting here.

For now a picture that pretty much sums up my first week of "stay at home/work at home mommy-ness"

No Tot School This Week

G is 17 months old.

We're still in moving limbo.  Tyson left for Mississippi on Friday, and was not able to tow our belongings down as planned. I won't get into the whole story. But I spent the entire labor day weekend finding a storage unit, going through all the packed boxes to pull out only what is essential...and repacking. (Of course I had LOTS of help from my mom, so I didn't necessarily do ALL of this.)

Saying good-bye to Tyson for a few weeks gave us a few rough moments. So I spent as much of my time with G as I could. I didn't want a camera lens between us. I especially enjoyed watching her play, she gets so deep in thought!

Right now her favorite toy is the rainbow stacker. She will sit down and play with this thing for 20 minutes. No joke. And she doesn't seem to mind that I just sit & stare at her for 15 of those minutes. The one thing I've learned about G - she doesn't like to play "together". We'll throw balls back & forth, play with bubbles, etc...but when it comes to interactive toys, she prefers to be left alone, thank you very much.

She's starting to pretend play too - mostly just stirring & drinking - but sometimes she'll dawn her crocheted poncho & carry around her pink plastic bucket like a purse. She reminds me of my Great, Great Aunt Harriet when she does this.

This week I've also seen a huge improvement in G's word usage. Words she's said for awhile are much more clear, words she only said occasionally I now hear much more often and she's even trying new words. (My personal favorite..."touchdown!" ...complete with her sticking both arms straight up.) She's beginning to put words together - especially practicing "Hi Dada" with her toy phone. Of course when he's ON the phone, she clams up and will only wave & blow kisses.

We'll probably have a break from tot school activities until after the move. Most of the things I planned on using for Tot School have been deemed 'not important enough to mail/ship', so I'll have to rethink my plan for the next few weeks. Luckily Christmas is a few months away & I plan on asking the Grandparents for LOTS of educational toys.

I will try to update during the next few weeks of G & I being single, packing ladies...but I'm not going to worry too much about Tot School right now.