Learning is fun: Letter G

Letter G week presented a little bit of a challenge. The letter game that we play tells Abby that the letter G makes a hard G sound, as in gap and golf, while the J makes the soft G sound, as in jump and gym. She's doing a great job sounding out words and their beginning letters right now, so I wanted to reinforce what she already knows about the G (the hard G sound) instead of confusing her with a G word that starts with a J sound. (Still with me?)

I thought about making a letter G gorilla, but couldn't visualize that as being very attractive when it was finished. Finally, we came up with something near and dear to her dad's heart, and Abby got to make a letter G guitar. And a hot pink one at that.

I let her color with markers for the first time, and she was amazed at the fact that she could stain her own skin with them (way cooler than crayons, apparently). Her favorite step in the process had to be dipping the pink yarn in a bowl of glue--which she informed me made "strings all gluey! Abby all gluey!"--and laying them out to make straight lines for the guitar strings. We opted out of the glitter option this time, and instead I let her sprinkle tiny star-shaped sparkles all over her craft when we were finished.

When we were done, we rocked out to some Shakira, which may or may not have actually featured any guitar parts. The important thing to remember is that a morning of crafting followed by a dance marathon always makes for a great afternoon nap.

We ♥ pasta night!

Caleb made the big move from his high chair, and now we enjoy dining as a family of four around our well-loved kitchen table (the same table that I used for crafting and eating as a child...thanks Mom).

Since he was going to be at the table with us anyway, we decided to let the youngest member of the family of fish participate in pasta night. While Abby and the adults enjoyed rotini (the twirly noodles) with meatballs and Cabernet marinara, Caleb dined on orzo (rice-shaped noodles) with a hint of the same sauce. By dinner's end, they'd made the exact same amount of mess.

I like having my whole family present for family dinners. Welcome to the round table, Spike.

Out of house and home

I've always marveled at the inordinate quantity of food Justin's mom will set out when her boys are eating. Since we first started dating, I've made mental notes of things like the three-gallon jar of salsa, the two-pound block of cheese, and the whole turkeys (plural) that are always on hand at her house, knowing that one day I could have growing boys that eat like that.

I find myself suddenly thrust into that role. Caleb has turned a corner...if we thought he was a good eater before, then he's a champion now. At eight months old, he'll eat any baby food we put in front of him. He has yet to turn up his nose at anything we've offered. I found myself unable to puree fast enough to keep up with his dietary demands, so we started him on some finger foods. He's now added cheerios, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, Orzo pasta with spaghetti sauce, banana bread, muffins, sliced turkey, wild rice, peas, strawberries and carrots to his solid food menu.

That old saying about eating someone us out of house and home? I think I'm starting to get it.

Learning is fun: Letter F

There should be some sort of rehab for glitter addicts. I remember the trouble I got into last time I used it, I know I shouldn't go near it again, and I certainly shouldn't let my kids have it. But it's just so fun. I really can't help myself.

Our creative juices flowed in the form of fingerpaint and fish for letter F week. With Justin's help, we crafted a rubber stamp in the shape of a fish for Abby to play with, but stamp ink didn't sound nearly messy enough. So I headed off to the craft store where I found my new favorite craft supply, the compressed sponge. (Not sure how I didn't know about these before: flattened sponges sold in 8x11" sheets that allow you to draw and cut out whatever design you want to stamp, then you just toss the compressed sponge in water and voilà! You've got an instant paint stamping sponge.)

Armed with our rubber stamp and our fish-shaped sponge, Abby went to work stamping her letter F with fish, then drawing waves with her fingers. And then, for no particular reason, I handed her a jar of glitter and instructed her to shake. The mess that ensued was totally worth the fun she had shaking glitter and yelling "sparkles!"

When we were done, I pointed again to the letters at the bottom of the page as she sounded out each one to spell "fish." And for the rest of the day, every time she came across a short word that began with an F, she'd point to it and say "f..f...fish!" I really think she's starting to catch on to the idea that letters work together to make words.

The construction paper was soon thoroughly saturated with paint and ink and glitter, but Abby was still feeling crafty. So I rescued her sopping letter F and handed her some new paper, where she continued to draw waves and smear fish for the next 15 minutes. I need to stop underestimating the excitement of making messes on the kitchen table. It was fabulously fun and fantastically filthy.

We continued to focus on words that have the "f" sound in them for the rest of the day, and went on a letter hunt through some of her books to find the letter F. And later, while we played with her brother, I asked her if he was big or little.

"Cabey f-f-fat!" she told me. That a girl, Abby.

Short stuff

Eight years of infrequent hair cuts and minimal blow drying have finally paid off, and I've got these two skinny 10-inch pigtails to show for it. Special thanks to my friend Kati for inspiring me to grow my hair out for Locks of Love. Had I known how slowly my hair would grow, I might not have told her while we were in college that I'd do this. Now that I've done it, I'm glad...and am looking forward to doing it again, however long it takes.

I chickened out at the first salon I went to when the stylist threatened me with a layered bob. When I returned home with my hair still flowing down my back, Justin told me to go back, think about the bald kid that would get to wear my hair one day, and just do it. That was all the motivation I needed. The lady who cut my hair teared up when I told her what I was doing, and I shed a few tears myself when she made those cuts. I'm still getting used to the short hair, but I'm excited that I was finally able to do something I've wanted to do for so long for such a good cause. Got a few inches to spare? Check it out: http://www.locksoflove.org/recipient.html

Two backpacks this time

We started another year of Community Bible Study. Abby's in the 2's class where they're learning about God's Love and working on scripture memory songs. Caleb's in the 6-12 month class where they're learning not to chew on each other.

The difference a year makes? This year, Abby picked out her own clothes (which explains the Clifford shirt) and her own bow (which explains why it doesn't match). And for the record, posing one 1-year-old is a heck of a lot easier than posing a 2-year-old and a 7-month-old. Next year's goal will be to have them both looking at the camera and smiling at the same time.

First day of "school" 2009

Note to self: Make sure Abby understands the directions fully before starting the photo shoot. "Sit next to your brother" does not mean "sit on top of your brother." I'll be clearer next time.

First day of "school" 2008

Learning is fun: Letter E

Our letter E craft took a while for me to come up with, but I think I found a winner. We got a little creative and turned a giant letter E on its side and had Abby glue down pieces of pink foam to create this Letter E Elephant. (Justin got in on the alphabet action this week by helping me cut out the pieces of foam so that they fit together like a puzzle.)

When possible (as it was this week), I try to lay out our craft so that Abby can see what the finished product should look like. As soon as she sat down at the table, I showed her the letter E, then laid out the foam pieces so she could see the elephant.

"Noah?" she asked, referring to one of her favorite Bible stories.

"Yeah, Noah took two elephants on his boat," I replied.

"Find elephant!" she insisted, so we climbed down from the table and headed into the playroom to find her Noah's ark toy and retrieve an elephant. Then, and only then, could we proceed with our craft.

She had fun practicing the "eh" sound and singing the "E says 'eh'" song from her letter magnet toy. She can sing the whole alphabet song now, and insists on singing it pretty much all day long. It's cute, and I'm very impressed with her memorization skills and tonal quality...but boy am I getting tired of that song.

A change in perspective

Everyone around Caleb spends most of their time with two feet on the floor...so why shouldn't he? He's not quite pulling up to a standing position yet, but if we help him get his feet underneath him, he's happy to hang on and hold himself up for a while. This has opened up whole new worlds of eating cheerios off of the coffee table and pestering his sister when she's trying to play with this activity table.

He's getting closer to actually pulling up on his own, though right now he just tends to grab things and catapult forward head first into what I'm sure is some fancy yoga position. He's got a lot of weight to heft around, so it may take him a while, but those stocky legs provide a pretty firm foundation. Meanwhile, "Up we go!" is one of his new favorite games. I'm convinced he'd be perfectly content being yanked to his feet from a sitting position all day long.

Beyond the call of duty

Abby likes to help. A lot. So while I get dinner ready, she likes to set the table for me, using absolutely every plastic plate and bowl she can find in her Abby safe cabinet (the one full of things without sharp edges). She's been watching for a while to figure out where the shiny spoons come from, and recently found the drawer with all of "Abby's forks" and "Cabey's spoons" in them, so now her stuffed animals have a full place setting.

My favorite part of the whole process is when she straps a stuffed animal into her booster seat or Caleb's high chair, positions a bowl, cup and assortment of spoons in front of it, then grabs a paw, closes her eyes and says "Thank you God, for food. Amen," before pretending to feed it dinner.

For the most part, I don't mind the over-the-top table setting. It keeps her occupied and away from the stove during food preparation, and eliminates the hunger-induced meltdowns where she wanders around the house whining "dinnertime, dinnertime" until someone feeds her. I have to watch her like a hawk though. She doesn't quite understand the concept of clean and dirty dishes, so she tends to put all of her used cutlery and plates back where she found them when she's done. I've tried explaining that they're dirty, but that just lands them in the trash can. We'll keep working on after-dinner clean-up protocol.

Sunday best

Things I've learned while getting Spike ready for church:

• There's a reason they don't make plaid button-down onesies. The tucked-in look was not meant to be worn by tiny humans with no waist. From now on, his shirts stay untucked.
• If they made wrinkle-free clothes for babies, I'd pay top dollar for them. Are you hearing this, Carter's? We moms are too busy to spend 10 minutes ironing a shirt that's about the size of our shoes....I don't enjoy ironing my husband's shirts, and he doesn't spit up on them.
• When the diaper bags are packed and ready to go, they need to go into the car immediately. Otherwise some curious big sister is bound to unpack them and use the contents to diaper her stuffed animals.
• There is no rushing a baby. He'll hold still for a diaper change when he's good and ready. But first, he'll pee on his clothes.

Learning is fun: Letter D

I will never play with feathers again.

Okay...maybe that's an exagerration. If ever I find myself in dire need of a project and the only craft material left in the house is a bag of feathers, I might be tempted to play with feathers again. But that's a big if.

For all the trauma of having to clean glue and feathers off of a two-year-old, creating this Letter D Duck really was a fun project, and Abby was surprisingly meticulus with her placement of the feathers. ("This one right here. That one right here. This yellow feather right here.") I only had to intervene when she started to put feathers in the center of the letter. That offended the part of me that really wanted this to still resemble a letter D when we were done. I left her duck laying on a chair while the glue dried so that Abby could see it. Everytime she walked by I would hear her chanting "duh-duh-duck. duh-duh-D! qwa-qwa-quack. qwa-qwa-Q!" (We've talked about how the Q says "qwa" as in "quack." So my little smarty pants put two and two together when we made the duck.)

She's getting better at trying to sound out first letters of words when we ask her, although she often just defaults to whatever the last letter we talked about happens to be. ("eh-eh-Mommy!" "No Abby, 'Mommy' starts with M. What makes the mmm sound?" "mmm-mmm-M!")

The blog that I shamelessly steal project ideas from is leaving me hanging for next week's letter E activity. I need to find a letter E craft that a two-year-old will understand, and most of the ones on that site are a little obscure for Abby. Anyone know of other great alphabet activity sites?

Tuckered out

Spike and I had the opportunity for some one-on-one splash time in the backyard while Curly took a freakishly long nap the other day. So what does an hour long splashfest without the interruption of a big sister get you?

Tuckered out moments like these...I would give my numb left arm to have him fall asleep on me like this every night. Will someone remind me why they can't stay little forever?

Shopping buddies

Rebecca and I loaded up the van with four kids, one double stroller and plenty of snacks and headed to Ikea for a little shopping adventure. The girls had a great time, caused all sorts of mayhem, and thoroughly enjoyed their lunch of swedish meatballs. The boys dealt quite well with all the shenanigans and were rewarded with some playtime in the kids area. Our shopping trip lasted less than two hours, and somehow we even managed to make it home in time for naps. I see a return trip in our future...

The case of the missing sneakers

The book resting on top of the rear windshield wiper should have been my warning.

I arrived at Chick-fil-a earlier than I anticipated, not because I was running ahead of schedule, but because my son woke up early from his nap screaming his head off. To me, it sounded like he was saying "Mom, throw me in the car and drive around some...I might go back to sleep." So that's what I did.

I hurried to be sure the beach bag I call a purse was well-stocked with snacks, sippy cups, diapers, baby food, wipes, and my wallet. Abby was left downstairs with instructions to locate her shoes while I rescued my screaming baby from the confines of his cozy crib, wiped his bottom and strapped him into his carseat. With one child and one mommy-bag in the car, I returned to get my daughter, who was insisting that she'd rather wear her Crocs. Knowing she would certainly remove slip-on shoes at an inconvenient time or place, I countered with an offer of tennis shoes. She accepted, laces were tied, and we were soon on our way.

Caleb settled down once we got on the road and I drove with relative calm to my lunch date. Abby requested that I play the bananaphone song and I refused, because frankly, I hate that song now. So we listened to Shakira instead, because "Hips Don't Lie" is just as fun to sing along to. We pulled into the Chick-fil-a parking lot and Abby immediately launched into some sort of indiscernible rant about her friend Abby Mae and chicken nuggets and playing in tunnels. I unloaded the two-year-old and used my mommy voice to instruct her to not move from my side while I unloaded the seven-month-old. It worked. With a baby on my hip and my mommy bag over my shoulder, I grabbed my daughter's perpetually sticky hand, closed the van doors and headed inside. And that's when I noticed the book.

Somehow our copy of Time for School, Mouse survived the 20 minute ride, and there it was, resting on top of my rear wiper for all the world to see, like a beacon announcing to the traffic behind me: "Hey, there's a mom in this van. And she does not have her act together."

I still haven't figured out how it got there. But it gets better.

Inside, Abby's predictions came true, and almost like we had planned it, we found her friend Abby Mae, and chicken nuggets, and tunnels to play in. I sent her to run off some energy in the play place with her friend while my friend and I fed veggie mush to our sons and wondered aloud how it was possible that our daughters were old enough to play on their own now.

Minutes later the boys were fed and it was time to retrieve the girls. I called to them from the door and waited while they tumbled down the slide, first Abby Mae, followed closely by Abby Jean. Abby Mae, still fully intact, was sent to the table. Abby Jean, in her sock feet, was sent back into the play place to find her shoes. On this day, as always, I had purposefully ignored the instruction to remove her shoes in the play area. She's clumsy enough without taking away the traction her sneakers provide. Apparently she disagrees.

We spent a few minutes looking around the floor for her shoes to no avail before I decided I'd simply find them after we ate. When lunch was through, I returned to the play area and, much to the chagrin of the other parents present, removed my shoes and climbed up into the equipment to do my own sneaker search-and-rescue. A few moments climbing around in the maze of tunnels convinced me that Abby had not simply removed her shoes. She had certainly disposed of them somewhere inconvenient and out of sight. I paused for a moment to try to think like my daughter, looked around, and saw that the gaps in the walls of the play equipment were just large enough to jam a sneaker through.

I descended back down the slide (realizing why they have a height limit for the play area) and asked my friend to stay with the kids while I went outside to look in on the equipment from the outside window. Sure enough, there it was...one lone size six sneaker trapped below the outside of the tunnel slide, accessible only through a locked gate intended to keep kids from climbing the outside of the equipment. I returned inside, informed the management of the plight of the lost sneaker and waited for them to unlock the gate for me. I squeezed through the small opening, scaled the back of the slide, climbed under the tunnel and retrieved one shoe. A quick look around the small enclosed area told me the other shoe was not there. After extracting myself and the shoe, I returned to the table with my mission only half completed.

By now, the lunch hour was in full swing and the play place was swarming with children. I did not intend to leave without that other shoe, so I returned to the play area and did the only reasonable thing I could think of.

"Excuse me!" I yelled over the din of high-pitched voices. "Who wants free ice cream?" I could see I had their attention. "I'll buy an ice cream cone for whoever helps me find my daughter's shoe. It's a small white...."

"I know where it is," a little boy shouted from somewhere nearby. I looked around and found him smiling up at me.

"It's right there," he said, pointing at a window that looked into the back of the slide (the off-limits part I had climbed in earlier). Sure enough, trapped between the Plexiglas and the side of the slide was one little size six sneaker.

My new little detective friend led me out into the restaurant so I could ask his mom if I could buy him ice cream. I'm sure she thought I was weird (wasn't I the one she saw climbing up the slide earlier?) but I explained how he had helped me and I had offered a reward, so she said it was okay, and for $1, I made her son's day.

Back in the play place, I thanked God for my bony little fingers as I poked them through the mesh wall and inched Abby's shoe up as high as it would go. Then back up the slide I went, through the tunnel to the corner from which Abby had most certainly launched her shoes originally. I punched my arm through the opening at the top of the wall and reached down until I felt the shoe, looped a finger through the laces and retrieved it. I climbed back out of the equipment, through the maze of children, slipped my feet back into my shoes and called it a day.

Next time, I'll just take her shoes off like the sign says.

Learning is fun: Letter C

Our letter C craft was by far our most popular yet. If I had known how much she was going to love the combination of glue and these little puffy pom-poms, I would have started with a much larger palette to create our Letter C Caterpillar. This was also our first experience with little googly eyes, and she was pretty excited about those as well. (But seriously...who doesn't love googly eyes?)

Since the big C and little C look so similar, discussing uppercase and lowercase letters was a challenge this week. On the other hand, she began to comprehend the concept of size pretty well this week, and is pretty good at telling us whether something is big or little now. (Clifford is big, his friend T-Bone is little. Airplanes are big, birds are little. Abby is big, and so is Caleb, apparently.)

She still pronounces caterpillar "cap-a-piwer" but I'm not exactly stressed out about correct pronunciation of four-syllable words at this point. By the end of the week, she seemed pretty confident about a number of words that begin with C, and enjoyed sounding out "c-c-Cabey" (Caleb), "c-c-cayons" (crayons), and "c-c-cake" to name a few.