The "2 Hats:1 Head" Conundrum

Rose was presented with quite the problem this morning. What does a girl do when she has two hats, but only one head to put them on? Here's the back story:

After she woke up this morning, she saw her watermelon hat laying on the couch and of course demanded that I help put it on her head. I complied and we went on with our morning. Then while we were walking from the kitchen to the living room, she spied her owl hat. She immediately ran towards it while hooting like the little owl she is. She snatched it up and began making that horrible toddler whining/demanding noise while holding it up at me. I explained to her she was already wearing a hat, but she could take that one off to wear her owl hat. Rose thought that was no good. Now holding both her hats and continuing to whine, I only saw one solution that would make her happy. One head with two hats. I must admit she was pretty cute, especially that satisfied ornery smile.

Toddler Life: Rose's Lovey

I've seen all these posts and have heard all this talk about kids having a lovey. Rose has never been attached to any blanket or stuffed animal, so quite frankly I thought it just didn't apply to her.

Well we've found it. It just took cold weather to drag it out of the closet. It turns out Rose's security blanket isn't a blanket at all, instead she has chosen this pink owl hat. She has to wear it everywhere. That means when we're at playdates, grocery shopping, at our own home, and during lunch. Heck, she even naps in it!

Honestly, I think she's chosen wisely. Her security hat leaves both her hands free for playtime and eating. And it makes my already adorable little girl even cuter. We received several comments on it and her today at the indoor playground. Well I have to go now and tend to my little owl.

DIY Shape Book or Flashcards

After making some simple window clings for Rose, I had some left over foam that needed to be used. I've seen some felt DIY shape books online and decided foam could be an alternative and just-as-good material. The foam I used came from a 36-pack bought from the Dollar Tree.

For this project, I only needed 12 sheets to make the book. I began by cutting 6 sheets of foam in half to make two pages. I then punched a hole in the top left corner of each in case I wanted to string them together later.

After that, I carefully cut out two identical copies of 11 different shapes: heart, circle, oval, square, triangle, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, and star. One of each shape was then glued onto a page of the book while the other one was traced with a sharpie and then set aside. Lastly,

I labeled each shape that was glued to the page. And that's it. You can string the pages together to make a book or keep them flat to use as flashcards

Rose surprised me when I handed her the heart and circle and she correctly placed them on the corresponding card. I was so proud of her. This fun learning activity will now be a part of our daily routine.

Afternoon Activity: Bathtub Painting

Rose and I are stuck at home for the better part of today while waiting for a contractor to come and patch up a hole in the garage ceiling. Luckily, we were able to run to the late story time at our library where Rose had an awesome social breakthrough and detached herself from me for a whole 5 minutes to play with the parachute. It was a big proud-mama moment.

After we came home and ate lunch, we were pretty bored and didn’t know what to do with ourselves. I thought about finger painting but I really didn’t feel like cleaning up the big mess that was sure to come with that activity, which of course would lead to a bath. That’s when it hit me. Why not skip the middle part? Why not make the mess IN the bathtub? Well, that’s exactly what we did. I prepped Rose’s paint tray (icecube tray), attached cotton balls to the ends of some clothespins, and let Rose go at it in the tub.

I made sure to use washable finger paint. I recommend the Crayola brand, but you could always experiment making some DIY finger paint (although be careful when using food coloring, it may dye your child’s clothes and/or your bathtub).

My favorite things about this activity is that the prep time was minimal (around 2 minutes) and Rose enjoyed playing for about 30-35 minutes! After about 15 minutes of play Rose started getting bored with the cotton balls, so I introduced some q-tips and she continued playing with those for another 10 minutes. Once she decided that she had enough of painting, I turned the water on and she had even more fun playing in the colored water and helping mom clean the sides of the tub. The one “bad” thing about this activity is that it left a lovely red ring around my tub; but since I used washable paints, it was easily removed with a wet rag.

Overall Rating: 5+ Stars!

Below is a quick summary of why this activity was so awesome and received a 5+ rating:

• Minimal prep time
• 30-35 minutes of play time
• Sensory play: cotton, water, goopy paint
• Learning opportunities for colors, counting, and letters
• Creative play: making art, mixing colors 
• Easy clean up

Afternoon Activity: Cotton Balls and Contact Paper

This post is a bit late and this activity was actually done a couple of nights ago. My one-year-old was a bit restless since we had been inside all day and I, myself, was tired from cleaning the house. That being said, I wanted something that was both easy to clean up and fairly simple to set up.

I have been trying to find ways to utilize a couple of bags of cotton balls that I had previously purchased for a crafting play date earlier in the month and discovered this idea on Pinterest. Five minutes later I had the contact paper taped (upside down) to my daughter’s activity table and gave her a bucket of cotton balls, q-tips, and Styrofoam packing peanuts and let her go crazy.

She played with the whole set up for about 15 minutes. Her favorite part was to take the cotton balls and stick them to the contact paper and pick them up so they left cotton fibers. But eventually she got bored with it and soon discovered that the packing peanuts could be torn and shredded into smaller pieces (that were so much fun picking up afterward). She did this for about another 10 minutes.

Overall, I’d say this was a pretty successful activity. It lasted for about half an hour and clean up wasn’t horrible. If we keep with my previous rating system, I’d give this activity 5 stars. 

Weatherproofing in January (better late than never?)

Yesterday morning I found myself a bit chilly while playing kitchen with my daughter in her playroom. So I made an effort to sit close to the air vent where I knew hot air would be blasting out. As you can imagine I was quite confused when I felt cold air instead. The vent in that room is placed right below a window and there was a freezing-cold wintery breeze coming right into my daughter’s play room. Well, crap. That would explain why our December energy bill is more than DOUBLED the previous month.

This is our first winter in this house (which is around 25 years old) and during our extremely busy autumn months we neglected to check if the doors and windows were weatherproofed. What a mistake. Looking back now, I can recollect conversations between my husband and me about how chilly it was by the couch (which sits in front of 3 giant windows). Duh. How in the heck did we not make the connection?

I showed the problem to my husband and (of course) his solution was to buy new windows. Calmly, I told him to slow his roll and that surely we could find a cheaper and easier solution. So during nap time yesterday, I YouTubed several videos on how to weatherproof old windows and this is my favorite video: https://youtu.be/mQ74FVB9JSI.

Rose and I took a fun field trip to Home Depot today and bought some foam weatherproofing strips and some removable weather stripping (it comes in a caulking tube). Once we got home, we got busy cleaning windows and applying the foam strips. Unfortunately, during the move we misplaced my caulking gun so it looks like that’ll have to wait a couple more days until we find ourselves back at Home Depot. 

But so far we can see and feel a considerable difference in the living room temperature. I don't have to wear a jacket inside anymore! And another plus, the husband was pleasantly surprised when he came home to find it all done and he could remove it from his Honey-Do List. Count that as a couple brownie points for the wife. 

Easy Banana Bread

There’s nothing I hate more than throwing away produce. Yet almost weekly I find myself digging through my fruit bowl to find and pitch whichever apple, peach, or lime has decided to rot. This week it was our bananas. They had gotten to the point where they were entirely brown. Yum. Thank goodness this is the perfect banana-state for banana bread. So I decided that this would be a great activity for Rose and me to complete today.

Recipe

3 Mashed Bananas

1 cup Sugar

1 Egg

¼ Melted Butter

½ cup Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a bowl, combine bananas, sugar, egg and butter. In a second bowl combine flour and baking soda. Slowly stir the banana mixture in until it is just mixed. Stir salt into batter. Finally, pour batter into your pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean (around 1 hour).

Rose’s Experience

First off, we only had two bananas so we had to reduce the recipe by a third (I did my best with the egg). We began by throwing the bananas into the bowl and I helped Rose mash them. She enjoyed this, but she also enjoyed reaching in and grabbing a chunk of banana to eat every now and then also.

Then it was time to mix in the sugar. Oh boy! Rose was in heaven. She thought sugary bananas might quite possibly be the best invention ever. I could see I had a problem on my hands as the egg was next to be added. So I got her bowl of rice out (I have dedicated a bag of rice just for Rose to play in every now and again) and she played around in that while I finished the recipe.

Since my batch was smaller than what the recipe called for my bread only had to bake for around 40 minutes. I cut it up and buttered a piece for myself and another for Rose. We both enjoyed our yummy snack and I added this simple recipe to my recipe book for future use.

Afternoon Activity: 2 Ingredient Fake Snow

If you search online for winter activities for toddlers, you will be bombarded with a zillion different “recipes” for fake or artificial snow. Rose and I are going to go ahead and make several of these over the next several days and post our findings on which snow is the best snow. Here’s day one:

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Shampoo
• 3 cup Baking Soda

 Activity:

We made a smaller version of this recipe since we will be making a lot of snow over the next week. Since the recipe is a simple 1:6 ratio, I began with 6 Tbs of baking soda and eventually added the 1 Tbs of shampoo later. But first Rose played with the baking soda. This is quickly becoming her favorite part of almost all of our activities. Whether it be baking soda, flour, salt, or whatever. I then added the shampoo and helped her mix it in. It should clump like in the picture below and you should be able to compress it into a shapes.

Rose then played around in the fake snow, while I made her a snowman using sprinkles for his face. I apologize for the lovey dovey face the snowman is giving. Unfortunately, all I had were Valentine’s Day sprinkles. Rose played with it for a couple minutes but quickly grew bored. That’s when I pulled the vinegar out. Rose and I melted that poor snowman sucker. 

Conclusion:

Pros:

• 2 Ingredients
• Smells lovely. I used coconut smelling shampoo.
• Multiple opportunities to discuss colors, sounds, textures, smells, and maybe even taste with little ones.
• Making it took around 5-10 minutes and playing with it took around 10-15 minutes.
• “Melting” the snowman with vinegar is fun and is probably the best part of the activity.

 Cons:

• Depending on which shampoo you use, the smell may be a bit overkill.
• Rose quickly grew bored with the snow itself. I don’t see this as big of a problem with older kids.
• If you do the vinegar step, you cannot keep and reuse.

Overall Rating: 5 Stars

I have no other fake snow to compare this recipe to yet, but I’d say that Rose’s overall experience with this activity was great! She enjoyed playing with the baking soda by itself at the beginning, and then had fun mixing in the shampoo. She may not have completely understood the concept of playing with the crumbly snow, but as soon as I brought out the vinegar and droppers she was back at having fun. The overall activity took around 30 minutes from beginning to end with a quick 10 minute clean up time. So it ate a good chunk of our afternoon boredom away.

Other Variations:

• I would definitely suggest this activity for a play date. Let each kid make their own batch of snow, then play with it, and finally let them turn it into a goopy sludge.
• Add glitter to the shampoo prior to mixing your two ingredients to make glitter snow.

Make a Non-Skid Drop Cloth for Toddler Activities

Conditioning (the Pavlov’s dog kind, not the silky-smooth hair kind) is a powerful thing. Every time I pull out our blue vinyl tablecloth, Rose’s eyes grow three times their original size, her little feet start running in place, and the most wonderfully adorable “ooooh” comes from her itty bitty perfect mouth. She now associates this white and blue floral drop cloth as the beginning of her fun activity time.

But there is one problem. Vinyl tablecloths are not made to be used as drop cloths on the floor; therefore, many a time when Rose tried to walk on  the cloth it would shift and my poor baby would fall. Fortunately, the activity we would be doing would be enough of a distraction to prevent any crying/whining. But when i

t comes to my baby, I like to prevent possible boo-boos before they can happen.

So I thought on it and I had previously seen posts online of people putting dots or lines of hot glue on the bottom of their toddler’s socks to make them no-skid. So why couldn’t I do this for my drop cloth? Well, I can and I did. And the best part is it only took 15 minutes from beginning to end (that included taking silly pictures for this blog)! Here’s how I did it.

Step 1

Turn the vinyl tablecloth over so that the fuzzy cloth side is facing upward. You can do this either on a tabletop or a hard floor. If you do it on a table that is smaller than your tablecloth, make sure you find a weight (like the bowl I used) so the cloth doesn’t slide while you are working on it.

Safety Warning: Hot glue is… hot! Keep it away from kids. I recommend doing this during naptime when no kids are around. Another tip I learned is keep the pets locked away while doing this. Puppies and kitties do not always understand what we are doing.

Step 2

Plug in and warm up your hot glue gun. I needed an extension cord so that it would easily reach all four corners of the cloth. It took about 5-6 sticks of glue, so be prepared.

I started at one of the corners and tested to make sure the hot glue did not leak or seep through and ruin my tabletop. In some places it seemed to melt the vinyl side a bit, but not too terribly that I felt I needed to stop or that my tabletop was in danger. Continue checking the bottom side of the cloth throughout the activity. I would really hate if anyone’s table or floor got messed up on my account.

Squeeze the trigger while making a fairly thick line of glue and lightly pressing the tip of the gun into the cloth. I made a line all the way around the edge of the cloth and then made long diagonal lines from corner to corner. Honestly, you can make any pattern your heart wishes. You don’t have to overdo it, my lines were around 3-4 inches apart.

That’s it! You’re done and now you have a skid-proof dropcloth for your child’s craft and activity time.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback you may have after trying this out for yourself.

Afternoon Activity: No Cook, 2-Ingredient Play Dough

For today’s afternoon activity adventure, Rose and I made a 2-ingredient play dough recipe I found while searching Pinterest. The result was a super soft dough somewhere in the middle of the play dough to cloud dough spectrum. It was in no way, shape, or form as crumbly or powdery as the cloud dough and since it had no salt it wasn’t as tough or clean as play dough. I do highly suggest that you read the entire post (at least the conclusion part) before setting out to make this recipe. That way you know what you are in for. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ingredients:

1 part conditioner

2 parts corn starch

Activity:

Before jumping into everything, I poured the cornstarch into a shallow plastic dish and let Rose play with it by itself. Corn starch has a unique texture so go ahead and play with it yourself. Use this moment to talk with your child either prompting an older child to describe how it feels or by telling your younger child its color and texture. I hid small lids in the corn starch and Rose has a blast digging them out.

Alright, if you are ready to get on with the show. I put the cornstarch up on the counter for a while and brought down the conditioner in a separate bowl. I squeezed a couple drops of Sargent Art’s WaterColor Magic coloring to it (you can use food coloring) and let Rose mix it up.

Bring the cornstarch back down and slowly add the conditioner to it. This is where things get really messy. We tried mixing it with a spoon but it began clumping up really bad. So we went all in and got our hands in and squished it with our fingers. Hence why there are no pictures of it clumped up since my hands were all goopy. (I did remake a small batch afterward, see the small container above.) 

Continue adding more conditioner until you have a nice consistency. Remember, not all conditioners have the same consistency so the 1:2 ratio may need to be adjusted a bit. If you overdo it, just add a bit more cornstarch.

After a while you will be able to shape the goopy gunk into a smooth dough-like ball. Ta-da! You just made our amazing 2 ingredient, no cook, super soft play dough.

Conclusion:

Pros:

• 2 Ingredients
• No cooking required
• Soft texture which you can talk about with your child
• Smells great
• Leaves hands silky smooth

Cons:

• Creates ONE GIANT MESS! I spent more time cleaning up afterward then I spent on the activity itself.
• Play dough leaves a residue on the tabletop and hands.
• Crumbles when trying to form. (This may be fixed by using more conditioner. I don’t know. I did not try.)

What I would have done differently:

• I would have taken Rose’s clothes off at the beginning. The goopy glop got everywhere and I had to soak her clothes in the sink. I didn’t want to find out what cornstarch would do to my washing machine.
• I would have taken my ring off. Dried cornstarch goop is hard to get out of tiny cracks.
• I would have contained Rose to a high chair. She began walking around leaving (the cutest) little powder tracks across my kitchen floor.
• Finally, I would have made a smaller batch. A lot of cornstarch makes a lot of mess.

Overall Rating: 1 Star

With this activity, the pros did not outweigh the cons. I cannot stress this enough. I wish I could explain perfectly how big of a mess it was. It took me 30 minutes to clean. Which involved soaking Rose’s clothes, washing dishes, cleaning the tablecloth and the counters (wet cornstarch forms a heck of a film), and finally vacuuming and mopping the floors. The cornstarch goes everywhere. Perhaps I would add a couple of stars if we could do this activity outside, but it is winter so that’s out of the question right now. 

Afternoon Activity: Making Play Dough

Welcome to Rose’s and my second “Special Afternoon Activity” post. Today we decided that it was time for Rose to try out some play dough. During nap time I researched play dough recipes and concluded that the recipe listed below is by far the one most used and liked by other online moms. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make play dough with your child.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Water

2 Cups Flour

4 Tsp. Cream of Tartar

2/3 Cups Salt

2 Tbs. Vegetable Oil

Activity:

Simply pour all the ingredients into one bowl. Let your child (at least try to) pour some of them in themselves. Help your child mix the ingredients together. It may be hard for them since it’s a pretty thick mixture, but that’s okay let them try anyways.

Divide the mixture into four (or more) bowls and add food coloring. I prefer to use Sargent Art’s WaterColor Magic (available on Amazon for $15) because it is washable. Once again, allow your child to be part of the process and let them mix the color in.

After everything is nice and mixed together. Heat a non-stick pan to medium heat. Make sure it is out of child’s reach. Safety first! Pour one of your color mixtures into the pan and stir continuously, see Picture 1. (ProTip: Start with the lightest color and move the darkest; for example begin with yellow, then red, then blue, and finally purple.) Stir the mixture until it begins to clump up on you, see Picture 2. It will be sticky, but that’s okay. At this point, remove the glob of stickiness onto waxed paper or your countertop. Let it cool for a while (I went ahead and “cooked” the other 3 colors) and then knead the dough until it is no longer sticky.

Just like that your play dough is now ready to be played with! (See Picture 3).

Rose’s Experience:

Rose really wanted nothing to do with the play dough after it was made. She would touch it and hold it if I handed it to her, but she would not squeeze or squish it. Oh well. I did some quick thinking and grabbed some old-fashioned clothes pins and some chipboard pieces from my craft room and we had plenty of fun poking them into the play dough and taking them out.

Conclusion:

Pros:

• Great practice at mixing ingredients.
• Color learning opportunity.
• Multiple sensory opportunities. Rose played with the flour, salt, play dough mixture, and then finally the playdough itself.
• Making the play dough takes 15-30 minutes (depending on how much time you and your child take to talk about each ingredient and mix them together). And playing with the play dough takes up another 15-30 minutes.
• Ingredients are basic household staples (except maybe the Cream of Tartar, but ProTip: Google “Non-cook play dough recipes” for a recipe that uses all of the above except cream of tartar).

Cons:

• Rose did not like waiting while I cooked the play dough. She didn’t understand why she was a part of all the other steps except that one.
• Rose did not understand and/or like the concept of play dough and became bored with sticking things into it after 15 minutes or so.

Overall Rating: 4 Stars

I debated giving this activity 5 stars, mostly because you and your child might have way more success than Rose and I did. Our personal experience was pretty positive except when I had to cook the dough and Rose all of the sudden wasn’t part of the process anymore. Rose really enjoyed the making process, but wasn’t too into playing with the end result. We will continue to get it out occasionally and hopefully she will learn to love playing with it.

Other Variations:

• Consider making a Non-Cook version of this recipe. That way your child can be part of the process the entire way through.
• With younger children (like Rose’s age, around 1 year), consider making only one or two colors. Rose really didn’t care that there were four colors.
• If using chip-board cut outs, older children can practice sorting. Have them group and stick the different objects into different mounds of play dough (as seen in the last picture above).

Afternoon Activity: Baking Soda and Vinegar Play

With the New Year comes new segments for my blog! If you read several of my posts from my 14-Day Challenge, you will see that Rose and I have a couple of hours in the afternoon in which we stare at one another in boredom. My remedy was to research fun learning activities for her and I to do together during those long afternoon hours before Dad came home. And, of course, I find myself needing to share these fun activities with you guys. So here’s the first one!

As the snow falls and temperatures drop, I have found the need to be creative in finding fun indoor activities that (most importantly) hold Rose’s attention while being both fun and educational. This one is all three of those things. Rose loved it. And best of all, you already have all the supplies in your kitchen

.

All you need is vinegar, baking soda, and some type of food coloring. I prefer using Sargent Art’s WaterColor Magic instead of regular food coloring, as it is washable and doesn’t stain fabric. I highly recommend this product. We use it for almost all of our crafting and activities. Go to Amazon right now and buy it so you can have it in the future!

Activity:
Simply pour some baking soda into a plastic dish for little one to explore. Let them play with the powder by itself while describing its texture, color, and even taste.

While the little one is playing with the baking soda, pour some vinegar into two (or more) small containers. Then add your coloring. Finally take the dropper and slowly squeeze the liquid onto the baking soda. If you do not own a dropper, try using a straw or a baby medicine syringe.

Watch your little ones face as the chemical reaction occurs and bubbles form. Describe the colors, bubbles, and sounds as they happen. At the beginning Rose didn’t understand how the dropper worked, but with time we worked together and she finally figured how to squeeze the dropper’s bulb to spray the vinegar everywhere.

From beginning to end, this activity held Rose’s attention for over 30 minutes! That’s unheard of with a 15-month-old. After we added all the vinegar to the baking soda and the mixture had turned into a purple sludge, Rose had even more fun playing with the goopy slop. ProTip: have some baby shampoo and a towel on hand so you can throw little one in the sink afterward to be cleaned.

Conclusion:

Pros:

• No special material needed. Uses household staples for ingredients.
• Introduce basic science terms (reactions, mixture, chemicals)
• Opportunity to talk about colors and sounds.
• Work on fine motor skills by learning to squeeze dropper
• Holds little one’s attentions for a long time

Cons:

• Creates a giant mess
• Post-bath is a necessity
• Little one may become frustrated if they cannot figure out dropper

Overall Rating: 5 Stars

To me, the pros heavily outweigh the cons for this activity. Yes, clean up took a while; but, the learning opportunity and Rose’s giggles were so great that the mess is bearable.

Other Variations:

• Try this activity at a play date. Buy a bunch of baking soda and vinegar and divvy it up between the kids and moms and watch the little ones enjoy and learn together.
• Put baking soda in multiple smaller containers. Then add different amounts of vinegar to each. If you child is older, talk about the differences in the reactions. (Adding a lot of vinegar to a good size of baking soda is fun even for moms!)