Wordless Wednesday: Dino Love

Tot School Tuesday : Wood balls, playing in dirt, picnic, colored ice, and exploring the grass

 

One of Blips favorite toys is his pound and roll bench by kids kraft. This is a great wooden toy that is actually made local for us!  We do so much with this toy, this week Blip has been obsessed with setting the balls in the holes.

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We took Blip to a local garden to explore some really nice green grass. He seemed to think it was interesting, but kept trying to walk on his hands and feet instead of crawl, I don't think he knew what to think about the fluffy green grass that is so much longer then ours.At his age experiencing new things is the most important thing I feel I can give him.

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I set up a big pot of soil while we were planting our new seed for Blip to explore. I am all for kiddos getting dirty and thought this would be a fun sensory activity. Blip dug right in. I was afraid it would be a constant battle to keep him from eating it, but he only tried to once and after that seemed content to just feel the soil and play.

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We also took Blip to the duck pond for a picnic and a walk. He was fascinated with he ducks, he loves animals.

Blip stole my fork so I put some watermelon on it for him to nibble on. He always gets a kick out of things like this. We love picnics in this family, Blip loves the chance to play on the ground while munching fruit and we love being outside and the play time meets meal time it brings.

Gus and I pointed out all the great things to see at the pond. Gus and Blip enjoyed lots of snuggles and we took a nature walk. Blip rode on Gus's shoulders and occasionally got to reach out and feel leaves.

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  His favorite activity was painting with colored ice we talked about Friday! This is such a fun activity that we will defiantly be doing lots this summer! Check it out!

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 As always you can see more Tot School by doing a click click!

Muffin Tin Monday: Bugs In the Garden

    This week we played in the dirt a bit, then we ate bugs! Not the crunchy black beetles, instead we had the culinary delight of pear beetles . YUM YUM YUM!!!!

I decided to use my vintage corn bread pan this week. I like the shallow little textured corn theme compartmnets.

((From left to right))

• Grass and weeds made from celery  and artichokes.
• Hummus and whole grain crackers 
• Ant made from pears (cut in circles), dried cranberry eyes, tiny celery slivers for legs
• A tiny bit of applesauce and a spoon
• Beetle made from pears, held together with peanut-butter, with dried cranberry as spots and eyes
• Applesauce with floating strawberry, watermelon, and pear flower.
• Another watermelon and strawberry flower with pear steam.also wanted to stem.

I also wanted to point out that last week I somehow managed to forget my button on top of my post. No one noticed, but I feel a bit bad. To make up for it I'm reminding all my readers to give the button a little clicky and see all the other great muffin tins meals, and of course all the great post by the Muffin Tin Mom herself!

Funny Fantastical Activity Friday: Colored Ice

Spring is slowly starting to warm up and invite us outside into the breezy daylight. Blip and I have been spending tons of time outside on the porch, winter seems like a distant dream.

Speaking of dreams, I dream about the day he decides that paint is not a good thing to eat so we can spend long afternoons finger painting in the sun. In the mean time I have been brainstorming some fun ways of doing little art type projects with a little one who is still very mouthy. Besides the yogurt and colored pudding ideas that many suggested I was coming up thin before I considered just coloring water.

The water seemed easy and less toxic then paint. It also seemed less likely to just be ate up like yogurt would be. I brain stormed this idea further: should I use a paint brush or show him how to spill it onto paper? Then one day as I made ice it hit me that we could paint with colored ice.

Right away I pulled out the food coloring and got to work dropping the bright colors into the water, making vibrant hues of water. It felt like forever before the trays were full of very solid and addorbly colorful ice cubes. I grabed Blip, a bowl, and some paper and we ran outside!
I took his onsie off so they would not get stained (for the record the colored water that melted from the ice washed right out of his cloth diaper) and we set to work. One by one we pulled out the ice cubes, he giggled when I ran the cold colors over his leg to show him what cold felt like. We then set the ice on the paper and I showed him how to move the ice so colors spread all over like water color. To my surprise he picked up on this quick and copied me, I don't give him enough credit, our little kiddos pick up on things so quick!

After a bit we started throwing some colors in the bowl to watch them melt. The colors will run together, I can only imagine that this would be a great way of teaching preschoolers about mixing colors!

We ended up dumping a bunch of the cubes on the warm concrete and watching as the sun turned them to colorful puddles. Blip splashed a bit and seemed very satisfied with his toy turning into water.

I can see this game being adapted to lots of age groups, I think it will be a regular spring and summer game for many years to come!

Wordless Wednesday: My Lovely Bike

Tot School Tuesday : Color Blocks, Exploring Tubberwear, Spinners, Sorting, Exploring Flowers, Smelling Salts

Hall Shelf

This week we focused on colors! The top shelf has a book accompanied by a bowl that has colorful wood blocks. One block for each color in the book: Red, yellow, blue, green, and orange.

The bottom shelf has two tupperware containers with lids. I choose a smaller one and a slightly bigger one so they can nest. We did so much with these: nested them, practiced opening them, put lids back on, put blocks in them, put a button in each to shake, stacked them, threw them, rolled them! He had so much fun with these little lidded bowls. The best part, we all have them!

Blip did such a great job stacking the blocks! He also liked sitting the blocks in the ramekin while I told him the color of each one as they went in the bowl. Ours are all sorts of different shapes which adds to the fun. 

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 I found this silly book in a back closet, it has a spinner on it. I showed Blip how to spin, he practiced while I cleaned up the lunch mess, hence the messy baby!  

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 Not the best picture, our living room has horrible lighting...but this is way to cute! Gus was cleaning out our DVD drawer and Blip decided to help. He stood up next to Gus and pulled the DVD's out one by one to look at them. After he started throwing them back in. They had a lot of fun with it.

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 We had tons of rain this week, Blip was getting cranky being inside all day. When we had a sunny day Blip, the cats, and I all went outside to play in the sun all afternoon. Blip was really fascinated with the pots of purple flowers near our side walk. Tribble hid in the flowers while Blip "hunted" her.

 I know, my kid never has a shirt on...he hates putting clothes on. But this time we have a purpose, I think it is good for him to sometimes feel the cool air and warm sun against his skin! I let him pick a flower and we explored it up close together. It is amazing how his fine moter skills are developing so fast, he actuary picked it without crushing it! 

We chilled together for a bit in silence, just enjoying the air. Then I pointed out nearby things like cars and the grass before going in 

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 We also played the smelling salts game that I mentioned last Friday. 

Blip really enjoyed all the smells. Except we have been cup training and so a few times he wanted to drink the spices. All in all though he did great sniffing! 

He is also wanting to hand you everything now! He thinks it is so funny when you take things he is handing you! 

 The tray we used is actually a lazy-susan that spins, once Blip figured that out he forgot all about the spices and moved on to spinning the tray. We added my phone to the tray so he could watch it go in circles when he spun the tray.

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((Click Click for more Tot School! ))

Rants about Atlanta's breastfeeding restrictions.

 Recently I found out that Atlanta is restricting public breastfeeding

This is a slippery slope and in my opinion I think it sends out the wrong message about breastfeeding and the human body in general! Instead of this law why not focus on every state having laws the PROTECT moms right to breastfeed?

The new recommendation is to BF tell two. I do applaud that they decided to take that into consideration when deciding on an age. But they did not take into consideration the weaning process, if we breastfeed tell 2 we may not have a child fully weaned by two!  And they defiantly did not think about the right a mom has to go beyond two. I know many moms who have or are breastfeeding past two! They have very adjusted children. It is not unheard of this day and age and it is not wrong. Breastfeeding is such a personal choice and that relationship is between a mom and child. This is not about what age you find appropriate, that is an opinion someone might have but in the end you have to look at the big picture. 

When we start putting laws and restrictions on breastfeeding we are sending out a message the it is dirty.
Breastfeeding is NOT the same as public indecency, plain and simple. We look around every day and we see so much nudity and body parts. A proper latch will cover a good majority of breast and all nipple. And if we want to get technical a 2 year old has a bigger head then a newborn, so it will cover even more!  Most moms who have breastfed this long are amazing at knowing how to drape clothes so that you don't see any skin! So technically we should make a law that outlines the exact skin ratio a person could show. Low cut shirts and bikinis show more skin then the average nursing toddler. How about shirtless men? Can we make a law that says men can't run shirtless? I mean how unfair is that anyways, I get hot and my shirt has to stay on while I run... yea that is another rant for another day.

If we make a law that restricts toddlers over 2 from breastfeeding in public we send out a message and soon that age will get lower and lower and lower. Breastfeeding in public takes courage! If a mom has that courage and you don't like it then all you have to do is look away, plain and simple. If I don't like seeing a man run without his shirt on do I get to ask him to cover up? Nope, I just get to look away. And for those who say it is to hard to look away, well I would rather see a happy nursing child then some guy shimmering like a god from mythology as he runs shirtless down my street. And I would rather see a nursing child then some stay hair from "you know where" as a girl bends down in those tiny shorts! 

It is easy for the people who have never breastfed a child past 2 (if ever) to tell the mother to go to the car or bathroom, but in their shoes we would not want this! And there is no reason for them to! In a society where we see nudity and a push up bra ad shows more bare breast then a nursing toddler this law seems silly! I see girls on the street who wear a bikini top and shorts that cover less then boy short panties! Look at the big picture.... these women are brave for breastfeeding in public, they are feeding children NOT stripping for cash. Unless we make laws that are much more strict on a dress code for public then why even bother saving Atlanta from having to see skin from a breastfeeding mom? They will be seeing skin anyways so mine as well learn to deal with it and leave the extended breast feeders alone!

If you feel similar as me then you may write some email's as well!

 John Parker, City Manager
Email address - jparker@forestparkga.org

Angela Redding, Management Analyst
Email address - aredding@forestparkga.org

Jan Young, Executive Assistant
Email address - jyoung@forestparkga.org