Art – Page 17 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Be Willing

Part of being a mom is learning to step out of your comfort zone a little. If anyone had told me that I’d have a conversation about electricity with my two year old and then allow her to look through the scrapbook of our house being built to try and find the electrical trench dug from our box at the street up to our house, I would have told them they were crazy. But, that’s just the kind of world I live in. I have to be willing to converse with her about electricity and other amazingly “out there” concepts… and, I have to be willing to let her look through my scrapbooks – because not only was she WAY more careful than I would have ever expected, but she was AMAZED and totally in awe of seeing what our house looked like before we moved in – she loved pointing out rooms she recognized from the pictures, and thought it was so cool to see the balcony before the banister was up, and her bedroom with just the carpet pad – no carpet. Sometimes I have to be willing to let go of some of the things I hold “sacred”… and take a leap of faith that she’ll find them as sacred as I do…

Another thing I’ve had to be willing to do is allow her to have a drawer in the kitchen. She LOVES to sit and pull everything out of her drawer and sort it, pretend to cook with it, etc. And I have to be willing to step past my OCD issues about kitchen items on the floor, and just let her play. Let her discover. Let her learn. When I do, it’s SO worth it. She played in her drawer and was content while I worked around her for over 40 minutes!!!

I’ve never done “fun food” until today. Because being a mom is about being willing to try something new. She LOVED the face I made for her, though despite my best efforts, the cucumber did not get eaten. She DID take a taste, though, and concluded that it was crunchy before she decided to spit it out. Maybe I’ll keep trying to make food more fun, and eventually, she’ll get enough tastes that she’ll start eating! This article from Super Healthy Kids has some great tips we are starting to employ in our household!!

Being a mom is also about being willing to deface your home a little bit just for the fun of it! I saw this idea about covering light switch plates with washi tape (that now I can’t find because I just saw it in passing on some blog’s fabulous FB post somewhere), and I decided that Becca’s room needed some washi tape plates. She declared they were “so pretty” and “beautiful Mommy” several times. So yup, it was totally worth trying something new. Heck, sometime when she’s not in the room I might even take off all the electrical plates and do them, too. Because it’s not in my comfort zone to do that… and being a mom is all about being willing.

It’s about being willing to let my hubby play the most annoying song ever created to our daughter to hear her giggle hysterically and then watch them snuggle on the couch to read the book. Yes, if you didn’t know, there is a book titled “What Does the Fox Say?” The illustrations are super fun. The text? Well, it’s the words to the song… (And no, we did NOT buy the book. We checked it out from the library… I’m only so willing. HA! BUT, if you love the song, you can buy the book from my affiliate link here!)

What have you had to be willing to do that you weren’t sure you could handle? Is it being willing to get up at 5am so you can have 30 minutes of your day by yourself? Is it being willing to share your favorite smoothie because you know that it’ll get your sweet one some good vitamins and they’ll only drink it because it’s yours? Being a mom is about being willing. Yup. And it’s not always easy, but when I step out of my comfort zone with Becca, it’s usually always fun. Because I have to be willing to accept the fact that my brilliant, beautiful little girl is more grown up than I give her credit for, and is always ready to prove herself.

Sensory “Cooking”

In case you wondered, I write these posts ahead and then schedule them to post on a certain day. Well, so this particular activity that I’m sharing today occurred the afternoon I wrote the “Real Life” post (which was actually posted the day it was written… I needed to get that out.) To say that I had a rough week this past week is putting it mildly. Hormones are a horrible thing… especially ones that haven’t had any additional estrogen since 2009 and are now getting a daily dose… So, basically, it was a week where I did very little new with Becca, and we did a lot of watching tv. A lot. We love Daniel Tiger, but seriously, how many times can I watch the episodes about Baby Margaret? Seriously? And Super Why. I love Super Why. I love how she has begun to notice rhyming words, loves to spell, and wants to read everything in sight… but I’m tired of Super Why. I’m tired of Little Einsteins. I’m just tired of kid tv in general. You know you need something new when you’re begging your child, “Can’t we watch Curious George today? We haven’t seen Curious George in a week!” Sigh. Time to unplug. But when you have no energy, looking at ideas from other people can just be depressing. And, when you need an activity that is fool proof, where are you going to find it when you have no energy and won’t look at ideas from other people?

Enter the pantry. Seriously – go walk into your pantries, ya’ll. You are guaranteed to find at least one thing that is WAY out of date that you would NEVER serve to your family that can be a ton of fun for your child!! Thank you, Stove Top stuffing and HEB for not having the regular box of Stove Top I needed whatever day that was last fall when I was hungry for chicken and stuffing and peas. So, I bought this canister of stuffing and then the rest of it got stuck back into the pantry to be discovered a year later. Not gonna cook it. But I was NOT going to throw it away. Just opening the lid made the kitchen smell like Thanksgiving. (I love sage, ya’ll. It’s why I love Thanksgiving so much…you can bet that on a much more creative day than this, I’ll be coming up with something yummy for a Thanksgiving sensory cooking activity…) So, I dumped it into a bowl, grabbed a couple of items to play in the bowl with, and a sensory cooking activity was born. She LOVED it. I even let her wear my apron (hers was upstairs in her play kitchen).

The invitation to play

She ended up transferring the “baby breads” back and forth between the bowl and the canister, using the various tools I gave her. The spoon was her favorite. (She loves using the little wooden spoons from The Pampered Chef – get yours here.) Her first response was “Oh my GOODness! So many breads in there!” Then she just kept looking at me, smiling, and saying, “I cooking breads! I cooking!” “I wearing Mommy’s apron!” “Look at dose baby breads. They so cute!” “Smells so tasty!”

Yes, a lot of them ended up on the floor, but I didn’t care.. and neither did the dogs. 🙂

Total Prep Time for Mommy: less than two minutes

Total Play Time for Becca: 40 minutes, uninterrupted

A Bright Idea

The other night, a friend came over and we ended up talking about sensory activities. She mentioned a light box, and told me I could set one up for Becca easily. Then I started seeing posts from many of my favorite bloggers (see the list on the right of this page) about light boxes! And, I decided that it would be a fabulous way to occupy her and let her play in my office near me while I work! I have a desk, and she could have a desk!

So, after digging through my attic and being disappointed with my options, I decided to buy a tub at Walmart (the one I picked was $6.95). I already had a bunch of strings of white Christmas lights in my cabinet just waiting for a project, so I sat down and decided to go all out and use my washi tape for something other than to fill up a storage container. HA! Here’s what I came up with:

I wasn’t real sure what to have her do with her light box – it’s on carpet, I wouldn’t be supervising her very closely at all, so I got some colored glass stones from the floral section at Walmart (two bags – $.98 each). They have some frosted and some clear stones in each bag – green and white. Then I also gave her a bowl of paperclips – some square and some round – because she loves to sort. This is what she came up with on her own – squares go in the square, circles go on the round lid, greens go in the triangle, and whites go in the “nectangle”. I’ll leave these for her to play with for a while, and then I’ll remove the washi tape and do something different for on top. For now, it’s simple and fun.

And the best part of all, is I can look over my laptop and see this:

Life is good. Yes, yes it is.

Total Prep Time for Mommy: Maybe 5 minutes to put it all together – including the tape. It’s as easy as throwing Christmas lights in a box and plugging them in.

Total Play Time for Becca: She has already played with it several times for about 15 minutes at a time.

Colored Rice Sensory Tray

I’m not into messes. Seriously. (I whipped out the vacuum as soon as this activity was done.) But I understand how important it is that Becca interact with a variety of textures for the proper development of her senses. And she loves sensory play. So, I made some colored rice (here’s a link over to the recipe I got from Play at Home Mom – I used about 10-15 drops of regular food coloring with the vinegar) and decided to make a tray activity for her. Live and learn – it needed to be in a MUCH larger container, and we needed to have just spread the entire plastic tablecloth out on the floor so that cleanup would be easier, and we wouldn’t waste so much rice. Now we know for next time! But, she did have a blast! Here’s the scene I set up for her using little toys she already had:

She was SO excited and immediately dug in and started playing.

Then, she got tired of the toys and set them all out and just dug her hands into the rice.

For one last fun activity before putting it away for a few days (I’ve learned that she enjoys things once and then for maximum potency, it needs to get put away for a while or she gets bored with it really quick!), I got out some cups and she loved pouring the rice back and forth!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: This one takes some forethought – which is partly why it took me so long to do it even after I had bought the rice. You’ll need to color the rice and then let it dry over night. The coloring process to do a large bag of rice and four different colors and then to spread out to dry took me maybe about 15-20 mins. Then in the morning, it was another 5-10 minutes to slide all the rice off of the wax paper into storage bags. Then to gather the toys and set up the tray took about another 20 minutes. So this isn’t a project that you’re going to just throw together in two minutes. Also note that I spent probably about another 10-20 minutes running the vacuum afterward… and ended up doing most of the hard woods downstairs simply because I had already started…

Total Play Time for Becca: This one singular occasion, she played with the rice for about 30-40 minutes (well supervised), and then it went back into the storage bag and she can play with it many, many more times.

Scented Shaving Cream

Well, I have been all over the blogs I follow and Facebook trying to find the awesome post that had the idea to make scented shaving cream by mixing shaving cream and kool-aid drink mix. But to no avail. So hopefully I can find the original source soon and give her credit here! She did this activity with her daughter outside in their water table. I decided to blend her idea with the one over on Laughing Kids Learn and do this as a bath-painting activity with the kool-aid version! First, I squirted piles of shaving cream around the bath (totally unnecessary – I could have just made one pile and she would have still loved it and mixed it well). Then, I sprinkled kool-aid mix (I had orange) on top, and put her in. She mixed them all up thoroughly and had so much fun!!! Note: we used a swim diaper for this activity simply because I didn’t want her sitting directly in the shaving cream – she has very sensitive skin. She had a blast and was ready to do it again. She also really enjoyed watching the river of shaving cream as I washed the tub out, too!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: 2 mins (squirting the Barbasol took a while, and then dumping the Kool-aid in)
Total Play Time for Becca: 10-15 mins (I wasn’t watching the clock, but it was a good little chunk of time. I didn’t want her to sit in the Kool-Aid for too long, because she has very sensitive skin, so I started splashing water on her after she’d been in it for a while. She would have played much longer.