Wax Paper Fall Collages

This past Monday Fun-day, we made wax paper fall collages with our friends, Jax and Sarah. This was everyone's first time making wax paper collages, but they turned out nicely. I wasn't really impressed until I hung them in the windows - that was definitely the trick to making these beautiful. The sun shines through and makes the colors pop out brilliantly.

Here are the easy steps to make your own wax paper collages:

1) Gather fall leaves/grasses/flowers/etc. - anything that will lay flat once pressed. Most of our leaves were wet, and I think that the collages would have pressed better if the leaves were dry. (So you may want to let your pretties dry overnight.)

2) Get other things to decoarte with. We used glitter glue and crayon shavings (we just used a pencil sharpener).

3) Decorate your wax paper - this is the fun part! Kieran loved squeezing the glitter glue everywhere.

4) Put a second piece of wax paper over the first, cover with a very thin towel, and iron. We used the high setting on the iron, and it still didn't completely melt together (this is where I think dry leaves would have been better).

5) Hang in a window and enjoy!

 

Homemade Applesauce

My mom motivated me to try making homemade applesauce, and it was a huge hit. Mom brought me some apples, and my very nice neighbor had given me some apples they'd picked at the orchard last week, so I started with about 2 dozen apples. Here is the very easy recipe.

Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

1 dozen apples

3/4 cup water

Cinnamon to taste (I used about 1 tsp)

1. Core and peel your apples. We also cut ours in half even after using the apple corer, thinner slices = less cooking time.
2. Put apples in a large pot and pour in the water. The water should definitely *not* cover the apples, just add enough to cover the bottom of your pot. Your apples will cook down and add more water after simmering.
   
3. Simmer on medium low for approx. 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
   
4. Once apples are mashable (check with a fork), put them in a blender or food processor. I blended about a cup at a time. I used the ice crusher/pulse button on my blender, then used the liquefy button after they were sufficiently chopped up. Mom just mashes hers with a potato masher, but I wanted mine less chunky. (Add more of the water from the pot to make your sauce runnier, less to make it thicker.)
   
5. Cool and eat.

I made two batches - one last night and one this morning. We froze the batch we made last night. We shared half of this morning's batch with our Monday Fun-day buddies (thanks for the name, Jesse!) and gave the other half to a friend who helped me with a huge sewing project. Each batch probably made 12-16 cups of applesauce. The boys LOVED it; Kieran had 3 servings after we painted this morning.

Helping Grandma start the applesauce

What made it even better is that Kieran helped us make it. He put the apple slices in the pot and then helped me push the buttons on the blender. It was a fun family activity. What a yummy way to usher in the fall!

Rice Diving

I have a friend who has a son that is almost two months older than Kieran. We are both stay at home mamas, and we both enjoy doing fun, "educational" things with our toddlers. Neither one of us is drilling our kids with flash cards or making them memorize things by rote, but we do like to plan fun activities that happen to have a bonus, like painting with colors or talking about seasons. The best part is that they live less than ten minutes from us by car, so we have started meeting on Monday mornings to do a "Toddler Activity Time." (Please help us think of a catchy name, I love catchy names and have not come up with anything acceptable yet.)

We take turns hosting each week, and last week was my turn. I planned two activities. The first activity was simply making pictures with stickers. My mom got Kieran some fall-themed foam stickers, so while the boys stuck their stickers everywhere we talked about the red and yellow leaves, the orange pumpkins, the brown and red turkeys, and the green trees.

For our second activity, I filled a bowl with rice and buried seven or eight small toys (magnets, small wooden playfood, marbles, and matchbox cars). This one was definitely the bigger hit. Our friend loved digging his hands deep into the rice and groping around for the toys. Kieran was a little more tentative - he delicately moved the rice around the top, then he started digging deeper when he felt comfortable with the material. They both got so excited when they found something buried. Kieran has actually requested that the rice bowl be left on the table - he's gone back to play with it several times in the past week.

 

Depositing a wooden broccoli tree in the basket.

 

A marble!

Sensory activities like finding toys in rice, digging around in sand or beans, or getting messy with finger painting or shaving cream drawings are not only fun, but they also help improve something called "tactile perception." Tactile perception is the term that describes how your brain sends information to and from your fingertips. Improving your toddler's tactile perception helps him feel more confident performing tasks with his hands and fingers.

Here are a few more sensory activities you can do with your toddler:

1. Shaving cream painting: find a clean surface (the dining room table? We prefer the outdoor picnic table), spray on some shaving cream, and let your toddler go crazy. We sprinkle in a few drops of food coloring to make things interesting. (You can also use whipped cream or pudding)
2. Put dried beans in a large tupperware bowl. Let your toddler sit on the floor with the bowl of beans and a few utensils (a spoon, a measuring cup, etc.). Kieran has loved this activity ever since he was about a year old. Just be careful that your toddler does not try to eat any of the beans!
3. Nature table: go on a walk and pick up different things you find (leaves, acorns, pine cones, grass, rocks). Bring them home and put them on the table for your toddler to examine. This is a great activity to do throughout the year to use when talking about seasons.
   

Water Sprites

I hosted a particularly messy co-op class today: "Design Your Own Wrapping Paper." I bought butcher paper and some powdered Tempera paint, then everyone used hands, feet, cookie cutters, cars, balls, and various natural objects to paint the paper on our driveway. The plan is to use the paper to wrap presents.

After the painting festivities, Kieran and his friend London (whose mama blogs here) decided that they needed a bath. Who were we to argue?! They had a blast, and we are definitely inviting Jessica and crew back again soon.

 

 

Toddlerese

We’ve been signing with Kieran since he was just a few months old. I’d guess he can sign almost 150 words and recognizes many more than that. Quick tip for anyone who signs with their baby – don’t stop signing just because they start speaking. You may think your toddler is going to be a verbal genius because she can say “mama,” “papa,” “nana”*, and “uh-uh-uh-uh!”**, but you will likely have to wait months or even years before you are graced with things like consonant blends or prepositions.

Signing has been a learning experience for all three of us. Neither Tom nor I knew much about sign language before Kieran, but after reading a little about it we knew we wanted to try it out with him. I really can’t say enough about the benefits of signing. Kieran started signing well before he could say a recognizable word (aside from "mama"). His first sign was “more” when he was about 8 or 9 months old, and as soon as he realized that putting his fingertips together brought about a specific response from us, he said “more” about everything.

By 10 months Kieran had a handful of signs: “more,” “mama,” “papa,” “fish,” “motorcycle,” “hat,” “dog,” “light,” “book,” “hot” . . . We learned signs for anything he took an interest in. He loved pulling the string to turn the kitchen ceiling fan light on and off; we learned the sign for light, and within days he was signing “light” when he wanted to pull the string. At 11 months, he signed his first sentence: “more food.” We patted ourselves on the back for nurturing the next great linguist.

We are entirely convinced that signing has staved off more tantrums than we can count. We learned signs for things Kieran liked, as he liked them. “Cracker” was an early (and frequent) sign. “Mama’s milk,” “water,” “food,” “book, “music”; all these words represented parts of our daily rhythm, and Kieran could ask for whatever he wanted. As his world expanded, so did our signing repertoire.

Interested in signing but not sure where to start? Think about the major activities in your baby’s day: nursing, eating, singing, family, toys. We started with “mama,” “papa,” “mama’s milk,” “more,” and “book.” Once you learn a few, the rest will come much easier. Just keep expanding as your baby’s (or toddler’s) interests branch out. We learned many of our signs because of books that Kieran liked (animals in particular). As Kieran got older, we added action words (“swing,” “slide,” “walk,” “play”) and less ordinary words that we might not talk about every day (“store,” “fire”). And we didn't get any fancy programs to learn sign language, we just learned from the ASL site.

Now that he is working on his spoken language we rely on signing just as much, if not more. He really tries to say things, but he’s right in the middle of Toddlerese – that language unique to the three and under crowd that simultaneously warms your heart, makes you giggle, and frustrates the heck out of you. Because he’s learning things faster than he can make his vocal cords work, we are still introducing new signs. For example, he learned signs for the basic colors around 18 months (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white), but he’s just now saying the same words with his mouth in a recognizable way. Without sign language, it would have taken much more pointing and frustration for us to figure out he understood colors.

I find myself continuously asking Kieran to sign something when I’m having problems understanding his words. Most of the time that clears everything up, but there are still many things we don’t have signs for. I thought it would be amusing to have you all "guess that Kieran word." If there’s any interest, I might make it a regular feature – Toddlerese Tuesdays or something fun like that.

So without further ado, here is the first installment:

Care to venture a guess? Here's a hint: it's one word, four syllables.

*That’s banana, but we all know the “ba” is optional.

**That’s dog. Ok, it’s the sound of a dog barking through the eyes and vocal cords of a 15 month old, but dang it we thought it was brilliant.

My Bookworm

So often in one of my online communities, mamas will ask what books toddler and parents really want to read. I'm going to start a running list, to be updated as we go. For now, here are 10 books that we enjoy on a regular basis:

1) Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?: Thank you, Auntie Shawna for this one! This was the first Dr. Seuss book that Kieran really loved. It also inadvertently fast forwarded the letter recognition process: one day we realized Kieran recognized most of the sound words from the book (moo, buzz, pop, etc.) when he pointed them out on the inside front/back covers. Who knew?! It definitely helped him become fascinated with letters.

2) If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: I was really excited Kieran liked this one. I used to read this book my preschool class, so I wasn't sure if he'd be ready for it - he is! It's a fun book of silly "consequences."

3) Doctor Dan the Bandage Man: My mom surprised me last year with a copy of several classic Golden Books that I had loved as a child - this was number one on the list. Tom makes fun of me because I often have to change wording in books to align with my parenting/life philosophies (bottles become mama's milk, firemen become firefighters, etc.), this is one of them. (Ok, for those who will ask - when Dan hurts his finger, he cries and runs to his mama. His mama says "Dan, that is nothing to cry about!" I change it to "Dan's mama gave him a kiss and said, 'here let me help make you feel better!'" Per my Toddler Commandments post (#2), I hesitate to minimize Dan's feelings by telling him he's crying over nothing. Let the making-fun-of commence!)

4) Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball: not only is this a really cute story, but it's got wonderful illustrations. It's one of several that we've checked out from the library for months at a time, and we need to just buy our own copy. The star of the book is a spunky little wombat - Kieran likes to mimic the wombat's actions, and he loves to point out the detail of the other Australian (I assume) animals.

5) Biscuit books: these are actually easy reader books - they are meant for kids who are just learning to read. Kieran just likes the dog and the simple stories; he can "tell" most of the stories from memory. The one we have next to the bed that gets read daily is Biscuit Takes A Walk. Any book with a family member in it is a favorite in our house - Biscuit Takes A Walk is about a grandpa. Kieran alternately tells me that it is either about "Grandpa Hat" (my dad who always wears a hat) or "Grandpa Motorcycle" (Tom's dad who owns a motorcycle). The other family member favorite book is called "My Grandma and I." We also read that one at nap/bed times.

6) Llama Llama, Red Pajama: since I'm on the subject, his favorite "mama" book is this one by Anna Dewdney. It's got great verse, and it's another one that Kieran likes to act out while we are reading it (particularly the part that says "Baby Llama stomps and pouts, Baby Llama jumps and shouts"). It's also on the list of "books we've kept too long from the library and just need to cough up the money for."

7) Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Hop on Pop: three Seuss favorites that Kieran could have read over and over. These bad boys are LONG, so I try to limit them to one or two readings a day. On a side note, Kieran is a sensitive boy - there are several books that I either have to skip pages or take time to soothe him when we get to a problem page, because he tends to get overly emotional. Hop on Pop has a page where a boy bites a tiger's tail - he doesn't like that at all. My Grandma and I (mentioned in #5) has a page where a boy falls off his bike and cries - Kieran "fake cries" every single time we get there, and I have to stop and say something about how the grandma gives him hugs and kisses. Ah, toddlers.

8) Caps for Sale: this is another one that I loved as a child and I purchased it for half-selfish reasons. Tom teases me relentlessly for it, but he also does really funny voices for the peddler when he reads it.

9) Boynton and Carle: I couldn't pick just one book by either of these authors. Boynton's verse is awesome - we particularly like Barnyard Dance and The Belly Button Book. She's a really fun read. Carle has trippy pictures, but Kieran loves his books, especially The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

10) Goodnight Moon: ah, Goodnight Moon. My mom and I started to calculate the number of times I've read this book in the last year or so. It's the last book we read as Kieran is nursing to sleep at nap and bed times, and I usually read it 3 times each time before he's out. He's just now transitioning to one nap/day, and I started reading this book when he was not yet a year old. So let's do a conservative estimate - 9 times/day since he was 12 months old . . . I've read this book almost 2500 times in the last 9 months. Just so you know, Kieran *just* ripped the back binding off last week, so we're in need of our second copy. That's pretty good for a book read that many times! It is a nice way to drop off to sleep though (I've fallen asleep reading it many times!) - she put lots of "shhhhhhh" sounds in, so you can shush your little one to sleep within the verse.

And now it is time for me to go read a little Goodnight Moon to myself. Goodnight, noises everywhere!

~d

This Is How Our Cookie Crumbles

I have searched for some time for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. To date, I haven't found my ideal cookie - at least one that is just plain ole' chocolate chips. I did, however, stumble upon a really close second best. The recipe I found was for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, but I've added a few things to make them loaded with ooey gooey goodness.

There's oatmeal, which means they are great for breastfeeding moms to eat to help boost milk supply (if you need an excuse). I added cranberries, which contain antioxidants and phytonutrients that combat against certain diseases, and coconut, which is classified as a "functional food" because of its many health benefits. Additionally, pumpkin is a great source of fiber and carotenoids, and did you know that chocolate can actually be good for you? It's true! Especially chocolate of the dark variety.

Another benefit of these cookies? You can make a double batch and freeze half. The dough I used today was out of the freezer, and the cookies are just as tasty. I pulled it out because we had a new mama friend and her 2 year old daughter come over for a play date this afternoon, so I baked to impress. (They loved them!)

Kieran loves to help me cook, and baking cookies is a great way to let him work on measuring, pouring, and stirring skills. Baking is also a mini-science lesson for kids - it's so interesting to see what the cookies look like before and after they are baked. I do have to hide the cookies after they are baked though, because Kieran will melt into a sobbing heap if he sees them and can't have one. They really are that good.

Yum!

Yay, cookies! Mama rocks!

I think I'll take this one.

Here he is saying "mmmmm!"

I could eat these all day!

One tip - the cookies are very cake-like due to the pumpkin, so I never completely close the lid on their container; otherwise, they get kind of soggy. And without further ado, here is the recipe:

Pumpkin (Oatmeal, Cranberry, & Coconut) Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups flour (I use half wheat, half white; I slightly overmeasure the flour, oats, baking soda, and cinnamon)

1 1/2 cups oats (quick or regular, either works)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar (I tend to use 1/2 to 3/4 cup though)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 15 oz can of pumpkin

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup cranberries (raisins would work too)

3/4 cup shredded coconut

(You could also add flaxseed meal, nutmeg, and/or nuts.)

Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, cream butter then gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla to the wet mixture, mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well with a spoon after each addition (if you over-beat with a hand mixer, your cookies will not rise as well - that's true for any cookie!). Stir in chocolate chips, cranberries, coconut. I use a cookie dough scoop to drop heaping spoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees until firm and lightly browned.


If you have the perfect CCC recipe, please share it!

~d

Another Fine Mess

Many of the families that I know from my area attachment parenting group participate in a cooperative learning program (“co-op”). It’s pretty simple: to participate in the co-op, you have to offer at least one class. Classes can be geared toward any age, even adults, but most of our classes are for the preschool set. Once you offer a class, you can enroll in as many classes as you’d like. No one can make money off of a class; teachers can only charge enough fees to cover their expenses.

Kieran and I have participated in the co-op since he was seven or eight months old, and I have been helping coordinate behind the scenes for the last three quarters. We’ve done so many things that I never would have thought of (or had the energy to prepare) on our own. Here are a few examples: we’ve done tours of a fire station, nature centers, and a local television weather station, a watercolor class, nuudle art, puppet shows, a class where we rode a city bus, and our favorite – a music class called “Toddler Tunes” that lasted for almost a year before the mama had another commitment that prevented her from teaching it (sniff).

This quarter, the first class I offered was a “Messy Party.” Today a group of one to four year olds descended on us to finger paint with pudding, sit in a pool full of beans for measure and pouring play, stick their fingers in Gloop, and enjoy the rest of Kieran’s regular toys. Originally, we were also going to have a pool full of dried rice, painting with regular paint, and fun with bubbles and our sand/water table, but Mother Nature decided to pour on us all day. We did, however, go out and have some messy and wet fun playing in the rain. Everyone had so much fun, and since parents came with the expectation that their kids were going to be a mess, there was no tension or frustration due to smeared clothing or extensive clean-up.

Any one of these activities would be perfect for a toddler on any given day, and none of them are incredibly expensive to prepare. The pudding was simply vanilla instant pudding with a few drops of food coloring; the beans were the biggest expense but will be bagged and stored for later use (I just bought the cheapie pinto beans from Walmart). I love the feeling of Gloop, I've included the very easy recipe below. 

 

Finger painting with pudding

 Kieran is much more interested in eating the paint rather than painting with it.

How many kids can you fit into a pool full of beans?

Gloop! So fun to squish and squeeze.

Gloop Recipe

2 parts cornstarch

1 part water

Food coloring

*Mix food coloring into water. Pour cornstarch into a bowl, add water. The mixture should feel kind of hard/crumbly, but when you hold it in your hand the Gloop will "melt" off of it. The top of the Gloop will look like liquid, but feel like a solid. It's a great sensory activity!

Have a messy day!

~d