More silly things my kid says....

With 3 jobs and the sun shining brightly most days lately I have really fallen by the wayside with the whole blogging thing. The kids and I are getting out pretty much every day and it's fun to see them really getting adventurous at the playgrounds and during our outings! I have to admit I would much rather be sitting down with a cup of tea and a book than in front of the computer during the short breaks I get while the kids nap (after all of my chores and 'to do's are completed), so this is a long-overdue posting!

In keeping with the original intent of this blog, I am writing down another chapter of 'silly things Wee Man says':

• A while back we were out to dinner at a local restaurant with some of the family, and Wee Man was getting a little antsy while waiting for our dinner to be served. I grabbed the drink menu off of the edge of the table and gave it to him as something to flip through. This particular menu was a small book, complete with pictures as well as drink descriptions. He was flipping through looking at it and stopped on a page with a glass of wine and an image of a wine bottle. He looked at it seriously for about 30 seconds and then looked up at us and said, "Grannie juice!". We almost fell over laughing! Anyone who knows my mom knows that she enjoys her wine, and usually when we go over to their house for dinner she has a glass in hand. Obviously Wee Man has been paying attention! As he continued flipping through the pages and stopped at a page with an image of a couple of bottles of beer to which he pointed and said "Daddy juice". Again we had a good chuckle.....and yes, my husband does enjoy a bottle of beer now and then, and rarely drinks it out of a glass!

• As all parents of toddlers know, the streak of independence and testing the waters that occurs around the age of one and a half to three or so can be a challenge, as well as a blessing. Wee Man has been exerting that streak more and more lately and is starting to understand the purpose of the "naughty corner" and other disciplinary measures taken in our home. One of these measures is a firm verbal "stop it" from Daddy when he starts acting up in one way or another. But lately we've been hearing him scolding himself when he knows he's doing something he shouldn't be and we haven't caught him yet. The other day he threw something hard at the wall while I had my back turned and I heard "Stop It!" (in that same tone that my husband uses) out of his mouth immediately following the thump. I had to chuckle.

• Music is a big part of our home. We all love to sing and have fairly eclectic tastes in what we listen to. My husband also plays guitar and brings that out to have Wee Man help him play (he does the chords and Wee Man strums the strings) some evenings. So it's only natural that Wee Man has a strong interest in anything to do with music and has starting picking up songs himself. Seriously the cutest thing ever. He recognizes some of our favourite artists, and (melt my heart) can recognize a Michael Jackson song from the first few beats! We were in a store a few weeks back and a Michael Jackson tune came on over the intercom system. He stopped in his tracks looked around and said, "Mama....Mike-o Jackson" and then started busting out the dance moves! It was awesome. He's also been singing his own versions of some nursery rhymes as of late. Some of my favourites:
• "Baa baa back sheep. Yes sir, yes sir free bags fuuuw. One, one, one....baa baa back sheep".
• "Tinkle tinkle staaaaar. Up so high. Dime on Skyyyyy. Tinkle staaaaar."
• (And the theme song from his new favourite show: Franklin and Friends) "Franklin Franklin....doo doo doo. Franklin Friends. My House. Doo Doo Doo".

• In our house we often take turns cooking dinner. Whoever is heading the meal that night usually has everything planned and organized, but we often will ask each other "can I do something for you?" to help with the preparation. And often asking that question will get you some sort of a task to help out. The other evening while I was at work and the boys were at home together my husband said he was leaning down looking into our pantry cupboard for a snack and he heard Wee Man come up behind him. Wee Man looked at him and said "can I do something?" Always the little helper....haha! I thought that was such a cute little story.

• In our city you know it's finally Spring/Summer by the amount of dandelions on all the lawns and city green spaces. Keeping up with them in our own yard is a full time job - especially now since the city no longer sprays for them. Wee Man seems to think that all these "flowers" everywhere are very exciting, but the cutest thing is his name for them: "Daddy-lions"!

Texture Painting!

I have been wanting to try painting with different found objects for some time, and I thought what better way to talk about Spring and the changes that the trees and nature are going through than bringing some of the items we see outside in, and then use them to paint with after we explored them with our hands!

Wee Man loves to pick up the sticks, pine cones and other objects found outside - so I brought some of those in. In our front garden we have a few different types of ferns, bushes and trees, so I started with clipping a couple of branches - one just beginning to get leaves, one without leaves (but slightly budded), a pine cone and some sticks. We talked about the buds, "baby" leaves and big leaves on the trees and touched the sticks then I told them we'd be painting! They were very excited (in fact, every time the little table comes out they get excited - it means colouring, play dough, painting or some other sort of craft!)

I also grabbed a few other things to paint with  - pipe cleaners, fabric (not pictured), and some small toy trucks (I thought they'd get a kick out of those!). The kids each got to pick one colour of paint (I couldn't handle any more than that with all the crazy I anticipated that would come with painting with found objects....haha!)

And then we began. I initially gave them one object to paint with at a time. At first they were receptive to dipping the fern branches into the paint....

...but then Wee Man decided that the branches and other objects from nature were "scary"....not sure why, as without paint they were very exciting?! So then we moved onto the pipe cleaners, fabric and trucks. That was well received by both kids and they continued to dip the objects into paint and "drive" or sweep them all over their papers!

The end result were some cool-looking paintings. The kids had fun and made a good mess!

I think I would like to try this activity again! Next time I think I will use a thicker paper though. I used the finger-paint paper we usually use for painting, but the paint really soaked the paper (it's much more water based than finger paint - for this activity I used the Clementine brand non-toxic paint) and the trucks and some of the rougher objects (pine cones & sticks) caused rips in the paper as it got more saturated. The kids didn't seem to mind though! ;-)

Rainy Day Fun!

It's been quite some time since I last posted. Life has been whizzing by at an alarming pace - I'm in disbelief it's already May 1st today. How is that possible?! I swear I was just turning over my calendar to 2012 a few weeks ago....
The weather has been nice lately, so the kids and I have been outside as much as possible - exploring the parks and playgrounds around the neighbourhood; throwing rocks in the river, watching the ducks and geese once again make our river-side paths their summer home, digging in the dirt in the as-yet-unplanted flower bed and pots, and exploring the exciting activity of sidewalk chalk art!

But this week it is cold, rainy and miserable outside, and so I am back trying to find fun and entertaining indoor activities that will keep the fighting and poor behaviour to a minimum. I have recently discovered Pinterest and created a couple of board for things for Wee Man and Crafts for the kids (and me!) to do on those days when we just can't be outside. (If you're on Pinterest, feel free to check me out at: www.pinterest.com/amandahang)

One such activity was one I found a while ago  - coloured vinegar & baking soda! While the science aspect of the activity was lost on two under two, they still had a blast with the activity and it kept us all busy for about half an hour or so this morning!

Here is my photo diary of our activity:

Getting all set up - containers with baking soda and others with food colouring tinted vinegar. I used the droppers that come with the baby Tylenol (I know I kept them around for a good reason!) Regular eye droppers would work too.

The droppers were tricky for them to get at first. Little A caught on after I showed her a couple of times how to squeeze the top portion of the dropper once to fill and then again to release. The concept was lost on Wee Man. I would fill it up for him and he would then squeeze it out into his baking soda. That was good fun! (Little A soon realized I was doing most of the work for Wee Man and started requesting "help", too!)

Getting right into it! Note Wee Man "painting" with his dropper as I spend time snapping some photos.





Wee Man quickly discovers that putting baking soda in the vinegar (rather than the other way around) makes the biggest bubbles!!

...and so we move onto spoons - the kids loved watching the bubbles rise all the way up to the rim with the first few spoonfuls of baking soda!