Mama Puts on the Hard Hat

For Z-man's second birthday, I turned this...

Into this!

 






A forgotten-about side garden + a dump truck of gravel and mulch (which was a dream come true to have pull up at our house!) + a wheel barrow + shovels + lots of trash bags + some neighborhood teens + tons of help from my awesome parents and uncle = Z-man has an amazing new play space!

Now I just need to come up with some ideas on how to get him to come inside without a fight!

ROAD TRIP!!!

Spring break for us was a road trip down to NC to visit my brother and then on to SC for a dear friend's wedding. Z-man is a great traveler. We travel to NY to visit his family almost every month on the train. At this point, we are train riding professionals. But car rides, not so much.
Over 1000 miles total. This is no small feat for a turning-two-next-week-year-old. Or for a motion-sick-mama. Or for Z's dad who had to put up with both of us and drive.
I tweaked a tradition the bride shared from her childhood. Her family has four kids and trekked often from NJ to SC. That's a road trip. Her parents packed each one a shoebox with games and goodies that they got halfway through the ride. Well the Mother-of-the-Bride is among those mamas I admire most, so I knew it was worth a try. 

A dollar store trip, left over valentine tissue paper, and a new favorite word "present" and the trip was relatively painless (minus traffic). Every time Z-man would get frustrated, bored, or a little grumpy, I passed a present his way. I tried to limit the presents to one an hour. It was so successful on the way down that we made a dollar store run before the trip back.

Among the best and most entertaining gifts were a slinky, pipe cleaners and pony beads (and I now have a fabulous new blue bracelet), books, a glow stick (reserved for when it started to get dark), a small car, and window clings. I have some left overs from the way back that I'm saving to use on our next trip!

*I'm so proud of this thrifty idea that I have to share it. When some of the presents failed me, I resorted to Dinosaur train, hung up by a sweat headband. Who needs a fancy mount for the ipad? Not this mama!

Bunches of Lunches

Making lunches is like laundry. You can never really cross it off the to-do list because as soon as you do, its time to make another. Or clean another Tupperware with tiny crevices. Or go shopping for more food to put in said lunches.
I actually do enjoy making Z-man's lunch, especially when it comes back near-empty and I can tell he liked what I packed (or he threw it on the floor, but I'm choosing to believe he loved it.) However, I really value my ME time once Z goes to bed. After almost a year and half, I've finally found a routine that simplifies the bunches of lunches us parents make.
These amazing Tupperware are the perfect size to fit in his lunch box and have compartments, which my slightly-OCD self finds comfort in. I found silicon cupcake liners in the dollar bin at target. They clean easily and are great for dividing the biggest compartment. I make at least two lunches at a time, which makes every other night super easy. (Unzip. Empty. Fill. Zip). 

I put in veggies, usually baby cucumbers or petite pickles-minimal prep, fruit (berries, small grapes, or tangerines just get rinsed and thrown in), some kind of meat (mini pepperonis, dino nuggets, or cut up hot dog), and some carb (usually veggie straws or goldfish). I throw fruit snacks, Z-man's ultimate favorite, and a squeezable fruit/veggie sauce and call it a day. X2. Or x3. Or on day's I get to love on my niece, x4. 

I still wish I was this mom or this mom sometimes. But for now, I'm totally ok being the mom I am (and having a little extra ME time).

Weather Wonderful

March's theme is weather and what a perfect theme it was. We experienced so many of the elements as we learned about them, thanks to the crazy weather last month. We charted the weather each day, threw scarfs in the air to watch the wind throw them about, brought snow inside our classroom and played with it until it all melted, and sang about raindrops made of gumdrops.
Our favorite song was a rhyme we made up in a song-songy voice: "Five snowmen sitting in the sun. The temperature rose and away melted one.  Four snowmen...three snowmen...two snowmen...one snowman...and then there were none." We pretended to melt as we sang this. SO FUN. It also proved to be a great way to learn why things melt. What made it melt? The temperature rose!

It's hard to pick my favorite activities from this month because so many of them are worth re-doing (and sharing). Here are a few:

-We called this Hurricane Painting. We used spray bottles filled with watered down paint to spray at our easel. As the kids sprayed the easel, I turned a fan on the highest setting and held it up to them. The spray paint went everywhere. Really. Everywhere. There was even some half way across the room, but this was so much fun and totally worth cleaning up the mess. The pictures turned out pretty amazing, too! (Look at the hidden color mixing lesson! Yes, red and yellow do make orange!)

-This was our Tornado Art. We used empty glue bottles filled with paint. I only put a little paint in each one and refilled for each child because they empty out very quickly! The kids squeezed the bottles in large circles, really focusing on (gross motor) movements in their arms. The pictures were some of the coolest art I've ever done with kids. It was a blast to make, a great chance to do some movement art, and also turned out pretty fancy. We made prints of the art, placing another paper on top of a finished picture and gently rubbing it so we could have one copy for home and one copy for school.

-When we talked about thunderstorms, we used paper cut into cloud shapes to rub on ink pads. The colors blurred and left interesting ink lines on the paper. 

-This puffy paint cloud is another awesome cloud activity. No Time for Flashcards is a go-to resource for me, time and time again.

-Here's another one that I borrowed. (I used paint instead of shaving cream because we can't spray shaving cream around the kids.) We brought dollar store mirrors outside and painted the clouds that we saw in the reflection. We then used a shower squeegee to erase the picture so the next friend could have a turn. We did this on a very cloudy day, but are super excited to do it on a more sunny day when we can see the outlines of the clouds better.

-And last but not least, Painting with Ice was great to watch the ice melt and for arts sake. I used real water color paints and mixed them with water in ice cube trays, putting craft sticks in each cube. Last year, I did not use the craft sticks and everyone's hands were stained! This year the kids stayed interested longer, probably because their fingers weren't freezing!

So, what's in store for April? Celebrating our planet!

 

The Battle of Brushing

I can admit it: I didn't start brushing my son's teeth as early as I should have. I regularly wiped his gums down with a rag before he had teeth. After his teeth came in, I sometimes gave him the banana brush to chew on, but until he was about 18 months, I didn't brush every day. And from 18 months until about 22.5 months (today marks 23 months) it has been a battle. Almost every night. And the nights it hasn't been a battle, I haven't had it in me to fight the good fight. I've "forgotten" to brush his teeth. Most mornings it is a battle too, but after sleeping and only having mama milk at night, I didn't feel as strongly about a thorough brushing in the morning. His meager brush chewing and sucking off the toothpaste has satisfied my morning demands.
I tried everything I could think of. One night, I literally heard myself say "There will be no chocolate tomorrow if you don't brush your teeth tonight." Ridiculous. Absolutely absurd. An empty threat and a pathetic one at that. He even knew I was balking. (And of course, at this point, has no ability to benefit at all from a consequence that is inflicted later.) But oh man, in the moment, I meant it. I probably would have threatened no chocolate ever again for the rest of his life, but he lives with his grandpa and I knew this out of my control.
We picked out new toothbrushes together, two of them. A car one and a cookie monster one so he could choose which one to brush with thinking this would be enough of a chance to exert his power of choice. He still chose not to cooperate with brushing. I tried singing goofy songs and doing silly dances.When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to one and all you wanna do is have some fun, you brush your teeth!  I tried reasoning with him. Your teeth with get boo boos if you don't brush and you don't want that! I tried begging. First with my mom-Will you please brush his teeth!!!!! and then with him--Come on, Zav. Please. I just need you to brush your teeth! I dreaded this part in our day. No matter how amazing our time had been, this is how we ended our day.

This one we staged and just pretended,  but it actually looked a lot like this!

Yes, I tried holding him upside down while I brushed. He thought it was fun to go upside down, until he saw the tooth brush heading his way.

Then, Mama Suerte took a deep breath (and a jar of peanut butter) and spent a good 45 minutes just reflecting on what hasn't work thus far in my parenting journey and why. Threats weren't working and they just aren't me. They aren't how I operate. We do goofy all day long so being goofy wasn't doing the teeth trick. Begging defeats the purpose. Even if it worksed, which it didn't, my goal was to teach him to brush his teeth and take care of his oral health as part of our successful bedtime routine. Then, I had the idea to try teaching him. He loves learning. He loves books that tell him facts and loves to recall these facts later. I decided to give it a try. I spent another twenty minutes researching his favorite topics.
The next morning (our more successful time--always a good time to introduce a kid to something new), I said "Oh buddy, as you brush today, I wanted to tell you something I learned about trucks!" I shared three facts about dump trucks slowly, as I brushed and re-brushed the surface of his teeth. That night? Concrete mixers. Again, a success. There's no fighting and no arguing. He just opens his mouth and lets me go to down. When he pulls away, I take out the brush and listen to what he wants to share, often something he knows about the topic, and then start again, overly excited to share the next fact.
So now, a few weeks later, I can tell you anything you want to know about fire trucks, dump trucks, bridges, New York City, his daddy, and firefighters. I'm researching new facts all the time.  Do you know that the driver of the biggest dump truck has to climb 14 steps to get in the driver's seat? I do. And so does Z-man.

Baby Shower by Mail

We have a new baby in the family! Welcome Baby! You are so loved already!

Before Newest Addition arrived, I knew I wanted to do something special for Mommy and Daddy-to-Be. There is so much to do to prepare for a baby and every bit helps. Plus, a new baby is a great reason to celebrate!

Why not just throw a baby shower? Well, they live in Missouri and they have family and friends throughout the US and in England. A traditional baby shower was kind of out of the question. I thought on this for a while and then decided to try throwing a baby shower by mail. 

I chose a ducky theme, because its super cute and because I remember feeling like I would never have all my ducks in a row when I was getting ready to have Z-man. I put together packets all decorated in ducks for twenty-five or so close female family and friends. Each packet included several activities with instructions to mail the completed parts back to me and to select a present and mail it directly to the Midwest.
The activities I included were:
-A card with wishes for Baby on it. I designed my own. Even though its not amazing design work, I'm proud of it and it included exactly the things I wanted it to. (Here is a downloadable version of it. It doesn't look so hot in the preview but looks normal once it is downloaded.)
-A card with advice for Mama-to-Be. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I ordered this one. 
-Either a onesie or a bib to decorate.
-Envelopes for each participant to write their address on for easy thank you note-sending. One clever mama of four sent her envelope back sans an address, marking it "Do not send me a thank you card. You already have enough to do!" How true!
I also included a little goody bag like an actual shower- a ducky keychain with tiny duck candies, tagged "Thank you!"
After I received the completed packets, I laminated the baby wishes and complied them into a book. The mama advice cards went on a key ring for easy referencing. I stamped the envelopes and slipped a thank you card under the flap. Each onesie or bib was pinned with a duck that said "Made with love by _______"

I put all the parts inside the biggest box I could find, filled the box with confetti, ribbons, and balloons, stuck duck stickers all over the outside and the inside of the box, and taped a pink ribbon for Mama to wear while she opened it all right inside the flap.

The balloons were pretty flat by the time it arrived, but Mom and Dad loved it. She even video taped it so we could be part of her "shower."  I loved being part of helping them prepare for Baby and having a first hand glimpse at how loved and supported they are-even from a distance.

The Best of Community Helpers

As I prepare for March, Weather Month in my classroom, I packed up my teaching props and books about Community Helpers and returned all the various trucks to Z-man's collection. Some days in our classroom were so fun, I just had to share. Here are some of my favorite activities about Community Helpers (aside from the one I already shared):

-Sanitation Workers: We read Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha (new favorite authors of Z-man's with their catchy versed-writing style and truck themes). The kids played with trash truck toys borrowed from my house, Lincoln Logs, and a mesh-style pencil holder that I picked up at the dollar bin. We filled sandwich bags with torn paper and knotted them to look like trash bags. I wish I had a good picture of this play, but all of my pictures have my students' faces in them. This was the "best of the best" according to 4 of ten students, a pretty high rating!

-Military: I incorporated a day about military last year when my brother joined the Marine Corps and now I can't imagine not including this. (Ooorah!) My kids painted our easel with green and brown paint, then rubbed paper over top of the paint to blend the colors and make a print. Camouflaged paintings! We cut ours to look like combat boots and laced them up with black string.

 

-Doctors: For doctors, we made a hospital like the fire house and they LOVED playing with toy ambulances and people figures in this hospital. We also made these health care collages that I found on Pinterest. As they made them, we talked about the tools that doctors used and discussed what they are used for. The students really enjoyed making these 3-D collages and becoming comfortable with some basic items that doctors use.

-Construction workers: We read Road Work by Sally Sutton and acted the book out with Z-man's trucks in this under the bed storage container filled with dirt. We added some water to make the dirt muddy and talked about the differences between dirt and mud.  

 

I also pre-cut shapes from foam to represent these cardboard blocks and worked one-on-one with the students to make building plans. Then, we worked together to follow the plans to construct the different structures. This was my favorite activity I have done thus far as a teacher. The learning opportunities were endless and they were so proud of their plans and their structures!