Sensory Play

Sorry this took so long...

It has been rainy all week here in Maine. Which is wonderful for our garden and horrible for my workout routine. It's also been really interesting finding things to do with Jim all day in the house. As any parent knows, rain + baby = crazy!

For me, getting creative with Jim takes the shape of scouring the internet for different activities. I've googled and pinterested my way through countless 'toddler fun' ideas and I came across this little gem: Sensory Baskets! The idea is you place different objects of size, color and feel in a basket but all with the same shape  (like circle, square, etc.) and you encourage your baby to play and feel the different objects. Here was our first sensory basket...

 Circle Fun!!!

I found countless items like balls, lids, bowls, plastic plates, empty baby jars, poker chips.  I did my best to encourage playing with all the items, however his main source of fun was putting the poker chips in the baby jar and walking around the house with his make-shift rattle. Babies will be babies :)

Our next box was stars, or any item that had star like qualities. Turns out, not to many objects are shaped like stars. It also turns out that star like shapes that don't make noise are no fun. We didn't get to this basket much.

Our last and final basket of play was the 'square' box. This one had worse reviews than the star shaped box. Who wants to play with a boring square?  This box didn't last and before long it was tipped over and more 'fun' things were put in by our very own Jimmy.

Okay, so in conclusion, the sensory box was a good idea in theory, but in reality, Jim didn't really care much for it. I'm starting to understand what he does care about though and they are as follows:

1) Eating dirt

2) Playing with our dirty license plate outside

3) Eating my cell phone

4) Raisins

5) Being naked and playing with himself

Like I said, babies will be babies and boys will be boys :)

Train up a child in the way he should go

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."   Prov. 22:6

This is my inspiration for blogging today. Also this:

"⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."  Deut. 6:5-9

I realized in the past few days that I don't talk about God to my child. I don't read him bible verses or talk about how much He loves us. I don't, as the verse above states, "Impress these commands upon your children". I have thought to myself "I hope James becomes a Christian one day", but the idea that I have to teach him hasn't really crossed my mind. That seems really sad especially since my greatest commandment is to make disciples (including my own children!) God has really impressed upon me to to speak the Bible to Jim and pray over him this week. I understand that even though Baby Jim doesn't understand the specific words, he does understand love. And the best way to show love is to show him Christ. 

I believe the Bible is a living document that is able to speak truth to peoples of all ages, including infants. I believe God can use the words I say to speak to Jim's heart and show Jim who he is!  What an awesome God we serve!

Anyway, here is a list of my goals this week: 
1) Pray with Jim every hour out loud
2) Read simple verses to him about how much God loves us
3) Draw pictures and do activities to show Jim the story of the Gospel
4) Pray over him silently every hour

I can't wait to see what God will do with us this week through this. I will provide updates soon!

Oh- we have been teaching Jim a new trick. We say "How much does God love us?" and then  he and us respond with "This Much", while holding our arms as wide as we can! These are the little things that hopefully will speak to my little Jim's heart!

FRO YO FUN!!

I know it has been a bit since I wrote last so I'm sorry. I have no excuses, just a lack of imagination and motivation. I was standing in the checkout line of my local Wal-Mart trying to keep Jim Bo away from climbing onto the conveyor belt, and I saw these:

Aww yeah...I found my golden ticked idea! FRO YO POPS!

Ingredients:
Organic Plain Yogurt
Blueberries
Choice of sweetener

Blend all together, pour into molds, freeze and enjoy!

Mama's little helper

So le gouter rolls around and it is time to enjoy the hard work (5 min) I put into making these goodies. What I found was this:

 POC broke in half!

Oh well...it turned out to be perfect size for my little chunkster!

Turns out, this was a really fun treat. I had leftovers and made little yogurt bites out of them. This was easy, I poured the yogurt into little button sized circles onto a pan and froze them. Bon Appetit!

PS..I found a blog called "The Imagination Tree", which is basically my blog only way more awesome! Check it out:)

PPS..I realize it is not that "creative" but it is something different. And my life right now is all about passing time!

Taking an infant out to eat is NOT fun!

Ever since I became pregnant, dining out became a hassle and not relaxing like it used to be. First off, I couldn't drink, so really what was the point of going out? Second, money became tighter and tighter and we felt guilty about eating a $10 meal when I could have been cooking 88 cent spaghetti at home. Thirdly, now that we have Jim, taking him out is like gouging your eyeballs out with a spoon--totally painful, totally unnecessary. So now we stay in on most occasions, however, today I decided to do a solo lunch with him at our local Olive Garden. I'm pretty sure my desperation for some 'out of the house' time, overruled my better judgment. I knew as soon as we arrived that I would be needing a glass of Riesling to help the process go smoothly. Second, we needed bread pronto to keep that kid settled for 2 minutes!

Need bread now!

So now that little man is settled with some buttery garlic bread that he will no doubt smother all over his head,  mama is finally ready to order her food!

Aaahhh!

My salad arrived and my baby was still behaving quite pleasantly. I think its because our waitress gave him some of his favorite food..paper!

 Yum!

All was proceeding smoothly until my main course arrived...of course! The smell of cheesy pasta overcame my son and he had sudden urge to stand in his high chair and scream. Not crying, just yelling. I'm holding him with one hand, shoving pasta in with the other while trying to feed him bits of crescent shaped ravioli.  Nothing was really working so I did what most competent parents do, I gave my son a BIC pen. 

My meal was coming to a close and my wine was almost drunk. I could feel the end near. I knew in a matter of minutes I would be out of the hell I put myself in and he would be safely in his car seat. Homestretch baby! I decided it was close enough to the end that I could put him on the ground and I could quickly finish. He discovered a whole new world of thrown food down underneath the table. He loved it..I think he might have sneaked a few morsels in before I could get them out of his grubby little hands. Let me be clear here, this was his own food he threw down, not someone else's.

All in all, he did well. Probably won't be trying this again solo until he can be reasoned with. Dealing with an infant alone is hard, dealing with an infant alone at a restaurant is running a 5k after years of not stepping foot off your couch. But the memories are worth it!

Baking and why you should never let your infant help you crack an egg

All I can say is...WOW! I never knew baking with your infant could be so messy and yet so fulfilling at the same time. Let me start out by saying I hate messes. I get stressed out, start to sweat and I the next thing I realize is that I'm half naked, cleaning while my bub is hanging off my leg. This is what I was expecting.

We decided to bake Banana muffins. I started off pretty enthusiastically trying to get my little Jimbo involved and interested in what I was creating. His only goal was to shove everything possible into his mouth, including and not limited to, a half cracked egg, flour, and paper cupcake liners. So lets back track a bit. It started out fairly well..

Sitting pleasantly playing with his spoon and bowl

It wasn't long before Mr. Spoon was in his mouth and Mrs. Bowl kicked to the curb, er, floor.

She is on her way down

Alright, moving on, I decided against my better judgement to help Jim stir the flour. We ended up with his hand in the bowl grabbing handfuls and eating it.

Mistake made, mess everywhere, lets try something new! Help mommy crack an egg into the batter. As he helped crack the egg by squeezing the life out of it, he then decided to try it. Hmmm...not bad considering he was smiling! I turned for a second to grab a towel and sure enough, egg shells all over his chin...yum! I think i might see some in his poop :) Well after that little pit stop I decided to let him help get the pan...nice and simple..

Finally mommy found me something that is too big for my mouth

Okay, batter is done let me show him how I stir the batter with a beater, maybe he will want to help stir too because of all the vibration and stuff! Yeah..perfect idea. Again, he is more interested in eating it!

Now that the batter was made, it was time to put in cupcake liners. I'd offer to help him but I'm pretty sure he has got this!

We finally had reached the end! Muffins made it into the oven in one piece and I proceeded to clean. This is where I could feel stress levels soaring and blood pressure rising. I stopped, looked at my gorgeous meatloaf and decided that I would not freak out. I made the decision to enjoy every moment of the time I had with him, even the messy times! 

Score: Creative mommy 1; Stressed mommy 0

The Journey Begins

Off we go! Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be a stay at home mom. I had aspirations that were out of this world (I literally wanted to work for NASA). Soon after I had gotten married, my eggo was preggo and I saw my life's goals falling into pieces around me. It wasn't long after having our baby Jim that I found myself adjusting into 'mom' hood fairly well. Jim and I found a great routine and I actually enjoyed staying home with him. Now as any parent knows, being home with a babe all day can be chaotic and fun, but it can also be quite monotonous. On many occasions I found myself sipping wine at noon watching 'The Office' on my couch while my little nugget played on the floor. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an inattentive mother. I made sure he wasn't eating his own poop or playing with the electrical outlets, I just am not the kind of mom who sits on the floor playing with her kid. Even when I did, I found my brain turning to mashed spaghetti and after about 30 minutes I couldn't even remember basic Calculus.

One day after describing my boring, wine drinking life to a very close friend and beautiful mother, I realized that I needed to find ways to be more creative with my child. I needed to open myself up to teaching, playing, and enjoying my son that would still utilize my brain. So here we are, Day 1. Where to begin? I think today we shall try a little baking!

Directions for Banana Muffins + 1 child

• Ingredients for Banana Muffins
• One small child in highchair with own spoon and bowl
• Pour small amount of batter into child's bowl
• Clean Mess
• Eat Muffins at Gouter (French snack time)

Live it...Learn it

Check out the next blog for the end result of our baking adventure!