Felt Vegetables

Watching Aurora playing with toys is the delight of my heart.  It is particularly spectacular when the toy with which she is so entertained is one that I have made. 

Monkeys

She wore her monkey shirt and her monkey jacket.

We read the “monkey book.”

We looked for the monkey pages in other books.

We painted to our Noah’s Ark dinner tray and remarked, “Ooh-ooh, aah-aah,” at the appropriate pair of animals.

She threw monkey napkins into the air.

Aurora loves monkeys. 

(It should be noted that the two “monkeys” in the photographs are monkeys as broadly declared by Aurora, who gives all simians this title. Biologically, the gorilla and the orangutan are both hominids or great apes.) 

Books and Blankets

Yesterday Aurora needed to be carried during her favorite library circle time song: Walking, walking, walking, walking. Hop, hop, hop; hop, hop, hop. Running, running, running; running, running, running. Now we stop. Then at lunch she burst out crying in the middle of her apple sauce. My baby was sick.

We cuddled. We watched a million Elmo’s World. Aurora leaned her head on her frog pillow while I pet her forehead. She took two naps, which has only happened twice in the past year. By the end of the day Aurora was well again.  

It was a perfect day to play our recently invented game: Books and Blankets.  

It requires

a pile of books and

a pile of blankets.

As with all games there are many possible variations, but our favorite version is as follows: Cuddle close together. Choose an excellent book. Read the book several times through. Place the book to the side. Cover ourselves with a blanket. Choose another good book. Read it through and through. Place the book in the growing book pile. Cover ourselves with another blanket. Repeat until blankets run out!

The other day we created a pile of sixteen books (each read an average of three times). My goal for the approaching Wisconsin winter is to create a pile of fifty.

Alphabet Flash Cards

We have letters in the bathtub and ABC books galore. Now Aurora has alphabet flash cards to familiarize herself with the forty-eight (upper and lower case) English graphemes.

She’s terrific with ‘B’ and sees them everywhere we go. She solidly knows ‘O.’ She often identifies by name ‘C,’ ‘P,’ and ‘E.’ Sometimes she knows ‘A’ as “A;” sometimes she refers to it as the letter “Aurora.”  Only twenty more to go, then we are onto Greek characters!

Undies

My baby girl is all grown up.  Today we made the switch to undies.

  I am so proud of you, Aurora.  

Zoo

It begins with the approach. Lake Wingra and the beautiful arboretum are on our left. I sing “We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? You can come too, too, too. We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.” Aurora smiles and dances (as best as one can in a car-seat.)

Then it’s

“Bye-bye car,”

Touch the giraffe,

Pick out a new animal trading card,

Ride the carousel—“Wee! Wee! Up and down. Up and down.”

Ride the train—“A tunnel! A bear! A wallaby! A tunnel! A tunnel!”

Play on the playground,

Gibbons, wallaby, meerkats, panda,

Feed the goats,

Snacks by the giraffe,

Tiger, rhinoceroses, seals,

Snacks by the lions,

Ape house, bird house,

Polar bear, grizzly bear—“The bear is walking. Bear swimming? The bear is walking.”

Buffalo, badger, prairie dogs,

Surprises (today, Aurora listened to lions roar, stood nose to nose with an orangutan, and pet a Madagascar hissing cockroach),

Ride the turtle,

Stamp our hands,

Bees, fish, frogs,

“Paw prints. Paw prints. Aaaaah. More paw prints?”

Wave “Bye-bye zoo. Bye-bye.”

Busy Bags

Turns out “Busy Bags” do in fact keep a toddler busy in a bustling airport. So too does running and squealing up and down the concourse and riding down and back in the moving walkways as if they were an amusement park ride.

I probably packed too many activities, especially considering that Aurora was content to smash “BOOM!” directly into the waiting area seats, but I have been trapped in airport terminals too often for me to trust that all will proceed as planned. So I assembled busy bags.

Busy bags are marvelously simple. They are handy for doctors’ offices, car rides, and airports. Simply place a small quiet activity in a Ziplock. Ta da! 

Busy Book

Aurora behaved remarkably well on our plane trip this weekend. I do not know why it catches me off guard when this happens. Aurora is always a pleasure and a delight. Why should it be any different if we are in a plane counting cars and clouds from far above?

The airline did its part. Aurora thought pretzels for breakfast were super cool. But I still came prepared with an arsenal of busy bags and my ultimate weapon—Aurora’s Busy Book.

If you ever find yourself faced with taking your toddler on a plane, I highly recommend crafting a busy book. For starters, having all activities contained in one book was highly convenient for the tiny space a coach seat allows. Plus, by the time we made it to all the way to the end, she was ready to play with the first pages again.

Trains, planes, and hot air balloons went “up and down.” So too did the three little pigs (with special attention given to the pig in the yellow house). Buckles fastened. Ribbons tied and braided together. Zippers zipped. Diamonds, artifacts, and fossils were excavated. Beads were counted. An egg metamorphosized to a tadpole to a pollywog to a frog.

Next thing we knew the plane had landed. 

Body Parts Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago we were on the precipice of an Aurora breakdown as we waited for our turn on a choo-choo train that seemed as though it would never come.  The sun was hot, the humidity was high, and emotions were tightly strung.

Luckily, I remembered that I had a camera in my pocket, and we invented the Body Parts Photo Shoot game. 

The rules are simple.  I suggest she point to a body part: “Aurora, point to your eyebrow.”  I snap a photograph as she identifies the designated body part.  I play back the picture so that she can see it.  Often she re-identifies the body part: “Aurora’s eyebrow.”

Since I most always have a camera or at least my cell phone on me, in the weeks since we created this activity the waiting game is now a fun one to play!

Aurora’s nose

Aurora’s tummy

 Aurora’s tongue

Aurora’s hand

Aurora’s elbow

Aurora’s eyebrow

Aurora’s chin

Sidewalk Paint Recipe

Combine

2 tablespoons of cornstarch

10 drops of food coloring

2 tablespoons of water

Ta da, sidewalk paint!

Now grab a foam brush and go to town. 

 Over the summer we have created many muffin tins of sidewalk paint. Aurora uses the brush to paint the traditional way for the first little bit, then flip - over the tray goes! Red swirls into yellow. Yellow collides with green. Purple and orange and blue mix and mingle and spread across the concrete.

Now she ditches the paintbrush and the finger painting begins. Our fingers get good and messy. Actually, all our body parts and clothing get good and messy! If there is “good, clean fun,” then Aurora and I have yet to discover it!