Toy Car Massage Shirt

She was not interested in the t-shirt when we gave it to Dad a year ago.  Oh well, it was a junk t-shirt and a star trek’s worth of doodling with fabric markers.  Poor Dad- all excited about the idea of entertaining his daughter while receiving a massage.  Aurora would have none of it. 

Until this week!  Dad was wearing his shirt around the house (read:  laundry was so far behind that even the silly play shirt managed to surface in the dresser.)  I did not realize Aurora remembered the shirt, but upon seeing it she instantly requested for her cars and asked for Dad to lie down so she could play.  Happy Dad.  Happy daughter. 

But even better was the next day (and the next) when Aurora noticed that Dad was no longer wearing the shirt and insisted that he put it on immediately.  Dad did not need much convincing.  Adeline too joined in the play by grabbing at the drawing and gently smashing cars on Dad’s back.  Happy times were had by all.

Now the t-shirt too has been eaten by the laundry pile.  I should probably get on that.  Before it develops consciousness and begins consuming all humankind.  

Aluminum Foil Play

Hooray for Aluminum Foil!  It entertained two children for two hours!  Yippie. 

The trick to keeping itty bitties playing with a material for a long time is to always keep a game in your pocket.  Just when they start showing the first signs of waning interest, only then reveal your next level of play.   It is with this method that we filled 120 minutes playing with 25 feet of foil. 

At first I gave Aurora a sheet.  She carried it around.  She folded it over and over again.  With it she entertained the cat and amused her baby sister. 

“Aurora, would you like a second/third/etc. piece?”

She made fans, swords, toys, more fans, noses and things with various made-up names like “gee-gee-ya.”

“Aurora, would you like to jump on the foil/to make forts/to create something for Adeline?”

And the finale: “Aurora, would you like a crown?”

Sweet and Nurturing Child

I am sure all parents see the best in their children and that is how it should be.  But something that I am finding to be super cool about being a parent is when other people notice the qualities that I find so endearing about my child.  The word “proud” seems insufficient for the warm, glowing feeling I get when I hear stories told about Aurora.  This week I twice enjoyed this feeling.

Aurora is the most caring and nurturing person I have ever met.  When Adeline was born, I was nervous that Aurora was going to be jealous.  I was not prepared for the love and affection that Aurora shows to her little sister:  how she cuddles her when she cries and tells her jokes to make her laugh.  When Adeline is sad, Aurora pats her gently on the back saying “That’s okay, Adeline.  I’m here.  I’ve got you.” 

It is this gentle, loving quality that two people have commented on this week.  One was a simple acknowledgement of Aurora’s sweet nature and how lucky I am.  I quite agree.  The other was a report from her preschool teacher.  Apparently, a little boy whose father bikes him to school had fallen getting off the bike and hurt his arm.  While waiting for his mother to arrive with the car to take him to the doctor, the little boy was all tears and wailing.  The teacher reported that after quietly watching the little boy for a minute, she ran off only to return with a toy car the little boy frequently played with.  Aurora gave the car to the boy’s father saying “this might help him feel better.”  The teacher said she got teary eyed.  I know exactly how she feels.

Aurora is an amazing person.

Clothespin Words

Clothespin words were a huge success; Aurora took it immediately.  She clipped clothespins on words as fast as I could write them.  She sounded out the letters and read the word back when they were complete. Once all the cards were full, she would take the clothespins off and begin again.

 It was interesting to watch her spell out the words.  Very often she began with the vowel.  I have seen her approach writing the same way.  Occasionally, I would gently suggest she approach the world in the conventional left to right approach, but for the most part I trusted that Aurora learns in a manner that is entertaining and logical to her.  

Dinosaur Bath

A couple of construction paper prints on the floor,

some figurines and cycad drawings on the wall

and BOOM dinosaur bath!

Slumber Party

Valentine Exchange

As is true for most mornings, Adeline woke first.  She played and played and played with her Valentine’s balloon.  It is probably the most well received Valentine’s gift I have ever given. 

Adeline was a good twenty minutes into bouncing her balloon when we heard Aurora chirps upstairs.  She promptly unwrapped her candy hearts and ate sweets for breakfast. 

The day before she colored her Valentines, carefully cut them out, and wrote her name on each one.

Then we stuffed them into Danish hearts.

So when her Daddy gave Aurora her Valentine balloon, she was ready to hand him his Valentine.  

Shrove Tuesday

Now it is Lent, but before we entered the solemn liturgical season we celebrated Shrove Tuesday with PANCAKES! 

The story goes:  A housewife of Olney forgot the time as she was cooking a pancake supper.   Realizing she was late for service when she heard the church bells, she rushed out the door frying pan and all flipping her flapjacks as she ran.

 Keeping with our Anglican tradition, we joined the town of Olney and other English towns in celebrating Shrove Tuesday with pancakes, pancake races and various other pancake contests.  Aurora thought this was terrific fun.  Plus, it meant she had pancakes for supper and enjoyed a complete syrup trifecta:  French toast for breakfast, apple waffle with peanut butter for lunch, butternut pancake for dinner.

After dinner, Dad and Aurora raced around the apartment with frying pans.  Aurora giggled and giggled and giggled as she ran.  Adeline squealed with excitement.

They flipped pancakes in the pans or at least tried.  Then the two moved on to trying to toss their pancakes into their pans.  Huge bouts of laughter followed each toss.  Aurora laughed because she landed a throw; she laughed harder when she missed one.  By the time they tried tossing pancakes with their eyes closed, Aurora could hardly speak for all the giggles.  Then we switched to a sort of shuffle board and, of course, enjoyed more laughing.

Alas, Adeline and I had to excuse ourselves from the fun as the itty bitty got pretty upset that the pancake I handed her was for photographic purposes only, so instead we ate some mashed up banana.  Meanwhile, Dad and Aurora played various games that she made up such as  “Hey, Where’s My Pancake?” 

We played a little past the beginning of bedtime routine, but it is hard for me to interrupt such fun.  By the time we were ready for bath, Aurora’s pancake had been played into pieces.

Winter Squash Pancakes

1 c winter squash, cooked & puréed (buttercup, pumpkin, butternut – listed in the order of my baking favorites, but use whatever squash is handy)

1 1/2 c buttermilk

2 T melted butter

2 T melted coconut oil

2 egg

1 c white flour

1 c whole wheat flour

2 t baking powder

½ t baking soda

4 T sugar

1 t salt

1 t cinnamon

½ t powdered ginger

pinch nutmeg

Beat buttermilk, butter, squash, and egg in a mixing bowl.  Mix together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.   Lightly butter a griddle and heat pan to a moderate heat, then lower heat.  Drop a spoonful of several tablespoons worth of batter onto the griddle.  Bake until the cakes are full of bubbles and lightly brown underneath.  Flip cake and brown on the other side.  Serve with berries.  Yum, yum, yum.

Valentine's Bath

Cut hearts out of foam.
Add a couple drops of food coloring to the water.

Ta da!  Valentine's Bath!

Sticker Words

For some time Aurora has known all her letters.  Over the fall she has mastered the phonics, more or less anyway.  She knows the sound the letters make.  Reproducing them occasionally has glitches.  But I tell you; the day she calls our cat Clark instead of Park and says Adeline instead of Ad-E-Lion will be a bittersweet day for me indeed.

Knowing her letters and their sounds, it seems to me the next place to develop our reading skills are words and sentences.  To this end we play lots of games such as sticker words. I pencil in a word on her notebook.  We read the word together.  While making its sound, she places the appropriate sticker on each letter.  Then she reads the word. 

Today’s sentence was inspired by our cats wrestling around like the two teenage boys they are.  Heavy with their thick winter weight they sound like two rhinoceroses. 

Sometimes we have fun writing two or even three sentences at a sitting, but when Aurora becomes a parrot: “What word is this, Aurora?”  “What word is that, Mommy?” or starts reading by staring out the window “Um…dog?”  I know it is time to wrap things up and we move to illustrating our book.  

Laundry Basket

Aurora spent the afternoon in a laundry basket.  Various toys found their way in, out, and around the receptacle.  She ate snack inside it.  She watched a Super Why.  She sang songs.  She made funny faces.  Occasionally, Adeline joined her.  We read books, sang more songs, played with more toys, and made more funny faces.    

Indoor Hopscotch

 Aurora and I have been tackling teen numbers for some time now.  Thank you Curious George for reinforcing those tricky teens using hopscotch!  We captured the momentum to make a game for ourselves.  A couple of colored index cards later, Aurora was sequencing number cards across the floor.  For the teens, I wrote ten “10” cards so that Aurora could place the appropriate digit in the ones place.

 Wow, was this game a success!  An hour later we were still bouncing from number to number.  Of course, Aurora created most of the rules:  the coin had to be entirely on the card, no walking allowed – only hopping, each player had to complete the entire course each turn. 

So much math.  So much laughter.  So much energy expelled on a snowy indoor afternoon.  

Colored Ice Bath

Continuing our exploration of the properties of ice and the booster our efforts to make bath time exciting, Aurora made colored ice cubes.  

Not only were these ice cubes surprisingly fun to create, they were a huge hit in the tube. 

Experiment: Melting Ice

Adeline took a nice long afternoon nap the other day so Aurora and I decided it was science time!  We gathered our materials:  a thermometer, two bowls, two ice cubes, water of varying temperatures, and paper on which to record our findings and to label our experiment. 

In our investigation we sought to discover which would melt an ice cube the fastest: hot water or cold water.  After a discussion, Aurora hypothesized that because the ice cube was cold the cold water would melt it the fastest. 

Practicing the phonetic sounds of each letter as she wrote, she carefully labeled our bowls.

After amusing the cat with the laser beam, she measured the temperature of the water inside each bowl (65˚ F for cold, 111˚ F for hot).  Then she simultaneously placed two ice cubes of approximately the same size into the bowls.

She observed. 

I asked which ice cube was melting the most and she enthusiastically reported back that it was in fact the one in the hot bowl.   This is a finding she would continue to relay to Dad, our neighbors, and various other friends we interacted with throughout the remainder of the day. 

We watched the ice cubes until one in hot water was melted completely.  Then we dumped legos onto the living room floor and constructed libraries for polar bears.