craft: pom pom push

I finally got around to making the other activity I’d had in mind for Jonah.  I found the idea here (via Pinterest).

I used a tupperware container I already had, and decided to color each hole a different color, since Jonah is old enough to know his colors pretty well.  I used permanent markers to color around each hole.  The purple was a little off, but most of the colors matched pretty closely.  I used a silver sharpie for white.

I bought a thing of pom poms at Wal-Mart for $3.  There were 100 in the pack.  This is about half of them.  Which is good because if we lose some, which we’re bound to, I’ll have replacements.

I showed Jonah how to push the pom poms through the holes, and he automatically started matching the colors.  He’s a smart one.

I made the holes small enough that it’s a bit of a challenge for him to push the pom poms through. I was hoping this wouldn’t frustrate him, and so far, it hasn’t.

I made this a couple of days ago, and he has brought it to me many times since then for me to open it up and empty out the pom poms.  So this is definitely a success!

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a fun custom order

I just finished up a custom order for a friend and wanted to share it with you.  She’s going to be in a wedding next month and wanted jewelry and a pair of shoe clips in “Malibu blue”.  She also wanted to keep the jewelry very simple.  Here’s what I came up with.

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love love love

I had an excellent day.  The reason?

This kid has been AWESOME the past few days.  He has been super sweet and love-y.  It seems like I get a hug every 10 seconds!  I love it.

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Jonah’s room, French, and a birthday

I got a weird burst of energy yesterday and rearranged Jonah’s room a bit.  He must like it, because he’s spent far more time in there today than he usually does.

Tonight is my first “live classroom” thing for French 2.  It’s like a voice chat with the teacher and the whole class that lasts an hour.  I don’t know exactly what to expect, so I am super nervous.

Lastly, happy birthday to my awesome brother!  Jonah wanted to send his uncle a special birthday wish, so we sent this to him on Facebook.  😉

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craft: colored rice

I’ve been looking for some cheap* craft-type activities to make for Jonah to play with.  We did the toddler crayons, and that was fun, but right not he’s not really into coloring.  So I found this link through Pinterest showing how to color rice, which I thought would be perfect.  Jonah’s therapist said that he really liked the bucket of dry macaroni that she had, and it seemed like the same concept.

Turns out, he really likes it a lot.  We’ve gotten it out a few times, and he gets almost mesmerized by it.  I put some plastic dinosaurs in there for him to find, and a few scooping tools.  I do have to get out the broom after, but it’s not too messy.  I tried laying down a sheet to catch any stray rice the first time (as you can see in the pictures), but then he just wants to put it over his head and play peek-a-boo.  🙂

*This turned out to be not that cheap, really.  I got a 20 lb bag of rice, the tupperware, and the food coloring, and the rice was like $11 by itself.  Oh, well.  The next craft I have planned really is cheap.

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Kindermusik!

Today was Jonah’s first day of his fall Kindermusik class!  Jonah was really excited.  He hugged at least four of the kids.  Hopefully as he gets used to the class again, he will get better at sitting with me, rather than walking in circles around the group, but I think he did pretty well.

We played with his new instrument after his nap.  We had a great time.  🙂

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picky eater

I know that toddlers are notoriously picky eaters.  But, since I’m a parent, I have to think that my kid is different and there must be something terribly wrong with him.  Not really, but you know what I mean.  Parents do that.

It seems like Jonah lives on string cheese and bananas.  He won’t eat things he used to love, like cottage cheese, pizza, or tomatoes.  The biggest problem is that he won’t even try things.  Sometimes, if I can trick him, he will taste something and realize he likes it and eat the whole thing.  But it’s hard to trick him.

The thing that makes everything worse is that he really should be better at feeding himself by now, but since he won’t willingly eat most stuff, I have to feed it to him.  Otherwise he’ll just push it away.  That means he doesn’t get much practice at all using a spoon.  I mean, he can sort of feed himself, but not very well.

Do any parents have any advice dealing with picky-eating toddlers?  I just worry about the lack of variety he’s getting, and the fact that some days he barely seems to eat at all.  Am I completely over-reacting?  Should I just leave him alone and let him eat the same 3 foods over and over?

Of course, he wanted to hold the apple all by himself, as if to prove this whole post wrong.

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weight loss so far

I hit a milestone yesterday in my weight loss “journey”.  I finally, after almost 22 months, hit my pre-pregnancy weight.  I’ve lost about 20 pounds total since around May, and last weekend I had to buy new jeans in a size I hadn’t seen in quite a while.  I still have a few pounds to go until I reach my goal, but I’m really happy with how things are going so far!

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hug

I decided to take a nap with Jonah the other day because he had woken up at 5:15 that morning, and we were both exhausted.  At one point during the nap, he woke up, reached his arms out, and said “uuuhhhhh” (that’s Jonah for “hug”), and then cuddled right up next to me after he got his hug and went back to sleep.

That, my friends, is why you become a parent.

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guitar

Totally going to be a musician when he grows up.

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