Clothes Pin Activity

Today O learned to put clothes pins on the side of a a tin can. She liked this activity, but it wasn't easy. She had to really concentrate to get the clothes pin lined up and on the can. Her favorite part of the activity was running back to me and looking at her picture and saying "dada" because she likes to show the pictures of her activities to her daddy each day.

Thursday's Activity

This is the activity I'm leaving out for O to do in the morning. I'm working tomorrow (I work one day per week as a School Psychologist) and my mom will be keeping O. This activity is from a Melissa & Doug shape puzzle set that we gave O for Christmas. She liked it a lot, and its been at my mom's house since Christmas, so I think she's going to be excited to see it in the morning.

She Loves Shells!

O's grandparents brought her some shells from their recent trip to the Bahamas. She has had a great time exploring their shapes and textures and sorting them into this egg carton (a muffin tin would have worked better). She also had lots of fun bringing the shells into the kitchen and putting them into a water pitcher and then taking them out and putting them back in the basket. This went on for a while!

18 Months Old!

O is 18 months old! She has really grown and changed so much in just the last few weeks. She is repeating so much of what we say now, we really have to watch what we say:). Her absolute favorite activity is reading! We read at least 20 books per day, and I think she would do nothing but read all day if we let her (she's a lot like her mommy). She loves to go for walks and play outside on her slide. She loves to play with playdoh, and she gets so excited when she sees the playdoh container. She's gotten really good about telling us when she has to go to the potty, and she is wearing "panties like Marg" all day except when she is sleeping or when we go out and about. She gets to choose whether she wears panties or diapers, and she chooses panties 99% of the time (she smiles like it is so funny when she is given the choice of what to wear). When she tells me that she has to potty, I sometimes tell her to "try to hold it until we get to the potty." She crosses her arms over her tummy quickly. I guess she is trying to "hold it," and I bet she is wondering what in the world she is supposed to be holding!
On Saturday I burnt my arm when I lifted the lid of a pot of soup on the stove. O and Ell were in the kitchen, too, and I guess Ell said something about how I should have been wearing an oven mitt. Ever since then O has been bringing me the oven mitt whenever I go near the oven or stove. She says "hot, hot" as she brings it to me, and she backs way up whenever I open the stove (sometimes all the way across the room). Every time she looks at my burn she makes a little crying sound (I didn't cry btw, but Guh-guh taught her to make a crying sound over hurts), and I tell her that its a burn and mommy is ok. Whenever O sees a mark on her leg from the elastic from her socks or panties, she thinks its a hurt and makes the same crying sound. I think we've finally convinced her that it doesn't hurt that its just a mark. Its pretty funny.
O calls all letters O, all numbers 2 (do), and all colors blue (boo). When you ask her how old she is she holds up both of her pointer fingers and says "do." I say "Slow down, girl. You are 1!" When you ask her her name she says "O." She also says "Ohhhhh" often when you tell her something that she didn't know. She picked this up on Christmas Eve when Elliott said "ohh" to something and she's been saying it ever since.
O still loves her milkies, and last night she tandem nursed her baby doll and monkey. It was very sweet. She no longer gets milkies during the night, which is very upsetting to her. We put a timer on her lamp, and we tell her that she can have milkies when the lamp comes on. When the lamp comes on she sits straight up in bed, claps, grins, and signs and says "milk, milk." O thoroughly enjoys helping out in the kitchen while in her Kitchen Helper. It is great because she can stand in it and see everything that I am doing even when it is something that she can't participate in (such as chopping carrots).

I Just Can't Believe It...

The UPS man just dropped off ANOTHER Kitchen Helper!!! I called last week to let Guidecraft know that a piece was missing off the 2nd KH that they sent, and they sent another KH. All I needed was a small metal piece, and they sent the whole thing. That company really cares about customer satisfaction. I will definitely buy Guidecraft products in the future!

Washing Windows

O loves to wash the windows with the window washing set that her Grandmother gave her for Christmas. Her technique isn't perfect, and she need assistance with the spray bottle, but she sure does have a lot of fun!!!

Shape Puzzle

O enjoyed her shape puzzle on Monday. She can put the circles in quickly and easily, but the other shapes take a little more concentration and effort. We had a very busy Monday. We took a brief walk (it was cold and windy, so we came home quickly), played outside on O's slide, collected acorns, rocks, and twigs for the "I Spy" bottle I'm making, played with playdoh, colored, walked the line (well... I walked the line and O just kept falling in the wa-wa! She clearly doesn't get that the purpose is to NOT fall in the water! What a silly monkey.), transferred water with the sponge, did the straw activity, O helped wash dishes and cook breakfast and supper while in the Kitchen Helper, and we read at least 30 books. Phew!!! I was tired by the time dh got home!

Matching Animal Pictures

O and I had a great time matching animal pictures today. I was surprised that she caught on so quickly to the activity, and she REALLY enjoyed it. I made these cards using small calendars that I got for 50 cents after Christmas. I'm hoping to find a few more calenders to make some more matching cards since O had such a good time with the activity.

Swiffering the Floor

O loves to swiffer the floor, but it was difficult for her since the swiffer is so long. I was excited when I realized that if I took out the middle 2 sections that its the perfect length for her. Now she can swiffer as much as she likes!

Another Homemade Book

This is my favorite page.

I started working on this book for O about 3 months ago, but I got sidetracked by Christmas and just finished it. Its her favorite homemade book by far. I gave it to her yesterday afternoon, and we've already read it at least 15 times! Its based on a book by the same name that we checked out from the library that O absolutely loved. That book is based on the song by the same name. This is another book that we sing rather than read!

ABC Puzzle

I spent countless hours working on this puzzle for O for Christmas, but it was lots of fun. She wasn't too impressed when I gave it to her, but we had fun with it last night. I hope she'll enjoy it more as she gets older. Right now she just really wants to pull the toothbrush off! I still have to get a picture for Y. I've been looking for a good yo-yo picture, but now I think I'm going to try to get a picture of O yawning.

Yay!!!

O's screened porch playroom is suitable for playing again!!! We haven't played out there in a couple of months because the rice got wet and mildewed (and we were not here much in December). I finally found time to thoroughly wash the rice pit and the floor mats, and we rearranged everything and filled the rice pit. O was SO excited! She has had a great time playing out there today.

Friday's Activity

This was a very engrossing activity. O loved putting the golf tees into the playdoh, and she kept asking for more tees. I watched her very closely because I was afraid she would put the tees in her mouth. This is definitely not an activity that I will let her do independently.

O's Favorite Books

O loves this book! (We read it over and over and over again each day). Anyone who wears or nurses their baby or toddler should buy this book! It tells the stories of families across the world who wear their babies. O loves to look at the pictures and identify the parents as mama or daddy. She especially loves the pictures of the babies in slings who are nursing. She says "milk" while signing "milk" and looks lovingly at the picture. She calls the book "mama." I realize that she's not calling me when she keeps saying "mama" while searching for the book on the shelf. Sometimes she calls it, "Mama Back." This is a book that we are going to be reading for a long time. Thanks, Grandmother for this wonderful book!
Another favorite of O's is Puff the Magic Dragon. This is another book that we read (actually we don't read this book, we sing it!) over and over again. She calls this book "Buff." The illustrations are beautiful, and it comes with a cd with 4 songs. Thanks, Aunt Bobby for this beautiful book!

The Kitchen Helper

O's Guh-guh and Grandpa gave her a Kitchen Helper for Christmas, and I think its going to be another item that we use every day for years and years. We had a great time today using it while we baked cookies. O was at the counter with us participating every step of the way!

We've had a few problems with the kitchen helper so far. When I first put it together I realized that it was missing 4 screws. I called the company, and they told it would be a few weeks before they could send me the screws because the kitchen helper was out of stock. That was last week. Yesterday UPS dropped off a brand new Kitchen Helper. I was shocked! I expected them to mail me 4 screws not a new KH! While putting this one together I realized that it was also missing a piece, so I called to company today to let them know that this KH was not complete either. Their customer service department is great, but obviously they do not check these things too well before they ship them out. Dh was able to take a part off of the 1st KH to make the 2nd one complete, so we were able to use it today. Another issue with the KH is that the openings on the side make it very tempting for a toddler to climb up the side. O put her feet in the holes and was ready to climb, but we quickly stopped her and she hasn't done it again. I hope this won't be a problem. Even with these problems, I think the KH is a great addition to our household, and I am looking forward to using it every day. It will enable us to include O safely in so many more activities. I am looking forward to having her help me bake bread and cook supper on a regular basis. She'll also be able to have lots of fun having water play in the kitchen sink, and she'll be able to easily and safely help us unload the top rack of the dishwasher (she always wants to do this, but it was a little scary to put her in a chair so she could reach). Thanks Guh-guh and Grandpa for this great present!