Play-doh continues to be a huge hit for Ian. He most enjoys using his play-doh scissors to cut chunks of dough into teeny, tiny pieces that he calls "apple pie." He'll sit and do this for at least ten minutes at a time while Kim gets lunch together or does some other project in the kitchen.
Ian loves painting, especially as we've been talking a lot about painting "the room that he'll sleep in when he's a little bit older." We worked this week to choose the paint, tape the room, and reorganize the room (moving out furniture that won't stay in there, organizing closets, etc.) Last night, on our last "date night" we started the oh-so-romantic task of painting while our friends watched Ian. Here are a few pictures of our project so far, including one of Ian helping out with a little rolling when he returned from our friends' house.
Hopefully, next week you'll see more pictures of the room-in-progress. How exciting! We're hoping to have Ian fully transitioned into his newly-painted, newly-decorated room in about a month. We'll see.
Puzzles have become a daily choice of activity, too. While Ian still most prefers wooden puzzles (cut-out shapes that fit into a board), he also enjoys experimenting with small jigsaw puzzles. He understands that the "peg" on each piece has to fit into the hole, but he doesn't get the concept of border pieces, matching color, etc. and needs lots of direction (Momma saying, "This piece goes here!") so he doesn't get overly frustrated. This Diego puzzle is his current favorite jigsaw puzzle. A friend gave us a Dora & Diego book and jeep, and they are now Ian's new favorite characters. He even noticed Dora cereal in the cereal aisle at Randall's on Tuesday! Who knew?
Ian is always up for trying a new activity! My cousin, Marcie, just started a blog. I get so inspired by Marcie's fun, kid-friendly activities, in addition to her yummy-sounding recipes. In fact, she has inspired me to implement a "Week o' Fun" next week. I'm going to plan a small and short fun activity for Ian every day next week that we'll do between when he wakes up from nap and dinner (in my opinion, the LONGEST time of every day as we wait for Daddy to get home). If I don't feel like being creative, I'm sure Marcie has at least five ideas I can steal. :) Her blowing-bubbles-print idea is the first one that I've actually had Ian try since I was really curious about how it would turn out. Ian thought blowing bubbles was SUPER fun until he decided to sample the (non-toxic) paint/dishwashing soap/water mixture, despite Momma's warnings that it wouldn't taste very good. Then he was ready to move on to something safer, like fingerpainting.
Ian has just recently gotten past the stage where he did NOT want fingerpaint on his hands and kept asking for it to be wiped off.
Last week, I went to my final baking class with my friend, Lauren. We learned a lot about using fondant (super fun!) to create shapes and also learned a fun, simple way to ice a cupcake like a flower.
We went to the children's museum last Friday. Apparently, it was a special "End o' Summer Fun" day with extra activities planned (so I probably wouldn't have braved the crowd had I known about it before we got there). One special activity was a presentation by Nutri Man, who explained some basic concepts of nutrition to the kids, although most of them were too young to really get it. Here, Nutri Man had them throw away "junk foods," but most of the volunteers threw all of the fake food away, including the apples and bananas. Ian actually wanted to volunteer when the activity changed to throwing small fruits into a monster's stomach, but he got a little shy and nervous when he started going up to the front and changed his mind. Ian's main fascination during the presentation was that Nutri Man (apparently VERY hot in his cape and mask) was sweating profusely. Ian kept asking in a concerned voice, "What's dripping off of that man?"
Ian liked sticking to his tried-and-true favorite museum activities, including the Lego table, fishing at the water table, and the train table. In the below video, Ian tells about some of his favorites at the museum as well as our trip to a few grocery stores the next day. (It's always interesting to hear what he remembers or thinks is important!)
Ian wants to be involved in EVERYTHING that we are doing. He got a big kick out of helping us nail new chair slides onto our chair legs.
He actually could really help with this project!
Lately, Ian often says, "I want to read it!" when it's time for stories. With some of his favorite books, like Dig, Dig, Digging by Margaret Mayo, Ian has every single word memorized. With other books, he'll just say random phrases and words that he remembers from each page. "I stop for 'destrians (pedestrians)," is one of my favorite lines he says from "My Car" by Byron Barton. Even with new library books (which he doesn't know any words from), he'll insist on being the one to turn the pages.
In other news, Matt has officially started school. He says that the extra 60-70 students in the building don't make things seem too crowded! He's challenging himself to learn the names of all of the new freshmen and transfer students very soon.
We'll go in next week for our 6-week check-up following the miscarriage. While we're still feeling overall very good emotionally, I'm starting to get a little anxious as our time to "start trying" quickly approaches. I just feel like I become so self-absorbed while I'm on the "will I get pregnant THIS month?" roller coaster. If there's anything that I learned during the time of the miscarriage, it's that God is completely in control, He's good, and that He provides just what we need to get through life's challenges. But, here I am again ... trying to take things under MY control and worrying/fretting that God might not have it all figured out the right way (MY way, which would be getting pregnant very soon). I loaned some maternity clothes to a friend, and it was heart-wrenching to hand the clothes over, wishing that I could be wearing them now, hoping that I'll be asking for them back soon, but realizing that I'm completely not in control of the situation. My head continues to swim with thoughts that don't need to be there since we DO have an amazing, all-powerful God who has our best interests at heart. Thanks so much for your continued prayers for our peace in trusting God's wisdom.
3 comments:
When I used to teach pre-k and we would do those bubble pics, I would always take a pair of scissors and make a tiny little cut into the straw a few inches down (high enough to not be in the bubbles but not so high that it's in his mouth). That way, he can blow still but when he sucks, the solution won't come up through the straw (at least not nearly as much)! :)
LOVE the video of Ian "reading"!
Thanks for the nice words about my blog! I'm glad that Ian had fun blowing bubbles, but sorry he ended up tasting it. Yuck! Good idea from Ali to cut the straws, I will try that next time. I would love to see how Ian likes some of the other art projects we've done (probably he would like them even better than Amelia, because she doesn't like to get messy). I liked the bubble wrap exploration you talked about in your last post - we are going to try that, too, as soon as I can find some bubble wrap.
And other random thoughts - Amelia loved that "Dig Dig Digging" book, too.
Is Ian painting the house with water in that one picture? What fun, especially when it is hot! We will have to add that to our list of things to try.
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