Wooden Photos

These were made by one of my best friends, Jess, who doesn't like to brag but our family thinks she is pretty awesome and did I mention talented? This comes from someone who had me walk her through creating her first painting to hang in her own house and now she is making these for others. I won't tell you how she does it, but I will tell you it takes a lot of work and a little luck to craft these blocks. If you want to know more or how you can contact Jess just shoot me a message, she would be happy to make anyone one of these to hang in their home!

Book Review--Push The Button

Push the Button
Currently one of our favorite books for Liam, this book attracted his eye in the bookstore because of the large red push button that squeaks when pushed. For Liam it is important that we get high contrast books and typically pop up books, texture books, or books that make noises hold his attention well.
“Push the Button” is published by Begin Smart, and part of their collection of books for ages 12-18 month that encourage four basic things for babies:
*hand-eye coordination
*understanding cause and effect
*small motor skills development
*following directions

Most of the books in this age range from Begin Smart are made to teach your child to imitate sounds and name specific objects. (Shhhh, whoosh, squeeeeak, eeeek, splash, button, bee, flower, water, hat, box, etc.)
Their pages are filled with bright colors and most of them are very high contrast pages with large plain objects on each page.  It’s easy to focus on a certain object so you can point out things as you read to teach them instead of a jungle of images to distract attention.  Each page has only simple one-liners on them so that the child is not bored and transferring their attention elsewhere before you ever finish reading it to them--remember, their attention span is somewhere around  5-10 seconds right now, so they will probably not sit still for a long wordy book--a few seconds for each page is all you will get out of them at first.

These books also use large, bold black printed words with good spacing between the letters so that when it comes time to begin teaching letters and reading you can easily point out each letter as you sound them out with the child. (Very hard to do this with small, fine print books.)

In all, we found this book series to be very affective in: attracting and holding Liam’s attention, giving him strong images to point to,  large letters/words for when we start his learning to read, great sounds to make with him that also make him giggle and try to imitate, good thick pages for him to easily carry and flip through on his own, and giving him a squeaky button to learn the concept of pushing a button with.  It may annoy his parents to death but at least it’s a start towards his love for books and learning to sit down and read with us and you’ve got to start somewhere.

If you like this book here are some others in the collection of BEGIN SMART books for 12-18 months:
*Play Colors           *What Does Baby Say?
*Splish-Splash        *Peek-a-Boo What?
*All Gone!              *Moo! Moo! What Are You?

Favorite Things

Just because. These are a few of my favorite things....

Fall. I am crazy about Fall...Fall colors, Fall coffee flavors, Fall wardrobe, Fall weather, the promise that Christmas is coming...all things Fall really

Liam’s green blanket. We call him Linus when he drags it around, but it is one of my favorite things, something from his infant days that he still holds onto and so do I. Handmade with love by one of my favorite friends and indestructible.

Chicago in the Winter. A concrete jungle, the windy city. Good friends and deep dish (Chicago style) pizza.

Writing. My pain, torture, joy and pleasure. Where I keep all my precious memories.

Color. Each one tells a story, carries an emotion, draws the eye a different way. I love color.

Traditions and hand-me-downs. I was one of three girls growing up, now I’m one of six....we love hand-me-downs.

Pictures. Past and present. They tell a story, a “you had to have been there” sort of story. A thousand memories.

List making. My work spouse and bestie Jess would tell you its an unhealthy obsession but I think that about her ink pen fetish.

Power outages. Power outages = cuddling, candlelight dinners, old board games, and NO food network for the hubby. :)

Road trips. Enough said.

Buttercream icing on anything and everything.

A good chick flick.

A good man flick. Preferably one of the Die Hards

Music that makes you want to dance. Anywhere and everywhere.

Stomping in rain puddles. I know it’s odd but I find when I’m near one (or even when its farther off) that I get the compelling urge to jump in it. And I always act on these urges.

Porch talks with my grandparents, even if it is five a.m.

Letters in the mail. Call me old-fashioned but something about getting mail makes me giddy, as long as they’re not bills.

Quilts and the smell of said quilts. Like my nana’s house in the summer. Windows down, pies a cooking, coffee a brewing, bar-b-que on the grill.

Old books. I love the smell and the feel of them, their pages, their covers. The old language used in some of them, even though it may be hard to understand at times. I would never trade paper books for a electronic version.

Owls. Don’t know where it started but it ended up all over my house, my office, and Liam’s room.

Libraries and the smell of libraries.

and lastly (for now anyway) Nights at home with my boys...playing in the yard, on the swing, on the kitchen floor, reading bedtime books, and our nightly prayers. I love everything about my little family.

MEMO TO MOM: Make more lists like this one, if not just to annoy non list makers.

Book Review- "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"

Another Eric Carle book, with Bill Martin Jr., that we love right now is “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” the slide and find edition. It is a large thick book, same bright colors on white backgrounds like he is famous for but has sliding trap doors added to slide back the words on the page and find an animal underneath. For example, “Brown bear, Brown bear what do you see?” Then slide back the part that says “I see a purple horse looking at me!” to see the purple horse. Then the next page reinforces the purple horse and opens the slide door to the next animal. “Purple horse, purple horse, what do you see?” “I see a yellow duck looking at me!” etc.

The images, very high contrast with the white background, take up two full pages and are easy for visually impaired kids to spot and point out. Sliding the secret door works on their problem solving and fine motor skills while they learn their animals and colors. It is quickly becoming one of our favorites to read with Liam before bed. I’d definitely recommend any Eric Carle books for use with visually impaired children but all children seem to love and enjoy them. I wonder if Eric Carle ever thought these books would be great for visually impaired children when he picked up this style since he always seems to lean towards simple and large high contrast images….something to look into I guess.

Toy Review- Imaginarium Toys

Push and Go Panda and the House of Shapes Sorter

Both of these toys are by Imaginarium, a company that specializes in educational toys and books for children.  They make a good majority of their toys for toddlers from wood (classic and usually preferred by this mom!) and use bright colors/designs to make their toys very eye catching for both moms and babes. (Hint: They are usually only found for retail at Toys R Us or online!)

Push and Go Panda

A simple toy, nothing complex about it. It rolls on its “feet” (wheels) but all four wheels (feet and hands) move, as well as the center wheel that is held in place by the hands and feet. 

The Push and Go Panda has great high contrast with its black and white body and neon designs on its hands and feet.

There is no string attached for pulling that was one thing that baffled us about it, you have to sit and roll it along like a car but after a few tries Liam picked up on this rather quickly.

Since it is a wooden painted toy, the paint does chip slightly but no more than with normal wear and tear.

The number one selling point with this toy, as with our other Imaginarium toys….no noise! There is no noise making with this toy (except for Liam’s occasional beating of it on the ground) so it is quiet and requires no batteries to keep it going. Oh and did I mention it’s quiet?

It is great for low vision kids who need the contrast colors, and the designs on each wheel make neat illusions while spinning as the child rolls the panda along, sort of like a kaleidoscope.

Teaches good cause and effect and like most Imaginarium toys it calls for use of the imagination at an early age.

The House of Shapes Sorter

This toy is a great wooden shape sorter for visually impaired kids but I think any child would benefit from using it to learn their shapes. The key to helping the child use this toy to find the correct hole fit for each shape, is the bright neon blue colored lid with the high contrast colored shapes.  The 8 wooden shapes are painted bright solid colors that stand out on the bright blue lid making it easier for them to try and fit shapes into the correct spaces.  Then the lids are easily removed to pull out the shapes and start again.  The child can also try and master putting their hand through the small gaps on the side of the house under the lids to fish out the shape pieces as well. 

This toy definitely helps with the fine motor skills needed in early childhood and helps begin to educate them on their shapes as well.

The House of Shapes also has a bright red handle so it is easily carried around by little hands, which is all Liam ever wants to do with ours. (Fill it up other small toys that happen to fit into the holes as well and carry them around dumping them in each room he visits.)

The only flaw we found with this toy: within the first week the paint began to chip off around the holes on the blue lid where the pegs connect to attach it to the house. The paint chips also brought wit them small chips of wood as well. No other areas did this only the exact spots you see in the pictures below right next to every peg hole, but left on the floor it could definitely hurt a child to swallow them. Once all eight of these pieces broke off (4 on each lid) we noticed nothing else chipping or breaking on the toy, even after several run-ins with the wall, garage floor, and doorways. And once again did I mention this toy is a non-noise maker toy??

Memo to Mom: Always have some toys that make no noises at all, for those “need some peace and quiet or my head will explode” kind of days.

The Trenches- Battling a Strong Willed 1yr Old with an Even Stronger Willed Momma

(We are going to call this Part 1 since I have a feeling these “battles” are not going to be few and far between.)

I’m going to try and walk you through our three day weekend trip through *you know where* while never leaving our house, condensing it where I can, but truly it would take all 72 hours to explain it all.  So here’s the cliff-notes version….

Friday Day 1

Pick Liam up at Ita’s and he refuses to go with me. Fights me when I pick him up, runs back inside the door to stay with Ita, and finally after taking a few swings at me to get me to put him down, Ita has to escort him to my car and help calm him as I buckle him in.

Head home and Liam starts to scream in the traffic—I want to scream at traffic too, instead I call my hubby who advises that he will stop, he is probably just tired. He doesn’t stop.  The entire drive home Liam continues to scream until I pull into our driveway. 

Get inside try for a nap (which we clearly need) and no luck.

Liam refuses to eat dinner, settles for animal crackers and then fights tooth and nail to stay awake as Brian and I alternate rocking and sitting with him until 11:00, when, finally, he crashes out from exhaustion.

We head for his room to tuck him in bed, go over all the normal routine—pray over him, turn his music on, night light, then lay him down into his crib where, instantly, his eyes pop open.
The next few minutes are full of frantic crying, terrified screaming, pointing to his closet in the dark until finally Brian and I break down and turn the lights back on trying to find what is wrong.  His passy has landed in front of the closet in the floor, which he is staring down at now.  Then commence the next hour of singing and cooing to try and get him back to sleep again.
After midnight Brian and I finally drag ourselves to bed, beat down with fatigue and too far gone to even remember to turn out the lights through the house and lock all the doors.

(This is when I remember something from my childhood…. My sisters and I would say “dad did you check the locks?” And he would answer, “ what are you afraid someone is going to come kidnap you in the night? Because I already put the sign on the front door that says first hallway second door on the right.”
We used to think he was kidding, just full of it, but now I realize he might have been on to something!)

End of night 1—Victory definitely goes to Liam

Saturday Day 2

Brian leaves for work at 6:30 waking Liam and ruining my chance to get him to sleep in.

We spend the morning half playing and doing some of Liam’s therapy up until lunch time. He takes his morning nap for THREE hours—which he slept on my chest on the sofa and would not let me put him in bed, but at least he is sleeping so that I can read a book. (Insert Momma Win HERE!)

Lunch time.

Liam refuses again his food and begins to repeatedly toss his sippie cup at me because it was filled with whole milk instead of formula. (We recently started switching over from whole milk instead of formula and he is not taking it so well.)

This goes on for more than an hour so I finally give up and take the cup away from him. When he is thirsty he will drink.

After I remove the cup we go back and forth with his fruit cup which he begins to toss in the floor in his lap and at me while I was doing some dishes that were piling up in our sink.

When he wants to eat he will eat.

So I remove him from his highchair and he begins a two hour tantrum throughout the house. Smashing things on our bookshelf, throwing his toys around the room, sitting or laying on the living room floor crying and refusing me when I try to pick him up or coddle him in any way.  I try every method removing the objects, distracting him, replacing the objects with other ones, spatting his small chubby hand…none of this works.

It’s almost the end of the day, time for Brian to be home, when I begin to ignore Liam’s little tantrum and start to unload the dishwasher. I turn to find that Liam is in the mood to help me, only the first object he grabbed out of the dishwasher is a knife. I panic and remove it carefully from his hand and then turn to spat his hand to ensure he knows that this is definitely a NO NO. But at that moment I stop myself, realizing that I am so worn down from the entire day and so tired of listening to his tantrums of screaming and squealing that I may hit his hand too hard with a little pent up anger and frustration behind it, so I resist all together and decide to redirect him once again, knowing he will only be back another day.  

By the time Brian is off work and we make it to our church (we attend Saturday night services when he works in the summer) we leave Liam in the nursery after worship.

We check in on him and of course he is screaming being walked around in the hallway by a nursery aid and looks like he will hyperventilate at any moment.  Church service is spent with me chasing him around the lobby listening through the speakers.

We leave to meet Aunt Lala and soon-to-be Uncle Seth to get some flowers (wedding prep stuff) from Lala’s car. Commence crying non stop through Hastings while we wait to meet Lala and Seth, and through the entire drive home.

Repeat of Friday night bedtime routine and 11:45pm we are finally in bed.

End of Day 2---Liam definitely wins this one. (And in case you’re keeping score, that’s Liam 2, Mommy 1)

Sunday Day 3

Liam wakes again at 6 when Brian leaves for work.

Refuses afternoon nap and eats small amounts of veggies for his mid-morning snack.

Another hour begins of screaming and crying and lying down on the floor dragging his blanket until he finally begins to fall asleep in my lap. This is when Brian suggests that I check his mouth for teeth or blisters….gotcha….one new little tooth has just broke the surface of his puffy gums and he is wailing as I check for more.

Begin dosing with Tylenol.

Finally nap time.

We spend the day back and forth with tantrums and napping until Brian gets home. Luckily, I now know the reason behind his tantrums and whining fits so I refrain from punishing him and instead just try to soothe him. He turns cuddly for a few hours and then goes back to bashing toys and books about the house again. By the end of the day my nerves are fried and I have to walk to get the mail just to have a few moments of peace.

We head to town to meet my friend Rachel and her newborn babe Ewan for dinner—Brian is called to meet me there to pick up Liam and bring him back home to get dinner and into bed so that Rachel and I can catch up. Instead the dads both end up joining us and we all six sit for dinner. Big mistake.

Liam begins climbing up and down from his booster seat (which has no straps to keep him in place) and in and out of the booth. A million macaroni noodles coat the booth’s floor. Finally Brian leaves early to escort him home to his bed where he falls asleep before I join them thirty minutes later.

End of day 3….or so I thought.

As I lay in bed I begin to sob. I cannot handle another day like today, like yesterday, or the day before. I need a mental health day after this. But I look forward to the weekends, my days full of Liam time and yet I just wanted to run far far away.  I find my hubby in the living room doing homework and unload all my frustrations and tears on him. He takes a few minutes to hug me and soothe me with his advice and kind words. Then he begins to pray over me for God to give me peace and grace with our stubborn strong-willed child.

Finally end of day 3, crawling in bed, too tired to even cry anymore.

Liam wins.

After all the weekend was said and done, Monday morning comes and I’m beyond exhausted. A one way ticket to Mexico (or further) was looking pretty good from where I sat 9 hours ago (at 4 am when he woke us up). But looking back on this weekend only gives me determination for the next. It’s a cycle of trial and error (this weekend being the error) and hopefully we will hammer out the path along the way. As I gathered my beaten self for work this morning, I realized I’m not only going to need my hubby praying over me when I FINALLY break down, I’m going to need his shower of prayers daily, along with a lot of grace when we/I screw it up. So we will take it step by step and come up with our own methods…eventually we will find one that works for us and Liam. I develop a new prayer as I drive back to work from visiting Liam at lunch time. (My way of making up for wanting to get away from him over the weekend. Cuddles and French fries at lunch time.)
So my NEW revised prayer.

Dear God-
Help me look forward to “good morning” more than I do “bedtime”

To kiss and hug more than I have to redirect, spat, or wag my finger at him

To let the messy house go more often

To pick my battles wisely

To give him grace when he is sickly, teething, or in new environments

To learn to live on 4-5 hours of sleep when I have to

To be the mom that occasionally spoils him with snow cones and ice cream

To be the mom who doesn’t care who’s watching our meltdown in the grocery store

The mom that knows when to walk away for a breather or call for back up when she needs it

The mom who doesn’t debate bothering her husband with her tears but goes to him before she hits the breaking point

To take a personal health day when needed, and not feel guilty for doing so

To be the mom who does not care who stops by when the house is a mess especially not if they are family

To be the mom who gets in the sprinklers even in her work clothes because he wouldn’t let go of my hand

To be the mom who doesn’t mind the sticky hands and finger prints

And the mom who Liam wants to spend more time with than he does away from.

 Amen
MEMO TO MOM: Tomorrows another day......ps you prayed for strong willed children!

Juice Pops

During the teething stage, which we are unfortunately stuck in at the moment, Liam has shown that he loves nibbling on anything ice cold.  From time to time Brian will sneak him a bite of his ice cream or his Popsicle and defend himself with, “his gums are hurting MaMa!” The more frequently it started happening the more I felt I needed to find something a little less sugary for my little man to chew on.  So we came up with our own way of making Liam his own personal popsicles to eat. (Now I am sure this is not a secret, unheard of recipe, it will not make your mouth drop in shock as I’m sure it has been done a million times before and can be found in any kids dessert cook book I am sure. BUT, this is how we make ours.)

What you will need:

Your choice of fruit, feel free to add as much of a variety as you’d like. (I know we did!)

A blender

A popsicle tray from your local grocery store. (A ice tray works okay if you cannot find a popsicle tray.)

Your choice all natural juice.

What you’ll do:

First select your combo of fruits, for us we picked several berries—blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries—and remove the stems if any.  Then blend in a blender until slightly chunky and stir in your choice of juice.  We chose to do a white grape blend with our berries to give them a slight “zing”.  Then pour or spoon into your popsicle tray and freeze solid.

We went on to do a variety of popsicles such as berries with orange juice; watermelon, melon, and cantaloupe mixed with cranberry juice; and strawberry, banana, mango with white grape juice. Whatever the flavor, as long as the child will eat it, these make great summertime teething treats and they are healthy too!