Life of the Daycare Girls

Learning Centers

2012-01-21T15:54:00.002-06:00

I just got back from a Saturday training on how to create learning centers for preschoolers. Funny, I always complain about having to go to trainings, but they are awesome for getting me refocused and excited about my job all over again. This one was really tailored to classrooms of all 3 and 4 year olds, so obviously there's some adjusting I'll be doing. Still though, lots of cool ideas to take away from it, as well as some interesting research. For example:

Occupational therapists say that it's better for kids to color with crayons rather than markers because the pressure and friction that's required helps motor skills much more. Markers are too easy and don't demand the shoulder strength. (plus it's a lot easier to color on things you shouldn't...)
When kids choose to spin around in circles, it's incredibly helpful for their brains. Here we thought it was only fun, and like to laugh when they get dizzy and fall down, but it's caused by a need in the two hemispheres of the brain. Crossing the mid-line and spinning is an educational and productive activity.
Hands-on experience is the number one way kids learn things until age SIX. Forget worksheets and rote memorization- give them concrete objects to connect to and they're going to learn it a lot more completely.
The lack of child-directed play in today's society has largely contributed to delays in all domains of child development compared to previous generations. Let them explore, talk, work it out with each other, and decide how and what to play, preferably without electronics involved.

Pretty cool, huh?

Poor Kanga is going to have to deal with me wanting to move every item in the playroom four times over the next few weeks while I work through these new ideas to create fun spaces for all the different ages we serve right now. I drive her crazy with that, I know, but new stuff is FUN!

2012 Noteworthy Days

2012-01-10T10:54:00.002-06:00

Here is our working list for closings and holidays for the coming year. I know I emailed it to some of you- my printer is still on the fritz (frizz? what's the actual spelling? it's one of those phrases I only say and don't write...) so I don't have hard copies available at the moment. Yay technology!

In addition to our paid holidays for the year, we also reserve the right to take 4 paid personal days. Any additional vacation days we take will be of no charge to you. If you are on vacation, please remember that you must continue to pay to hold your child’s space.

Monday, March 19: paid personal day

Friday, April 6: paid holiday for Good Friday, IF we do not have a bad weather day before then. We will treat this day in accordance with the local school district and be open or closed along with them.

Monday, May 28: paid holiday for Memorial Day

Wednesday, July 4: paid holiday for 4^th of July

Friday/Monday August 10/13: paid personal days

Monday, September 3: paid holiday for Labor Day

Wednesday, November 21: paid personal day

Thursday/Friday November 22/23: paid holiday for Thanksgiving

Monday, December 24: paid holiday for Christmas Eve

Tuesday, December 25: paid holiday for Christmas Day

Monday, December 31: paid holiday for New Year’s Eve

(Tuesday, January 1, 2013: paid holiday for New Year’s Day)

Friday Focus: Roo

2012-01-06T11:01:00.000-06:00

Much has happened in the life of Roo since July when I did her last post. She started preschool in September and is doing very well there. She gets to ride the bus every day and does all kinds of fun things. When the bus drops her off at home, her kunyai meets her there. Some days kunyai brings her here for the afternoon, and sometimes they hang out at home, just depending on how many kids are here and what's going on.

She still loves pirates, and wanted to be one for Halloween. Kanga got Tigger a crocodile costume so they could be like Captain Hook and the crocodile. It was really pretty awesome. Tigger had trouble walking- the hood covered a lot of his face, and one of the babies was afraid of him. I forget who but it was funny. He ran around trying to sit on his sister's legs quite a bit. I couldn't get them both in one frame because Roo is getting so long, but here they are:

I love the pirate dress. Girl pirates are super cool.

She also has a love affair with the cooking area and cupcakes in particular. I think I might have had something to do with that. I'm sort of known as the cake girl- being gluten free, whenever there's an event if I want to be able to eat dessert I have to bake it myself. So all the birthdays here, parties lots of other places, and anytime our families get together outside of daycare, I bring cake. She's always asking me if I can bake her some cupcakes and she watches me cook lunch every day too. I got her a little kitchen for her birthday and some wooden cupcakes for Christmas and Kanga says she bakes constantly. She'll put on a pot of water to boil, because that is what I do when I have no idea what's for lunch- I just figure it may involve noodles. So she thinks that all cooking starts with a pot of water. Then she'll bake cupcakes. And eat them.

"Hallobirthweenday" cupcakes for Tarzan's birthday and Halloween together. I'm not quite sure what this look on her face is. But it's funny.

Cupcake for some other occasion- I think possibly Lady's birthday.

She's not really much interested in eating these days if it isn't cake. This is the look she usually gives me as she pushes away from the table with a full bowl of food:

And this was the soup that everyone else loved SO MUCH. She wouldn't touch it, which is why in this post her brother had two different bowl colors- he ate hers when his was gone.

Roo cracks me up with the silly things she says, often by accident. When we go for walks, there are two rabbits that live in an outdoor cage down the street. We've talked to my neighbor pretty frequently and always stop to pet the rabbits as well. Their names are Ginger and Thumper and they're really cute. Now that they're used to us swarming around their cage, they let us pet them. Roo at first couldn't remember their names properly so she referred to them as Thumper and Dumper. I really can't think of a more apt name for a bunny. It makes me laugh out loud every time I think about it. We all call them Thumper and Dumper now. We were coming home from church this Sunday and passed by their house and I said that and my husband busted out laughing and just said, "I love Roo."

I think that about covers it.

New Year!

2012-01-03T14:30:00.004-06:00

I know I haven't written in a long time! I need to talk about lots of stuff. I might end up going back and trying to catch up, or I might see something shiny and go off down the street and never look back. I get easily distracted by the shiny...

So Aurora and Silvermist are both at their new preschools now. Here they are with their melted crayon art that we did for parent Christmas presents. Bye girls, we love you! :)

Their absence, along with the fact that Tod, Copper, and Alice are hugely mobile and want to be big kids, has really changed the face of our day. The "big kids" are basically just O'Malley and Tarzan, plus Roo on the afternoons that she's here. O'Malley has started to be a bit apprehensive about starting kindergarten in the fall- he knows that I homeschooled Duchess and has asked me to do that for him too. I figure if I do a semester of that here then he'll feel better. So I've pulled out the Sonlight K curriculum, and bought a couple preschool workbooks for Tarzan and Roo, and we're doing some structured reading and writing time during what used to be nap time. There's a fun ticket and reward system that I adapted from this post, with the jars of treats. They're excited and I am too. I love starting new stuff. Let's hope I stick with it and that the shiny doesn't defeat me. :)

Then we have the middle sized kids- Tigger and Hercules, plus Lady and Mater who sometimes fall into that group and sometimes still stay with the babies. These are the ones who mostly motor around independently. If there's art, they might want to do it. If there's reading, they might sit and listen. Or they might ignore all my efforts to get them involved and just do their own thing. I like that about this age- I really feel like play is the most important thing and I don't start to do more rigid scheduled stuff until they're bigger.

Tod, Copper, Alice, and Perdita are moving up quickly too. Pretty soon we're not going to have anyone who is willing to hang out in the living room. They're working on eating table food, pulling up and trying to walk, (or crawl in Perdita's case- she's a bit younger) and just loving the fact that they can hang with the older kids.

We'd love to fill the spots we've got, so check with your friends and see if anyone you know needs daycare!

Phrases Not to Say

2011-12-12T21:46:00.001-06:00

Just read this article. I think you should too. :) It's got lots of food for thought....

The Dish On Our Food

2011-12-07T15:54:00.004-06:00

This is one of those comprehensive posts I've been meaning to write so I can link it to the sidebar for frequently asked questions. If you're a regular here, it'll be stuff you know for the most part. I do get questions from time to time though from parents of infants as they grow. It's all in the contract, but you forget that stuff as the months go by. This way it's all in one spot.

We are on a state-funded child care food program, so we have guidelines to follow for that. They come out four times a year to monitor us and make sure we serve vitamin A rich foods three times a week, vitamin C every day, enough milk and water, all that good stuff. The paper you have to sign every October is to renew on that.

Here's the basic gist of what we do:

Infants: we will provide the general store brand milk-based or soy-based formula. If your baby is on a specialized formula like nutramigen or you just want to bring a certain name brand, you are responsible for that. And of course if you're pumping you can bring breast milk. From 0-7 months a "meal" is satisfied by just a bottle. We aren't required to document any kind of cereal or solid food until 8 months. Most babies do start eating that stuff here before that, and we begin feeding those things on prompting from parents. Some kids have nothing but breast milk till six months, and some are eating full bowls of cereal and fruit at four months. We follow your lead on that and feed your baby what you want them to have, when you and/or your pediatrician are ready.

As far as baby food goes- usually I buy beech-nut stage 2. I haven't found that stage 1 is really necessary for us. The jars are smaller, which is helpful to avoid waste if you just have one baby at home. When we're feeding multiple infants and dividing jars, the bigger ones work better. I don't like the brands that come in plastic tubs as well, which is why I say beech nut. They're one of the few that still come in glass jars. Sometimes I get on a kick and make baby food to freeze, but I haven't done that in awhile. When I do, I make a ton of several kinds so that I can do the sneaky chef thing and hide veggie puree in the big kid food as well as having some for babies.

Older infants: from 8-12 months a "meal" is characterized by a bottle, iron-fortified cereal (we always serve rice due to allergy possibility), and a fruit or vegetable. During this age period the kids will sit in chairs near the big kids during mealtimes and begin to eat table food as well. Since the food program doesn't require any baby food at all past the first birthday, we work on trying to get them ready for textures and tastes. They'll usually be able to eat more breakfast foods first- waffles, cereal, cut-up fruits, pancakes, hash browns, things like that. If we're serving oatmeal, yogurt, or something like soup or stew for lunch, then we'll spoon feed them. Otherwise we just put it on the tray and let them explore. We do put bibs on them, but food is such an interesting sensory experience that it still ends up everywhere. They get messy. :)

For scheduling purposes, we do try to serve infant meals at consistent times from day to day, but sometimes it just isn't possible. They sleep differently and therefore the times when they're hungry is sometimes different too. This age group is the hardest to keep on a schedule because of the fact that they need to be individually fed. There are days when a late feeding can mess up the time that you wanted to eat dinner, if they're not hungry for you then. We apologize in advance for that- we do the best we can in a group setting!

After 12 months the food program considers them big kids and they can eat all table food, all the time. For breakfast I am required to serve a whole grain carb, a fruit/veg, and milk. For lunch, a protein, a whole grain carb, two fruit/veg, and milk. Snacks need to consist of two items from two different food groups. We also have water available to drink at all meals. We're only allowed to do sugary stuff once a week, and I really only offer that on birthdays. It's become a fun tradition for the kids- they know we'll bake cupcakes together on birthday mornings.

My kids and I have been diagnosed with celiac disease. It's not an allergy- it's an auto-immune disorder so we'll never grow out of it. We are strictly gluten-free and it's just not worth it to me to serve gluten to the daycare kids, even though it would be cheaper to do. Twenty parts per million can make us sick, and with little kids around the risk is too high. We've learned to work with it pretty well and the kids for the most part really enjoy my cooking. I like the fact that we can advertise as being able to cater to special needs diets and allergies too. Because of the severity and strictness of the celiac diet, I know about cross-contamination and careful avoidance. If your child is allergic to something else, we can work around it. I've had pretty extensive experience with anaphylactic tree nut, peanut, dairy, and egg allergies as well. In addition, Kanga is diabetic, so we can handle that too if it comes up.

Due to all this, I really would prefer that you didn't bring your child (over 12 months) their own special food. It's one thing for infant formula or homemade baby food that I can freeze- that stuff is easy to deal with. But when it's goldfish crackers or pop tarts, or even something homemade and super healthy and fabulous, it's difficult sometimes to keep a mobile kid completely away from everyone else while they eat. We try to eat at the table family style and I hate to ostracize anyone. If the kind of food we serve doesn't work for you, I can work with you to see what we could change, or else maybe we're just not a good match for your family. That's why there are so many great daycares out there. :)

I cook hot food a majority of the time. Sometimes we'll do stuff like cold cuts and veggies for lunch, or cold cereal and fruit for breakfast. More often though we do homemade soups and stews and casseroles for lunch, and stuff like homemade pancakes, waffles, fruit crisp, or breakfast casseroles. I don't have the luxury of just ripping open a box most times, and if I do, it really doesn't taste that good. (Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast using gluten-free Bisquick and almost all the kids threw it out. My homemade ones are much tastier!)

Here's a sample big-kid menu:

Breakfast:
hash-brown muffins with eggs and veggies: I use this recipe (I love pinterest!) and scramble the eggs and put in chopped veggies. I've been calling them "nest-eggs" to distinguish them from our other casseroles.

Lunch:
Chicken and rice soup, apple slices, and milk.

Snack:
GF pretzels, red bell pepper slices

My philosophy of food is that I will cook meals as healthy and tasty as I can make them. My job is to offer a variety of foods at appropriate times. The child's job is to decide whether or not they're hungry, if they want to eat the meal, and how many helpings. I don't short-order cook for kids who don't like what I'm serving. I explain to them that the next meal is several hours away and that they might get hungry if they don't choose to eat their food. But it's the child's choice. I don't think they will starve if they don't eat, and I'm not going to offer a bunch of empty calorie snacks in between meals just because they turned up their nose at the veggies. Besides, gluten free snacks are hideously expensive. Many reasons why I just don't do it.

I also don't serve juice. When Duchess was three and she had her first trip to the dentist, he commented that he could tell we never gave her juice. He said it's just as bad for kids' teeth as soda. Between that, the sugary calories, and the recent arsenic business, not to mention the fact that I would go broke trying to serve as much juice as this many kids would be willing to drink, I just don't do it. They get milk at meals, they get water in between. Every now and then we have a tea party and I make decaf white tea and we get all hoity-toity. Sometimes I make whole fruit smoothies. (love my blendtec!) But no juice.

And there you have it. Please understand that the purpose of this post is just to lay out what we choose to do, so that you can see if it matches what you want for your child. I am not trying to say that you are wrong or bad if your kid drinks juice at home, or if you cook their favorite thing every night in addition to whatever you're eating, or just whatever. No judgment here at all. There are many, many good ways to raise a child, and tons of different paths that all lead to productive members of adult society. My grandmother used to say, "you raise your kids to suit yourself", and that's totally true. Different things suit different people and if you do something else, that doesn't mean it isn't a valid choice.

Friday Focus: Aurora

2011-12-02T09:48:00.008-06:00

This will be the last focus on Aurora! She's got two more weeks here and then she's off to preschool after the holiday. It's very weird to think of her being gone, since she's been here since she was six weeks old.

Teeny baby girl!
Big girl, eating cupcakes for Tarzan's birthday last month.

She's going to do such a great job at preschool. Most moms are apprehensive when their child leaves our program, and Aurora's is no exception. :) But really, for the most part, at three a kid is ready to go. When they get to the new place, they're one of the youngest instead of the oldest, and they learn SO MUCH in an amazingly short time. All the prep work that we do here suddenly clicks, and they're magically potty trained and practically reading. They're ready for field trips and computer time and they're so happy to be at big kid school. We work really hard on lots of things here, but being in a class where everybody is close to your age and ALL activities are geared toward that makes a big difference. Aurora is going to be in hog heaven in their huge kitchen area, and that makes me smile.

We Can Haz Veggie Soup

2011-11-30T14:16:00.003-06:00

As it starts to get cooler we eat a lot of soup. There are at least four or five different kinds that I make on a regular basis and most everyone likes it. Today I made some vegetable beef. And then I took pictures of everyone enjoying it. I love when people like my food, especially when it's kids getting some good veggies in their systems. (I also hid a cup of butternut squash in the breakfast this morning!)

Tigger's cheeks slay me. The eyelashes are pretty good too.

Asking for bowl number FOUR. You may notice it's a different color- he ate his and his sister's.

Silvermist had multiple bowls as well. She told me, "I enjoy this."

Mater made a valiant effort and then had to take a rest.

Well, I said most people liked it.... :) Hercules looked at the bowl and decided it wasn't even worthy of being put down in front of him. But this is one of my most favorite pictures of him. His mouth is actually full of milk.

Yummy Vegetable Beef Soup
1 lb ground beef
1/2 chopped onion
2 stalks celery
2 diced potatoes
1 chopped carrot
1 chopped bell pepper

Saute those all together. Add:
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
about 6 cups liquid- I used 1 can beef broth and 4 cups water with powdered beef bouillon
1/2 bag frozen corn
1 can mixed vegetables
2 bay leaves
Lawry's season salt and Mrs. Dash to taste

Let it all simmer about half an hour or so.

It's yummy! Kanga and I added the rest of last night's leftover yellow rice to our bowls. Even more yummy!

Naming Trends

2011-11-29T13:03:00.002-06:00

This really has nothing to do with anything, but sometimes I come across random stuff that I find interesting. I love names. I always like to know the whole names of the kids. I like knowing why they got named that and who it honored and how it got chosen. It's just fun stuff. Even though I don't plan to have more kids of my own, I still think about what I would name them if I did.

I think this Swedish study is interesting. We don't have any boys here who end in -y. I do tend to notice that a lot of little boys go by the y-nickname and then change it as they get older. Joey to Joe or Joseph, Nicky to Nick or Nicholas. That kind of thing. And I do know a grownup Billy who doesn't seem to be a criminal. :) y-names do make me think of Italian mobsters sometimes though.

Another study I read years ago has stayed on my brain. I can't find a link to it, but basically it said that moms with lower education levels tended to name their babies after expensive objects- stuff like Crystal, Porsche, and Jade. Moms who were college-educated trended names that ended in -n.

On our current roster we have no expensive object babies. However, Duchess, Tod, Copper, Alice, Tarzan, Hercules, Tigger, Roo, Lady, and Mater all end in -n. I'd say the theory works well in our case.

*of course, there are MANY lovely and educated names that just don't end in N. That's what the rest of our kiddos are. Don't be thinking that I'm trying to hate on your education level. Just mulling on a study.....

"Friday" Focus: Perdita

2011-11-28T12:33:00.002-06:00

Gotta get these focus posts done whenever I can! :) Happy Monday!

I haven't really said a lot about the babies lately since I've been focusing on getting the holidays started with the big kids. Perdita is five months old now and is just cute as a bug. A ladybug, in fact...

I babysat for her the Friday night before Halloween and we took her to the fall carnival at Duchess's school. We ran into Silvermist and her big sister Queen Clarion there, who was most pleased to find that they were both ladybugs.

Hermione Granger and Robin were very excited to take an honorary baby sister to the carnival with them. She was an angel and we got tons of comments on her cuteness.

She's very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We get the big eyed look quite a lot. I took this picture from the other room hoping to catch her playing in bed, but you see how well she notices things.

Alice has been very interested in Perdita. I think she really enjoys not being the smallest anymore and being able to crawl around and inspect babies littler than she is. The flash caught them both in a kind of crazy red eye thing, but they were both really happy about hanging out together.

Perdita's doing the standard five month old thing at the moment- life is just better when she's not sitting on her own bum. She's the happiest baby in the world as long as you can hold her. Unfortunately school is not always like that. She and I are having some summit meetings this morning regarding the five days off for Thanksgiving and the getting back into group care and all it entails. :) She's very convinced that being rocked to sleep and held by many extended family members is better than school. Shocking, I know. I feel her pain. No matter how fun school is, family vacation days are better. It's a sad, terrible lesson to learn....

Feasting

2011-11-22T15:13:00.005-06:00

Here we are, very serious about our mashed potato jobs:

Tarzan and O'Malley took charge of the washing and drying. Duchess and I peeled and chopped.

Silvermist scooped them all up and put them in the pot.

Aurora ran the water. (I was beginning to run out of jobs at that point, but she thought she was the bee's knees so it worked out fine.)

And then we ate tons of lovely food! I survived! Poor Kanga has bronchitis and had to stay home, but Mrs. Potts helped out and I did more of the cooking last night than I ordinarily would have, rather than letting the kids help. They like it a lot, but they are SO SLOW. :)

I forgot to take pictures while everybody was here. That makes me sad. But it was a little busy. I said 11:30, and it was closer to noon by the time I had everything on the table. I think it went well though! Some people were asking about various menu items, so here's what I have links to:

the Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes I put much less butter than it called for.
cornbread dressing
Ellie Krieger's cucumber salad
candy apple pie

We also had smoked turkey breast, sauteed green beans, and a lime jello salad that my family always makes for holidays. Real coca-cola is the key to that- all I had in the house was diet coke and so it separated into layers. Still tasty though. And I have to say, I'm kinda proud of myself that with the exception of the graham cracker crust on the pie, the entire dinner was gluten free AND soy free. (not dairy free though. I live for cream cheese dishes on holidays. My record is 8 blocks in one meal, spread throughout various dishes. I think only 3 this time. Maybe 4.)

Copper was trying really hard to get to Mater's lunch. But he had already eaten most of it. Plus it's not so sanitary to just let them all feed off the one tray. :) So I put Copper in a chair of his own and gave him some mashed potatoes.

I love the look on his face. Okay. I have successfully hunted and trapped my food. It is squishy. What the heck do I do with it now?

His answer? Finger paint awhile, then throw it on the floor. Don't think he ate one bite. But he had fun. And also ended up with potatoes in his eyebrows. Nice.

Focus: Tigger

2011-11-19T11:51:00.000-06:00

Tigger is a hot mess these days, which is to be expected for his age. He's into everything! He can climb way higher than he knows what to do with, and he's the reason there's a lock on the fridge. Definitely a kinesthetic learner right now. And smart! He watches me pretty closely during the morning just to check where I am. While I'm in the kitchen making breakfast I can see most of the playroom from there, but he always hides around corners to make mischief, or else tries to climb over the couch and banzai off the top in the hopes that I won't get there in time. Then after breakfast when I go in the playroom to do circle time and play, he's in the kitchen trying to climb inside all my major appliances. Silly, silly boy. I love that he's so careful about it though. It's kind of funny. And you could never say that he isn't learning a lot through all his sensory explorations.

I am seriously in love with this hat. It's hard to see the floppy dog ears on it in the picture, but they are SO great. And I love even more that HE loves the hat, and will cheerfully wear it around the house for us. If you ask him what the dog says, sometimes he just looks at you. Other times he'll say "ruff" with a straight face and no sound effects whatsoever. Just the word. "Rough". :)

What? I know we sit in the red wagon outside. Why not this one too?

It's a real shame this child is so ugly. Just look at him. Pitiful. Not at all photogenic.

Tigger has two great loves these days: bringing me the paper in the morning, and my father. Kanga says as soon as they turn into my street he starts yelling for both things. He knows my dad's truck and if he doesn't see it in front of the house, he starts in with the "where POP! POP?! where?" It's really sweet. When my dad comes home from work in the afternoons, he usually looks for Tigger before his own grandchildren. He gets a much more exciting reception that way. My kids are just, "oh hi pop." Tigger is running with open arms and fat dimply cheeks and drool, screaming for his honorary pop. So cute.

Look at the proprietary look there. I wouldn't try to make him get down anytime soon.

Thanksgiving Countdown

2011-11-16T12:44:00.004-06:00

Menu is set! I'll have a signup sheet for ingredients in the living room today, just because people are asking what they can bring. Don't feel like you have to though- I know this week is going to cost more at the grocery store and I plan accordingly. :) It's something I just like to do every year. But help is nice too, if you want. I'm good with it either way.

People were also asking why I start so early and what on earth I'm doing with the kids all that time for weeks ahead. Their attention spans aren't so long for most things and I don't want to overdo it, but they're perfectly happy to work on something everyday for fifteen minutes and then it takes us a month to get it done. For example? Turkey place mats with leaf feathers for all the guests.

After this day, I realized it was somewhere between lunacy and suicide to set that many of them loose with Mod Podge at the same time. I'm still cleaning up sticky. So, one at a time now, we go outside to choose leaves from the neighbor's yard and then come in to stick them to the paper turkeys. After all the kids have made one for themselves and for the babies, then we go with round two, and three, and sometimes four, to make sure that attending family members can have a place mat too. They're turning out cute and I'm going to laminate them all. You'll get to take them home after the feast is done.

So that takes a long time.

Then, as I mentioned before, for a week or so we were looking through grocery circulars and cookbooks and Pinterest at different recipes, and reading books about Thanksgiving to give them ideas about traditional foods. We get on all kinds of tangents explaining what various vegetables are, and what they taste like, and if they have gluten and I can or can't cook them.

Now that the menu is done, we'll do things like put graham crackers in ziploc bags for them to beat into crumbs with plastic hammers. They'll beat happily for twenty minutes, I'll have to transfer the pieces into new bags two or three times as they rip through them, and when they're done? We have ONE tiny step of the candy apple pie done. So I put the crumbs away and we do another step later on. Takes awhile.

The day we do the mashed potatoes, every kid who wants to help has his own job. I've got somebody at the sink washing potatoes and one with a towel to dry. For awhile I had to be the peeler, but now that's Duchess. Yay third grader! Then I chop them, and somebody else puts them in the pot. After they cook then we have mashers and mixers and butter people... it's a huge affair and takes all morning.

And then we take days off to do important motor skills work like hammer golf tees into a big pumpkin.

They hammered for almost two hours over the course of the day. Then I pulled all the tees out and they started over. Fun times.

Sum Up

2011-11-10T09:46:00.003-06:00

In Inigo Montoya's voice... no, there is too much... let me sum up...

I have gotten completely bogged down in the fact that it is Tigger's turn for Friday Focus, but my computer ATE about fifty pictures that included four really cute ones I was going to use of him. I'm at a stall while I keep thinking of the post in my head that makes no sense without those pictures, and I couldn't possibly write a post about anything else while it's HIS turn...

I'm one of those people who make a lot of rules for myself in my head and then feel terribly guilty about breaking them, even though very few other people even know them or would care if they did.

So. I'm just gonna move on.

We're getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. O'Malley, Aurora, Tarzan, and Silvermist are super excited about doing some cooking and planning. Hercules and Tigger are able to help some too, even though they're a bit clueless about the reasons. We've been looking through grocery store ads and I've been trying to talk to them about traditional holiday food. Turkey has sunk in. That and pie. Other than that, they keep thinking we're planning a tea party. They want to make cucumber sandwiches and cookies and strawberries and tea. You can tell we've had tea parties before. :) And those things would be fun, but I really want to do the whole big holiday meal. Hopefully today or tomorrow we'll have the menu settled and I can start having them do things to freeze.

In the meantime we're practicing on breakfast. They love to help me pour and stir.

Hercules is happy to be tall enough that he can climb up and help with the preschoolers but he's not quite sure what to do when he gets there. :)

We're also doing some fun fall crafts that I found on Pinterest. I am SO loving that website. I have a board now for daycare ideas. We take walks and save leaves to make all sorts of things, and I think we're going to do some other stuff for Christmas presents for moms and dads. We're just about done with the Mother Goose body work and instead of buying something else before the holidays we're just filling in with crafty stuff, reading, and cooking. It's nice.

Words

2011-10-27T07:45:00.003-05:00

I got out the dress up clothes yesterday- they've been in the attic for awhile so it's like they're brand new. Silvermist and Tarzan have been working through gender issues with the costumes.

Tarzan: "Silvermist tell me this not for boys!", waving a magic wand with a glittery star on the end.

Me: "You can use that if you want to! It's a wand. Like Harry Potter! He's a wizard."

Tarzan to Silvermist: "YEAH! See? I need this! I a LIZARD!!"

A Full Grown Lady!

2011-10-18T22:06:00.002-05:00

I really cannot believe how fast the time has gone. She's not one of the littles anymore at all. Guess we need to get her a collar and a license!

Body Work

2011-09-27T21:53:00.002-05:00

We're working on the Mother Goose Time's "My Amazing Body" this month. I have two weeks of curriculum left still because of all the sickness and nice weather. :) Either they're feeling bad, or it's too nice to stay in. But on days that we've been doing our MGT box, they're having a really good time. Tarzan is especially excited about it. He comes in every morning and asks me, "we do body work today? do circle time?"

The last few days have been about the senses. Yesterday we did smell, and we talked a lot about skunks. I really enjoyed the discussion. It's fun for me to try to explain things in a way that they really get. They wanted to know WHY the skunk smells so bad. And yeah, I could have used the phrase "defense mechanism" and left it at that. But I talk a lot. We looked at a photograph of a skunk and I asked them if he looked nice. "Yes! Like a kitty cat!" Tarzan tells me.

Okay, I say. So does he have sharp teeth? NO! Does he have sharp claws? NO! Does he have long legs for running fast? NO! So... what happens when another animal wants to fight him?

...crickets chirp while they ponder... and then O'Malley yells, "OH! He will get REALLY hurt!! And maybe DIE!!"

um, yes. Leave it to a four year old boy to make it about the murder death kill. So, I ask, "Do you think any fierce animals will want to come close to him if he smells REALLY bad?"

They were totally delighted. It made me laugh. OH! He can protect himself because he is so stinky! And he doesn't have to fight and die!

We're also working on the word "texture" this week, and talking about how different textures feel. Bumpy, sticky, stuff like that. Easy and fun to reinforce at home if you're so inclined. :)

Alice!

2011-09-26T17:47:00.008-05:00

Okay, so I haven't done a Friday focus in about three weeks. And I even told Alice's mom that it was her turn next.. two weeks ago. So sorry, Alice and family! :) I have fallen down on the job.

She doesn't look like she's interested in forgiving me, huh? I'm pretty sure there are some rude words in that thought process. :) Either that or the breakfast is super bad.

My kids were patting and poking and calling her name and making her laugh hysterically. Of course as soon as I tried to take video she stopped laughing. Oh well.

She is on the MOVE now, all of a sudden. Just a couple weeks ago she didn't even want to sit up by herself, and now she's full-on crawling and all over the place. She also has some serious jumping skills. I like watching her in the jumperoo because she stiffens out and still gets a lot of air. Looks like Riverdance. Very proper dancing.

We haven't seen her pull up on anything here yet- no big deal because she's not even seven months old yet for goodness sakes. :) I wasn't expecting that at all, but her mom sent a picture of her pulling up at home! Baby days fly by really fast in general, but even more so when your baby goes from 0-100 in less than a month.

Such a big girl. Pushing buttons and learning how to rule the world already.

Gems of Wisdom

2011-09-15T12:31:00.003-05:00

"Aren't I sweet? I am sweet to everybody! Except people at the store, because they are just annoying."

"My mommy and my daddy are BEST friends!!" (made me all warm and fuzzy. so cute!)

"No, you can't hold my baby. She doesn't like monsters!"

I need a tape recorder to just carry around all day. Some of the really good ones have left my brain. Right now they're currently obsessed with "Baby Stephanie", who is a large rock living in my backyard. They're very gentle with her- rock and hold her and kiss her. It's one of the strangest games I've seen in awhile, but they all love it. They fight over who is going to hold her and whose turn it is to wheel her around in the carriage.

And I have to put this picture up even though it has nothing to do with anything- it brightens my day. Hercules for some reason woke up extra sweaty the other day and all I did was smooth his hair up instead of down. Definitely did not expect it to stay like that on its own. :) He's a good sport!

Friday Focus: Twins!

2011-09-02T15:51:00.001-05:00

Okay, most times they will get their own posts. I usually hate when two separate things (or in this case people) get combined. Your birthday is in late December? One present when everybody else gets two! Got twins? Only half the airspace because you gotta share with your brother. He's practically the same as you right? Yeah, no. I really hate that. But for introduction purposes and all that, and because I haven't settled on disney names for them, today they gotta share.

Seriously, how cute are they? And the novelty of having twins here has been really fun. Everybody fawns over them and they lap it up. I'm looking forward to the cooler weather so I can show them off in the stroller. Right now it's been still too hot to take them out.

I don't actually remember which one of them is the oldest. I guess I've got a 50% chance of being right if I say it's him, right? Anyway, at first he was the more serious one, although he's quick to laugh if he likes you. He's just a bit more suspicious right up front. His giggle is awesome though. He hands it out regularly now that he knows us.

And here is his brother. He gets so excited. Smily all the time. And I absolutely love his laugh- it's really low for a baby. he heh hehe.

I've been kicking around a couple of options for their blog names. I like Gus and Jaq, the little mice from Cinderella, because of the way they laugh. That's a bit obscure though, and sometimes it gets complicated using names that sound like they could be real. We've had several real- life Jacks in the past few years. But it's a possibility. The other names I like are Tod and Copper from the Fox and the Hound. I think I'm leaning toward those, but really I could go with either one. Thoughts? There's a poll on the sidebar. Please vote!!

Summer Lovin'...

2011-09-01T15:50:00.007-05:00

I carried a watermelon last night. It was heavy and as I was staggering up my walk to the front door I actually said out loud to myself that I was carrying a watermelon. Too bad I can't dance like Jennifer Grey. But yeah, I found a huge one that could accommodate our newest baby girl and so I snagged it. My husband still shakes his head and says I'm stealing their dignity and what do their mothers think?!?! They pretty much all laugh and say they can't wait to see the pictures. :)

Here's history on me and the watermelons. And the pumpkins. It makes me so very happy. I'm not quite sure why.

So. Here is my new itty bitty. Is she not fabulous?

Duchess and O'Malley are smitten with her. They keep trying to talk me into having another baby, and then I think they realize they like this one enough to just keep. So then it's "Mama? I weewee (really) want to be a big brudder. Why does her mommy have to come get her?"

Honorary big brother here. Available for permanent status whenever her current family is done with her.

For the blog I'm going to call her Perdita, the cute momma dog from 101 Dalmatians.

I put the watermelon outside in the yard for a few minutes with suran wrap around it to warm it up. A friend suggested it last night and I don't know why I haven't thought of that before. Warm and slimy is preferable to cold and slimy, yes? :) Then we set to work.

Ready to go outside. I have crazy eyes here because the shot before this one had closed eyes and I was trying to open wide this time. It's not really maniacal glee like you might think by looking. Perdita is happy in her towel, blissfully unaware of what's about to transpire.

Hmm... what have you people done to me? I am unsure about this...

I usually don't get full shots since modesty on the internet is an issue, but she behaved herself in such a ladylike way here that I get to show off her legs too. :)

She really did pretty well- most of the pictures are a variation of this. She's not exactly excited about it, but she's not screaming either.

My sister came over with her even smaller baby girl to use the other half of the watermelon. She was not so calm and serene about the experience. In fact she thought it was pretty terrible.

So she sat on her mama's lap for a minute and sucked her binky to feel better. And then she peed in the watermelon.

After that she felt better and was willing to let us take some more pictures where she wasn't crying.

I think it wasn't until we were back inside and ready for a nap that the enormity of the morning caught up to Perdita. She looks rather shocked, don't you think?

Friday Focus: Hercules

2011-08-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

Hercules continues to discover new things. Although we haven't been outside in awhile due to the ridiculously hot weather, it's still one of his favorites. He likes running around with the bubble accessories.

He also really likes electronic stuff. Sometimes he gets hold of O'Malley's "laptop". It makes him happy.

The need for sleep hits him at odd times and he just gives in. It's funny to come across him asleep in a corner somewhere. As long as he can find a doll blanket to snuggle up with, he's golden.

He cannot open the refrigerator door yet, but his partner in crime Tigger can. So Hercules will do this funny song and rain dance thing outside the fridge until Tigger comes and opens it. Then they both climb in and do what they can to wreak havoc on my food. They're getting very sneaky about it too- they always wait until Kanga is in the living room feeding or diapering a baby, and I am sitting on the floor surrounded by big kids building block towers or reading books. They're with me one minute, and all of a sudden they flee the playroom to dive into the fridge. By the time I can untangle myself from what I'm doing, they're climbing up the shelves so their heads touch the ceiling. Good times. Yesterday Tigger unwrapped a stick of butter and took a bite, while Hercules busied himself munching on half a cantaloupe. Pickle relish, chocolate sauce, butter paper, and tin foil everywhere, in twenty seconds flat.

Last night I bought a fridge lock. :)

Here's a time when I caught them before the disaster. They have so much fun it's hard to be mad. Exasperated, yes, but the nonstop sensory exploration of this age will continue no matter how I feel about it, so it's much easier to just roll with it.

Besides, sometimes I get this face. Who can be angry at this face?

Blue Tube, Bones, and Skin

2011-08-16T09:17:00.003-05:00

We bought a puzzle awhile back, thinking that soon the kids would be big enough to work it. It got put away for a few months and just recently returned to the playroom. Tarzan, Aurora, and O'Malley are now LOVING it. They still need a little help with it, so I do it eight or ten times a day while we sit and talk about it and they hand me pieces.

I've never seen this brand before, but now that I'm looking it up, there's a whole set. Very cool. There's even a pregnant lady one. We have the girl layered puzzle. The bottom layer is the skeleton, then organs, muscles, skin, and clothes. It's led to so many interesting discussions and teaching them about body systems. They started out with thinking the skeleton was gross- I guess their only frame of reference for it is Halloween and gory stuff. So we talked about how everybody has bones inside and how they protect your squishy parts. :) Tarzan is excited about his skull to protect his squishy brain and goes around knocking himself on the head and yelling about his hard skull. It's pretty funny.

O'Malley's favorite is the organ layer. It shows all the main organs with the systems in different colors. You can trace each color through and see the functions. I love it. At dinner the other night he choked on his food and then told me how his food went down the blue tube to his lungs, instead of going down the green tube to his belly like it was supposed to.

We haven't talked much about muscles except to poke their biceps and talk about how muscles make you strong.

The skin layer weirded them out a bit at first too. Such the stigma on being nekkid. The puzzles are anatomically correct so we talk about how it's a girl and how everybody has skin to hold all that other stuff inside.

I love finding cool stuff like this. I never would have thought about teaching preschoolers the digestive system, but with this puzzle they really get it, on their level. It's so fun!

Friday Focus: Mater

2011-08-12T14:41:00.003-05:00

This age is just so much fun. Mater is pulling up on everything, and aside from the occasional bump or bruise, he's having a great time. He's starting to get really interested in everything the big kids do- he really wanted to make an animal collage. Real bad. :) We kept having to move the sticker pile to the opposite end of the table, and he just followed it back and forth.

He and Lady are also enjoying some table food. Usually at breakfast we give them something to do while everybody eats. Mater doesn't generally get a whole lot in his mouth, but he's getting better and loves the attempt. Lady is a little more aggressive with it- if we don't put her in a chair first she's a cereal thief. Luckily I have enough rice krispies to go around.

He doesn't really like to be still long enough to finish a bottle. If we try to hold him he squirms to get down, and if we lie him down he just flips it over his head and goes on the prowl. He's at the perfect height to chew on the windowsills and the entertainment center. So confinement is the best option- that way he's forced to stay and eat. :) Like this:

However, on this occasion, he either dropped the bottle or threw it. I'm not sure which. And that angered him. He was a man on a mission- gotta get that snack back!!

It was really fun to sit there and watch him problem solve. He kept giving me this look- aren't you going to HELP ME?!?! But he wasn't upset, and I wanted to see what he would do next. Sure enough, he leaned down far enough to grab it.

And then I helped him. :) He was so happy to have gotten it, and he would giggle when I said, "Mater! You big boy you got it!" but in between he was telling me "don't you see me using my head as a third hand? I am stuck now... please help..." So then he was perfectly happy and finished his food.

Time off For Good Behavior

2011-08-10T16:45:00.003-05:00

Tarzan tee-teed on the potty! Woo hoo! :) We use whatever motivation works around here, and what he wanted for a reward was getting to play some Wii with O'Malley. They had a really good time!

He's Got Rhythm

2011-08-10T11:53:00.003-05:00

If ever you are having a bad day, I would dare to say this might make you smile. We do, every time.

Friday Focus: Tarzan

2011-08-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

Tarzan boy! Thankfully he does not swing from chandeliers or anything like that. :) When I think of him as Tarzan, I actually sing the Backyardigans Tarzan song in my head rather than the Disney one- "I'm Tarzan, I'm Tarzan, I'm Tarzan the very strong...." He's been here most of the summer and I haven't done his own post yet- but now it's his turn!

He's an extremely cheerful kiddo most of the time. In fact, even when he's instigating something he ought not to be doing, or taking something from Aurora, he's got the sunniest smile. It's hard to fuss at him because he always looks so genuinely happy- not a malicious bone in his body. Just not so much paying attention sometimes and not sure of his own strength....

I have a "Who's on First" type conversation ongoing with him. He says "me want" most of the time, and I keep trying to tell him that it's "I want". But when I say that, he says "No YOU want. Me want!" And then I say, "no, you say I want instead of me want..." So far the nuances are kind of lost on him. But he speaks way better Spanish than I do, so I guess you can't have it all when you're not even three. :)

He talked about his new monkey every day for quite awhile after our event. It made him happy. That makes me happy too.

"Look! Me on scooter board!"

I also love the way he counts- it always starts 1, 9, 6. I have a feeling there must be some important number that goes that way, maybe a phone number or something, because no matter how many times we discuss that 2 is supposed to come after 1, he never says it until after 9 and 6. Wish I knew what he was thinking when he counts, because I can tell there's a reason. I just can't figure out what it is.

HOT

2011-08-04T19:53:00.002-05:00

Life stinks here. We are at day 35 of over 100 degrees. And it's not 101. It's more like 108 or 109. When Kanga goes out at the end of the day to start her car, the temp usually reads between 118 and 133. I actually shrieked when I saw that one. We do not live in the Sahara Desert here. This is ridiculous.

Needless to say I can't remember the last time we played outside. I put the quad stroller on the back porch tonight because I can't remember the last time we used that either and I don't see it in our near future.

The playroom used to be our garage. It has its own AC unit back there, but the insulation is not as good as the rest of the house. It's having trouble keeping up. It's fine in the mornings most of the time but by the afternoon we don't want to be in there.

I think there's something to be said for lying on the tile floor and panting like a dog. I can see now why they do it.

I also think there's going to be a water day coming up very soon, even if I have to flood my kitchen and do it inside. The thought of going out right now gives me hives, even if sprinklers are involved.

Did I mention it's hot?

Friday Focus: Lady

2011-07-29T06:55:00.000-05:00

And again I have to say, WOW time with a baby flies by. Lady is doing so many things that she wasn't the last time I wrote about her. She crawls, she pulls up, she is a woman on the go.

I was trying to take a picture since she and Alice matched, but she kept lunging at me. I couldn't get both babies in focus because the camera kept trying to adjust for her sudden movements. So it's not great of Alice, but look! Matching monkey girls!!

It's been really hard to get her to finish a bottle lately. She doesn't want to be held- clearly none of the big kids sit in our laps to eat. So why would she let us do it to her? And then when we try to lie her down in the boppy to eat, there are far more interesting things to do and people to see so she flips it over her head and is off like a shot.

Don't bug me. I'm busy. This toy tastes much better than the milk my mom works so hard to provide.

Yesterday she was sitting just like that on the kitchen floor while we were getting breakfast ready. The bigger kids were going back and forth between the playroom and dining room and she was just hanging out watching. All of a sudden she sneezed so hard that she lost her balance and threw herself over backwards. Banged her head on the tile. She was highly offended and let us know it. I couldn't stop laughing. It happened so fast there was nothing I could do to catch her- she was just laid out on the floor in a flash. Kanga came around the corner all set to put somebody in uh-oh sad time. "Did somebody push her over? What happened?" Nope. They were all standing around with wide eyes watching her sneeze herself right over.

Usually I'm lucky...

2011-07-25T10:30:00.003-05:00

Kanga always yells at me because I don't play the lottery. Because sometimes I am lucky. If there's a door prize when we go somewhere, I win. Most times.

Karly at Buns in my Oven, which is a fabulous recipe blog I read, is doing a contest where I could maybe win a $100 gift card to Best Buy. I would like that. You should go read her post about the super cool fridge. It would be amazing to win THAT! I definitely would need a lock on it though. I keep finding people using fridge as AC and trying to climb the shelves in search of tasty snacks. If there was internet involved and interesting buttons to push, it would be even worse. But wow it would be cool!!

I like winning. Duh. Winning....

Friday Focus: Roo

2011-07-22T09:06:00.004-05:00

These days Roo is a pirate. All pirate, all day long. She goes around yelling "AARRRRR" at everyone and I've downloaded quite a few kid pirate songs. Seems like every cartoon has done at least one episode. Lazy Town, Dora, the Backyardigans... I'm glad there's lots of choices. And Island Explorer summer makes her very happy. She has trouble keeping the eyepatch in place, but she sure does love it!

I think I'm going to make a treasure chest cake when her birthday rolls around. I can't believe my Pink Ladies are going to be three so soon. The birthdays start in two weeks and then it's one after the other. We'll be eating a lot of yummy cake around here for awhile! :)

Seems like overnight her hair has grown by leaps and bounds. It took forever for it to get long enough for pigtails, but now it is!! I so love her hair like this. For the most part she keeps them in too, which is nice. We've come a long way from this:

That picture was April of last year, so she was just past eighteen months. And yeah, that was half her life ago, but still. So much development in the past year. She was still stationary enough to be in the bumbo on the table! And now she's got a sporty new wheelchair on order. They brought a few over during therapy awhile back for her to test out. It was so COOL to watch her motor around!!

In September she'll graduate ECI and go off to morning preschool through the school district. It's going to be weird to only have her here in the afternoons, but I am so looking forward to hearing about her days at big girl school. Academically she's totally ready. She knows her colors, counting, numerals, letters, shapes... smart girl!

And yes, Aurora was hungry. Oh well. The sound on these videos is always ridiculous because there's so much going on around here!

Noah's Ark Animal Workshop

2011-07-21T12:07:00.009-05:00

We had a home field trip yesterday! I don't know why more companies don't do this- it's so great for small operations like us. I do not transport. Ever. There are too many littles who need car seats and aren't independently mobile, and I'd need a bus or something. Craziness. So when the Noah's Ark lady called and asked to set something up for us, I jumped on it. It was really nice to have something new and different for the kids to do. They've been excited about it for a week! We asked everybody to wear a shirt with an animal on it to get into the spirit of the day. We had monkeys, fish, frogs, pandas, lions, and a mouse, among other things.

I'd never heard of Noah's Ark before- it's set up similarly to Build-a-Bear Workshop, except she comes to the house like a Tupperware party. The kids get to choose an animal, stuff it themselves, do a little wishing star ceremony thing, and get a birth certificate. There's special pricing and just a few choices for daycares, but we were happy. She said the tie-in right now is that Zookeeper movie, so the kids got to pick a giraffe, monkey, or lion. The lion was super cute, but everyone wanted giraffes and monkeys.

After all the kids got their animal skins, Miss F talked about how to stuff them. They were careful to listen to the directions- it was actually pretty impressive. Here's Aurora and O'Malley, taking notes....

Okay, I got it! We put the fluffy stuff in here!

Tarzan begins the stuffing process...

Everyone joins in...

After the animals were all stuffed, Miss F handed out rainbow wishing stars, and they did a little bonding ceremony. It was pretty cute. First they held the stars up in the air and made a wish.

After that she asked the kids what they wanted to do with their animals and then they would rub the stars on themselves and the animals.
If you want your animal to know your voice and listen to you, you have to rub the star on your ears! Then rub it on your animal's ears so he can hear you!

Animals recognize people by their special smell, so rub the star on his nose so he will always remember what you smell like...

The most important part of all- you want your animal to always love you, so rub your wishing star over your heart, and then tuck it inside with the stuffing!

Okay, give your animal a big hug- you're all done!

We tried repeatedly to interest the younger boys in this project, but it was no use. Hercules screamed and kicked when I tried to make him sit in my lap to stuff his monkey. He and Tigger were much more excited about getting to hang out in the living room with O'Malley's big kid toys that they usually don't get to use!
At least they'll get the future benefits of having the animal to snuggle at home. It's doubtful any of these kids will actually remember making them after awhile anyhow, except for maybe Duchess. :)

Then later on in the afternoon we made foam picture frames with animals on them. I took a picture of everybody with their new special animal friend and once I get them back from Apple I'll send them home to go in the frames. We made one for all the babies too, even though they didn't make animals with us. Mater helped a lot.

Love me some chunky Mater!!

Peekaboo Boys

2011-07-21T11:55:00.003-05:00

Watching Hercules and Tigger play makes me smile. It's so different than last year when we had girls this age. The noogies and horsing around make them so happy! They did this for at least ten minutes before I got the camera out.

Cheeseburger Soup

2011-07-18T13:31:00.003-05:00

I am uncomfortably full right now because lunch was extremely tasty. Everyone loved it and ate at least two bowls, including Tarzan, who generally thinks my food is weird. :) It makes a ton- a whole big pot full, and it's all gone. YUM.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
2 or 3 big carrots, grated
2 or 3 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper (the whole thing never makes it into the soup. I try to chop fast but the beggars usually steal at least half the pepper from the cutting board)
1 bag frozen hash browns (i think they're 2 lbs?)
32 oz chicken broth
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour (I used a sorghum and rice baking mix)
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheese
1/4 cup sour cream

Brown the beef in a skillet. Then in a big soup pot put 1 T of the butter and saute the veggies until they're soft. Add the meat and hash browns, stir, and add broth. Heat through and cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Melt the remaining butter in the microwave, stir in the flour and milk, and add mixture to soup to thicken. Add cheese, stir till melted, and add sour cream just before serving.

This is more like chowder, or what Rachael Ray calls "stoup". It's really hearty and thick, but the spoon doesn't stand up by itself. :) I like to eat it with potato chips and treat it like it was dip. But then, I'm sometimes very strange. I like the extra crunch and salt though- maybe crush them and put them on top? I guess since I can't have crackers, I tend to lean toward chips with soup.

Friday Focus: Aurora

2011-07-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

Aurora is nothing if not consistent. I was going to talk about her pretending to be a puppy all the time and I realized I wrote about that last time. Oh well. There's something to be said for finding what you like and sticking with it. :) She also still loves the plastic corn and donuts and cooks for us on a regular basis.

I think I have a picture of every kid who was here that day in an eyepatch. It's definitely been one of their favorite pirate island activities so far. Aurora's other favorite was the "beach snack" we made from blueberry yogurt and graham cracker crumbs, with little chunks of fruit for the crabs. That one was pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

I really have no idea what was going on here, but all we need is Roo or Tarzan in the picture to do "see no evil" and we've got it all covered.

Life in the 100 Acre Woods- a Photo Essay

2011-07-12T15:18:00.004-05:00

Kanga's kids have a typical love/hate sibling relationship. They hug, scream at each other, take toys and give them back... nothing too crazy there. However, they do run into different kinds of challenges since Roo isn't walking yet. She commando crawls lightning fast, and is making good progress on regular crawling. But Tigger can run. And Roo can't catch him. The pleasure this fact gives Tigger is nearly equal to the frustration and hatred I'm sure Roo feels. I can't help but laugh at them both though. And also take pictures.

Here we have Roo, currently minding her own business with the green pot. She's obsessed with the plastic broccoli (bwok-o-wee) lately and can often be found with kitchen utensils. You can tell the look on her brother's face is something like, "OH. Busted. Didn't know she was sitting there. I'm not guilty. Or planning anything. For reals."

Whether pre-meditated or spontaneous, the snatch occurs next. Roo tries, but alas, is not quick enough to grab it back.

He's singing into the pot at this point. It's not quite nanny nanny boo boo, but it's close. The look on her face makes me laugh. Defeat. She knows she could get down, but it would take awhile, and then what? Lick his ankles?

The boy runs. He squats; he laughs; he mocks. She appeals to me for help. I ask her, "How did Tigger make you feel?"

And there, my friends, is a picture worth 1000 words. Since she doesn't know to say, "I will cut you", I think it's perfect. :)

After I stopped laughing, I did make Tigger give his sister back her bwokowee pot. And then all was well again.

Pasta Salad

2011-07-11T14:01:00.004-05:00

One of the things Silvermist pesters her mom to make most often is pasta salad. We tend to eat it at least once a week here. In fact, it got comical because we realized that we were making it every Friday for awhile. This would be no big deal except for the fact that Roo has speech therapy every Friday during lunch time and they like to see her eat, to check on her mouth positioning and all that. The therapist commented that she'd only seen Roo practice on pasta salad for the last four weeks. :) Oops. But yeah, everyone likes it because I put a ton of different stuff in it, and they can all pick through it. Some kids eat the whole plate. Bianca used to pick out the veggies and leave the pasta on the plate. Chip always leaves a big pile of celery. With Aurora it's the cucumber. At least I feel like they have a lot of options and are getting exposed to different textures and tastes.

The problem with trying to write out this recipe is that there isn't one. I make it differently every time based on what's in the fridge. Some days it's awesome, and there have been times where it's just missing something and I'm not sure why it doesn't taste as good. But it's very forgiving and you can throw in or leave out what your family will or won't eat.

Basically it's got several components that are a must, then within each set of ingredients things get switched up. It needs:

pasta
sauce
veggies
fruit
protein

For the pasta, cook a pound of something small- shells or spirals or elbows. Drain, rinse, and ice. I leave it in the sink with a bunch of ice cubes in the colander and occasionally run more water over it while I chop veggies. The colder the better.

For the sauce you've got several options. Usually I start with sour cream or plain yogurt and maybe a spoonful of mayo or a squirt of ranch added in. I never measure anything when I make this, which is problematic when I want to remember a time when it was particularly good. Then I add spice. Almost always some Lawry's seasoned salt and Mrs. Dash. We love both of those. And then something else- sometimes it's lemon pepper, other times it's a Homemade Gourmet mix. I used to sell that stuff and I have a lot in the cabinet. My favorites are Cilantro Citrus and Mock Spinach, which is mostly dill and garlic I think. Oh, and fresh basil from the garden when I can.

Occasionally I use Italian dressing as a base and then put McCormick's Salad Supreme on it. When I do that though, I like different protein. Hunks of mozzerella, and definitely leave out the fruit! My family likes this one a lot, although some of the daycare kids tell me it's too spicy. It's not really, but it's got bold flavor for sure.

For fruit I almost always use a drained can of mandarin oranges, but I've used red grapes a couple times too. It just seems to taste a lot better when there's a little sweet fruit in it.

And then protein- a couple handfuls of shredded cheese and whatever cold lunchmeat type stuff I have. Cubes of turkey ham, rotisserie chicken, just whatever needs to come out of the fridge.

And then I chop a ton of veggies. The standards are carrot, celery, red bell pepper, cucumber, green onion, and zucchini. I put them all if I have them. And usually buy extra for the beggars who stand by the chopping board. :)

Everything but the kitchen sink pasta, yes? It's yummy. Just throw tons of stuff in there and serve it cold. I'll add pictures next time I make it so it's easier to visualize. I have a feeling I made it sound way more complicated than it is.

Friday Focus: Silvermist

2011-07-01T11:27:00.005-05:00

Silvermist continues to entertain us all on a daily basis. She says some pretty outrageous things and they usually come out of nowhere, which makes them funnier. This morning she was in the kitchen trying to walk with a pink plastic phone between her knees. When I asked her why, she informed me that she had to put it somewhere, and she did not have any pockets in these shorts!

She's turned into my best eater lately. (Part of that is because Stitch is gone. There was nobody to touch her on sheer quantities eaten.) Mostly I think it's because her mom cooks the most like I do, being that we are both food allergy families. She isn't surprised by fruits and veggies, loves to try new things, and hardly ever tells me she doesn't like something. I'm going to start posting more recipes soon, because she goes home and asks her mom to cook all this stuff that I make. It's kind of fun. I'm more accustomed to the type of kid who professes to only eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs and wants to know why my mac and cheese isn't bright orange. I love that while I'm making lunch, Silvermist is usually standing right there by the cutting board begging for bell peppers or celery or whatever I'm chopping. Okay, well honestly I could deal with a bit more personal space. I've stepped on her a couple times because she sneaks up behind me very quietly. But she gets her veggies in, and the fact that she stands there munching makes a couple of the other kids do it too, even if they won't eat the lunch once it's cooked and plated.

Chip looks a bit shell shocked here. I think this hug was a sneak attack.

We're having Island Explorer summer- lots of islands and ships and pirates and treasures and seashells. Eyepatch day was a big hit for everyone.

"Did you take a picture of me? Why not? Take one of me! Do I look pretty? Let me see!"

And she just informed me that she has big snarls in her hair and so she has to go to the doctor. I'd like to see just what he plans to do about that...

Friday Focus- Tigger

2011-06-24T10:37:00.004-05:00

Here's the Tigger man, embracing his Thai roots during Songkran. He had such a great time playing in the water that day! We're definitely going to have to make it an annual event.

I'm not quite sure how Kanga ended up looking like the devious one in this picture- Tigger is all about mischief these days! He's a whirling dervish of energy. He stands on his sister to use her as a stepping stone for higher shelves. He steals everyone's drinks. He climbs on top of the table. He mostly refuses to use his words and instead chooses to emit a high-pitched shriek that stabs an ice pick into your brain. The two of us probably tell him fifty times a day, "Honey, that is SO loud! Please use your words!"

And yet, he is magical and fabulous and SO MUCH FUN. He gives the best squishy hugs of any kid I've ever taken care of at this age, including my own children. He squeezes tight and doesn't want to let go. It's very nice. He's got the most contagious drooly smile and when he's happy, it's the best thing ever.

Also, his future's so bright, he's gotta wear shades. For about 14 seconds. Then he rips them off his head.

Speaking of his future, he's got actor, makeup artist, or con man down cold. He has stolen his Kunyai's eyebrow pencil out of her bathroom so many times that she finally used it on him in revenge. Personally, I think the best revenge is then posting pictures on the internet. Let this be a lesson to you when you think of college, Tigger... there are people with cameras everywhere, willing to document your silliness for posterity!
Tigger and Roo are deep in the throes of sibling rivalry already. He is relishing the idea that he can now RUN up to her, snatch her toys, and run away. He likes to sit and /or stand on her whenever possible too. She's learning the fine arts of tattling and defending herself. It's a sight to behold. She'll be pinned to the floor as he sits on her legs and hollers, and she's yelling "BUBBA! HUSH! Get off!" And in the car I'm told Kanga gets a lot of "MOMMA! Bubba look me!" I had thought that not-quite-three was too young for the "he's looking at me make him stop" thing, but apparently not. Oh well.

Friday Focus- Alice

2011-06-20T17:26:00.003-05:00

World, meet Alice. Alice, meet the world...

Well, maybe in a few minutes when you're done with your nap.

I don't have a whole lot of pictures of her just yet. My camera ran out of batteries a few days into her start here and I keep forgetting to buy more. We're having such a good time with her- she's had pretty much zero issues in transition and is a really content baby. I love her sunny little personality. When she first arrived she'd just look at you very seriously while deciding if she liked you. Usually you'd get the huge grin, but occasionally if something didn't meet her approval she'd give The Lip. The bottom one sticks out, it shakes, and you can't help but laugh. She's so happy now that we hardly ever see it anymore. I kinda miss it a little. Not that I want her to be upset, of course, but it really is a fabulous Lip. She's got great emotions- her smiles come out of nowhere and catch you off guard with their brilliance, and the sadness pretty much does the same thing.

We still haven't seen her roll over. Her mama says she's done it at home so I keep expecting to find her across the room at some point soon. So far she's staying where we put her and just hanging out. She loves watching the big kids and O'Malley and Silvermist especially like to talk to her. "OOH! Baby Alice smile at me! Baby Alice likes me! She so cute!" O'Malley likes to call her by her Full Official First and Middle Name, which I think is adorable with his little R and L speech issues. Her middle name has both sounds and he mutilates it pretty impressively.

Here she is on the butterfly mat she likes best. She was smiling really big for me and then she stuck her hands in her mouth right when I snapped the picture, so I didn't really get the full effect of the sunshine.

Comings, Goings, and Updates

2011-06-17T11:45:00.002-05:00

Summer is always such a time of transition for us. Lots of people usually want to begin or end care in May, or else in August when school starts back, and lots of families have vacations or different summer work schedules or just changes going on. I've been trying to update the sidebar to reflect who's currently here, who we're expecting, and what's going on in general. We've had several interviews lately and several more pregnant ladies call to inquire about upcoming spots in the fall. It's sometimes hard for me to gauge when we'll have an opening since we don't have a graduation date that's carved in stone. I have a lot of provider friends who say they keep kids until their second or third birthday or some other date that's pre-arranged. It does make things much easier all around, I think, to know when graduations are looming so that spaces can be filled, and also so families know when to expect that their child will be moving on. We haven't done that up till now because we have our own small children here and it seems arbitrary to say we graduate at 3 when my 4 year old is here. I think once Tigger gets to be 2 or 3 though, we will institute a graduation date. Most families prefer to have their child in a more formal preschool-type setting for at least one year before starting kindergarten anyway.

Until then, we're trying to figure out who's staying and who's going. :) Bianca and Stitch have both gone home for the summer. Last summer when they did that things were slower and their spots were still available for them in the fall. If things keep up like they are so far this summer, that won't be an option this year. We're getting calls left and right! We've already got a new full time boy who I think will be Tarzan, and a new teeny girl starting August 1. This business is so fluid though- there's just no way to know if we'll actually be full when they want to come back. People move or get laid off or take their child to the new work-sponsored daycare that just opened or Grandma decides to watch them... so many variables.

But as of this minute, we have Tarzan and ... Alice, maybe? or Perdita? not sure what our newest baby girl's disney name will be. And Stitch and Bianca are currently in the former client list, but may be moved back. :)

Friday Focus- O'Malley

2011-06-10T11:15:00.000-05:00

My O'Malley is getting so big that it makes my heart squeeze. I'm having a lot of trouble with the idea that this coming year will be his last one at home here before he's off to kindergarten. I don't think I'll be homeschooling like I did with Duchess- she wasn't really ready to leave me. This boy has had the experience of watching big sister head off every morning as long as he can remember, and has a t-ball team full of boys who will be in his class. He has zero interest in any extra time at home with momma. Plus our Wii is a ginormous distraction and it's not as easy to engage him in learning these days. I think he'll have less conflict at school. :) Plus he can show off his cool Star Wars gear to a more appreciative audience.

I've been woefully neglecting my personal blog lately and a couple friends have told me that they're jonesing for crazy stories. Here's one that is totally at my expense and nothing to do with daycare, but it's funny so I'll spill:

Let's face it- 40 is closer than 30 and after kids my legs don't look like pristine cheerleader legs anymore. I was really hoping I'd be about 65 before I had spider veins or other things that I usually pretend do not exist. I wear jeans or capris most of the time and it's rare for O'Malley to actually see my whole leg. Awhile back on a weekend I was lounging around in some shorts and he came running in to pounce on my lap. We snuggled and tickled and he scooted all around on my lap and then tooted really loud. Of course he laughed hysterically like it was the best thing that ever happened and I had to give him a hard time about doing it right in my lap. I made him get up. He turned around and looked back at me and got this horrified look on his face, checking a vein on my thigh- "Oh, MAMA! Did I do that?!?!"

Yes, son, you did, just not today. I wish I could blame him for farting that spider vein right onto me, but alas, they're not so easy-on OR easy-off. :)

That's all I can think of at the moment- I'm working on updating a lot of blog stuff today since numbers are down and things are pretty quiet.

Friday Focus- Chip

2011-06-03T15:50:00.004-05:00

I have even fewer pictures of Chip this time around than I usually do. None at all in the month of May. Finally found this one from April and couldn't figure out why it was such a weird angle, and then I realized O'Malley took it. I guess you can't expect miracles if you hand the camera to a four year old.

Chip has refused to talk to us for a really long time now- to the point where Roo's speech therapist has mentioned that she's never heard him say a word. Mrs. Potts tells us constantly how many new words he has every week, and while I didn't think she was lying, I was kind of thinking it might be the kind of thing where it was baby gibberish that only mama could understand. I mean, the kid said NOTHING to us. Point and grunt only. For months. No answers to questions, no commentary, nothing. If he absolutely had to make himself understood, he'd do this mime thing where he'd raise his eyebrows and mouth the words with zero sound.

Last week he decided to show us all the words he does in fact know. I was flabbergasted. The kid knows all his colors! He stood and watched me unload the dishwasher and pointed out each dish, named its color, and told me which friend uses that dish.

Plate. Orange. O'Malley.
Cup. Purple. Silvermist.
Plate. Green. Aurora.

He tells us about his sister and his mom and dad and asks us to read books and names the colors for everything. It's quite startling to go from 0-60 like this. Mrs. Potts is so pleased- it's like we just finally met the Chip who lives at her house. :)

Monthly Recap- May

2011-06-01T09:16:00.006-05:00

Things have been pretty busy around here, as evidenced by my sad lack of posting lately. We had a new baby start this week and she's settling in nicely. So far she's very laid back and easy- just sleeps and eats and plays and smiles.

I love the way she sleeps with her arms flung out over her head. It doesn't look particularly comfy to me, but hey it works for her, and it's cute. :)

Mater and Lady are working hard on getting mobile- any day now I expect to see them crawling. They've both decided that they don't like hanging out in the living room much anymore and like to spend more time in the playroom watching the big kids.

We had a dinosaur day a couple weeks ago that everyone enjoyed. The kids helped me make stegosaurus sandwiches for lunch and we did lots of playing and learning about dinosaurs of all kinds.

Okay, so you really have to squint one eye and use your imagination- but this is our stegosaurus. Quesadilla body, chips for spikes, red pepper and cheerio for his face, and mandarin orange legs. Luckily the kids are young and easily forgiving when it comes to my artistic... lack. Plus when you're 2 1/2 and you make it yourself, you think it looks great regardless. :)

We're starting a unit called Island Explorer today- lots of ships and water and islands and pirates for the next month. Should be exciting. Duchess will be home for the summer, Stitch and Bianca will be away, and we've got a couple interviews scheduled. This seems to be a big time of year for change, right around the end of school and then again in August when it starts back up.

Friday Focus- Hercules

2011-05-13T16:15:00.002-05:00

Hercules is pretty much nonstop motion these days. He and Tigger like to get into lots of trouble together. They're both in a stage that we call "more skill than sense". They CAN do it, and it doesn't yet occur to them that they SHOULDN'T do it. They're constantly reaching up on counters and tables and pulling stuff that they can barely see down onto their heads. Everything goes in their mouths. Well, except lunch. He's not so much excited about eating actual food lately. He likes to practice with the spoon, but most meals he's not interested in eating by himself or in having me feed him- he's far too cool for that. :)

He's so fair that I rubbed lots of sunscreen all over his head when we celebrated Songkran, and amused myself greatly creating mohawks and fabulous hairstyles. Hercules was less amused.

He very much enjoys being the big boy and likes to help with the babies. He actually did a pretty good job helping to feed Lady the other day, as long as I was right there to supervise. :) He does still try to steal a swig out of the bottles now and then when he comes across one, even though he hasn't had a bottle here in about six months. It's all about taking opportunities when you find them!

Huh? What are you looking at?

Friday Focus- Bianca

2011-05-12T11:19:00.001-05:00

Bianca is really talking up a storm lately. Some of the things she says might be a coincidence, but they are AWESOME conversation starters that make me fall down laughing. The other day my dad brought in the mail and my Entertainment Weekly magazine had come. I could tell there were two people on the cover but couldn't see them so I asked him who they were. He is highly silly on a regular basis and goes, "Oh, you know, it's those Breaking Wind people." (Bella and Edward from Breaking Dawn, of course.) And just at that point Bianca pipes up and says, "OH! You make poopy?" I can't be sure if she was just asking a random question or if they call it that at her house and I keep forgetting to ask. But it made me laugh for a very long time.

She had a lovely time hunting for eggs during our annual event.

There's always somebody who is not happy about playing in water. It's not usually the same person twice- just a stage they happen to be in on that day, and I can't generally predict who it will be. I just know that at least one kid is going to be a little sad and uneasy about the water every single time we play in it. During Songkran it was Bianca. She had a super cute new swimsuit bought just for the occasion and she could not have been less interested in being wet. :)

She's in a very snuggly mood most days. When she first gets here in the morning she usually runs at me full speed so I can pick her up and she can bury her head in my shoulder for a minute. She does it at various times during the day too- I see her coming from across the room and if I don't brace myself we knock each other over. If I don't see her coming it's even worse- she'll sneak attack me from behind and I'm slammed into the kitchen counter with her face smashed into my side.
Sometimes she starts out by asking, "What happen dis?"

And I smile and say " I don't know Bianca, what happened with this?" and she throws her head back and laughs and yells "I WUV WOO" and bodyslams me for a hug.

She is also a killer dancer. I only caught the tail end of this one, but it's still fun. Lots of jumping with wild abandon.

All In My Head

2011-05-12T11:06:00.001-05:00

I have written so many witty and cute blog posts lately. In my head. Too bad I haven't gotten over here to actually type them. I'll see if I can get something besides the Friday Focus done each week. Not to mention I've been backdating those as well. Need to catch up!

We celebrated Songkran back in April and it was lots of fun. I did put the pictures on our facebook page but I haven't done any discussing. Besides the fact that playing in water is super cool, I really enjoyed learning a bit about traditional Thai customs from Kanga.

Oh! One of our favorite books right now is Llama Llama Red Pajama and we read it at least four times a week. Right now it's the featured book at Kohl's, so you can get it, another Llama Llama book, or a stuffed llama for only five bucks. I'll probably be heading over this week to pick up a few for my birthday present stash- I recommend you all get one for your kiddo if you don't already own them- Anna Dewdney is a genius and the stories are awesome.

Anyway. I do have fun posts on individual kids rattling around in my brain- they've done some crazy hilarious things lately. Off to download pictures and see what I can done while lunch cooks. :)

They Call Them Stereotypes For a Reason

2011-04-28T13:45:00.003-05:00

So this morning I took six kids out in the yard: Tigger, Chip, O'Malley, Aurora, Bianca, and Stitch. The others were sleeping, helping with lunch, or finishing up Go Diego Go. :) I gave them a choice today and not everybody picked to go out.

They swarmed out in a herd and all ran for the balls. We got a bunch of new ones recently that are still very exciting. O'Malley asked me if I'd throw some practice pitches for him to hit- he is Big Stuff on the t-ball team. And within five minutes, the three boys ALL had bats and balls in their hands and were mesmerized by the game, even 13 month old Tigger who is still in the drunk stagger stage of walking. He screamed when anybody came close to his bat and just stood there SO happy. Meanwhile, all three girls had put their balls into shopping carts or baby carriages and were wheeling them around the yard and ignoring the game.

I'm all for kids choosing their own play topics, but it's kind of funny to me that for the most part it seems like this stuff is hardwired.

Friday Focus- Mater

2011-04-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

It's Mater Man! He started right after it would have been his chronological turn for the Friday Focus so I'm just getting around to his first turn, but he's been here since January. He's three weeks younger than Lady and we've been having a great time watching him grow. He gets cuter every day. Love me some baby pudge.

He sneezes in the sunshine. I think that's one of my favorite little things about him. You step one foot outside the door and instantly he's seized with multiple sneezing. It's so cute.

AAAH-CHOO!!!

I am fierce like a lion. I will fight you. Look out for me!!

This bumbo is okay for awhile, but then I try to climb out of it sideways. I don't like to be contained in it for very long!!

And apparently, although I didn't know it at the time, I was subconsciously waiting to post this until I had the "I hate carrots" series of photos we shot yesterday. I hate to laugh at the baby's expense, but wow he hates carrots. We gave him a couple more mouthfuls after he let us know clearly that he was done, just because we needed more faces from him. It made my morning.

And he wasn't crying here- he was making hairball noises and trying to hack the disgusting veggies out of his mouth. For awhile he just sat there with his tongue hanging out, trying to make sure everything had dripped off before he had to taste it again. And these are not just your ordinary carrots from the jar- they're yummy homemade organic carrot baby food made by his daddy the chef. Silly, silly Mater! :)

He loves the Jumperoo but it wears him smooth out.

What?! I wasn't sleeping! Stop laughing at me, it isn't funny at all!

Friday Focus- Lady

2011-04-08T10:50:00.003-05:00

Miss Lady is already past five months old! I both love and hate how FAST the first six months goes. I still feel like she's brand new and just got here, but she's already rolling all the way across the room and eating cereal and working on trying to sit up.

I really like this expression on her face. It's completely pleasant and cheerful, and at the same time I feel like she's looking at me and going, "really? Is THAT what you think?" I keep expecting one eyebrow to raise up really high.

She has some fabulous headgear, although sometimes she prefers to wear it as a sleep mask. Just depends on her mood and the occasion.

Other times she has to sit up for it to be properly displayed. Pretty sure this bow is as big as her head. LOVE IT. I think she was more interested in chewing on her own shoulder that morning though. And also watching O'Malley play some Wii during quiet time. :)

Lady and Mater are beginning to be interested in each other's actions. I like putting them both on their tummies facing each other and listening to them carry on a conversation. She got bored and rolled away, and I think he was trying to follow her. He looks like he really wants to get her attention here and she just isn't having any of it.

She's getting really vocal and likes to sing and talk all day. She's also beginning to have a couple of those "I'm five months old" days where she's bored with everything we try. I keep telling her to hang in there because she can almost sit up by herself, and a whole new world will open up for her as soon as that happens. She's nearly there!

Friday Focus- Stitch

2011-04-01T10:39:00.004-06:00

Stitch does not enjoy opening her eyes for pictures lately. But she very much enjoys hunting for spring eggs.

She finds many and she is highly pleased. :)

Did I mention she likes to eat? On Monday I was making baked french toast and it was taking a little longer than she felt was reasonable. So she had two bowls of rice chex while she was waiting. When the toast was done she had two big bowls of that too, with cut up strawberries and several glasses of milk. She was really annoyed with me when I told her she couldn't have any more because she was eating so fast some of her friends hadn't even finished their first helping yet. Then at lunch she had SIX bowls of the chicken soup that everyone loves. Granted they were kind of small bowls, but still. Six. Usually the first thing I hear from her when she walks in the door is, "I so hungry!! SO hungry!!"

mmmm.... cookeh.... i can haz cookeh.....

We got a sit-n-spin finally! I've been wanting one for awhile to go with the letter W. Because that makes perfect sense, right? :) We had a big discussion this morning about it to explain it- we're going to put it inside a big box and let them spin around in there and pretend they are in a Washing machine. Hence the W. But we did talk about S also. Plus I don't have a box yet. She got about half an hour to work with it all by herself today before the other Pink Ladies showed up and she was super excited.

I took video of her spinning and I waited seven hours for it to upload but alas. Blogger hates me. I give up.

She's making some progress in the potty training area. Aurora's mom brought an incentive chart and some stickers and it has worked wonders for both Stitch and Silvermist. Aurora could care less, really, but the other girls are in love with the idea of getting Aurora's stickers before she can do it herself. Mostly she's still in the sitting and not producing anything stage, but every now and again she does earn a sticker. :)

Snippets of Days

2011-03-30T13:46:00.005-06:00

I'm skipping the next 30 day blog topic- it wants pictures taken more than ten years ago. I was teaching sixth grade and Kanga was living it up in the corporate world in DC. Don't think that anybody who reads this really cares much. :)

I've been trying to take more video. It's a challenge for me to get the length right because I don't have any editing software that I know how to use. So either it's too long to upload or it's too short and I don't catch them doing anything funny. I've got a couple that are just cute and representative of stuff we do all day, which is kind of fun.

Here's O'Malley and Silvermist playing with the new Moon Dough barn we got this past weekend. Kanga and I went on a supply fee spending spree and the kids are having a great time with all the new toys. This is an example of the kind of video that is too short and doesn't show them doing much, but it is the only one I can get to upload right now.

Oh, and RIGHT after I turned off the camera, Silvermist turned to me and goes, "You have a really big mouth. I have a little mouth."

I have no idea where that came from but it made me laugh and I wish it was on film. Reminded me of Santana on Glee. I half expected her to bust into song and sing me "Trouty Mouth".

It's Tigger Tuesday!

2011-03-29T16:50:00.002-06:00

Tigger is having a birthday this week and he has decided that he is going to completely throw out all remnants of being a baby. Okay, well, he's not walking all the time yet. But everything else? Large. The man is large.
Today I said hi and he waved at me. Kanga asked him if he wanted more and he said, "yes. chex." Today he climbed up on top of the table and decided he'd hang out there to get a better view. And then I handed him something and he said thank you.

Long live Tigger. May every birthday be so memorable and fabulous.

Friday Focus- Roo

2011-03-25T08:07:00.003-06:00

Roo. She does a body good. So many funny things to say about her these days. She's talking up a storm and the things she says always make me laugh. She doesn't say "not" properly- she says "no" instead, so if you ask her if she's done? "no yet!" did you do that? "no me!" I have a feeling that will be one of those sayings I pick up and say for years, to the point where she's all, "Really? Could we just stop that now?"

Yet again with the minty fresh Colgate goodness. I need to come up with more of these out of the box kind of art projects- they all had such a great time that day.

Knocking over block towers and hiding blocks in the sand.

Running amok in the backyard as usual. She's getting faster and more agile every day. I think that must be why she's still so tiny slender- try getting down on your belly and commando crawling everywhere you go. It's seriously hard work. Much more so than crawling or walking, I think.

She's really come a long way in her physical skills development since the last post. She can pull herself into this position from the floor now and sit there, which is so great for her to be able to do lots of work with the other girls. She can play Mr. Potato Head and sit for story time and hang with the crowd much easier. AND! Although I have no pictures of it, she can pull herself to standing in her crib. Huge stuff.

We timed our first day of spring egg hunt to be during her physical therapy time so she'd be extra motivated to get out with Lisa and do some stepping. She had a great time hunting for eggs, although we had a hard time keeping the other kids from "helping" so much. They wanted to bring her all the eggs she noticed and we wanted her to practice walking so we had to keep hollering at them to back away and NOT help their friend. They were perplexed.

Like all the other girls, she's very into "I do it myself", and also picking up tons of silly phrases from us. The other day Tigger was crying. She asked Kanga, "Bubba sad?" and Kanga said yes, and Roo said, "Oh mama, Bubba sad! Bubba SUPER sad!"

And even though this didn't happen at school, it's too funny to not share. At the mall the other day Kanga had to pee. Her mom offered to stay with the kids in the food court so she didn't have to drag them both in there with her. As she's walking away, Roo yells, "MOMMA! Where you going?" Kanga's of course trying to be subtle- momma's gotta go potty, I'll be right back...

And Roo hollers, LOUDLY, "Okay Momma! You go potty! Go tee tee potty! Okay! WIPE!!!!"

Ah, the joys of motherhood, being so proud and at the same time wanting to run away screaming....

Friday Focus- Aurora

2011-03-18T11:38:00.006-06:00

Wow, I went back to look at the last Focus on Aurora, and I could have written pretty much the exact same post today. She still loves to take her clothes off. Thankfully and knock wood, she seems to have moved out of the diaper removing stage though. Now it's the shirt. She's almost always topless when we get her up from her nap. Earlier this week she couldn't get her shirt over her head because it buttoned up the back, so she grabbed it like the Incredible Hulk and ripped that puppy down the front. It was quite impressive. Completely ruined.

She's really enjoying being a puppy dog these days. I think O'Malley's influence has rubbed off on a lot of the girls- there's tons of crawling around and barking going on here. I got a set of dog ear headbands and they like them a lot. The face may lead you to believe otherwise, but she gets very into it.

Her other new obsession is Mr. Potato Head. A few years ago I spent a bunch of supply fee money on LOTS of different accessory sets. We have the princess, R2D2, the safari with the monkey and elephant faces, the king, the doctor... the list goes on. (I keep telling myself we DON'T need the Easter bunny, even though we don't have it and it's currently available!) Aurora's favorite is the mermaid and she likes to wear the crown on her own head.

She will sit with Silvermist and Stitch for a good hour some mornings, making and remaking Potato masterpieces. I love to sit with them and hear the commentary on it. Sometimes it's very serious business and all features are in the correct place. Other times the goal is to make the weirdest thing possible, with arms and ears sticking out all over. It's nice to see some things never change.... (and oh wow, I think Snow White is about done with kindergarten now. I bet she is SO BIG now!)

And in major breaking news, she is wearing big girl panties at school for the first time today! Granted it's still early in the day, but so far things are going well.

Hmm. I started this the other day and things did not end up so well. :) We're still trying, but not successful so far. Lots of accidents. But hey, at least she's finally willing to sit and try. One of these days something will happen.

We had our first day of spring egg hunt yesterday and she had a great time running around and looking for eggs. Even more excited when she realized they had marshmallow bunnies inside. The girl is all about her junk food. We have a lot of time now where she sits on the potty and I'm her captive audience, so she was telling me this morning about her donuts and chocolate and "sparkles" (sprinkles, I think) and also how her dog at home eats poop but she doesn't because it is not tasty. Chocolate donuts are tasty. Poop is not.

Just so we're all clear.

"Friday" Focus: Silvermist

2011-03-15T14:38:00.006-06:00

If I wait till Friday something will happen! I have a bit of time now and I'm thinking of it and that is indeed a miracle. And just as an aside, somebody got to this blog yesterday by googling a refrigerator color called Silvermist. Wonder what brand that is? I bet it's pretty, but nowhere as cute as OUR Silvermist. She dances! She sings! Her dimples are to die for!

This may be my all time favorite picture of her. Love those sparkly eyes and the crater dimples!

We do a lot of singing during meals. Now that I think of it, probably not the best idea, since my mother always used to tell me it was bad manners to sing at the table. It's the easiest way to keep everyone happy when mealtime begins and ends at different times for different kids though, so we sing. This was the "down came the rain" section of the itsy bitsy spider, if I remember correctly. Either that or "up came the sun". Not sure which.

The favorite activity for The Letters Are Lost has definitely been squishing out the toothpaste. I'm hoping nobody has tried to do it like Ramona Quimby, all into the sink. We had a big discussion about how this was special toothpaste JUST for art and should not be tried at home. She had a blast with it, although I'm pretty sure she got some in her hair. :)

She loves her some frosting. The cookie is merely a vehicle by which the shoveling takes place. I'm so happy that her food choices are opening up- she's been outgrowing a couple of her big allergies and tolerating more ingredients lately and it's AWESOME. I made our favorite chicken soup today for lunch and she was super excited that she can eat it again. She was the pixie girl I referred to in that post, when she was brand new and we didn't know the extent of what she could and couldn't eat. She jumped up and down and clapped. "OH!! I CAN EAT THIS SOUP?!?!" For the last couple weeks they've been paring down her diet to get baseline and do testing on what her tummy can handle, so it was constantly, "Please can you find me something I can eat?" with this pathetic little face. We made it through the rough times though and now we get chicken soup with rice. Life is good! Sometimes a bit muddy, but definitely good!

Place Holder Post

2011-03-14T08:23:00.002-06:00

I have skipped Friday Focus for three weeks. I know this. It's Silvermist's turn and I have written several fabulous posts in my head. When I come to the computer to put them down, I either can't remember them or can't locate the picture I wanted to put with it, or someone poops or needs their nose wiped. And the blog of the day challenge coming up next is pet peeves, which is a little daunting to write in relation to work. It's difficult to write things that bother you about your job when the people who make your job possible are reading. :) Oh wait! I have one- people who think it's really funny to teach their kids to wipe their snotty nose on the couch. Nobody here now does that, but we did have one a long time ago who did it on a regular basis and it was really gross. Mom just laughed. Not cool.

It's spring break here. Several of the kids are out all week and others are only coming a few days. So hopefully I'll be able to catch up on the blogging. Maybe I'll backdate Silvermist's post a week or two so I can write a few more as well.

If you need to know our days off and holiday schedule, please refer to the print out we gave you, or the link on the sidebar, or be friends with us on facebook because it's there too, in the discussion tab. We try to remind everyone of days as they come closer, but pickup and dropoff times are busy and we don't always get a chance to double confirm with each family. (Or sometimes we tell one parent, who then forgets to remind the other parent.) With multiple ways to check the calendar, I feel like it ought to be covered, and I dislike feeling guilty for inconveniencing people at the last minute because they didn't read the printed info and therefore didn't know. No matter what job you do, everybody needs a day off now and then to avoid burnout. We are better providers after the occasional short break, and you have the entire year's schedule by Christmas of the previous year. Please make use of it. Hmm. I guess I do have a pet peeve after all....

Signs

2011-02-28T13:27:00.002-06:00

When Hercules came in this morning his dad asked me if we were using sign language here, because he started doing it over the weekend. Yes! Here's a site that has good examples of the top 100 signs to use with kids. The ones we use most right now are milk, more, all done, please, thank you, and no. I throw others in as I think of them. I use want sometimes, and bathroom and sorry. I started out as a deaf education major at TCU so I've had several years of sign. It's been years and I'm rusty and slow though. :)

Cravings

2011-02-24T08:00:00.003-06:00

Hmm. The next day of the blog topics is something I crave. This one is a little harder to do in terms of work and kiddos. I think right now I'm craving sleep and a quiet mind more than anything. I feel like I am not all awake and I keep thinking. As Wilbur says in Charlotte's Web, "When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's hard to sleep."

As far as asking the kids about this one, I don't think they've got a handle on cravings yet. :) Can you crave the Backyardigans? I'm just not sure if that qualifies. Love and affection, enough sleep, and healthy food should about cover it for them.

So. Basically this is a post about nothing. Excellent.

Pictures Galore!!

2011-02-16T09:27:00.013-06:00

Oh, I am excited. Today is Your Favorite Photo. It's going to take a lot of paring down to get to one particular favorite of each small child. I think I'll be leaving myself and Kanga out of this one. I We tend to be vindictive and take unflattering pictures of each other singing or dancing or leaning over with our backsides in the air. No need to post those.

My problem is that a lot of my favorite pictures have already been posted on other days. Oh well. Maybe you've seen some of those before. I guess the Hall of Fame just turns out like that sometimes.

Duchess:
My original Pink Lady, cheesy with bunny ears for Easter 2005. Sometimes I miss this tiny girl!!

O'Malley:
Boys with fair skin have to get sunscreen on their heads. It does marvelous things to their heads.

Mushu: When your brothers are having "dress like a pirate" day at their school, there's no way you can show up in regular clothes. He thought he was the coolest thing in the world!

Silvermist:
She decided she ought to wear my shoes around the house for awhile.

Aurora:
Chocolate is tasty. 'Nuff said.

Roo:
I took her with me to grab milk once. It was fun to be out in public with her and she was a big helper. :) This is the day she learned to say "I buy it?" Her momma didn't think that was as funny as I do.

Stitch: Breakfast makes her happy. Heck, just eating, any time of day or night, makes her happy.

Bianca:

She gets two pictures because I was trying to show her love of curling up in funny places, and then I realized that first picture was caught mid-blink and isn't actually a great shot of her.

Chip:
Weebles wobble, and sometimes they do fall down, right on top of their friends who are lying behind them!

Hercules:
Hello world, it's me!!

Tigger:
I particularly like this one because it was right after we put him in the hateful watermelon and made him scream. He's had a bath, he's with his mama, and he's so content. All is well.

Lady: Okay, I know I just put this picture of her up yesterday, but it's by far my favorite. I have a bunch of her sleeping and a few where she's being serious, but this is the only one where I've managed to catch the smile. :)

Mater:
I know you've seen this one before, but I have a limited number of Mater pictures just yet. :)

Fun Facts

2011-02-15T10:36:00.007-06:00

Day 6 asks for fun facts. Yay! Bullet point list!!

I won the school-wide spelling bee in 8th grade with the word megalopolis.
Kanga was a child model in Singapore and was the trademarked kid for Lego. She also got offered the job to be the milk spokesperson but turned it down because she hates milk and was afraid they'd make her drink a lot of it on camera.
Duchess's favorite animal is the penguin.
O'Malley likes to prove me wrong- I said last week he was uninterested in writing but this week he's loving his schoolwork. I got him a big dry erase practice book with superheroes on it and apparently that made all the difference.
Silvermist comes up with elaborate imaginary scenarios that I love to go along with. She'll come in and say, "I am MAD at you!" and I'll ask why, and she'll just smile real big and come up with something crazy. "Because you smashed me into the wall!" She's great at spontaneous answers when I ask more and by the end we're both laughing hysterically. She always finishes up with, "I so silly!!!"
Aurora is happy with the status quo in relation to potty training right now. While I wouldn't exactly classify it as a FUN fact, I have to hide my smile when I ask if she'd like to sit on the potty and her reply is, "No. I poop in my diaper. You clean it."
Roo is in a big pirate phase right now and goes around yelling ARGH at everyone.
Stitch is extremely territorial. She's cheerful about it, but everything is MINE. Her mom thanked her for letting the family live in "my house." She brings diapers from "my Target" and wants to play with "my Silvermist".
Bianca calls that black and white striped animal a "beez-ra". I LOVE THAT.
Chip likes to grab his mama's face in both hands and smush her cheeks together when he gives her kisses.
Hercules has recently become fascinated with blankets. He loves to carry one around and rub his face on it. Kanga has taken to calling him Linus.

Tigger's Kunyai was happy when he was born because she got a grandchild that looked Asian. She tries to make him laugh a lot because when he smiles big he looks even more Asian.

Lady and Mater really aren't quite to the stage where I have specific fun facts about them. They're both easygoing and happy and are still in the time of life where they eat and sleep and don't do a whole lot else. :) And they look very cute while doing it.

Favorite Quotes

2011-02-14T13:21:00.002-06:00

Day 5 is quotes. I could definitely go on for awhile choosing original quotes from various of my charges. I suppose this is asking for notable quotes by famous or at least partially famous people though. I guess I'll do both. So let's see....

"Be very careful with that pig- we think he is the BEST in the world... " from Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. I call the children pigs on a regular basis. It's a great compliment around here to be called The Best Pig.

"Tell me, what did you do? Did you have any fun?" from The Cat in the Hat. Great stuff.

The ones that the kids say are some of the best, and become the things we quote more often than "real" things. One morning I was changing Hercules's diaper when Aurora arrived for the day. She's usually not nearby when I change diapers, since we do it in a different area from the play space, obviously. She marched over to inspect the process and looked horrified. Pointed, and said, "What pee-pee is THAT?!?!"

I almost fell down laughing and it still makes me laugh every time I think of it.

Then there are the very tongue-in-cheek quotes that I never say TO the children, you understand. But there are days when I mutter them under my breath to Kanga, especially in reference to my own kids. :) Spending all our time with small children means we have to take our snark in small doses where we can get it, just to amuse ourselves and let off a little steam.

"And then, the word she used to describe them both was tiresome...." from Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, after the distant relative the girls are pawned off with has decided she doesn't like taking care of them. :)

"It'll be so fun! We'll have ice cream!.... and bourbon...." Bebe Neuwirth's character in Jumanji. LOVE this one, as she's going up the stairs talking to herself...

And one of our moms told us that her co-worker always says, "You are making Mommy want to drink! Do you WANT Mommy to drink?!" I'm pretty sure that's one of those exaggerated-for-comedic-reaction things that she doesn't actually say to her daughter. At least I hope so. Because then it wouldn't be funny. But around the water cooler with a donut in your hand? Pretty amusing.

Friday Focus- Tigger

2011-02-11T08:53:00.004-06:00

I think I'm happy, but maybe I'm about to cry! I'm so confused and I don't know what I want to do!

Tigger is ten months old now and he's pretty sure that he is no longer a baby. He's got the lightning fast crawl down pat and is starting to do the bear walk, on his hands and feet rather than the knees. He pulls up and cruises around and uses walking toys and gives us all his fabulous one-dimple smile.

And even when he's feeling sad and serious he's just as cute. Those eyes just kill me. He's got Puss in Boots eyes all the time without even trying. Thankfully he hasn't learned to bat his eyelashes yet but look out once he does! :) I did have a two year old one time who would blink slow and bat his eyes on command when you asked him to "flirt". If Tigger does that, he will be denied nothing. Ever.
Roo calls him Bubba and it's kind of sticking as a nickname for everybody. His name is a little bit longer, and while it's not terribly difficult to say, Bubba is way easier when you're two. The other day he was under the weather and so Kanga and the kids stayed home. I was hanging out in the playroom with the girls and Stitch kept asking me something I couldn't understand. I thought she was talking about a baby, since we were playing with the baby dolls. Then I realized she was saying Bubba but I still didn't connect it with Tigger. She was super frustrated with me. Finally she stood up and came very close to my face and said, "HEY! Where is the BUBBA of ROO???" OH! That guy. :) He's home sick today, babe... and now he's Bubba all the time to all the girls.

I am manly. I eat Kix. And if you do not agree with me, I will show you my tall one. (that is what the Wiggles call that finger when they sing Where is Thumbkin?. Kanga and I think it's hilarious.)

Snow and Books And Random Stuff

2011-02-09T18:05:00.004-06:00

May I just tell you how tired I am of snow and ice? I live in a southern state partially to avoid this entire season. Five snow days in two weeks is just too many. So I stayed open today. I'll be open tomorrow too even if the kids don't go back to public school. Some people didn't make it in anyway today- I just had Hercules, Bianca, and newbie tiny boy. I think he may be Mater. I've sort of been thinking of him as Mater since before he even started, but I had to meet him and see if it worked.
We interviewed this week for a six month old and I think he will fit in SO well here. Hope we get to take care of him. :)
Day 4 is favorite books. Whatever our Read It Once Again book is becomes their current favorite since we do read it every day. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Big Red Barn, and The Letters are Lost are frequent requests. They also love Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. I think that's mostly because I love it and want to read it a lot. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid and in fact I wrote Arnold Lobel a letter and he wrote me back with a HAND-DRAWN marker sketch of a pig and told me he was so happy I loved his work. Super cool. Anyway. Ten Apples Up On Top and anything by Sandra Boynton are big hits too.

Movies and TV

2011-02-08T09:58:00.000-06:00

Days 2 and 3 of the blog challenge ask about your favorite movies and tv shows. I figured I'd just roll that into one day since we don't usually watch full-length movies here. Very occasionally we do- they're fond of the Aristocats, and sometimes they watch the chapter of the Jungle Book that has the elephants marching. I also throw in snippets of live action movies if our topic of discussion works with it. They'll get on kicks where they want to have Singin' in the Rain or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on in the background. They don't sit and watch the whole thing but they come running for the dance scenes and try to duplicate them, which is greatness.

As far as TV, we don't have channels in the playroom, just a DVD player. Movie time is 11:30- we clean up and put something on for them to watch while we get lunch ready. I do get new stuff every now and then (new to us anyway- I love Movie Trading Company!) but mostly it's the same few shows in the rotation. Pretty much everybody is happy if we put on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Dora, or the Backyardigans. Second string shows that please certain people in certain moods, depending on the day, include Wow Wow Wubbzy, Magic School Bus, the Leapfrog factory series, Word World, and the Wiggles. Silvermist always asks for Barney, but then nobody actually wants to sit down and watch it. And sometimes I throw in a Veggie Tales or a sing-along that may or may not be well received.

Sick of Ice

2011-02-03T15:36:00.002-06:00

Wow. No school for the past three days here. The whole neighborhood is pretty much one solid sheet of ice. There's not even any snow to play in- you step outside and fall flat on your tail, even in the grass if you're not careful.

My hubby hasn't been able to get to work either, so we've been hanging around here getting progressively more bored. The good news is that I'm farther along on the mess that is my taxes than I've ever been at this time of the year. :) And I DO have all your statements ready- remi,nd me to give them to you when I see you. Or you can call if you need the numbers right away.

As far as scheduling goes, I don't know how the roads are outside of my very small area. I made it to the grocery store today and it took about five times as long as usual to get home. I hear it's still not so good everywhere around here. But I am tired of things being on hold and ready for it to get back to normal, so we WILL be open Friday, tomorrow, if you are able to get out and want to bring your munchkin. In addition, I've decided not to take Good Friday off this year like I generally do. Since it turns out Duchess will be in school that day and Hubs has burned a few vacation days because of this week, we won't be going anywhere like we thought. So we'll be open April 22. Hope that helps as far as this goes- the weather is such a pain.

Friday Focus- O'Malley

2011-01-28T08:57:00.004-06:00

My O'Malley. Love that boy. He cracks me up every single day. He's still got the invisible dogs and cats, and we're currently planning a dog party for his fourth birthday. He is full of grand and glorious ideas involving making his friends eat out of doggy bowls with no hands, and wearing puppy ears and crawling around. Can't wait to take video of all this canine goodness.

The invisible dogs do funny things. The other day we were grocery shopping and all of a sudden he hisses, "get back here!" and holds out his hand. I asked him who he was talking to and he said, "One of my dogs! Do you SEE him? He jumped onto that man's hat! So rude!" Walking a few yards in front of us was a guy wearing a beanie. I guess the dog thought it would make a good bed. I'm just glad he didn't make enough noise about it to alert the guy to the fact that he had imaginary dogs hanging out on his head.

Another time my mom took him out for ice cream and driving home he started yelling about how the dogs had gotten left behind and were running behind the car. So she rolled down the window and told him to call the dogs so they could jump into his hand. He caught them and was perfectly happy. My mom thinks on her feet, let me tell you what.

Besides all the imaginary animal friends, he has "mans". Not men. Mans. My hubby keeps telling me I need to write down everything that the mans do because I could write some best-selling kids' series about them. There used to be twelve of them, but now there are just eleven. One got killed by a battle droid. They don't live here with us- they have their own place which is near Aurora's house. O'Malley can give you directions on exactly how to get there. Sometimes they do spend the night here, or else they go and visit Chip and Belle. Oh, and they fly. They have jet packs that they bought at Target. They are great cooks and a lot of times they have the same food for dinner that I'm cooking. Other times he'll tell me that the mans don't like that food and so they're having sunbutter and jelly. Also, they are nocturnal. They like to sleep during the day and then they stay up all night playing Wii. And he informed me today that one of them is a marsupial and has a pocket in his belly like a kangaroo. There's really just no end to the things the mans can do, and he makes up new scenarios on the spot whenever you ask them what they're up to. I love it.

He's doing really well with spelling and beginning to sound out words. I wish he was a bit more interested in it though- when Duchess was his age she couldn't get enough and we would spend all of naptime working on reading and writing. He couldn't care less. He will not practice writing at ALL. Oh well. We still have awhile before it's a problem. :) At least I know he's above average in the creativity department.

Working with moon sand to tie in to S is for Sandbox in our letters book.

Obviously the mans are not the only ones who enjoy sunbutter and jelly.

Oh Look. A Challenge.

2011-01-27T12:48:00.004-06:00

I'm always trying to figure out how to remember to blog consistently. I'm reasonably okay at the Friday Focus, although sometimes I do skip a week or backdate when I do it on Monday. :) I found this 30 Day Challenge thing, just to get you to blog a bit every day. I'm under no illusions that I'll make it through without skipping, but at least maybe I will think of it some days. I'll do it as it relates to the daycare and the kids, which should be fun. Maybe I can do each question from each kid's point of view. I bet their answers will be interesting!

So. Day One: A favorite song. I'll ask and see. Bet I can predict most of the answers already!

My favorite song that we listen to around here on a regular basis is Hippopotamus Rock. I don't know most of the words but it's fun to dance to. This recording is terrible but I don't care. :)

Kanga's is the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. :)

Now for the kids:

O'Malley: I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas. I have a recording of him singing this in Target and it is so great. I can't figure out how to put it on here though.

Silvermist: Rock a bye Baby, she says. This one does surprise me. We don't sing that one much at all here. Hmm. Okay then.

Aurora: The Wheels on the Bus, although she took a few minutes deciding between that and E-I-E-I-O. :) I had a feeling a lot of them would pick this one. We've been on a big Wheels kick lately and it's gotten 164 plays in my iTunes in the last few months. It's #1 by a long shot. The version we have is by Cedarmont Kids. And oh wow, I used to have this on VHS many years ago. Now I just have the CDs, but if the kids knew this existed there would be much joy in the land.

Roo: She was napping when I first started this- I would have guessed Bus or Thumbkin, and sure enough she said Bus.

Stitch: She says Bus too now. Probably I should have asked them individually, because now everyone will say that. I was going to guess Where is Thumbkin? for her. She loves it. We have the Wiggles version, which cracks me up because it refers to your Tall One and your Ringo.

Bianca: She says Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This is true. I know I've talked about that before and how she mixes it with the alphabet song. We need to start singing Baa Baa Black Sheep more often, just to really mess things up. :)

Chip is not to the point where I can understand a whole lot of his singing, but I know he loves Mickey Mouse and the Wiggles and when I asked him if he liked those he said WWWOOOOOO!! with a big smile.

Hercules hasn't come up with any of the kid songs that seem to make him especially happy, but I've noticed he likes female country. When I'm making breakfast and doing things in the kitchen in the mornings I like to put on "my" music and he dances. His favorite so far is Mary Chapin Carpenter, but he likes the Dixie Chicks too. Makes me laugh.

Tigger LOVES The Fly Went Into the Grocery Store. I have no idea who that lady is singing on youtube, but she's the only one I could find. We always sing it in a silly high pitched voice like that too and it's been his favorite since he was tiny small.

And of course the wee ones don't have favorites yet that we can identify. The sound of bottles approaching is the best music to their ears. :)

Friday Focus- Chip

2011-01-21T14:07:00.006-06:00

Mr. Chip has many interests these days. Most of them still do not involve smiling for the camera, but I did manage to catch a few really cute shots of him when we were all playing the other day. We're still working with The Letters Are Lost, and so there's been a LOT of time building alphabet block towers. He was very intent on getting to stand up tall so he could knock it down.
Okay, I got this one ready....

This is the highest tower in the world! I can knock it over now!

Ooh. That was so super cool!

Oh, I love this picture. I hardly EVER get one where he's smiling *and* looking at the camera and *not* running at my face. I guess the excitement of a job well done was enough for him to be able to appease the crazy lady with the camera just this once.

He still loves to climb and has been looking for more creative and interesting things to scale rather than just the table. The other day I found him behind our L-shaped couch, stuck in the little triangular area in the corner by the wall. I suppose climbing OUT needs to be his next accomplishment. I didn't actually see how he got back there- he could have gone over the back, or just tunneled behind it, since the gate I usually have there is still not back in place after being used to corral the Christmas tree. He was happy as a clam for a few minutes, and then annoyed when he realized he needed help to get out. He would really rather not take my help with much of anything these days. In fact, I get the Great Look Of Scorn a majority of the time. He's definitely Kanga's boy. :)

It's fun to take care of the younger sibling- we have so much history with his big sister Belle. She and Duchess are still very close. Chip and Belle look so much alike to me, and sometimes they have the same mannerisms. Mostly I like to watch the way they interact with each other. Belle is pretty much devoted to getting what Chip wants before he asks for it, and cannot stand to see him get upset. I have a feeling that if the sentiment sticks around much longer, Chip is going to start milking it for ALL he can get. I mean, who wouldn't right? Why bother to get up and get your own stuff, or even have to ask for it, when big sis is so happy to do it for you? :) Duchess used to be that way with O'Malley too, but now that he's getting older she is beginning to find him annoying. I wonder if these two will follow the same path.

Friday Focus- Lady

2011-01-14T09:25:00.003-06:00

New fresh pink baby! Alert! Alert! We are enjoying her so much. Yesterday both my kids were crowded around either side of me while I held her, looking at me with their big puppy dog eyes and saying "Mama? Wouldn't it be nice if she was our sister? Can we keep her?" Yeah, no. Pretty sure that ship has sailed on the former, and very sure her parents would have issue with the latter. :) But that's the beauty of the job. Baby fix galore.

I was debating the possibility of calling her Cinderella, but it doesn't exactly roll trippingly off the tongue. Plus, she's just Lady. Her mama suggested it and it fits her. Reminds me of the part in the beginning of the movie where Darling first gets the puppy- "Isn't she just a perfectly beautiful little Lady?" Why yes. Yes she is.

She tends to look very wide-eyed and serious until you talk to her, and then she's got the BEST smile. I haven't been able to catch a picture of it yet, but hey, she's only been here two weeks. There's plenty of time.

Hey, did the timer go off yet? I'm not so sure about this tummy time thing......

O'Malley really loves her. He keeps trying to get too close. He's relatively careful, but still. I tell him he can kiss the top of her head or her feet while I'm holding her, but he really wants to kiss her face and especially loves to touch her hair. He'll come over and say, "Mama? Can I pet the baby?" Which makes me laugh. And I say okay, you can pet her. The first time he started at her forehead and brushed her hair backwards, like rubbing a cat's fur the wrong way. Then he was tickled. "Mama! If I pet her like this, I give her a mohawk!!!" And now it's a joke for him. I have to pet her THIS way, all nice and smooth, or else she have a mohawk!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Luckily she is super easy going and just looks quizzically at him. Unless she's hungry or tired, pretty much nothing fazes her. A perfectly wonderful little Lady indeed.

2011 Closings and Events

2011-01-13T09:11:00.003-06:00

Here's this year's schedule, best as we can figure it out so far. :) We've printed everyone a copy too so make sure you look for it in the take-home folders by the door.

Giant Steps: Noteworthy Days for 2011

Friday, March 4: paid personal day

Friday, April 22: ~~paid holiday for Good Friday~~ this is a snow day- we'll be open now since we were closed a few days in February unexpectedly.

Monday, May 30: paid holiday for Memorial Day

Friday, July 1: paid personal day

Monday, July 4: paid holiday for 4^th of July

Monday, September 5: paid holiday for Labor Day

Tuesday, November 22: 4^th annual daycare feast lunch for parents (we are open this day- just giving you a heads-up about attending lunch if you’re able)

Wednesday, November 23: paid personal day

Thursday/Friday November 24/25: paid holiday for Thanksgiving

Monday, December 26: paid holiday for Christmas Eve

Tuesday, December 27: paid holiday for Christmas Day

Wednesday, December 28: paid personal day

Thursday, December 29: paid holiday for New Year’s Eve

Friday December 30: paid holiday for New Year’s Day

(Monday, January 2, 2012: we will be open)

RECAP: We will be closed the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s. This is a paid week for us.

Friday Focus- Hercules

2011-01-07T14:44:00.003-06:00

Hercules turned one recently and is On The Move in a big way. He's definitely got some of the Napoleon complex thing going on right now. It is so funny to me that almost every baby does that once they learn to walk. The Pink Ladies are learning pretty quickly that Hercules is not "Baby Hercules" anymore and they run from him. "Hercules hit me! Hercules sit on my fingers!" Yes. Yes, he will do that at every opportunity, grinning the whole time. Not a malicious thought in his mind, you understand. Just temporarily drunk with power.

He's working on the transition from infant feeding to toddler meals- although he would still prefer the bottle and hates watching us make them for Tigger and the new baby, he's finally decided that the sippy cup is okay. The grownup food is still touch and go though. Sometimes he'll eat it and sometimes he looks at it like we're trying to give him a cow pattie. He does like to play with the spoon though, and he'll eat if we feed it to him. So the next step is feeding himself. He doesn't seem to like getting his hands dirty much. He'll eat breakfast stuff like waffles or cereal, but doesn't want to dig into squishy stuff. Which is sensible in many ways- just unlike many of his friends who eat rice with both hands and refuse to use a fork. :)

He's also working on switching from a morning nap to an afternoon nap. It's about every other day right now- if we let him stay up on Monday to play with the big kids and eat lunch and then take a rest in the afternoon, he's happy for the one day, and then ready for bed by 9:30 Tuesday morning. Then up Wednesday, although by lunchtime he's pretty tired! :)

He was in a deep sleep by the time lunch was over- so much that he didn't even wake up when Kanga changed his pants and put him in bed. It was pretty funny.

Hercules is all rough and tumble boy. He's having a great time running around and climbing on things and showing off his new teeth. Every morning that he gets a chance, he's trying to bite through orange peels. (I've written about that here, when Aurora was doing it.) I actually ended up taking a plastic orange away from him and telling him that wasn't acceptable one day. He looked at me quite scornfully and was pleased to get it back with an apology once I realized he wasn't K-Paxing a real one. :) Silly goose.

New Year

2011-01-03T08:26:00.002-06:00

I always love starting the new year. The holidays make me feel really rejuvenated and ready to get back to work. We're starting our new Read It Once Again curriculum today and I expect everyone to LOVE it. It's called The Letters Are Lost and it's about a set of alphabet blocks that get lost in various places. Tons of opportunities for extension and fun stuff to do. The F page is about the block falling in the fish tank and I think I actually might get a beta fish for them to check out.
Our new tiny pumpkin started this morning and is currently asleep in the living room. She got here sleeping so I haven't gotten my hands on her yet. Looking forward to that immensely. Another tiny one should be starting in the next couple weeks too. So I'll need a girl and a boy Disney name. Gotta get going on that- we're running out of popular ones. :)

Friday Focus- Bianca

2010-12-17T11:14:00.004-06:00

Bianca is in that fabulous stage where she loves to sing. We've been doing circle time basically her whole life, and all the Pink Ladies have learned the words to their favorites and belt them out regularly. My personal favorite of hers is the medley she does of the alphabet song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Since they're the same tune, she pretty much interchanges the words and it's different every time. Yesterday it was "twinkle, twinkle, little star, h, i, j, k, how you are..." She's also fond of "a, b, a, b, a, b, a, twinkle, twinkle, little star".

She also loves to read, but not in a group. When we sit down and read our story book every morning, she usually pays half attention while she's playing with toys and won't come sit down. She listens, but she doesn't really like to try to look at the pictures when there are other kids in the way and she has to share the space. :) If she happens to be the only one around she'll ask me to read to her, but she has to sit in my lap and have my full attention to make it through the book. Otherwise she's off to the next thing.

Bianca has got a great belly laugh. She doesn't bring it out very often here unless I tickle her, so it's always a treat to hear it when she thinks something is funny. It's fun to watch her too.

Don't you just have to smile with her? :) Love it.

Proudly displaying her piggy headband during the Big Red Barn unit.

I really love that the girls are all such good friends. They bicker like sisters and sometimes pretend they don't like each other much, but there are a lot of moments like this. Stitch came and got Bianca and was taking her to the table to serve her some sort of delicious plastic lunch.

Eating lunch is very hard work and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

You may notice she's got a different hairstyle in every picture. Kudos to her mom for getting all that accomplished so early in the morning. She always comes decked out with various ponytails and cute accessories. Over Thanksgiving she had tons of beaded braids put in and she came back looking super fancy. The other girls went wild. LOVED her hair and were so sad that theirs wasn't like that. At lunch that first day Bianca was sitting in her chair laughing and wildly shaking her head back and forth so all the beads clicked together and made a lot of noise. I thought Aurora's head was going to pop off- she was shaking even harder and not making any sound at all, of course. It made her really mad that she was working so hard to be as cool as Bianca and couldn't get her hair to make noise. I couldn't stop laughing.

Getting Ready For Christmas

2010-12-15T11:20:00.005-06:00

First of all, you know I love Mary P. She writes some of the BEST child care posts. I want to be her when I grow up. :) This post about giving and Santa and the holidays is fabulous, I think. Check it out.

Next: we baked our first batch of Christmas cookies today. Attendance is down this week due to sickness and maybe it's cowardly, but I prefer baking when not everybody is here. :) We'll do it again several times when there are different combinations of kids here so they all get to help. They're getting pretty decent at taking turns and standing in line, but they get really squirrelly if there are too many and they have to wait a "long time".

Stitch has been cracking me up through this whole process. She stirred and poured and took her turn, and then went and buckled herself in a chair. "Tray on! I ready! Eat cookie!" I keep telling her it's not time for cookies, that we're going to have lunch first, and they're too hot, but she is not dissuaded from the idea that if she just sits there long enough, cookies will come her way.

We made the cookies off the back of the candy cane flavored Hershey kisses bag, with a few allergy modifications. Usually I make my own flour blend or use one of the ones from my favorite cookbook, but I've had this bag of Bob's Red Mill all purpose gluten free baking mix in the cabinet and it needed to be used. To be honest, I didn't have high hopes for it. It's got garbanzo bean flour and fava bean flour in it. I was worried the cookies would taste like hummus or something. Plus I can't get over the Silence of the Lambs reference about eating the guy's liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti. I want to make that weird slurpy noise he makes every time I think of fava beans.

Yes, I am a strange individual. But some things just stick with ya, more than you wish they would, ya know?

Here. Look at Silvermist being cute and helping, to get that other image out of your head.

Anyway. Happily, they do not taste like hummus, or anything else unsavory. The mint kisses help a lot. It's still not my favorite cookie flour but I bet it might be good for thickening sauces or something like that.

Now I have to go make lunch quickly before their heads explode from lack of cookie!

Monthly Recap... A Little Late

2010-12-06T16:30:00.005-06:00

Maybe it's more like a general catchup than a recap of a particular time. We've been busy, and yet not. Just as we were gearing up to start the huge work of our Thanksgiving feast, I did a head count and realized lots more people would be on vacation than there usually are. We ended up cancelling it and in fact we only had 2 kids here that day. I was both disappointed and relieved. The feast is always so much fun, but it's a LOT of work. And last year we had more older kids who could actually help. The Pink Ladies are just now getting to the point where they are an even amount of help and hindrance, and of course the little boys just get underfoot and try to climb up the stools. I think next year when all the girls are three, there will be some serious cooking though.

We took a bit of a break from Read It Once Again, and I've missed it. A new binder came today for The Letters Are Lost, so I'm going to spend the next few days copying and laminating and getting that one ready to go. We haven't decided if we're going to start it before Christmas or wait until January. I think I may wait, and in the meantime go to the library and check out ALL the books they have that are available through RIOA, and read them to the kids over the next few weeks to see which ones they like best for the spring ordering.

We've had a couple spaces open for the past few months, and babies are starting to be born! We have a new little boy starting next month who was born last week if he was on schedule. And we have this tiny princess starting soon too:

I cannot wait to get my hands on this greasy girlie and sniff her neck. Hercules and Tigger are getting SO BIG, SO FAST. Feels like a long time since we had such a tiny one.

Speaking of the boys, Hercules is full-on walking. All over the place. I just really don't see how it happened so fast. He still seems little to me. But he insists that he is in fact a Large Man and should be treated as such.

Tigger is pulling up on stuff and crawling lightning fast. He tortures his sister on a daily basis by pulling up on her tray and trying to eat her lunch. She is unimpressed by his skills.

And thanks to the both of them, my Christmas tree is in solitary confinement this season.

Woo Hoo! We Have Poo!

2010-12-02T14:35:00.002-06:00

I think this is probably the only job where you get so excited about somebody else's bodily functions. Or at least this industry. I guess maybe other types of caregivers have to be interested in or take note of such things as well. My mom always used to say that everybody has to deal with some kind of poop in their job. Most people's just isn't literally POOP. But anyway...

The five Pink Ladies are all officially two years old now and are beginning to shamble slowly toward the idea of potty training. Some are further along than others in terms of whether or not they will sit, will do anything when they sit, will be truthful about contents of diaper when asked... :) We've been having a bit of success with a couple of them peeing in our froggy potty on a semi-irregular basis, but nobody has done the Big Job until today.

And the winner is......

ROO!!!

(Kanga's not excited about this at ALL.)

If I was mean, I'd put a picture of her sitting on it. But A: what if she wants to be a lawyer when she grows up and there are pictures of her first poop on the internet? And B: I didn't take any pictures of her sitting there.

I absolutely love that it was Roo. She doesn't really get to be first at anything very often. I think it will be hilarious if the girl who can't yet walk unassisted is the first one trained. But she told Kanga she needed to and wanted to sit on the potty, and this is the FIRST TIME she's ever even sat on the potty at all. Major success. I'm so excited for her. And she's so proud. I stamped her hand with a blue kittycat for a reward and she keeps waving it in my face and talking about meow and poop. It's funny.

Friday Focus- Stitch

2010-11-12T10:51:00.002-06:00

Stitch. Ah, my Stitch. She is divine. :) I love when she finds something that she likes. It's always, "HEY! LOOK! LOOOOOOK!" until you do, and fawn over her appropriately. OH! LOOK! She finds wonder in small things and gets so happy.

She loves her some headbands. We try to make as many as we can, and even though she's very likely to rip it several times during the day taking it on and off, she loves to wear it and makes me staple it back together every time.

During our Very Hungry Caterpillar unit, she spent a lot of time wrapped up in a cocoon and squirming around. Sometimes she would suddenly fling the blanket out behind her and flap it like wings for a few minutes, but then she'd retreat back into the cocoon some more.

Okay, so her form needs some work. A one-handed swing doesn't have much power. But she can still hit the ball just fine! She and O'Malley like to get out there and see who can hit more balls. They jump up and down and yell HOME RUN!!! after each one.

Working on muddy piggies with Aurora. She's gotten quite good at staying in, or at least near, the lines and her painting is improving with every project. It's one of her favorite things to do here and she's never happier than when I say it's time to paint.

Cheesy happiness with yet another headband.

Let's see... what else is she up to these days? She's perfectly capable of climbing out of her pack and play during naptime, as is Aurora, and I think before too long it will be time to transition them over to cots. I've been putting it off, but they're ready. I hear she's begun to climb out of her crib at home too. It's just that time. She is awesome at two-foot jumping now and frequently requests the Jumping Song that we sing during circle time every day. "Stitch, Stitch, jump up and down, jump up and down, jump up and down! Stitch, Stitch, jump up and down, and sit right back down..." That's how we usually begin circle time, to call them all together, and it's her favorite. She always reminds me if it's getting late in the morning and we haven't done our jumping yet.

She's coming out of a stage where she was eating like a linebacker. Some meals she would eat more than the other four Pink Ladies put together. I have no idea where she puts it. Maybe she needs all that energy for the jumping or something, but the chick is HUNGRY. And lets you know. :) She likes almost everything and will eat seconds and thirds, but if I happen to make something she doesn't like, she gives me the stink eye in a big way. "I don't like it. Don't want it." And she always gives special emphasis to the ending Ts and Ks in that phrase, so it's very separated and distinct. Don'T liKe iT. Don'T wanT iT. Sounds hilarious. I have a feeling that may have come from big sis Lilo. She looks very like her when she says it.

Big Red Barn

2010-11-10T09:23:00.004-06:00

We just finished up five weeks of Big Red Barn curriculum. I think we all have the book memorized now and there's been lots of fun activities with animals and hay and playing outside. Everybody has their own favorite page- Aurora loves the tiger tomcat (yeow! yeow!) and Silvermist is all about the "golden weather vane, of course"... (horse don't fly! that not real! so silly!) I hear that Stitch is obsessed with the copy of the book that we gave her at the end of the unit and wants to carry it everywhere. That makes me happy. It also makes me happy that there are some hayfields around here and that the kids can all see cows and hay and point them out. Her mom came in a couple weeks ago and asked if there was hay in our barn book because Stitch freaks out now every time they drive by some. :) Love it.

We played a lot of games using various animal sounds and they've all acquired a few new ones. I think I talked in Roo's post about the confusion of the word "pig" sounding just like "moo" in Thai. That cracks me up. My other favorite is the rooster. Each kid has their own special way to cock-a-doodle-doo and they are all hilarious. One of the games we played was learning about how the rooster is the "alarm clock" of the barnyard, so they all pretended to be other animals sleeping and then I was the rooster and woke them all up by making loud rooster noises. Then they all wanted to have a turn being the rooster. I was actually kind of concerned afterwards that O'Malley would wake me up at 5 am by cock-a-doodling in my ear. Thankfully that hasn't happened. But I do have to say that his snoring sheep is the funniest thing ever.

They love to make headbands and this unit especially offered a lot of opportunities for that. We did a pig and a chicken. I don't think I remembered to get pictures of Hercules or Tigger wearing theirs, but it's fun that there are things even the littles can do with us.

Since O'Malley has dropped his nap I try to do some big boy work with him in the afternoons. Most days it's fighting a losing battle. He really wants to play Wii and isn't nearly as interested in doing school the way his big sister Duchess was. I think homeschool may be out of the question for this one. But anyway. This activity was called Bats in the Barn and it had cards where you count how many bats there are, and then match them to the numeral. He had a good time and I was pleased to actually have a day where he got something done, even if he did make faces at me.

Miss Bianca, hard at work painting a muddy piggy. I think when we're not doing a Read It Once Again unit, the thing they all miss the most is the painting. (Well, except for Chip. He doesn't like to paint for some reason. Not sure why.) We're doing some Thanksgiving books and getting ready for our big feast the next few weeks, and they're always asking me when they can paint again. I'll have to find some turkeys for them to do. :)

Friday Focus- Roo

2010-10-29T09:01:00.005-05:00

I am so proud of Roo. Since I last had the Focus on her, she has done SO many new things. She really just doesn't let her difficulties stop her. People used to think that she was a lot younger than the other Pink Ladies, but it's becoming obvious that she's two just like they are. :) Definitely some sassy attitude and backtalk going on in that department, much to her momma's dismay. Her vocabulary is getting quite extensive, partly thanks to Ms Julie at speech therapy. You gotta work hard for a lady who says eating a ring pop is therapy!!

They've been doing a lot of work on strengthening the muscles in her mouth so things like milkshakes and lollipops are actual exercise- helping her form her lips correctly and not drool and stuff like that. It's fun to get to spoil her a bit too. She's drinking from a straw consistently now and the first time she realized it was fun was because I let her drink my strawberry shake. :)

Roo has received an official diagnosis of cerebral palsy in the last few months, which allows her to get more equipment at school to help her out with various things. The therapy ladies are currently working to figure out which type of trainer will assist her best in learning to walk. This one was the first one we got, and they've since decided that she's a little too advanced for it. It makes her sit down more and they think she can focus on standing and stepping a lot better with something else. But here she is trying this one out. She was not too excited about it at first.

She definitely wants to stand though. This is one of my favorite pictures of her. She's got a death grip on the gate, and she did fall straight over like a tree after I set the camera down, but she was excited to stand there!

She's having a great time painting and doing art with the other girls too now, and constantly wants to go outside. She doesn't care if she gets dirty or if bugs bite her. She just wants to be out there doing everything she can physically do today, while figuring out how to do something ELSE tomorrow. I love her spirit.

As soon as the back door opens, she is out like a shot. Doesn't care about skinning her elbows on the porch or getting muddy or the fact that she can't climb up the slide alone yet. She can reach the handle of the stroller to push the babies around and she has a BLAST.

Roo's acquired an annoying repetitive habit that we have to fuss at her for constantly, just like everybody else. :) I think she digs it. Just grins when we drag her away from the fridge OVER and OVER and OVER. Now that she's learned to open it and get her milk out of the bottom shelf, she spends half her life refrigerating my kitchen. In a weird way I like that she's getting in trouble. She's decided she's going to stand up for herself and do what she can do. And she'll go far.

Oh, and during our Big Red Barn work this month, I was noticing that she was doing weird sounds for some of the animals and mixing them up, so I asked Kanga. Turns out, the way to say "pig" in Thai sounds just like "moo". Awesome. I guess that's the downside to being bilingual. I kept thinking she just wasn't getting it, but actually she's getting it in TWO languages and trying to school the rest of us!

Friday Focus- Aurora

2010-10-22T11:35:00.007-05:00

It's been since April that the Focus was on Aurora, and I'm amazed at how much older she looks just in the past few months. The Terrible Twos are actually some of my favorite times, just because it's new and different every day, and even though some of the days are awful and take forever, the weeks and months fly by. There's so much going on developmentally- she's learning and playing and TALKING. The things she comes up with are hilarious.

She's currently in the "I can take my clothes off by myself" stage. It's to the point where before we tuck her into bed for her nap, we have to put a piece of duct tape across her diaper tapes, or else we have a streaker and a big mess to clean. We're constantly looking over and asking, "Aurora, where are your pants?" or "Hey sweetie, we wear clothes at school. Go get your shirt." I do kind of hope she grows out of this soon. But yay for motor skills! She also raises the entertainment factor at lunch. She was done eating and decided to take her shirt off, but being buckled in impeded her progress... her one arm got stuck in the shirt and she was trapped. It made her mad, but it made me laugh and I had to take her picture before I rescued her.

She's completely obsessed with the plastic kitchen food right now. There must be a pink donut or some fake corn on the cob within reach every.single.minute or we hear about it. "WHERE MY DONUT GO? WHERE?!?!?!" She bops around in the little kitchen area, moving her food from the microwave to a plate and back again, and carries it around with her to have close by during story time or singing.

Aurora's emotions run high most of the time. If she's happy, she's delighted. She bounces, she jumps, she claps her hands and laughs hysterically. If she's sad or angry, she is prostrate on the floor, kicking her feet and screaming. Everything is very terrible and she loses all her many words instantly in the face of her anger. :) We don't take her nearly as seriously as she'd like us to though, and her fits never last long when she doesn't get an audience.

Do not mess with me. I am very serious about this.

Oh, wait! Art! Muddy piggies! Life is all better!

The upside to this is that she's not very physical- just to keep balance in the universe I guess, I've noticed that there are two kinds of kids at this age. You have the weepy ones, and then the ones who haul off and slug you. We've got strategies to help them through this stage either way, and it's interesting to see which way they fall. You can't always predict by their behavior as babies, but we nearly always have a split pretty evenly down the middle. It's just so hard to learn to control yourself when you're two. Sometimes you have to yell about it, and sometimes you have to push your friend.

But back to Aurora... she loves to find little cubbyholes to hide in. The other day she was calling me and I couldn't find her for a minute- then I realized she was under the table, but lying on top of the chairs. :) Silly girl.

2010 Schedule

2010-10-20T09:44:00.003-05:00

Everybody was given a copy of our schedule, but I know how things are. :) You put it in a very safe place, never to be seen again, and then you can't remember whether daycare is open or not. So. Here is our 2010 schedule. Since the holidays are quickly approaching, I figured a refresher might be nice. Kanga and I will work on the 2011 schedule soon and you should have it by Christmas of this year.

Giant Steps: Noteworthy Days for 2010

Friday, January 1: paid holiday for New Year’s

Friday, January 29: paid personal day

Friday, April 2: paid holiday for Good Friday

Monday, May 31: paid holiday for Memorial Day

Friday, July 2: paid personal day

Monday, July 5: paid holiday for 4^th of July

Monday, September 6: paid holiday for Labor Day

Tuesday, November 23: 4^th annual daycare feast lunch for parents- come and go, 11:30-1:30

Wednesday, November 24: paid personal day

Thursday/Friday November 25/26: paid holiday for Thanksgiving

Thursday/Friday December 23/24: paid holiday for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

Thursday/Friday December 30/31: paid holiday for New Year’s Eve/ New Year’s Day

Policy, Housekeeping, and Paperwork

2010-09-30T10:50:00.002-05:00

I got a call this morning from a potential new family who wanted to look at the information website I keep- I gave her the address and then realized it's woefully old. Most of the things on there are still accurate, but I haven't updated it in a long time and rely on this blog for most of the current happenings. I probably need to just make this one the web address on the state site so people can see it. I'm going to be working on a series of info posts to link to in the sidebar so that new clients can check us out and get a better feel for some of our policies. If you're a regular reader, you likely know these things already, but a refresher is always nice. So. Look for new things to pop up about policies and hours and things like that. It's not that I'm making tons of changes; just that these things weren't listed on this site before and I'm trying to get everything in one place.

Friday Focus- Silvermist

2010-09-24T11:06:00.004-05:00

I am just having so much fun these days with all the girls. (Not to say I'm not enjoying the boys, but when I think of the kids, it sort of breaks down into O'Malley, the Pink Ladies, and the Little Boys.) The Pink Ladies are cooking up fun and mischief daily though. Literally. I eat so much plastic food during the day! They spend a lot of their time in the kitchen area dreaming up meals. Silvermist and Aurora feed each other corn and donuts and giggle like hyenas.

Miss Silvermist is the most articulate of the bunch at this point and constantly tells us, bosses us, and otherwise lets us know the things she finds important. She's also quick to correct her friends when she sees they're not following a rule. Never mind that she'll be doing it herself in ten seconds. That's completely different.

At lunch, Aurora was asking for more food and yelling "MORE FOOD! MORE! MOOOORRRRRE!" Silvermist just looks at her with the scornful eyebrow and says, "You manners?" :) When she wants more she's likely to forget the please and thank you herself, but it's so much easier to remember that OTHER people ought to be polite.

And then today Roo learned how to open the fridge, which is a huge milestone. She'd had to resort to begging her friends to not step on her and please bring her milk over HERE!!! Silvermist decided that Roo really should close it. Again, never mind that she herself will stand there with the door open so long that it's "S, please close the door. S, we don't stand with the fridge open. Sweetie, shut the door now. SILVERMIST! FOR THE LOVE OF PETE SHUT THE FRIDGE AND BACK AWAY WITH YOUR HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS!" And she just laughs. Sometimes she closes it and sometimes we have to bodily scoot her away. So she definitely knows the rules, and so do we. But we were being a bit lenient with Roo since she was having such great success in finally getting the door open. When she finally was able to open it and scoot out of the way so it didn't shut on her, she just lay there marveling at the salad dressing and grinning. Silvermist found this to be unacceptable.

Commentary with this goes: "Roo! Move away. No, Roo! Shut da door! I shut da door now! YOU MOVE BACK!!!!" All in a very cheerful voice, but accompanied by dress tugging and the understanding that she is to be immediately obeyed. :)

I wear my caterpillar hat. I wear my caterpillar hat. I wear my caterpillar hat!!!

She's been very excited about painting every day with our new curriculum. Here's the barn to go with Big Red Barn, of course, which is our title for the month. I like the way this is set up- it asks you to do the paintings one on one with each kid, only use one color at a time, and work on directives like wearing a smock, holding the brush, talking about color, and staying in the lines. Set up other opportunities for creativity- this one is for following directions and improving. She's getting better every time about remembering to stay at least near the lines, and we're working on colors. Right now all of them are blue. :)

And then there's this, which may be my favorite picture that I've ever taken of Silvermist in all the months she's been here. The weather is finally gorgeous and we've been out in the yard a lot this week. The kids are all reacquainting themselves with toys they haven't seen in months and running around having a great time. Silvermist was sitting on the red scooter holding a toy- it's in her left hand in this picture so I can't see it and I don't remember what it was. She was totally minding her own business and out of nowhere Aurora comes running at her and snatches it away. Indignation ensues, along with some yelling on both sides and some mediation from Kanga about being sweet and Silvermist had it first and Aurora needs to give it back now and wait her turn etc.... Normal stuff. While this was going on, Silvermist had of course gotten off the scooter so she could chase Aurora down to get her stuff back. When the crisis had passed and she was once more in possession of the Very Important Item, she turned around to get back on her scooter..... only to find that Stitch had snuck in out of nowhere and occupied it. I LOVE THIS LOOK ON HER FACE. It's such a grown up, "you have GOT to be kidding me with this!" face. Totally cracks me up.

Caterpillar Dayz

2010-08-31T09:56:00.004-05:00

I can't decide if I'm having more fun, or if they are. Part of it is just the novelty of new routines and something exciting scheduled to do everyday. I'm finding that it's easier to stay on track with this program so far and I love that. It's really fun to have every activity connect back to the theme somehow. They even have a big list of snacks in the book that correspond, with recipes and ways to get the kids involved in the process. Yesterday we made Monday's Apple Smoothies with applesauce and juice concentrate in the blender. Super yummy. It puts everyone in a happy, huggy kind of mood. :)

We've been doing some butterfly work too. Here is a gluing collage we made of some butterfly wings, and also using scarves as butterfly wings to do some flying of our own.

We also did Muffin Tin Monday for lunch, choosing all foods that the caterpillar ate in the book. They were practically incoherent with glee to get a tiny piece of cone and bite of ice cream as part of their lunch. :) No seconds on that part though, just the healthy stuff.

Are you sure I don't get more of that green stuff?

Mint chocolate chip is my favorite!!

Friday Focus- Esmeralda

2010-08-27T14:02:00.002-05:00

Friday Focus: Esmeralda from daycaregirl on Vimeo.

Our Esme has moved on as of last week. Her family found a new house that is still sort of in the area but just far enough away that our place is not really convenient anymore. I thought I'd put a slideshow together to give her parents- since she started in January she missed out on the Christmas one I do, and I have lots of cute pictures of her. Then I couldn't get my DVD burner to work and didn't get to give them a copy. So at least it will be here so they can see it.

We will miss you, Esmeralda! We wish you luck and fun times at your new school! :)

These Shoes Are Made For Walkin'

2010-08-26T15:29:00.003-05:00

Roo's therapy has been going really well lately and she's making tons of progress! We're so excited to see her picking up her feet to take steps now. I took a video of her walking too but right now Blogger is being highly uncooperative and not letting me publish. Hopefully it will work later.