Read Across America

Today elementary students are celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday.  During the last 4 years of teaching 1st grade this was always one of my favorite days.  The 3-4 1st grade teachers (depending on the year) would rotate their classes.  Miss O. would read Green Eggs and Ham and the students would help prepare and then eat green eggs and ham.  Mrs. C. would read The Cat in the Hat and draw a cat nose and whiskers on each student, and the students would make a Cat in the Hat craft.  I would read To Think you saw it on Mulberry Street and the students would come up with their own sentences... To think I saw it on Old Farmers Road (the street the school was on).  They would think about their day dreams to and from school.  They would write their own little story.  

One of the other 1st grade teachers and myself would always dress up.  She would wear black and a Cat in the Hat hat.  I would wear black and a big red bow tie.  Of course we put the cat nose and whiskers on our faces too.

Now that I am a stay at home Mom (YEAH!) I have felt a little sad on some of these 'big' days.  

Today I decided to do something about that.  The boys and I had our own Dr. Seuss day.  It was nothing spectacular.  I didn't make green eggs and ham, I didn't paint their faces, but we did acknowledge the day.  

During the boys morning nap I went up to the attic to my school supplies.  I pulled out a bunch of my Dr. Seuss books.

I felt like I was in my classroom again.  I stood all the books up so that when the boys woke they would see them and they would go right to them.

 

M 'reading' I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

The boys basically went right up to the books and just 'threw' them on the floor.  They did finally pick one or two up and quickly took a look.

G 'reading' Mr. Brown can Moo!  Can You?

M moved on to The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

After looking at ('reading') all of the books that were on display we had lunch.  Lunch has NOTHING to do with Dr. Seuss or Read Across America, but it was cute so I thought I would share it.

I bought some new cookie cutters.  They are train theme.  I was so excited about them!  I found them online for under $10.  It came with a train, 4 train cars, and 3 signs.  I knew that they were going to be bigger cutters but I wasn't expecting them to be HUGE.  I was SO happy with the size!  I used the train to cut the boys sandwich.  Hubs doesn't like the idea of cookie cutting their sandwiches because he doesn't like the idea of the scraps being tossed (the one time I did cookie cut their sandwich they ate the scraps after the 'special' sandwich).  He would be very pleased with this one.  There were barely any scraps.  All that was cut off was basically crust.

At first they weren't pleased with the amount of puffs I gave them.  I used the puffs just to make it look like the train was steaming.  Don't worry I brought along little bowls of puffs for each boy too.

M eating the train steam.

M standing up his train and making it chugga-chugga choo-choo.

M taking a big bite.

G taking a big bite of his train.

G described each bite he took before he took it.  For example before he took this bite he said, "Big bite, wheels!".

 After we ate lunch we went back into the living room and read some Dr. Seuss books.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed this day more than if I was at school teaching.  I LOVE that I have been blessed this year with the privilege to stay home with my boys.

I have some great ideas for 'special' school days for the boys as they are getting a little older.   :)

Naps or Painting

The boys have been miserable this week.  There hasn't been much napping due to one of them biting the other every time I leave the room.  Hubs and I have been trying to figure out a way to get him to stop biting.  We thought we got it under control.  He had finally stopped about 2 weeks ago and then the end of last week he started all over again.  The poor babe that is being bit has bruises and cuts on both biceps, on his back, and random ones on his arms and legs.  The biter will actually fall asleep, wake up, and quietly go climb into his brothers bed, bite him, and jump back into his and wait for me to get up to the room.  Needless to say, when they have napped I haven't taken my eyes off the monitor because he could wake up at any minute and just bite his brother.  

I've been doing everything I can think of to stop this.  I actually sit on the (closed) toilet in the bathroom right next to their room just so I could go in there the second he got out of bed, hoping to stop the biting before it happened.  This was actually making it worse for the biter.  That's what he wants... he wants Mommy to come into the room.  He wants Mommy to lay in bed with him.  He WANTS Mommy.  I spent 2 hours doing this on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday, and an unsuccessful 3 on Thursday.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they finally fell asleep (the bitten doesn't lay down until his brother does... he's afraid).  Thursday they didn't take a single nap.  

Anyway the end of last week and this weekend I allowed a lot of tv.  I was so tired from trying so hard that I just couldn't do much more than that.  Horrible excuse!  This week I decided NO.  I was not going to 'reward' them with tv.  Which is exhausting for me and I'm pretty sure Hubs doesn't like me right now :)  I'm no picnic by the time he gets home.  I basically went cold turkey on tv.  We were watching 2 movies a day.  NOT COOL for 2 boys that aren't even 2.  Monday I allowed a 20 minute show in the morning when they first woke up.  That way I could let the dog out, feed him, get breakfast ready for the boys with out them screaming at me.  Tuesday we didn't watch ANY :) go me.  Wednesday we watched Lion King in the late afternoon.  Hubs called and wanted to talk then I wanted to call my mom to tell her what Hubs and I talked about.  So I was a bad Mommy and put on Lion King.  After I was done with those conversations I laid on the couch with them and fell asleep tangled under them (it was wonderful).  Thursday my mom was here and was helping me so I could get ready for Hubs birthday.  She wanted to snuggle and I didn't feel like I could tell her no.  She was so helpful that I wanted to make her happy too so I allowed 30 minutes of Cinderella (and how could I say no when G is asking for Cinnnerrreaaa).  Today... we did a 20 minute show.  So I guess I shouldn't have said I went cold turkey no tv.  I still did some :(  Tomorrow is another day.

After some discussion Hubs and I decided that we were going to bring a crib down from the attic to put back into the boys room.  We decided that time outs were not working during nap time.  It is hard to ignore the babe that is crying in pain in order to get the biter to stay in time out and spend however long it takes to get him to actually sit there.  I wasn't going to remove the biter for a time out and leave the bitten in the room to cry.  I didn't find that to be at all right for the bitten.  I couldn't stand my son crying Mommy mommy bite or pull on my shirt saying no Mommy he bite because he was afraid that he would be bitten if I left.  

This morning I put the crib in their room.  I decided that I COULD NOT go in there every time one got out of bed (it made it worse for them- that's what they wanted).  So we thought that after 1 bite I would go in and give the babe a time out, after the 2nd bite I would go in there and put the babe in the crib for his nap.   I don't want him to regress to the crib, but I can't allow the other to continue to get hurt.  

I did have to put him in the crib for his nap this afternoon.  They slept so well and woke up so happy.  

We didn't even try a late afternoon nap today because they were playing so nicely and by the time we were done with lunch it was almost too late to try.  So we just waited for Daddy to come home.  

Tonight the boys went to bed with no problem.  Actually they normally have no problem at night time.. only nap time :/  

While waiting we painted...

I'm really hoping that this biting is due to the 8 molars I see coming in (4 each).  I don't know if that makes a difference.

I don't want the crib to stay in there for too long.  It's a mini crib and he honestly doesn't have much room in there.

I told Hubs that we aren't going to say that he has to sleep in the crib like a baby.  I don't want to bring the whole "baby" into it.  Since we are having another baby and he is so attached right now I think he would actually prefer to 'be a baby' if given the opportunity (not sure if that makes sense).  So we are trying to just play up his bed.  For example tonight when we went into the room for bed he walked Daddy over to the crib and said, sleep bite.  Daddy said, yes if you bite you have to sleep in the crib, but you don't want to sleep in the crib, you want to sleep in your awesome tractor bed.

Hopefully this works!

Rice Explorations

I've been trying to do one (different) thing a day with the boys. There are all these great ideas out there on what to do with your toddler. I would love to try all those things but some of them just aren't practical to do with two toddlers at the same time.

For example... Rice Explorations. Going into this I knew that it would be so much better if there was one adult with each child, but there aren't. Not during the day anyway. So I said, suck it up and just do it. So what, you are going to have to clean up a bit of a mess. It's going to be fun.

I pulled out two pots, two cooking spoons, four measuring cups and a bag of rice. If I was going to do this with one toddler I would have pulled out a cookie sheet to work on top of, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to contain the rice with two boys.

I put the pots on the ground and gave the boys their spoons and cups. They then watched me pour the rice into the pots. They were so giddy. Their squeals were just so cute.

This is what happened next -

M transferring rice from measuring cup to measuring cup.

G stirring his rice with his cooking spoon.

G feeling the texture of the rice.

G loving this activity.

M checking out the texture of the rice.

G decided he wanted to take his pot to the table. I was going to let them work there, but the table is so tall compared to their chairs and I just thought that it would be uncomfortable for them.
M thought it was SO FUN!

They even helped Mommy clean up.

We had a blast exploring with the rice. What fun thing can I do tomorrow??? Any ideas?