Projects with Parker

If you'll remember, one of my goals for this year is to do a fun monthly project with Parker.  So far, I've managed to keep this up!  In February I was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest.  I had visions of making one for us, as well as the four grandparents.  However, three failed attempts before we finally made this one, I said, "Forget it!"  However, I love the end result (pun intended), so much that it is still hanging on the inside of my front door.

This month as I was loading up on Easter basket goodies at The Dollar Tree (my new fave store...everything really is only a dollar!) I spied this little Easter door hanger kit.  I knew Parker would have fun with it!  The only downfall is that the foam wasn't peel and stick, so I had to get the glue out.  Which meant Parker wanted to hold the glue most of the time, but this mommy is a little bit of a control freak and doesn't really like messes, so I won most of those battles!  ;)  Overall, Parker had a lot of fun, which is all that really matters!

Cotton Ball Bashing

Although I did so horrible with achieving my 2012 goals, I feel like I have hit the ground running for 2013!  I've already worked out three times in the past six days, I have gone through half of my filing cabinet and burned all kinds of paper-work (tax forms from 1996?  Really?!), and, best of all, I did a fun craft project with Parker on Monday!

I had pinned something called "Cotton Ball Bashing" a long time ago, and while browsing through my "Playing With Parker" board the other day for some pinspiration (get it?  Ha, ha!), I saw it and figured we would give it a try.

If you want to do some cotton ball bashing for yourself, it's pretty simple:

• cotton balls
• equal parts of water and flour (I did 1 cup of each) mixed together
• food coloring (optional)

Coat the cotton balls in the water/flour mixture and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes.



Stirring the flour and water.

I asked Parker if he wanted the cotton balls to be a color and his answer was, "Orange!"  That is his favorite color so I was not surprised.

Coating the cotton balls.

 

"Mama, my hands are dirty."

   

 

 Apparently my son takes after me in the I-don't-like-to-get-my-hands-dirty department.  About half way through he began complaining that his hands were dirty and I had to coat the last few cotton balls myself.  Oh well!  After I had all of the cotton balls coated and on the baking sheets, I baked them in the oven.  

 

 

After I took them out of the oven I let them cool for a few minutes.

 

Have you ever seen an orange cotton ball?

 

 

Now, this is where the fun part really begins!

 

Parker was ecstatic when I told handed him his hammer and told him to bang on them!

 

 

At least, that's what I thought.  I had expected the cotton balls to kind of shatter.  They did not.  Instead, they sort of bounced back into their shape.  (Wouldn't they do that even if we hadn't done anything to them?)  At first I was letting Parker bash them on the pan, then I decided to see if they would be more fun to bash if I took them off.  Warning:  Do not try to use a spatula.  Just tear them off with your fingers.  It's easier! 

 

And....they don't do anything!

 

Since "bashing" the cotton balls wasn't working out so well, I gave him some other tools and told him to go to work!

 

 

Once they were off of the pan they were a little bit more fun to play with!

 

 

The highlight was when one bounced off the island and landed right in Parker's shoe!  He thought that was awesome!

 

That smile is the reason I'm looking forward to doing these fun projects with him every month!

 

 

While I considered the project to be some what of a bust, it did keep Parker entertained for about three minutes.  Then, he was over it and I had weird looking orange balls all over my kitchen island.  While he was napping I threw them away.  When Parker woke up, he came into the kitchen, looked around, and said, "Mom, where are my meatballs?"  That explains why he tried to eat one of them...

Christmas through the eyes of a two year old

I have spent the past few days decorating our house for Christmas.  Parker had so much fun with all the "new" stuff.  However, it has been pretty entertaining watching how he plays with the decorations.

For Christmas last year my mom gave Parker a bunch of Christmas books.  I packed them away with the decorations so they would be "new" again this year.  He was beyond excited about all of the books and after he read them, he decided they were more well suited as a Choo-Choo train!

I have a Santa Claus decoration that is similar to a Russian Nesting Doll.  It has proven to be his favorite toy.  However, he thinks they are cups and pretends to drink from them.  I'm just waiting for the moment he actually fills one of the wooden figures up with water from our refrigerator door (note to self: remember to child lock the ice and water dispensers).

See that item he's holding?  It's not a Christmas wreath centerpiece for my coffe table.  Nope.  If you look closer you see that it's an alligator.  And, it's chasing him!

I let Parker decorate one Christmas tree all by his self.  He had so much fun doing it!  However, he would place all the ornaments on one tree branch until it was full, then he would proceed to another one.  I know I've morphed into a mom when I bit my tongue and refrained from telling him where to put each ornament so it would look "pretty".  He was so focused and when we ran out of ornaments he was absolutely beaming.  He couldn't wait to show it to his daddy when he got home that evening.  The memory makes me a little teary eyed! 

Once we were finished with the little tree he was overly excited to put together the bigger Christmas tree.  After I put it together there were a few V-shaped tree limbs (I'm assuming to put at the bases of the poles so it doesn't look so fake!  But, to a two year old, they were more fun to wear as hats.  He even told me I had to wear one and when I did so, he told me I was a princess (if someone ever needs a self-confidence booster, just hang out with a two year old!).

As much as he is enjoying all the decorations, the little guitar Christmas tree ornament is taunting him.  I had to move it to a higher branch because even though I thought it was our of his reach, nothing can stand in the way of a budding musician.  I don't have a picture of it, but Parker practically tried to climb the tree to try and yank it down.

Happy Holidays from our house to yours!

Toddler Tales

For those of you who semi-regularly read my blog, you may have noticed that I'm no longer doing my monthly posts about Parker.  I figured blogging every single month for the first two years of his life was a pretty good achievement!  But, I want to blog a few things that he's doing so that when I want to reminisce about his life as a two year old, I'll have a few milestones written down.  Because basically once you become a mommy your brain turns to mush.  I'm not kidding.

So...here are some pretty neat things that Parker (who is 2 years and almost 5 months old) is doing:

1.  He is dressing himself. Sometimes when he is finished I'll have to tell him his shirt or his shorts are on backwards, but for the most part he wants to dress himself! 
2.  He can count to ten!  I don't really get to take credit for this and have day care to thank.  He won't count on command, he basically has to want to count, or if I nonchalantly start counting he may chime in.  He will often skip the number four, but I'm not going to nag him about it.  Yet.
3.  He can feed the dog.  To be honest, I have to monitor this, because if it were up to Parker, Shady would have a dog bowl that would be filled to the brim each meal.  I'm sure Shady wouldn't complain though!
4.  He can open the fridge.  Lucky for me, he only usually does it when he knows I'm about to make him a glass of juice.  I think it's about time I move the wine bottles to the upper shelves...note to self!
5.  He can drink from a cup!  Granted, I still give him sippy cups 99% of the time just because I don't want to have to constantly clean spills.
6.  He also knows how to fill up his cup (or his toys) with water from the refrigerator.  Luckily, that does have a lock option!
7.  He knows how to wash his own hands!  He loves climbing up onto the bathroom counter to turn the faucet on.  He doesn't use soap if I let him wash by his self, and he can't reach the bathroom light, or the bathroom hand towel, but we are making baby steps in the right direction!
8.  He tries to read to himself.  I have often caught him in the act of flipping through a book that I had recently read to him and he will flip the pages and say things that pertain to the page.  His most often quoted book is "no monkeys jumping on the bed!".  He loves being read too!
9.  This has nothing to do with developmental growth, but he finally loves wearing hats!  And bandannas, too!
10.  I recently purchased flash cards and he loves telling me what objects are on the cards.
11.  His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds!

He normally turns his hat around and wears it backwards.

Parker's favorite things are:  going to the beach, boat rides, whistles, running, being read too, Caillou, the movie Cars, fruit, balls, Frisbee's, playing with other kids, sunglasses (although if you ask him where his sunglasses are he will tell you that they are in the lake.  Which is true.), playing "wakeboard" (this is where he pretends he is wakeboarding...his daddy couldn't have been more proud!), and suckers!

This was captured the first time I over-heard him reading to his self.

Hard at play.

He loves sitting next to his daddy on the boat.

 

 

Flip Flops!

One of Parker's favorite activities is to walk around in mommy or daddy's shoes.  Literally!  He especially loves walking in our flip flops.  I had asked him on multiple occasions if he wanted a pair of flip flops and he would always say yes.  While grocery shopping in Wal-Mart on Saturday I wandered over to the toddler shoe aisle with hopes of finding a pair of flip flops for Parker.  Either none of the sizes fit correctly or they were just plain ugly (as in neon green).  Luckily he didn't break down crying when we left the shoe aisle without a pair of flip flops in the shopping basket.

Yesterday we went to Old Navy because I just knew they would have a pair of flip flops that would fit him well.  I was right!  Parker was over the moon at the sight of the whole wall of flip flops!  After trying on the pair that fit, I asked him if he wanted to wear them or put his sandals back on. His response was a joyful, "yes!"  All day long he would proudly look down at his feet and exclaim, "flip flop"!

Last night, as soon as he got out of the bathtub, he was asking for his flip flops. I explained to him that he couldn't wear his flip flops because he had to put his jammies on, but I assured him that he could wear them when he woke up the next morning.

This morning when I heard him calling my name on the monitor, I went and rescued him from his crib.  I took him to my room and sat down on my bed with him and asked him if he wanted to lay down on mommy's bed.  He said no, which is rare.  He then proceeded to get down off of my lap and he went and sat on his alphabet train.  Thinking he was content, I went back into my bathroom to finish fixing my hair.  Next thing I knew I could hear Parker talking.  I poked my head into my room to see what he was doing (since his dad was still sound asleep!) but he was nowhere to be found.  I then realized that I was hearing him over the monitor that I still had in the bathroom.  He had gone into his room (which had the door shut, because his cousin was sound asleep on his bedroom floor) and as I approached his room, he came running out the door with two objects in his hands: his flip flops!  Apparently he remembered that he could wear them in the morning (the memory of a 2 year old never ceases to amaze me)!

He tried to immediately put them on, but I told him he had to take his jammies off, first.  He hesitated a second (this is usually a morning routine battle), said "OK", and immediately began taking his jammies off.  Once he was down to his (saggy) diaper he sat down and put his flip flops on.  I tried to help, but he stubbornly yelled, "I do it!" when I tried to lend a hand.  And, he did just that.  I would have taken a picture then and there, but then he began saying he wanted a shirt, and I was afraid if I took the time to search for my camera, the saggy diaper would be whipped off and I would have a large puddle of pee somewhere other than inside the toilet.

Off we went for Parker to go pee-pee in the potty wearing only his shirt and flip flops!  Shortly after I finished getting him dressed, I snapped this picture of him sporting his new flip flops.  Now I'm starting to think I should have bought more than one pair!