This past week has been rather rough. I was out of town for 4 days 2 weeks ago. I then "went back to work" I work from home as an online school teacher. While I am working my mother in law watches the boys. And to top off the changes, my husband was out of town this week. Needless to say, R was showing quite a few signs of being completely stressed out by all the changes. This is the kid who falls apart when given a new pair of shoes let alone a major change to his schedule. He has been completely wild, throwing temper tantrums, not listening, and hurting his brother. I know those are all normal 2 year old behaviors, but I am glad my husband will be home today and that he is beginning to adjust to not having my full attention all the time.
I really miss being able to spend all my time with the boys. It will be so much harder to get them to work productively now that I am working. I still have the evenings, but evening is not the best time of day for R. He tends to wake up from his afternoon nap miserable, he remains cranky until dinner time, and then he becomes wild until bed time.
Here are some things we have been doing lately
The above picture shows some matching cards R did. Basically they are symmetrical pictures that I cut in half, laminated and R matched them up. He ignored this activity for about 3 days after I presented it to him, finally he got it out and matched all of the cards easily on the first try and has not looked at it again since.
This picture is my interpretation of the Montessori Weaning table. It is by no means perfect, but I used what I had. Basically I just took R's craft table, and put T in a Bumbo on top of one of the chairs, he is a bit to short to sit at the table without the Bumbo. He actually makes less of a mess eating this way than he does when he eats in his high chair. He is getting quite good using a fork. He isn't quite as good with a cup, yes his drink did spill moments after this picture was taken.
This was R's practical life activity of the day. He was mopping up T's spilled juice. He did a pretty good job of it. I wasn't going to let him try, because I have not yet found a durable kid sized mop, but he insisted on having a go at it. He is also getting pretty good at sweeping a pile of dirt up using a little dust pan and broom (The dust pan and broom are child sized unlike the mop).
Above is a dropper activity that I made for R. R is getting pretty good at handling breakable objects, but I may have to go back to plastic for now. T got a hold of one of the bowls while my back was turned and it shattered when it hit the floor.
This is R doing a funnel activity. This is one that I should have practiced before giving it to him. We were having trouble finding something that did not get stuck in the funnel. I tried bird seed, rice, bread crumbs and finally salt (which would have worked except that we also tried water, which R rejected and it was still slightly wet.) He had fun with it even if it did not work as smoothly as I had hoped.
We spent some time at the play ground this week. R has been working on climbing this for some time. He finally made it to the top. He was so proud of himself.
These are a couple of Imbucare Boxes I made for T. I didn't get a picture of him using them because he was napping when I finished them. They are made out of a single shoe box that I cut in half. I then put the lid on backward (the flap of the lid pointed toward the opening in the box, and duck taped it on. I got a couple of R's wooden blocks to put in the holes. The cylinder seems to be about the right level for T right now. R gave them a try as well, but they are way too easy for him.
