Today is…Thursday Oct 14, 2010
We started with…playing with clothespins:
Which, in a structured Montessori classroom would have looked much more organized (like this cute activity here).
At my house, however, it consisted of one little undiapered boy (hence the cropped picture) and several hangers and clothespins pirated from the laundry I was folding.
And yet, somehow, I think on many important levels it was the same.
We prayed.
I nursed Galoot. We looked at a picture of Jacob and his sons. We talked about how Daddy has a lot of sons too, and that his sons need to listen to their Daddy and Heavenly Father too:
Galoot was still nursing, so we read some more stories.
I burped Galoot:
Not a terribly interesting, I know. I only include it because in taking this photo I changed the focus setting of my camera. Thus explaining why the rest of the photos for today are terribly out of focus.
But we carry on.
We skipped a morning message (due to time issues), and left for Stay and Play.
Giant REALLY wanted to pick up garbage along the way. And since we actually have a gripper/garbage-picker-upper thingy, I really had no excuse not to let him. It was kind of weird, because although I support making our town look pretty, I felt quite conspicuous walking beside this little man picking up garbage. And yet, why not pick up garbage? It really is everywhere. It really is quite gross. It really bugs me every time we take a walk, and I really think someone should pick it up. So why not me (or my son)?
We had a blast at Stay and Play, where they got to play with all sorts of fun toys we don’t have at home. And they also got to squish around shaving cream mixed with food colouring for Messy Play (their hands are still blue 😉 ).
Then we went home. Slowly. Picking up garbage as we went.
After lunch Giant made a book and taught Ettin the fine art of using a stapler (the trick, apparently, is to whack it really hard):
Ettin went for his nap.
Giant and I read the book that he had made, and then we read a really great Usborne book called The Dressing-Up Box.(Man I love the library, and all the wonderful resources it contains). I got quite a thrill as Giant put together a lot of the words himself!
I put Galoot down for a nap.
Now what. I had no plans for this afternoon, which is a dangerous situation for me. At a loss for what to do, or rather, wanting only to boongoogle and have a nap myself, I resisted the urge and set Giant to work making pictures and signs for a pet shop:
“raBit” (with pink ears, of course)-$16
Three snakes (a baby, a brother, and a mommy snake)-$4
Dragon (breathing fire)-$2
“chicin”-$8
I helped draw some other “pets” too, and Giant was open for business:
I actually really like playing this kind of game with him. I make him count out how many dollars each animal I buy is worth, so he practices a lot of counting. We talk about which animals I could buy if I only had a certain amount of money, and why. Sometimes I even sneak in a bit of addition, asking how many dollars I need to pay him for two different types of animals. For example: How much would I need to pay Giant if I bought the Frog for $1 and the Fish for $3?
Four dollars please Mom.
We got to play for a little while, and then Ettin woke up. He was amazed at all the work we’d done:
Or perhaps just groggy and confused.
While I made supper, Giant decided he was going camping. I stick this in just because I love the picture he drew:
A map for going camping.
It starts at the house
follows the path
goes through a forest where the sun is setting. So a flashlight is needed
and ends at the campfire
We read another book and waited for our Daddy Bear to come home for supper:
Wow, this day turned out a lot more productive work than I had planned. Thank goodness!