Baby Play Date

Yesterday, we ventured to the Sloan Museum in Flint to visit their Bug’s World exhibit. They have 5 gigantic (40-120 times their actual size), animatronic bugs on display.  Our main goal, though, was to bring together two toddlers who have missed each other dearly.

Our son normally spends weekdays with his incredible sitter and her granddaughter. Since I have been off for a few weeks now, these two little buddies have not seen each other in a while. His buddy is old enough to form rudimentary sentences, and she frequently asks for baby by name.

So, we planned a play date today for the cute little couple to see each other and some giant bugs. As soon as we got out of the car in the parking lot, it was obvious how much these two missed each other. She ran right up to our son’s stroller and he reached out for her immediately. PRECIOUS.

We entered the Museum, saw the big, moving bugs and wandered around the other exhibits. Once again, they had a really fun play area for kids about halfway through the museum. It was set up like a little grocery store and a cute kitchen. Baby’s ‘date’ is about 20 months old, so she liked pushing around her little grocery cart and ‘buying’ her items. Baby loved pushing around a toy walker and running into things. Surprise.

The rest of the exhibit was Flint memorabilia, and a tad boring for the kids, but they only wanted to be near each other anyway. After the museum, we had a picnic undersome big shade trees, thankfully, as it was almost 90 degrees outside. The babies continued to be attracted to each other like magnets while eating their lunches.  Eventually it was time to part ways, but it was quite a fun day.

After our play date, we decided to try going to a movie. I know, I know, baby is far too young for such things, but we really wanted to see Finding Dory, and I had done some recon work. I used to work at a pretty busy movie theater for about 5 years, so I know how annoying a crying baby can be to the other paying customers in a theater, and I was not about to let my baby cause anyone’s Dory experience to be sub-par.

Luckily, I knew of another theater location that is usually somewhat slow during the weekday matinees, and I also happen to know the GM: my best friend of 16 years. She told me what the slowest show time has been for the movie. With extremely low expectations, we got tickets and settled in. Baby had fallen asleep and was out until the previews started.

Silly Dads!

He didn’t like the loudness of the theater, that’s for sure. He clung to me like he was in grave danger. After about 10 minutes, he got restless, but never cried. The rest of the movie, my husband and I just shared duties walking up and down with baby and watching the movie from the edge of the auditorium, hidden from view by the stairwell.  It is definitely not something we will try again for a long time, but we saw the whole movie and he never cried! Win?

Busy Board for Baby

So, because I am unrelenting by nature, I was browsing through Pinterest the other day and found busy boards for toddlers. The concept being that you assemble a busy station with lots of places for baby to practice fine motor skills and to explore how things work, without baby crawling all over your house to do so.

I instantly thought this was a genius idea and wanted to make one for my son. Problem number one: I am not a carpenter. I had no idea what kind of wood to use for the board, nor how to buy it. I did the only thing I knew I could: I asked my dad for help.

He has yet to turn down a request to help me on one of my farfetched projects, and this one was the same. I took some screen shots of other pinners’ boards and off we went to Home Depot. We roamed and found quite a few gadgets that we thought baby would like to play with.

Then, I became my monster, ‘let’s make it cute’ self, and I suggested several paint options for the board. My dad just kept uttering the phrase, “seriously? You’re killing me.” I was becoming a bit demanding. Not to mention that my dad pointed out the fact that we were spending hard-earned money and precious time on something that baby would probably play with for 3 minutes. [Foreshadow, friends.]

After our hour long adventure at the store, we set out to sand and paint the board. (I decided to mimic another pinner’s idea and go with a ‘Caution’ theme.) Of course, it really ended up being my dad who did all of the work here. I stuck around to oversee the project and make pithy comments. I’m a real dreamboat, I know.

Painting ended up being quite the task. Mostly because I wanted to paint the board in black and yellow stripes. In the end it took all day to complete the paint job and let it dry.  By the time we (my dad) were able to attach all of the fun do-dads (technical term), it was almost baby’s bed time. Good grief.

I presented my dad’s project to baby and he initially loved it. He liked the door stop the most, because of the fun BOINGGG noise it made. It was then my dad’s turn to comment sarcastically, “wow, that’s not going to annoy everyone…”  Baby ended up playing with the board for about 5 minutes and then wanted to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Awesome.

It might not be baby’s favorite right now, but I am going to consider this a day well spent with my father. No matter how much I annoy him 🙂

Family Fun Day

Today we took our little man to the Flint Children’s Museum. Lucky for us, and baby, his Grandma could come with us! We knew he was pretty young for such a place,but we thought we would give it a shot anyway.

We started out in the discovery area, and he loved watching us make all of the gadgets work. He wasn’t particularly interested in doing anything himself, but we pretty much expected that. There were a couple of ball displays in which the balls move through different courses on their own. Baby loved those because he loves any kind of ball. But when we let him try, he just wanted to eat it. Typical.

Next we checked out the noisy room, in which kids could explore sound and the way sound travels. My husband had far more fun than baby in this room! He loved slapping the pipes to make different noises. I really thought baby would love the wall of random objects and hanging drum sticks. Implication here: bang on everything and have a blast! Banging on things with a wooden spoon is baby’s favorite activity at home. I thought this would go well, but unfortunately, I think he was just too overwhelmed.

We watched a couple of minutes of The Magic School Bus in a stage coach, next. That was kind of random, but he liked the T.V. of course, [eye-roll]. After that, Grandma and Daddy performed a puppet show for baby that he really liked. He wanted to eat all of the stuffed animal looking puppets. Noticing a theme?

We played with shadows a bit, i.e. baby tried to eat the dragon casting light for hand puppet shadows. Then it was on to the tot room. I really hoped he would at least like this room, and it ended up being the only room he really wanted to get down and play. Note: he played with the same toys that we have at home. But he played! I am counting that as a win! He ended up crawling through the little tunnel and playing with random toys. But mostly he did a lot of kid watching. He was just studying other children at play. That was pretty neat.

Lastly, we went “into the woods,” one of the exhibits at the museum. The thing baby seemed to like the most in the whole museum was one tiny door in a tree trunk that was hiding some squirrels. Baby thought it was the coolest thing ever! He must have opened that little door a dozen times. I am guessing this stems from his absolute obsession with Hide and Seek right now. It was so simple, but he loved it.

 

After the museum, we went to the Rainforest Café! I was hoping baby would share my love of cheesy entertainment paired with overpriced food. Turns out, he was pretty indifferent. But he did like the fish tanks! And he tried to like the big elephants, until the thunderstorm hit which kind of freaked him out.

All in all, we had a pretty fun family day, and we were really glad that my mother-in-law could join us.

Baby’s First Zoo Visit

Today we went to the zoo for the first time with baby! And it only cost us $2 for entry! I randomly stumbled upon the promotion online last night at 3:45am when I couldn’t sleep. Meijer sponsored “Zoo Days” today and tomorrow at Potter Park Zoo. As long as you pick up a voucher at Meijer, you could get into the park for $1! And baby was free because he is under a year old. Talk about a cheap date!

So, we got up and started to pack half of our belongings for this little day trip. How could one little person potentially need so much stuff?! After packing his diaper bag, I threw together a couple of sack lunches for myself and my husband. Then, we were off!

Our selfie with the Rhino

Checking out Mr. Tortoise

We stopped at a Meijer in Lansing to grab a couple of vouchers, which ended up being a wasted 3 minute stop. The Zoo staff was kind enough to hand out vouchers to anyone that needed one in front of the admissions booth. Oh well, better to be safe than sorry, right?

Baby was initially cranky (hungry, hot, recently aroused from a car nap, etc.), but he came around once he chugged a bottle and started checking out the farm animals. One thing I loved about this Zoo was how close you were to the animals! [And the vast amount of shade throughout the park!] They had lots of spots where kids could pet or ride the animals. Our little guy was too little for most of that, but I think he genuinely enjoyed staring at some of the bigger creatures, like the tortoise and the donkey.

Honestly I was quite impressed with this little zoo. They had a lot of different species and the animals were pretty active for it being mid-day and 80 degrees outside.  I realize the animal liveliness, if you will, is out of the zoo’s control, but it was still neat to see the tiger splashing in the river, mongoose (geese?) actively cuddling on a log, monkeys swinging, and lions moving around on their large rock structures.  Maybe that is a compliment to their enclosures? Either way, we had a lot of fun and baby was really well behaved. He seemed to have enjoyed himself.

Baby’s First Fourth

Last 4^th of July, I was very pregnant and uncomfortable. This Fourth, I was recovering from surgery while chasing around a feisty 11 month old. In summation: two Independence Days sober.

Clapping for himself…

My parents threw their usual 4^th of July back yard party and it was really fun. It was seeing family and friends that we don’t get to see often. It was also a chance for baby to soak up lots of attention. He is quite shy when meeting strangers (defined by people he doesn’t see every day, even if he has met them several times before), so he was slow to really turn on the charm.

We tried letting him swim in his kiddie pool, but the water was too cold and/or he felt silly because no one else was swimming(ha!), and he just cried in protest. We ended up putting a blanket in the yard and putting his ball pit out to see if that would cheer him up. He loves playing in his ball pit, and by playing I of course mean crawling in, then crawling out; repeat 100 times.  Add to that displacing as many balls as possible, and you have the recipe for a little guy totally putting on a show for his doting audience.

Everyone laughed when he threw balls out, so he would throw them out, pause of applause, smile the cheesiest smile possible, and then continue to do it again. He won the crowd over, or maybe the crowd won him over. All I know is that our little guy loved all of the attention. We really appreciate having so many people in our lives who love our little guy like he was their own.

We tried to watch some neighborhood fireworks and eat smores, but the mosquitoes were pretty relentless so that was a short lived night cap.

All in all, it was a much better Fourth of July party this year with our handsome little devil to entertain us.

Baby Finger-Paints

Pinterest mom is back at it,folks! As a teacher I am blessed to have summers off with my little guy, but with my role as a temp. stay-at-home mom, comes the job of planning activities to keep baby busy and learning. I am not used to creating lesson plans for an 11 month old, so Pinterest is my go-to for ideas.

I have been wanting to allow baby to do some finger painting, but he likes to put everything in his mouth, so I had to find an edible recipe. I found a simple recipe and set to work with my mom. The recipe only called for water, salt, all-purpose flour, and some food coloring. We used neon and standard food coloring and had fun mixing them together to create unique colors.

I laid out an inexpensive shower curtain so that little man could make a mess without harming anything. We stripped him down to his diaper, laid out a few sheets of white paper, and let him go to town exploring. The consistency of the paint was a little gritty, which he found fascinating. Baby loved mixing the colors together instead of keeping them separate like mom would have liked, but I was doing my best to embrace the mess! After all, I believe that learning should be messy.

Baby was more entertained by bending the paper and whipping it around, than finger-painting on it, but that was fun to watch too.  Dad was doing his best to show baby how to do it, but baby was too busy trying to spill the paint and eat it. When he did put it in his mouth, it must have tasted pretty bitter, or so his face seemed to say.

Overall, it was a really fun time and I think we will definitely do it again! Pinterest win for Mom!

Baby’s First Swim Lesson

I read somewhere that babies under a year old tend to take to the water pretty well. So when a coworker of mine was signing her son up for swim lessons, I jumped on board too. Baby was only 10 months, but based on his fun splash time in the kiddie pool in our back yard, I thought he might like it.

Best decision I have made in a long time! Baby loves the pool! Swim classes are run using toys and songs, and our baby just eats it up! All of the other babies in our class are older, but several of them don’t like the water much. In fact, earlier this week our lesson started with 5 babies and parents in the water, and ended with only 2 babies still swimming.

We start each class chasing floating toys and practicing stretching our arms out, like we are swimming. Then, we use noodles and flotation belts to practice gliding on our bellies and kicking. We usually sing a couple of songs and practice floating on our backs next. And we always end class with the Hokey Pokey and splash all around! (I use “we” here because everything baby does is with mine or daddy’s help. We are a great team!)

Our buddy loves splashing and doesn’t mind getting water in his face. He loves gliding on his belly, and has even started paddling with his hands. It is insanely fun to watch and be a part of.

My hope is that baby continues to do well in the water and comes to love it as much as his parents do. And if he turns out to be an Olympic swimmer, that would be fine too.  😉

Baby Finally Got Baptized

We have been meaning to get our son baptized for months, but something always came up, or so I told myself. Finally with the help of a close friend, we became parishioners at an incredible church and began the process of getting baby baptized.

We needed to attend a baptism class for preparation purposes, which we took baby to. He actually behaved quite well for an hour and a half, which I was hoping would translate into a well behaved baby during mass!

As it turned out, it did! We got lucky on his baptism Sunday, because baby slept through the entire mass, and behaved like a pious, little gentleman throughout most of the Baptism ceremony that followed.

He wasn’t a huge fan of getting wet, fully dressed, in front of 100 some strangers, but he only fussed for a few minutes. As aforementioned, there were a lot of people at this ceremony because there were 5 other babies being baptized as well.  It was a really neat experience to see so many other families completing the same process, but in such different ways. It was pretty awesome to see a crowded church with eye focused on its tiniest members.

We are so blessed!

Baby is 11 Months Old!

I honestly cannot believe how much time has passed since my last entry. I feel like a complete failure. Now that school is out, it is my mission to document baby’s summer fun!

First off, baby is now 11 months old! His personality is starting to come out and we are falling even more in love with our little guy. He seems to be very obstinate currently, and I am really hoping that is just a phase! “Buddy, don’t touch that…” [Baby glares at me while defiantly touching the forbidden object.] Awesome!  “No no. You know you can’t go in there…” [Baby pauses, stares me down, and scurries into the forbidden room.] Perfect!

Baby now has 8 teeth! I swear the poor little guy has not gotten a break from teething for months. He constantly has his fingers in his mouth, desperately trying to soothe the pain.

The most popular question we get right now is, “Is he walking yet?” Answer: so close! He is walking/running behind all of his push toys, as well as climbing them dangerously, but he has not taken any steps on his own yet. Just this week he has started standing without holding onto anything or anyone, but it’s almost like he has no idea what that could mean for his future mobility. He just slowly sits down and crawls wherever he wants to go. I know that our lives will change drastically in the next few weeks.

 

My husband and I really cannot believe that our little guy is almost a year old! We are planning his little birthday party and trying to decide what you buy a one year old who has everything…

Thanks for reading and I will be back soon I promise! (Yes, I know I said that in my last post…but I mean it none-the-less!)

Baby is 7 Months Old

I know that it has been a while (2 months?!) since my last post, so it’s about time I update you all.

First of all, allow me to explain my absence. I have been staying at home with my little guy since he was born, but a few weeks ago, I was unexpectedly offered a teaching position. That same week, we were in the process of moving, so between unpacking, frenzied lesson planning, grading papers, and just trying to settle into our new routines, blogging just did not carry the same priority it previously did.

So now that I am a working mommy, things are certainly different! A family friend is watching him during the week, which is amazing. Baby transitioned seamlessly, which I attribute to our wonderful sitter.  And because he was with someone we trusted, I never had to worry. I didn’t even cry on his first day, which I was shocked by. (Honestly, there isn’t really time to worry about him when you are a high school teacher, but I didn’t even cry during the car ride to school!)

Baby just turned 7 months old, and he is on the move! He is crawling, albeit a very rudimentary form of Army crawling, but none-the-less, he’s mobile! He is scooting and rolling and huffing all the time. He would rather practice walking, but we are trying to encourage him to crawl, as I have read all of the research on babies who skip crawling. He loves holding mommy or daddy’s hands and “walking” all over the house.

He is an eating machine! He still wants a bottle every 3 hours, including nighttime, unfortunately. But he is enjoying solid foods too. I think he is just enjoying making messes, but whatever makes him happy, right?

He now weighs around 17 pounds, has two teeth, and still loves Toy Story more than any 7 month should. He smiles constantly and is a babbling fool. We are so blessed to have such a happy little guy!

I promise I will try to write as often as possible!