Marble Painting

We had our first Educational Play Date today.  (Bekah, I think we need to come up with a more FUN name for these dates)

We decided to try marble painting first.  I went searching for marbles this week, since I don’t own any.  Did you know that you can’t find marbles very easily?  I ended up with some round decorative ‘gems’.  They worked and they were very cheap.  I also bought paint.  I found some Tempera Paint and figured that’s what most elementary art teachers use, so I should be good with that.

Before giving them paint, we decided to show them how the whole marble painting thing worked.  We gave them a marble and showed them how to move the box around to make the marble move back and forth.  That also gave us a chance to see that we needed to tape down the paper.  It was a good dry run for everyone.

Then the pretty paint came out.  The boys kept saying “Can I paint now??”  (notice their cute, PLAIN shirts?  grrr)

We dipped the marble in the paint and plopped it into their box.  Away they went! 

They were cautious at first, even moving the marbles with their hands, but they got the hang of things after a few seconds and really started moving and shaking those boxes.   I think one marble even landed on the floor because of the feverish winging of the boxes. 

Cage’s box was a little more flat on the bottom, so his paint moved all around the paper. Jack’s box had a pretty bumpy bottom, so the marble tended to stay in the middle. 

After they did one page of marble painting, they were ready to really paint.  Evidently, marble painting to a 2 year old isn’t actually painting.  So we gave them new paper, put the paint in their boxes (GREAT idea, Bekah!) and let them really paint until there little hearts were content.  That lasted about 3 minutes.

Cage’s mom brought pom-poms and feathers to adorn on the paintings.   (I love Cage’s chubby little hands!)

It was a successful Educational Play Date this morning, I’d say!

They boys ended up playing in our sandbox for the rest of the time.  Which, we found out, has a mouse living in it.  I guess the tent over the top of the box didn’t keep the mice/chipmunks/moles/whatever it is! from digging up from the bottom of the box. 

 

 

Getting Up To Speed

It's been a while since I've mentioned any Growth Chart Moments, though they're happening almost every day around here now.  I'm going to try to remember all of them, and get you up to speed on Jack's accomplishments. They are in order as best as I can remember.

He can now walk (assisted with our fingers) with shoes on.  He had a good solid month of walking like this barefoot, but with winter coming up, I wanted to get him used to having shoes on his feet.  He had to learn how to walk all over again the first time I put shoes on him.  But now he's back to normal, cruising and walking all the time.  Baby shoes are adorable!!!

He is now 'crawl running.'  When he sees what he wants (like the doorstop that makes LOUD noises when hit), he crawls really fast towards it.  I call it crawl running.

Bath time is now in the big tub!  We went from the baby tub on the kitchen counter, to the baby tub in the big tub, now to just being in the big tub.  He loves it.  He scoots around on his little bottom, and sometimes even tries to crawl around. 

We decided it was time to get a convertible car seat.  A friend of ours gave us her old front-facing car seat for him to use, but we don't think he's old enough to be front facing yet.  His infant seat only goes to 22lbs, and I'm pretty sure he's over 20lbs now, so we had to get something soon.  Craigslist is a wonderful thing!! 

His top teeth are coming in.  One has been there for a few weeks now, but the other one is still trying to come through.   It has wreaked havoc on nursing!  Without going into detail, I'm going to take a little break from it for a few days.  If any of you have advice or encouragement, I'll take it!!!  This is painful stuff!!

Jack finally tried to climb our stairs this past week.  And he did it on the first try!  I turned around to see him on the first step.  What did I do? I ran to get the camera of course!  And then I kept my hand behind his bottom and encouraged him to go up further.  He made it about half way before he fell and decided it wasn't for him. He hasn't tried it since.

As of yesterday, he understands what "I'm gonna get you" means.  It's so cute to hear him squeal with delight and anticipation when you say those words to him.  He crawl-runs away as fast as his little knees can take him!  It's so fun! He has yet to figure out what "come and get me" means.

Today, Jack clapped for the first time.  All it took was taking him to the PBR Rodeo!  He was sitting on Daddy's lap, and all of a sudden he just started clapping.  Every time he did it, we encouraged him.  Tonight at dinner, he clapped between every bite of chicken.  Yay for meat!

Whew! That is a lot of Growth Chart Moments!!!  I can't believe how much growing he has done in his short 9 months.  (He will be 9 months on the 14th.)  That's about how long I had him inside of me.  It amazed me how much growing he did in that short time while he was in my womb, and now it has amazed me how much growing he's done in our home.  What a little guy.  We love him so much!!

Playing

Tonight, before we tried to put Jack in his bed, we took some time to play with him. He was so giggly, and he was interacting with us like he'd never done before. He was playing a peek-a-boo-like game with us and cracking himself up.

I love to hear his chuckles!!