Moving Pains

We were are in the midst of packing to move and it has been really hard on me the past few days.  I'm excited about my husbands new job and our new location!  But, we will be moving from the home we own into a 2-bedroom apartment for a time, so I'm trying to sort and pack things according to whether they go to storage, or to the apartment.  We are also going to be selling our house, so the realtor has asked that we de-clutter the house (make it as show-like as possible) before they come in to take pictures and list the house.

With everything going on, I feel like I have been neglecting my 2-year-old, and that that has had some negative impacts.  He has been struggling with potty training the past several days.  The other nights, I collapsed into tears because I hadn't gotten as much as I wanted done and I felt like it was my fault that my little guy was seeming to regress.  My husband told me to take the day off from packing yesterday.

So I did.  The little guy and I curled up on the couch and watched cartoons, played "Taggie-ball" (basketball) and played with his elephant the pops balls up.  It was relaxing, and because I was paying more attention to him, we made it all day without having any accidents (compared to the 1-2 successful bathroom trips the days before).

So now it is back to the challenge to balancing packing, my son, my husband, and housekeeping....

Pie Plesantries

One of the things I like to do when I have time (and a reason) is bake.  I really like to bake, but it can be difficult to do when a little person is under foot. 

My pastor's wife contacted me and asked if I would bake a cake, brownies, or pie for a leadership luncheon this past weekend and I jumped at the opportunity.   Friday night was the perfect night to do it after my son went to bed since my husband was out of town.  

I did make the pie dough earlier in the day and let it chill in the refrigerator until I was ready to make the fillings.  I made two pumpkin pies for the luncheon and one sugar-free pumpkin pie for my husband.  I figured that it was only fair to make him one also. 

I'm afraid that I am something of a pie crust snob.  I don't care for store-bought crusts.  I am even picky about other homemade crusts.  Sometimes even my own crust doesn't work as well as I would like. 

 This time though, the dough was perfect.  It rolled out nice and thin with almost no tearing!  They transferred beautifully to the pans.  My only complaint was that the crimping didn't stay standing, but I can live with that.

Anytime I'm in the kitchen, my son wants to help, so when baking, I try to include him.  He helped me make the pie dough by dumping the flour and salt in, then mixing them with the shortening.

Bloglovin!

Hey, I'm checking out Bloglovin to see what it is all about!

Leaf Rubbings

I am obviously WAY behind.  We just got around to making leaf rubbings with the leaves I put in a book several weeks ago.  We have been snowed in by 8 inches of snow on top of a layer of ice, so I finally decided to get them out.
My son wasn't quite figuring out how to hold the crayon sideways to make a good rubbing, but he enjoyed coloring, and then crunching the leaves when I was done.  :)  We'll have to tuck this activity away for next fall and maybe do it before we are one-fourth of the way through December!

Extension Activities:
- Walk and look for different colors, shapes of leaves.
- Talk about the life cycle of leaves and trees.
- Identify characteristics of leaves (colors, shapes, textures)

Laundry Confession

Laundry Confession:  folding laundry is my time (or I like it to be).  It's time when the little person is resting or in bed.  It's time when I can watch what I want on Netflix.  It's time when I can sit down with a coke or hot chocolate.  Maybe it shouldn't be.  Maybe I should be watching Nova with my husband, or unloading the dishwasher.  But it makes me feel like I am doing something constructive and relaxing at the same time.

Easy Counting Activity

I was looking for an easy learning activity to do with my 2-year-old a couple weeks ago when it suddenly hit me (and I probably saw it somewhere else before).  I grabbed an egg carton and made a counting/number matching activity for him.

I numbered each compartment of the egg carton 1-12 with a permanent marker.  Then I found lids (mine happened to be from baby food pouches.  Milk lids, juice lids, or pop lids would also work great) and numbered them 1-12.  

And there we had an easy learning activity that didn't cost anything we hadn't already spent and took less than 5 minutes to assemble.  He was able to start matching the numbers on the lids to the numbers in the egg cartons.  Eventually, I would like to move on to counting beads or beans to put in each compartment.

Co-Sleeping (or lack thereof)

I know many people who co-sleep with their infants/toddlers and love it.  That's great!  It's not for me (at least not right now).

What brings on this post?  Well, my husband has been gone this week, so when my almost 2-year-old started crying in the middle of the night, I brought him back to bed with me.  We both went back to sleep.  Then I woke up to check on him.   Then I woke up with feet in my face.  Neither one of us slept very well.  Both of us sleep much better when the toddler is in his bed and I am in mine.

Typically when he wakes up in the middle of the night, I simply soothe him (tuck him in, reassure him).  Sometimes I'll curl up on the couch with him and fall asleep.  On those occasions, he will sleep for about 15 minutes on me, then push away until he is not on me (sometimes he'll even go all the way to the floor), then go back to sleep.  That is my cue to tuck him back in bed.

Maybe it is our temperaments, maybe it is because we haven't been co-sleeping all along.  Whatever the reason, it doesn't work.  And that is fine!  Despite the fact that I love cuddling with my toddler, it's nice to have a little bit of space.  Am I against co-sleeping?  Absolutely not!  You go and do whatever works best for you and your family.