TV-Free Toddler - Tea Flower

Today's TV-Free Activity: Tea Flower Watching
Materials: Clean glass jar, jasmine tea bloom (or other blooming tea ball), hot water, crayons
Ages: 2+
Time Filled: 15 minutes
Note: This is NOT self-directed.  Close supervision required.

You may have noticed a lapse between posts.  I must admit, I have fallen off the TV-Free wagon.  This is because, simply, I have not slept in 5 months.  I had foolishly hoped having a newborn would afford me better sleep than I had been getting while pregnant.  I was enormously uncomfortable, besides just being enormous, and had to pee every 2 hours all night long.  I had this blind, naive hope that Malcolm would be sleeping more than 2 hours at a stretch by this point, but he seems to have regressed to sleeping 90 minutes or less.  So now, while I blessedly don't have to pee all night long, I am still getting up all the time to void liquid, just now it is from my boobs.

Anyway, I digress.

I fell on this activity purely by accident.  I a fun craft in mind for today after lunch, but needed to stop at the craft store for some glitter and glue this morning on the way home from getting Lucy at preschool.  Then, I realized how insanely difficult it is to "stop by" anywhere with two small children.  So I was going to skip TV Free today (again) and clean up the kitchen while she watched 20 minutes of Dora.  I was cleaning up lunch and noticed the box of jasmine tea blooms I had left out from when I went through my extensive tea collection a week or so ago.  These "blooms" are dried jasmine tea tied cleverly so that when the are steeped in hot water, the ball opens to reveal a lovely flower, all while brewing a cup of yummy, fragrant tea.  I thought Lucy would enjoy watching the flower bloom.

Which she did - look at her oozing excitement! :-P  She actually did say "That's really cool, Mama!", so she did think it was fun to watch - only it was taking too long to hold her attention for very long.

What she DID enjoy was drawing on the hot glass with a washable crayon.  She found a yellow crayon on the floor and started to draw on the jar.  I was about to stop her (I thought she would have to push too hard to make a mark and possibly spill the jar of hot water), when I noticed that the heat from the water was melting the crayon.  It was like she was using a mess-free paint brush!  I am not sure if regular crayons would work as well as the washable ones since they are much softer than standard crayons.  And the really cool part is that the crayon literally just wipes right off the jar.

I like this activity for a number of reasons.  1) It uses your senses - watching to flower bloom, feeling the hot glass, smelling the jasmine tea, tasting the tea.  2) It provides an opportunity to talk about being patient and delayed gratification (I am certain my 2 year old is not the only one who has trouble with this).  3) It is a different sort of art project - one that can be wiped off and done over again as many times as you want with little or no mess.  I am sure there are other things that are at work here, but I am too tired to think of them.  Lucy was really focused during this activity.

TV-Free Toddler: Washcloth Soup!

Today's TV-Free Activity - WASHCLOTH SOUP!
Materials: A few large bowls, measuring cups, spoons, wash cloths, towels, water, ice cubes, things that float and things that sink
Age: 2-3 years
Time filled: At least 30 minutes, or until the water ends up all over the floor.  I recommend using this as an enticement to keeping the water where it belongs, as in "once the water is gone, we are all done playing."

So this activity might not be for the faint of heart.  It involves allowing you toddler to play with bowls of water inside.  Well, here in the DC area it is an indoor activity, since the weather has turned cold already.  If you are in warm country, feel free to take it outside.

Here's the set up: Lay a few towels down (a double layer might be a good idea).  I had a few extra foam floor tiles, so I put those down as a water poof surface, in a vain attempt to save our hardwood floors.  Fill a few bowls with water of different temperatures.  Put out a bowl of ice, several mixing and pouring implements, and a bunch of wash cloths.  Then start mixing!  We talked about the different color washcloths, how ice is cold while the water was warm, how to blow bubbles with a straw, that the coaster sinks, but an apple floats.  She poured and mixed and splashed and splashed and poured for a good long time.  The main thing to remember in any sensory activity like this is the refrain "The ______ stays in the ______."  The water stays in the bowl, the rice stays in the bucket, the beans stay in the bin, the WATER STAYS IN THE BOWL!  OR AT LEAST ON THE TOWELS!  THE WATER STAYS ON THE TOWELS, Lucy, or WE ARE DONE PLAYING WITH THE WATER!  That is how it goes at our house.

Postpartum Haze: Impressions from Day One

The feeling of his head in my hand as I waited for the last contraction to help push him out.  Angel-soft hair.  Little wiggles - he is moving! - as he works to get his shoulder free and join the world.  A strong wave of pressure, a breathless second, a loud cry, my baby is born into my own hands.

Joy!  The air comes back into my lungs, back into the room.  Labor is over, life is beginning.

Catching my breath.  Lucy is coming up the stairs, walking towards us.  Kevin at my side, kissing my head, welcoming his son.  Slippery little man in my arm, crying his little head off!

Out of the pool, onto the couch on shaky legs, surrounded by loving arms, beautiful women, ecstatic family.  Is this umbilical cord a little short?

I feel triumphant, breathless, strong, a warrior, a goddess!  To say "I did it!" seems trite and silly, but I did it!  I made this!  I birthed my baby, in my own house, on my own terms, letting my body do what it needed to do.  Birth is in voluntary, you just have to allow it to happen.  And I did.

Oh the perfection.  Sweet-smelling, gooey little baby snuggling against my chest.  The warm, safe presence of my husband beside me.

Hungry baby, latching on with no trouble, eat eat eat!

And then Lucy is with us.  What happened to my sweet baby girl?  Who took my little girl and turned her into this GIANT?  She's HUGE!  And what big TEETH she has!  Lucy, "Want MAMA MILK! MINE!"  Meltdown in the works.  Oh dear, here we go.  I am not sure I want to nurse this enormous wolf-child who somehow has replaced my daughter.  But the wolf-child insists and I am blissed out on birth and baby, so have at it kid.

Tandem nursing for the first time.  I am already stark butt naked in front of a roomful of people, why not sling a few boobs around for good measure?

The room clears out, we are alone, me, Malcolm and Kevin.  Admiring our handiwork.  My God, he is perfect.  Are those pointed ears?  Does he really have pointed ears??  My God, he is perfect.  Sweet smelling.  Soft.  Squishy.  Still covered in mayonnaise and goop, but wonderful to see, smell, kiss, cuddle.  Bliss.  Absolute bliss.

Mairi (midwife) makes eggs.  Lots and lots of eggs with cheddar cheese in them.  I devour a heaping bowl.  Then more.  Then toast and pineapple coconut water then chocolate.

I take a delightfully hot shower.  OH GOD I AM SO HAPPY TO NOT BE PREGNANT ANYMORE!  Oh God, what a smooshy, misshapen belly is left over from bring pregnant.  It looks like someone took a purple marker to a lump of sloppy bread dough.  Racing stripes.  Don't look.  There will be time for assessing the damage later.  I am scrubbed and cleaned and in my cozy red bathrobe and snuggled back on the couch to watch Kevin watching his son.  More bliss.

There is a minor amount of poking and prodding and checking and measuring done on me and my girlie parts.  It feels like there must have been an atomic bomb that went off down there.  I am glad I don't have to look at it.  No tears, just a split, just swelling, little bleeding.  Kat (midwife student) says "Seriously, Jenny, I was wondering if you lost any blood at all!  But it's in the placenta."  Oh.  Okay.   

Newborn exam.  Malcolm does not like it.  He's a big boy!  8 lbs, 14 oz!  Lucy watches.  Kat explains to Lucy what she is doing.  Lucy cares very little.  "Want to see Baby Muffin," she says, not fully understanding that Baby Malcolm IS Baby Muffin.  I am now almost certain she thought that my belly button was the baby I was growing in my belly.

Bed, blissful, beautiful, cozy, clean.  My bed.  Ah.  I cuddle up with Malcolm on my chest, skin to skin, and Kevin at my side.  We can hardly sleep for being exhausted.  We can hardly sleep from being so in love.

But sleep overtakes us and afternoon slips into evening.  He sleeps on me all evening, all night long.  I can't think of a sweeter day.  

TV-Free Toddler - Driveway Paints

Today's TV-Free Activity: Driveway Painting!
Materials: Cornstarch, water, food coloring, muffin tin or other small containers, paint brushes
Age Range: 2 years and up
Time filled: An hour or more if you can take it

Here's a step-by-step or making the paint.  Please ignore the half-empty bottle of wine inthe background.  I swear I wasn't drinking.

Fill each muffin...receptacle?...with a generous scoop of cornstarch.

Pour enough water in each...bin?...to completely cover the cornstarch.  Stir well.  You want it to be watery, not a gooey, thick mixture.  I thought I remembered vaguely from cooking with my mom as a kid that the water should be either hot or cold to make the mixing easier.  However, upon further reflection, this was to make mixing the cornstarch into GRAVY easier.  So I don't think it applies here.

Mix in desired colors.  I think using gel food coloring would make more vibrant colors.

After mixing your non-toxic, fully washable (and even edible...if you're into scarfing on straight cornstarch) paint, head out to the nearest paved surface and have fun!  This stuff is great.  After it dries, you can literally brush it off your clothes.  It paints on like this:

And dries like this:

The colors are really much more vibrant that you see here.  I have a crap-tastic camera.

Can you tell she picked her own outfit today?

TV-Free Toddler - Balloon Bonanza

Today's TV-Free Activity: Balloons!

Materials: Several balloons
Age Range: 2-4 years; possibly older
Time filled: 15-20 minutes

We went to a friend's second birthday this past weekend. We left with a belly full of awesome rainbow cake and 2 goodie bags filled with, among other fun things, several balloons. So yesterday after she woke up from her nap, I blew them all up and let her have at it.  Also fun to have on hand are cylindrical pillows to use as a bat and pieces of light-weight fabric to bounce the balloons around on.  This one didn't last as long as I would have liked.  She got bored fairly quickly and went from tossing the balloons to using them to hit the baby in pretty short order.  At least they were balloons and not the drumsticks she tried to hit him with yesterday...

TV-Free Toddler - Dixie Cup Castles

Today's TV-Free Activity: DIXIE CUP CASTLES!

Materials needed: Dixie cups - a lot of them (one box will do for one kid, if you have more than one, get a box for each)
Age range: 2 years through middle school age (and beyond - I still enjoy stacking the cups)
Time filled: 15 minutes to 2 hours+, depending on the age of the kids

Mama's Dixie Cup Stash

This is a fun activity for a huge range of ages.  I used to do it with my 1st - 3rd grade kids at summer camp.  I used it with middle schoolers in an after-school program.  On days when I was totally taped out idea-wise, I would dump out a box of 400 or so dixie cups and an hour later, they were still creating amazing three dimensional castles all over the room.  A friend of mine said they made it into a drinking game in college.  So I figured what is good enough for drunk college students is good enough for my 2-year-old (they are so similar anyway).

So here's what you do:  Open a box of Dixie Cups (or 2 or 3 boxes) and start stacking.  Lucy doesn't have quite the hand-eye coordination required to stack pyramids, but boy did she have fun knocking down the towers I built for her! Look at the gleam in her eyes...

While I was mindlessly stacking cups into towers, Lucy started thinking up her own creative uses for them. She found an egg carton in the box of cups and asked "Lucy want eggs in here?" Umm...no... Of course, one refusal is never enough, so she said, with greater emphasis, "Lucy want REAL eggs in HERE! RIGHT NOW!" And again, no. So, being denied the opportunity to sling raw eggs all over the living room, she started putting the dixie cups in the carton and saying "Mama want eggs for dinner?" and then throwing the carton around, thus validating my decision not to give her real eggs to play with.

Her next project was lining the cups up in a row and stepping on each one while saying "CRUNCH!" 

When she got bored of that, she moved on to crushing them in her hands. She also kicked them, threw them, jumped in them like a pile of leaves, jumped on them and beat on them with a drumstick.

All in all, good fun for about $3.00 worth of cups.

DISCLAIMER:  What you see pictured here is about 10 boxes of Dixie Cups salvaged from my drama camp days.

An Interview with Children's Book Author and Mama Blogger Anna Deskins!

Anna and her girls

Your children's book, The Adventures of Smitty looks magical. Tell us about it.

It's the story of a magical island of little creatures called Smilies and the mischievous little main character, Smitty. He's such a naughty boy. Haha! All the moms and kids I've shared it with have been giving me such a wonderful reaction. I cannot believe it. I have to tell you how excited I am to finally have a life-long dream come true. Writing The Adventures of Smitty was really about finding a story that I would want to read to my children at night. It has to be exciting but not scary so that my two daughters can go to sleep. Basically, I was looking for that perfect blend to read to my kids at night and decided, "Why not try writing my own?"

We've had a lot of changes in our life recently, so I want to make sure that when I put my daughters to sleep that they feel safe. I have short chapters because I know how busy we moms are but if you can just sacrifice 5 minutes at night reading to your kids, it makes a world of difference. Your kids will never forget it. And although we're running around the whirlwind of life, our kids grow up so fast, and that time that we'd rather finish watching what happened in our favorite soap opera instead of reading to our kids will never come again. I hope that The Adventures of Smitty and books like it help moms do exactly that.

Reading to our kids is so important!  Now, You are recently divorced. How have you been able to continue writing when going through such a change?

Yes, it is by far one of the most challenging points in my life. To see a marriage you thought would last forever to not last forever was difficult for the two of us. I really learned a lot about myself and most importantly, it's brought me closer to my daughters. I think that's what really motivated me to finish this children's book no matter what. When you're going through changes in your life like this, you need something to hold on to. There's a part of you that wants to prove that you can make it, that you will be a success even if it's not with the partner you originally imagined building a life with. I had to keep writing, for my kids. I want to show them that they have to keep strong, no matter what.

We as women, as moms really need to stick together to support each other and our dreams. We're living in an age when I think we're finally realizing, although we want love, the men in our life aren't the answer to everything. We have to stand up on our own two feet and keep going. True love will happen, but until then, we have to keep moving forward. Our children depend on us and we depend on us.

In addition to being a children's book author, you're also a small business owner. How do you juggle taking care of two daughters and at the same time running a business?

Yes, I am a fashion designer and have a retail store. Any type of creativity is what I'm passionate about. That's why writing The Adventures of Smitty was so important to me. Let me tell you, running a small business in today's economy isn't easy especially when raising two girls at the same time. But somehow, it seems someone's watching over me because my dreams are coming true no matter what. To have that many moms glowing about my children's book, means so much to me. And I know my girls are proud.

When do you ever have time to write?

You mean, in between laundry, running a business, chasing my girls around the house, cleaning the house, and flying back and forth fromMiami to New York? Haha? That's one thing I've learned, when you really want to do something, you find a way. Things fall into place if you just go for it and that's what I want to encourage all the moms who are reading this right now. Whatever your goal is, you can do it. Don't let the challenges in your personal life stop you from going for your dreams. Just go for it and it's almost magical how things fall into place.

Where can we get a copy of "The Adventures of Smitty"?

Right now, it's available online by going to: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94655 You can also visit my website:http://www.AnnaDeskins.com where you can read more about my writing process, my recommendations for other books and my own adventures in Mommyhood.

I'm so grateful for your support and the support I'm getting from so many wonderful moms who dream of writing children's books one day too. Writing The Adventures of Smitty has been such an emotional experience for me, a true journey as I was going through so many changes while writing it. It's truly been a blessing in my life. It, along with my daughters, and that guy upstairs have really pulled me through a challenging time.

Thanks for the interview, Anna. And let's go out and support a fellow mom by getting a copy of The Adventures of Smitty today. I know I will!