365: Floral Design Day

February 28 is Floral Design Day. Jude and I got Valentine's Day flowers from our new friends, Jordan and Jed, so I decided to epicycle them for today's project.

A couple of days ago, I started pressing the flowers for this activity. I had never pressed flowers before and had next to no idea how long it took. I realized last night that I was roughly 3 weeks from having dried flowers, so I improvised. I took out my trusty laminator and laminated the flat flowers. They will likely not last too long because some air got trapped in the seal, but they work for now and are beautiful to look at. I may try to laminate flattened fake flowers to play with more longterm.

I was inspired by a few Instagram moms to use contact paper to play, so I hung some up on the side of the shelf. I also put out the laminated flowers on the floor near it with the exception of one that I hung to show Jude what the paper was for. Jude was across the room when I set it up and the bright colors of the flowers served as a fun invitation to play and he crawled right over when he saw it.

Jude caught on pretty quickly that the paper was sticky. I talked him through the process of putting a flower on and taking a flower off, and then I set him free to play how he wanted. He chose to chew on the laminate and then start hanging flowers.

I am going to start brainstorming more ways to play with contact paper because it was a lot of fun for both of us. The best part about the activity is that I'm able to keep it up for a bit because everything is laminated.

I was also able to take some leftover pedals to make a pseudo-flamingo for the window. The petals pressed flatter, so I am hoping that it will last!

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365: Floral Design Day

365: Polar Bear Day

February 27 is Polar Bear Day. We had plans to go to the zoo, but the illness Jude is battling is still lingering and I couldn't justify taking him out with how he feels. It was a pretty big bummer because it was pretty warm today and we both could have used a trip out of the house. We did visit the zoo last week though and talked a little about the polar bears. We love going to the zoo and talking about the different animals.

Instead, we read both of the books that we had about Polar Bears. We have Into the Arctic and Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear?. The cousins were over, so Jay read the books to the gang. We talked a little about polar bears after.

Though we didn't get to go to the zoo, we did have some friends that went, and they were gracious enough to take some pictures of the beautiful polar beats at the Cincinnati Zoo! Happy Polar Bear Day!

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365: Polar Bear Day

365: Tell a Fairytale Day

February 26 is Tell a Fairytale Day. I had a really great activity printed, cut, and ready. It was a Mad Lib activity that was modified for a baby. I was excited to do it. Life, however, got in the way, and Jude is feeling under the weather.

Instead of the activity, which we will do when he feels better, Jay sat down and read him a fairytale before he went to bed. We went with "Atlanta and the Golden Apples".

Happy Fairytale Day!

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365: Tell a Fairytale Day

365: Play More Cards Day

February 25 is Play More Cards Day. Jude is a little young to learn a card game, so we found alternate ways to celebrate the holiday.

I started by making a small house of cards. Jude has turned into a wrecking ball, so this was made with the intention of letting him knock it over. It took him less than 2 seconds to knock it over. He was excited.

Jay and I also played a round of Egyptian Rat Screw while Jude watched. We did this to introduce him to the concept of cards and the social aspect of cards. It got a little heated due to Jay and my incredibly competitive nature. Jude was in awe over the speed of the game and even helped me play a little.

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365: Play More Cards Day

365: Tortilla Chip Day

February 24 is Tortilla Chip Day. We celebrated the best way we knew how by eating a lot of tortilla chips and creating a play tray.

Jude has been quite the little beast recently, so we read My Little Beast by Ruby Byrd and then had a tortilla destruction tray to be destructive like the little beast in the book.

I used crunched up tortilla chips to be a new texture for Jude's play tray. I just used my hands and smashed the tortilla as fine as I could. Jude loved the different texture.

After Jude explored the texture (and taste), I put whole tortilla chips in the tray and gave him a hammer and let him go to town. He's getting more and more purposeful with his movements every day. Using a hammer like this helps him work on refining those skills. Jude loved the sound of the hammer on the tray and smiled when the chips crunched.

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365: Tortilla Chip Day

365: Play Tennis Day

February 23 is Play Tennis Day. We use our minds and artistic abilities a lot more than we use our bodies, so we celebrated Play Tennis Day today.

Jude is too little to play actual tennis, so we created a modified tennis game for him. We started by letting him play with a tennis ball. We rolled it back and forth after. Jay had to help Jude roll the ball back for a bit, but after a minute, Jude was able to pick it up and "toss" it back. Tossing was more like dropping it behind him as he pulled his little arm back, but he was trying so hard!

We also brought out our tennis racket to show Jude. We bounced the ball on the rack and let Jude practice his tracking skills by following the ball. Jude also really enjoyed holding onto the racket while Jay bounced the ball.

After we were formally done playing with the tennis equipment, Jude played around with the racket for a while. He explored the sound it made when he ran his toy on it. He practiced swinging the racket around. He dropped the ball on it on his own to see how it bounced.

Today's play made me even more thankful for this 365 holiday journey. Without it, I would have never known how much fun Jude can have already with something like a tennis ball and a tennis racket!

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365: Play Tennis Day

365: Cook a Sweet Potato Day

February 22 is Cook a Sweet Potato Day. It was a day that had many sweet potato activities planned, but we really ended up only eating sweet potatoes because Jude took a pretty big fall. Thankfully, he's okay, but it caused a lot less sweet potato activities to happen.

Jay cooked sweet potatoes. He made them into fries. Fries are the best way to take a weird root vegetable and make it wonderful. Jude missed eating them, but the adults enjoyed them.

Jude did play with a slice of a sweet potato though. He investigated it in all senses. He seemed to particularly like using it as a drum stick of sorts. He also sucked on it, smelled it, and looked at it.

Uncle Swan also painted a picture of sweet potatoes during our friend paint night. We are going to hang it up in the playroom as a reminder that sometimes you have big plans but things happen and you have to go with the flow.

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365: Cook a Sweet Potato Day

365: International Mother Language Day

February 21 is International Mother Language Day. Before I transitioned into being a SAHM, I was an English teacher who took a lot of linguistic courses in college. I have always been interested in language in general, so I was pretty excited to celebrate International Mother Language Day.

Our Mother Language is English, but we work on English every day, so I decided we would do an activity that integrated some of the languages that Jude's ancestors may have spoken. We used Dutch, Italian, Irish Gaelic, and French.

I made a flashcard sorting game for Jude based on the languages. I thought that colors would be the easiest thing to sort, so we used those. I also made mama, dada (dad), and baby.

Jude is starting to look at the world categorically, so while he didn't necessarily understand the word part of the sorting, he did seem to be engaged in the color sorting aspect. I also pulled out his colored fruit to help serve as a more tangible representation of the color.

I am looking forward to working with Jude on different languages in the future!

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365: International Mother Language Day

365: Love your Pet Day

February 20 is Love your Pet Day. We have already celebrated our cats and Leo, so we decided to celebrate Scout. Scout is an odd dog. She's a purebred miniature wire-haired dachshund who likes me and Aunt HahHah, and that's about it. This made it a little tricky to celebrate her, but we did our best!

We made a Love your Pet Day card for Scout. We did a poured paint sensory activity to create the card. I let Jude pick the colors, like normal. He's getting quick with putting things in his mouth, so I had to keep a close eye.

I let Jude explore the paint for a while. We talked about temperature (cold), texture (smooth), and colors mixing. He used his hands and feet to mix the colors.

Jude got bored before it was mixed enough, so I popped him on my lap and showed him what I meant by "kick" the paper. He picked up the concept quickly and spent the remainder of the painting (and night) kicking.

I used scissors to cut edges of the ziplock bags and peeled it off carefully. It took about an hour to dry. After that, I turned it into a little card, and we gave it to Scout.

 Scout seemed indifferent about her card but making the card opened up our conversation to talk a little about Scout and what makes her special.

Scout's favorite thing we did for her was mostly ignore her all day. She doesn't like the baby's unpredictable movements, so steering clear of her was the nicest thing that we could do. The closest Jude and the baby got today was when Scout was begging for food during his dinner.

Leo giving Jude advice on how to make Scout's card

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365: Love your Pet Day