The Tranmer Family Scrapbook » snapshots of our daily life, in words and photos

10-31-2011

Tot School – Not Quite & Just Right (matching activities)

This was one of those not-quite-there activities. I brought home some Mickey Mouse paint chips from Home Depot for us to match. And I threw in some colored clips I found at the dollar store. I tested out a lot of those little springy clips. These were the easiest to open, but they’re still a little tough for your tiny fingers. It got you frustrated trying to open them and clip them on to the paper like you saw Momma do. So, I tried to do the clipping for you, asking you to help me find the other “yellow ones” or whatever color I happened to be holding. But you are little miss independent, and you’d rather not do it at all than let me help you. And you were totally not in to the matching thing. You can see how this activity ended (rather quickly) when we first tried it a few weeks ago.

Gave it another go this week with slightly better results, but still not quite there. We tried just the matching first, with no clips. You can see where you got it right in the photo below. You matched the 2 yellow ones, but I don’t know if it was intentional or not. Generally, you were just very frustrated with me trying to interact with you at all. You just wanted to stack them all up into one pile and then spread them around the table, hehe. Okay. And then you saw the clips I was hiding behind my back and had to have those too, even though they continue to be a source of frustration. Oh, and you love trying to pick the Mickeys off the paint chips too. They’re glued on and you figure they must be stickers since there’s an edge to grab on to.

Those are frustrated looks in the photos above, the kind of faces we aren’t necessarily going for when we’re “playing.”  So we put those away and tried a different kind of matching, a foam number puzzle I got from the dollar store. This was a much greater success. You still need help to line them up when you’re putting them back in, but you have no problem taking them out or pressing them in when I help line them up. And I could tell… very satisfying activity for you. I guess it’s kind of like stickers. You stick it in. And take it out. Kept you happily playing for quite some time. And we got to talk about numbers and colors while we played.

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10-28-2011

First – Ballet!

When I first heard about the Mommy and Me class our local ballet studio started, I was thrilled! I took ballet as a little girl, and even though it wasn’t one of the things I stuck with, I treasure the photos I have of my recitals and am convinced that – just like so many of the other opportunities Mima and Papi gave me to try new things – it developed my confidence and helped make me who I am. I want to follow their example and make sure that you have lots of opportunities to try new things so that you can discover who you are and find out what you love. It’s good to be passionate about something. I don’t know if for you that will be dance, or music, or a team sport, or art, or photography, or something else entirely. But Daddy and I want to support you on your path to discovery.

I was really proud of you. Walking into this room was overwhelming, for me as well as for you. The music was loud. The kids were running around. You were the littlest one there. And most of the parents were lined up against the wall watching rather than participating. It was intimidating. But we jumped right in. Your arms went up for me immediately and I held you through the first 5 minutes or so of the lesson while we “ran through the rain” and “jumped over puddles.” But you let me put you down with some coaxing after that. As long as you knew where I was – or more often as long as you had a death grip on my finger – you participated amazingly well for a not-even-two year old. Like I said… proud. When it got to be too much for you, you’d wander over to the mirror and duck under the bar and just watch. One of your favorite acitivities was”picking it up and putting it in your basket.” You can see in the photo below where you’re pinching something imaginary between your thumb and forefinger. After that photo, you ran over and handed it to me so that I could put it in My basket.

I was only able to take a couple photos because I was working just as hard as you running around, tip toeing and jumping. But I’m glad I got a couple to help me remember how cute you were on this momentous day.

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10-26-2011

Tot School – Fabric Wipe Activity

Hey baby, I made you something. I’m so glad Mima taught me the basics of sewing. It comes in handy. I used to sew clothes for Tia Kristy’s Skipper dolls (Skippers because we weren’t allowed to have the more voluptuous Barbies, hehe). I can hem pants and I can create a lot of things from scratch… now if somebody would re-teach me how to follow a pattern… because that much I forget. But I promise I’ll learn again – or we’ll figure it out together – because I plan on teaching you how to sew for sure.

Anyway, here you are checking out the goods.

The numbers are fuzzy fleece which you love. You traced the numbers with your fingers and wiped your hands on them to clean yourself off. You pulled them out and pushed them back in. You pushed the button to open the lid and snapped it closed over and over again. And you listened to Momma tell you what all the numbers are. We have a ways to go on learning numbers of course, and the point of this activity is more just to let you play than to teach you numbers. But hey, who says that an activity can’t have more than one benefit?

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10-26-2011

Fabric Wipe Activity Construction

I’ve seen this activity in many forms and have been wanting to create something like it for a while, although I wasn’t planning on putting quite this much effort into it. But it just so happened that my sewing machine felt neglected and I had a bunch of cute fabric scraps laying around that were begging to be used. So rather than simply stuffing some random scarves into a wipe box, I ended up constructing some fuzzy numbered fabric wipes to pull out of the box instead. This project took me about an hour of measuring and cutting squares one afternoon, and about 4 hours in the evening after Adela was in bed. I was in need of a project this particular evening. It felt good to create something, even something so silly and simple.

And I love my bedroom. It’s turning into a place I really love to be.  All I needed for this craft was already in the little craft corner I have set up – a tape measure, some fabric squares, some fleece scraps, some poster board, some good scissors, my sewing machine, an iron… and of course some M&Ms and Beth Moore playing on my laptop in the background.I free-handed some numbers on poster board, cut them out and pinned them to some fleece. Then, I cut around the templates and then pinned the fleece numbers to the 7″ fabric squares I’d cut earlier in the day from scraps I had left over from an apron project earlier this year. I had initially wanted to use different textured fabrics for the numbers, but decided to save the cash and just use the fuzzy fleece I already had. I used a zig zag stitch to machine sew the numbers onto the fabric squares. I did not stress about this. They aren’t perfect, but I only re-did one of the 10 numbers and that was because my machine started skipping stitches. The older I get, the more I realize that I’m not a perfectionist. I’m an over-achiever for sure, but that’s not the same thing. Being perfectionistic wastes time and I value efficiency too much. Some things aren’t worth the time. And I wouldn’t do nearly so many projects if they had to be perfect. It takes the fun out of it. 🙂 There’s a little self-reflection for you.

Anyway…then, I sewed the wrong sides together leaving about an inch and a half to turn it right-side out. Then, instead of hand-stitching them closed – something that would have taken a couple hours probably- I machine stitched one little line to close them up in about 10 minutes.

And Waaah-la! Ten pretty, textured numbered fabric squares for Adela to play with. I put them all in a Huggies Wipe containter. Huggies because they seem to have the cutest patterns and also a nice rubber-enclosed opening that is easy on little hands. And since I’m actually going to use the wipes, I won’t include the wipe box in my calculation of the cost of this project which totals… ZERO dollars. Woohoo!

The little one checking it out the next day up next…

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Mandy McMahan - Oh my gosh, Amanda. I love this. Pulling wipes out of the wipes container has to be Kasey’s very favorite thing to do (besides cleaning and stacking and putting things in order, of course). This is such a great idea. And a good one for Emma, too. I can quiz her and she can “make” numbers by putting multiple wipes together (i.e., “Show me number 24 … number 56 … number 249!”). I really need to turn my sewing machine on again and do a few simple projects to warm myself back up to it. This one is so, so cute and I think it’d help me with my sewing confidence, too! I need practice with that zig-zag stitch (last time I used it on my sister-in-law’s baby shower invitations it took me forever to get the tensions right!). Love these. Also, could you put something crinkly on the inside of the wipes to make them make noise when they pull them out? Like that clear wrap they use to wrap up gift baskets or something? It’d be fun to put something crinkly inside … hmmm. Anyway, I LOVE Tranmers At Home posts. So happy you’re getting back to crafting/sewing/doing more projects for YOU. It’s a win-win situation all around — for you AND all of us who love to be inspired by what you create! 🙂 Hugs.

Amanda - Ooohh this IS a great idea! I don’t think I have any fabric scraps around but I bet either my sister or mother in law do. I too love the Tranmers at Home posts and the tot school, and well, all of it! And I have to mention too from your last post that Seth also loves the Itsy Bitsy spider. He’ll put his hands over his head and make the motion for the rain when he wants me to sing it, it’s so cute. And group hugs, too. Eric started that tradition and we do it all the time. UGH I miss you both (you and Mandy) so much! I wish we could all live in the same town, how FUN would that be??????? 🙁