The Pinning Mommy

So, my little Jace is getting older, and he's less content to just play with the toys I throw in his way. He needs to explore and discover everything! So, in an attempt to entertain him better while giving him chances to discover new things, I've been trying some of the activities suggested by pinterest. These ideas claim to be "great for littles" "even my youngest can enjoy this activity" and so forth. The truth of these statements is now being tested. My critera for activities is something I can make with materials around the house, contained mess, and most importantly, does it entertain the little one?

First attempt: bag of goo
This is usually labeled as "sensory activity." I feel like that's a buzz word for little children right now. If we go merely by sensory... I'm pretty sure food coloring in a bath doesn't count as sensory stimulation. But I digress. Basically, you stick a bunch of goo, like hair gel, in a bag and some small items (probably items that would otherwise be choking hazards) and seal it up, then let them play. Well, I used some old aloe vera gel we had hanging around the house and some sparkly letters left over from scrapbooking. Jace's reaction: squish, squish, here mommy, you have it. No interest whatsoever, no matter how cool looking I thought it was. Admittedly, I have noticed that my child lacks interest in anything he's supposed to touch and marvel at the difference in textures. He doesn't really care about textures.
I'd say pinterest fail, my child had no interest. But, it was a contained mess and I could make it with items around the house.

Second attempt: magnets
You can find lots of cutesy ideas for magnet boards on pinterest; I just used the good old fridge. And hey, it worked great! I think the flat magnets for advertising wouldn't work very well here, and I was too cheap to buy letter magnets, but we have a set of round cute magnets on our fridge, so I put them within his reach and let him have at it. He loved it!

He has enjoyed this activity so much, we repeat it often. Plus we can show him fun things like flipping magnets and attracting magnets from afar. Super simple but super entertaining!

Third attempt: "painting" with colored ice cubes

This is also fairly simple, but takes some advanced planning. You fill an ice cube tray with water and add some food coloring to each cube. The next day, I pulled them out and stuck Jace in the tub with several cubes. (I didn't use them all figuring I could save the activity for another day if he really liked it) Note: make sure you take clothes off before putting him in the tub. Also make sure the diaper is clean. You could probably leave the baby in the diaper to play with them. I figured Jace would like this one because he keeps stealing my ice packs I've been using lately for a bad sunburn on my back. He loves the ice packs, so I thought ice cubes would be pretty fun. Plus, colors! What's not to like? Well, apparently ice cubes are awfully cold. Jace did not like playing with cold ice cubes. As for painting, he wasn't interested so much in making colors on the bath tub.  There may also have been some disappointment that he wasn't actually taking a bath. 

This is what it ended up looking like. Mostly trying to eat the ice cubes, that and asking to come out.

You know what happens when you combine random colors? They all become one gross color.

This was an ok activity. Not particularly interesting to Jace, he mostly wanted to come out of the tub. He got very messy. If you do this, plan on giving your child a bath afterwards. His legs were still slightly stained green the next day.

Fourth Attempt: Pulling objects out of tissue box

I saw this for a couple of things, putting balls in box, and pulling strips of fabric out. Since I don't have either right now (we'll try strips of fabric when we get back to Utah), I just put some of Jace's toys in there. Plus a plugger, because he likes those. That's extra motivation to pull things out of the box. Super simple and he really likes it. We've entertained him with this one several times already. He'll pull out and put things in a few times throughout the day.

Fifth attempt: Moon Sand

This is one of those weird texture things, (sensory activity!) like gack, flubber, and so forth. It's pretty simple, eight parts flour to one part baby oil. I did 2 cups flour and 1/4 cup baby oil, because I don't have eight cups of flour to waste on a toy. It comes out really soft but moldable like wet sand. It also advertised being easy to clean up. Well... it was fairly easy to clean up, but it gets very messy first. Like sand, it gets everywhere easily. Washes off of skin, scoops off of smooth surfaces, but whatever clothes he was wearing are going straight in the laundry after this activity. He liked it, played with it much like a baby plays with regular sand, tries to eat it, destroys anything you make with it, and pulls it all out of the container. Bonus though, it makes your hands super soft after playing with it... It would probably be a better activity for an older child; in the end Jace was more interested in the scoop I gave him to use than the sand itself. It was good enough to be worth saving to play with on another day.

One other activity we've been doing with Jace lately is bubble blowing. He loves that too. It's not on pinterest, so I didn't label it as an attempt, it's just an old classic. The activites he likes more have to be put away so that they don't get boring, he's already getting kinda tired with the tissue box, so I think I'll put that away and pull it out again in a while. There you go, there's one mommy's review. Any suggestions from other mommies who have tried activities like these for entertaining their one-year-old?

Exploring the World!

      As Rod and I have been exploring here in Seattle, our little Jace has been busy exploring and discovering the world too. The other day, Jace and I went to the aquarium, and Jace loved to watch the fish swim around. He is learning to stand and will stand on anything that holds still long enough, which makes our role as parents change into more of a spotter role.

Jace wanting to be held

Jace discovered stairs at church and is now eager to try his hand at any set of stairs he sees. Fortunately, there aren't many around where we live! Jace discovered asphalt the other day, and has little scrapes on his lip to show for it as he dove headfirst off the sidewalk. He is also beginning to communicate with us with body language. If he comes up to us and sits back on his knees with his arms reaching up to us, we know he wants to be picked up. He reaches for things or people he wants.
        He is also learning the cadence of language. If you talk to him, he will talk back at appropriate pauses in conversation, and he even makes inflections in his voice that are similar to common phrases we say. The other day, as we were out on a hike, I was talking to Jace saying, "your mommy is so nice. You are so thankful she does nice things for you like that, aren't you?" He responded with something that sounded very much like "Thank you!" Rod and I cracked up at this! This morning as we were getting ready for the day, I stuck my tongue out at Jace and he made a sound much like "Oh my gosh!" and promptly turned around and showed me his butt... I guess I was a little too insulting. :)
      He's also trying lots of new foods. We've finally introduced him to meat, and he's liking it. Fortunately, so is his waistline. He finally seems to be gaining and maintaining a good weight. We went out for a walk yesterday and the black berries are just coming into season. The roads here are lined with blackberry bushes; it's so prevalent it's a weed. So I picked some that were just ripe. Admittedly, since they're just coming into season, some of these were a little under ripe, not quite fall off the bush ripe. Rod and I enjoyed eating some, even despite a little bit of tartness. Jace, seeing we were eating without him, really wanted some. So I gave him one. He bit in eagerly then stopped. "eugh," he said making a really funny face. He finished it, looking doubtfully at Rod and I as I laughed at his face. We decided not to give him another because we didn't want to give him what he didn't like, but he insisted he needed another because we were eating them. So I gave him a second one. He bit into it then made a shuddering laugh. Also too tart. He wasn't so sure if he trusted Mom anymore. Later I offered him a third one. He opened his mouth just the littlest bit to take it, then first took a bite to taste it while it was still on his lip, grimaced, and took it out, giving it back to me. Admittedly, that one was REALLY tart. Strike three, I had lost his trust for blackberries.... Until Rod and I gathered another handful. These ones must have been better, because even though he occasionally puckered his face, he kept eating and asking for more. He decided he loved the tart blackberries. He ate until they were all gone and he sadly searched around for more.

Practicing riding with Daddy!

Playing with his all-time favorite blankie