Lolly's room

Yesterday we had some time at home so I coerced DinnerDad into a impromptu playroom tidy.  The girls had a ball, and I managed to clear out the cupboard in there which has annoyed me for ages.  The thing with leaving fewer toys and activities out is that you end up with having to store heaps of things, and I just hadn't finalised the storage stuff (still haven't quite, but getting there!). 

Here is the playroom, which will be Lolly's room eventually when she no longer sleeps with us :D

I packed away our other two Little People buildings, we have a farm and a house too, I figure she'll think they are both awesome again in a couple of months when I bring 'em back out.  Here's the storage unit against the wall. 

This was Smash's, and needs a coat of paint after many years of service.  I've culled a lot of toys from here, now there is a dress up drawer (which may need to expand as she gets older!), a nature draw with shells and rocks, many of which her Nanna collected for her, a drawer for puzzles, a drawer for storing whatever we have from the toy library this week, and a train set drawer.  I managed to get it down to only one drawer for plastic crap!  You know, McToys, bits of things, crappy stuff she seems to like to play with occasionally. 

This is inside the built in cupboard.  We've got Lol's clothes and some shoes (like the mystery sock pile on the top of the clothes' storer - lol) up the top are the spare paper rolls for the Ikea easel, and the swimming stuff.

I've got a heap of plastic crates (ah...Ikea, how thee supplies storage!) and now have 2 activity crates for storing stuff that isn't out for Lolly to do now, stuff I'll rotate into circulation.  That's the two crates down the bottom.  I'm lucky in that Lolly has never shown interest in poking in the crates, if she did I'd shift them out of reach.  In my new work crates are different kinds of scoops, tongs and spoons, some Styrofoam stars, different pom poms and what-nots for sorting and pouring, little jars, that kind of thing.  I also stored all her colouring pencils and crayons and stickers, I just found there was too much out and she never did any of it, probably too overwhelming AND too familiar.  Up the top there I've also got box for storing toys and things that are more for when she is a little older (some Cuisenaire Rods I picked up last week on sale, some box wheels, and some small peg boards that has too small beads for her as yet, that kind of thing).  I already had a box for painting and a general craft box (on the other side not pictured).

On the wall near the door I've got two small bookcases. 

They're just black Ikea ones we already had, so not the most beautiful pieces of furniture.  Ignore the blue crate and the bags, they're for storage in the shed :D  One bookcase is obviously for books (and I put her sticker and colouring books here too), I added the other shelves yesterday for more toddler work and play!  Along the top is our music bag, one of our drums, and a bell (Snail LOVES this bell, she seriously played with a bell and a balloon for an hour on Friday, nawwwww).  The top shelf has Lolly's number puzzle, and a peg basket with wooden pegs.  Under that is a number book that has textured numbers that Lolly has been very interested in lately (it reminds me of the sandpaper numbers in Montessori) and a washing up bucket.  The bottom is just storing our basket of plastic and wooden play food, and a basket of small books Lolly enjoys.  I don't think I've got the perfect system in here yet, but we'll swap some things in and out to see how it goes.

And here is some realism - how I got this long post written at 7am (when we are normally asleep, thanks for that, Lolly!) - feed the kid buttered toast, put Backyardigans on the telly, and computer it up on the couch!  lol

Toddler Work equipment!

Here is the three sectioned tray I got for a steal at Spotlight, for sorting.  It's best to have three categories, but hey, Lolly grabs this and asks for all kinds of fun things to sort and play with on here.  Here are the small fuzzy pom poms we got (also from Spotlight).  Perhaps not the greatest shot to include, as they're not sorted "right" but hey, round here, there is no "right" when there are fun activities involved!

We found some more suction cup stick-on creatures to work with the marbles, as Lolly LOVES doing this, and we'd thrown out our collection of frogs and ducks which got moldy years ago.  Lovely bright sea creatures!

Don't look too closely at the rug, it's covered in dog hair!  Perhaps this shot will turn up on the next Things I Let Slide Tuesday post - lol.

And here's an example of Lolly building "a little house" with her stacker blocks, it shows how she orients all the blocks the same way, which I find really interesting!  Here, she's put the coloured side out (other than the "1" block, which from memory I put there).  It sure is an eye opener to leave the room and come back to a perfect tower with all the numbers on the same side :-o !

Things I let slide Tuesday!

The first thing was this blog!  We've been sick for weeks and weeks, and not doing much of interest, and it means I don't write much.

Other fun on the Things I let slide list!  This stuff out the side of my house has been on my to do list for AGES - but I never do it!  Here's a picture :D

It's made up of an exciting mix of kiddie pool, bale of straw mulch, old nappy pail, and...well, I'm not too sure!  You can also see my neglected outside hanging space, complete with broken peg basket.  With all the sickness here, I haven't hung washing in months!  You can also admire the Things Smash has let slide - the mowing!!

My other selection for this week is the shelves above the Lolly stuff in our lounge room.  They need a massive tidy and sort, and annoy me daily.   Here's  a picture to admire.  This is all the filing stuff that used to be upstairs in the study, but with Lolly, I do it all downstairs in the lounge, my plans for organisation start off well, but end up, well, messy. 

After Lolly wanted to be in this photo, you can probably add Lolly's hair to the things I've let slide list.  It's matted and unbrushed.  Yay!

So, what have YOU let slide this fine Tuesday!?  In the spirit of fun, not self-blaming, because we all have choices, and some things are just more fun or more necessary than cleaning the bathroom :D

Toddler Work :D

Lolly has been enjoying lots of different activities lately, and being sick at home means we're here more and have more relaxed days of play and busy-ness.  Though sure, we watch a lot of telly when we're sick too :D.  I thought I'd do a post on what she's interested in at the moment. 

Here are her lounge room shelves as they were last week. 

Puzzles on the top (the one on the right is a 19 piece one of elephants that she needs help to do, but she loves it).  The second shelf has a basket of tiny books that she likes to carry round, take out, put back in, and get me to read to her.   In the middle in the round basket are several ribbons she was fascinated with, but hasn't touched since :p, next to the favourite library books, Pet Fish, Cats, and Dogs, which we read at least once every day.  On the bottom is her ocean animals number puzzle, a basket of beads for threading from the toy library, and a puzzle/sorting tray, also from the toy library.  We also have a work table out in the bay window, and that has had her sorting and water play on it.  Under the TV I've put her blocks and wooden matching box.

Lolly enjoys pouring water into things, and I have set her up with a few little jugs and attractive containers to help her express this.  It's in a carpeted area, but with a cloth down, and the carpet soon to be replaced, I haven't actually had many spills.  She's also enjoying picking flowers from our garden and arranging them in little vases at her worktable.  You can see the jugs in the marble photo below :D

I got two packs of glass marbles, purple and yellow, to do sorting, and then read on a Montessori blog about using them in suction cup bath stick-ons to do transfer activities, which Lolly LOVES.  She does them by hand at the moment, but is interested in using tongs, too, which is great for that pincer movement of hers :D  Here are the marbles for sorting, she loves to get lots of different spoons and tongs together at once while doing this.

Here she is with the suction cup duck, looking very pleased with herself.  You can see how I leave a cloth down on the table for water pouring. 

I've been going craft shop mad at the moment, we made it out to Spotlight as one of our first outings since recovering, and came home with pom poms, balloons, little stars, bells, a coffee scoop that looked great for spooning, a three part tray with a central well for sorting, colourful large buttons, pipe cleaners, oh, lots of things!  I have put most of it away for now, but we have small pom poms in two colours out for sorting, and paper beads too.  Here she is goin' crazy with spoons and scoops and marbles.  She loves to compare how each one works.

She has been very interested in our set of large blocks - which were a gift from her Aunt Strawberrypot when she was very little.  She builds them up high, but also makes houses out of them.  Often she will in line up the sides to be the same, which is interesting. Knocking them down is fun too :D

We're enjoying books at the moment, particularly "real" books about dogs, fish and cats we got from the excellent Ipswich library.  It's a Montessori thing that small children should read books that are about real life, not fantasy, and while we definitely don't follow this, I have noticed that the books she constantly requests are those about "real" things, facts and pictures about pet fish, puppies and things, and number books.  Though she also still likes Bears in the Night and Go Dog, Go! very much. 

She loves play dough, but has not been as intent on this as she was last month.  This is the set up I have at the moment, with some lovely cookie cutters.

She loves feeding the fish, which we do everyday.  We have three types of food and she asks for it in her palm and puts it in a pinch at a time.  We look at the fish and talk about them, she really loves it, and "let's feed the fish" can deflect much sick-y misery :D  We feed "cat-puss" and Pippin together, and water the plants.  She also helps with laundry, tidying up, and vacuuming and sweeping.  She often sits up at the bench to help "cutting" when one of us is cooking, she has her own little cutting board and uses a butter knife.  She's not expert yet, and I stick to soft foods to avoid too much frustration, bananas and avocados and so on.  She'd love to "cutting" everything but doesn't have the hold with one hand and saw with the other motion down yet, so carrots and other hard things are a little frustrating for her.  Here she is making herself a tuna sandwich :D

So that's a little glimpse of Lolly land, at age 2 and 5 months! 

At a friend's 3rd birthday, with cake!

Where have we been?

Sick!!!  Again!!  I went to a lovely GP who said that 5-6 colds a year for an adult is normal, and I seemed to have all of them over this winter.  10-11 colds is normal for toddlers and small kids!  Kinda makes me feel better to get an average like that, TBH.  I have been feeling we are TOO sick lately, but this does put it in perspective.  With Lolly and I going to more and more group things with other toddlers and young children, and Snail at special school, we get exposed to so many germs, and with our immune systems a little down, aren't fighting things off as well as we might.  So we've all had terrible viruses, this last one was a doozy and still has us coughing and bleary eyed.  Poor Lolly has such gummy eyes of a morning that she asks "Mummy, lights on! Help me!" which is just so heart wrenching, poor lovely girl.  She is MUCH improved today after several days of low fever, terrible coughing, and conjuncitivitis.  I had such a terrible throat that I have been on anti-biotics, for the first time in AGES!  We caved and gave Lolly a dose of Nurofen to give her a break last night, and she had a good sleep all night and seems very much improved this morning.

So, after my sick-y whinging, I have spent most of the last few days on the couch watching toddler TV and surfing the web (at painfully slow speeds as we are shaped til tomorrow, FFS!) reading about Montessori, mostly.  It's been a good opportunity to soak in knowledge, that I don't usually get as we are quite busy, normally.  So I've been doing the (slow loading) rounds of Montessori blogs and websites, getting some book recommendations together, bookmarking blogs I've enjoyed, and gathering some materials for basic practical life and sensorial activities to do with her here at home, to reinforce our NIDO time, which is going to be a focus for us for the rest of the year.

I've noticed a fair few of the Montessori blogs are homeschoolers, and a lot are Catholic, which is just a bit different from my own more than secular perspective.  I have been trying to look past daily catchisms when reading them - lol.  It is also often quite structured during the day, with specific "school" times, and structured stuff throughout.  But, that said, there are some amazingly lovely blogs out there with some simply awesome schoolrooms in them.  Just wow!  Try - What DID we do all day?  And Wildflowers and Marbles school room!  :o  That is one amazing space!  Now, this is not the kind of thing most of us are going to set up.  And it does encourage the idea of "school" as separate from everyday life, and I am much more into the unschooling - all is life learning - idea than that of set times, especially at home.  But these are wonderful spaces, and inspiring to read about what these children are doing there.  Lots of ideas for adapting to our own home.

I love the practical explanations and ideas you can find at MontessoriMom, at the inspiring My Montessori Journey, and here at The Montessori Child at Home.  The links found and organised by What DID we do all day? - linked above - are just amazing, you can spend days here reading and bookmarking and adding to readers :D

I'll add some pictures of work Lolly is enjoying once our Interwebs resets!  Check out the links, there are great ideas for kids there even if you are not Montessori, or if you unschool, or school!  :D  And yes, I know the irony of watching kids TV while researching Montessori :p

The Montessori Three Part Lesson

I love this quick video on the Montessori three part lesson - which I try very hard to remember round here.  It's a lovely way to assist learning without constantly correcting, asking "what is this" when the child doesn't know, and so on.  It's this basic formula for 'teaching' new objects and things, anything really.  The Three Part Lesson is:

1. This is...

2. Show me...

3. What is?

Only the last stage is the demanding "what is?" which can be very intimidating for little ones!

Things I let slide Tuesday!

My lovely friend, Stacey, had a fabulous idea last week on her blog, Live Dreaming, Forego Reality.  It was a post about things she had let slide :D.  As promised in her comments, I'm proposing to make this a regular feature around these parts, sort of as a follow up to my previous post taking on the Homemaker blogs, and generally debunking the "all is perfect in blog-land" theme. 

So here is my first effort, with pictures!  Just think of all the shit I'm not doing to make time to take pictures, and upload and embed them!!  I'm also not cooking dinner, and I'm pretty sure one of my lovely charges has pooped since I started this post!

The laundry, Part 1.

With three kids, two of whom are not toileted, everything in our house has been peed on (or worse) at some stage or other.  It makes for a LOT of washing.  One load a day does not cut it, and barely keeps the various piles from gaining grimy consciousness and taking over the joint, bent on plans of stinky pee-soaked world domination.   I mean, we own 6 single mattress protectors, three brolly sheets (one for a queen bed), four chair pads (and here), and several bedspreads and rugs whose sole remaining purpose is the prevent the soaking of wee into our couches and other important seating areas.  Snail gets about, when not in her chair, by bumsliding, and need I point out that this is NOT conducive to saving ones nappies from leaking out the sides, with tragic if predictable effect, often up to four times a day!  Keeping people round here in clean pants is like my main job these days.  TMI?  Not nearly enough "I" in my opinion!  If I have to clean it up, you can at the very least read about it :p

So yeah, a lot of washing.

Here is the laundry after we did, I shit you not, 4 full loads (teenager) on Sunday, and 3 loads (yours truly) yesterday.  And it still looks like this! 

And I couldn't even get the laundry sink with the pee soaked pants soaking in Milton in the shot, but they're there.  Behind the blue basket on top of the washing machine.

And yes, I do use the dryer most of the time.  Come live here before judging me!

I swear that I can only count the number of times I've been able to see the bottom of every basket in there on one hand.  Possibly only one finger.  It's like some kind of fundamental law of physics that not all our laundry can be clean at one time.  Our house may collapse into some alternative, and clean, space-time continuum.  Or something.

The laundry, Part 2.

I don't mind washing and drying.  I am quite violently opposed to putting away.  Hence our clean laundry sits in sorted baskets in the spare room, waiting for the Mt Foldmore fairy to call. 

Sorting people's clothes into individual baskets counts, right?

He clearly has lost our address.  This makes it hard to maintain my dignity when nagging Smash to put his washing away.  At least I don't store our clean stuff on the floor, generously mixed with the dirty stuff.  Come on, that means I win, right???

The Spare Room.

The Spare Room (with Capitals).

This is THAT room in our house.  Most people have 'em.  Even our cupboard under the stairs (a la Harry Potter) is tidy and organised.  But the Spare Room is that spot where all our unused stuff goes to wait for death or recycling to other families.  The piano only I can play (but never do), held in limbo while we wait to see if Lolly has an interest.  The walking machine (that's all I'm going to say about that).  The sewing area crammed in as an afterthought, coz Goddess forbid I could set up my stuff in a NICE spot where it was pleasant and easy to get to, and had all my thing in it!  The aforementioned laundry and innumerable baskets.  The toys and kid stuff that no one is the right age for yet/anymore but that we can't get rid of for some spurious reason.  The spare bookcase that I Have Plans For.  Storage baskets.  DinnerDads bike gear.  The fan, when it's not hot.  The heater, when it is.  You know, that stuff.  You know you've got some too, in your version of our Spare Room.   The Things You've Let Slide.

:D