Play houses and barn!

So I am too excited not to post these now, even though they're not quite done!  I don't think I'll have a good photography chance after I finish them because they'll shortly be going as gifts to my kids and one of their friends and they'll be well-loved (I hope) and no longer in pristine condition.  I found this blog here, which led me to the tutorial here.  If you are interested in doing this, check out the flickr site with all the uploaded photos of people's projects.  So now I present the projects I've been laboring over for weeks and weeks.

 

This one is a gift for my good friend's daughter, who just turned 2:

Here is a view from the end, with the shutter detailing:

Those tabs you see are velcro, and when you undo them, you can open up the house to play inside:

I got her a little L.alalo.opsy doll with a sleeping bag to play in the house.  I've actually never heard of these before, but I thought they were much cuter than the traditional b.arb.ie or di.sney princess dolls.

This is the barn I made for my kids.  It still needs some work, but from this view it's essentially finished:

From this view, it's not finished.  I glued on that beehive, but I need to sew on the little bee buttons that came with it:

Inside, there is a vegetable garden, a fence, and a pond, plus some animals.  I also ordered a few mini wooden tractors from etsy, but they haven't arrived yet:

 
And this house is for my kids, too.  It's definitely not done yet.  The front needs a little something more.  And i need to finish the fence.

The back is mostly done.  I would like to string a laundry line with mini-clothespins between the trees, but that won't happen for a while yet.  I also have ladybug and flower beads to add to all sides:

 And the inside.  Still needs work as well.  I made that little wooden bed with a mattress, blanket, and pillow.  I've also found some neat furniture online (including this), but haven't decided on anything yet.  My husband thinks I should have a little bathtub, but I'm not totally sure how to do that yet. I would totally take suggestions for what to put in the house as well as outside on the grass.

I did make a few changes to the pattern, obviously.  The original pattern called for sewing up two sides of the house and using a button with elastic to secure the other two sides.  I wanted to be able to completely flatten the house for easy portability (i.e. the ability to pack it in a suitcase), so I left it all open.  However, this led the problem that it was too floppy to stand up just using a button and elastics, so I ended up using velcro tabs.  I also made the barn with a three-part roof instead of a two-part roof.

So there you go - Christmas gifts 2012!

What Christmas gifts are you giving this year?

Hodgepodge

Well, the preschool dilemma has been solved, at least for the next 6 months.  Whew.  I went to visit the last school I was considering, a Montessori school really close to our house (less than five minutes in the car, and  probably less than 10 minutes by bike, although it involves a rather steep overpass).  It is not perfect, but then I don't think I will find a school that is.  The big plus is that they're willing to hold spaces for us until March, so I left my paperwork and deposit check today.

It is a big load off my shoulders!  They don't do 2-day spots (which seems weird), so we are signed up for 3 days per week, which is a bit of a change, but one that I think I'm ready for.  I am starting to get ready to move on with my life and consider a new career, and I will need that extra day, so I think it is a blessing.  I also think, or hope, that the kids will adjust better if they go more often.  And 3 days at this school is cheaper than 2 days at our current school, so yay!

As I said, it's Montessori, which is a plus.  They have two big classrooms with mixed ages in both, which I also think is good because I think it's more natural for kids to be in a mixed-age setting to a certain degree.  It has a great play yard, and a pet snake and rabbits.  It's right across the street from a gym, where they do some extracurricular activities, such as swim lessons in the summer.  I have to pack lunches, but I'm ok with that - it's better than eating the junk they get at their current school.  So that's settled, and I'm relieved.

~

I am almost done with several projects/gifts, and I'm excited about them.  I will hopefully finish them and be able to post some photos on Thursday or Friday.  We are celebrating Christmas on Sunday with my family, so I'm trying to get the gifts done by then.  My mom got the kids the IKEA toy kitchen, which I put together today.  I really hope they like it.  I think I might make them little potholders someday, too, and I'd like to somehow make a fridge to go with it at some point in the future.  Also, I don't like the white color (the natural wood part is ok), so I'm plotting to someday paint it (possibly when the kids are older and get bored of it).

~

Toddler discipline is a tricky subject, and one which I suspect is a source of marital problems.  We have a lot of disagreeing around here.  Our main problems with the kids are fighting over toys, wanting something we don't want them to have (i.e. cookies, keep watching TV when we say enough, etc.), not wanting to do something they need to do (wash hands, brush teeth, go to bed), bedtime/sleeping struggles (which I've written about a LOT lately), and mealtimes.  The simple way to deal with all of these things, of course, is to set rules and then stick to them.

It's not as simple as it sounds, though.

For one thing, how do you know which rules are appropriate?  And since toddlers develop mentally and physically on a daily basis, what they are capable of and how much they understand is constantly changing, so the rules can't be too rigid or pretty soon they won't make sense.  And if you have rules about everything, you will constantly be in a power struggle with your kids and that is really no fun for anyone.

And then, what do you do when the rules are broken?  Punish?  Natural consequences?  Explain other consequences and then follow through (i.e. time out, loss of privileges, etc.)?  What happens when one parent doesn't always follow through?  What if the kid is sick?  What if you weren't watching and you don't know what happened?  What if the kid doesn't seem to understand the consequences (i.e. doesn't understand that he doesn't get dessert because he doesn't understand or remember what he did wrong)?  What if he is throwing a tantrum?  Ignore it?  Put the child in his room?  Try to comfort him?

I'm really struggling here, although through a bit of trial and error, I'm coming up with solutions.  I'm having a hard time setting some rules, but I think I've worked out some discipline solutions for the obvious stuff.  I've read about helping children work through their own solutions to problems, and while mine are too young to really do it, when a fight breaks out, I try to offer suggestions and work with them to fix it.  I think the best thing for saying no TV or no cookies or whatever is to just calmly keep repeating the rule, once you've decided what the rule is, and offer other possibilities if the kid is open to them.  So I'll say "I told you that would be the last video for today, but we can build with blocks or play with play dough now".  Does it always work?  Definitely not.  Sometimes I ask the kid to repeat the rule, like "Do you remember what we agreed before we started that video?"  Also doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

And for when these things don't work, I ignore the tantrum for a bit, depending on how things are going.  If Turtle (my typical tantrum kid) is open to listening to me talk, I keep repeating myself over and over, saying what the rule was, and what his other options are, and telling him I'm sorry that he's mad but that's the rule.  When he's being receptive, it's nice.  He still needs to calm down and get over it, but mentally I can see he's there.  Other times, not so much, and if he pushes me away, I tell him I'll be ready to talk or play when he's calmed down, and then I check back every few minutes, and at some point, he's ready to cuddle and eventually to do something else.

It's not easy.  We haven't figured out the bedtime or mealtime battles, not by a long shot.  It's always harder to get the kids to do something they don't want to do (like eat or go to bed) versus stopping them from doing something they want to do (stealing a toy, throwing things).  Some days I have a lot of patience, and it goes really well.  Other days, I just don't know how I will get through 5 more minutes.  Those days are hard.  Really hard.  I sometimes wonder how people with more than 2 kids do it.  Really, how?

But it's really good, it really is.  I don't always remember it, but it is.  Life is sweet, so sweet, and I am so lucky to have these two complicated, loving creatures in it.

Cozy

Today it is pouring rain and Tadpole woke up with a fever and Turtle with a harsh cough like a barking seal. After a bit of children's tylenol for Tadpole and some homeopathic cough syrup for Turtle, we all had a nice morning in our jammies.

One thing that I love about my kids is that they love to read, just like me.  Turtle usually protests having to leave the library, and as soon as I mention going home he starts frantically pulling books off shelves and flipping through them madly, as if he's trying to read as many as possible before I insist that we go.  The best way of getting him out is to tell him he can use the self-checkout machine, and our library is nice because they have a nice low one that is perfect for little kids.

While we have books in our living room and in each of the kids' rooms, one of my favorite spots to sit and read with them is this cozy little nook my sister designed when she drew up our renovation plans.  It's a beautiful floating wood bench, with baskets underneath, bookshelves on one side and a lovely window onto the backyard.  Our contractor stupidly planned things so that there is an electrical panel on the wall opposite the bookshelf, but luckily it is just high enough not to be annoying when sitting and reading, and it is covered by that lovely tapestry from Peru that my husband and I bought at a fair trade store not long after we moved in together - it might just be our first decorative purchase for our life together.

Here is a pic of the kids looking at the rain, which was really coming down at that point:



Here is the view towards the bookshelf - this shelf holds two baskets at the bottom and then holds a shelf of toddler books, my French novels, older kid books that I still have from my childhood, and at the top are some of our books that we don't need easily at hand.

And this is the view towards the Peruvian tapestry.  A nice cozy little corner on a rainy day!

We don't have a window seat cushion, partly because the only place in town I got a quote from was staggeringly expensive, so I folded up an extra comforter and covered it with a quilt that has matching pillowcases, which makes for a nice comfy place to relax.

I hope you are enjoying this day, too!

Preschool advice

I could use some quick advice about preschool, if anyone has any to give.  Turtle and Tadpole are almost 29 months, which is a bit young for preschool, but I need the break and I think the socialization is good for them.  We are about to leave for Italy for 2 months, and I need to figure out what to do about preschool.

My kids go to a really nice, expensive preschool two full days per week.  It is across town, and the way the pricing works, it's much more affordable to send them two full days rather than 4 or 5 half days.  I had some bad experiences with the preschool when we first started there, including there being no one to greet us or help us get settled in on our first day, and there has been REALLY high turnover of the "teachers" (more like caregivers).  I like the current ones, but we've been through something like 4 or 5 in 5 months!  It's been nuts.  If we stay with this school, we will have to pay part-time tuition while we're gone to hold our spots (which is almost as much as full time).

Everyone assured me the kids would get used to going to preschool, but Turtle still cries when I drop him off.  After 5 months.  It's heart-breaking.  They both seem happy at the end of the day, though.

All the cons include:

• Their schedule is REALLY early compared to our home schedule - lunch at 11:30, nap at 12, while at home we do lunch at 12, nap at 1-1:30
• I don't like their focus on early academics over play-based learning
• Their playground seems really boring compared to most other preschools
• The food is awful (but at least they provide it)
• Major turnover of teachers so far this year
• Distance from my house - no chance of biking or walking

I was thinking of switching schools, but there are all the usual problems, including most importantly finding a school with 2 open spots.  

I've found one school for which we are first on the waiting list, but no guarantee that 2 spots will open up at any one time (or at all!), and their business management and administration seems SORELY lacking.  On the other hand, they have a much more pleasant grounds and building, a kitchen garden, and they get the kids involved in food prep and other daily tasks, which I really like.  I generally liked the feel of the school, and I know some parents of kids who go there who love it.

Another school is very close to my house, and I also like their set-up - play-based learning, lovely yard, very relaxed, and great hours and schedule.  The two main issues are that they are Jewish, and we are not, but they have their religious section on Friday, and my kids most likely wouldn't be there on Fridays.  (A little note - I am not anit-Jewish, in fact my father was Jewish, but I do not belong to an organized religion and am not looking for a religious preschool, no matter what religion it is).  And secondly, they don't maintain a waitlist, mostly because demand isn't THAT high there.  So I'd have to wait until a month before I want them to start and then contact the school to see if they have space.  It would be a risk.  I also found the building to be a bit run-down, although not enough to sway me against the place.  It's so close to the house that I could bike easily, and possibly even walk (or take the double-decker bus!), which is a HUGE plus for me.  I'd have to pack a lunch every day, though.

There are a couple other close-by schools, but the main problem, as with all the preschools, is that I can't hold a spot until March or get on a waiting list with a specific start date in mind.

To complicate matters, a good friend of mine has her child at the same school that mine go to, and wants our kids to stay together.  She is also not religious, and doesn't want to send her child to a religious preschool, and she doesn't like that some of the schools I'm looking at are even more expensive than where the kids are now, which matters more to her since her daughter goes full-time so it's a bigger chunk of money to send her kid there.

Is this trip to Italy a great opportunity to switch schools?  Or is it taking away something familiar that would be comforting for the kids after the huge change and upheaval of living in another country for a few months?  On the other hand, if Turtle is still crying when I drop him off, maybe he wouldn't mind switching.  I don't know.  I need to decide yesterday, because I need to give 30 days notice if we're leaving this school, and we leave for Italy in 3 weeks!

Advice, please!

More crafts - travel felt boards

I made these travel felt mats for my kids and my nieces and nephews for Christmas.  They are super easy to make, and if you're making more than one, they're even faster to make assembly-line style (i.e. do all cutting first, then all ironing, etc.  The only part that gets to feel like drudgery is cutting out the million little felt pieces.  I found the travel felt mat tutorial here, and got more ideas for little pieces to play with here. I think I made the mats slightly bigger than in the tutorial, but you can of course make them any size you like.

I'm hoping these will be another great toy for our trip to Italy.  Here are some pictures of the mats that I made, including some ideas of my own:

I made 5 mats, 2 for girls and 3 for boys.  In the future, I would not make them so gender-specific, probably, and I also would use a blue felt background for all of them.  It makes for a more realistic background, and the other pieces look better and are easier to see because it's more contrast. Here is a little dress-up person with some clothes.  I still want to do a few more clothes, including some dresses.  I've found patterns for making these people and their clothes on various sites and blogs, but I actually made these myself:

Butterflies - I'll probably cut out a few more body pieces.  I got this idea from the second link above. These were a bit time-consuming with all the extra cutting and gluing (I used a hot glue gun).
 

Here are a few trees, plus some weather pieces, which are always useful to throw in for use with various other pieces and scenes.  I also have stars and a moon, which I didn't picture here.  The Christmas tree ornaments are not glued down - the kids get to decorate the tree themselves.

Another tree and some flowers.  Would like to do more of these.

Houses!  These can be a lot more creative and fun, but I made these a while ago when my kids were pretty little, so I just did the basics.  You could also make other buildings like a church or a store or a school.

Cars and other vehicles!  I could get a lot more creative with these now, too.  Nothing is glued together here, the kids have to assemble the cars themselves, but if I made something more elaborate (like the tractors that Turtle is currently obsessed with) I'd probably have some pieces be fixed.  And see what I mean about the weather pieces being useful?

Pizza!  I've actually made a whole variety of fruit and vegetable pieces for our big feltboard, but I don't know how much fun they'd be for travel play:

And there you have it!  A nice mix of ideas from the internet plus my own ideas.  Have fun!  And let me know if you have other ideas, too, I'm always looking for more.

Our tentative bedtime solution

So, we only did CIO for one night, and it was pretty awful, but we were really going crazy with the sleep situation.  I always thought that once you get your kid to sleep through the night, that was it!  I mean, sure, there would be the occasional nightmare or request for water, but I was totally clueless about sleep regression and climbing out of the crib and so on. 

In our case, Turtle knows how to fall asleep without help, he just didn't want to go to sleep in his room alone.  We weren't able to get him to tell us what the problem was, so we couldn't try solving whatever it was that was scaring him or making him not want to go to bed.  Staying with him solved that problem, but created a new one: having someone in the room with him was making him too excited to sleep.  We even tried putting Tadpole in there in a portable crib - it didn't help at all, and prevented Tadpole from sleeping, too.

Based on a similar situation a friend had with her son one year ago, we decided to put a chair just outside Turtle's room.  My husband would get his computer and sit in the chair, show Turtle that he was there working, then close the door most of the way.  It worked!  And for the moment, it's still working.  Turtle has the comfort of knowing someone is there without the distraction of having someone to play with inside his room.  Now, we'll just cross our fingers that it keeps working.

One crafty Mama - first 8 quiet book pages

I promised crafts, so here they are.

The first major project I finished recently is a series of quiet book pages.  I had set a deadline for our recent trip to Mexico, and finished 8 pages before we left (well, technically 9, but one is a 2-page spread).  They are almost entirely made out of felt, which is great because the edges of the pieces don't fray, and the felt pieces stick together well.

The first page I did was this rainbow page, which I found on this website.  I made a few changes - I used star beads, and I used a different number on each color of the rainbow, so this page can be used for both counting and colors.  I also added a button-on sun and a snap-on rain drop, since those are the fundamental makers of rainbows!  The kids love sliding the beads up and down the ribbons and counting them.

My favorite page is this sandwich-making page, which I got inspiration from here.  A few changes I made were to have a one-door fridge, a blue plate to match the plates we use, a basket for the bread (which I would have liked to make more basket-like), ketchup and mustard bottles, and a jar of mayo, which is open at the top.  There's also a knife I made by sewing a gray and black sleeve that fits over a jumbo popsicle stick that I cut in half.

A big favorite around here is the yellow school bus page.  I came up with this one on my own, although when I searched later I found a few similar pages online.  I used vinyl to sew 4 windows, into which I slid pictures of our family, and which have flaps that the kids can lift to reveal our faces.  The wheels can turn or be unbuttoned.  I would have liked to add something else, but I couldn't think of anything.

I came up with the autumn leaves page on my own, as well, after an afternoon spent outside raking leaves with Turtle.  He loves helping me rake the leaves into piles, steering the wheelbarrow, and piling the leaves inside.  The felt leaves stick to the felt pages and can be raked up with the dollhouse rake, which I purchased from amazon.  I originally made a rake out of pipe cleaners, which might work for an older child who could be more delicate, but did NOT work for a toddler.  The leaves can be raked up and stored in the wheelbarrow.

I got the pattern for these sock-matching pages here.  I think these pages would be better for slightly older kids, and actually, the machine should have buttons that I haven't added yet.  This page was more work than it was worth, I think, since making the socks is very time-consuming, but if that's your cup of tea, go for it.  Also, I used magnets inside the socks to get them to stick together, but they're not strong enough to work through two layers of felt.  Luckily, since they're made out of felt, they stick together anyway.  That blog has many excellent ideas.

The number page was inspired by this blog.  This is another one that will probably be better when they're older.  I did not do the double-sided numbers with velcro, since it was becoming a lot of work and since the felt will stick anyway.  The matching colors help the kids match up the numbers.

Another big favorite is the barn, which I have seen many iterations of around the internet.  I used these two blogs for inspiration.  It's quite simple, with a cute red barn and doors that open to reveal finger puppets.  I wanted to do something with the hayloft window that would be more interactive, but in the end I couldn't think of anything.  I added the fence and the grass, which I thought made the page look more "finished".

And the last page I made is for creating an ice cream cone, for which I took inspiration from this blog.  I started hand-sewing this one, and then ran out of steam, so technically it's not finished - I wanted to have a little bucket for toppings, too.  I can always add that later.

At some point, I will put them together to make an actual book.  I bought grommets and I will make a cover and the idea is for it to be able to be taken apart so multiple kids (i.e. twins) can play with it at the same time.  For now, having separate pages works just fine for me.

I have lots and lots more ideas, many of which can be found on my pinterest page.  Considering how thick the book already is with only 8 pages, I probably won't be able to add too many more.

I would love to hear your thoughts and any other ideas you might have.  And if you've made anything like this, please send me a link!