My friend Brooke and I recently had the conversation concerning the quality of "education" our toddlers are getting at home verses being in a pre-school. We agreed that except for the social aspect, you can have every educational opportunity at home that you can at a pre-school (and have a one to one ratio). She wasn't sure what to plan and I wasn't motivated, so we got together to plan a fun, educational, apple-themed September. We planned many of the same activities although we do them separtely (we had plans to do some things together, but that didn't work out). Jonah and I painted apples on trees, we counted apples, and read books about apples. We worked on all of our colors this month too. For some reason Jonah gets pink and red confused, his favorite is orange and purple, and he almost never confuses gray, brown, black and white.
I think his favorite activities (and mine too) were picking our own apples and then making "apple pie (it was really apple crisp)" afterwards.
Here is Jonah at this little family owned orchard that we found.
All Trees Are Apple Trees
Not by Definition
Webster's Dictionary has a definiton for stay-at-home, it says that it is an adjective describing someone who habitually stays in their residence or country. I think if you put the word mom after the words stay-at-home most of us would not fit that definition. I often thought that the definition of a stay-at-home mom was someone who could live on their husband's income and therefore not have to work outside the home. The more moms I meet and longer I "stay home" I realize how wrong I was in my thinking. A stay-at-home mom is actually someone who does not want to put their child in daycare (or cannot afford it) and instead drags their child around town as they do "this and that" to make ends meet. Before I had Jonah I worked part time as a Children's Director at my church and continue to do that. Today Jonah watched a little too much Elmo as I helped rearrange our main office.
I have recently added another job to my schedule that has taken over my world for the past week. It involves a lot of what I do at my church just for a different church, on a different day and I'll be working with paid teachers instead of volunteers. I think that I've completed the hiring process today. All of that to say to that today is one of those days that I glady be a Webster's stay-at-home mom!
Mamamamamamamama
We were at the library this weekend and Jake and Jonah picked out the book "Is Your Mama a Llama", a children's book about a young llama who asks the question to all of his friends, "Is Your Mama a Llama?" But when Jonah requests us to read the book it just comes out "Mamamamama". Its so funny, it justs goes on and on....
Move over Emril
(I'm practicing my new picture posting skills)
Today I told Jonah that we needed to make cookies. I had FINALLY bought molasses, the much needed ingredient in my great-grandma's oatmeal cookies, so it was time to make a batch. He picked out a little apron and got to work. Then for lunch he wanted pancakes, he did all of the stirring. When lunch was over he said "more panckaes cook." So we made rolls, he is kneading the dough in the picture. Then we put the dough in a bowl and covered it up with a "blanket" so it could go "night night." When Jonah went "night night" for nap, he still had his apron on, he refused to take it off!
Karoke Super Star
At Karoke Night a couple of weeks ago Jake was using his MC skills to drum up some acts. Jonah was his only taker at first and convinced Jake to accompany him in a medley of Sesame Street favorites. It ended up not so much being a duet but instead Jake did a solo act while Jonah just licked the mic through "I Love Trash" and "Ernie's Song."
Milestone Reached
He is talking in complete sentences? Not quite. Riding a bike? We still don't understand petals. BUT, we did learn to blow our nose this weekend (we won't talk about how sometimes he does it without using kleenex or the extreme amounts of mucus that a two year old can produce...). We are very relieved that he can now "blow".
Jonah was in a pretty good mood the last few days despite the 100.6 degree fever he was running. I didn't realize it because although he refused to eat anything besides crackers, he seems to be acting normal. But now the fever is gone, he requested pancakes for lunch, and he can effectivly use a kleenex!