Monday, June 21, 2010

happy father's day...

from leopold and me, to my dad...


and to the best husband in the whole world... you are the best dad leo could've ever hoped for. 

we'll miss you terribly this week.

leo says he loves you.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

through a child's eye...

lately leo wants us to see everything he sees.

and not just look at what he's looking at...he wants us to actually see it how he sees it.

which means, most often, getting down on all fours, or even more often, flat on my belly, cheek on the ground, so i can see the train he just built...or the berry that rolled on the ground...


there's an expression, isn't there...about seeing the world through a child's eye?  well, if i don't stop to do it often enough on my own, leo makes sure of it.

i'm not just checking out the train he built...as a finished product...all the pieces put together.  i'm now seeing all the parts that he worked so meticulously to arrange...all by himself.  i need to stop...take the time...and really see it.

and these things that leo sees?  the ways that he sees them?  amazing.  it's all new.  it's all so world-filling for him.  and he wants us to fill our own eyes with the same things...and experience it with him.  really, truly, experience it.

and for that, i thank him for including me :)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

preschoolers 101...part one!


don't forget to check out the southern institute for domestic arts & crafts today! my first post of a series all about preschoolers will be there...and i'm very excited about it! thanks again, jenny, for having me...it's been so much fun!

if you're here visiting from the southern institute...welcome! i hope you enjoy wandering along with me...

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

strawberry fields forever...

well...not really.  but, awhile back, i wrote about some things that i wanted to do with the little guy... and one of them was the strawberry festival.  i have to say, it was a little disappointing...in my mind, i pictured fields and fields of strawberries, little baskets to pick them with...some daisies...a red & white checked tablecloth to picnic on...

and that was not what we got.

we got more of your standard, food festival things...fried foods, loud music on a stage, expensive strawberry-ish things...and three, maybe four?, strawberry stands.  bummer.

well...we did get some dark chocolate covered strawberries....  and boy, oh boy, were they goooooood!

it was almost the size of leo's face!  after a couple of bites, he was no longer interested in the strawberry...

...just the chocolate :)


and we did get a pretty substantial amount of strawberries...which was really good for making smoothies (or as leo calls them..."red doos")...


he thoroughly enjoyed the red doos.


so i guess that made it worth it :)

and so did the firetruck that was there :)



Tuesday, June 15, 2010

preschoolers...at the southern institute!

a few months back, i was asked by jenny, author over at the southern institute for arts and crafts, to write about leo's birth.  since then, we've continued to get to know each other through many emails, and what a pleasure it's been!  her blog is quite addicting...the beautiful pictures...the adventures (i'm so jealous of that trip to folly beach!)...and her beautiful creations...all so sweetly composed!  in addition to all of that, jenny has three beautiful children...including a little boy who is preschool aged...and wouldn't you know it, i was a preschool teacher for quite some time, until i decided to become a full-time mommy :)  and with that...arrived...

i'm so excited!!!!!

jenny asked me to do a series of posts...about development, behaviors, strategies...all about preschoolers!  it's not often that i get sooooo motivated to write (as you can tell from my sparse blogs ;)  ) but boy, has this been fun!

head over to the southern institute for domestic arts and crafts to see what we've been up to!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

for his stuff...


a little boy's got stuff.  like cars...and garbage trucks...bubbles...a flat bed...some sticks...

and his mama can only hold so much of it :)

so i wanted to make him a backpack to hold it all...


and i saw this great tutorial for a hobo sack here on made, and thought it would be a great starting point.  i started with two old t-shirts, i used the pattern for the bag, as well as the closing, and then added a couple of things...


i lined it, and added a pocket from a pair of cargo pants that had seen better days :)  (that's where "guy" stays when he's not driving his bulldozer.)


so, it's technically reversible.


i added straps to make it a backpack.  i ended up having to make little stitches on all four points...otherwise, the whole backpack sort of scrunched up and sunk to the bottom of the straps.


after wearing it a couple times, i saw that the straps kept slipping off leo's little shoulders.  to remedy that, i added on a little strip of fabric (from the bottom of the same cargo pants) with snaps to hold them together in front.  perfect!


i love having a couple less things in my bag...and my pockets!  and leo loves to wear his own "bat-e-pat!"

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

long sleeps...


in my mind, i was going to leave our sleeping situation as is until leo was about 2 years old.  we all love our family bed...so that's not changing.  but the nursing thing...at 20 months old, leo still wakes up a couple of times a night, and nurses back to sleep.  there are nights when it's more than "a couple times" and nights when it's less.  and, for the most part, i've been okay with that.  but, recently, i've been feeling that it's just not as necessary...and even more importantly, that he can understand that it's not necessary.  so i started talking to him about it.  i started telling him other things that he can do when he wakes up...instead of nursing.  and that sometimes the milk goes to sleep.


this was all, in my mind, just the beginning to what i thought was eventually going to be a very rough patch of nights, when i would officially end the night nursing.


instead, the other night, when leo finished nursing before going to bed, he said to me, "mommy?  seep.  milk"  and i just sort of looked at him, and said, "um, yes!  the milk is going to sleep!"


and so the night nursing is coming to an end...


i don't feel nearly as bad as i thought i was going to.  and i think that's mostly because i know that he's okay.  when  he wakes up, and i tell him that the milk is sleeping, he gives a momentary protest, and then falls back asleep.  we have our crutches...some we'll keep to ourselves...but he's doing it.  we're doing it.


and i'm just so proud of him.  how well he's handling it all.  which, again, makes me more comfortable with making the change.

there is a little sense of sadness.  the end to a sweet ritual we had in the middle of the night...that was all our own...a little bond we'd share that was all ours...

but i know there will be others.  we're not rushing through this.  we are all getting a bit longer stretches of sleep.  which is definitely needed.  and appreciated.