New Year's Goals

I won't exactly call them "resolutions" because I have no belief that I'll succeed completely, so I'll just call them "goals". The first is to not go overboard for kiddo for birthday and Christmas this year. My mom was a stay-at-home-mom, but she did some work on the side cleaning houses and things like that, and every penny she earned went to our Christmas and birthday gifts. It ended up being, in my opinion, excessive. Even as a little kid, maybe around 11 years old, I knew it was excessive, and yet here I was at Christmas with more wrapped gifts than she could even open in a sitting. Sigh. Must do better this year!

The other goal is to do more activities after work/daycare on weeknights and do less "sit in front of the tv like mindless idiots". She still watches less than most kids, but it's still for a bit nearly every night, and I think most mornings too. Her newest obsession is "Spy Kids", which is just weird considering her age, but she wants to watch it ALL THE TIME. And I was very sick last week so we watched it, or half of it at a time, every day.

So my goal is more fun learning/experiential activities, and I am also going to do my best to log it in my blog. Tonight's activity: Water beads! What are water beads, you ask? They're tiny little beads that expand to hold water. Really they're used for flower arranging and things like this, but they're non-toxic and a lot of fun for kids. They are not to be swallowed (despite being non-toxic, they do absorb water which makes me nervous) and are not to go down the drain as they can clog plumbing, but they are a lot of fun. I read about it on my favorite website, Play At Home Mom.

This activity certainly didn't have to be done on the DIY light table, but I find a lot of great activities seem even better when there's light involved, especially when it involves colors. And light (when not flickering or flashing and when not accompanied by electronic music and laughter) is very calming, so it makes for a nice end of day activity.

See how tiny the water beads are at first:

It took quite a while for the beads to absorb water, so we checked on it a few times over the course of an hour or so. Meanwhile we played dress-up and "put EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to bed". And, sigh, watched just a few minutes of "Spy Kids"...

While we checked on the beads, we discussed how they felt. Were they hard or squishy? Were they large or small? What happened when you squish them in your fingers? "Mommy! I popped it!"

And finally, since I discussed with her a few times that she cannot put the "colors" in her mouth, she naturally really wanted to put something in her mouth. So we both compromised on a colorful pipe cleaner.

(Yes, she got semi-nakey by this point. The better to play dress-up!)