Creative Safety

When Allie is awake, my number one task is to keep her safe. She's rolling around like crazy and puts everything in her mouth. As such, hard corners and small items would seem to be her most life threatening dangers. Hardly. Her cabin-fevered brother is by far the biggest threat. We are always creatively figuring out how to keep him from spreading his various viruses (that seem to come rapidly) and keep him from injuring her out of curiosity or attention-seeking sake.

Common scene:

 

(Really, can I blame him? We all do want to eat her... he's just a bit more vicious than the rest of us)

 So, let's play "Simon does" and Allie is the Simon. (I wish this worked longer than 2 min.)

Or let's enlist her as the toy holder: "Go get her another toy--mark, get set, go! And another, go!"

We also encourage creative uses of household items:

(He figured that out all on his own. Never would have crossed my mind. )

 This was another fun household item experiment, but it was only successful because Allie was asleep. She would certainly have been more interesting than cornstarch. I call this, putting attention in his "debit account." Crucial to the rest of the day.

 

And for my own safety:



 My creative, chocolate, avocado, frosting-less cake.  Yes this was likewise important for Allie's safety. Both the dairy-less-ness, and the chocolate part.

Creative safety!

Foodie

Allie entered the world of solid-ish food. The recommended "first" cereal feed is something like 6 parts breast milk, and 1 part very fine cereal. Since I found Jackson's "first" food didn't seem to stay on the spoon at this ratio, Allie got a better ratio. It is still mushy paste--not quite the solid food it's termed to be.

She's seemed very curious about food lately, and with her 6th month birthday being today, I figured it was time.  (For personal record keeping sake, this event actually occurred Thursday the 14th.)

 
Full bowl:

Empty bowl:

 

Time Out. She ate the whole thing? Mark and I were both shocked, as was her system the next day. (There was some fowl stuff coming out of her behind--kind of mushy like the food, but a lot more colorful). Allie was not so shocked: 

I should have figured she'd be related to me. Watch out girl, although this talent of finishing everything put in front of you is fabulous for frugality, it sure makes for rough battles on the waist. Enjoy it while you can!

Bed Shifts

Jackson moved into a big boy bed a couple of weeks ago. We were nervous about him staying in bed--especially since we couldn't even close his door tight (fun characteristics of an old home). But, since we left the crib up, (waiting for Allie's move from our room to Jackson's) it's a looming threat just waiting to be used on disobedient little boys. So, in general he stays in bed... amazingly with more than one blanket on!

Unfortunately, we have had a major, unexpected shift in morning wake up times. I used to wake him up by 7:45 am so he would be tired enough to take a nap. Now he comes shuffling in at 6:30am telling us it's morning and he wants to wake up. The good news is, he's ready for a nap by 1pm. The bad news is Allie is still quite the night owl, often staying up till 11:30 pm. Post marriage, I have determined I need 8 hours of sleep, and 11:30-6:30 is not working out.


So, since I get a solid nap from Jackson, and  I get to utilize my state of awesome productivity that occurs when I'm out of bed before 7:30, we are going to get serious about getting Allie to sleep earlier. Perhaps we shall start solid food and see if that helps (I doubt it), or maybe we'll just stop allowing nap #4 (around 6 pm at night). I have a feeling I mostly have to stop being wooed by her cuteness. Not sure that's possible:
 

  
BUT, if we are successful, perhaps we can let Allie join her brother in the big kid room.

We'll look forward to it!

Hanging Out

With the recent escapades in potty training and the onset of post-Christmas sicknesses, we've done a lot of hanging out the past few weeks.

Often Allie manages to hang out in less than comfortable positions:

So we try and facilitate situations that will be a little more comfy. You know, like the stove top, with a plastic bag near by:



We finally put the old blue "washtub" away, and let the kids hang out together in the bath. (Yes, we've kept Jackson in the baby tub for a long time, but we've saved a lot of water! He's pretty amazed at all the space he could have if Allie didn't join him for his baths.)

Allie and Sophie hang out a lot. Good thing Sophie is such a good friend, and doesn't mind Allie's chewing habits.

Both kids are in love with making raspberries and elephant noises with their lips especially on hang out days. Jackson's were getting wet and messy enough, we decided to kick off the "life just isn't fair" phase. He is welcome to experiment with spittle and lip vibrations as much as he would like, as long as it's on the porch. I love logical consequences! Lucky little Allie gets to stay inside and practice them as often as she likes and even gets filmed doing it.

As the oldest child, I know Jackson will get to experience many of these situations, but hey! The life long response will include reminding him of all the time he got to hang out with just him and the parents. And they were definitely good times.