I have to remember to take more picture of what we do during the week but I often get so swept up in what we’re doing that I forget. I managed to remember for a couple of our activities.

I made a slightly modified house game from Hubbard’s Cupboard September for 2’s, which he really, really had fun with.

He took it quite seriously.

This awesome wooden cup thing was a thrift store find. My husband said he could see the Montessori light flashing on and off on the top of my head the moment I found it.

Counting and number writing practice.

Cutting practice.

We read Princess and the Pea, then decided to try to see how many pieces of fabric we could feel a dried pea through.

It took quite a few folds. Those little suckers are hard!

Sticking with the Princess and the Pea theme, we glued dried peas to a capital P on a pink piece of paper. I’m all about alliteration.

Let’s ignore the raging mess behind him and look at how cool his P is!

With some assistance, he wrote his name. Some assistance being that I placed his hand in the right place and he did the shapes entirely himself.

This week with the P3/4 Sonlight Program has been a blast. The Boy has come up with some brand new “favorite ever” stories, like “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie“. Loves them so much, in fact, that upon printing some “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” he hugged the print-out and said, “Oh my goo-ness! I WOVE YOU!”

Yeah. I know. The kid needs friends. You should have seen the look on his face when I suggested we make cookies after reading “the mouse eating a cookie book”.

It was similar to this, only less cheeky.

It was nothing like this. This is his, “Put away the camera” face.

So is this.

The pouring of sugar is a very serious job. Clearly, by the look on his face, he took it as such.

I know. Sharp inhale. He’s attempting to pick that up with one hand. That heavy, full of hard to clean-up, sticky, powdery brown sugar. WITH ONE HAND! Every mom of a toddler is every so slightly terrified and wondering why I didn’t put down the camera.

I did. That’s why there’s no picture of him pouring in the brown sugar. Although, he did end up using both hands by himself. He hates messes much more than I do. I find myself regularly telling him, “It’s okay to get messy. Really, it’s fine!”

To which he regularly responds, “No. No, it’s not, mommy. I need to wash my hands.”

And that’s how I’m regularly chided by a 2 year old.

Back to the one-handed cookies.

Which he handled exceptionally well.

There was a minor hiccup, however, when he (using two hands) spilled a little flour on the kitchen island.

Feel free to sharply inhale again. He certainly did.

I said, “It’s okay.”

He said, “THE TABLE IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY SHIRT IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY HANDS ARE DIRTY OF FLOUR! OH NOOOO, MOMMYYYYYYYYYY!”

We had to take a hand wash, table wipe and shirt cleaning break.

I spent the time between the 2 year old OCD break cleaning up break and this picture trying to stave off the boy eating the dough straight out of the bowl. We had to have a talk about raw eggs and salmonella.

He didn’t want to touch dough. Ever. Again. But he did want to “wook at dee cookies in dee oven!”

And he did. A lot.

Can I ask a favor? Could we all pretend like that cookie isn’t clearly burnt? Could we pretend like I didn’t get sidetracked trying to convince that sleepy faced child up there to take a nap while he screamed no because he wanted to see the cookies again and again and again?

Thanks.

While it’s clear the rousing “BOOM! BOOM!” is what is the cause of his love for “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom“, I’m convinced that Sonlight’s suggestion to make cookies after reading “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is the main reason he fell in love with this book. We are positively loving Sonlight right now.

I did. I gave up on Letter of the Week. While it’s clearly a wonderful curriculum, the amount of prep work involved was just too much for me. I ended up skipping weeks because we couldn’t make it to the library or because I didn’t have time to get the printed stuff together. Then, once the hubs got his new job (WOOHOO!), I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the only day we had alone together, as a family, doing prep work. With a mind better suited for pre-planning, it likely wouldn’t have been much of a problem. Unfortunately, I am a lazy ass with untreated ADD my mind just doesn’t work that way. So, I gave up and went on a search for something a little less prep intensive.

I needed something “The Boy” friendly, something that wouldn’t be 10 miles above his head but also wouldn’t bore the heck out of him (harder than you’d think with a 2 year old beginning reader), and secular. Now, I have nothing against religious curriculum in general. I just want to be the one to walk that path with my son. I don’t feel comfortable having anyone or anything else take that role, in any way, shape or form. And, after a whole lot of searching, I came across Sonlight Curriculum. While it’s clearly evangelical Christian in nature, it’s also easily adapted to be secular and it’s extremely well put together. In addition, we were able to find a good combination of cores to fit The Boy’s needs. It was wonderful. So we ordered it.

Since they’re located in Littleton, the package came in exactly one day. That didn’t stop me from refreshing the FedEx tracking page over and over and over and over again while having horrible, threatening thoughts towards the driver every time I saw him drive by without stopping. I was moments away from chasing him down the street, barefoot with a 2 year old in arms, screaming like a banshee. The only thing that kept me from doing it was that I might not be able to get the package to the county jail.

I do not deal well with waiting.

The box managed to come about 2 minutes after I found the boy napping like this…by himself:

Did I mention he was napping by himself? Without me? No, “MOMMY!!! COME HOOOOOLD MEEEEE!” No, “MOOOOMMY!! COME READ ME A STOOOORY!” Instead what I got was, “MOMMY! GO GO GO! GET OUT OF HERE! I’m going to nap with my baaaaaaaabies!” While unsure whether to be offended or proud, I saw the FedEx man leaving the gate in the front yard. The quandary was quickly forgotten and replaced with, “Should I open this before he wakes up?”

Which I did. Because I’m horrible and evil and enjoy stealing the joy from my son’s life.

Give me a little credit. I only pulled out the Instruction Guide and blinded myself to everything else. Replacing the papers exactly where they were and closing the box back up.

And, thank goodness I did, otherwise I might have missed the, “A BOX FOR ME?!” moment and this:

“WOOK AH AAH DEEZ BOOKS, MOMMY!! DER MY! OOOH! WET’S WEED DIS ONE! OOH! DIS ONE! WET’S PWAY WIT DIS ONE! DIS BOOK HAVES CAPS FOR SALE! AND GOODNIGHT MOON!” We read at least one story from every book (except the 101 Bible Stories) that moment. We played with every single thing there was to play with. It was so many kinds of awesome, I can’t even begin to describe…I guess I did. Verbosely. Sorry about that.

We’re officially beginning on Monday, and if he’s even half excited as that up there? We’re going to have a really, really good week.

The food poisoning, that is. We won’t ever, ever discuss that I got God awful food poisoning and may or may not have spent a good part of the night asleep on my parents’ bathroom floor.

We won’t discuss how, now, I am uber paranoid about hand washing and may or may not be searching frantically for a step stool so the boy can wash his own hands whenever he chooses (which manages to be All.The.Time. – Is it too early for an OCD check?). Which may or may not is causing a slight problem, seeing as how he’s only 2, not quite able to get up steps without some hand holding, and a little small for his age.

This is the first stool that caught my eye, the Ecotots Surfin Kids First Wave Step Stool. It’s entirely adorable. However, it’s also not nearly tall enough for the kid to reach his intended destination. There are two types of stools in the child world. One steppers and two steppers. One steppers were not what we needed. On I went.

While I found the Safari Storage Step-Up Stool ridiculously adorable and that it had storage (!!!). it really didn’t solve my “can’t climb so well” problem. I needed a two stepper with a railing. I had no idea if anyone even made them.

Apparently, they do! The High Rise Step Up would raise the boy up just enough to not only reach the sink, but the kitchen counter when he wants to help make his snacks! It looked perfect!

While I would love to end this blog with a “and I got it and it was perfect and I never had to sleep on my parents’ bathroom floor again”, unfortunately, the husband is just not convinced it’ll do the job. And, for the price, if he’s not sure…well, you know.

So, here I sit, trying to figure out if I can build a railing for a double stepper out of plywood and craft glue.

Not so much, huh?

Jumping back on the Letter of the Week bandwagon (after jumping off for a ridiculous amount of time), I’ve created 2 downloadable PDFs. Being that this coming week’s theme is Rainbows and letter is Dd, there is an Alphabet with both lower and uppercase letters and a rainbow coloring page.

If you do download them, comment and let me know what you think!