Monday, January 25, 2010

Are you laughing at me!?

So, today I was practically begging Wesley to eat his breakfast. I made him pancakes, just like he said he wanted! He took one bite and refused to eat it, saying he wanted water. "Wesley, eat a bite of pancake first, then I will give you a drink of water."
His reply, "eeehhh water??"
"No, Wesley, eat, then I will give you water."
"No. Water?"
"Eat."
"Water?"
"Eat."
"Water?"
"Eat."
"Play?"
"Eat."
"Walk?"
"Eat."
"Farm?" (This could mean Old McDonald song or Leah's Farm Signing Time)
"Eat."
"Farm?"
"Eat."
"Farm?" He gets a smile on his face and begins giggling.
"Eat." Dang, I can't keep a straight face. We both started laughing.

You know, it's really hard to keep a stern face and attitude when they are so dang cute. Throughout the day he would mimic my laughs. It was most entertaining :) My favorite time of most days is right before and right after nap time. :D He will cuddle up against my chest and lay his head on my shoulder until he falls asleep. I love feeling his warm body so close, he's soo cute. After his nap he curls up on my lap and sleeps for anywhere between 10 and 45mins. So I get cuddle time and I always feel so special :)

Wesley and I have begun a project. We are making an alphabet book! Today we did the letter A. I printed out a captial and lowercase letter A and let him color them. I also printed pictures of an airplane, alligator, apple, and uhh I don't remember. Anyway He enjoyed coloring the pictures while I cut and glued this pieces to colored paper. (I tried to get him to help with the gluing, but it didn't hold his attention long). Tomorrow we will do B. Hopefully it turns out nice. When we are done we will use contact paper and then bind it all together :) After that I'm considering doing numbers. It's a good craft plus learning! So, that my update...oh it finally stopped raining, but the sidewalk we usually take to the park is still underwater, it hasn't rained for like 2 or 3 days now...hmph. Thank goodness there is another way around it! :D

Monday, January 18, 2010

UNTITLED--due to lack of creativity

I have never considered myself a very creative person. I can't sit down and draw you a picture, I can't come up with fun activities, or even make believe! This sad fact about myself has become painstakingly obvious over the past couple weeks as I have attempted to nanny for a almost-2 year old child. I have decided that the hardest part of nannying thus far, is the fact that I have to raise this child the way the parents want me to, not how I feel is correct. It's been a stressful weekend. The parents and I had a short meeting the other night and they talked to me about what they wanted me to do better at and what I was doing good at. Afterwards I felt so overwhelmed and like I was not good enough for the job. It's definitely made me reconsider whether or not this is where I am supposed to be. I'm hoping my spirits will be lifted once I start attending the singles ward, hopefully make some friends and not spend every night here in the house and constantly with the family.

So today it had rained, so Wesley and I had to stay inside all day. He went to his drawer and pulled out crayons and a coloring book. I wanted to color too, so I ripped a page out for my own coloring. Well--later tonight he had one of his books and ripped a page out of it...hmm I wonder where he got that idea!? Also he bonked his head after dinner and ran right past his mom to get to me. It was sort of exciting in a way. Wesley and I spent some time with alphabet flash cards, and to my surprise his attention was held until we got to letter "Y". Then he got distracted by his sign language flash cards. I have also learned a fair amount of sign language. I like the idea of kids learning sign language because it helps them communicate before they know how to talk. It helps reduce tantrums and other lack-of-communication issues. Some of the common signs used include: cheese, yogurt, please, sorry, thank you, bike, play, climb, rock (and mountain), help, clean up, sleep, diaper, eat, walk, giraffe, elephant, lion, tiger, bear, dog, cat, bird, zebra, tree, leaf...ok so pretty much everything, you get the idea :) I have always wanted to learn sign language, so this is a good start!

Well, if any of you (scarce) blog readers have any suggestions for fun, developmental activities for children about the age of 2 who like to do pretty much anything..it would be GREATLY appreciated.