Life in Our House

Last night while DH and I were sitting in the playroom discussing DS's birthday gift (we've had our eye on this, but due to the cost DH is going to make it instead), that same little boy proclaimed he wanted to play with playdough. Since it was so close to bedtime, DH and I said no, wait until tomorrow. He seemed to take it in stride, and wandered back to the kitchen.

A few moments later, we came to collect him to go upstairs. Upon entering the kitchen, however, we discovered that while DS had taken our "no" to playdough seriously, the dictum didn't apply to his paint. Take heart: the situation is not nearly as serious as it could have been! While he was in his paint basket and had opened a bottle of green paint, he had poured the paint from the plastic bottle into an old baby food jar that was also in the basket. He then replaced the cap on the original plastic bottle.

There was only one drop of paint in the cupboard, a small smear on the floor, and a little bit on two of his fingertips. Thanks to the magic of Crayola and their chemical-loaded washable paint all was cleaned up in a minute. I put a cap on the baby food jar and we went off to bed.

Here's a photo of DS's handywork. Not too bad for a not-quite 23 month old, is it? I promise I did not clean up these jars one bit.

So add pouring and squeezing paint jars to the list of things he's accomplished in the past month, along with the lock and doorknob on every door in the house (so far he's escaped once and locked me out twice), climbing to the top of his dresser to play with his CD player (he can climb down too), and potty learning.

I feel like I've aged.

Creating a Child Friendly Environment: Table and Chairs

We've been working very diligently over the past few months to outline our homeschool philosophy and create a very loose "pre-school curriculum" with our son. As time has gone on, it appears that we are becoming "eclectic" homeschoolers, embracing parts of the Waldorf, Montessori, and Charlotte Mason philosophies/approaches. I hope to do a series of posts detailing what our days look like in the coming days and weeks.

Here you can see part of our playroom (what was a formal dining room-- note the wallpaper) and what we've done to create a child friendly environment. Part of our inspiration came from Barbara Curtis's book, Mommy Teach Me.

DS is playing with his play dough here, and working on cutting out a star. His table and chairs were an early birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa. For some reason, he likes sitting facing the wall. Wouldn't be my choice, but hey!

Behind him, you can see one of the clotheslines we have strung to display various pieces of art, DS's creations, religious images, etc. We have three of DS's fingerpaintings on our other portion of clothesline. Above the clothesline are our corkboard and whiteboard. Neither are in use right now, but they should be again soon! His rocking chair is on the far left, as well as a basket of books: his Bible, book of the saints, etc. I'm working on the logistics of creating a better reading corner for him: moving all his books to one location and finding a better way to display current library and seasonal books.