100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 79: Vinegar-Baking Soda Color Explosion

Holy cow! We had so much fun with our "Vinegar-Baking Soda Color Explosion" activity! You have got to try this.

I stumbled across the idea on Pinterest (here's a link to that original post). I had to test it out! If you don't have everything you need on hand, make a trip down the baking aisle at your super market. They recommended using a dropper. I don't have one, but I had some nearly-empty acrylic paint squeeze bottles that I cleaned out. You can also probably clean out some miniature shampoo bottles, if you hang onto those from hotels. If all else fails, you can probably just keep the colored vinegar in separate bowls and give your toddler a spoon to spoon it out. I imagine that method would get pretty messy, though.

Here's what you need:

Denver County Fair: Not Worth the Cost

To quickly sum up our experience at the second annual Denver County Fair: it was fun, but it was not worth the money.

The Denver County Fair is at the National Western Complex in north Denver all weekend.  I heard a blip about it on NPR.  From what I gathered, they're trying to mix a traditional fair (picture pie-eating contests, baking competitions, and prized animals) with something a little more modern (cupcake booths, red velvet funnel cakes, gourmet shaved ice, and texting competitions).  It sounded like a lot of fun.  So, we went.

The prices were astronomical. I mean, seriously, we might as well have gone to Disney Land. We took one car, and Andrew's friends took another. It was $10 for each car to park, but there was no other parking available. The light rail doesn't go that far north, and so we had to fork over the money to park. Then, to get into the fair, it was another $10 a person.  

Everything inside cost money. Basically, we dumped about $100 to get into a place to spend more money. Our friends were interested in trying out jousting. They had jousting--American Gladiator style! It was $14 to joust. I'm dead serious. We watched other people joust instead. Oliver was interested in a bouncy castle.  It was $2 to go into the bouncy castle. He ended up being too afraid to enter, but they kindly let us walk him through a little obstacle course instead.  

We spent $5 to buy a single, plain hot dog for Oliver for lunch.  I sneaked one of the chips it came with and found it to be stale.  Really stale.  The "best by" date on the bag was July 3.  I went to toss them but couldn't find a garbage can anywhere.  There were two lunch areas with picnic tables, but no garbage cans in sight. We later learned the only garbage cans were near the bathrooms.  I'm not sure what our $10 entrance fee paid for, but it wasn't adequate AC or garbage cans.

Negative is Positive!

My doctor called me this week and gave me a clean bill of health.  Whoopee!

Let me backtrack.  Last month, I found out from the health department that the oral surgeon who removed my wisdom teeth was caught reusing needles.  They advised me to get tested for Hep B, Hep C, and HIV.  It was a scary few weeks as I waited to get tested and to get results.

Sadly, not everyone has been as fortunate as me (news story here).  There are a handful of patients who have tested positive for hepatitis or HIV.  This month was scary for me, and I can only imagine the sinking feeling and fear those other patients had to deal with when they received different results.  My heart goes out to them and their loved ones.

A Hot Air Balloon Ride to Celebrate Our Fifth Anniversary

Our Fifth Anniversary

For Christmas, Andrew gave me tickets for a hot air balloon ride from Fair Winds in Boulder.  I decided to save the trip for our anniversary. We're

Nine Months for Jo!

Nine months in the womb, and nine months out.  Joanna is her own person.  She has gotten interactive and loves to play little games with us.  She initiates peek-a-boo, and she loves a game that Grandma Colleen taught her: you lean forward, and then she leans forward to touch her forehead to yours.  Repeat that over and over and over again.  She enjoys mimicking, and we alternate drumming on surfaces.

Jo's language is developing a bit more.  Her favorite sound to make is still "Bwa," but she also says, "Mumumum," a lot.  Shrieking has started back up again, louder and shriller than ever before.  She coos a lot, too.  She still enjoys waving and being social.

She has a new appreciation for her brother.  Oliver is the funniest person, as far as Jo is concerned.  She loves reaching for him and pulling on his hair and ears--and he lets her!  Oliver is such an amazing brother, that I'm tearing up just thinking about it.  I really lucked out with these kids. They absolutely adore each other.

Weaning seems to work two steps forward and one step back.  She was down to three daily feeds and one night feeding when her top teeth started to come in. Boy, she didn't like those! After both of those teeth popped through (she has four now), she went back to 3 daily nursings and one nighttime nursing. Then, last week, we decided to cut out the night nursing for good. Jo has done really well with that change, but--wouldn't you know?--she got sick a few days ago. She's had a moderate fever and diarrhea. She doesn't seem to want to eat or drink much, so I've been nursing her for extra feedings to keep her hydrated. Over the past few days, she's been nursing about 5-6 times during the day. Wow! Hopefully, things will settle down to get back on track to having her weaned at 12 months old.

As far as solid foods go, Joanna still loves her Gerber sweet potato puffs.  I also toast some whole grain bread for her and scrape a very thin layer of peanut butter over it.  I cut it into thin strips and let her eat those.  She loves it!  Cheerios are another good standby for Jo, but I have to feed her those one at a time. Otherwise, she just shoves them all into her mouth at once, and I have to fish them out. She usually enjoys a jar or two of baby food each day, too.

There's been one more big change: Joanna is now sharing a room with her brother.  I have my living room back!  It's so cute to step into Oliver's room and see him sleeping on his mattress and Jo sleeping in the crib across from him.  I love it.  Sleep is getting much better, too!  Jo wakes up at night once, and Andrew goes into to pat her and comfort her (instead of me nursing her back to sleep).  It usually takes about 20 minutes or so, but she eventually falls back to sleep. She seems to want to go to bed earlier and earlier. These days, we fight to keep her up until 7pm. She's usually up by 6am. She usually takes one short nap and one long nap during the day. Unfortunately, they're usually just before and just after Oliver's afternoon nap. I look forward to when she's napping once a day so we're not trapped at home so much.

Joanna still doesn't stand well while holding onto things.  Well, she will, but when she gets tired, she just hurls herself to the floor without a worry in the world. She doesn't pull up to a stand and actually has yet to pull herself into a sit. She does, however, easily move out of a sit and into the crawl position. She doesn't work much on crawling. Instead, she cries until we sit her back up. Crawling might not happen for a couple more months yet.

At 9 months old, Jo's likes and dislikes are:

Likes
Oliver!
Dumping over buckets of toys
Being held
Grabbing people's hair and noses (still!)
Peek-a-boo
Oliver's Sesame Street music videos
People who stop to smile at her

Dislikes
Diaper changes
The car seat
Heat
Being put down on the floor
Teething

Here's a flashback to Oliver's 9 month old update.

100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 78: Toothpick Spice Shaker

This simple activity has been making its way around the internet.  I've wanted to try it for a while but had to wait until I had an empty spice shaker.  All you need to do is take an empty, clean, plastic spice shaker and some toothpicks.  I advise not choosing a chili pepper canister or something like that.  Even if you clean it pretty well, you don't want to worry about your kiddo getting pepper oils into his eyes!  I chose 10 toothpicks just in case this became a counting activity for him (it didn't).  I think 10 is a good number to count to.  Plus, I wanted to know how many he had in case some ended up missing.  I wanted to know if I had to search the floors to make sure no one ended up stepping on a toothpick.  Ouch!

For "Toothpick Spice Shaker," all you need to do is show your toddler how to insert toothpicks through the holes on top of the spice lid.  I did one, and then Oliver demanded he wanted to do it.

Here are some photos of him.  He's very focused as he inserts each tooth pick.

After putting all 10 toothpicks in, he snapped the cap closed and needed help opening it.  Other than that, he was able to do the activity by himself.  It kept him occupied for about 10 minutes, and, later, he went back to it and spent another 10 minutes on it.

This activity is simple, which is a huge bonus for me, and it kept him engaged.  The downside of the activity is the fact that toothpicks are sharp.  It's amazing what kind of trouble toddlers can get into, so I worried he'd end up with a toothpick sticking out of some extremity.  That didn't happen, but, nonetheless, this isn't an activity to let a little kid do without some supervision.
I give "Toothpick Spice Shaker" a B+.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things: Sesame Street

Me: Oliver, I love you so much.

Oliver: I love Elmo.

Photo Shoot!

Last weekend, my mother-in-law and I took the kids to City Park to meet our photographer, Lisa Kitto, for a photo shoot.  The session was a Christmas gift from Colleen.  I don't like a lot of "stuff," so a photo shoot was the perfect choice of gifts.

A sneak peek of our photo session is available on Lisa's website: http://lisakittophotography.com/blog/oliver-johanna-denver-childrens-photographer/ .

I think my favorite photo is the one of Jo eating the dandelion.

100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 77: Gas Station Stop

Kids are weird.  Oliver has recently become obsessed with stopping at gas stations.  I don't drive much, so I only need to fill up every month or so.  Oliver is thrilled every time.

Oliver has a little push car that he got from my friend for his first birthday.  I told him he could fill it with gas and handed him a Wii controller attachment to act as a gas pump.  It was a hit!

A couple weeks ago, I was filling up the car and had an idea.  I should create a credit card machine for Oliver!  For about a year now, he's loved to watch me scan my Safeway card and credit card at the grocery store.  Before Jo, I used to let him scan the cards himself.

I dug through the cupboard for inspiration.  I finally chose to make a credit card slider out of a sponge.  I took a knife and carved out a strip in the middle and ended up with this:

I taped the sponge-turned-credit-card-machine to the front of the dish machine.  Then, I gave Oliver an old Starbucks card that was given to me from Aunt Bette.  I slid the card through once, and then Oliver insisted on doing it himself:

He scanned his card over and over and over again.

I reminded him to put "gas" in his car.  He did, but, apparently, that wasn't as much fun as the credit card machine.

He went back to sliding his "credit card" through the machine, just like Mom and Dad do.

If your toddler is always grabbing at your card when you shop, try setting up a machine for him/her to play with at home.  Making a credit card machine from a sponge worked very well for us, but get innovative, be thrifty, and use whatever you have on hand.  I've found that my son loves to do anything that imitates me.  It didn't matter that it was a sponge; he got to slide the card through, and that's what matters!

So, although our pretend gas station activity really just turned into a pretend credit card activity, it was still a huge success.  I give it an A!

Rampart Park: Shady Playground

While Kendrick Lake Park is my favorite playground to take the kids to in the fall and winter, Rampart Park is our park of choice in the summer.  It's the only park I've found nearby that is nicely shaded.  I don't have to worry about Oliver getting burned by the equipment.  Oliver has gotten burned on many playgrounds here, even as early as 9am.  He actually still refuses to go down slides, and it's been months since he was scalded on the slide at Kendrick Lake Park.  The direct sun here is just so brutal.  

Check out the shaded playground equipment!

The only downside to this playground is that we've never seen another kid here. Not one. We come a few times a week in the summer, and it's always deserted. I wish there were