Toddler Activity – shucking corn
I found a great link on Pinterest of about 1000 things to do with your toddler, I didn’t pin the actual link so now I can’t find it, but there are so many out there maybe you will find another cool list. Of the 1000 on the list I saw, some are obvious, some are too messy, and a lot are really similar but there was one that I thought sounded like so much fun.Corn Shucking! I loved shucking corn when I was a kid,, I still do, although now I do it as fast as possible at the grocery store to get it done and get out of there. But when I read on this list, that corn shucking is fun for toddlers I left the whole ear in tact and brought it home. It took some explaining and demonstration but the girls go really good at it, and they were very meticulous with the little hairs on the inside. The only part that I couldn’t get them to understand was that it needs to be cooked before eaten. Than bunch of corn all had little bite marks when it was served with dinner.
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The story of now
Right now in our little family world the same story is playing out day after day, often several times in a single day.
A seemingly purposeless object catches Jordan’s eye. She takes it in her hand, turns it, inspects it. Within moments Talia notices the object. She tries to take it by reaching, Jordan knows this is coming and turns her body away from Talia in an effort not to have to let it go. The situation becomes a screaming match, then, depending on weather or not Talia took the object someone lays down on the floor to kick and cry in protest.
Luckily these tantrums are easily diffused by diverting their attention to a new toy or activity, bubbles is a quick and always popular one.
It pretty hilarious that they show such conviction for something, anything, one second and couldn’t care less about it the next. From what I’ve heard this is very common in both toddlers and teenage girls, awesome. Can’t wait for that when they actually have words to go with the tantrums.
DIY Simple Toddler Game
I know I’ve mentioned before the attention span of a one year old before, it’s about two minutes. As the months have passed the girls attention span has grown slightly, to about five minutes. They will sit and color a page , a little longer if I sit and color with them. But I can’t always be sitting with them. In the mornings while getting ready for work they play in my room. The toys in our house are rotated from room to room and in and out of storage to keep things interesting and not too cluttered and I always keep a few toys in my room for this time of the day. But sometimes no existing toy is more interesting than my attention, so I have to create a new one, on the spot and fast. This one is called toothbrush tunnel. it’s simple , save the empty toilet paper rolls and hand each toddler one roll and their toothbrush,
show them how to drop the toothbrush through the middle.
Talia in Purple.
This silly little game teaches all kinds of lessons – hand eye coordination, cause and effect. If you are lucky they will play with it long enough to finish you hair or make up. Oh, if you don’t have an empty toilet paper roll, you toddler can empty a full roll in about a minute.
A portrait a week will be here on Monday. Have a great weekend
A summer time sneak peak
The weather here is Georgia can’t make up its mind. A couple of weeks ago it was warm and sunny and we spent the whole weekend outside barefoot and coated in sunscreen. Now it’s chilly and rainy and really windy and has been for too long. I moved to Georgia from New York for the weather. No really I did, that and to be closer to my family. When I first moved to Georgia it NEVER rained, really, never. People joked about it but it was actually quite scary. It was the middle of a three year drought. The past three years have been a very different story, Atlanta is now ranked as one of the rainiest cities in the US. Even still the weather is better than in the North. For the most part our winters are mild, spring is beautiful and warm, fall is the same and the summers are sweltering, which I love. We spend our days outside every chance we get.
When it did finally warm up enough to play outside I found a great new toddler activity, ICE!
I emptied the ice from the catcher into a large bowl and set it out on the deck. The girls played for ever, until the ice was melted at least. When in does warm up again we will be playing the bowl of ice game again and again.
Toddlers Are Scary
It’s like they are on a mission to hurt themselves and it scares the day lights out of me, like heart skip a beat, I suddenly learn how to fly, scared. The first time one of my children fell down the steps it was my fault. I left the gate from the deck to the yard open – first mistake, and next thing I knew Talia was standing on the second of seven steps. 
I screamed her name – Second mistake, it startled her, made her loose her balance and I watched and screamed in horror as she rolled down the remaining steps and landed face first on the stone pavers at the bottom. She rolled like a log rather than head over heel, but still, scary. I picked her up as she was screaming, barley a scratch on her and cried myself, for a while, longer than she did. Since then both Talia and Jordan have fallen more times than I can count, on their hands, heads, ears, mouth, face, knees and arms. They walk into things with out watching where they are going, they hit their hands on door frames, they trip and fall, they roll off the couch, stand up under the table, try to squeeze their hands into drawers that are child proofed and get them stuck, slip on wet floors (because they dumped their water out), and get scared when they climb up too high to get down themselves.
While I still get mini heart attacks every time they play on the couch and try to prevent falls and bumps as much as possible, I have learned not to react. Usually they cry out in pain, and quickly get up, shake it off and move on. Every once in a while they come to me and need a hug. Recently I saw Talia fall while out on the deck, not down the stairs, just on the deck. I was inside watching from the window so I went to the door when I saw her coming and got down on the floor to give her a hug. She sat in my lap for a minute. I said “you ok?” she said “kay” and nodded and was off to play. Jordan got the first real scrape of the two, on her knee. 
It was the first time in shorts for the season, she was running on the driveway, tripped and scraped it. For scrapes or cuts we just clean it with water if necessary and put Neosporine on a few times until it starts to heel, then we switch to vitamin E, I learned that from my big sister, it helps to reduce scaring. Vitamin E is good for pregnant bellies too, it helps reduce getting stretch marks. Her knee is almost healed now. And just yesterday while I was changing Talia’s diaper on our family room station Jordan close by stepped on a toy and hurt her foot. I told her to come here I’ll kiss it, so she hobbled over and did a standing split so I could bend down to kiss her foot while changing Talia’s diaper. While I know it’s unlikely, hopefully scrapes and bumps will be the worst we ever have to deal with.
Nighttime
We have a very regimented bedtime routine, it starts with dinner time.
6/6:30 dinner
7 bath
After bath the girls get their milk while we are putting their diapers and lotion on. They usually drink about half their milk and start being crazy.
Running around, screaming and yelling, climbing and jumping on whatever they can. It usually takes us about 10 minutes to get their pjs on them. Then they play for a few minutes. A few minutes before 8 we sit with them on the couch and read a story while they finish their milk. When the story is done we head to the bathroom to brush teeth and then straight to bed.
Talia and Jordan are smart little people they know the routine and they know what the next activity is and when it’s coming. So each night around 7:45 the girls stop being crazy and start playing calmly and quietly by themselves. It’s like they know that if they are quiet I may forget they are still awake. Sometimes I let them play a few more minutes but when they start rubbing their eyes and laying their heads down on Mr. Bear, I know it’s time for bed.
a video
Embrace the blur
You know those beautiful picture people have of their kids. The big ones, in the fancy frame where the small child is standing in a perfect three quarter pose with socks perfectly folded and smiling just enough to look happy without it being forced. Yeah, I don’t have that picture of the girls. I have thought about taking them to a studio to get one, but the thought of spending hundreds of dollars to give up a fun Saturday or Sunday outside just doesn’t seem worth it. Sure, they are beautiful and I am sure I will regret not having taken that photo one day but hopefully one of the 10,000 pictures I do have will fill the void. What I do have are thousands of pictures of moments we have spent together.
Most are blurry moments of two little toddlers whizzing by in every direction.
Good morning
Talia and Jordan both learned how to unzip their coats. This was after our 7:30am outing to the new swings in the backyard. 
These fuzzy little coats are from Carters. The zippers they use are great because the zipper teeth are thick plastic so it’s easy for kids to learn to open and close all by themselves. Talia and Jordan don’t have the close part down yet, but they are working on it.
And Jordan wanted to say good morning too. 
On being a mommy
I’m good at many parts of being a new mom. I’m creative, I can think of fun toddler appropriate activities on the fly. I can make a game out of pretty much any situation. I can turn a tantrum into giggles quickly. I can anticipate accidents and prevent them a lot of the time and I can get fighting toddlers to be friends again. I can follow and adjust schedules at the drop of a hat and I can manage two toddlers all by myself at bed time if I have to.
But when the day is done and the last cup of milk is drunk, books are read and everyone is put in their crib is when the hard part starts for me. My girls are criers. Most nights they cry when I put them to bed, usually only for five minutes, maybe as long as ten, but for that short time of the day I am a complete wreak. Having to hear my girls cry at night, when I know they are tired and need to sleep, makes me want to pull my hair out, cry myself, and usually makes me feel petty sick to my stomach.
What Is That! It’s been almost a year and half and I don’t deal with the sound of their cries any better now than the night we brought them home.
I know that right now is particularly bad phase because the crying has been worse lately since we took away pacifiers, switched to one nap a day and are now dealing with the worse cough and cold the girls have had.
I wonder is there is a Facebook group out there for moms who just put their kids down and need a distraction until they fall asleep.
How do you deal with it? Listen to it? Turn up the TV loud enough not to hear it? Hold your baby until they fall asleep? I’d love to know.
