Who Does Stuff Like This Anymore Anyway?

Oh wait... that would be me.

It happened like this. I was ordering art supplies for the children and on a whim I threw in a set of simple wooden looms. I thought the children might be interested and we'd never done fabric/textile art of any kind.

I set it up and started demonstrating it for the children (who were indeed fascinated, but that isn't the point of this story). As I continued to weave I found it a calmly entertaining activity. I was pretty sure there was much more out there than under/over/under/over and I went online looking for some more patterns. Next thing I know I was using a shed stick and creating a shed space and even trying to jury rig a heddle. (Don't ask, just interpret as a ridiculous amount of OCD obsession over a tiny child's loom.)



Then I discovered pages on a continuous weaving technique and I fell in love with the Hazel Rose looms. They're just so exquisitely beautiful. I wanted them. I needed them about as much as a bump on the head, but I wanted them anyway. Then, (thank you in-laws) some birthday money came my way and I was 95% sure I was going to get those looms with them. I decided I'd better make some kind of prototype and make sure I actually enjoyed continuous weaving before spending my birthday money on those looms. So I made this:

And it was fun. And what a pretty square...



Then I got these (aren't they beautiful?):



And made these:



Don't ask how much time I'm spending on weaving instead of doing something useful like creating more word lists for all of you.

Now, the pertinent question remains... What am I actually going to do with all these squares?

Slacker Parenting Win

Ava wakes at the crack of dawn. Ava has always woken at the crack of dawn. During the summer that is before 5am around here. Her first and second summer my husband and I took turns getting up with her, bleary eyed and a more than a bit grumpy. Her third summer, when she was 2 1/2 we split the difference. We got a tot clock and we'd set it for about 30-40 minutes after she woke up. She knew she couldn't leave her room until her clock turned yellow and that bought us an extra 30-45 minutes of sleep every day.

This summer she's been waking up just as early as always. She's older and more independent now though and I feel guilty locking her up in her room for over an hour after she wakes up. (I got used to the 7:05 wake up time we were able to get away with during the winter when it stays dark longer.) So we told her she could go downstairs and play quietly when she woke up but she can't wake anyone else up until her light turns yellow. If her light is blue, that means Mommy, Daddy, and Michael are sleeping.

Well, that worked when she was only waking up about half an hour before the alarm, but much longer than that and she'll sneak into our room wailing, "Mama! My light not turn yellow!!" Now, in a perfect parenthood world, I'd pop up happily whenever she wakes up and spend quality time with her, but I'm a night owl and I really wanted to try to hold on to sleeping in just a little. I had an idea...

I started setting out a bowl of dry cereal and some water by her computer before I go to bed. Now she knows that when she wakes up she can go downstairs and entertain herself and eat at the same time. It worked beautifully for a few days. My husband and I would wander down after our alarm went off and we leisurely got dressed/showered to find her happily eating Cheerios or Mini-wheats while playing educational software. That was pretty nice.

Then something even stranger started happening. My little early bird who has woken up with the dawn 99 out of 100 days for her entire life began sleeping in. She's slept till 7:45 for about five days straight (that was typed in a whisper to try to avoid the curse of saying such things out loud). My hopeful hypothesis is that now that she gets no attention for getting up early, she has no reason to get up when she surfaces with the light. Instead, perhaps, she has actually learned to roll back over and enjoy drifting back to sleep for one more cycle. Hmm. Slacker parenting = better sleep for my daughter. Who knew?

The Weekly Review: Week 64

SLP Resource of the Week

E.J. at toddlerapproved.com came up with a simple idea for using matchbox cars as a learning game to address early language concepts such as colors, counting, matching, directions, and prepositions. She simply printed out parking lots with rectangles the size of the cars. Pre-print some with colors already in, and leave some blank. Your child/student can color their own pattern and then park the cars in that pattern. She includes a link to some printables she's already made.

Blog Post of the Week

My favorite blog post this week was short and sweet, but I found it inspiring in a way I find difficult to articulate. I just enjoyed Jessica's son's ingenuity and her excitement and pride in observing it.

Ava this Week

So many things seem to be going on with Ava lately. The strong independent streak she's always had is blossoming further. I can't help her climb down from her carseat, help her choose or put on her clothes, or help her take her clothes back off. And yet, when she determines she'd rather have something done for her she can ask oh so sweetly. She's just so adorably manipulative.

Michael played "camp-out" one morning by spreading every blanket he could find on the floor of his room. Since then, Ava has been sleeping on her floor instead of her bed on a little pallet made of blankets. She seems quite happy there and sleeps the usual amount of time, so why not?

She was delighted to return to speech this week for the first of the four summer sessions provided by the schools. She loves going to "big girl speech" and the program is well designed and implemented so I couldn't be happier with the services we're receiving from the schools.

Weekly Michael

I was sitting on the floor working on a project and Michael wandered over. He clearly had something on his mind that he wanted to discuss and I was curious about what he wanted to share. "Mama..." he began. "If we have an accidental baby it can sleep in Ava's room."

Umm...

It took me a moment to process what exactly he was talking about. "Well, sweetheart," I countered, "We're not planning on having an accidental baby. Usually mommies and daddies plan to have babies when they want to start a family, or if their family isn't big enough yet. Our family is complete. There's you, and Ava, and Mommy and Daddy and that's enough for our family."

Michael was not to be deterred from his hypothetical sibling though. "Yes, mama..." he replied in an exasperated voice, as if I weren't paying enough attention, "but if we had an accidental baby we could let it sleep in Ava's room."

I'm pretty sure I heard by husband lingering in the hallway snickering to himself as he eavesdropped on the conversation going downhill from there. I would have done the same thing. It was actually pretty funny in retrospect.

Ava's and Michael's Weekly Home Therapy Notes

It's kind of been a slacker week on the home therapy front. I blame summer. :-)