Artwork

I was eager to introduce Rachel to art since it is my own passion. Thanks to some fancy crayons (with a hard plastic cover that you twist to expose more crayon), I was able to introduce drawing without broken crayons and with reduced risk of eaten crayon. Rachel, however, was more interested in taking the crayons out of the box and putting them back in, or making stacks or crayons, or hiding them under my legs. She is very interested in cooperative artwork, aka drawing on top of my doodles. But she is starting to understand the concept. Here is a piece from her Pollock-inspired period.

We moved from 2D artwork to 3D artwork with some homemade play dough. I used an edible recipe given Rachel's preoccupation with eating everything in sight. I was correct that Rachel tried to eat it first thing. It should taste horrible with the amount of salt in it, but it didn't phase her so I had to her it was gross. Since she couldn't eat it she decided chasing the kitty was more fun. Oh, well. At least I had fun making it and playing with it to encourage her.

Round 2 was much more successful. Play dough in the shape of cars is much more interesting. Even if they don't roll, they can still make a good "vroom, vroom" sound. Of course, you can always pretend to eat it and feed it to mama. I see lots of tea parties in the future, much to her daddy's chagrin.
But play dough is the most fun when it is on your head.

Snow Days

Oh, the fun of winter days! I've lived in Washington for four years now and have gone out to "play" in the snow perhaps once prior to this week. Rachel has rekindled my love of snow days. We have been out six days in a row. Who cares if I can't go to work? (Ok, I'm a bit haunted by the number of sick days I just used up, but I've relegated that to the back of my mind.) Snow is fun!

The look on my baby's face when she touched snow for the first time...
...and when she ate snow for the first time was priceless.
I forgot how much fun it is to make snow angels. It is even more fun to toss your tiny one into the snow to make an angel. "More, more, more!"I also forgot how hard it is to make snowmen. That idyllic image of rolling a snowball and having it gather snow into a giant, perfectly round ball does not represent reality for me. Instead my snowballs are slightly warped and a creepy snowbunny results instead.

I'm excited for next year. I plan to have a real sled to conquer the hills in our neighborhood. But for this year, our make-shift sled will do just fine.
Thank you, Rachel, for reminding me that weather is fun in all forms.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Rachel has taught me so many things, though most of the are re-learned, things that adulthood has slowly leached away from me. Here are a couple:

• Screaming for excitement is fun. So is singing, modulating your voice, and making sounds in general. I've gotten so used to making silly noises at Rachel that I'm slowly forgetting my self-consciousness. I even sang (quietly) at our Rock Band night recently. (Probably not a big deal to other people, but a huge deal for me!) I'm still far from doing Karaoke, but I just gave in to the fun for once. And I'm excited to do it again!


• Stuffed animals are sooooooo cuddly! I tried to be an adult and stop sleeping with my teddy bear when I got married. I ended up just hugging a pillow instead. So I finally decided, this is silly. I know that I'm fully capable of sleeping without a bear, so who cares what anyone else thinks? My teddy bear is cuddle AND keeps my hands from falling asleep due to awkward arm positions. So there!

I've been thinking about all the things I am excited to share with Rachel when she is older. So many I haven't done or even thought of in ages.

• Ring Around the Rosie
• Red Rover
• Cartwheels (Never mastered this as a kid. As an adult?)
  
• Swinging in the Park
• Building Forts
• Playdoh!

But that will all take time. For now I will concentrate on Rachel's next adventure, new foods. I think I'll start with avocado...yum!