Even Bath Time is Educational

Toys R Us a cute little birthday club. Your child can come into the store and get a free balloon and they give you a free $3 to use in the store (plus more, but that's all Cade and I cared about). While there is not a whole lot worthwhile that's $3, I told myself that if I got something about $6 it would at least a half off!


So in March, (though Cade's bday is in January, we didn't end up getting there until the $3 almost expired) Cade and I wandered the store and finally scored this fun little item - soap crayons!

Kory's Beautiful Hypnobabies Birth

On Monday morning, March 21^st, 2011, I decided I wanted to sleep in, for no particular reason. I felt awake but just wanted more sleep. I finally got up at about 8:30 a.m. and had breakfast with my two-year-old. I had two appointments Monday morning – at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. – to visit teach (visit some women in my church with a gospel message). The first was cancelled because the sister was sick. I started getting ready for the second and felt some pressure waves (contractions) and it made me not really want to go, but I went anyway. It was a good visit and helped me stay distracted from the pressure.

When I got back at about 11 a.m., I realized I didn’t have plans for the day, so I decided to start getting more ready for the baby to born. I made an overnight bag for my two-year-old, emailed our birth/baby preferences to my husband to print, and started charging my camera battery and my IPOD (which is what I’d been listening to my hypnosis scripts on). In the middle of doing this, I was trying to take care of making some more urgent appointments and answering phone calls. I made one appointment for Sunday and even told the lady that I was 9 months pregnant (thinking that I probably would not end up going).

Noon rolled around and I got on google chat to ask my husband (Austin) to come home for lunch because my waves were getting more intense and I really wanted to focus and do a hypnosis script. He said he couldn’t make it until around 1 p.m. I told him not to bother because by then my two-year-old would be napping and I could lie down to do a script. I was hoping to fall asleep (like I had in my script practice the last couple weeks) and wake up having the waves calmed down.

I barely got my two-year-old lunch and in bed. It was getting much more difficult to handle him. I lay down on my bed and started the deepening track. I loved this track because it helped me feel so deep in hypnosis that, even if I didn’t get a full nap, I could wake up feeling refreshed. That didn’t happen this time. I was conscious during the entire script and came up at the end of it, still feeling the intense waves. I called my husband on the phone and told him to come home.

Playdough

I was so excited to try playdough with my two-year-old! I cooked it up using the traditional recipe and he even helped me dye it. That was about as far as it went! I LOVED coloring it, but thinks it feels "yucky". So mommy always has to roll it out and he just presses in the shapes. I suppose I don't mind so much. It ends up being some good one-on-one homeschooling time. I bought a HUGE set of different cookie cutters that included letters and numbers. Currently, his favorite is "x".
It's fun to watch him explore and learn. His favorite color right now is black. His does a great job counting to three (four if I encourage him), and his favorite shape remains a star (though he is getting good at identifying the others).

Actually LEARNING in church?!

Do you REALLY think a two-year-old can learn something about God during church? It seems so often we just bring stuff to entertain them (don't get me wrong - I'm a Disney fan too!) so that we can focus on what is being said and feel some sort of spiritual inspiration.
Just the other day I thought, "this just isn't working". Cadence has very few "quiet" toys, so he was getting bored pretty fast. Plus, I learned the majority of "quiet" things we usually do together at home, so he always expected me to help "entertain him" - which leaves both of us not receiving any spiritual upliftment! If we sit near other kids it is a disaster because they're either having a great time with lots of loud laughter, or fighting over toys with lots of loud frustration.
The answer to my original question is: YES! They don't go to nursery (our 18 month to 3 year old class in our church) to just play with toys and be babysat while mom and dad learn the gospel. They go there to learn about God. We have a BLESSED nursery leader in our stake, who has spent so much time magnifying her calling by making books and other manipulative toys that are cheap, yet still gospel centered. She buys stuff from the local thrift store, uses old church magazines, and re-crafts Christmas cards. She has INSPIRED me! Here are some of "my" creations: