An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

by | Aug 17, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Parenting Hacks, Parenting preschoolers, Parenting Toddlers, Toddler, Toddler Activities, Toddler Environment

As a home childcare provider I find parents are often curious how I manage to get so much done in my home. I provide childcare, homeschool, write and have a large collection of plants and animals that I care for in my home. I am the one who primarily does the cooking and house work as well since I am the parent who has more time to do so, my husband works many more hours than I do. I was thinking about it this morning when a client was shocked that all three fish tanks in the house were mine. She asked how I manage everything. I think one of the most useful tools in my parenting (and childcare) arsenal has been the invitation to play. This is the tool that lets me get so much done each day. Many evenings before I settle down for the night I set out a few invitations to play. Something in my living room that will greet the children as they arrive (either my own two from upstairs or my clients on daycare days), something in my dining room to attract them while I prepare breakfast, and something in the playroom to draw the children in while I tidy and move us through that transition.
The strategic use of invitations to play has saved me so much time, energy and conflict. So what is it? It is exactly what it sounds like. Some call it strewing, literally strewing toys around to entice children, some call it a provocation to play (technically a little different but I use both) and as this post suggests some call it the invitation.

Take a few minutes to set out a few toys, art supplies, or even random household objects out in a play area (or another surprising area) to draw your child’s curiousity and provoke them to play. This morning I set a few blocks out in a row, put a few cars on top and then rested a baby doll at the end of my makeshift track. It took me two minutes to prepare, and bought me thirty minutes of play and giggles from my daughter and two daycare clients. By the time they finished playing and decided they were ready for breakfast, I was ready for them with a prepared meal. After breakfast they were ready to hop right into the bingo dabber and sticker art invitations that I had set out on trays on the floor around my dining room. While they explored the art materials I made myself a coffee and tidied up breakfast. Then we moved down to the playroom. Last night I had spent 5 minutes taping a picture of a washing machine to a tiny cupboard, filled a basket with doll clothes and hung a makeshift clothesline. The kids were thrilled when they discovered this invitation and played indepently while I drank my coffee and observed. This is just an example of a morning where I used a few different invitations to make my day run more smoothly. They can be used anywhere however. I have placed small dinosaur toys and pebbles out on our driveway near where we park. Conviently out of the way of where I need to carry groceries up to the house. My children are equally likely to either help me with the groceries or get drawn into that play area, but either way I have an easy and unhindered trip to bring the groceries in the house.

Similarly I have left a couple shovels in the front garden, just sticking out of the soil along with a pile of bush clippings. I have set paint and twigs out on my picnic table when I noticed some children are ready to head inside before others. Small starts to activities. Simple ideas or prompts that the children can develop. That is all it takes, a few minutes of planning and some strategic timing and placement. Let me know below if you are interested in hearing about some ideas for invitations or provocations to play.

Chaos

by | Aug 16, 2022 | Parenting, Parenting Toddlers

I want to share a moment from my parenting adventure that really made me realize the insensity of this whole parenting thing. I honestly did not find babyhood all that challenging the first time around. Sure I was exhausted, breastfeeding hurt, and there was a learning curve to understanding my kids cues. Overall I had not found the first year of motherhood all that difficult. I remember joking with another mom that the most challenging thing so far was learning to clip that squrimy baby’s nails. I still hate clipping their nails.

Anyways there was an evening when my son was around fourteen or fifteen months old when my husband was going to be home later than he usually was, he was guessing ten or eleven. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to binge a series that he was not a huge fan of and thought maybe I could put my son down to bed a little early. I flew through dinner and clean up pretty smoothly, gave my tot a fun bubble bath, took a quick shower myself and then settled him down in bed. After nursing for a few minutes I kissed him goodnight and got myself ready for a little Netflix binge.

I had just sat down when I heard my son fussing. It was unusual for him because at this point he generally went right to sleep after I said good night. The fussing continued so I went upstairs to see what was going on, he seemed upset and since he was on a floor bed I snuggled on down next to him and asked what was wrong. He turned to look at me and promptly threw up. It went all over my face, my hair, and my shirt. It was on my hands and I even wiped it away from my eyes. The worst part was that it went in my mouth. No actually it gets worse. In the heat of the moment with my son bawling and me in absolute shock I went to pick him up. I remember it going in my mouth but I have zero recollection of what I did with it. I like to believe I didn’t swallow it but I will never actually know. Every time I remember this moment I feel a little sick to my stomach.

So, there I was trying to console my vomit covered toddler while ignoring the fact that I too was puke covered. After he calmed down a little I stripped us both and we took a really thorough shower together. He was cranky and tired at this point so it was no easy feat! After our shower I had just finished getting dressed and getting Mr man dressed when I suddenly had to sneeze. Now there are lots of jokes about moms crossing their legs to sneeze after they have had babies. There is a good reason for that, my pelvic floor was not as strong as it was before my kid was born. Well it happened. I sneezed, and it was actually multiple sneezes in a row. I realized immediately that I would need another shower because I had forgotten to cross my legs to sneeze. A mistake I will never make again.

So after my third shower of the evening I was ready to try the whole bedtime thing again. I brought Mr man to his room and realized that in my rush to clean us up I had forgotten something. I still had a vomit covered bed to clean up. I changed the sheets quickly and started a load of laundry. Everything was done now and all that was left was bedtime itself.

I think most parents are familiar with what happens when young children are up well past their bedtimes. First they are tired and cranky, then they are overtired and hyper. Eventually a crash comes, but at this point in my story my one year old was in full overtired and hyper mode. He was running and yelling and had absolutely no intention of going back to bed. It was at this point my husband arrived home. I gave him a brief overview of the evening and then he took over bedtime for me.

I went downstairs, sat on the couch and stared at the paused Netflix show. I reflected on what had just happened and all I could think was, ” I must have spat it out”.

This event was the one that made me realize that all the quotes, stories, and jokes about parenting being really hard were very true. What I had experienced up until that point had been hard sure, but not the absurd type of hard. The type of hard that makes you want to laugh, and cry, and hide all at once. That was the kind I experienced that night, and have experienced many times since, especially since adding a second child to the mix.

Please share your stories of parenting moments that made you feel this way below, I think we all need to know that we are not alone in the wierd, amazing, funny, exhausting, mind numbing and stressful chaos of parenthood.

Great Expectations

Great Expectations

by | Aug 15, 2022 | Parenting, Sensory DIYs

When my husband and I first seriously started discussing starting a family I immeditately started forming expectations and imagining what my child would be like. We had already selected a name before we even found out that I was indeed expecting. We had already spent hours discussing how we would set up the home for a child, how we would discipline, and how we would eat once the baby was born. My husband and I still laugh each time we pass happy meals back to our kids while leaving the drive through. We vividly remember the moment we said we would probably have to stop eating fast food any time now because our son was nearly the right age for solids.

I am getting ahead of myself here. Back to when I was pregnant and wanting to set up the perfect Montessori space for first child. I had these ideas of a kid friendly home where my son could explore and have a yes space. Where he would not need any play pens or cribs. I wanted to do a floor bed from birth, and planned to only have the beautiful Montessori alighned toys available to my little man. It didn’t take long for those expectations and aspirations to crash into my reality. We lived in a teeny three bedroom apartment with three cats. Our bathroom barely had enough room to turn around in let alone set up a changing and toileting area for a baby. Our kitchen had enough room for one adult to cook or clean, and honestly barely enough space for that. There was no room for a learning tower. No space for stools or low seats, or even low hooks to hang his little sweaters on. We decided to do the best we could with what we had available. We had recently been students and our second bedroom had been set up with computers, desks and books. We moved these to our bedroom to make space for a nursery. We painted and filled the nursery with the furniture we could afford, which was not exactly what I had envisioned but it served its purpose.

The beautiful mobiles that I had been hoping to hang for the first weeks of my sons life were extremely expensive, and the shipping for them was absurd. I realized that there was no way we would be getting them. This was my first DIY project for my son. I made him the Munari, the Gobbi, the Dancers and the Octahedron mobiles. I was honestly not at all satisfied with how they turned out. I wanted to offer my child the best, and I did not feel like these met that expectation. We recieved many beautiful gifts at my baby shower which filled the empty room and soon my son’s space was complete. It was mostly Montessori I told myself and I knew that more than the room and the things, it would be about how we parented this little guy.

I planned for a medication free, natural birth. Well my water broke early one morning and by the following morning my labour still had not started and we found out that I would have to be induced with medication. It jump started my labour, it was intense and quick and I still had my (mostly) natural and (mostly) medication free birth that I had hoped for. The moment that stands out to me is when my son was lifted up for me to see and I looked at him and was surprised that I didn’t recognize him. It should have been obvious, I had never met this little person before, but I realized later that I even had expectations of what he would look like and this contributed to my surprise.

When we brought the baby home things went mostly as I expected. We did the things we had planned on like baby wearing, skin to skin, tummy time and so on. I struggled and cried through breastfeeding. I had expected it to be a lot easier than it was, I had envisioned these beautiful moments of bonding and admiring the baby. What I got instead was awful pain, bleeding, and dread. I did not want to feed him. I found myself trying to stall and wanting to avoid feeding him. I realized I would have to pump instead because I was so tempted to wait and skip feeds. After a few weeks of exclusively pumping I realized it didn’t hurt anymore and we switched back to breastfeeding directly. It was not what I had imagined but I realized how thankful I should be that it was (mostly) working out the way I had hoped.

I did not want to bedshare. It was dangerous right? I was sure we would room share, but never ever bedshare. Well, one night I was holding my son on my lap and I started to doze off. It was not more than a moment or so but he slid and woke me. He was fine and safe but it made me realize how much more dangerous it was to be trying to stay awake in the night when he woke. We carefully rearranged our sleeping arrangements and my son started sleeping beside me. I am not by any means advocating for bedsharing, nor am I advocating against it. What I am saying is that it worked for us at the time, and we did what we needed to do, regardless of what we had hoped to do.

This trend continued in a lot of ways throughout my parenting journey so far. I had my ideas and expectations and what ended up happening, and how we ended up parenting was mostly aligned. I learned pretty quickly that I could not control my child’s experience, and all I had control over was my own reactions (mostly).

Let’s fast forward to my second baby. We were living in a bigger home now and this baby had her nursery set up exactly how I had hoped. I still used my hand made mobiles though. We knew this time around that we would be co sleeping and planned for it. Breastfeeding was easy with my daughter, but I was so busy that half the time I didn’t soak it up, I just rushed through. We had our bathrooms set up for children now, low furniture for them, hooks for their little sweaters, and a playroom dedicated to their learning and development. We had our learning tower in the kitchen, and the Pikler triangle I coveted in our basement. I think you could say we met majority of my hopes and expectations the second time around.

Now here is the big point of all these stories. I didn’t see any big difference in the way my daughter developed as compared to my son. She had the stuff, she had the environment. Yet I essentially parented her the same way. My son is 4.5 and my daughter is 2 now. We have already given away the learning tower, they prefer chairs. We are trying to sell the Pikler triangle, they don’t use it. We are considering having them share a bedroom because they do not use their carefully cultivated bedrooms for anything but sleeping. I will say that the low hooks for their little sweaters have come in handy, we still use those (mostly).

I guess one of the biggest lessons I have faced since my children were born is that I need to manage my expectations. I can have aspirations, and ideals for sure, but they cannot hold so much power over me. I think it is a battle I, and many others will fight our whole parenting journey. We have our ideas about how things will go, and then we have reality to face. It is a feeling that I like to keep close when I find my children fighting over things like Little Miss knocking down Mr Man’s block castle. He had expectations and goals and reality made them come crashing down. It is hard work for people of any age to manage expectations and yet it is also so crucial.

Updating the Montessori Toddlers Bedroom

Updating the Montessori Toddlers Bedroom

by | Jun 14, 2022 | Parenting, Parenting Toddlers, Toddler Environment

A common discussion in many online Montessori communities surrounds how to prepare a toddlers bedroom in a Montessori manner. The comments are flooded withy pictures of Instagram perfect floor beds shaped like little houses and majority of the time the floor bed becomes the focal point of the conversation. It is true that in the Montessori home there will most likely be a floor bed in the toddlers bedroom, however it would have likely been there long before toddler hood. Something that seems to be forgotten about is the reason for the floor bed. The reason we should be setting up any piece of furniture in a young child’s bedroom. For the child to be able to independently access and use their furniture as they need to. I have seen comments asking if it was too late to move a five year old to a floor bed, or lamenting how their two year old screams to go back in the crib and I think in both cases the main point is being missed. You are doing this for the benefit of the child. A five year old will not benefit from moving their twin bed down to the floor, they can already access their bed just fine. A two year old who has been in a crib all his life, and who is a very strong period for order will be very shaken up if his sleeping arrangements are suddenly changed without his knowledge, understanding, or consent. I love the use of a floor bed, used them with both my children but it is really not about the bed, it is about making the bed accessible and useable. It is mostly for infants and young toddlers. I actually moved my son into a regular twin bed at twenty one months because he was already familiar with the boundaries of a bed and was a really tall guy. He was much more comfortable on a regular height bed, and he could access it just fine. It did not make his room any less Montessori based. 

Ideally a child would start on a Montessori floor bed before they are mobile. Like this they become comfortable and learn to sleep on the bed before they learn to exercise the freedom that the bed affords them. It also means that the room is not changed up just when a child is becoming very sensitive to order and changes. Young toddlers do not usually like things to be changed on them, they also need to test boundaries and explore. This is not a great age to experiment with floor beds without understanding that it will come with some sleepless nights and frustration! If you do decide to change up a child’s room at this age, include them. Tell them what and why you are are changing things around. Have them help set it up, help clean it up. Surprising them often will be more negative than anything. If they are accustomed to cribs do not disassemble it until you know they are comfortable! We recently made a few small changes to Little Miss’s room as she is getting older (she just turned two!) We involved her in the changes, both my children helped set up her wardrobe, install her new lamp, and remove some of the toys she had outgrown. At the end of our efforts both children were proud and excited to use the space. I packed away the old toys in her closet just in case she suddenly felt the need to have them back and they will remain there a couple of months until I am sure she can part with them. 

My main point in the post is just to remember the why. Why are you doing this? How can you make sure this goes as smoothly as possible? How can your child be involved in decisions and changes regarding their life? 

Shopping Tips and Tricks

Shopping Tips and Tricks

by | Jun 13, 2022 | Parenting, Parenting Hacks, Parenting preschoolers, Parenting Toddlers

Shopping with young children tends to go two ways. Either everyone has a great time, and most of what needs to be accomplished is actually accomplished, or melt downs, power struggles, and frustration make the adult promise themselves never to do it again. I have had both experiences and I always end up doing it again. It seems hard to predict what kind of experience you will have, but there are some hacks to swing the likelihood of a positive experience in your favor. 

This first point is not truly a hack, but rather a tip. Before choosing to take your child on a shopping trip evaluate their needs, and moods that day. If your child woke early, missed nap, and is bouncing of the walls- this is not the time to go shopping. They will crash soon enough and you will pay the price. If your child hasn’t eaten recently then make sure to provide a snack before you go, hanger and tiredness are two of the most common reasons for the shopping trip melt down. Some other things to consider beforehand are less obvious. Has your child had a good dose of your attention today? When we shop our attention is elsewhere and unless your child has already connected to you they will persistently try to win your attention. Has your child had the opportunity for movement today? Will they be tempted to get their energy out in the wide open spaces of a mall? Has your child had opportunities for choice, and a sense of autonomy today? A child being dragged along for errands who has not had any choice in how their day goes, or what they do in the day is a child who is stressed and will be easily triggered. It may seem silly to consider all of these points but if you do, and you address all these needs beforehand, it is likely you will have a great experience shopping. It does not need to be a huge endeavor either, stop by a park. Play a game of your child’s choice. After you both get a good dose of exercise and laughter in then give them a snack and head to the store. All of those needs can be addressed in ten minutes of play. 

Toddlers can be a lot of fun but in stores they can be a real handful. Make sure you are clear on your expectations and boundaries before you shop, and be consistent. In my family the rule is that the children must remain within arms reach in the store at the toddler and preschool age. If they wander they get a reminder. If they do not return to us, or if they run then they go in the cart. End of story, there is no negotiation and we present this as a safety issue. They must stay with us to be safe. Since this has been the rule every single time since they started walking the children do not need to test the boundary. They know what the result will be, it never changes. 

Remember that grocery shopping is a family errand, the children are part of the family and can contribute to the shopping. When they feel involved they are a lot more likely to cooperate. I like to ask my children before we shop if there is anything they would like to add to the list. As we shop I will read off the list and let them find the items and put them in the cart. For produce I help, and show them how to pick ripe and ready fruits and vegetables. For many products we have discussions about price, quality and quantity. At three Mr. Man decided he would rather a larger pack of store brand waffles, rather than the small pack of Paw Patrol waffles because he understood how to compare the price to the quantity of product and realized what the better deal was. This can be an amazing learning opportunity, and the children are kept engaged without needing to be entertained. 

If your children start to get restless and whiny then try to fit in some time for them to browse. They don’t need to buy anything, but everyone likes the opportunity to browse items that interest them! If they become attached to the idea of purchasing something that you are not prepared to buy then offer to take a picture of it. Or write a note of it somewhere. Often just knowing that you are taking their desire seriously is enough for children to be satisfied and willing to leave the item behind. Just don’t promise to buy it next time unless you are prepared to buy it next time. They will remember, and if you don’t keep your word then they will not believe you in the future. I like to make more vague agreements like this, “That is really cool! You would love to buy that right? We don’t have the extra money to buy it today, but how about I take a picture so we can remember it for when we have extra money.” Alternatively have your child bring whatever money they have whether its allowance, birthday money, change they found etc and buy something within their own means. Learning about money really helps even young children understand that something fun cannot necessarily be bought at every shopping trip. 

Let them help unload the shopping cart, help bag, and help load the cart back up. Instead of looking at all the candy displayed for impulse buying they will be busy working with you. My eldest also loves to be the one who swipes our cards, and since he is so focused on watching for that opportunity he barely even notices the candy. 

There are many more hacks and tips that I plan to share in the future, but I hope this first set of shopping ideas will help on your next shopping trip!