T-Ball

Yesterday morning, Jonathan was CRAZY. Completely manic. Running. Jumping. Throwing things. Wacking balls with his make shift "wacket" (a tupperware lid). And I realized that his throwing arm has developed significantly so that he can really do some damage. I knew we had to get out of the house before there was a disaster and I totally lost my cool. So I finally broke out the T-Ball set I bought for his birthday way back in May. (I never gave it to him on account of the glut of presets he had already recieved). Thankfully it was tolerable outside (only 85 degrees) and we had a great time. Jonathan seemed to know what to do with no instruction whatsoever. Here is his first attempt at bat:

butterflies

Our latest painting project has been to make butterflies! I picked up some small sized plain white coffee filters at the store a few weeks ago and broke them out on one of the recent days when it has been too hot to play outside for long.

I decided to limit our paint to some bright warm colors, instead of allowing blue and red and orange to all mix together into a big brown mess, and Jonathan didn't complain too much that his paint tray had only red, yellow and orange. He dove right in with the brushes, his hands, and finally just outright wadding up the coffee filters and dipping them in the paint. The tricky part was laying them out flat again to dry (a few ripped too badly to be used in the final product)

When they were dry, I folded them with accordion folds and had Jonathan help me put two each along with a bit of green ribbon into the mouths of small sized IKEA chip clips. And voila! Butterflies! Jonathan had a blast running around the house with them making them fly along behind him.

When he tired of that game, I used some push pins to secure them to the ceiling. So now these beauties are hanging in our sunroom! I love it. I am actually thinking of making something similar for a "mobile" of sorts for above the baby's crib.

argue

Jonathan's latest vocabulary word is "argue". As in that is his favorite thing to do. Here are a sampling of this morning's conversations:

J: What am I eating?

Me: You are eating applesauce.

J: No. I am not eating applesauce.

Me: No? What are you eating?

J: applesauce

Me: Which movie do you want to watch?

J: Elmo's ducks

Me (showing him the youtube thumbnail): This one?

J: Yes.

(starting the movie)

J: NO NO NO! No Elmo's ducks!

Me: You don't want to watch Elmo's ducks?

J: No!

Me: (stopping movie). Ok. What do you want to watch?

J: I want Elmo's ducks!!

J: Mommy want to argue?

Me: No, not really.

J: Yes argue.

Me: No.

J: Yes.

Me: AAaargh!!

Pockasils

I have become a fan of making popsicles. Or as they are called around here- pockasils. I picked up some popsicle molds at the grocery store this spring for a dollar each after reading the labels on all of the commercially available fruit-pops. I was determined to find a cheaper, healthier option for us during the hot summer months.

I've made chocolate-banana by pureeing some over-ripe bananas and then adding chocolate milk. Last week I made peach-vanilla pudding pops by mixing pureed peaches and instant vanilla pudding.

My current batch made use of the glut of cantelope that appeared in our fridge this week from our CSA and the leftovers from a fruit tray someone brought to a party.

My basic recipe was to take all of the excess cantaloupe and pop it in the blender. I got about 3 cups of sweet peachy-orange goo. I added 1/2t of vanilla and 1T of honey and poured it into molds. Perfection!

I'm thinking of trying some more gourmet flavors by adding some herbs to the mix. Maybe watermelon-cilantro? Or mint-lime?