S Club Mama

Moving is hard. Always bittersweet. Leaving friends (and MOPS groups). Changing routines. It can be exciting. New home to make your own. New friends (or grow closer to friends). New school (in our case, first school). New routines, new playgrounds. (when it thaws) But I will miss this house. We moved in full of anticipation of staying...forever. Spacious and cheap! However, I will mostly miss... the curtains. They never worked correctly. And so our boys began to hide and play within them. My boys don't often play "together" but they have such fun in pieces of cloth. Laughing. Running. Smiling. Enjoying. And I enjoy to watch.

I've been busy making lap books/tot books for Moose (will be posting about this soon). I want to do something fun for Squirt, too! He very much likes different textures (something Moose never seemed to care about). His blankies that he likes to sleep with are knitted ones; he doesn't really care for store-bought blankies (no matter how cute). So I'd like to give him a variety of textures to play with/explore. What other textiles are there? And how could I incorporate them into a little game? Any ideas on where I can find cheap material (scraps even)? I'm thinking velvet, silk, corduroy, denim, cotton...what else?

As Squirt sits nicely in the swing, content as can be... Moose journeys down the slide. All seems well enough. Two boys playing at the park. Then one finds dirt. While the other is still just hanging out. Then big brother decides to push his baby (in the swing). And baby brother decides to push the big brother (from the swing). (just kidding, Moose just laid down...but that's how it looks, huh?) Then big brother finds dirt...again. That's our typical day at the park.

About a month ago, I got the grand idea that I would like to play Candy Land with Moose. I got the board out. I got all the cards together and little game pieces out. I sat the kid down. I explained all the instructions. We started to play. He didn't understand. He just wanted to move the pieces all over. It would help if he knew his colors. Today, I had the grand idea to get out our new Go Fish! cards and play THAT with him. I got out the cards. Reviewed in my mind how to play. Dealt the cards. Wrestled the extra cards from him. He didn't understand. He just wanted to look at the cards. I even tried to play Memory with him with those cards. That didn't work either. As I type, he is spreading the cards all over the floor, talking to himself (or the cards), laying on the cards, gathering them back up. When do they learn games?