This evening, Janie had some tasty pasta for dinner. Lately, we’ve had to encourage her to use a fork instead of her fingers.
Afterward, she played with playdough with Dada.
Janie was really into making tortillas and then cutting out shapes.
playdough party
This is becoming a favorite activity with Daddy.
Monday Pancakes
The whole family had the President’s Day Holiday off so we made pancakes for breakfast!
Yummy!!!
morning play
After breakfast, Janie had a playdough session with Dada. I think Dada enjoyed it as much as she did.
After playdough, it was time for some relaxing time. This is one of her favorite spots lately.
Then she found her ribbons on a stick and made up a dance with it.
fork and knife
At breakfast, Janie asked for a knife and she practiced using a fork and knife. All that practice with playdough is really paying off.
green spaghetti
Janie discovered the playdough spaghetti maker this evening and had so much fun.
It’s fun to see her finding so much joy in one of Mommy’s favorite toys.
Playdough
I have this playdough set (a collection of tools and cutters) that I’ve had for work all these years and brought it home to try it out with Janie. There was even a brand new canister of dough that was perfectly good after several years in storage.
She loved it right away and had fun making meatballs, pancakes, and cookies.
She also got to cut with her knife to make even smaller meatballs.
While on Facetime, she showed Yai and Ta all the tiny beans that she rolled. Luckily, this activity was not as messy as anticipated. Only one little bean escaped the table and we found it before it could get smushed into the floor.
Cutting with Scissors
Today is a very exciting day for this OT Mama. At 32 months, Janie was introduced to scissors today and totally crushed it! I taught her to place her middle finger in the second hole instead of the index finger because it gives her more control. By the time she was done playing this evening, she was able to put the scissors on her fingers correctly about 75% of the time. Not bad! She also learned the right way to cut by pointing her thumb up. Developmentally, kids want to pronate their forearms and cut with the thumb pointing down but it’s not very effective later when it comes time to cut lines and shapes.
Janie worked on snipping on the edge of the paper today and really enjoyed it.
Ama bought us a Crayola art set a few months ago and it had these scissors that I’ve been saving for the right time. They’re actually pretty cool – plastic, doesn’t have sharp edges, but cuts construction paper really well!
http://youtu.be/65f1nLpokrE
cooking
Mommy was cooking and Janie wanted to play too.
So, she got some chopped up cauliflower and had a fun time making her own soup.
brushing teeth
This is a regular part of our nighttime routine now. Janie actually likes brushing her teeth and feels like such a big girl on her stool. She gets the water herself and tries brushing her teeth on her own. Mommy goes over again after she’s done to make sure all the teeth get scrubbed. She has also learned out to rinse with water and spit in the sink.
Here she is in action. Brush brush brush!!