Experiencing Play-doh

With more time off to spend with my little guy, we are now able to get into more time consuming toys, like Play-doh. Daniel seems to be entering the next level of play also. He seems more focused on one toy at a time and he also will now sit and color or draw (scribble) for more than five minutes. It's pretty pleasant because I can sit at the table and do other things while he colors.

Back to the Play-doh - it appears my son enjoys stuffing the Play-doh in the tubs and then taking it back out and then in, then out. Oh yeah - he likes the lids too. He had more fun just doing that than anything else. Wait - he did try to taste it once, but I caught him and explained that while we all ate Play-doh as kids, I still didn't think it was a necessary staple in his particular diet.

Speaking of diet, his is changing yet again. Guess what brilliant mother (me, in case you weren't sure!) figured out how to get her son to drink milk??!! Since coming home, we have pretty much been solely giving Daniel juice (mixed with water, since he won't drink water either) to drink. I have been trying and trying to figure out what else I could give him. Crystal Light was a no go with Daniel too. So I sat there one night and out comes Troy with his favorite drink - cold sweet tea mixed with milk. (YUCK!) At any rate I had a moment and ran to pull out Daniel's food chart from Russia. Yup - tea was on there. I should have known - we helped feed him one night and they gave him tea to drink. I ran to the store the next morning and bought decaf, made a pot, barely (I mean barely) sweetened it and mixed it half with milk. Ta da!! My son loves it!!! Plus, he gets the minerals from the tea, which according to my health book can be very good for you. Well, that only took me almost 4 months to figure out!!

Anyway, here's a few pictures of our Play-doh experience.

Learning Safety and Colors

This week starts my first part time week at work! We didn't make it to Mother Goose time at the library today as we had other things to do, but hopefully next week. I'm already enjoying the extra time with Daniel.

Last week I talked with Becky whose little boy Andrew has already learned his colors. I asked her how she taught them to him and she said they used little cars. I've tried books on colors with Daniel and crayons but haven't had any luck. So today I pulled out 5 cars in the colors red, yellow, blue, black and gold. We went over the colors and I asked him to pick up a certain color car. It took him a few tries, but he got it! Then after we were all done, I sat down on the sofa and he picked up a car and ran over to me saying "Gold, Gold!" and sure enough it was the gold car!! I was so excited! Thanks Becky for the great tip!! Here he is holding up the colored cars for me!!

Also, on a funny note - Troy thought it would be hysterical to put a pair of goggles on Daniel and have him ride his riding toys. He said it was all in the name of safety. Poor kid - he'll do anything for his Papa.

From Full Time to Part Time – A Big Change For The Better

Three and a half months have passed since we brought Daniel home. For six weeks I was able to rock him to sleep every day for his nap and every night at bedtime. I sat with him at every meal, kissed every boo-boo, sang good morning when he woke up, met his every need, with Troy’s help of course. After six weeks I went back to work full time. It felt good to go back to work, but I started missing Daniel every day. After a couple of weeks he cried one morning when I left him at the sitters. Since then he doesn’t cry but stands at the door some mornings looking after me and sometimes banging for my attention. I hate walking away from him.

So, Troy and I finally came to the decision that I would stop working full time and ask my current employer if I could change my position from full to part time. After waiting a week for a response, I was informed that they would be pleased to have me remain with the firm part time!! I was so excited. I’ll only be working three days a week for seven hours each day verses the five day, eight hour a day, work week. That means four uninterrupted days with my baby boy!! It means not having to wake him up in the mornings to get ready to go and then rush through dinner and bath time in the evenings so I can get him to bed early enough to just have to wake him up anyway. It also means we can go to Mother Goose time at the local library! I have been wanting to do this for quite some time.

I’m also looking forward to returning to the SPCA to complete adoption paperwork and match families with their forever pets just for special events and to help fill in. I have not been able to return as I was not working a 6th day away from home and from Daniel. This will give me the opportunity to just go in every once in a while for my ‘not mine’ animal fix!! Life is looking good!

I’ll begin my part-time position in just two weeks! Now, I’ll have

More time to do this:


and watch Papa and Daniel do this:

Hey, Papa - now that Mama will be home more - how about you, because you're comin' with me!