Winter playtime

Brrrrrrr....it's fuhreezing outside! Our activity options are being taken indoors and it's difficult thinking of free activities to do with a 14 month old, so we have been walking laps around the house, I have been teaching her to climb stairs (Doug is not a huge fan of this activity) and we play hide and seek.

I purchased book a few years ago, which lists activities to do by age ranges and of course there is developmental learning hidden in these activities, so with below freezing temps, I cracked the binding. Even in this book, there is not much kids between 12 and 18 months can do, but we are learning to toss objects into a bucket and we broke out the crayons...I mean crayon. Do you really think I am nuts enough to give a 14 month old a whole box of crayons? I'm not. They suggest water color painting at this age...um, no way...that's an outdoor Summer activity.

Emma really enjoyed the purple crayon and scribbling on a piece of paper. She held onto my hand and we wrote her name, drew a smiley face and scribbled. I can't quite figure out if she is a south paw or not. She seems to reach for objects more often with her left, but then she also uses her right hand too, so I'm not sure which hand I'm supposed to put the crayon in...not that she can really grasp it anyway, but we tried. She didn't try to eat the crayon (BONUS), but she wanted to dig her fingernails in the tip.

We took a trip to Hobby Lobby for the jumbo size crayons to help her grasp better and bought a jumbo coloring book. Did you know that Jumbo crayons are not JUMBO anymore? They are half the size of what they used to be and double the cost! We let Emma walk around Hobby Lobby and I am proud to say, she did not pull anything off a shelf or even try to run away from us. Well, I'm not really shocked that E. didn't run away from us because she is a "velcro child", but there is a lot of "stuff" in Hobby Lobby and the fact that she minded us when we said, "only look, no touch" is quite remarkable when she is surrounded by all that blingy stuff at eye level. I figured the worst case scenario was that she didn't mind and we got a cart, but that didn't happen and she slept like a hibernating bear last night from all the walking.

Emma exercises with me now, lol. This week she joined me in the stretching, arm circles and downward dogs...she gets a "D" on form, but "A" for effort. The best part of the whole workout is when I'm doing ab work, she lays her head on my stomach and gives me the biggest grin and she stands at my knees, like she is holding them for me when I do sit-ups. How can you not love rising from a sit up with a big toothy grin greeting you? I could do 1,000 sit ups looking at that face. Maybe Emma will be the next Jackie Warner or Jillian Michaels or she will just be my workout partner when she gets older? ;)