Early this morning while cuddling in bed, Miss G was browsing one of my yearbooks from while I was teaching in Kuwait. She found my class’ page topped with my photo and asked…
Gracen: You are in your classroom here, Mama?
Mama: Yup.
Gracen: Where is Papa?
Mama: He’s in his classroom on the other side of campus.
Gracen: So we had a little babysitter for Grae, ya?
Mama: Well no, Love. You weren’t born yet.
Gracen: So actually I was just zero???
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While we’ve done plenty of regular mess-free painting on our sidewalks and fence, today Gracen asked if I’d draw her something to paint. While maybe not as open-ended as I’d usually aim for, I do find that sometimes she prefers having a jumping off point, so I drew an assortment of shapes on the ground using sidewalk chalk. The activity was actually perfect for her new found interest of colouring in the lines, and when the water dried, it left our cement pad covered in beautiful, watercolour-esque shapes. So simple, but she enjoyed so much that she’s already asked to do it again.
♥
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While down at the beach today, G begins to attempt crawling across the busy path…
Mama: Grae, let’s not crawl across the path please. Let’s walk.
Grae: What ’cause?
Mama: Well, because there are a lot of people walking and biking past and the cement is hard and rough. You’d probably make holes in the knees of your leggings.
Gracen: And then I no have knees anymore? I just have my knee’s skeletons?
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This afternoon the sun was out and I decided to set up something really fun for Grae to explore and experiment with in the backyard.
The set up was pretty simple… Several differently shaped jars and medicine bottles filled with coloured vinegar (we used gel food colouring), a couple of small jars of baking soda, a couple of spoons, and a few empty mixing containers all on a tray. Oh, and some safety goggles. Because in Gracen’s world, science equals goggles. ☺
After helping her with her goggles, Grae set off to work.
As I usually do with this kind of activity, I didn’t give her any instructions. I simply said, “Do you want to play?”
The answer was an excited ‘yes’, and after a few questions about whether or not she could dump/mix/pour things (of course the answer to all was yes), she got started.
While she’s seen the reaction baking soda and vinegar have while moon painting, this was on a much bigger scale.
And she loved it. Mixing a little bit of this with a little bit of that in order to cause colour changes and fizzy foam eruptions was right up her alley.
My little scientist made reaction after reaction, delighting each time she caused foam to spew out of the top of her jar.
One thing that was interesting is how the colour of the vinegar seemed to change with the addition of baking soda. In the case of the orange and the pink, the colours seemed to explode with brightness as the reactions occurred.
With almost all of her baking soda resources used up and her largest jar of vinegar left, we fetched just a little more baking soda from in the house.
It started off slowly, but the reaction did not disappoint. After scrounging leftover baking soda from wherever she could, she managed to create enough fizzing foam to have it flow generously out of the top of the jar. Success!
After she’d depleted her resources, what was left was a beautiful rainbow-y mess. For a little bit of added fun, we filled up a bin with warm soap water, grabbed a cloth, a scrubber brush, and a couple of towels, and had a little dishwashing station right there in the backyard.
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Unfortunately, we have not quite recovered from when we veered off the path of consistent naps yet… Gracen is such a routine little thing, that sometimes it’s difficult to get back on track after falling off. As of now, she goes down for a nap after lunch as usual, she lays in the dark singing and chatting to herself for a good long while, and when she doesn’t fall asleep, I part her curtains just a little to let in some light, and she has some quiet play time alone in her barely-lit room. Down time we both need.
Besides the fact that she truly does still need her nap and our afternoon is tough without out it, the following morning we are guaranteed to have an extra early wake up (we’re talking somewhere in the 5 a.m. range). This kid is proof to the fact that good day time sleep equals good nighttime sleep, let me tell you. Then of course, she’s tired the next morning, nap time is extra tough that day, and the cycle continues. Viciously. Ugh.
Oh, and on top of that? Quiet play time equals this:
A Grae-nado as we call it.
Here’s hoping for a return of naps, ASAP.
♥
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I can’t even tell you how excited I was to win an annual family pass to Science World from Lisa at The Sprog and VanCity. Knowing that we only have a few months left here in Vancouver, I am absolutely determined to make the most of the pass. (Rainy day? You know where we’ll be. ☺) With our package arriving late yesterday afternoon, we headed off this morning for our first visit to Science World in a long time. G had an absolute blast.
It was also a great spot for me to work on my new personal challenge… using my camera in manual mode only. With Gracen excited as all get out, the first half of our stops being very dark, and the second half being very well lit, there were more than enough challenges to try and work around. Here are a few of my favourite shots…
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