A present for a friend turning 5

This friend's sixth birthday is going to be soon and revising what we made for her last year I've thought I would share again.

This weekend we have been to a very special friend's birthday party. She was turning 5 and I knew she is very into letters, so I wanted to make something letter-related and since I also happen to love stamps I gave foam stamps a try. It doesn't always happen to me that I am very glad with the result when I want to make a birthday present and I often end up giving something different from what I'd planned. However, this time around I was quite happy and I want to show it to you.

I made the stamps using foam pieces that I glued to big bottle caps. The ink pad is just the lid of a container -the kind of container take away food comes in- lined with thick felt. I wanted to add homemade ink as well but it wouldn't have fitted into the box we were going to use. To use this pad with the stamps the only thing you need is a bit of acrylic paint and a pinch of salt. The salt makes the paint a bit more fluid. 

Añadir leyenda

Voilà, that's the way the present looked.

What to do with old chunky puzzles

I am re-posting a series of posts from my other blog because I have the intention of eliminating it soon.
Here I am sharing an old post about putting chunky puzzles to use after they have been forgotten.

I am always on the lookout for ways to re-use materials and trying to make further use of a chunky puzzles the other day I set up a really simple activity that kept M busy for a while. These puzzles are the kind of material that after a few uses become old hat. I fear that is one of the disadvantage of most non open-ended materials. But well, with a bit of imagination we can reuse them!
For this activity you only need the wooden already mastered puzzle, a tray, and flour, salt or corn-starch. I covered the pieces with starch and presented it next to the base of the puzzle. I added a thick paintbrush as an invitation to uncover the "treasure".
M eagerly took the brush and dug up the pieces. She was quite excited to see what was buried there!

Best playdough recipe ever -in English and Spanish-

We are beginning to be pretty well-known around here for bringing our homemade play-dough to birthday parties. Since everybody seems to like it, I am sharing it once again.
(En español más abajo)

M concentrated on decorating the play dough with marbles, pipe cleaners and string

Many people ask me how to make play dough so I have decided to share our recipe once again. Since the people who ask me are Spanish and might not read English, I am going to re-share this old post of mine and translate the recipe.


It's been some time now since we first started making our own play dough. At the beginning, about half a year ago, M was not interested at all and the dough would remain in a basket on the shelves until it dried out. However, I decided to give it a go before Halloween and this time it has certainly been a success. We made it for a weekly play date and the other girl enjoyed it very much as well.
Something that has surprised me this time around is that the dough gets better and better the more used it is. M asks to play with it everyday and it has become soft and resilient at the same time that it's kept the cinnamon flavor. We are very happy about the recipe we are using, so I've thought I would share it.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tablespoons of oil
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
1 cup of boiling water
food coloring for color
essence, spices, or essential oils for flavor

We mix all the ingredients in this order and then knead until the dough looks all right.

We could make some balls to give as play-date favors out of this batch

This recipe contained a little bit of orange food coloring for color and cinnamon to give it a scent that would evoke the season. Another batch we've made had a little red coloring to make it pink and strawberry scent.



Para quienes me han pedido cómo se hace la pastelina que usamos en casa: aquí va la receta:

2 tazas de harina (idealmente, para una pasta fina y maleable, harina de arroz)
1/2 taza de sal
2 cucharadas de aceite
2 cucharadas de cremor tártaro
1 taza de agua hirviendo
colorante alimenticio (opcional)
esencias, especies o aceite esencial (opcional)

También podéis añadir purpurina pero entonces esta masa comestible 100 % deja de serlo. Con comestible me refiero a que los peques que siempre lo prueban pueden probarla sin problema, no a que se puede comer como si de un pastel se tratase...

The blowing wind and the relentless sun

My 14 month old is about to start walking and this made me feel kind of nostalgic today. It was another early spring two years ago when my -now- 3 year-old girl started walking.

The beginning of spring always feels special to me. It brings back the memory of the cool touch of the mist on bare arms on early mornings linked to a foreboding feeling that the sun would shine all day. And indeed it shined. The smell of dew on the fresh grass of March and the sight of the first almond trees in bloom.
We saw the first almond tree blossoms yesterday afternoon.
Spring strikes February... early, isn't it? And still, I dream. The first child delighted in her very first steps and I was way over the moon, entering a new, precious stage when I got pregnant again.
Two springs afterwards the second child is going to start walking any second and I feel the passing of time as change yet persistence. The blowing wind and the relentless sun.

Our week: quiet, joy, and sickness

We finally seem to have found a comfortable rhythm that works for us most of the days. Our days open up relaxedly with time for breakfast and activities, without having to rush, get dressed or stressed. I really feel much more at ease than when we used to have to get ready for school. We cook or bake our own breakfast, which feels tasteful and healthy.
Then, M usually chooses to check on the invitations I leave on the table, like this one: stencils. She works there for a little while and then usually asks to work with paint, clay or the like in the kitchen (aka area for messy work).

She has also chosen to work with the moveable alphabet (an uppercase wooden set that I found at a supermarket for a very good price and had my mother paint) as of late and she kind of pretends to write long words such as Papageno (in the picture). 

She finds special joy in music and has already spent several months asking to listen to Prokoviev's Peter and the Wolf and Mozart's The magic Flute over and over. She talks endlessly about Papageno and the Queen of the Night. Some months ago it was Peter and his grandpa. And this makes me think I have to post some of the music activities we have displayed in our music room. So much to do//post about// and so little done... I am slower than a sloth.

The wee one is really into practical life and loves helping in the kitchen, which often implies working at the counter. His self-pride when helping there is something beautiful to watch.

He came down with something on Thursday and has been rather sick. Just a short while after I took this shot, he started throwing up and I could do little to comfort him. After three nights and two days nursing kind of non-stop, he seems to be recovering and I am exhausted!

After lunch they usually have a nap and in the afternoon, before daddy comes home and I rush to my classes or book clubs we often visit or welcome friends or do something around the garden/playroom in the garage. We are setting up a light-table // shadow play area. I will show you around some time, just give me time, as you can easily see I am the worst photographer ever...
Hope you have a great week!!

On kisses and other displays of affection

You can imagine how delighted I was this week when my 13-month-old son kissed me for the first time. It was totally unexpected and spontaneously and at the beginning it took me aback. His sister might have been past 2,5 years when she learnt to kiss. I first thought it a coincidence but after three clear attempts at putting his lips on my cheek and making a little noise it was clear to me. In the previous weeks he had been doing some biting instead. I wonder now whether he was practicing. How sweet this little dude is!!

We like snuggling up and are all sort of loving but I clearly see differences between my children in this sense. Marina is pretty much her own and definitely introverted. She often refuses to be kissed, has very seldom kissed anyone but her parents, and we totally respect that. The fact that we don't encourage (let alone force) our children to kiss anyone, not even relatives, might be a bit of a contrast when we meet relatives who do, which happens once or twice a year. Someone may think we are raising unfriendly, unsociable children but I really believe it is a way to show them to trust themselves, their sense of safety and comfort. This is very important to me.
Marina's displays of affection tend to be shy so I had a secret feeling of joy the other day when matter-of-fact and out of the blue she declared "I like Cristina Coll, Irene (both friends of mine), you and Mazda (invented character) very much".

An update and a dilemma

This post is a kind of wink at Melissa from Vibrant Wanderings. Thanks Melissa for making me want to post a little update as a response to your Moments post.
What are we up to?

We seem to be entering a new era where both kids play lots together and both concentrate on similar practical activities. However, there are many other activities that are not prepared for the littlest, mainly language and sensorial things. Despite his capacity for concentration, he is often attracted to what the eldest is doing and leaves his aged-appropriate material to see and touch(!!!) what his sister is into.
I would love to hear from people with experience in coping with a toddler and a pre-schooler sharing the same space.
For the moment being, a high-chair which only Marina (my pre-schooler) can climb onto and a large table with her materials is the only way we have found to prevent the youngest from touching or knocking her materials.
Amadís is already 13'5 months and a good-natured boy. He is about to start walking any moment and is very into animal models, opening-closing, imbucare activities, stacking, and playing with his sister. He is using spoon and fork for his meals as of late, although he prefers to use the hand most of the time, or to be fed... oh lazy kid. He is a master of repetition and his sister is his dearest model. His vocabulary and expression in general widens a bit everyday. Most of his words are composed by the syllable "ta". He uses "ta" for "there you are" as well as for "give it to me"; "tata" for poop and pee, "teta" for boob.
Marina's main interest as of late is in Montessori activities, which fills me with joy.... At last! She wants to work with the pink tower and the cylinder blocks several times a day, and asks for other materials we don't have currently displayed. Today she brought the Movable alphabet to me and said she wanted to use it. And there she's been inventing words and "writing" them. She is also big into painting and drawing. She was given a set of bright solid tempera markers for her third birthday on the 22nd of December and midway through the Christmas break she had already used them up. I am amazed at the array of activities that keep her engaged.
 The fact that she finds so much to do though our home has brought up a family debate. We, the three of us, were going to Marina's school everyday during the first trimester. This was exhausting and although we were doing all right I felt I really needed a break. And there came the break and the time to ponder and reflect, and to let the feelings find their way. At the end of the break I didn't feel like going back to school and neither did Marina. I've really felt in my bones the joy of preparing a Montessori environment and organizing/looking for materials to match my children's current interests. I am thriving on it! And hence the dilemma: do we go back to school something like twice a week, or should we stick to our Montessori home-schooling?

New year, new words

Not so long ago I was excitedly witnessing my daughter's first words (or babbling) and compiling it here. Today, this daughter is three years old and sister to a one-year old brother who starts babbling.
Regretfully, in 2013 I was trapped in a sort of chaotic life with two small kids and very little time and couldn't manage to find the time to post. One of my resolutions for 2014 is to write more and this includes, of course, to post more. This blog was born as a journal and it is now my desire to use it as such, for the sake of memory. It is endearing to remember a baby's first movements, words, interests... and I am afraid my memory is not able to retain everything.

Baby 2 is now nearly 13 months. He doesn't walk yet but we are starting to see a kind of peace that was totally gone for a whole year.

As I was with Marina before, I am fascinated by the way he designates words and also by the fact that he chooses nearly the same monosyllables her sister used when she started to babble.

To date, he uses some disyllabic inventions such as:

"Teta" for boob, and generally food.

"Tata" for poop, pee, for some people.
"Taata" for tiger and other animals he sees on his bedtime board book.
"Holaa" for hello and good-bye.

"Baba" for water.

The uses of "mama" and "papa" are a bit erratic but he often utters them.

I am looking forward to witnessing more words, first steps, and other milestones... But I also wish to live here and now and not miss a thing.

So happy to be back!!!

Moving to a new blog

With the arrival of our second child I have decided to move to a new blog. From now onwards you will find us at http://childrenintotheopen.blogspot.com.es/.
It was lovely to have you as readers. Many thanks!!

What's new: sense of humor, going extrovert, and new baby

It's been two weeks since baby A joined our family.
During these two weeks a lot has been going on at many levels. I still too feel weak to write a full post but I did want to share the news as well as the fact that M is undergoing great changes. She has suddenly become a big sister and shows interest in the baby specially in his needs. She has also been showing her peculiar sense of humor as of late, changing rhymes, for instance. It is fun to hear her recite "this piggy went to mercadona (local supermarket), this piggy went to Lidl (another supermarket)". The rest of the piggies cried... We have noticed she seems to have outgrown what I thought was her innate shyness. She is very talkative and even answers when someone she hardly know asks her something.
My best intentions of posting about our Advent's activities will remain just intentions, I am afraid. We had planned an activity for each day but we only got to the 5th. I hope we can go back to them next year...

I'd love to hear about you!! Are you in the midst of Christmas preparations?

What's new: adverbs everywhere

We've been quite busy doing Christmas related activities and baking as of late. Time goes by real fast and I don't know how much time we have until baby's arrival. I feel it closer these days, but who knows, the due date is Dec., 15th.
The figure of the gingerman has been ever present since I introduced it to M. She likes it so much we have it on a t-shirt, we make gingerbread cookies, use the cookie cutter to play with the play dough, and I have even made a gingerman hand puppet. Unfortunately this photo is the only one to share... I will try to make some pictures of the results of our activities but it turns out that M gets distracted by the camera if I want to photograph her while she is working so I have ended up taking very few pictures. Concentration is something we value highly around here.
We have rushed up our Christmas decorations this year and our house is already filled with toddler's art, just in case M's brother arrives and we don't have time for that. We hung up the Advent's calendar I made last year, made salt dough Christmas decoration painted with glitter, and filled the shelves with Christmasy things. The three finger puppets we got last year (Rulphus, the reindeer, Snowman, and Santa) are among M's favorites.
Hearing M talk is amazing these days. She speaks mostly Catalan, although she addresses me in English with very few exceptions. Most of the time she describes what is happening here, there and everywhere, sometimes mixing events from the past but never forgetting to sprinkle her sentences with adverbs. She has started using frequency adverbs, which is quite fun since they are not exactly "properly" used. When she repeats what she is told, you can get the impression she knows what "yesterday" or "tomorrow" means as in "Clara is coming tomorrow", but other times it is clear that she is adding the adverb just to make the sentence sound better, longer, or the like. She places them in the right position, though. Her use of connectors is also something. She can use the "because" to connect two sentences that have nothing to do one with the other. However, the more she uses it, the closer she gets to the correct use of it.
It is amazing how language is acquired through experience and repetition. In my opinion it is highly valuable to engage in one's children's language acquisition, since the more verbal they are, the less probabilities there are for tantrums.This is just my opinion, I repeat. However, I often see children whose inability to express what they want lead them to throw tantrums. These children's caretakers often can't understand what is going on.
Well, I feel I really need 1) to get some sleep, and 2) to devote some time to writing opinion articles... but for both I need time and I don't know where I am going to get it from...
Good night!!

Play dough

M concentrated on decorating the play dough with marbles, pipe cleaners and string

It's been some time now since we first started making our own play dough. At the beginning, about half a year ago, M was not interested at all and the dough would remain in a basket on the shelves until it dried out. However, I decided to give it a go before Halloween and this time it has certainly been a success. We made it for a weekly play date and the other girl enjoyed it very much as well.
Something that has surprised me this time around is that the dough gets better and better the more used it is. M asks to play with it everyday and it has become soft and resilient at the same time that it's kept the cinnamon flavor. We are very happy about the recipe we are using, so I've thought I would share it.

That's the 2 of us making the dough

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tablespoons of oil
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
1 cup of boiling water
food coloring for color
essence, spices, or essential oils for flavor

We mix all the ingredients in this order and then knead until the dough looks all right.

We could make some balls to give as play-date favors out of this batch

This recipe contained a little bit of orange food coloring for color and cinnamon to give it a scent that would evoke the season. Another batch we've made had a little red coloring to make it pink and strawberry scent. My husband pointed out that it really looks like chewing gum and it is true.
With a little bit of black construction paper and a short piece of green pipe cleaner, we turned one of the balls into a small Halloween pumpkin for decoration. But this is of course an activity for older children...

Rainbow activities

Colors were the first topic we worked on when we started this school year. After some activities that reinforced the notions of basic colors M already had, I decided to widen the scope to secondary colors and what better than the rainbow to work on seven colors?

The first activity I left next to the window just as a suggestion was a foam rainbow together with a bowl of water. M knew well that those foam pieces stick to the glass if soaked in water and the moment she saw the invitation, she set to work. Once she had been working for a while, I took the opportunity to review the colors with her and sing the rainbow song a couple of times. 

Foam rainbow and a bowl full of water

It took M less than a week to learn these seven colors, after all only four of them were more or less new but it made 14 words, since she learned them both in English and Catalan. 

Among the rainbow activities featured also our home-made crayons, which were quite used for a while.

Something else we made was a painted rainbow to use for matching activities and these have engaged her several times since we made them around the second week of September for the first time. Had I been thinking of posting this, I would have used tempera or acrylic paint but since I thought it would be an activity for a while I used crayons. It would have looked neater...

M matching painted clothes pegs to the rainbow

Matching colored feathers to the rainbow

Home-made watercolors

M really likes painting, coloring, and experimenting with paint, so the other day I set up an activity that cost me close to nothing and that turned out really successful. 

We made home-made watercolors. We had never tried it before and it was really simple. First, I gave M a dropper full of water and a plastic egg box. She experimented with the dropper a little bit, then accepted my help. We would otherwise have had way too much water in each hole.

We then added a little bit of cinnamon, orange and green food coloring, turmeric, and curry, and we had nice watercolors to paint with!

Do you have any favorite home-made paint recipes or painting ideas? I would really like to hear!!

Button snake

I had never shared a video before and I don't think I will do it often, but this time I've considered it the clearest way of showing our latest creation.
I was inspired by Counting coconuts to make this button snake, and well, it was actually my mother who helped me with the sewing. Well, she has more time than I do and is much better and faster with the needle. It was not our first button activity but it was more age appropriate than the one I made before. I had not planned to introduce the button snake to M yet but the other day, while moving some boxes, the snake fell to the floor and I thought "why not" present it on a tray, just as an invitation to play.
The button snake is a nice invitation to learn buttoning and it turned out to be a real hit. Not only did M get the button through the buttonhole but she spent considerable time in a state of concentration that I love to observe. She enjoyed the activity so much that we took it to the car, where it is always a bit difficult to find interesting things that she can do while seating.
The snake is really easy to make. You only need a string of cloth that you can cut out from remnants, a button -I chose a big one, like the ones winter coats usually have-, several squares with a button hole in the middle -I used felt for those- and you have the toy. Simple, cheap, and nice. And a nice way to learn how to button up.

What's new: nursing teddies

Halloween came and went and although we had done some related activities, namely pumpkin play dough with cinnamon flavor, small pumpkin boxes recycling egg cartons, and a pumpkin costume, I now realize I took pictures of none of these activities. There is here a tradition called "castanyada", where people gather to eat toasted chestnuts and small cookies called "panallets" and that's what we celebrated in the end. My husband and M made panallets and we invited some friends over for the weekend. The girls were very excited to spend together longer time than is usual.
My dear girl turned 22 months on the 22nd of October and I can tell she has really grown in maturity lately. She is able to express much of her feelings and I think this enables her to feel more at ease and confident about life in general. Not that she is suddenly a bold girl, but she dares to talk to some people and yesterday, for instance, in the supermarket she greeted an unknown boy with a "hello boy" after they had stared at each other for some seconds. And even when she has been shy and silent in a situation, she is able to relate it with humor, as if she had been chatting and taking part of it. This really amazes me.
She has started talking to herself a lot as of late and it is not strange to hear her up and down the house describing what she is doing or what she is going to do, or talking to her teddy. Today I have heard her asking the teddy if he wanted some milk. He must have answered positively because she has proceeded to nurse him and afterwards she has asked him if he wanted to get some sleep. This nursing teddies is something new. Although "we" weaned when she was 17 months, we have never stopped talking about how there will be milk when the baby is born, and she has seen in many instances friends of hers or babies nursing. I love how she incorporates nursing as one more natural aspect of life.
In terms of language, her structures are getting more and more complex and she can now relate quite long sentences with connectors. I find it really funny, though, that despite using "because" apparently well, the sentences she connects often have nothing to do with one another. Another amusing mistake occurs sometimes now that she has incorporated the verb to be in simple sentences as well as in the present continuous/progressive form. Thus, she often says things like "are you cold", to express that she is cold. I love it because while you can see that she is learning to speak really fast, the way she uses language is a very clever imitation of what she hears. It is amazing that children who start talking under the age of 2 or so often invert the personal pronouns. My husband mocks us 'cause some mornings our conversations sound a bit crazy with M saying "good morning Marina" and me answering "good morning mama". It is also incredible how fast she grasps all she hears and this reminds me we have to be extra careful in the way we say things. This evening she was telling me "the baby is kicking me". She must have heard me saying this some time and it has made me think I should speak appropriately all the time. It is not easy, though. Plus our English has so many interferences and, be it as it may, M uses Catalan most of the time. She has picked up the costume of translating and she uses Catalan with everyone around even if the person has addressed her in English. It is as if English were only mum's language...
I haven't mentioned  the baby in my updates but he is growing nice and healthy -I believe- and is due to be born in a month. Having him in mind, I have kept my mother pretty busy as of late... and this is some of what she has made. Apart from a Gobbi mobile I am still trying to assemble. As you see, knitting is one of her crafts -not mine. I am lucky enough to have her to make my designs come true.

Interlocking knitted rings. Thinking ahead of time... just in case we don't have time later on. 

Well... this is a snail for M, who adores snails. My mother had the not so good idea of attaching the knitted snail to a piece of paper. Surprisingly, the paper house has remained nearly intact after much handling.

What's new: sharing

It's been two weeks since I last wrote a "what's new" post and I feel there are many new things to mention these days. To start with, M seems to be growing taller. On Monday, I noticed she couldn't reach the floor when trying to ride a motorbike some relatives gave her. Today, Thursday, she was able to tiptoe when straddling it in the same position. Her two friends have been about 2 inches taller than her for several months but today I noticed the difference is growing shorter. Although size is not my main worry and has never been, I am really happy she is growing up. I always used to be among the smallest of my peers -not that I am a big lady now anyway...- but being from May and quite an extrovert it was never a big issue. M seems to be a bit shy plus she was born at the end of the year, so we sometimes worry about her being so beyond the average in height and weight.

On the other hand, she is really verbal and can express most of her experiences and feelings. For quite a bit now, we have been working on how to express her feelings to other children instead of crying or just going away from the situation. This week it was the first time I heard her vocalize that she didn't want her friend (L) to take away a book she was about to open. The way she did it was in the third person, but we were all glad she talked to L herself and not to me saying that she didn't want L to take something away. This has been a step forward in a process that started with her first interactions with other children when she would cry when other children would approached her too much, take something off her hands, or the like. Fortunately, we have had very little to do with children who hit.

Concerning language, I know I am always repeating the same and I don't want to sound boastful but M amazes me everyday. Her constructions are more and more elaborate each day. Last week I wrote down sentences such as "mama has gone there far behind", "li ensenyarem el bebè a la iaia", "mama wants to put pigtail Marina". She announced on Monday that her friend L "was coming tomorrow", and the following day she said "L gone to the park today". I know at her age time is a very abstract notion but I guess she mimics my speech excellently 'cause both statements were right.
She often says "X is coming" to express that she would like to see that person, and she has started to associate people -and animal- with places. Thus, Clara is in Mataró, with the turtle, and other people who are there too.


Sharing from the heart is something I start to see. We have never told M that she "should" share her things. We believe this act has to come from the child's heart and not from obeying a rule grown-ups invent. However, we have neither told her that the objects she has at home or she plays with are exclusively "hers". Whenever a child comes home, she doesn't object to that child toying around with her things, except when she has the item in her hands at that moment. By sharing, though, I mean the pleasure of doing something together and that's what seemed to happen on the picture below. M and L were eating the same ice-cream in peace while the rest of us (5 adults and another toddler) were eating ours, and nobody seemed to notice except for the photographer...

Late update

The biggest pumpkin party ever  (Sept. 2008)-
 this was my own design

One more night I have the feeling I should post something nice but one more time I am overtired and it is way too late to start uploading pictures, and so on.
I hope, I wish, it will suffice to say that I keep the blog in mind all the time. The intensity and amount of activities we are doing these days, though, leaves too little room to write and share. Little baby is not expected yet but he sometimes moves as if he were going to jump out any time.
We have been doing some Fall and Halloween activities, among which featured pumpkin flavored orange play dough, pine cones tonging, lots of window decorating with foam pieces -specially nice in this rainy weather-, a pumpkin costume, little pumpkin party favors made out of egg cartons... As you can see, I love pumpkins. My father-in-law has been growing pumpkins and squashes for several years now and he has won several biggest pumpkin contests. Some of his big pumpkins can be seen on the pic above these lines.
I haven't told you about a play-group M and I host every Wednesday.
I also have some projects that are about to see the light: a beginning sound book (M), and a sensory gel pad. I am very excited about both, although I can't foresee if M will be as excited as I am.
Needless to say, I hope to be able to share this projects with you soon. In the meantime, forgive my absence in the blogosphere.

M enjoying the new season on her paternal grandfather's farm

Discovering politeness, music, and friendship

Phew, I have been absent for too long and I promise I haven't had a second to post, so busy I was preparing classes, environments, activities, both for my students and for my girl. I am terribly sorry for the loss it represents to skip two or three Wednesdays without updating M's progress. I am also sorry this will be a post written in haste, nearing midnight, and stealing some time from a precious rest. Well, I can't say I am sleeping wonderfully this days, but I do try to rest as much as I can during the night, since naps can't happen these days.

We have been doing several practical life activities around here. M is interested in squeezing oranges, spreading tomato on a loaf of bread, pouring liquids with her pitcher, transferring, and tonging. Although the tongs are a bit too big and she ends up transferring with her hands. 

Not too long ago she started saying "salut" (=bless you) after someone had sneezed. Then, it was "thank you" and "gràcies", which she uses mainly when she is the one giving something, not taking. We have also heard her wishing "bon profit" during lunchtimes. All in all it is delightful to see how modeling behavior is about enough. I really can't figure myself pushing her to say thanks to someone, in a similar way I can't push her to kiss someone. 

Music is becoming one of her favorite activities and apart from playing the piano with the daddy nearly every day, she often goes to her kitchen cabinet, grabs a couple of spoons and comes back to the living room, where she uses her round wooden block box as a drum. Not seldom she exclaims "Marina making noise", although I am encouraging her to call it music or rhythms.

Some days ago a great friend of ours gave us some money to spend on M's materials and we got a set of musical bells from Imaginarium, which M loves and uses daily. There are also some songs she prefers and asks us to sing. Lately she has even started singing a bit.
In the field of language, the novelty is the use of prepositions and conjunctions. She started first with the latter and sometimes seems to take delight in listing "the cat sleeping AND the dogs sleeping AND...". Her use of prepositions is clearly distinct in the Catalan language, where instead of a possessive 's (i.e. mama's hat) possession is articulated thought a preposition.

Finally, after many months of regularly sharing some time with two other girls (my friends' daughters) her same age, friendship seems to be appearing. She talks about them and wants to see them. Some interaction has also made appearance and I am glad that after some weeks when conflict seemed to be the only interaction, they are now showing signs of fondness.

Play dough and horses

The best of my intentions to keep an updated journal of our journey in homeschooling* is beaten once and again by a general lack of time and state of tiredness. At the beginning of the week I try to stay until late preparing activities and creating materials but these past evenings I have just fallen asleep while putting M to sleep. That's ok. We have been doing some activities that were not exactly planned but which thankfully turned out all right. 

Getting ready to make play dough: the process in itself was a nice activity

I sometimes feel a bit disappointed I am being unable to keep it all up but I guess that is what being pregnant of a second child while the first one is under 2 years means. Some days ago, my dear husband took M to the National Museum of Art to give me some time to rest. When I saw the photographs I just regretted I had not gone with them. The rest did me a lot of good, though. 

Here is M staring at some paintings at the MACBA

Fall seems to be creeping in. I hadn't really noticed it was getting cooler but after some rain last night it feels like autumn today. I even got my boots out and was happy to find that unlike my summer sandals, the boots still fit my feet. Am I the only pregnant woman out there whose feet seem to have grown? I have been wanting to set up an autumn tray but as of now we only have some pineapples, a tiny pumpkin and a butternut squash. My idea is to create a nice sensory tub for M to play with. We'll see if I get it before it is so cold we can call the season "winter". I still feel comfortable with the weather but I think summer is my favorite time of the year. However, I can admit there is a special beauty in Spring and Fall that other seasons may lack. And yet, funnily, my two children will be "winter kids".

Today we had the first meeting with one of the midwives that might assist us in our son's birth. I am finally starting to visualize this birth and we feel a delivery at home is the option that would suit us three best. One of the reasons I can't bring myself to picture a delivery in a hospital is that M would be left out of the experience and we would have to be separated for more time than we have ever been. As I feel it, this is an experience we don't want to have, if we can avoid it. 

On a weekend festival last week M got the chance to ride a horse for the first time, and a really tall mare it was (notice my husband's head peeping over the horse's withers. He is 1,83 m tall //around 6 feet). I was very excited and delighted to see that she wasn't a bit scared, she just enjoyed it.

Riding a horse for the very first time

In the language department, we have seen some qualitative changes in the way M expresses herself. She is able to construct longer sentences and surprises us with structures such as Subj+verb+object or with the correct use of conjugations (gos dorm // gatets dormen). She is good at describing what she sees. While in a park she told me the other day: "that moto(rbike) falling", and some other day "boy eating chocolate". She often uses sentences including "to" for purpose, specially when she wants to do something or to go someplace "to see papa", "to see Lila -her friend".

She is starting to use some adjectives as well as in "red shoes", "soft pillow" or "black glasses". Her use of connectors such as "because" is still a bit erratic but she surprised me the other day saying "because mama". I've heard her using "enough" and"like" for comparisons, which are also novelties. But the most incredible sentences, in my opinion, were "these girls jumping to eat sausage", "aquestes noies què fan?" qui és aquest bebè?", "meves sabates són aquí sota", and "petita Marina banyat la piscina" (6.9.2012). I wrote down the date 'cause I was really impressed. She seems to retain sentences she has heard and to repeat them afterwards. Her use of pronouns is upside down, "I" being "you" and the other way round. However confusing, I think we are managing to understand her most of the time.

* After some reflection, I have considered it necessary to clarify my use of the concept of "homeschooling". I wouldn't like to trigger a debate around schooling, unschooling, and so on, so I'd better explain myself. M is only 20 months old so it is not really accurate to refer to what we do as "homeschooling". I do it only out of a necessity to give a name to what we do and the thrill of being the one who cares for M development and education. It is truly uncommon where we live for a toddler of 20 months to stay home with a parent, so I have sometimes felt compelled to justify my position. This might be silly but being able to prove all we do makes me feel I am justifying a whole way of raising kids and showing people that staying home doesn't mean "doing nothing, or letting your kids watch TV all day". Well, we don't even own a TV set, ahem...