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...