Tot School Goes to the Beach

Sprout is 21 months old

I haven't posted for the last couple weeks, and I'm late in doing last week's post because we went to Miami Beach with JGD's family and some longtime family friends.

This year was a little different for us as JGD's uncle was hospitalized right before Passover and was not able to join us for the holiday (de had an infection in his prosthetic hip).  As a result his Aunt and cousins came down for the Siddurim (Seders, telling of the Exodus and holiday meal).  We've heard that JGD's uncle is doing better and was sent to rehab over a week ago.  He should be home soon, and then I can bring Sprout over to see him.  JGD is concerned about Sprout seeing him if he's not at his best.  I see his point, but I also know how happy it made my grandfather to see Sprout when we was in the hospital.  He even said, "Now, he can die happy."  And a few weeks later he did pass away.  I was so happy that I had been able to get her up there to see him.  I know she won't remember him, but I know that he'll remember her...

Anyway... Back to the beach.  So we stay at a hotel on the beach because it makes our lives much easier, in that I don't need separate dishes for Passover Meat and Passover Dairy, as well and pots, pans, bowls, utensils, ets.  And we get a week to relax on the beach and by the pool.  (I think I went into more detail about this in a previous post.)

I don't have many pictures of anything actually holiday oriented as I didn't want to offend those who are more observant than I and do not use electricity, etc. on holidays.  So I will share with you those that I do have and share some anecdotes from the week.

Sprout was a great sport during the Siddurim, they didn't start before 8:30 on either night, and for outside reasons, we didn't start before 9.  Now keep in mind there is another half hour (on a good night) to over an hour before the actual meal is served.  We did keep her happy with books, her Little Einstein guys, her own Haggadah (which I kept asking to use as there were no more than 5 word on a page, and covered all of the parts of the Seder.), 10 plagues puppets, Seder play set, oh and food and wine.  Sprout really liked the wine (we didn't give her that much, she was licking it off our fingers.)  But I was so proud of my 21 month old who made it to at least 10:30 both nights.

While hanging out around the pool Sprout showed off how fast she could do the shadow match game (see Tot Packs).  She also enjoyed playing with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Numbers Card Game and Winnie the Pooh Matching Card Game (finding things that go together ie. rain and umbrella) that I had gotten at the dollar store.  Thought she didn't really understand how to play the games (and I hadn't really expected her to), she had a great time finding items and naming the characters.  We practiced counting some too.

Sprout also did a great job climbing up and down the couple of stairs that were by the pool, and was a very respectful elevator ride pressing as far back into the wall as she could (sorry no pictures).

Sprout had a great time at the beach.  I don't have any picture of her actually in the ocean because we'd left the camera (which is waterproof) upstairs, and I wasn't about to risk my phone.  Here she is helping to bury her cousin.

A couple days later she helped to build sand castles with her cousins.  Actually, I think she was more interested in knocking them down, but everyone had a great time.

Here she is debating a quick dip in the ocean before lunch.

Afternoons were spent in the pool.  I don't know about you, but we're still not sure if she really likes to go swimming or not.  You tell us! :-)

(It looks like JGD actually had the camera for a change, so there are some pictures of me.)

On a personal note, I have never (I mean never, not even as a tot) actually worn a bikini (or 2-piece other than a full length tankini or in a dressing room), but JGD talked me into getting one this year.  And I guess I was feeling a little better about it, though I was still a little self self-conscious.  We don't have any pictures out of the water and this is one where the water distortion in minimal.  (And honestly, I can't believe I'm actually sharing this!)

Time to get ready for dinner!

And then it was back to the real world.  I couldn't resist taking this pic on the way into Publix.  (Sorry it's not the clearest shot, it was taken on my phone.

I know I'm a little late in saying this, but I hope everyone had a great holiday, whatever you celebrate!

To see what other people in the real world did last week, go to 1+1+1=1.

Being Green in a non-Green World

We spend Passover at hotel on Miami Beach.  It's a nice break from the real world and we don't have to change over all the pots, pans, dishes, glassware and silverware in the house.  As well as burn out the stove and sink, cover the counters, etc...

It's a great week for our family (and some extended family).  We get to spend some quality family time together and rest by the pool and at the beach.

There were a couple things that struck me as "living" in a world far opposite from my own.  Were not perfect, but we do try to do whatever we can to be green.  I recycle or reuse everything I can, and try really hard to create excess waste.  Over the past week I saw more waste and misuse.

At the end of the week they showed us the numbers on what had been used during the week.  There were three numbers that really struck me (and none of them are in reference to the abnormal amounts of food served and sent back and wasted food that was thrown out).

• 36,000 water bottles
• 15,000 styrofoam containers
•  9,000 trash bags.  

Now the bottles made me upset because not one of the 36,000+ plastic bottles (I don't remember the count for 2 liter soda bottles) recycled.  There was not a single recycling bin anywhere.  And I would find it incredibly hard to believe that they might go through the trash to pull out the recyclables.  Having seen them collect the trash, there's no way.  The plastic bottles were put out on tables at meals and found in any other location where food was available.

The use of that many styrofoam containers and garbage bags is just plain gross.  I think we created our own landfill last week, and I am completely disgusted by it.  I've been trying to think of ways to help this situation in the future, and I'm not sure what the best solutions are.  I thought about having my own water bottle, but when the only water available is already in bottles it doesn't make a difference if I use my own bottle or not.  I suppose I have a year or so to think about it.  I would love to hear ideas.

My other experience of fighting "traditional thinking" last week, had to do with diapers.  I normally use cloth diapers, but when we travel, especially for any amount of time we use gDiapers.  For more thoughts on the diapers we use go here.

I was changing my daughter and someone noticed that I was not using a normal disposable diaper, which of course prompted a conversation.  It was with a long time friend of JGD's family, we'll call here Bumble.  Now I was not surprised by this conversation but found it amusing just the same.  Let me give you a little background on Bumble, well at least let me tell you that Bumble (like many Jewish grandmothers) has her thoughts about doing things and is not afraid to express them.

Bumble looked at me and mentioned that when her daughter lived in Israel (now this was some time ago, as he oldest son is my age), her daughter used cloth diapers with her kids because it was less expensive.  When Bumble and her husband went to visit her daughter in Israel they decided that they would spend the money to buy the disposable diapers for her daughter.  However, she was quite upset that her daughter went back to using the cloth ones after they left.

I wasn't sure what Bumble was expecting me to say, but I thought the conversation funny.

Tot School - Week 6

Sprout is 20 months old

This week our theme is Passover.  This holiday has become my favorite and I was looking forward to sharing it with Sprout.  What I forgot was all the preparation that goes into getting ready for the holiday, even when you don't have it at home.  We had all of our last minute errands to run to pick up the things we need for our trip to the beach.  Not to mention the search for Kosher for Passover snacks.


Enough excuses... what did we do this week?


Tot Trays
This week's Tot Trays were

• Color Pom Pom Sort
• Playdough
• Seder Plate Matching and Passover Symbols Matching
• Melissa & Doug Primary Lacing Beads
• Watercolor Painting

Here is Sprout sorting the pom poms by color. I used clothespins with poms glued on to help her sort.  I spent a lot of time helping to guide her with this activity, and it will take some guidance as we continue to master this skill.

I thought that this would be a good week to teach Sprout how to use watercolor paints this week.  I found a variety of printables for Sprout to use and thought that it would be a good time to try something other than dot markers and crayons.


I apologize I don't have any pictures of Sprout doing the Passover matching games, but if you go to my Tot Packs page you can find the activities we did.  I will say that I need to make a harder shadow matching.  As soon as Sprout saw this, she took all the pieces off and then put them all right back in their correct places.  She has spent the rest of the week trying/pretending to eat the Z'roah (shank bone), which resemble a chicken leg.


We started with traditional watercolor paints.

Sprout enjoyed this, but it did seem a little tough for her to understand that she had to get the brush wet and then put it in the paint and then paint.  It's a lot of steps at this point, and she enjoyed painting the paint cups more than the paper.  This led me to get out the dried markers and I showed her how to use those to watercolor with markers.  This was great for her.

Projects

Our main project this week was to make a "Kos Eliahu" (cup for Elijah) to give to Sprout's Aunt and Uncle who host our Seder.  I always send flowers to thank them, but wanted to do something from us.  This was quite the process for me, as I tried to figure out how best to make this cup.  I knew what I wanted, but wasn't sure how to get there.

My first problem to solve was what to use for the base of our cup.  My first thought was to take one of Sprout's old containers from her drinkable yogurt and a plastic cup to make the cup.  

Then while looking for things to keep Sprout occupied during our family seder, we found an acrylic wine goblet that was really quite affordable.  After finding that, there was no way I could pass it up to use my makeshift cup as the base for this gift.  

To start our project, we ripped tissue paper into small pieces to glue onto our cup to get the stained glass effect.

We then used watered down glue to add the paper to the cup.  Sprout enjoyed for this a little while, but after a bit she got sticky and didn't really want anymore to do with our project.  I let the project dry to that point.  And then let Sprout add some more paper with a glue stick.  Honestly, Sprout still wasn't all that excited about it, but I got her to add a few more pieces.  And to be honest, I added a couple of my own.

I also took a glue gun and glued some ribbon around the base of the cup.

Our stART project his week went with Naomi Howland's The Matzah Man: A Passover Story.  We made matzah.  Although, it didn't come out, as I would have hoped it was a great experience for both of us, and I'm looking forward to trying it again.

Tot Pack

We didn't use a full Tot Pack this week.  I made a couple pieces of one to use with Sprout.  These would be the matching games we did for our Tot Trays.  Go to my Tot Packs page to find more.

Practical Play

This week we decided to turn Sprout's car seat around.  We kept her rear facing because I know that it is safer for her to be rear facing for as long as possible.  Click this link to read the American Academy of Pediatrics thoughts on this.  Also, Sprout was not heavy enough for us to change the seat around until a couple months ago.  We weren't planning to turn her  seat around, but she has been showing a lot of interest in being forward facing, so we thought it was time.  She seems pretty happy about it.

Sprout thought she would help us put our pots and pans away.  Actually, we were quite impressed when she pulled out a couple pots and lids and matched the successfully.  

Sprout also thought she would try to work on her ability to fit into small spaces.  She climbed into a plastic container.  (We were right there the whole time.)

Then thought she would go for a ride in her stroller.  (Sorry that the second picture is a little blurry. The camera focused on her knee instead of her face, and this was all I was able to get before she climbed out.)

My little monkey is also starting to climb up the stairs on her feet instead of her knees.  I don't have any pictures because she will only do this if she is holding someone's hand.  This makes it a bit tough to take a picture.  But I do have a picture of Sprout monkeying around at My Gym.

What we used this week

One of our favorite books this week was Dinosaur on Passover by Diane Levin Rauchwerger.  This is a great book about a dinosaur who comes to visit for Passover and how an overzealous house guest can send things awry, but everyone still had a great time!

Next Week

Next week is Passover and we will be spending the week visiting with family, having seders and avoiding bread products and enjoying the pool and beach.  I will be sure to share the pictures when we get back.

To learn more about Passover go to Chabad.org.  To see what other Tots were up to this week go to 1+1+1=1.