In these couple of semi-less-hectic weeks before the semester begins I’ve decided to plan Jax’s second birthday party. Last year’s theme worked out well for a baby who was mainly interested in things that moved and were brightly colored. This year, Jax has provided us with so much inspiration, since he is old enough to express his likes/obsessions. So what is he into these days?
~Farm animals: The noises they make, the hay and grass they eat, the fields they hang out in.
~Barns: He is exceptionally excited about the barn-shaped tool shed our neighbors have in their backyard.
~Gumby: Who would’ve thought? We tried to make it to age 2 without any TV, but I know I’m not the only parent who’s had to accept that The Plan doesn’t always work out in reality. Sometimes keeping the kid safely away from boiling water and hot oil in the kitchen takes priority. Why Gumby though? Of all the kid shows on Hulu, this is the one that stuck. “I want to watch Gumby and Pokey” is the evening dinner-prep hour request.
~The Farmer’s Market:For the past couple of weeks, every other sentence that comes out of Jax’s mouth is “I going the farmer’s market.” Literally. He’ll be playing with his firetruck and have the little fireman say “I going the farmer’s market. See you ater.” He’ll have the baby pig tell the daddy pig that he’s “going the farmer’s market.” When asked for specifics, Jax tells us he’s going to get cucumbers and tomatoes. It’s crazy sweet.
~Garbage Trucks: This has been an obsession since April, when Grandpa Ron took Jax out onto the balcony of their Florida condo to see the garbage truck collect the garbage. His passion for “wabage” and garbage trucks hasn’t waned. When we go out for ice cream, I swear the most exciting part for him is throwing away everybody’s napkins.
~Tractors: When we were in Ohio in June Jax got to play with Seth’s matchbox cars from when he was growing up. There is a tractor in the collection and it’s a favorite. Keeping it in my purse has made certain outings a tad more manageable.
So given these interests, and the fact that there will be other children there with parents who may not have introduced them to Gumby yet, and who may not find it socially acceptable to spend two hours pretending to throw away napkins, can you guess what the theme will be?
The rain couldn’t keep us from having a picnic by the river and then checking out the Heritage Crafts day at Van Cortlandt Manor. The event showcased crafts like dying wool, making butter, working with tin, blacksmithing, and open air cooking. It seems all we do each weekend is visit some sort of historic farm or museum! When you’ve got a toddler who gets excited about a haystack, and you’ve got a membership to Historic Hudson Valley, it’s really a no-brainer.
Walking down the hill to the picnic grounds.
Throwing stones into the river.
The blacksmith demonstration.
Was the sausage in the foreground there as decor or was it their lunch?
Playing the triangle.
Abercrombie & Fitch pose.
Jax interrupted his run to the hay to point out the “airplane sky” he probably thought didn’t fit in with the 17th-century surroundings.
New favorite game: jumping or falling down objects or stairs to be caught. He’s very trusting!
I’ve made my own playdough before and it is a really easy project. But finger paint seemed so much more difficult! I don’t know why. If you have the patience to stand over a stove for 15-20 minutes stirring, then you can make the stuff. It’s just about time and having corn starch in the cupboard. Sheesh.
Three recipes can be found here. I used the first one, which was basically: combine 1/2 cup cornstarch, 2 cups water, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp sugar in a pan and stir over medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes, until it becomes a thick, almost gelatinous substance. Let it cool completely, then divide into jars and add food coloring. We made three colors using 15 drops of yellow, 15 of red, and 10 of blue.
Then we took it outside along with a bunch of brushes and a big piece of cardboard (white on one side!) and tried it out. It was a huge hit! Bonus: it washes right off and seems to clean easily from clothing, too.
For weeks I had my calendar marked on May 30th: Baby Animals Day! I couldn’t let Jax miss the excitement of good ol’ farm-themed fun. Plus, the visit is entirely free and is about 15 minutes away. He and I went with our friend Amanda and her now 4-month-old. While still too young to make all the animal sounds, I think the baby found the surroundings quite stimulating, especially the shady trees and the quite vocal cows!
In addition to a gathering of several historic farm buildings housing many animals, Muscoot Farm is also the site of a Sunday farmer’s market, so we hit that up first while the little ones napped. Then it was on to the stables and fields.
These lambs were only two weeks old.
Still too tired to check out the Jacob sheep.
When Jax woke from his nap he was delighted to discover himself surrounded by cows.
But he was quite apprehensive about petting the chick and kept a safe distance.
He wouldn’t get any closer to the duckling, either.
The chicks were on the left and the ducklings on the right and he stood in this corner looking back and forth, pointing and saying “chicken, duck.”
And then, the mother of all farm birds: a gigantic turkey.
You can never stare at a tractor too long when you’ve only ever seen one in a book.
{Try to spot him pointing at the bottom of the video window.}
We saw cows get milked and remarked upon how the milking machines use the same mechanism as a human breast pump. I guess we’re all mammals.
We went back to look at the sheep and poney, which Jax had missed as he slept.
Jacob sheep, meet Jacob.
We went for a second round at the farmer’s market to pick up some dairy products and raisin bread. Jax tried the milk and bread immediately, but mostly had fun just ripping it apart.
Good-bye for now. We are sure to be back to watch the baby animals as they grow!
1. First I hemmed the bottom of the entire piece of fabric I used. This helps insure that the stripes will line up, since the bottom seam will be identical on all curtains made from the fabric piece. Next, I held the fabric up to the bed and decided where I’d like it to hang, and marked what would be the top of the fort curtains. Adding 2 inches for the top seam allowance, I cut the whole strip of the fabric so it was even in height.
2. I measured the length of the bed (75 inches), divided by 2 (37.5 inches) and added a 1/2-inch seam allowance for each side, which meant I needed two panels 38.5 inches wide. I measured and cut two such panels from my hemmed piece and sewed the side seams. Ironing before pinning and sewing makes this process go smoothly.
3. I sewed a 1-inch seam into the top of the piece (the red band in the photo below) and then pinned a strip of velcro (the soft side) along the entire top seam on the right side of the curtain. I sewed the Velcro to the fabric along each edge of the Velcro, including vertically at the ends (picture one big, long, rectangular seam on top of the Velcro).
4. After wiping down the wood, I attached the self-adhesive side of the Velcro in a strip onto the inside of the bed frame.
5. Voilà, the two curtains attached to the bed using the Velcro strips. I somehow ended up a couple inches short (I say 1/2-inch seam allowances and then don’t actually measure) but I find it doesn’t matter at all. You can play around with the curtain placement and keep them open by stuffing the corners into a space you make with a finger in the Velcro (my method) or by wrapping it around the top frame a few times (which looks more like a valance).
In action!
6. Finally, I feel compelled to note that the top of the bed is completely open and we remove the curtains entirely at bedtime. Jax is a pretty calm sleeper, but you never know if there could be some sort of entanglement risk at just 19 months…
The beauty of this project is that it is inexpensive, easy, quick, and open to interpretation. You could add appliqué elements to make it look like a castle or a fruit stand, change striped curtains for starry blue ones, or get the child involved in making it into any kind of structure he imagines. My sister even had the idea of suspending several yards of fabric from the ceiling and around a hoola hoop, to make it into a circus tent. As time goes on, we are sure to play around with some other ideas for Jax’s bed. In the mean time, we’ll be playing in our new striped fort.
Yesterday Jax and I went with friends Amanda and baby Grace to the annual Sheep to Shawl festival in Sleepy Hollow. It’s an event held at Philipsburg Manor, a 17th-century Dutch farm which now serves as a living museum, with a working mill, cows and sheep, and costumed tour guides who are actually really quite fun to speak with.
The first stop was the all-important sheering of the sheep demonstration. The 17th-century trimming scissors made us a little nervous, but this woolly sheep got his winter coat removed without any harm.
The last time we went to Philipsburg Manor the cows were all inside, so it was fun to see them grazing in the field.
The sheep herding demonstration was one of the most exciting for Jax.
“Dog. Doooooog.”
Next up was spinning: I learned in chatting with this guide that we’d only see knitting and weaving in the 17th century, as crochet hadn’t been invented yet: Crochet arrived in the States in the mid-19th-century and it had only been developed in late-18th-century France.
The dying of the wool was done in boiling water over this open flame.
On the left, onion skins are dying the wool a bright yellow. On the right is a deep red produced by tree bark.
We took a quick stop into the mill.
Weaving demonstration
The guests of honor! Jax was so excited to look into the barn and see these guys. He kept shouting “baaaa!”
Then one sheep stuck his head out and yelled “baaa!” back. I don’t know if Jax ever thought that would be coming.
My mom makes these cookies around Christmas time, but I thought they’d be lovely for spring as well. The combination of the sweet coconut nest and the bitter chocolate center is one of my most delicious memories from childhood.
With only four ingredients and no baking time, these birds’ nest cookies are an easy treat to prepare in a flash. And because they don’t involve any raw eggs but do allow you do get your hands messy, it’s a toddler-friendly kitchen project, too.
~Ingredients~
1 bag coconut, 14 oz or about 5 cups
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup (1/2 of an 11.5-oz bag) bitter dark chocolate chips (the less sweet the better to balance out the sugary nests – I used Ghirardelli 60% Cocao Baking Chips, but feel free to go even darker!)
~Directions~
In a large bowl, combine coconut and powdered sugar with a large wooden spoon.
Melt the butter and drizzle over the coconut mixture. Mix to combine.
Using a teaspoon as a scoop, form 1-inch balls of the mixture in your hands, lay on a cookie sheet, and while still holding with two fingers on the outside, poke your finger into the center to create a little crater for the chocolate. They’ll feel crumbly, but they will hold together once they’ve sat for a bit.
Once they are all laid out, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring until fully melted and smooth. Using a teaspoon, drip the mealted chocolate into the center holes to fill.
Let the centers harden about 30 minutes, and then store in the fridge until ready to eat.
This recipe yielded 30 nests. Three days later, we are still enjoying them!
I love that in France the fish is the symbol of April Fool’s day. Back in high school my French teacher went all out (as she did every day, for that matter), sneakily taping a paper fish to someone’s back and seeing if they caught it before class was over. During our time living in France, I noticed that a lot of the Easter/spring candies were in the shape of fish in addition to eggs and bells. I wonder if the symbols all became associated with Easter, or if the fish takes on new meaning for the Christian holiday (fish on Friday during Lent perhaps?). In any case, I have fully embraced the fish as our springtime emblem.
With fusible interfacing and an iron, it took me about 5 minutes to enbellish this shirt last night. I was going to zigzag stitch around the borders of each fish, but I’ve got job applications to write and a chapter to finish, so this will do for now!
Pause for quick photo…and…he’s off!
Because Jax loves fish and all things water, I thought I’d perfect my recycled crayons method using an ice cube mold we picked up at IKEA. Now, the tray said “for water only” but I thought it would still work well for crayon melting since the oven is only set to “warm” for this project. I had tried this with a heart mold for Valentine’s day but neglected to grease the mold first, so I thought that would solve my problems this time.
The greased mold with broken crayon bits
After 10 minutes, they started to melt, but I soon noticed the bowing of the tray was going to pose a problem…
Some spillage, but using the potholders to weigh down the sides, I straightened out the mold and let the crayons cool and harden this way.
And then the removal: disaster as I carefully popped the fish out. Only two fish survived with tails (out of twelve).
The mold didn’t fare any better with the greasing, either. Oh well. We can always remelt and try again with a different mold. In the mean time, we still have some fun multi-colored ovals to color with!
Last Wednesday Jax was 18 months old! He is really becoming a little boy now, with more words than I can count and a little big personality that loves to joke around.
We wanted to celebrate the occasion at our favorite baby- and kid-friendly restaurant, Wobble Café, but alas, they are closed Wednesday evenings. After bouncing off their door, we thought we’d head up to an Indian restaurant we had been wanting to try. A couple wrong turns later and we remembered a diner we have also wanted to check out. We have been lovingly calling it the “Nuclear Diner” since it’s just down the road from Indian Point, a nuclear power plant we are in denial about living so close to. What a pleasant surprise inside, though: a really friendly staff, great prices (even as far as diners go), and best of all, a big toy train! running around the middle. Perfect.
The all-important coloring placemat
Noodles and Meatballs: I can eat by myself!
This is my favorite: Jax makes this silly face to get huge laughs from us.
A new favorite pastime at the table is playing with ice.
About a year ago, Amazon had a special deal: 100 kids songs for 99 cents. I thought, “how bad can they be?” and decided it was worth a buck to find out. The answer? very bad: dorky karaoke-esque background music accompanying a kid’s choir butchering classics like “Little Miss Muffet.” I knew there was better kid’s music out there, but it took recommendations from fellow parents and friends and a bit of luck to find it. Here are some of our favorites:
We discovered this catchy rendition of the ABC song thanks to our friend Corry.
We have CD’s of local rock star Big Jeff on repeat in the car. His style is reminiscent of everything from Ween or The Beatles (think “Strawberry Fields”) to ska and hard rock. Jax is a huge fan (and his parents are too).
