Bento

I snapped the picture and Senpai said, "This is a blog post waiting to happen."

Umm... yeah.


From Kindergarten through 8th grade, I went to a private school that did not have a cafeteria. Students were responsible for bringing their own lunches. If they forgot, well, they weren't eating that day. I was a picky eater who was always changing her appetite, so, fairly early on, my mom stopped making my lunches for me. Left to my own devices in the 5 minutes before the bus came to pick me up, I scrounged for anything that already looked like food, such as tomatoes left on the windowsill to ripen. The kitchen was always stocked with ham and rye bread, but on days when the ham went bad and nothing else looked good, I popped a bag of popcorn. Seriously. The real trick was letting the popcorn cool down before transferring it to a Ziploc bag or else the kernels melted the plastic. As I ate a tomato like an apple at school one day, my classmates asked me if I was a vegetarian.

I swore that when I had kids, I would make their lunches.
I would do it not only for their nutritional benefit, but also as an expression of my love for them.

Now that Rosemary has started preschool, she needs a packed lunch twice a week.



I like the idea of Japanese bento as a waste-free alternative to sandwich baggies and individually packaged snack foods. I've seen enough anime and followed Bentobloggy long enough to get some fun ideas of what to pack. It was from Bentobloggy, actually, that I discovered the Planetbox.


This is the Planetbox Shuttle and it is awesome. It's the perfect size for a preschooler. Rosemary can use it all by herself. She'll never need help from her teacher to open a string cheese or a sandwich baggy. I love filling it up.


Click on any picture to get a description of the lunch contents.


The pics look dark because I make lunch the night before.


Can you tell I have fun with this?


Thank you for gifting us the Planetbox, Mom.

Blogiversary

Today is my three year blogiversary! (I know it's been three years because Rosemary is three years old.) :-)

My first post consisted of me wondering how I looked when I ran an errand at Target. Rosemary was almost four months old then and I was lucky to have a moment to myself, even if I looked like I had been run over by a semi.

Fast forward to today, and everything is so different. Our family increased by one and is now complete; no more pregnancy clothes for this mama! Poppy is a year old, and every day she walks farther and farther away from being a baby. Rosemary is an independent little lady, about to start preschool this fall.



My, how things change.


I wouldn't have it any other way.

Preschool Prep.... ha.

This was the week it all fell apart.

Poppy is teething. She's had the same two bottom teeth out since February, and now her top canines are trying to join the party. I can feel the bumps protruding, but nothing has broken the surface of the gums yet. I wish they'd hurry up and come out already so we all can sleep again. She has been feverish and unhappy. She desperately needs sleep, but she does not stay down for a nap when I try to walk away. It has been very hard to do anything but pay attention to her. That being the case, Rosemary's studies have been pushed to the wayside.


Midnight munchies for a miserable, teething baby.

Senpai reminded me that we have money allocated toward daycare that needs to be used before July 1st. I scheduled Rosemary to go back to the daycare she had been at before, starting next week. It's a good daycare; the reason we took her out was because she wasn't handling the separation well. She is more sociable and outgoing now, so hopefully she will like the experience better. We told her that she will go there to play with other kids and she sounds happy about the idea. The daycare does crafts and lessons everyday. I will gladly let them teach Rosemary while Poppy's gums are under attack from sharp, pointy teeth. Once I can sleep and think again, I will check in and see where Rosemary's studies may need supplementing at home.



I'm looking forward to seeing this happy face again...


So I can enjoy more of this.

Preschool Prep, Week 4

This week was about field trips!

I had a doctor appt. in St. Louis on Monday. Senpai and I figured out the last time I had an appointment down there that the Science Center was reasonably close to my doctor's office. So we did this time what we did last time: Senpai drove to the Science Center from his work, I dropped the kids off with him, and then I booked it over to my appointment. Rosemary was looking forward to this ALL MONTH. She kept asking to "go dinosaurs with Daddy." In reality, the true-to-life-size animatronic t-rex standing over a bloody herbivore (I don't know dinosaurs...) scares her, but she still loves to go and watch the thing move its head from side to side while she's being held by her Daddy. Poppy just enjoys the excitement of being around other kids. (I don't have pictures from this trip as I was at the doctor appointment, of course.)


Look, somebody else (thelope.com) took a video of the t-rex. Looks like he's standing over a triceratops. Yeah, I know that one. :-p


Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy days filled with activities at home such as cutting and pasting. We didn't do worksheets this week because our printer ran out of ink. I can't photocopy the worksheet pages out of the preschool book until I go buy more.


Thursday, Rosemary, Poppy, and I went to the zoo with a friend from out of town. We had lots of fun!


We rode the carousel.


Rosemary's favorite part was the elephants. Poppy was just happy not to be sat on by her sister.



On Friday, Rosemary worked on tracing letters with drafting paper. She did really well for a first try!


I traced F to show her how, then I guided her hand for A, B, and E. She did the rest on her own. :-)


We also read a book about butterflies.


Every page has the word "butterfly" on it, so I asked Rosemary to point the word out on every page. She was so proud of her ability to find it that she wanted to go through the book again.



I have to admit, by calling these posts "Preschool Prep," it's setting me up for the idea of sending Rosemary off to preschool eventually. I've got one place picked out that I really want to send her to, but she has to be at least four years old to attend, which means she can't go until Fall 2014. I don't know what to do with her until then. I was given a huge list of names of preschools in our local area and I don't know where to begin. How do I know which one to send her to? I admit that I am overwhelmed. I do much better with fewer choices; I need to start narrowing down my list.

Preschool Prep, Week 3

This week, we fell away from using the envelopes. I didn't like feeling restricted by what was on them, especially if it said "Play at the park" on a rainy, miserable day. Why should Rosemary be denied a sticker for a silly reason like that? And Rosemary fought against them, too. She started off Monday by looking at the list and saying, "No." I reiterated that she wouldn't get a sticker if she didn't do everything on the list, and she was quite okay with that. So the lists are gone. I still made the clear intention to myself that we would do a worksheet and projects every day as if they had been written down on a list.

In spite of the sass against Monday's list, Rosemary was still open enough to learn our phone number! I was so proud of my teaching abilities; I felt like a rock star. There was also Storytime on Monday morning. Senpai was able to come join us. It was awesome seeing him there since we hadn't seen him much during the weekend.


I bought a Melissa and Doug bead block set at Barnes & Noble. Both Rosemary and Poppy enjoy it.



Alright, we are branching into a photo-free zone here. I had taken a few pictures but they are on my old cell phone, which is acting buggy and will no longer sync with my computer. It also refuses to charge its battery which just died, so the pictures are being held hostage. Enter new cell phone! We're still waiting for the phone number to switch over, but I am the brand new owner of an iPhone 5. It's my first ever iPhone. I'm looking forward to it not giving me the same issues my old phone did. 

Tuesday, we baked cookies. As the single-serving cookie idea was never going to work, we made a whole batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. They are dairy-free, so Poppy can enjoy them, too! Going by the Letter Roundup we had done last Friday, I wanted to reinforce the letters she wasn't sure about. I thought I'd start at the top with A. On Tuesday she traced a capital and lowercase A onto drafting paper with my help. She held the marker and I moved her hand. I'm going to keep trying to get her to do it all by herself.

We continued learning A on Wednesday by gluing pom pom balls onto a piece of paper. I drew the line with glue and Rosemary put the pom poms on. She was so excited by the pom poms that we glued them on B and C on Thursday and Friday, as well. This morning, Friday, I tested her knowledge of the alphabet with the Letter Roundup worksheet again. She got 9 more letters today for a total of 18! 8 more to go! Once all of the letters on this worksheet are highlighted, I think I'll print out a new one and start over, just to really make sure she knows her letters.

Another project we did this week was a worksheet from her Preschool book. It was a cutting and gluing project. We started on Wednesday by doing the cutting part. I helped her line the scissors up on the paper and she snipped away, cutting pictures of foods out. On Thursday, there was a paper with three different colored shopping carts, red, yellow, and green, and Rosemary was supposed to glue the foods in the appropriate basket. I helped her with the glue stick. This was a lesson to me to remember that bananas are sometimes green, apples and cherries are sometimes yellow, and corn is sometimes red. I love how kids remind adults to stretch their imaginations.

That was our week. There was some craziness thrown in with the cell phones and the Spring rains, but we survived. On to next week!

Preschool Prep, Week 2

Well, we've got another week of lists and stickers under our belt. As much as I want to just wing it as we go, I find that our days go so much more smoothly when I pre-plan the night before.

For Monday, I looked up what the Storytime book would be about and then planned our activities around that. The book was "The Red Boat" by Hannah Cumming. So when we got home I folded a red origami canoe for Rosemary and let her paint a lake for the boat to float on with some of her toys inside.



On Tuesday, we voted! I carried Poppy on my back and pushed Rosemary in the stroller to our polling place. Rosemary got a sticker, seen on her hand below. A fire truck was in the parking lot and Rosemary talked to a fireman and sat in his seat in the fire truck. She declined putting his helmet on her head. We then went home and voted on what we would eat for lunch. I voted for leftover hamburgers, but Rosemary and Poppy won the vote for PB&J sandwiches.

Decorating the voting box.

Tallying votes.


We also played Chutes & Ladders. Rosemary won!


On Wednesday we went to the craft store to pick up supplies to make a "calm down jar." I call it a Sparkle Jar. I had seen the tutorial on Pinterest and wanted to give it a go.

Making the jar.

Giving it a good shake!

This is what it looks like at rest.

Falling stars.

I won't lie; we made this jar for me. I'll often shake it up when I'm stressed and then instantly feel my blood pressure drop along with the sparkles.


Poppy wanted to get in on the tong transfer activity that day.

We also went outside. Man, Wednesday was a great day!


Thursday wasn't as productive. It was obviously a "let's not plan ahead the night before and see what happens" day. Well, nothing much happened. It was also too cold to play outside. Fail. Too be fair, we were in the basement for an hour waiting out a tornado warning on Wednesday evening, so that got in the way of planning time. That's my story.

I at least have some cute pics from Storytime.



Today, Friday, I started the morning by testing Rosemary's knowledge of the alphabet. She can recognize 9 capital letters!

I also decided to try a sensory bin. It's like an indoor sandbox! It kept Rosemary entertained for at least 20 minutes, which Mommy really needed. It was a rough day.

Sensory bin with white rice, barley, chickpeas, and measuring cups.


Poppy is enjoying her new-found mobility. Here she is exploring the toy area.


That's it for this week. Tune in next Friday to see what else we put on our lists!

Preschool Prep

In trying to establish some order to our days (and not leave R in the complete care of the tv), I have started making lists of the things I would like R to do. This also ties in with me trying to prepare her for Preschool. She has a rebellious streak that prevents her from following directions. I hope the more I give her these projects with the expectation that they will be completed, the less resistant she will become. And not to mention the fact that I would like to be able to teach her something! She'll pick up random things I say, but when I make an effort to specifically show her something, she acts like I'm trying to feed her poison. With that in mind, I've started singing my cell phone number to myself. Since I'm not directly trying to teach it to her, she just might learn it!

Each day, there are four items on her list: do a page out of a Preschool workbook, have an outing to Storytime or a grocery run, practice a life skill (more below), and the last is a special playtime activity like going outside or doing a game. When we mark off all items on the list, she gets a sticker.


The life skills are where I have fun. We started on Tuesday with tong transfers, a task I've seen on Montessori blogs. She is using big tongs to move cotton balls into a bowl. I need to find smaller tongs for her to use. Right now she has to use both hands to manipulate the huge thing.


On Wednesday, she practiced using kid scissors for the first time. The goal was to cut confetti out of crepe paper. At first she utilized both hands to manipulate the scissors, but the next time she tried she was able to use only one hand.


On Thursday, she baked! I had seen a recipe for a single-serving cookie that I thought would be fun to try. Unfortunately, the recipe was wrong; it called for one egg yolk when really it should have been an egg white. So the cookie didn't turn out that great, but Rosemary still attempted to eat it. [Update: I tried the recipe using an egg white and it still came out weird. The cookie was like a dense sponge; very odd.   I hereby put the single-serving cookie idea to rest. Next time we bake cookies, it will be a whole tray.]




Today, Friday, she painted with watercolors. The paints were old and didn't cooperate, so it was more like water play. The waterlogged, still white watercolor paper was promptly recycled without getting its picture taken. I did take this picture, though. This is the back of her Letter Jj worksheet. The front showed several items that started with the letter j. She was supposed to color all of the items and then circle whichever one she liked the best. Getting her to complete the worksheet was a challenge, but when it was finally done, I let her turn the paper over to free color. Look what she did! She was super excited about the "footprints" she made, but I was even more excited about the cat she drew! This is her first time drawing a face!

If you're a little lost, follow this link back to flickr and you will see a note placed directly over the spot that is the cat. 


So that was our week. Some days were pre-planned, others we figured out as we went along. Some days were executed better than others. I hope to come up with more fun things to do next week. I sense a trip to the craft store is in order!