Visit the Bird Sanctuary

The next item on the Summer Bucket List was visiting the Bird Sanctuary.  Birds are not my favourite thing.  As we walked up to the Sanctuary, my heart started to beat just a LITTLE bit faster.  I WAS going to take the kids on my own while my husband was at work, but thankfully he suggested that I wait until he get home.  Good idea, hubby!

We both thought our son would be afraid of the ducks, geese and swans - but he did really well!  We actually had to stop him from chasing them all over the place.  He even got brave enough to feed one of the geese straight from his hands - just once - then mommy and daddy stopped the fun and made him throw the bread on the ground.

What a fun afternoon!  Beautiful weather and great memories WITH daddy!

Make Your Own Watering Can

The first item on the Summer Bucket List: Make Your Own Watering Can

I had collected the jug and cap a while back because I knew that we would be doing this ONE day.  I found a hammer and a screw (I figured the screw would make a bigger hole) and I showed the kids how to hold the hammer and how to safely hit the screw into the lid.  They both had a lot of fun attempting.  Mommy's fingers got hit a bit, but they were having a great time.  Goodbye manicure that I just got done three days ago . . .

And this is wha the lid looked like when we finished . . .

The holes were still small, so it was taking a long time for the water to come out.  I showed my daughter how to squeeze the carton so that the water would come out faster.  This worked for a while, but her hands got sore after a while. 

So I decided to finish off the water that was in the jug - and this is what happened with my powerful muscles . . .  Verdict: Spend the money and get a watering can.  Not worth it AT ALL!  However, if you are looking for something to keep the kids busy one afternoon - do it!  Just don't expect it to last.

Canada Day

I know it's a little late, but Happy Canada Day everyone!  And I guess a Happy 4th of July to our neighbours today!  We spent the day at the park with the kids taking in the celebrations.  It was SO hot out, I think we only stayed about 90 minutes.  But that night, we did go back for the fireworks with my parents, aunt, uncle and cousin - it was the best light show ever!  Mixed fireworks and lightning - intense lightning - I was glad to be in the vehicle/house once the storm REALLY got started.

Walking Up the Stairs

This developmental milestone has always made me scratch my head.  I think I would be safe to assume that most children don't hit this milestone at age two - walking up and down the stairs.  Maybe it's because my kids have short little legs or maybe it's because they are nervous - I'm not sure.  But we have two flights of stairs in our house and my son STILL can't walk up and down.  He is starting to by holding onto the rail, but 75% of the time he still prefers to crawl.  I guess practice will make perfect for this objective.

Practice Makes Perfect!  Encourage walk up the steps everywhere!

• At the mall - hold your child's hand and help them walk up.  Don't just automatically carry them.
• At the park - there are lots of steps at parks - encouage your child to walk - not crawl - by holding onto the railing
• At a friends house - if you don't have stairs in your house, but your friends/family do, then maybe head over for a playdate and let your toddler attempt the stairs - with your supervision of course!

Tower Building Contest

Building with blocks is an activity that is great for all ages.  It starts when they start crawling.  The adult builds the tower, the baby knocks it over.  Then the stage moves to making the tallest tower (and then knocking it over).  The final stage is building actual buildings/castles with the blocks.  Structures that are more advanced and actually look like a building.  By this age, they don't knock their towers down, they want to save them (problem is when they have a younger sibling that is still in the knocking down stage).
We gave each of the kids blocks and told them to build the best tower they could.  It wasn't the fastest person who would win, it was the person who tried the hardest and didn't knock their tower down (we should have made it clear that they couldn't knock the other persons down either).  GO!  These were the results.  My son actually kept going from that picture and made it to 14 blocks high.  It fell over when he put the 15th on and he laughed.  Then ran over and knocked over his sisters.

Building towers with blocks is a developemental milestone.  Children are working on their fine motor skills and their cognitive skills, learning how and where to place each block.  Here are the milestones:

• 2 blocks by 21 months
• 4 blocks by 24 months
• 6 blocks by 30 months
• 8 blocks by 36 months
• 9 blocks after 3 years