Baby J 9 1/2-10 months

Month 10 has been full of changes and major leaps in development for Baby J.  The major thing for him is that he is now on the move!  In one weekend he went from only being able to sit and reach for things on one knee to crawling, pulling up and cruising.

I was just starting to think that this pull up bar was not really worth the time and money making it when Baby J totally proved me wrong.  At around 9.5 months he started showing an interest in pulling up.  He was too short to reach the bar from sitting so I put the stuffed elephant below the bar for him to sit on.  It totally did the trick and he was able to pull up and have a soft place to land.  Now he can pull up on the bar no problem and he loves to do squats and cruise along it.

Baby J loves to use his walker waggon.  Although Sweetpea is not really interested in it anymore since she started walking she all of a sudden wants to use it when Baby J uses it.  Here they were working together pushing it which was so cute but most times she will push the other end and bowl Baby J over!  She better do it while she can because soon Baby J will be as strong as her!

Although he is moving now and can get to whatever he wants, Baby J has still maintained his focus.  He will move over to the item he wants and then spend time interacting with it.  These two materials that I originally put out for Sweetpea he loves to do.  He is definitely in a sensitive period for putting things into containers and small openings. 

I was surprised that after a demonstration and some experimentation he is able to now easliy put the stars into this slot.  He is also now able to put the rectancluar prism into the imbacure box.

We are still working with feeding himself at the table and most times I am able to put the food onto the spoon and he will take it out of the bowl.  He is starting to put the spoon back into the bowl but this happens about 50% of the time.  He is pretty excitable and we usually end up with the spoon on the floor several times throughout a meal.  If I find that he can't handle the bowl on his table I will remove it and just hand him the spoon for a few minutes and then let him try again.  This seems to work.  I will leave his glass on the table and offer it to him by asking him if he would like a drink and then putting it in front of him.  He will lift it and take a drink and sometimes return it to the table gently.  Sometimes though he will smash it down onto the table with gusto like he's just finished a shot of Tequila and he's all proud of himself!

 

Baby J is a super potty pooper!  Since starting him on the potty at 9 months he's done about 5 poos in his diapers which is pretty amazing!  At this point I'm not concerned with catching the pees and anything he does I consider a bonus.  He has definitely made the connection though which before having done this I never would have believed a baby of that age capable of doing.  It just blows my mind how much infants are really capable of doing if we just give them the right environment to do it in!!

 

Baby J continues to delight us with his extreme excitement and joy for everything!

Help me to do it myself-Practical life baby!

Sweetpea is almost 14 months.   Her interests are starting to change.  She is able to walk pretty well now and likes to carry things around with her.  She is not really interested in anything on the shelves anymore but is much more interested in what I am doing.  She will follow me into the kitchen when I'm making meals or clearing up and into the bathroom when emptying the pottys.

 

I got some wonderful advice from Pilar from The Full Montessori about what to do with a 14 month old and it has been so effective.  Please head over and check out her post on 14 month practical life and the ever changing needs of an infant.  While you are there if you haven't already check out the rest of her incredibly informative blog.

 

Here at our house there have been many activities going on leading to independence.

 

Sweetpea gets her place mat and bib from a basket on the shelf and puts it on the table before she eats.  She can eat and drink totally independently and will put her spoon down while eating food from her side plate. 

 

 Now that Baby J is moving we are working on him coming to the table on his own.

Baby J can pick up, drink and put down his glass and I can now leave his bowl on the table and scoop up a bit of food for him and he will pick up the spoon and eat it.  We are still working on returning the spoon to the bowl.  We are also still working on returning his finger food to his plate when not eating it.  He is pretty rambunctious and it has been a long road to get him to not mess about with his place mat, glass and plate but for the most part after a lot of work and patience he will eat his whole meal without any major incident.

Both Sweet pea and Baby J wipe their table down after meals and snacks. 

 

 

Here is Sweetpea peeling her own boiled egg for her snack.  She was so focused on this.  She actually was putting the shells into the little bowl I provided for her but didn't realise she could eat the egg after she peeled it.  After this photo I gave her another bowl to put the edible bits in and I helped her separate them so she could enjoy her snack.

As you can imagine there was quite a significant mess on the floor when she was finished.  After I'd cleaned and swept up I invited her to help me scrub the floor.  

There was mostly dipping of the brush into the water and a tiny bit of scrubbing!

 

Helping me to make quinoa bites.  She really enjoyed stirring and also helped to pour in some of the pre-measured ingredients.  This was the first time that Sweetpea was handling food without being able to eat it right away.  She did manage to sneak a few bread crumbs out of the measuring cup!

 

 

Another cool practical life activity that I can't wait to try with her is peeling a banana.  Check out how it's done over at How We Montessori.

 

I never would have thought to introduce some of these activities so young however they were all a huge hit!  Thanks Pilar for sharing your wisdom!

Our day-Life with a 9 month and 13 month old

I thought I would write a post about what we do all day and our schedule.  Maybe some of you might find it interesting and I would also like to record it to look back on.

This is what a typical day looks like at our house.  Of course the times are approximate.

7:45 am  Sweetpea arrives and her mommy takes L to school.  The littles have a play and explore the shelves.  I will introduce any new activities on the shelves.
8:10  Breakfast.  I prepare breakfast while they are playing.  I tell Sweetpea it's breakfast time, pull out her chair and give her her place mat to put on the table.  She then sits down ready for breakfast.  Baby J usually squawks wherever he is and I pick him up and place him in his chair as he's just starting to move now.
8:25 Finish breakfast.  Littles wipe their table and Sweetpea gets down and goes on to play.  I help Baby J down and he plays while I clear the breakfast things.
8:40 Potty time.  Both littles on the potties reading books and playing with animals while I do a quick tidy and put things back on the shelves.
9:00 Get ready and go out for a walk in the double stroller.  Baby J usually has a nap during the walk
10:00 Return from walk.  Baby J is usually still sleeping so I wheel the stroller into the hall and take Sweetpea upstairs.
10:15 Sweetpea has a snack and then we read books and sing songs with actions.  When Baby J wakes up he has his milk.
10:45 Potty time
11:00 More play time
11:30 Music time.  Usually Sweetpea will already be heading over to the instrument basket waiting for me to put on the CD player
11:50 I prepare lunch
12:00 the littles sit down and have lunch
12:30 Finish lunch and have a play while I clear up the lunch
12:45 Potty time
1:00 Sweetpea goes down for a nap.  Once she is down I usually put Baby J in the highchair with a small snack and I have my lunch.  He is super loud and vocal so I have to try to occupy him to keep him quiet to not wake Sweetpea
1:30  Play with Baby J, read books and sing songs.
2:30 Sweetpea wakes up some time around here.  She and Baby J have their milk and then onto the potty.
3:00  More playtime, sometimes I will work on an activity with them or sing songs.  We usually end up doing more music, read books etc.  Most days Baby J will take a nap around 2:30/3:00
4:00 Sweetpeas mom comes home with L and all hell breaks loose!  L is so wound up and excited to see Sweetpea that they chase each other around the house and dance and she whips Sweetpea into a frenzy. 
4:15 Sweetpea goes home.

That has been our approximate routine for the past two months.  When my mom is here we try to take them swimming on Wednesday mornings.  Sometimes we will change things up and have a play date or go into town.  I find that having a daily routine to follow is best for all of us.   The littles feel secure knowing what is going to happen next.

Of course as people with children know as soon as you get a good thing going they go and change everything up on you!  That is what is happening now with Sweetpea.  I think she is transitioning into wanting a later nap so we are experimenting with moving everything back a bit.  It also throws things way off if she falls asleep on our walk like she did today.  It was good though because the weather was nice and we ended up going to the park in the afternoon.

As the weather is starting to get better I'm hoping to spend a lot more time outside and at the park.

Potty Party

 

It's a potty party over here at the moment!!

Sweetpea has been using the potty for several months now.  The great thing is that she is very regular and if she goes on the potty after breakfast and lunch there is usually a "result".  She is really good and will not try to get off.  I put a basket of small animals out for her to entertain herself.  She loves to transfer them between containers.

I decided to try Baby J on the potty at 9 months.  He had been watching Sweetpea for a month and was super excited to get his own potty.  The first time I put him on after his bottle.  I asked him if he could do a poo and then made a grunting noise.  L joined in.  He caught on right away and low and behold he produced a poo!  It's been like that ever since.  He totally knows the potty is for pooing and does one almost every time.  I honestly didn't know one little person could produce so much poo!!

 

Baby J and Sweetpea are great on the potties together and super cute! They love to play with the animals and hand them back and forth.  A lot of the time I will sit with them and make the noises of the animals and name them.  They both make the roar sound of the tiger and they know that the shark bites their knees with a chomp, chomp, chomp.  A rather annoying trend which has come up lately is dropping the animals into the potty while sitting on it.  I'm not too impressed with that one when I look down to see one poo, one pee and one badger in the potty!

 

 

 

I have the potties by the wall on the other side of their activity area.  I find this easier than the bathroom because I can see them from the kitchen as well as the living room and it is easy to put them on after their meals.  I usually will put Baby J on after his milk and meals and also after a nap.  I also do the same for Sweetpea.

 

At the moment neither of them make any sign that they have to go and Sweetpea does not move to the potty if she has to go.  It really is a "catching game" at the moment but I know that at some point they will make the connection on their own.

I think a MAJOR motivating factor in early pottying is cloth diapering.  It is soooo much easier emptying a potty of poo than cleaning it off a diaper!!

 

So far I am loving the potty party and long may it continue!

 

On a side note Sweetpea's potty is a Beco Potty which is a completely compostable potty.  You just plant it in the garden when you are done with it and it will completely biodegrade.  How cool is that!!!

Baby J 81/2 to 9 months interests and activities

Baby J 81/2 to 9 months

 

As I was preparing to write this post I realised that I hardly have any pics of Baby J "in action".  I'm so busy taking pics of Sweetpea for her parents I haven't taken hardly any of Baby J.  I will try to be more conscious of recording more of Baby J's efforts in the future.

 

I would have to say that my main observation of Baby J is that he is a details kind of guy.  He loves to explore all kinds of small details of any object he picks up.  He will usually spend several minutes or more exploring each item.  He is not crawling yet but does move around on his knees to reach things and rolls over to get to things.  I'm not sure if his attention to detail and focus on individual items will change once he can move around with ease.  I'm wondering if this is just part personality and part the fact that he has been given materials to develop his focus and concentration since birth.

 

Baby J loves the cylinder imbacure box and has spent so much time trying to figure it out.  He will spend sometimes 15 or more minutes with the material.  He has now mastered it and I've introduced him to the rectangular prism.  He has managed to get it through the hole once or twice but not consistently. 

 

He also enjoys the egg and cup and the peg and cup and can do both easily. 

 

 

 Baby J loves the stacking cups and can put several of them into each other.  He likes when I build a tower and knocks it down.

In general he is trying very hard to move but just can't seem to get past moving all the way forward onto all fours from a sitting position and then sliding onto his belly.  He gets soooo frustrated and it is painful to watch him do this over and over.  I seriously can't wait until he figures out how to crawl!

 

I have been so focused on Sweetpea this month that I can't really think of anything else specific that Baby J is doing although I know he has been doing lots of things!  Next month will be more evenly recorded for sure!

 

 

Meal time with the Montessori weaning table

I have been using this Montessori weaning table and chairs with the babies since the first day Sweetpea came here.  It is working amazingly well.  Both babies are well supported in the little chairs and they are able to concentrate on the task at hand which is of course eating and learning to feed themselves.

The table is left bare when we are not using it and once I have prepared breakfast or lunch I put the place mats on the table.  We have been doing this for five weeks now and I can say to Sweet pea "It's lunch(breakfast)time and she sees me putting on the place mats.  She will shuffle her way over to the table, pull up on it and make her way into the chair that I have pulled out for her.  Baby J who is still not on the move is still lifted into the chair.

As I mentioned in a previous post I decided to put the table in the Infant area instead of the kitchen because we just don't have enough room for it in there.  I put down four foam play mats underneath it to protect the carpet and they work really well.  I can easily wipe and sweep up any spills.

Before I call the babies to the table I make sure that I have everything I need so I don't have to leave them while they are at the table.  I put everything in a little basket shown here.  At this meal they each have their own little ceramic bowl of red lentils, a spoon, small plate for pita bread and cucumber and a small glass for drinking.  I also include a pitcher for refilling their glasses and a small bowl with two wet cloths.

Sweetpea and Baby J are almost 3 and a half months apart so are at very different stages in their journey of independent eating and drinking. 

If I was a gold star giving kind of gal Sweetpea would definitely get one for eating.  She is a fantastic eater both in the fact that she will eat almost anything and also that she can feed herself.  She loves to eat and is very focused at every meal.  Her mama began offering her a spoon around 11 months I think and she would take it and feed herself and then give it back so her mama could get another spoonful of food for her.  She has now developed so that she can completely feed herself with the spoon.  She does an amazing job of picking up the food in her bowl with the spoon and getting it into her mouth.  For Sweetpea I just leave her the bowl on the table and also give her a side plate with a finger food on it.  She alternates between feeding herself the finger food and the spooned food.  The one thing I do have to watch out for is that she will just keep putting the finger food into her mouth until it is gone no matter how full her mouth gets.  What I do is for example just put one small triangle of pita bread on her plate and don't give her another until her mouth is empty.  If we have smaller pieces of food I will bring another plate that I keep and just keep giving her about three pieces at a time until she has finished the ones in her mouth.

She drinks out of a glass but is still getting used to the feeling of it.   As I mentioned before Sweetpea is very focused on eating and will almost never mess about with the plate or utensils.

 

Baby J is another personality altogether.  He is quiet a little joker and loves to try and do things to "impress" Sweetpea.  She takes absolutely no notice whatsoever but he still tries.  He will blow raspberries in his drink or make funny sounds which he thinks is hilarious.  He is quite rambunctious while eating and still loves to explore his place mat and side plate.  I will give him a side plate with his finger food on it but if he starts messing about with it I take it away.  Once he has calmed down I will put it on the table again with a piece of food.  I keep his bowl on the table closer to Sweetpea and spoon out a helping for him.  I give him the spoon and he feeds himself and then gives me the spoon to get another helping.  He does this for about half the meal and then usually looses interest and I will feed him another few spoonfuls before he is done.  I keep his glass with me and will offer it to him several times throughout the meal.  He will pick it up and drink out of it and then give it back to me.  He is so confident (or cheeky) now that he just holds it and drinks with one hand just like the big people.  He usually doesn't last at the table as long as Sweetpea before he starts playing with his place mat.  That is when I know he is done and I give him his cloth.  He also tries to take off his bib.

The whole meal usually lasts about 10 to 15 minutes.  Once I have wiped them off I pull out their chairs and help them down from the table.  I then take all of the items back to the kitchen and wipe down the table and mats. 

 

They are both so used to sitting at the table that they never try to get off their chairs or move around until they are finished.  Sometimes I just die of cute watching them eat their meals and have their little conversations.

That mats that are in the picture have now disintegrated so I have to get some new ones.  Once I have them I will start to give one to Sweetpea to help me to bring to and place on the table.  Once she is walking confidently she will have her own little basket which will have a few things she can use to set the table and I will have her help to clear a few things as well.  I am also going to attempt to make bibs that they can start to put on and take off on their own.

So what happens after the meal?  Well the potty of course......

Check out Living Montessori Now's Montessori Monday for more Montessori inspiration.



Infant Music Time

 

Having been a professional musician music has always been a huge part of my life.  One thing I am trying to do as a mother is to instill that love of music in my children.  With both L and Baby J I started basically from birth.  We listen to all types of music in our house and the children were given instruments from the moment they were able to hold them.

 

As part of our routine  Baby J, Sweetpea and I have our daily music time.  Every morning before lunch I  go over to the instrument basket and say time for music.  The babies bob up and down with excitement and Sweetpea scoots over to the basket.  They both look at the CD player in anticipation.  I play a variety of different music from classical to African marimba.

 

This is our music basket.  It contains a set of symbols, a rainmaker, xylophone, egg shakers and castanets.  I have also recently added a tambourine, jingle bells and a clapper.  This basket is on the other side of the room from their shelves but is still available to them at all times.  Baby J has been using these instruments for a few months now but they were relatively new to Sweetpea.  At first she had no idea how they worked and just went from one to the next.  It didn't take her long however to catch on and now she will pick up the mallet for the xylophone to play it and hold the symbols by the handles to play them.  It is very rare for them now to misuse the instruments. 

Sweetpea also does the cutest thing.  She can't quite consistently make the sound on the castanets but she knows what they sound like so she holds them up and makes the clicking sound with her tongue instead! What a smart little cookie!

We have a wonderful time jamming out to different styles of music and going from one instrument to another, passing each other instruments back and forth to try. 

The other day L had a day off and was excited to participate in music time with us.  She got out her marimba and we all jammed together.   Our favourite CD is one of a local Marimba band who play African marimba music.

L left out her marimba and Sweetpea made a b-line for it.  She knew exactly what to do and even got the mallets facing the right way. 

We also sing and dance.  This is so easy to do and children love it.  You don't need to even buy any instruments.  You can make a rainmaker out of a paper towel roll and some rice, shakers out of bottles and drums from pots and wooden spoons!  I haven't met a child yet that doesn't love to get down and jam to some groovin' music!

The prepared environment-It works!

Most people who've worked in a Montessori environment will read the title of this post and say "Well duh!" and I also obviously know how important it is.  Over the past month the importance of having that prepared environment has really been emphasised.

Before Sweetpea came to us she was looked after by her Dad(while her Mama was courageously teaching L and her classmates).  I believe they had basically quiet days with a strong routine.

When Sweetpea first came it was obviously a huge adjustment for her.  Everything in her little world was new.  The people, environment and routine.  Sweetpea is a very happy, sweet natured little thing and adjusted really quickly.

 

I did observe that in the first couple days she would just go from one thing to the next not spending more than a second or two with each item.  She would mostly go through all of the materials pulling them off the shelves and hucking them out of the baskets.  Now this is completely normal behaviour for a 12 month old however I knew she was capable of really using the materials for their purpose.  I would introduce a material to her but she would quickly loose interest and move on to something else before I'd finished the short presentation.  It was tempting to figure she was bored and just wanted new things to explore, however all of my reading and some advice from the wonderful Pilar (The Full Montessori) made me stick to my guns and just let her continue to explore and get used to the materials that were on the shelves.  By the end of the second week I was already noticing a change in her interaction with the materials.  Instead of just moving quickly from one item to another she was beginning to experiment with things.  Oh this goes in here, if I do this this happens.

It was super exciting the first time she realised the could fit the cylinder into the imbucare box.  Last week while I was in hospital she completely mastered it and can now also do the rectangular prism.

 

Sweetpea is taking more care with the items and figuring out how they work and what they will do.  For example instead of just pulling the stacking cups off the shelf she will carefully pull out one by one and then work out how they fit back into each other.  There are obviously some items which hold her interest more than others.

Sweetpea now feels completely at home and comfortable in this environment and her growth and exploration is amazing.  I usually switch out one material a week or add an extension material if she's mastered something.  I will do an upcoming post on what each baby is working on.

 

Baby J loves having Sweetpea here and is totally spurred on to try and do what she is able to do.  He is desperate to move like she does.  It is wonderful to see them interacting together and a favourite game is to hand things back and forth to each other.

 

Here are a few pics of Baby J at work.

 

 

Another note on the environment.  Obviously it can get pretty messy at times but I try to put things back as they have moved on to something else so that the babies are used to seeing the environment always in order.

 

Infant materials 9 and 12 months

Here are the materials we started off with on the shelves at the beginning of January.  The shelves are from Ikea and are bolted to the wall.  I really like them because there is a separate compartment for each  material which makes them easy to keep organised.  They are also great for pulling up on and cruising along.  Both Baby J and Sweetpea have been shown all of these materials.  Sweetpea is cruising so is able to get anything on her own but Baby J still has to be given something unless I put him beside the shelves.  

 Starting on the top right.  A simple empty wipes box with a long silk scarf inside.  I thought this would be a bigger hit than it was actually.  They both seemed to be more interesting in the lid than pulling the scarf out.

This is a Pringles container which I covered with material.  I poked a hole in the lid and the bottom and threaded a long ribbon through and then tied  beads to the ends.  Both babies enjoy pulling the beads from one side to the other.

Stacking or nesting cups from Ikea.  I figured a close up pic wasn't necessary.

This material is one that I ordered on line.  It is basically a bead on a serpentine wire.  I've put this on the shelf and once they have mastered this I will put out a more complicated one that we have.

Sensory bottles.  I bought these plastic travel bottles from the Dollar store.  They contain colored water, beans, oatmeal, feathers and dimes.  

On the bottom right are soft stacking blocks from Ikea.

A basket of tactile beanbags.  Each one is made from a different textured material and filled with rice.

The treasure basket.  Each week I change this up.  Sweetpea is in the sensitive period for language so I am now doing a theme for each basket and presenting it to her with the first period lesson.  This basket is for bathroom things but we've also done one with kitchen items.

I found this on a local used toy website.  It comes with a hammer but at the moment I've just introduced it without and the babies push the balls with their hands.  The balls roll out the bottom.  This is a favorite of both babies.  Baby J also loves to hit the balls together as they make a wonderful noise.

The ball or "rolling things" basket.  Baby J is desperate to move so I put together this basket of ball like objects for him.

Homemade Imbucare box with cylinder block.  To make these I bought three wooden tissue boxes from the craft store.  My husband cut a large circle in the side and covered the top with acrylic with a hole cut into it the size of the block.  We made three of these but I have just introduced the first one.

So those are the items I started off with.  It seems like a lot but I only change one item a week plus the treasure basket so both babies have a chance to become very familiar with the materials and come back again and again to work with them.  I will be posting about our experiences with this environment soon.  The homemade materials come from ideas from around the Internet.

Our Montessori Infant Environment

Okay here is the new environment I've set up in our home for the two infants 9 and 12 months.  This space is also shared with L.   It is simple and spacious and easy to keep "order".  

 Starting on the left I have set up a little cozy reading area with pillows and a quilt.  We sit here to read books or the babies can choose their own books from the little brown basket.  Baby J also does his works on the quilt at the moment as he is not quite mobile.  Next is the pull up bar.  My husband made this for us.  It is 45cm high.  We have tucked the left support under the couch for more stability.  I am hoping to also get a mirror to go behind it.  

In the middle is the eating area.  This was Baby J's table from the kitchen and my husband made another chair for Sweetpea.  I used four foam play mats to protect the carpet.  Beside that is a little stool I use when the babies eat their meals.  As I mentioned above this space is also shared with L.  She has her desk there that she uses for crafts, writing and other activities.  The lowest box on the shelves is also hers for her craft supplies.  

Moving on are the shelves which hold all of the works.  There are 9 spaces and I usually have one work in each space.  This is actually a lot of choice but as there are two infants of very different ages there are works for both their stages. I will be doing another post on all of the works on the shelves in detail.  On the top of the shelves are L's globe, marimba and pan pipes.

An up close view of the eating area.  The picture is at eye level and will be changed every month.  We also use place mats at every meal.  I will also be doing a post on how the meals go.

Of course the environment will be constantly tweaked and updated as the infants needs change.