VDV Craft Day - In Memory of Gramma C

Yesterday was the month anniversary of a dear friend's passing; someone affectionately known as Momma 2 to me and Gramma C to my boys. She absolutely loved butterflies, and the other day when I was at Bulk Barn, I saw two butterfly cookie cutters (two different sizes). I came across this website through Pinterest, and have made this sun catcher before for the boys' Gigi and Gipa. I thought it would be fun to make one for us, but incorporate the butterflies rather than just the circles. All you need is a container of clear coloured pony beads, a metal baking dish you don't mind using (it doesn't get wrecked, but you may not want to cook with it after you've melted plastic in it), metal cookie cutters and fishing line.

We put the smaller butterfly within the circle baking dish, and Bug filled the pan with the pony beads; leaving the space inside the cookie cutter empty. You only put enough beads in to make a single layer. I removed all the clear colourless pony beads, as the rest of the beads are clear anyway and I didn't want to take away from the already faint color of some of the other beads once they melted. This was something I didn't do before, and I prefer the look better without the clear colourless ones.  I had a second metal baking dish I've used for crafts so I was able to get Bug to do part of the next step so the craft wouldn't take as long. I took the larger butterfly cookie cutter and placed it flat in the other pan. Then I got Bug to fill the butterfly with the pony beads, again trying to keep it to a single layer. The next step can be done 1 of 2 ways. If you are worried about the smell of plastic melting (and possible toxins), you can heat up your BBQ and put the pans in there. This way took about 15 minutes to melt the beads flat (when they start melting, they look bumpy and you can stop there). The other way is in your oven, at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. I'm sure that time frame depends on your oven, so if the beads haven't melted fully, keep checking every 5 minutes or so.



Once the melting is complete, you take them out of your heating source and let them cool down. You'll start to hear cracking noises, and in about 10 minutes they are good and ready to be removed from the dish. For the baking pan, you just have to turn it upside down and the melted beads fall right out. The butterfly cookie cutters were a bit trickier, and required some manipulation; but they did come out. You do NOT need to grease anything for the melted pieces to be removed after they are cooled. Because I wanted to hang some butterflies from the larger circle piece, and I wanted to have a larger butterfly sun catcher for each of the boys' rooms, we had to repeat these steps a few times (just the cookie cutter steps). When the pieces were cooled, we took our electric screwdriver that had drilling pieces and used that to drill holes into the melted beads for where we were going to tie the fishing line. Bug obviously didn't use the drill by himself, but I got him to press the button while I held it in place on the sun catcher pieces. Then I cut the desired lengths of fishing line to hang the butterflies as well as add the piece of fishing line to use to hang the sun catchers.

Gramma C loved my boys...she unfortunately never got to meet Bear. She loved them like her own grandchildren, and it makes me sad they are going to grow up without memories of this wonderful lady. I'm trying to incorporate her memory in some of the activities we do, so the boys can know about her through me. I wanted to put a single butterfly in each of the boys' rooms, as if she is in there watching over them. I know she is watching over us and that she is at peace; and every time the sun catches our piece of art, or it moves in the breeze, I know it's somehow her letting us know she is still around.

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Camp Mommy: Construction Bug - Letter and Number Practice

Today's Camp Mommy was geared around construction and tools. Bug loves using his play hammer and the like; he called himself the "Fixer Kid" today. He has a play tool belt and hat set, as well as some construction play vehicles which worked perfect for this activity today. The items we used were some floral Styrofoam from Michaels ($5.99 for a pack of 5), some golf tees from Dollarama (they were our nails), some chalk (we already had that on stock), 2 small wooden blocks from Michaels that we already had which were our alphabet dice, and of course rocks (FREE!). Since Bug already had the construction play items, this activity cost us $7.00!

To prep for our outdoor Mommy and Bug time today, I took one of the Styrofoam pieces and wrote the alphabet from A through F sporadically in capital letters, 3 times with a black marker. Then I got Bug dressed in his pretend play equipment and we set to work to earn his name "Fixer Kid". I used the corresponding die with capital letters written on it from A through F. Bug proceeded to roll the die, and each letter he landed on, I got him to correctly identify it. Then I got him to find the matching letter on the Styrofoam block. There were three of each letter on the block, so once he identified one, we placed the tip of one of the golf tees directly on top of it. With the next step, Bug got to use his trusty hammer and bang the tee into the Styrofoam. The floral Styrofoam was bought instead of the regular white one for two reasons: a) it was cheaper; but b) it's actually softer so the golf tees went in quite nicely with the flimsy play hammer Bug owns. I got Bug to keep rolling the die and hammering away until we had a nailed in tee on each letter. If the letter rolled on the die no longer had a corresponding letter on the Styrofoam, we still identified it for letter recognition and then carried on. Here's a video of Bug in action. He enjoyed this quite a bit...he loves his tools!

After the hammer fun, we moved on to his dump truck. I got him to fill the truck bed with rocks from our backyard while I wrote the numbers 1 through 6 on our cement pad. Under each number, I drew empty circles where the quantity matched the number above it. After Bug filled up his truck, he came over and unloaded the rocks in our "construction site". Then I randomly asked Bug to identity a number, just by asking him to show me the number I said. Once he correctly did that, he then filled each individual circle with one rock, counting while he did it until there were the right amount of rocks under each number. When that was done, he wanted to use another one of his tools and decided to saw through the Styrofoam block.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I had donated about 1/4 of my blood to the mosquitos, and I was thinking our Camp Mommy activity was done. Bug was not quite ready to put an end to our fun, and seeing as I love my son a lot more than my worry for anemia and scratching my skin raw, I thought of one more activity. I had a second die with me, lettered A through F but in lowercase. I made a rectangle with the chalk, dividing it into 6 sections; writing one letter in each. Then I gave Bug 10 rocks and the die, telling him each letter he rolled, he had to place one rock in the corresponding section on the ground. When we got to the last 4 rocks, we had 3 letters that did not have any rocks piled in the square; and Bug became quite worried. Once all the rocks were used, the letter B was the only one that didn't have a rock in it's section, and Bug was sad about that. I got him to go through each letter and count how many rocks accumulated for each one. He got a bit fixated with the zero rocks in the B section, and insisted we needed to get more rocks. I'm hoping when he's in school, he will take this behaviour towards kids and socializing; making sure no one is left out! Check out the fun Bug had doing the last portion of our Camp Mommy in this video.

PS. I realize in the second video, I was using the plural form for die while talking about a singular one...I never indicated I had a degree in English! haha.

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Camp Mommy: Cloud Gazing

This week's Camp Mommy schedule was a bit tenuous given all the rain we had been getting and the flooding. I was positive we would have to do another indoor craft or imaginative play and put our outdoor Camp Mommy event on hold. I had everything prepared, waiting for the right time if it arose before my days off were done. This time came on my second last day off, when the rain finally stopped and the mosquitoes hadn't had the chance to multiply and devour our skin. The sun came out, but there was enough cloud coverage, with the perfect big, white fluffy storm clouds that we could lay back and enjoy.

I got our outdoor blanket and our supplies for laying down and gazing at the clouds. First we read a book about clouds called "Shapes in the Sky" by Josepha Sherman. It was a pretty easy read for my almost 4 year old, and it only went into a few different types of clouds. After that, we played with some chalk and drew our own clouds. We spoke about what clouds were made of (little tiny water particles) and then explained how it rained/snowed (the water particles get too heavy to float and end up falling to earth). After our chalk play, we laid on our blanket and watched the clouds float by while looking through our laminated cloud viewer. I just made this by making a collage of cloud pictures, leaving the center blank so I could cut it out. Then I laminated the full piece, cutting out the center square again as to not impede our viewing. Bug likes looking through things, so this added a little bit of fun to our learning activity. 

After that, we went inside to enjoy a little cloud science and then cloud dessert. We made our own cloud with water, shaving cream and blue food colouring. We filled a clear cup with water about 3/4's full, and put shaving cream on top. Once that was complete, Bug dripped food colouring onto the shaving cream, then watched the blue liquid fall "out" of our cloud. He really enjoyed this. To finish off our Camp Mommy day, we had a Cloud Parfait for dessert. I made this earlier in the day, as it has Jello in it and needed to set. Rather than going through the steps to make this, just look at this video. All you need is blue Jello, 2 cups of ice cubes and whipped cream. We invited one of Bug's friends to join in our dessert treat!

Bear didn't participate in the outside or science part of the activity...but he sure enjoyed the eating of our cloud dessert. Bug talked about our cloud dessert for the rest of the day and into the next. He gets pretty excited for Camp Mommy. He asks for it, and it truly melts my heart that he enjoys our time together just as much as I do!

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Indoor Craft Day: Multi-media flowers

I'm an extremely crafty person, and I'd like to think I am rubbing off that trait onto Bug. Regardless of his creativity level, he has the enthusiasm I have towards craft activities; and on numerous occasions, he asks if we can do a craft. Today was my first day off, and seeing as how the weather has been somewhat torrential these last few days, our outdoor Camp Mommy activities will have to be put on hold. Hopefully when it's supposed to be nice out in a couple of days, we won't be subjected to being eaten alive by the plague of mosquitoes that have suddenly appeared with all this water. When I started getting our craft materials ready, he asked if we were doing Camp Mommy...it made me smile and realize I'm doing something right as a parent if my child is looking forward to our weekly activities together!

Back to today, some days we just do crafts to get his mind working; but most days we bring out our creative sides to have a final project. A lot of the times, the products of Bug's artistry end up as artwork that goes on my walls or on the VDV galleries of our esteemed clients (ie: Grammas and Great-Grammas). I like telling Bug where the final product goes, especially if it is meant for a "just because" gift for someone. I want him to grow up with the joys of giving, and preparing something special for someone you love...for no specific occasion; just because he loves them. So today was that day. We had 4 special ladies in mind with this craft.

I collected an egg carton a few weeks ago in preparation of doing this craft in the future. I think most people would have cupcake liners and coffee filters; however, if you do not, those are easily and cheaply purchased at Dollarama. Each mini flower bouquet consisted of one of the twelve cups of the egg carton, one cupcake liner and one coffee filter. I then got Bug to bring out his artistic skills and paint each potential flower with one of the three painting techniques I set aside. The egg carton cup was painted with arcylics, and Bug was very meticulous on getting the whole cardboard covered in paint. There was no rhyme or reason to his painting, I just told him to pick three colours for each flower. Then the coffee filters were painted with watercolours; and once again, Bug had free range with all the colours (I had one of those cheap watercolour trays from Dollarama with 12 different colours). After those were done, we "spray painted" the cupcake liners. I had a few spray bottles from Dollarama we used for a previous craft, and I filled them with water and some food colouring. Then I got Bug to spray the liners. A tip if you are going to do this: hold the spray bottle pretty far away if you want coloured droplets. If it is too close, the water just blends in one big spot and the desired spotted look is lost. We sprayed the one side of the liner, and once it was finished, we turned them over and sprayed the other side. The coffee filters didn't need to be turned as they are pretty thin and the colour just bled through. After we were done our painting, we went off to play so the flowers could dry.

Once they were dry, we (well, it was me for this part...it was a bit difficult for my almost four year old) took some pipe cleaners out of our craft stash to use for our stems. I purchased a pack of green pipe cleaners with three different tones of green from Michaels. I believe it was $6; however, Dollarama sells a variety pack for $1. If you don't mind different coloured stems, then those will work perfectly...I'm just too type "A" to stray from the natural colour of flower stems. For the coffee filters, I folded them almost in half and then rolled them up into a lily looking flower. I didn't fold them exactly in half as I wanted the rolled flower to have two levels of petal. Once the filter was rolled, I took my hole puncher and put a hole in the base, then wound the pipe cleaner through. With the cupcake liners, I just scrunched the middle circle together to create a carnation type flower. Again, I took the hole puncher and put a hole through the srunched up center and wound the pipe cleaner through. I used a nail to put two holes through the center of the egg carton cup and put the pipe cleaner up through the base into the cup, then bent back down through the second hole. I then twisted the two ends of pipe cleaner around each other to keep it in place. To finish of these little bouquets, I had some ribbon lying around (like I said, I dabble in many crafts), and tied the three flowers together. If you don't have any ribbon, string or yarn can work...but once again, some ribbon can be bought at Dollarama for $1.00! We made four bouquets for our four special ladies.

Bug wasn't too involved in the last part of the project; but since we are sending these to our loved ones, we got out some markers and paper to make some cards. Since Bug is just shy of 4, he can't personalize the message inside the card with his own writing. I got him to choose the card he wanted to give to each individual person, and then as I wrote, I got him to tell me what he wanted to say to them. Most of his sentences were "I love you", "I like you", "I miss you" but he was sweet and added some "you are beautiful", and "she is so pretty". He sure is a love bug...which is where his original nickname came from!

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Rainy Day Fun!!

Not all of my fun activities are planned events, with a big production or items I have to stock up on. This past week, we had lots of rain, and this one day it just poured and poured. Bug likes to sit and look out the window, pointing out that it is raining. And that doesn't even compare to when he hears thunder. Storms are a very exciting phenomenon for him. He also is obsessed with his rubber boots...he wears them ALL the time. I can't even begin to describe the stank of his feet after you've noticed he's been wearing his rubber boots for over an hour WITHOUT socks! haha. GROSS!!!

Anyway, during this specific day, we were on our way to get groceries and the skies opened up and poured out a ton of water. Bug loved the shield of water being created on the windshield. Bear could care less, but he was one happy little man.

It continued to rain for the duration of our shopping excursion, so by the time we got home, there were numerous puddles that needed jumping in. Bear went down for a nap and I got Bug's rain gear ready for some outside, wet summer fun.

We walked along the sidewalks and alleyways of our neighbourhood, looking for these prized puddles of muddy water. Bug ran through them, jumped in them and kicked water at me.

This was such a fun, impromptu and cheap activity. When we were done getting soaked, we started walking home, only to be dumped on by some more rain. That just added to the excitement of the activity. We came home dripping wet, a small pond in Bug's rubber boots, and big smiles on our faces. Days later, Bug is still talking about jumping in puddles. And don't even get me started on the smell of these rubber boots now that they had their own puddle of water in them.

Camp Mommy: Dinosaur Bones Excavation

So today was my first day off. I came home this morning from my night shift, slept until 12:30 PM and woke up to some cloudy skies. It wasn't raining and I usually like to do something on my first day off, so it doesn't waste away with my tiredness. The switch over day is always brutal, but having some fun with my boys always turns it around for me and brings our own VDV sunshine.

This idea actually stemmed a few months ago, after a trip to Drumheller. Like I said previously, I don't always like to give the presents I get for my kids the day of purchase...leaving them for fun activities later in the week or in this case, a few months after. I saw this dinosaur skeleton kit in one of their tourist shops and thought it would be fun to have our own archaeology play in the summer. Today was the day I put this activity in action.

While Bug was inside, I quickly ran outside to our sandbox and buried the skeleton pieces (some of them were really small so I didn't take them all off the framework they were initially packaged as). Then, like true archaeology fashion, I boxed off the area we would be working in. I did this for two reasons: 1) to make it easier to remember where to find all the pieces; and 2) to somewhat resemble a true digging site. I did this by standing 4 popsicle sticks in the sand as the four corners of the square. Then I wrapped string around the sticks to complete the square. After that, the fun began. I got Bug to put on his archaeology dinosaur hat (a Dollarama purchase) and we put his play compass to use. I helped him "read" this compass to direct us to our dig site. Once at the sandbox, I gave Bug his digging tools (some sauce brushes for meat from Dollarama) and showed him how to sweep away the sand to find the parts of the skeleton. When he found the first one, he was super thrilled and was then on a very determined mission to find the others.

Once all the pieces were found, we brought them over to our sidewalk to build the skeleton. This was a little too difficult for Bug, so I ended up doing the bulk of the construction. This dinosaur was a very special one, he is a Glow-ciraptor! If you can't tell from the name, he glows in the dark...haha. We brought him inside, got Jacob's flashlight and locked ourselves in the dark bathroom. Right now at bedtime we make shadow puppets with our hands, so Bug was pretty excited about the dino-shadow created while we were charging the glow with the flashlight. This will probably be part of our nightly routine for the next week, making sure our Glow-ciraptor is all charged right before bed.

In case you don't have a Glow-ciraptor, Dollarama does sell wooden dinosaur skeleton kits that could turn into craft play after excavation. The little kiddie could get their paint practice in, creating their very own dinosaur. If you can't find one of those, this blog has a cute idea on how to make your own dinosaur fossils. If you want to spend the money, Toys 'r us also sells 2 different dinosaur skeleton kits as well.

After we put our Glow-ciraptor together, Bug said he was beautiful, and he was a GREAT dinosaur!

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Camp Daddy?

Between my husband and I, I am definitely the planner and organizer. My husband is more of the "do things on a whim" type of person, and unless the weather allows for him to take the boys outside for a bike ride, walk or just outdoor play, he finds it difficult to come up with activities. This is in no way a slight against him; he's a great father. He's just not like his anal retentive, Type A, perfectionist wife who likes to plan and organize (it's my source of enjoyment, not going to lie...haha).

These last few days, I have been super ill, and I actually missed work yesterday. I didn't want Bug to be cooped inside with me and my germs and since the weather was wonderful, my husband and I decided to let Bug have some water fun. Mr. VDV just recently went out with some friends for a 3 hour trail bike ride. It was rather muddy and his bike desperately needed a wash. Bug loves playing with water, so we set up the hose and let him go to town.

That wasn't enough for Bug though, so once Daddy's bike was sparkling clean, he started washing the side of the house and much to the chagrin of our dog, chased Indy around with the hose in hand. Bug also loves washing his little tykes "Flintstones" car, so we got a bucket full of water and some sponges out for him to play with.

This ended up being a couple of hours of fun for Bug; he got to go outside and it required little to no preparation. Another successful outdoor activity, I'd say!

Learning Daze

As much as I'd hate to admit it, my Bug is growing up (way too fast if you ask me), and he will be off to preschool this September. It's shocking how fast time flies. I'm trying to prepare him for the learning environment, as well as helping him get some of the initial information working it's way through his brain. I have a small kids suitcase full of learning objectives I've created (with some influence with the initial idea[s] from online). Usually, I will see an idea that will trigger the beginning of an activity I can create.

The first part of our day was spent with playing my kid version of a headband game, where we had a handful of animal cards in a pile (I laminated them so we can reuse them, and I can use them with Bear in the future). The animal pictures I got off of an internet image search (no copyright infringement). Then I would hold up the card against my forehead, and Bug would have to act out the animal without saying the name of it. I would then have to guess the animal. Next, we switched places, and he held up the card with me acting out the animals. In the future, once he's gotten the hang of it, I will probably play this game with a cooking timer to add to the excitement (I think that would be a big hit with Bug).

Here's the video of me guessing.
Here's the video of Bug guessing.

Next, we worked on our alphabet and letter recognition/writing. This one ended up being a collaboration of activities I have created. It involved a pair of dice (one having capital letters "A" through "F" and the other having lower case letters "a" through "f"), a laminated sheet with an animal for each letter, some letter magnets (I just pulled out the 6 we were working with today), and laminated sheets with dashed font of the lowercase and uppercase letters so Bug could practice writing. First I got Bug to roll the uppercase letter die. Once the letter was rolled, he had to state what it was. The letter magnets are capital letters, so I got him to pick out the corresponding magnet for the letter he rolled. After that, because the animals typed on the laminated sheet were all lowercase letters, I showed him with the lowercase die the corresponding "little" letter to go with the capital letter he rolled. Then he had to find the animal that started with that letter among the six pictures, and place the letter magnet on top of the image. The last part of our letter recognition activity was where Bug then had to locate out of the dashed font cards the letter we were just working with. I got  him to hold the dry eraser marker properly, and I helped him write the letters. At first I let him write them, but he would just trace the lines in no particular order,. I decided I would hold his hand and navigate him through the writing process of the letter to help him grasp the proper flow of recreating the alphabet. When that letter was done, he would roll the uppercase die again. If Bug got a letter we already did, we would talk about what letter it is briefly before we rolled again.

Bug working through the Alphabet

Obviously, the letter activity didn't have to be as extensive as it was. You could simply just roll the die for letter recognition, or the writing portion by itself. I just wanted the activity to last a bit longer, and to tie the knowledge together, which is why I chose to do all of them. I also have been fighting this horrible sinus cold/flu and this was the perfect indoor activity to get Bug's brain working. It didn't require much energy from me :)

A Perfect Day

Exactly what the title of this post indicates, us VDV 3 (Daddy was at work today) had one of those perfect days that make being a parent worth every hardship and struggle. It started out with our Camp Mommy activity, and simply progressed into this wonderful mesh of fun, cuddles and family time.

Bug, our almost 4 year old is the fun, exuberant, spastic child. He will always hold that special place in my heart for teaching me and showing me how much and how instantaneously one loves their child. Bug is the little boy who already is a class clown (which I’m sure will be the root of many parent teacher interviews in our future), laughing and giggling so easily and frequently. With the ease he is able to be happy and fun loving, also comes the sensitivity and quick to anger and frustration of being a highly emotional person. He currently is our frustrating child. I love him to the moon and back, but he wears his emotions on his sleeve…this is so fascinating, but in the next breath, it becomes completely overwhelming. He literally is scared of everything…and that is no joke. Many can attest to that. I bought my husband this A-MA-ZING Michael Jordan phone for Christmas a couple of years ago. Our basement is the man cave, and it fit perfectly with his sports theme. I wish I could post a video of Bug reacting to this incredible sport memorabilia, but I’m sure it would be borderline child abuse…I’d probably hear from social services. When it goes off, he literally screams, bawls and runs out of the room. Here is a video of the phone in action, which currently is the only means of us viewing how spectacular this is. It sits in our basement, unplugged, unused and even when our home phone does ring, Bug still runs to close the door between our upstairs and downstairs…you know, incase it comes chasing after him or something. In all reality, our child doesn't even like going in the basement anymore. With any mention of us going down there, Bug starts whining and shaking…seriously, I fear he’s on the verge of having a cardiac event! He also at times gets so frustrated; unreasonably so. I realize this is just a phase, and every child goes through learning about emotions and behaviours that accompany those feelings; but sometimes it’s the silliest yet most irritating thing to deal with. The other day his toy was “misbehaving”…he has played with it numerous times in the past and had no problem working through the toy’s mechanics…but this day, he just didn't have the patience. You could just hear him huffing and puffing, punishing this toy for not transforming. It would simply be humorous if he didn't have a complete meltdown when his lack of patience got too much to handle. I’d like to say this is all related to his age; but deep down I know it is an indirect result of my behaviour. My eldest is so much like me, from looks to goofiness to dramatics. I can’t find something, and I huff and puff, stomping around like I’m 3. Chores aren't done, so I do them, but not without adding a flair of the dramatics…haha…I know, I know, maybe I need a time out chair too. But this is where my eldest teaches me things about myself. Sometimes I feel like he teaches me more than I do for him. He so openly shows love; he’s our little love bug. I can’t even count how many times in the day he says “Mama, I just love you”, or stopping in the middle of his play, coming for a hug and kiss. He loves his little brother so much too, always wanting to get him to giggle, and giving him as much affection as Bear allows him to give. Bug is funny and goofy; the reason for many of our laughs throughout the day.

Bear, our youngest who just turned 1, is our happy but quiet and content little man. I always joke that he’s going to be the mastermind behind the crazy ideas and behaviours I’m sure we will encounter in the boys’ preteen and teen years…and Bug will be the idiot to do them! Ha! Bear rarely wakes up crying; you just hear him romping around in his crib, babbling to himself. He sleeps 12 to 14 hours straight at night; I’m sure there are many who will hate me now after reading that statement. I’m not saying he’s always easy; but he has made having a second child so carefree and adaptable. The problem that arises with a great baby though, is when he isn't so great. When he cries for reasons you can’t decipher or when he actually gives us a hard time going to bed, something I think I can count on 1 hand how many times he wouldn't go to sleep easily. Bear was sleep trained, I’m sure from 1 month of age. I don’t know how it came so easily or if it was something we actually did. He just slept, and slept a lot. So when he’s up most of the night, or freaking out when we put him down, it’s almost more overwhelming than if he was like that more frequently. We aren't used to dealing with him when he’s finicky; so when those moments happen, it’s like we are new parents again, trying to get a handle on things while maintaining some semblance of sanity. The one behaviour that Bear is consistent with though comes right around the time we are almost done feeding him. As soon as you start scraping the sides of the bowl, he can’t handle it and has a little meltdown because his food is almost done. This child is the 3^rd percentile for his weight, which is shocking considering the amount of food we feed him. You know the reusable Ziploc or Glad Tupperware containers…ya, he can easily eat half of the average sized one in one sitting, and still pack away more food if given to him. I can’t even begin to comprehend our grocery bill when the boys are teenagers; my husband already eats like a growing boy (and he is a bottomless pit just like Bear). In just a few years, my grocery bill will probably double, if not triple!! With all that being said, Bear is teaching me how to be a better parent; to embrace every little moment (good and bad) because it goes by way too quickly. I live for his cute little grins and baby giggles, and my goal is to get as many of those out of him each day.

So, back to our perfect day today; today is why I love being a mom. There were so many fabulous moments, starting with the always anticipated morning hugs and kisses from Bug when he wakes up in the morning (always initiated by him). Our Camp Mommy activity went beautifully and Bug played Pirate for HOURS after it ended. He shared his pirate loot with us (an act we rarely have to encourage him to do). Daddy then went to work; but Mommy got to get a beautiful picture with her little loves.

After our picture taking, we went on a wonderful bike ride. Bug was swerving and racing in his big boy bike, and Bear was babbling in his stroller. He recently said Mama for the first time, and today he repeated it for most of our stroll/bike ride…melts my heart every time. Bug continued his Pirate play with his pirate scope, checking for cars before we crossed the alley/street.

When we got home, we had to go grocery shopping. Our big stroller blew out a tire yesterday, so Bug had to walk the whole way. It’s not so much of him being able to walk the distance, but more the speed we could get it done in if he was in the stroller. But our broken double stroller was a blessing in disguise. While I was pushing Bear, Bug and I strolled slowly to the store, chatting about our neighbourhood, occasionally racing, got some sidewalk hugs and held hands. I never get tired of holding our boys little hands, and I’m getting in as many of those moments as I can. I know it will happen all too soon when it won’t be “cool” to show your mom affection.

Right before we arrived back home, we heard the Ice Cream truck. It is very rare for me to have change, but today I surprisingly did. I let Bug run up to the truck, and basked in the glory of seeing him get so excited over something I vividly remember from my childhood. So today, we were able to get Bug his very first ice cream from the Dicki Dee. After the Spiderman ice cream was placed in his hand, Bug waved to the ice cream man with the biggest grin on his face. On the remainder of our walk home, Bug said “the ice cream man gave me an ice cream, he was so very nice”. Of course he didn't get that I had to pay for that ice cream, but the gratitude and happiness he showed was so endearing.

Once we were at home, we got ready for a fire out back. We roasted hot dogs, made banana boats and cuddled near the heat of the flames. Bug, once again brought out his Pirate gear and went searching for treasure while Bear and I snuggled. That, in itself is why I plan and make sure we get our Camp Mommy days in; to watch Bug continue to get joy out of a successful activity I organized.

The night ended with some kisses to Bear, a bedtime story for Bug and like every night, Bug asking for one more hug and kiss after I already tucked him in. I tidied up our house with a big smile on my face, joy in my heart and excitement for my remaining days off with my boys. Many people without children worry about the sacrifices needed to be made in order to be a present parent. This day, though it doesn't seem completely out of the ordinary or special, is why I wake up in the morning; it is what I look forward to when I’m trying to get through my two 12 hour days and two 12 hour nights.  Of course I like Mommy VDV time, time with my husband and time with friends; but every sacrifice I have made is worth it all to see the smiles on my boys’ faces, the joy in their interactions with us, and the feeling of pure bliss I get when I know I've made their day special. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in my life; this is where I was meant to be…being a Mommy is my greatest blessing.

Camp Mommy: treasure hunt!

This week for Camp Mommy, Bug became a pirate and I organized a treasure hunt in our backyard. This one took a little preparation from me, something I started doing right after last week's Camp Mommy. I bought the treasure chest from Michaels (I believe it was a 50% coupon I used, so it cost me $5). For those of you who know me, you can attest to me being "some what" of a perfectionist (Type A personality) all the way...haha...okay, I am 100% a perfectionist. So I did something that was not needed, and Bug probably wouldn't have cared either way, I painted the treasure chest with metallic and gold sparkle paint (obviously an extra cost you can leave out and the fun would not be affected). I also made a treasure map, by soaking paper on a baking pan in some coffee for about 3 minutes, poured the extra away and ripped the edges after the paper was wet. I also made some holes in the paper with my fingernails. I then put the paper on the baking sheet in the oven at 200 F for about 10 minutes (I kept checking it, and when the paper's edges started curving up, it was done). Now you could end this here, and it would fulfill the purpose of looking aged...but again with my Type A personality, I burned the edges and holes with a candle. Then I drew out the map, highlighting specific landmarks of our backyard to help Bug navigate the map. I also added a bit of learning to the hunt, by creating certain check points labeled with numbers 1 - 5 (in the "aged" paper). Each check point had a chocolate gold coin to add to the atmosphere of finding a pirate's treasure.

To complete the imaginative play, I purchased some pirate attire. From Dollarama, there was a $2 pirate set with an ax, a bandana, an eye patch, a pirate scope (what Bug calls it), and some pirate jewelry. I found a foam pirate hat at Michaels ($5) and a foam pirate sword at Dollarama (which I preferred Bug playing with instead of the plastic ax). He got into the role quite quickly and was very excited to go find his treasure!

He actually navigated the map very well, and used his trusty pirate scope to search for our big tree (one of the check points). Then after the tree landmark, the next stop was his treasure, but he had to go through some tall grass (we've had so much rain this past week and it hasn't been cut...but it aided in the fun for our camp mommy activity today). He used his pirate sword and pretended to hack away at the imposing blades of grass (okay, mostly weeds). He was a very happy boy when he got his treasure!

Now, what you decide to put in your treasure chest is entirely up to you. I decided to put some cheap candy and toys (the chocolate loonies, I believe are a must though) in ours. Also, not that I don't spoil my children, because I do; but a lot of the time I'd rather the toys I pick up at random be used or given for a special activity. I don't want the boys to expect "presents" all the time. So, within his treasure loot, I spent a little extra money on some special transformer toys...just to give this pirate a little bit of extra happy!

I have to say, after Camp Mommy is done for the week, I already start planning the next one...I think I may be even more excited for these days then Bug is. Unfortunately, Bear was asleep during this Camp Mommy. So extra cuddles and kisses will come his way once he's up!

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