Painting with Toddlers

At the beginning of the summer I stocked up on art supplies and simple things to keep us busy.  I bought a set of Crayola paints (washable, of course) and the girls mostly demolished that today.  So, how do you paint with two year old twins?  This is what we did and what I would do differently next time.

First, think mess.  Two year olds are all about exploring everything: color, texture, taste, etc....  I covered the table with a piece of cheap plastic drop cloth.  My mom had a vinyl table cloth that worked great.  A friend of ours went to the fabric store and bought some clear vinyl to cover her pretty table cloths.  I thought that was a great idea.

Table covered, check!  One color paint pot open, check!  Paint brushes, check!  Bed-headed toddlers, check!

This is how we started out.  One color.  Nice.  Neat-ish.

This is where we ended up.  Not too bad, but there are two t-shirts soaking in dishwater.  Dishwater is a miracle cleaner.  I learned that from some awesome parent friends.

Now, what I plan to do next time:

• Save the empty paint pots
• Refill empty paints with homemade cheap paint (water, corn starch, food coloring, and liquid soap)
• Could put paper inside a cookie tray to contain the mess (don't remember where I read this, but I've read it on a few mommy blogs)
• Buy some t-shirts at thrift shop for artsy activities
• Set them up at the table and let them go! I could have gotten some work done nearby because they were so into the painting.
• Thought about a paper plate "palette" instead so that I don't have to open/close colors for the girls.  Read several places that you can recycle bottle caps into a palette by gluing them onto a paper plate or cheap plastic plate.  I think I'll just put some blobs of paint onto a paper plate and let them go.
• Sponge-painting!  Probably way easier for them to manipulate than the paint brushes. 

Overall, it was a good way to kill an hour and the girls had lots of fun talking about colors.  They were very impressed with the water changing colors.   It's now 9:20 and we have a long way to go until naptime.  Next up:  bike ride around town, park and playground, haircuts?, lunch!  Then it's sweet, sweet naptime. 

First real day of summer!

Teachers love summer vacation as much as the students do.  Think about it, we cram all of our work into nine months.  Contrary to popular belief, I am not paid to do nothing in the summer.  My salary is simply divided over 12 months instead of 9. 


That said, I am planning to enjoy this summer to the fullest.  Today we had a nice family breakfast and then went to the park.  To keep you from thinking that we have some idyllic life, the girls we a handful to wrangle into clothes and shoes.  There was a time out for hitting and a lot of whining and "No!"  The girls had a good time climbing on the playground and then we biked home.  They voluntarily put themselves down for a nap (yay toddler beds!) and now I'm working on lunch.'

If last summer is any indication, we'll have roughly this routine:

(6:30) wake up sometime around this
           eat breakfast
           go to park or for long walk in stroller
          play, play, play!
(10-1) nap (shower and nap for me, too!)
          lunch
          play, play, play
          tv/quiet time
         dinner
         bath
(6:30-7)bedtime

We are having these baked zucchini coins.  They smell awesome, but I'm not sure how crunchy they will be.  Probably will have some canned spaghetti sauce for dipping and will add a fruit, too. 

There is a load of towels in the wash and I'll fold some laundry while the girls play later this afternoon.  So far, I'm keeping busy, but it's just been one day.  I hope I can keep this pace up.  I'd like to be more active and lose this last 15 lbs...or at least redistribute it a bit.  Time to get lunch finished up...I hear the girls stirring a bit.

Summer 2011

I am determined that this summer will rock.  The other day I brainstormed things I could do with the girls when they got bored with playing with toys.  If I don't watch them, the war of the wonder twins breaks out.  It's usually caused by boredom, frustration, need for a nap, or hunger.  I wrote lots of little activities on slips of paper and tucked them into a tin (leftover from candy somebody gave me once...there was no more candy and I was a bit sad).  Some of the things in the tin:

• balloons - I used to play for a long time with a plain balloon.  Good for a rainy day.
• paper plate maracas - Coloring and music!  
• paper plate masks - No need for tons of supplies for these.  
• finger painting - Read a suggestion that you put a bit of paint on a paper plate to keep things tidier.
• shape walk - The girls know their shapes and we can look for things in those shapes.  
• cloud watching
• tp tube kazoos
• table fort
• peanut butter play dough
• play with bread dough and bake it
• stamps on paper
• potato stamps
• bucket with soapy water - they're two, anything is fun!
• obstacle course with household objects
• baby doll bathtime outside
• face painting - fun to do and fun to wash off
• visit nursing home down the street - pass out flowers or stickers to residents
• make a book
• make hand prints on cardstock - which I can turn into thank you notes later.  Must remember to give each child a different color or write names and ages on the page.
• make ice cream in coffee cans or zipper bags
• go for a walk in the rain

Today I started out by making the finger paint.  The girls are with their Nana and my gardening projects were not going super.  I used this recipe:  Bath Tub Soap

Upon many reviews of other recipes, I used tear free baby soap.  I screwed up and added water to the corn starch/soap mixture when it looked too thick.  I have a recycled pickle jar half full of this mixture in the fridge.  So, oops, but score!  If the kids like it, there's extra left.  I am hoping that it would make a neat gift.  I just want to make sure that it comes clean before I give it away.

Mine came out a bit lumpy, but the two year olds shouldn't mind.  Life is about messes and textures for them right now.  Here's a pic of the containers I have:

I can't wait to get the kids all grubby so that they can play with this in the tub.  It should be a good bath tub and finger paint base.  I read a suggestion that you let the kids paint on an old sheet hung up outside.  I might try that to see if the colors wash out.  I will post more as we try the different activities throughout the summer.

Confusion 2011

This weekend we attended Confusion 2011.  Toby and I have been going there for at least five years, but I'd bet closer to ten.  It's my favorite con because of the family-friendly atmosphere.  We know so many people who attend every year that it feels like a giant family reunion of sorts.

The girls travel well and they did great for the most part.  They are in love with elevators and had a blast running on the hotels carpet.  The carpet has giant flowers and vines running along it.  The girls thought it was great to stand on those big flowers! 

Traveling with two toddlers is something.  Their suitcase was stuffed with toys more than anything else.  Of course, the usual medications and "just-in-case" items were packed, but I really eased up on the clothes this time.  I packed loads of snacks:  Gerber yogurt (no refrigeration needed), fruit rolls, fruit cups, apple juice, sippy cups, cookies, and crackers.  Nothing keeps a toddler happier than snacks and some Dora on the iPhone.

Instead of buying a membership, I planned to hang around the hotel.  We sat in the makeshift lobby (yay for construction) and ran the hallway by the meeting rooms.  The girls waved hello and good-bye to everybody.  They met some other toddlers and shared their toys.  Thalia has a bruise/scratch by her eye from catching a table corner.  Calli has one in almost the same place from ???? She didn't cry so the sitter didn't catch what did it.  The girls were totally into the experience.  They even held hands a bit in the hallways (talk about melting a mother's heart!).

Things were going swimmingly until Saturday night.  We headed up to the room and Thalia went in without any trouble.  Calli looked and me and said, "No. Uh-unh."  She then ran off down the hallway.  I let the hotel room close while catching Calli.  Thalia freaked out and closed that little latchy thing under hotel door knobs.  Those actually work!  The man delivering our room service called engineering and a man came with a crowbar.  He finally had to break the bar completely and install a new one.  Meanwhile, I'm holding a very snuggly Calli (Hugs, mama! Kiss!)  and talking through the door to Thalia, who is absolutely freaking out.  We get into the room and settle down with our cold food while the engineer replaces the latch.  Thalia cries for a good half hour and Calli refuses to sit down to eat.  Once the girls were in bed, I settled down with a bottle of Riesling and a bath.  Today, Calli did the exact same thing, but this time I learned to put the other toddler in the hallway before chasing the runner.

The girls were dolls today and even took a three hour nap!  A three hour nap (sing it with me to the tune of Gilligan's Island!)!  We headed out after a nice lunch and caught some sushi on the way home.  They are now sound asleep in bed.

How we did it (part two)

I hope that a new or expectant twin parent finds this helpful.  We could not have survived if we hadn't found some tips online. 

When the girls could suck stronger, we switched them to Podee Bottles and that was great!  The bottles are a pain to clean, but they really, really were a huge help.  From what I remember, we had about four sets of bottles.  We cleaned them at the end of the day.  I loved the microwave sterilizer for the tubes.  I just never felt like the tubes got clean enough just rinsing them as the directions suggested. 

The Baby Trend Double Snap-n-Go was a great stroller for the early months.  I really miss it sometimes.  It was just so easy to pop the car seats into it.  We took the girls to Montreal with that on a train.  It was so nice and light and we didn't have to fuss with unbuckling babies and hauling a stroller in addition to car seats.

Color-coding.  Thalia's things tend to be pink.  For a while, we knew them in photos because Thalia had a stuffed froggy and Calli had a monkey. 

Now that they are into everything and trying to walk, it's a lot harder.  Especially with the biting.  I don't know what to do about the biting.  I don't have enough hands to cuddle the bitten baby while whisking the biter off to time out.  We'll make it through somehow, though.