Things have been busy and I haven't had time to update this blog. I am now getting ready for our new school year. When that starts I will be able to keep up with this (I hope).

For Baby play we have been spending lots of time on books. She has learned to kick a ball and she is very good at it. She has taken up doing somersaults. I spent a lot of time trying to get her to not crawl on the coffee table or run on the sofa. Needing to work hard on that every minute she was awake was hard and that kept me from doing lots of things like working on this blog. I am so happy that she isn't doing that anymore. We have been playing a lot of hide and seek, stacking blocks (she is only stacking 2 or 3 high), and following directions. She does very well with directions. We have tried to color for a very long time. She still has a very hard time with that. She only wants to eat the crayons. I don't expect her to color a picture yet. I am trying to help her see that the crayons make marks on paper. She loves to pretend. She knew to pretend to eat plastic food before we showed her. I got her a tiny plastic pink tea set and I am working on teaching her to pour water. She will pour into the tiny cup sometimes, other times she will pour on the tray and splash her hands in it. I laugh with her. I think having fun splashing small amounts of water is OK.

My son (6 year old) He has a need to be a boy. He wants to fight pretend things. He was using sticks to cut down the evil weeds along our property line.LOL! I tried to get him to stop. I asked him over and over to not run with an 5 foot long stick! I took a step back and thought about this. I decided that my son had a need to do this type of thing. If he was going to do it I need to make it safe for him. I took a pillow case and stuffed it about half way full then tied it shut. It looked sort of like a ghost except it has large flowers on it. I took a rope and added velcro hook to it. I stitched some velcro loop to the stuffed part of the pillow case. We have the rope hang down from a tree in the yard. My son can go fight his creature with plastic swords. I don't think fighting is right but I felt that fighting a pillow with a flower print was better than fighting other children or running with a stick. He is having a lot of fun knocking that thing down from the tree. He has been making lots of forts in the house with blankets. I have been working with him on how to be neat when washing dishes. He always does great with the wash and rinse but he has been getting lots of water on the floor. I think playing in the water with the sprinkler, hose, water table, and the pool have made him think water can go all over even inside.