So I decided that MS sucks...those of us with the disease know this...and complaining about it isn't making it go away (although I will continue to vent from time to time). So today's blog is something far more cheery :) hence the vibrant color choice.
I'm learning that as a stay at home mom living off of a very minimal disability check, there are still plenty of ways to engage my children without breaking the bank. As a matter of fact there are lots of ways with simple supplies you may just have on hand (which by the way I am all about because going to the store with two little kids is similar to trying to tame a wild beast). I have successfully completed a whole bunch of activities with my almost 2 year old daughter and can't wait for my son to get to participate too.
I have also realized in recent months that in order for your child to grow and truly experience the joys of life, you must control your parenting instincts. For example...I have recently started following some blogs through facebook that help me tap into my creative side and come up with brilliant ideas for my children...however some of these activities can be very messy. Maternal instinct is to avoid messy, primarily because I don't want to clean up messy LOL. But I have learned that messy is part of childhood and a childhood without the word messy would be boring as hell...which is just not exceptable.
My daughter and I have done window art (very simple) which involves glue and I wasn't exactly certain I was making the best decision to do this activity because she wants to stick her hands in everything...but guess what...she survived and to be honest glue dries and peels right up so it wasn't really that messy at all. We just recently introduced play dough...I have some of the store bought stuff and I also started making my own...I thought this would go straight to her mouth but she didn't once try and eat it, pretty impressive. I have made her 5 different sensory bins...essentially designed to introduce her to different textures, colors, animals, and little toys. They each usually end up being taken out multiple times throughout the day and the contents end up scattered all over the floor...but she LOVES them. These sensory bins have also given us an opportunity to teach her how to pick things up (still a work in progress but progress is good nontheless)...and what happens when she can't behave (no bins come out if she throws a fit when we have to put them away). Last night I introduced her to the light box...which I made myself thanks to another blog I found...thank goodness too because light boxes are a couple hundred dollars and I know very few mom's that can afford that...mine was easily 40$ possibly less (not exactly certain because I purchased other things with the stuff to make it). I made a set of alphabet letters, numbers 1-10, and shapes for it with colored plastic dividers which were also incredibly cheap. Then I made a "squishy bag" also from a blog...which is simply clear hair gel (entire bottle), a little food coloring and some glitter in a gallon ziplock bag...which looks awesome on the light box but would also work on just a regular table. Its designed to teach strokes and simply let them be creative, Makenzie thought it was fun to swirl her fingers on it.
I am really enjoying these new experiences with her and watching how much she knows without being prompted. I've learned that sometimes messy is the best method to teaching and I'm learning to embrace the mess :)
If you'd like to see some of the great ideas Play at Home Mom on facebook is a wonderful resource and pintrest is always a great option as well.
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