I wasn’t planning to write a post about this weekend’s festivities, but it was such fun to bring y’all along on Instagram Stories that I figured I’d record this little slice of everyday magic here, too! (If you’d like to catch up on Stories, you can do that in this highlight!)
For those just joining in, Friday was the premier of an Octonauts Netflix special – Octonauts and the Cave of Sac Actun. Since Netflix’s algorithm can surely tell that our family has a predilection toward Octonauts viewing, they let us know it was “coming soon” a few weeks ago. We mentioned it to June, and started talking about how we were going to watch it together as a family – a movie premier party!
Buoyed by her excitement, things quickly ballooned from there, ha! The timing lined up perfectly with the kids’ last weekend before the first day of preschool, and we figured it would be a fun way to close out this particular season of our lives (especially in a year when a lot of fun has been canceled).
So, I added two boxes of blue jello and a bag of Swedish fish to my grocery list and picked up a blue plastic tablecloth, green streamers, and shell plates at Target. (June was SO EXCITED about the blue jello that she pulled it out of our pantry to show our babysitters every day last week.)
I had already planned to take Friday off as a last summer hurrah, so June and I had plenty of time that afternoon to prep the jello, make some Octonauts place cards (after I explained to her what place cards are, she agreed that every fancy dinner party needs them), and set the table with our “kelp forest” and plenty of sea creatures.
John’s contribution? Fishza: takeout pizza cut into the shape of a fish :) We rounded it out with cut veggies and dip and “ocean water” (blueberry lemonade). After dinner by candlelight, baths, and jams, we dug into the jello back at the table (verdict: after a few hours in the fridge, the Swedish fish are more for looks than taste, ha!).
And then, of course, it was time to snuggle up and watch the main event!
Except, of course, I probably don’t need to tell you that the main event had already happened… though the movie was just fine, the real magic was in the excitement and lead-up to the big day. I’m telling you, June literally couldn’t have been more excited if we had been going to Disney World – the perfect reminder that sometimes it’s just really fun to indulge your children’s quirky interests (truly one of the best parts of parenting, I think!) and that “going big” can mean a few dollars of Target party supplies and – most importantly – a few hours of quality time with mama and daddy. It was kind of painfully adorable how the whole family setting aside time to celebrate one of her favorite activities was just thrilling to her little heart.
Friends, I hope this encourages you to indulge in some at-home, everyday magic this fall! And if you’ve ever had an experience like ours, I’d love to hear about it! :)
After several months of two parents working from home with childcare gaps, we’ve learned to get creative. While there’s no shortage of inspiration for kiddo activities on the internet, I’ve found most of them require parent participation – which is great, but not when what you’re after is a way to finish up a task before clocking out for the day WHILE keeping littles happy.
Trust me – there are few things I hate more than working while my kids are around, but the pandemic has made it unavoidable at times. If you find yourself in the same situation, I thought I’d offer up a few activities our crew has found especially enjoyable and entertaining this spring and summer. Hint: just add water :)
A few disclaimers: — My children are (almost) 2 and 4, but even if yours are the same ages, these activities may or may not be developmentally-appropriate. Always use your best judgment! — I classify these activities as hands-off, but that doesn’t mean they don’t require supervision. Even small amounts of water require supervision! What I mean is that these activities capture my children’s attention without my direct participation – and usually for a long time, to boot. Typically, I’ll take my laptop to our backyard or front porch to work while the kids splash a few feet from me. So grateful to have these spaces!
Without further ado…
Under the sea sensory bin | Sensory bins are the bread and butter of Montessori preschools, so although we were very familiar with them, we’d never attempted one at home. Turns out they’re very easy: dump some small animal figurines (or the Arctic version), an aquarium plant or two, some rocks, some shells, and anything else that strikes your fancy in a big plastic tub, then add water. A few drops of blue food coloring takes things to the next level :) We have two of these for side-by-side play or this big one if they’re playing together.
Splash pad | With little jets around the edge, this water-inflated pool is the most low-key version of a water park right in your backyard. I toss a few animal figurines and plastic cups in with the kids and they are happy as clams.
Pouring station | Big plastic tub + multiple sizes and shapes of cups, pitchers, squeezers, etc. + water (and maybe a little food coloring!). They can pour, measure, make potions, pour it on each other’s heads, whatever. As always, animal figurines are welcome.
LEGO bath | Dump the LEGOS and the kids in the bath! Yes, the LEGOS need to be dried out, but that can become part of the play: after the kids hop out, have them scoop out each LEGO piece with a net or colander and lay them on a towel to dry.
A big bucket of ice in the backyard | I literally just take the container that catches ice cubes in our freezer and set it down in the backyard. The kids love handling the ice cubes, trying to melt them, toting them to various plants to “water” them, sliding them down the path, etc.
Free the sea creatures | This activity doesn’t last terribly long on its own but it’s a fun add-on to another water activity. Freeze a few animals in an ice cube tray then pop them out and introduce them to the water environment. If you’re feeling fancy, you can give the kids droppers and cups of hot, warm, and cold water to experiment with.
Also fun to add to any water activity: mini tongs, little strainers, droppers – all good for practicing fine motor skills! I’ve also cut up a sponge to make teeny sponges, making them appropriate scale for June to wash her horses with :)
Cooking trays | A bonus non-water activity! I’ll fill up a muffin tin for both kids with various dry kitchen items: different shapes of pasta, oats, rice, cereal… this is a great way to use up the random ends of bags of dry beans, etc.! I’ll also set out a few bowls, spoons, whisks, strainers, etc. and let them go to town making “potions” or “bakery treats” or “cat food,” depending on the day. Shep is just there to make as big a mess as possible, obviously. Despite his best efforts, everything sweeps up pretty easily, in my experience, since it’s all dry! Best not to mix water with this one unless you’re ready for more intense clean-up :)
Got your own hands-off kiddo activity to share? Hit me! (And of course, head to Busy Toddler, the inspiration for many of these activities, for many more ideas!)
In our yearlong process of discerning whether children were in our future, John and I asked a handful of people some variation of “why did you decide to have children?” or “why do you want to have children?” It was spectacular conversation fodder, and resulted in many memorable discussions with people we love.
One conversation in particular has stuck with me for years. It was with one of the people I’m closest to, and it surprised me.
John and I were tucked into a booth next to each other while out to dinner, sitting across from my Dad. This was in his season of being dislocated from my Mom for his job – he was living in Northern Virginia, and made the trip down to see us once a month. The three of us had many adventures on those weekends – swimming in the Eno, poking around at the farmer’s market, taking long drives to our favorite hiking trails.
On that evening, I remember trying to work The Question into the conversation casually, so as not to betray the turmoil lurking just beneath the surface. If there was one person I trusted to weigh in on this decision, it would be him, and I was more than curious to hear what he’d say.
My Dad is someone who has always delighted in his children. Next to his pun-filled humor, his diplomacy skills, his excellent grammar, his love for reading and history and golf — he is known for his love for his daughters. It is his calling card. “No one loves his daughters as much as Rob Ayer,” a friend’s Mom commented to me once when I was telling her about one of our weekend visits. (What a glow, as a daughter, to be loved so well and so visibly! To be delighted in!)
So what would he say? His answer was simple and, to me, unexpected: “I wanted to raise people I’d like to be around.” Not just people he would love – that was easy – but people he would like.
Though this wasn’t the answer I was expecting, it immediately made sense to me. My Dad is one of six kids who grew up on a dairy farm in a small town. My understanding of his family in childhood is that it was largely an insular unit, a self-contained ecosystem of playmates and chore helpers and book swappers and make believe compadres. If you didn’t like being around your family, life would be pretty awful — because you were going to spend a LOT of time with your family.
Even those of us raised in less-remote settings can appreciate how many hundreds of thousands of hours we log with our immediate family, and therefore, how important it becomes to our overall happiness whether we enjoy that time or not. I can see now that raising his kids to be people he enjoyed being around, of building a family unit of likable people who liked each other, was a guiding principle behind many of his decisions.
Good grades? Not the goal. Intellectual curiosity, a love of reading, and the ability to discuss ideas? That’s a person he would like to spend time with.
Starting varsity player? Not the goal. An appreciation for healthy bodies, sportsmanlike conduct, and a day spent outside? That’s a person he would like to spend time with.
Also the goal: all the things any of us find likable in people, our kids or not – kindness, attentive listening, respect for others, graciousness, a willingness to be a helper.
As a parent, what a release of pressure this must have been! He didn’t want kids to burnish his own self-image. He didn’t want to raise kids to change the world or get great grades or to play a sport he loved. He wanted to raise kids he liked spending time with – when they were young, and now, when they are older. It worked: in my whole life, there has never been a season when I didn’t love spending time with my Dad.
Though this whole parenting paradigm feels selfish in a way – after all, you’re using your standard and preferences as the navigational guide – a kid you like will inevitably be a kid (and adult) other people like, too. And to be clear, this was not about making carbon copies of himself – we can enjoy being around people who are quite different from us! The world will give us a lot of messages about what kinds of kids we should strive to raise, and I’ve found most of them to be pretty empty. But raising kids I enjoy spending time with? I can aim for that.
As an introvert, the idea of a close-knit, built-in community that genuinely loves spending together was immediately appealing to me. In the years since, I’ve found it to be a helpful decision filter, just as I imagine my Dad has. It’s not the only one, of course, but it is helpful – even on a micro level. If there’s something our kids do that really annoys us (like, uh, shrieking for no reason…), we’re going to try to work with them to change it (unless there’s a strong reason not to!). After all, I’m allowed to enjoy this parenting thing, too :)
And enjoy it I do. There are few things I love more than spending a day with June, doing anything or nothing at all. She is the best little buddy – one of my most favorite companions – and a delight to be around. I love her, I like her, and I’m anticipating with joy what our time together might be like as she grows older.
John feels the same way. He is well on his way to being known for his love for his kids (and wife, I hope!!) – just one of the things that makes him an amazing dad. Happy Father’s Day to him, to my Dad and father-in-law, and to all the great dads out there. xo
P.S. I’d never heard this idea ruminated on until last year. I could have written this essay, and loved reading it!
P.P.S. Shep is a great little buddy, too, and I can’t wait for our future adventures as he grows – it’s just a little easier to develop a friendship with someone who can talk :)
We could all use a little dose of whimsy these days, yes? Even before the heartache of last week, there was – and is – the monotony and heaviness of COVID-19. So when June came downstairs after quiet time one day early in quarantine asking for a “special snack,” I was happy to oblige. Enter: the muffin tin snack tray.
Maybe you’ve seen one, or even enjoyed one yourself. I first heard about them from Merrick, and thought they sounded like a lovely idea – maybe a little extra – but something to tuck away for the elementary school years.
And then June requested a special snack and, well, here we are. Having muffin tin snack trays almost daily :)
Here are a few reasons why I have come to love the muffin tin snack tray:
— They are perfect for using up little odds and ends hanging around the fridge or pantry. Less food waste is always a win!
— Because of the fun presentation, and the fact that we’re all eating together, my kids are more likely to try anything new I add to the tray.
— Though most days I’m kind of haphazardly throwing things together, the snack tray presents a creative opportunity for the willing parent: you could theme the contents for upcoming holidays, play around with color or shapes, or attune it to a visitor. Kind of like a modern charcuterie board, but way easier :)
— It helps me get all the food groups into my kiddos in a day. Even if we don’t have a ton of fruits and vegetables at dinner, the snack tray gives me another opportunity to tick those boxes.
And now, a few tips for introducing muffin tin snack trays into your life:
— My initial thought was that I’d introduce snack trays when June started kindergarten – I figured everyone would be a bit older by then and they’d be a sweet moment to reconnect after being apart during the day. Having started earlier, I would say Shep, at 1 3/4, is just barely old enough to participate in a civilized way. He mostly grasps the concepts of sharing, taking one thing at a time, and not putting half-eaten food back into the tray, ha!
— You can fill more than one pocket with the same thing. You don’t have to come up with 12 separate things every day!
— To keep things fun without the budget going wild, I’ve started adding one novel item to my grocery list each week – a new kind of cracker, something from the international aisle, chocolate-covered pretzels, etc. Over a few grocery trips you’ll build up a stash of fun things that you can rotate in and out.
— We like to include a mix of savory and sweet, familiar and foreign, crunchy and soft. Add dips or spreads. Play with colors and textures and have fun!
— Remember you can easily adjust the amounts in each pocket for the number of people eating and how big of a snack you want it to be. June, Shep, and I partake in the snack tray together about 2 hours before dinner, and ours is sized appropriately.
— If you have older kids with bigger appetites, take a tip from Merrick: don’t refill anything until everything is gone. That way, they’ll be forced to eat the veggies if they want more marshmallows :) In our current life stage, I never refill the tray.
— To practice manual dexterity (so Montessori!) and slow the whole process down a bit, give everyone a fancy toothpick to spear with. We like these ones.
Friends, as a parent and a person I am an interesting mix of highly practical and consistently weak-kneed for the magical and memorable. No, not everything in our kiddos’ childhoods has to be magical – much of it will be humdrum and ordinary (and in my opinion that’s actually good!). But I also believe childhood should be punctuated by the needlessly fancy, the extravagantly whimsical, and the fun-just-because. The magical things I love the most are the ones that inject novelty into our days, cause us to linger together, and therefore slow down time. Muffin tin snack trays check all my boxes, and I hope they’ll bring a little sweetness to your days, too!
Friends, I’d love to hear a way you inject a little novelty or magic into daily life, whether or not you have kids!
