Book Review

I decided to read this again today right before nap time, and I am glad I did. Let me tell you that the first time I read it, I cried really bad, and had to go in another room so Isabella would not see me. I told myself it was an awful, awful book because it made me cry and I was not ready in anyway to explain the concept of aging and death. My husband agreed. I was also expecting this book to be about Potty Training because my friend who gave it to me also gave me some other ones after a brief potty training discussion (and the big toilet on the cover!) Says alot about how much I knew about the author. Today, I felt better about it. I remember it being much sadder than it actually was. Maybe because I was more prepared, maybe because she is a little older or I am a little wiser and stronger. Either way, I think it teaches great values.

Float or Sink?

We did this a couple of weeks ago. I checked out a book from the library from the Think About Series called Floating and Sinking by Henry Arthur Pluckrose which gave me the idea to do this. We had been reading the book for a couple of weeks before we did it, so she was super excited. She had fun finding all kinds of objects to put in our bowl of water; she loves playing with water these days and picked up the concept pretty quick. She also flipped through the pages of the book to get ideas of what she could test out in our little experiment.
What I loved most, while she was looking for objects...I was folding laundry, and this activity kept her entertained for almost an entire hour.

Our rules

Today we wrote out some rules (Thanks Allison for the idea). Yesterday I thought I should wait until we get back from Costa Rica. But I couldn't wait....Let's hope this helps our behavior issues, it's worth a try. Jelly Belly came up with most of them on her own, not necessarily in this order. She was excited about our "project" and had fun putting glitter on our big piece of paper.

Bella's rules:

1) No hitting anyone (especially mom, dad & Ginny)

2) Be nice to each other

3) No yelling

4) No pushing, no pulling

5) No saying No!

6) No kicking

7) No taking without asking

8) No closing doors

9) No throwing things

10) No playing with water without permission

11) Draw only on paper

12) Do what mama and daddy say

13) Share

This may be too much, but she wanted to keep going...no cutting the carpet, no biting, things that we don't have issues with. Knock on wood! But let's see if she can follow #10, she recently got into the sink to give her babies water and to mix it with her play-doh because it was too hard. And #12 is my favorite, and the ultimate rule that gets broken everyday!