Wednesday, April 2, 2008

a little crafty

In an effort to make our tea parties a little more interesting, and based on more than m&ms and other candies small enough to fit into the creamer, I thought I'd try adding some play food to the toy EXPLOSION (according to Roger) in our house.


I need votes for other foods that could be interesting and maybe even healthy - the best ideas I have tend naturally towards sweets. I have this silly idea that if I can get Katie to PRETEND to eat a vegetable, she might actually eat one some day in real life. Or maybe I need to find a challenging novel to read for a little while to occupy my mind in other ways . . .

Alex still has no fear of putting anything green - or any other color, for that matter - into his mouth and gnawing on it quite happily. Here is Mr. Handsome at 11 months.
Yesterday, we went over to a friend's house who needed to practice administering some developmental tests for her psychology program. I find these things FASCINATING - and this from someone who has spent a good amount of time making fun of the 'science' of psychology. Katie is younger than the age she'll be working with, but the gal just needed a guinea pit on which to practice. I really try not to be hyper about where Katie is at - I'm clearly biased, but it's obvious she's no dummy. It's more interesting to me the things she DOESN'T get yet. Context is not really important to her - she can identify that airplanes and boats are different, but doesn't correlate that one goes in the air and the other on the water. Funniest to me was that when asked 'How old are you?' she just looked blank. We've never gone over that. The same thing when the pediatrician asks(ed) about playing patty cake or other repetitive-type games. It's just not my thing. It's boring to ME, so we don't do it. That and 'baby talk.' I've never been able to stomach it. In my mind, I'm preventing future speech impediments. Or I'm delaying expression, because I'M unwilling to use the sounds that kids actually respond to. Something else I could research besides fake foods!

9 comments:

Tom said...

Sorry, Kat, but you're not going to get any support from me to help get Katie to eat her vegetables. Especially things like peas, beans, broccoli, and/or cauliflower. And I just hope that Alex learns better...

Margaret said...

http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/foods.php

I'm trying to work, so I didn't look at the options, but I'm sure you can find something cute.

And it is just play food, so I don't see a problem with making knots and cutting off the ends instead of taking care of them properly.

kat said...

hey mag -
i think that's the site i've been getting the patterns off of. i think i'll bust out some spaghetti and meatballs one of these days, and i might have an idea in my head for broccoli - thanks for the thought, tom.

i'm so anal i hadn't even CONSIDERED cheating on the ends. :)

Margaret said...

I saw a picture of crocheted broccoli on a website, but there were some shadow issues and I couldn't figure out how they were done. And it didn't look like broccoli, either.

You should make a head of lettuce out of felt. And make it so you can peel off the outer leaves and put it back together. Then Katie will start making her own sandwiches.

azufelt said...

Kat-- my girls don't love eating veggies either. Although B will eat almost any veggie is she can dip it into Ranch. SO I figure it's healthier than not eating the veggie, right?

Mia said...

My ped is always telling me that veggies slathered in ranch are better than nothing. Then he sat Zoey down and had a very big girl talk with her about how now that she was 4 she was a big girl and had to start trying new foods. It actually worked. I can't say she is a fruit or veggie super star, but way better than this time last year. I never really did those repetitive type games either. I just couldn't get into it. Although I did do peek-a-boo because the kids loved it.

Disco Mom said...

I am dying over that crocheted banana, I definitely want one. I'm a deadbeat mom - I should have tea parties with my girls but the most I can summon myself to do is play our picnic game once in awhile.

Do you really want me to weigh in on the talking thing? I will restrain myself...except for one point. You don't have to baby talk or patty cake if you don't like it - your kids are coming from a genius gene pool so they'll be ok whatever you do - but don't say it's because you're preventing future speech impediments - sorry, my friend, the opposite is true.

Disco Mom said...

Oh, and about the vegetable - I tried the ranch thing but Hazel doesn't like it. But by accident I discovered she'll eat salad (lettuce, carrots, cukes, etc.) if SHE gets to serve herself with the tongs. She thinks it's so fun but I tell her she has to eat ("like a rabbit!") whatever she puts on her plate, and she actually does - I'm still amazed it works. You just never know. Ginger would always rather go hungry than eat vegetables. I cook shells & cheese with frozen peas & carrots; Hazel just eats it all, and Ginger picks out the stuff that's not white.

kat said...

interesting younce. i guess this is more phone conversation worthy, but it just seemed to me that hearing incorrect grammar/sounds would teach a child that that was correct speech. funny that the sing-song actually helps them learn to form the correct sounds. we probably actually talked about this at LEAST once before . . . ;)