13 1/2 mths

Wow- I haven't updated in a while! Well...So Eli has had an AWESOME summer at daycare. Like amazingly amazing. The caregivers are incredible. I peeked on Eli being rocked to sleep in a seperate room by one of his caregivers, and she had put a blanket on him and was kissing his head and was rocking in a rocking chair. It was rockstar material. So I have loved it.. It's been great. At this point I have him going back in February when I starting trying for 2nd child.. But until that point, I decided that I wanted to homeschool him b/c he needs a bit of structure now otherwise he just spends his time crawling around, and its not fun.

So I am starting to brainstorm ideas. I visited the education store "Schoolbox" and have gotten some ideas from there. This weekend/next week I am going to start making little boxes with 'music', 'art', 'dance', 'reading', 'gym', 'water', 'cooking, etc.. Then each week we are going to have a theme, and corresponding to that theme we are going to have a field trip.. Each week is to not cost more than $50 in supplies, field trip costs. This way we are both exposed to new things, and we both can get out and have fun!

I am starting an excel sheet with lists of places we can go and how much it costs to go there. This weekend with our synagogue playgroup we are going to a toddler indoor playground- apparently there are least a half dozen places like that in the area. I had wanted to sign up to music classes, gymboree classes, but I don't want to beholden to any one particular thing each week. We already have free 1x week playgroup at the JCC which I will be going to (b/c that's where his daycare is and where he will go back to). So thats my latest news...

I am SUPER excited. I like the idea that we can explore these ideas together and we can see what works and doesn't. He is able now to appreciate somewhat these things, but now that his language skills are taking leaps and bounds I know that it will be worth it...

Sooo if you recall I had wanted to limit TV- so how am I doing?? Well, we are doing GREAT! The only time I let him watch TV is abt 5 mins at the beginning of a meal so he can focus on something else while I finish making meals. In abt a week Eli is finished with daycare so it will alot of house time again, but now that I am structuring it hopefully we won't fall into a TV routine. At this point he doesn't watch any. I am glad that someone donated the Baby Einstein DVDs to me instead of me buying it b/c I haven't even opened them. I feel like he will learn so much more abt life and people and society by observing (which he loves doing).

:D Thats it for now- g-d willing my next post will be about the adventures we have been on!!