A whiny Monday win. I realized my kid was bouncing between sensory seeking and melting down over nothing. Daddy applied blankets and stories to the problem and everyone was happier!
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The swaddle makes a comeback! She looks very calm and cozy.
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Today I rebranded lasagna as a ānoodle cakeā and it was a huge hit. Iām a marketing genius.
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This woman has some really fun toddler tips and ideas. I love her style. She has a whole series on all of the uses for painters tape with toddlers 
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I didnāt want to, but I got up early, got ready and dragged the children to the playground. When they got hot, I upgraded them to bathing suits and steered them to the splash pad. Fed them a huge lunch and now I receive my rewardā¦they are exhausted and deeply asleep. 
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I got a bunch of fidget toys a while back. Theyāre mostly plastic crap of course and some either annoy me (why must they make loud noises?) or donāt interest Kiddo at all, but some are good. The stand out winner is a maze cube. Itās one of those tiny plastic things with a teensy metal ball inside rolling around, but itās a full cube. It gets me glorious silence when weāre in the car.
Today Kiddo wanted to make a cake, heās been talking about it since yesterday morning. I let him mix some ingredients with limitations, but he knows that flour, sugar, milk, water, and melted butter go into cakes (I also added some baking powder). He added chocolate chips at the end. He also somehow learned about having liquids and nonliquids which I probably passed on to him after learning it from Alton Brown. I have no idea if his result will be edible but thereās a shitton of sugar in it so maybe. (I made a mug cake for me so I have something to show for our collective efforts in the kitchen. Thank you to whoever thought of mug cakes and the bajillion mug cake recipes online.) Oh and yesterday we did banana pops with yogurt and Fruity Pebbles cereal, that was a much easier kitchen activity that I recommend.
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Meowlet loves symbols and signs and all things related to hazards and danger. Heās been really interested in chemicals as a concept lately and also loves lots of mixing and sensory play. So, I thought: why not the periodic table?
I printed this table and MrM suggested we laminate it, so he did that. When we picked up Meowlet we listened to the periodic table song in the car while pointing to the different elements. He listened to it 3 times. And then again when we got home on YouTube. And then he wanted YouTube videos about the periodic table without songs, so he did that while I cooked. And then he asked to bring the periodic table with him to school.
Just got a picture from his teacher of him and a friend taking a tour of the bigger kids school to see the big periodic table on the wall. In the picture, Meowlet is pointing to the element Stronium and holding up his periodic table for his friend to see.
This felt like a big win for leaning into our kids interests. Hoping to use this interest to continue to build on letter recognition (he can currently āreadā by memory many traffic and regulatory signs) and also math, specifically quantity, with protons and atomic structure.
WE WILL SEE HOW IT GOES.
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You can tell Meowlet that the element Strontium was discovered in a beautiful little village in Scotland called Strontian. The name is gaelic and means point of the fairy hill.
As you can guess, I fully understand Meowletās love of gathering information!
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I love this and also the fact that I shuld have fact checked the element. Can you tell that we are not equipped to nurture a STEM loving child? HAHA doing our best TM.
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I have an app game recommendation for you and it is called Atomas.
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Kiddo has been wanting to help with cooking and coming up with one meal idea per week. This week was pork circles. I interpreted that as sliced pork tenderloin, which I happened to have an extra of in the freezer thanks to a recent B1G1 sale. Kiddo wanted to make a sauce and grabbed some random spices from the cabinet - garlic, cumin, curry, oregano, and cloves. I helped moderate what he shook into a bowl so it was mostly curry and garlic and cumin and then when he asked what liquid to add to make it a sauce I suggested ketchup so the end result was curry ketchup instead of some inedible abomination like heās made before when given free rein.
He did say later that he meant pork spheres so I expect pork meatballs will be in our future next week.
He devoured the pork first (I also made leftover mashed potatoes and broccoli from the freezer as sides) so Iām happy.
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Way to guide/support experimentation!
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I always love hearing about his culinary explorations!!!
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Sometimes it works, sometimes it really really doesnāt. 
Both the experiment and me guiding.
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Since weāve been having food discussions in a couple places, I thought Iād share this easy recipe for roasted cauliflower that my toddler devours. Itās not something I would expect her to like but itās been a consistent winner.
1 bag of cauliflower florets (12-16 oz)
Coat with:
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground tumeric
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Roast at 425 for 10 minutes, the. Turn up to 475 and roast another 15 minutes.
We usually make wraps with chickpeas ,cucumber, yogurt, and red onion or cilantro if we have it in the house but Pipsqueak will eat 1/2 of the cauliflower on a plate without blinking.
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Wellllllll well well call me a toddler! This sounds great!
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Agreed. I am also a toddler. Nom nom nom.
Is this frozen or fresh?
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Fresh!
It really is a great recipe, the two different temps get the cauliflower so soft but also a bit crispy.
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I did a hard thing: called our local Early Intervention office to refer Ravioli for not pulling to stand or independently going from laying down to sitting yet. We should hear back from a coordinator in a month. By which point I hope he doesnāt need any services lol but at least the ball is rolling!
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