Today was better than yesterday concerning Joseph.
A HuGe
"Thank You!!!!"
to all of my froggers [blogger friends] for your support, ideas and prayers! I will be including some of the ideas here after I show you
THIS GUY:
Joseph sure had fun using scissors and a glue stick!
John Paul did a fine job cutting his strips of paper! And he carefully used the glue stick.
Here are the puzzles from yesterday. Today the boys and I cleaned them up! Joseph did it when I sat down with him.
I brought up a camping table that we had in the basement...pulled a couple chairs from the kitchen into our "dining room" [or our REALLY HUGE foyer :O) ] ...gave the boys some pieces of construction paper, a pair of scissors and a glue stick. I gave them a file folder ... I have no idea why I grabbed that, I just did! ... and they cut and glued their little hearts out! Joseph had fun with the scissors. He actually did really well! Sometimes he'd get a little psycho but all in all...it was good. He was happy. He was relatively quiet for Joseph.
Here are some ideas that I found from this site...thanks so much to Kimberlee!!
Mary Beth's I Spy Bottle: Into a 2-liter soda bottle, insert several small I-Spy type items (Barbie shoe, key, dime, marble, Cootie leg, Lego brick, paper clip, etc.) Make an I spy list, and tape it (folded shut) to the side of the bottle. Fill the bottle half to three-fourths full with bird seed. The kids have to turn the bottle to find the items.
Make some fish out of construction paper. Put paperclips on them. Make a fishing pole with a stick, string & magnet. It may keep him busy for awhile.
Let him "WASH" the windows. This one can keep a small, wild child busy for hours. Simply give him a squirt bottle with water and a dishtowel. This is not pretty for your windows, but this can buy a lot of time!
Let him "PAINT" the house. Bucket of water & paintbrush. He may decide to paint the cars & the sidewalks, too.
Make him a mailbox (tissue box works well). Put all that unwanted junk mail into his mailbox, for him to go through in the morning
Toothpick Punched Art: Layer a folded tea towel or face cloth, blank ½ sheet of black construction paper, ½ sheet of paper with simple "pattern" (heart, star, circle, square, etc.) drawn in heavy black marker (or print from computer). Layer so that towel is on table, pattern sheet is on top. Provide tooth pick and tell child to poke holes in the white pattern paper along the edges of the heart (circle, star, etc.). When done he'll like to hold his black punched piece up to the window to see the shape he made. I put lots of pattern pieces, lots of black construction pages and one face cloth in the activity bag along with 2 wooden clothes pins to hold the "sandwich" together while the child worked. He'd pick a different shape each time. We displayed the results by taping the black punched pages on the sliding glass door (sun shines through the holes).
Easy-to-use paper punch and strips of paper.
I liked the ideas at Sarah Faith's blog. Especially the following ones from Jen.
1. Make a mini-obstacle course. Over couch cushions, under dining room chairs, around the dining table then run between pillows, that sorta thing. Play music and time them - gets some physical energy out and gets that competitive spirit going (or gets really frustrating, so use your discretion!
2. Water is your friend. That and towels! I often gave baths in the middle of the day, didn't bother washing, just plopped them in a tub with some toys to give myself a break. Also, a chair pulled up to the sink (with towels on the floor and surrounding counters) filled about half full on one side with water and soap bubbles, then provide some measure cups and spoons - literally would keep them occupied for an hour or more!
3. If you get *really* desperate, fill one of those under-the-bed rubbermaid boxes with a bit of playsand. Put it in the middle of your kitchen floor (or wherever would make for an easy sweep-up) and give him some matchbox cars and toy earth movers 4. All my boys like to help with baking - must be that love of food they all have, lol! But, even if I don't feel like baking, I'd give them 1/2 cup of flour on the counter along with a small bowl of water. They'd make their own "dough" and make shapes and stuff - loads of fun for them, a fairly easy clean-up for me if I was careful and gave good instructions, lol (the flour MUST stay on the *counter*!)
5. Fort-building with pillows around the dining room table can be fun, too.
Another one that Sarah Faith added in her comments was the idea of putting a bit of water in the tub and letting him/them take a "bath".
All of these ideas are so great! As I find more, I'll share them.
After reading last nights post - my rant! - I realized I sounded pathetic. I didn't want to come across as not wanting to put forth any effort. I realize that I need to *be* there for the littles. I need to be there a lot more, actually. It was just a frustrating day and I needed to pick the brains of those in the same boat! A new perspective.
Having a Joseph is making me realize how much the little ones really do need me...just to be Mommy. And I've just started noticing [in the last week actually] how Joseph really wants to learn so badly. It's kind of breaking my heart that I've never taken the time to do things with him in that capacity. He's LOVING learning his letters. So even if I do something with him after dinner, in the tub, or snuggled up in bed reading...he'll be learning and glad that he's got me all to himself for a bit!
And below is a video of the two girls performing the lines which were recited during their performance on stage. These are just a few lines which they memorized - this is at the end of the play... It's not really clear with the audio esp. since it's taken with the digital camera, pretty cute regardless.
Dani's Brownie Cake or should I say Brownie Pile! It stuck to the bottom of the glass pan. That's probably my fault. Dani said that the directions said to flour the bottom of the pan, I told her to skip it...just butter the bottom. So...my fault. But they tasted AWESOME! 
I can't be by his side. I've got these 3 -4 other children to teach. How do I keep him occupied yet not getting bored and start destroying things in the blink of an eye? John Paul and he can only play together for so long. I don't want them sitting in front of a video watching whatever all the time either. Though it's easy to do that, I can't do that everyday. Some days I have no problem with doing that. And that's fine. But this can't be something on a daily basis where they can just veg.