When My Baby Dreams...

Any moms out there who are artsy but don't have a ton of time on their hands? Or perhaps a parent who likes to think of new ways to create the traditional annual calendar for the grandparents each year? You might wish to check out what Adele Enersen did while on her maternity leave. She created scenes made of fabric and household objects, placed her baby in the scene, and then took pictures of her. Instead of making a calendar, she published a book titled, When My Baby Dreams...! I honestly have to say that I have not yet seen the book other than on Amazon (here is the link if you want to look at it) but Mamma plans on checking it out from Howard County Library very soon. However, my Aunt Darryl told Mamma about an article she read about (here's the link to the article from MSN) Ms. Enersen and there were a bunch of pictures from her book in the article. Then Mamma decided to give this new idea a try! Continue to scroll down for some pictures from her attempts. I really enjoyed having my picture taken (most of the time). Some of the scenes were ideas that Mamma got from Ms. Enersen's book, while others were of her own creation. The bee scene was my favorite. For some reason I really enjoyed wearing that little dress. I think it was because of the way the fabric felt on my skin. It made me smile! Mamma said that this was a very fun project to do on her maternity leave. However, if she could do it all again she would start taking pictures of me in these scenes a little sooner when I was sleeping a lot more (maybe at around 2-5 weeks). I ended up being awake for most of the pictures which made it hard to snap the perfect pose! All of these pictures were taken when I was between 7 and 9 weeks old. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed posing for them!

It's amazing what you can do with a tshirt, some old socks, a table cloth and blankets. My little dress was one that my Mamma wore when she was just a baby.

Hanging on the line!

May your days "bee" joyful! (My picture for May in the calendar :) What better way to "recycle" old maternity underwear!

This was an "E.T." recreation. I just loved feeling all of the animals piled around me and cried when Mamma took them away!

This is one of the pictures where I got tired of being photographed. You can see how the pictures were taken, and then had to be cropped. All of the photos were taken on the floor of my bedroom. Mamma stood on a step stool and used her iPhone 4S to snap the photos.

Nursery Rhymes with Finger Puppets

Tomorrow I will be 4 months old! For the last week or so I have been very interested in touching the face of whomever holds me, and I'm also pretty keen on grabbing other people's hands and studying them before trying to put them in my mouth. Though Mamma won't let me - she says it's not smart to put someone else's hands in your mouth. That is how germs get shared.

Anyway, onto the topic of books and toys! Granny and Grandpa read my blog and after reading my review of Little Bat, they promptly drove to the bookstore and bought me a few more finger puppet books to give to me this Christmas. Mamma and I read them together today. I must be getting to an even better age for these books now because I really liked to grab the finger puppets in the stories while Mamma was reading. Two of the books I'd like to talk about are Itsy Bitsy Spider and Hickory Dickory Dock. The little fuzzy finger puppets in the middle of the book are super soft! I also liked the rhyming in the stories. Mamma told me they are called nursery rhymes. When Mamma was finished reading Itsy Bitsy Spider, she sang me the song of the Itsy Bitsy Spider and did some gestures with her hands. Then we read the story again. Mamma said I will understand words better with repetition. I hope she is right! I really want to talk, but all I do is babble at the moment. I would definitely recommend these books for other babies my age. I find them to be fun and interactive rhyming stories. The company that publishes these little stories has their own website where parents can even download a guide for reading with their children. A nice added bonus! Check them out at http://www.parragon.com/littlelearners/us/index.html

Reading With Puppets...

Today Mamma tried something new to keep my attention - and it worked! She placed me on my back on a mat on the floor. Then she got out a book she received when she was a little girl from her grandmother at her her preschool graduation called, A Treasury of Bedtime Stories Illustrated by Hilda Offen. Mamma still has her original copy of the book with the inscription from her grandparents but also bought a second copy when she saw it at Waldenbooks ten years ago.

A Treasury of Bedtime Stories is loaded with a ton of fairly well known stories, but also includes a handful of others which aren't very well known such as, "Tim Rabbit and the Scissors." Mamma told me this was one of her favorites. Mamma sat down next to me with the book, and then to my surprise, she retrieved a really awesome handmade hand puppet that had frog like eyes and a big flappy tongue! She used the hand puppet to tell me the story of "Tim Rabbit and the Scissors!" I LOVED it!! I didn't know who I liked to look at more, the puppet when it's mouth began flapping along with the words of the story, or Mamma and her expressions as she told the tale of the rather curious rabbit who doesn't obey the wishes of his parents and gets into a bit of trouble with some scissors. I also couldn't help myself - I began talking too, so that I could be a part of the story telling. I wonder if I will be a story teller when I get older. I hope so. There were some challenging vocabulary words in the story (such as gossamer, sheaf, menagerie, and posset) but Mamma says it is good to be exposed to a variety of vocabulary as I am growing up - it will help me to become an intelligent individual.

I imagine that I will absolutely love these stories when I get older and will likely request them to be read to me again and again. One thing that may really appeal to parents about the book is that in the Table of Contents where it lists all of the stories the book contains, it also lists a time frame for how long it will likely take for you to read the story to your child. There are 30 stories in the book that range from Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant" (a 10 minute story) to the traditional Russian tale of "The Great Big Turnip" (a 3 minute story). One of the things Mamma remembered most about the book was the illustrations. While the pages alternate from black and white to color, the drawings were simple, yet captivating and memorable. Perhaps the reason "Tim Rabbit and the Scissors" is so memorable to her is not just because it was a great story, but also because she laughed every time she saw poor Tim Rabbit standing with the other rabbits and having to wear a coat made of his own fur.

This book is available used through Amazon if you are interested. Also, the puppet Mamma used to tell me the story is a unique puppet made by cate & levi. If you are interested in owning one of these one of a kind puppets, check them out here. We own the frog and the walrus and I adore them both (thanks, Beth for getting them for me)!