Play Date Moms Lahore.... yes?? no??

child led play -early morning bonfire with parlor parlor 

This is in response to my best friend’s post on her page in which she tagged me. it was about a group on Facebook“ play date moms Lahore” and my friend asked me to comment as she had some idea as to what I think of play dates in general . As we all usually do I started typing my immediate response in the comment section, editing it a couple of times coz I didn’t want to be harsh or personal to anyone. And in a minute or two I was done with the replay here it is

 “for these bachas I am happy at least they get to meet each other , its better than kitty parties anyway  where waili ladies meet strangers in search of future rishtas for their kids  ( as one such lady explained to me recently –uff her explanation!!! )  -- While they leave the bachas with maids and male servants---( to do with them as they please )

and pressed enter but Baaanggg!!! My Internet was not working anymore so I had to retry and it was still stuck so as annoyed as I was I just turned the flap down .

But the comment and the post were still there hanging in my head I wasn’t really satisfied with my answer. It is one topic I can go on and on about coz things are not as simple or as straight forward as they may seem on FB. A coin may have two sides our parenting issues have a million. I thought about kids my children age and the routines they usually have and I thought about their mothers, I thought about our changing society and its complications, the education systems and the limited opportunities our kids get in terms of structured as well as unstructured play time.

And by the time I also thought that may be me and some of my friends are being judgmental here. I am not so happy about the Idea of play dates in the first place because the Initial encounter with some Pakistani play date moms was of a bunch of affluent  ladies  who took a foreign Idea and to make it exotic, giving it local themes like “ guddi guddai ki shadi” “ paindo” “pranda party” And such. Now if someone selected these as their kids birthday themes instead of Rapunzel and Frozen ( cause they wanted kids to have a flavor of their culture) I would never have questioned BUT play dates?? Well why not if they get to learn how to make parands  and made some…. but  seriously is it a play date where moms or one hosting mom decides the theme gets the arrangements done by designers with a proper ( read expensive) mehndi decor, professional singers/entertainers, Party Favours, dance floor, HSY and Maria B joras  especially bought for the occasion, in short an occasion worth being photograph by Irfan Ahson himself…. My point is that what do kids have to do in all this? And what will they get out of it? Not to mention the pressure it puts on other moms to beat the previous one in terms of extravagance

I for one always thought that play date is simply an opportunity for kids to get together whether the rest of the activities are planned or not. It is something that is primarily for the kids and not for moms to be used as an opportunity to be the talk of the town.

 When I say that “please I am not interested in a play date”  it’s because…

1.       First and most important is the one I mentioned above it’s a big NO NO for me

2.       If not the above then It seems I am usually the one who is “supposed” to host with almost no help from other moms coz apparently I enjoy the life and kids more and they are all so tiered with God knows what pressures and need a break.

3.       It’s very easy to explain the idea of a play date but it’s tough to get the message through. The host is supposed to entertain the adults more than kids (dads also needs break and would love biryani and korma… app kai hath ka :P) if not then majority won’t show up/ send their kids

4.       It only give kids limited opportunity in terms of socializing like we are in a way dictating as to whom they can play and whom they cannot… like if the “guests” have a  chota lerka/larki as “help” they are supposed to sit in the corner and I will give him food their not with the rest of kids and won’t include him in the activities oh! The benefits of play date are just for kids of certain classes not servants…. Or poor neighbors you see.

Now being that said let me come back to the original issue “what do I have to say about the play dates mom Lahore”

1.       Nothing negative as I yet do not know who they are and what is their take on a play date

2.       I would love to join and know

3.       I assume they know what a play date is ( like not an entertainment session for biryani devouring daddies)

4.       I actually admire them, even if they are the designer type( they might have taken it to a whole different -for me wrong- level) at least they or many of them I assume are conscious moms who want to actively contribute to their children’s lives , who know that their kids are missing on actual play due to limited outdoor activities or too much of electronic gadgets in their lives

5.       If many of us ( moms and dads  who think like me – I am sure there are plenty out there) join the circles then may be just maybe we could restore the sanity to it

So what do you say my friends don’t give in too early or too easily these kids – all of them , not just our own- are going to make our society/ nation tomorrow. Don’t just sit there in the couch and sulk get up take charge and contribute J

Meanwhile in the life of the little one......

Fun with Tangram

I always love to go back and re-read old favorites cause there is always something new to learn. This time I stumbled upon "Tangram" in a book that I had read a million times already (needless to say missing it till now). Looking at the images brought back memories of the time when we were little and got it as a gift (don't think I was really interested then...LoLs). Only now that I am a mom I get to see the hidden wisdom in it. Plus 6 years of motherhood has taught me that anything introduced properly, positively and at the right time gets it due attention. Developing an interest comes with Motivation. Hence I decided to give it a try

So what is a Tangram?  It is an ancient Chinese puzzle, A square cut into 7 pieces with 3 basic geometric shapes. There are two large, one medium and two small triangles, one square and one parallelogram. only the parallelogram can be used in two different directions, by flipping over. These can be rearranged to form an end less number of shapes all with the same covered area as the original square.

Initially 2 or more pieces can be used to make other shapes, like the two big triangles can be joined together to make a square as well as a parallelogram! Though the basic rule is to use all seven pieces without overlapping to get hundreds of images in silhouettes.

 Here are the first few attempts by M

 
Make a Tangram in 6 easy steps:

1.Draw a 10x10 inch square on a mount board ( a heavy chart paper can also be used).
2.Mark the centers lightly ( red lines).
3.Draw a diagonal BD.
4.Draw another small diagonal line starting from the center of BC till the center of CD
5.Starting from point A draw a  line towards point C till it touches the small diagonal. from this point make a horizontal line till it touches BD
6.Now starting at the mid of BC draw the last small diagonal line towards the middle of AB, till the point where it cuts diagonal BD.

I have painted mine in a single color to avoid distraction but the pieces can be colored any way you like.
To rearrange the puzzle back into the square was a tough enough job for me and after a few tries I started reflecting back on the method and sequence of cutting. So to encourage her and keep her motivated I drew an extra one on a white sheet of paper.and she got the hang of it in no time. Remember the trust that "I can do it" is the best motivation ;)

Objectives
Critical and Analytical Thinking
Creativity
Independent work
New words to learn: Tangram, parallelogram,silhouette

LINKING UP WITH:

Flower Crown for Garden Princess

Now that she is in some princess mode lately, M and all of us had a blast making and playing with her flower crown. Its a simple thing that brought a lot of smiles and is sure a good diversion from her "computer game obsession" that she got like a virus from her recent trip to Hyderabad.
Any way to make this fab crown all we needed was a plain stripe of paper mine was about 4 " wide. Then M and my brother chose leaves and flowers from my fathers ever growing bougainvillea that I simply stapled to the sheet.In the end measuring it around her head I put a few more staples to make the circle of the crown and.....TaaaDaa!! a pretty crown for my garden princess
It was on her head even after hours ;)

Our New Friends

are supper cool to play and supper fun to make!!! by far these are the quickest craft that i did to this day. As I hardly get enough time to spend with M now a days I am looking for crafts /activities that can be made during 1 hour break at lunch time. So this also is the first "Take Home "gift for her and I don't know if any of you can relate to it but I was.... well... a bit nervous about her response. What if she doest like them as much as I do? so I introduced the mommy bunny first and received a pretty mild response

:( heart broken I showed her the rest

AND

she was screaming with JOY,

filling all the fingers

giving them names

singing

talking to them

asking for more

WoW am I glad!!!!

To Make

To make these supper cool supper cute puppets click here and visit Disney family fun

I don't have a printer attached to my PC so I copied the pic to get my mommy and baby sets I printed in 2 sizes, one regular and one on half scale, then I glued an extra sheet on back to strengthen them, cut them around the edges.And finally to secure them a bit laminated them with 1 inch wide clear tape.on both sides cut extra bits join the extra flap on back and DONE!!

Story Blocks

This post is for those who are making or thinking of making cute ,easy, and quick gifts for their Lil ones. I made these as part of M's Eid Gift This will help kids with their creative thinking as well as develop turn taking and sharing ability. The original idea came from a very cute blog I visited quite a while ago (don't remember the name but they were hand painted and far cuter) But after much dragging the project I finally decided to do it my way :)
For these I got

• wooden blocks from a thrift store
• a cute book ( in some foreign language... that sure made it easy to cut )

Then sand the blocks smooth,cut images to fit the side and glue and you are good to play or gift wrap them

To play !!

You need two or more participants. The first one rolls the block and starts a story with the picture that comes on top, then the next one rolls it again and adds a sentence or two using the picture that comes on top. and so on.

Baba, and I had to play the game in front of M for the first few times to give her the Idea. Next she started rolled the dice for me and baba. And eventually after a few games she was totally into it. Now she makes stories better than ours :) I feel writing them down sometimes

Why I love this game !!!
Because each time you come up with a different story and the creativity of the simple block never ends
Variation
Try rolling two blocks together and try to come up with a sentence that has both the things in it.

Block Puzzles

Here is one of M's Eid Gift that without a doubt is her favorite

The block puzzles to make pictures of her grand parents and phopho

and to entertain us with the mixed up creations

To make block puzzles

1. I made 4 cuboids by gluing together 3 pieces of cube blocks.

I believe in introducing new concepts and activities step by step so wanted to avoid the CUBE puzzle. It would have been really confusing for a 2.8 to put together a picture cut into 12 small pieces, glued to 12 different cubes on all different sides. The first time around that is a sure road to failure resulting in early disappointments. These early disappointments in ones ability can result into low self esteem. Which I am sure any parent would want to avoid. so the formula is to add on step by step.

Any way back to the tutorial, you can also use wooden blocks if available or if you can get them cut on order.

2. Then I measured the size of the blocks all put together and the size of one block that gave me guidelines to adjust my pictures on photoshop.

3. Then I chose 4 pictures. As you can see these are family pics I would suggest something that your child is familiar or close to that will help increase the attention span.

4. Then I used photoshop to adjust my pictures so they kind of fit together when overlapped

5. Print them

6. Cut and glue on them on the blocks

7. I used contact/sticker sheet to protect the final blocks just measure all around a block that will give you the required length and for width simply measure the broad side of a block. Remove the back sheet slowly as you work your way up the sides. it will take some practise and patience.

DONE.

Matching Sounds Bottles

Yesterday unexpectedly I found "the empty bottles" they are just the right size (that I was searching and searching for ages to make the Matching Fragrances Game) There were thousands of them bundled in this shop near the one we go every day for grocery and Yup never new they were there...... got them for 3Rs. each. But once they were nicely sitting on my kitchen counter that I realized, I don't have enough essences! So Instead I made a Matching Sound Activity.Traditionally these are called matching cylinders here you can check out how to introduce them. I made mine my way :)

To make these I used 8 bottles to make 4 pairs, simply wrapped the bottles, I used a wrapping sheet that had a striped pattern, to wrap up the bottles and screw top lids. For half of the bottles I used 3 toned patches and for the other half plain blue to complement them, then I used the regular punch to punch some matching circles to be glued on top to further dress them up. Finally poured 4 different types of grains ( make sure that they all vary in size and quantity) to make one pair of each. Now for every 3 toned we have a matching sound in the plain one. You can put in different things , like rice, small bells, wooden beads etc to make more distinct sounds!

Although I have seen a few similar activities with colored markings on bottom as a control of error I didn't put them under mine as the sound bottles have a fantastic built-in control of error

I love this super di duper game and so Does M, as she listened to them so enthusiastically, shaking them alternatively, making music. She is not interested in making matches yet.To me that is perfectly fine she is never interested in it (never puts things in pairs right or wrong) and I hope that will come eventually.
the best thing is that she is still working with them and making lots of music :)

Stringing Beads

Finally i found a solution to create a Lacing /Stringing beads. I couldn't find them here in local toy stores and cant order from amazon. I saw this cool salt dough bead necklace at slugs on the refrigerator through crafty crow today and instantly I was like OK that's my solution . they are big, chunky,fun and easy to make. M definitely helped me made these big beads though hers were just flat chapatis :) the recipe is here.I painted them individually with acrylic paints.Now that the beads are done my next problem was to find a lacing needle and the solution!!! yes my simple hair pin with a spool and one bead tied at one end!
It was fun and I was amazed how quickly M got the hang of it...only a few tries and NO MOMMY in the room did the trick ;)

Matching Cards !!!

Wow!! finally i manage to create the matching card activity for M. It was on my agenda for quite some time now. They were supper easy to make I just got two identical wall charts and cut them up into cards and that gave me 15 pairs
You can pick up any theme, I choose "safety measures" firstly because it gave the best opportunity to introduce safety measures (we all die to inject into our lil ones :)) in a very friendly manner. Secondly all the other themes like; shapes, animals, Alphabets etc we already incorporate and stress on in almost all toddler activities that the the theme seemed quite novel to me. then it had cute illustrations that will definitely add her vocabularyThe only problem that I have is that some of the illustrations don't show what they are saying like the one that says "do not play with detergents and medicine" shows the kid that seems very happy playing with the stuff he is not supposed to. Or the one with caption "do not climb trees"First I loved climbing trees as a kid and would never want to stop M from doing so ( of course i would want her to be careful) Secondly it shows a very nasty kid poking a nest which is a different issue all together. so I might skip these.I am planning to introduce these in batches of 4 to 5 sets at a time and our first session will hopefully start this sunday. lets see what happens when we do so. fingers crossed ;)

M's Basket Ball

Irfan introduced this "basket ball" game to M a few days ago and she is so much into it that this laundry basket is now M's favorite toy :)

well we didn't actually "made" anything its just giving a new meaning to the same old stuff at hand..... the game is multi layered, we take turns , or else M plays alone we can set a spot to through the ball from a distance or she can just pop the ball in at the count of 3.... its what i call creative hehe... its Fun and its Free!!

Toddler Theme Thursday

Although i know we are late for this post but here is the account of our very first toddler theme Thursday with "black and white animals" never the less.
We overlooked the animal part for most of the time. Despite the fact that she is a great painter M doesn't know the names of the colors except for ED * red* and i think this week's theme is a great way to introduce the names of the two colors, " white" and "black" .
To start with I kept pointing out at things that are in either black or white from time to time and this eventually turned into an i spy kind of a game with asking which color is which"

Then came the part that M liked best "Drawing " yes with black and white or rather white ON black. For this I used a black textured chart paper and white chalk the only thing that M didn't like was the chalk being broken again and again our "black an white" master piece

The third activity was more of my satisfaction than hers :) we did lacing for that .... YES Finally we made a lacing penguin!!! I was waiting for an opportunity to introduce lacing/sewing to her and it was fun. The procedure is simple I drew a penguin,round pot bellied work for me (you can get thousand templates on line if you want!!!) according to that drawing I marked and cut one large and one small black circle, one medium size white circle, two wings in black and two white circles for eyes one triangle for beak and two feet in yellow.Then came gluing n pasting and for the first time M was introduced to glue (mommy's pride she didn't try to eat IT!!!) i glued them all on a mount board the outline of penguin is then cut into mount board and finally the wholes were punched all around the outer edge. The white shoe lace completed it off... simple ! As we were doing lacing/sewing for the first time M couldn't follow the sequence and it was taking her ages to pass the lace from single whole :) so a lot of praising goes with it and she didn't bother to complete the circle either..... but that's Fine I guess!!