One of my fondest memories of Christmas was the time I would spend doing crafts. Even as a teenager, I would set out a table for December to make ornaments, cards and more. When I was older, I would make my own Christmas cards and wrapping paper. Of course, that was pre-baby. Now, I’m trying to pass on my love of crafts to Aiden.
Although he doesn’t have a huge amount of patience for crafts, if I keep things simple, to no more than 30 minutes (or 5 if it’s just colouring), he will happily try new things. He prefers crafts that involve glue or scissors, but sometimes just playing to his interests is enough to make him interested.
Aiden really loves Frosty the Snowman, for example, and that was the one colouring sheet he really got into working on. I printed off a bunch I found online, but this one was his best. Without being told to, he tried to colour within the lines and chose different colours for different areas of the snowman. The glitter on the scarf was also his idea.
So neat to see his creativity expand!
Although he’s been a little young for some of our other crafts, we have also made some reindeer faces, a gingerbread house, some ornaments (paper or wood to colour) and a foam snowman using stickers. One more age-appropriate craft we did was to ‘decorate’ a Christmas tree using Christmas-themed stickers. Lots of fun!
If you ask Aiden to draw a picture of something, they all kind of look alike. But he loves to do it. Here is a picture of everyone out celebrating my birthday last night:
Aside from the yellow circle-ish shape that Aiden told me was a banana, this is his first ‘picture’.
After practicing his line drawing, he did some swirls and told me he drew a tree. He then said “boo tree”, his word for “other tree”, and drew a second one. He pronounced “two trees” when he was done.
Not bad!
Aiden and I talk a lot during the day about what we’re doing or what we’ve done. We tell each other stories. It’s something we’ve done for a long time, even before he could respond.
When we leave somewhere, I’ll recap for Aiden what we just did and ask him questions about it. Before he could talk, he would still be able to make noises to tell me he appreciated the things I was talking about. As his vocabulary has expanded, he takes a greater part in this conversation and I prompt him to tell me what he did.
When Daddy comes home, he asks Aiden how his day has gone. Before bed, I make up an “There once was a boy named Aiden…” story all about his day in fantastical terms, as a way to keep him distracted during teeth brushing. Storytelling is a big part of our day.
Since Aiden and I have such a vast shared history, if he tries to tell me about something that he did on another day, I usually understand what he means and can help him elaborate his memory. He remembers things from many months back, which I find astonishing.
Looking at photos can really jog memories for Aiden, or even storybooks. I shared one such memory about the Ferry book, and memories like that tend to pop up unexpectedly. When Aiden told me “Moja, cat” one day, I knew he was telling me that he remembered the day a cat tried to come into Moja, even though it was some weeks past.
Isn’t the memory of a child an astonishing thing?
Yesterday we went as a family to the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire, an exhibition all about DIY, be it in the form of arts & crafts or robotics. Though we didn’t have a chance to see any live music or speakers due to the shortness of our visit (about an hour was all Aiden could tolerate before his nap!), we had a chance to tour most of the exhibits. Aiden was fascinated by the robots – a little mini Ianiv in the making!
Aside from watching the robots, there were a couple of family-oriented activities including some interactive displays and some windmill crafts put on by Bright Red Crayon. There were a lot of 3D printers on hand, only fuelling Ianiv’s desire to get one himself. If you didn’t have a chance to make it down to the Faire, check out some of the exhibitors (aka the Makers) here.
Check out all our photos from the day here.
