Dollar Store finds, art, and taking Daddy gateaux and bisous

I had this $10 gift card for the Dollar Tree rattling around in my wallet since Christmas, so yesterday I decided Chou-chou and I would see just what fun we could conjure up at the land of "everything's a dollar!" Chou-chou was so excited to be at eye-level with all sorts of cheap figurines and bags of Easter candy (I didn't make him get in the cart til the end of our trip) that he starting doing his signature "spot turns" to the 80s soft rock playing in the store. It was darn cute! And as most moms would do, I let Chou-chou choose most of my ten things (and the others were food items). In no particular order, we scored: a broom (Chou-chou hardly lets me sweep bc he wants to use it, so this one is for him), a felt art color-in poster, fuzzy balls/pom poms, Disney Easter egg dye, Onion powder, Soft pretzels, Italian Ice, Gift wrap tissue paper, spaghetti & rice. Chou-chou had a great time at the Dollar Tree and had a hard time choosing what to get and what to part with (or rather what I had to pry from his paws, that is). By the end of our aisle walking, he was starting to exhibit some unpleasant toddler behavior, so we quickly paid and left. Great times, even if I won't be buying Chou-chou any cheap made-in-China figurines... scary! Sidenote: Jarod and I used to love to go on "dates" to Big Lots in Fort Collins... we'd laugh at all the random cheap crap and come away with a smorgasbord of expired toiletries, last season's processed snack food, and Mexican pop. We were thinking last night that we should go to the dollar store now and each get $5 to spend. The cheap entertainment value is great, although Big Lots will always top my list!

Chou-chou is starting to get into coloring and arts & crafts stuff (hence the felt art poster), which is so much fun and also a huge mess. He wants to color with his crayolas most days, so I strip him down and have him sit on the kitchen floor unless he's wearing grubbies and we have nowhere else to go that day. Some marker ends up on the paper, and lots ends up other places! Since it's all washable, I have no problem with this. He enjoys finger paints, too, but mainly just the texture and mixing the colors to make mud at this point. It takes half a bottle of paint each time he "paints", since as soon as he's mixed one color into another he wants more. I did insist that he paint in his high chair, but now that we've packed that away and replaced it with a booster I'm not sure where we'll paint. Playdough is also huge with Chou-chou right now! His favorite thing to do with it is give it to mom or dad to mold into something edible and then pretend to eat it. He's starting to figure out pretend play, and it's SO cute! He sat in Jarod's lap for a record ten minutes or something last night, just pretending to eat the playdough creations they made together. For a boy who sits still only for books, and rarely longer than ten minutes at a time, this is big.

As mentioned in my previous post, Chou-chou enjoys baking (and eating baked goods). This morning he sat on the counter and helped me make some fancy orange raisin muffins to share with cousins Tucker and Addie, and to take to Daddy at work. He helped me pour various powders into the bowl and tried to mix things up. Baking definitely takes longer this way, but it's fun to do together. After the gateaux were all done, Chou-chou worked hard coloring a card for Daddy, and then we took our treats to Jarod's work. Jarod's been working SO hard lately and we want him to know how much we appreciate all that he does for our life together, so we thought we'd surprise him. He rarely gets to take a lunch break, so seeing Chou-chou's face (and maybe mine too:)) brightens his day a little. Chou-chou marched up to where Jarod used to sit, card in hand, calling out "Dada". They recently switched cubes, though, so he was a little confused:). We attracted quite a few female colleagues en route to Jarod's desk, lots of "oooosss", and then a big hug and bisous from Daddy.



P.S I should mention, before I forget, that Chou-chou has been very into nodding and shaking his head recently. If you ask him a yes or no question, he thinks about it for a minute and then responds with a nod "mm mm"/"da da" or a shake "mmmm". It's adorable, and it really shows how Chou-chou is learning to express his desires and opinions.