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Magic Moment Monday #1 & Explaining Birthdays to Toddlers

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The day is here! We are pleased to announce the first ever Magic Moments Monday Blog Hop! If you missed the announcement, Lalymom, along with Play Learn Love, Pennies of Time, Kz and Me, House of Burke, and Simple Home Blessings will be launching a brand new blog hop – Magic Moments Monday! 
Here is my contribution!

So. This week is Ladybug's 3rd birthday! She has been veeeery interested in birthdays over the past month. Not greedily, for gifts, just asking a lot of questions. She has picked up on the language I use when speaking to other adults. They ask how old she is and I say, “She'll be three in June.” She has been asking us how old we will be in June. She knows she is two now and in June she will turn three. She has asked how old every family member is and how old they will be on their birthday. A lot.
I wanted to really connect with Ladybug on her birthday and talk to her more about what it means and why she will be three. We're approaching it in several ways:


Pregnancy: I know right where I am going to start with her….not a full-on “birds and the bees” discussion, but with something familiar to her. When I was pregnant with Little Big Man, I showed Ladybug this TOTALLY AWESOME site from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago that shows an animation of a mother's body as a baby grows inside. It shows how the organs shift and…when it's time, it shows, more or less, where the baby comes out. It was our favorite little thing to do when I was pregnant, she would ask for it over and over again. So we're going to watch that to start as a reminder of where babies come from. She knows that she was a baby in mommy's tummy but it isn't often linked to the idea of her birthday so I want to start there.
Time: We've been talking about calendars, although I am not sure she would understand if I explained a year to her, I'm going to try. We are keeping track of things we will do this week as well as what we have already done. From there I will show her weeks on the calendar and turn the pages to show her months. She knows the words but I want to spend more time this week talking about the ideas, just because she has been asking so much about them lately.
I am also crazy excited to start a perpetual calendar for both of my kids. Like. Crazy. I've been meaning to get it all printed up since I saw this one posted on pinterest. I will post a tutorial for the way I put ours together. I think this will be something special we can do every day and something they will be able to look back on when they are older.
Growing: I am also going to break out the Shutterfly photo books I've made for her. We looked at them when I was pregnant a little but I really want her to connect her birth with her growth, and with her birthday. We took monthly pictures when she was a baby that really demonstrate how quickly she grew and how much she changed.
We also mark the kids heights on the door jam in the kitchen. Ladybug is fascinated with this measurement, although she thinks it relates to age. “Mommy you are 5 years old” she says after pretending to measure my height. I want to bring the pictures of her at various ages and hold it up and say, when you looked like this you were this tall!
Love: One thing we focus on in the pictures of our children is spending time with loved ones. I really want to look through those pictures with Ladybug to show her all the people that love her. I want her to know that the reason we have birthday parties is not for cake and presents but so she knows how much she is loved!
Pretend Play: We have many ways to “play” that relate to birthdays. We have a doll baby that we use to play mommy, the Melissa and Doug Birthday cake set, a Minnie Mouse Bow-tique Birthday set and play dough that we usually use toothpicks with but I think we'll break out the candles this week! We also have animals in small and larger version who Ladybug likes to pretend are mommies, brothers and sisters…I think we can use those to talk about growing this week. The smallest animal will be the animal when it was a baby, then we will see how it has grown and the middle one will turn one and the biggest one will turn two.
Of course we will have treats, surprises, gifts, friends and family as well. But that is another post. This is my plan for my daughter to connect with her on a little bit of a different level for her birthday. She is a curious girl and I think she will really appreciate knowing more about birthdays. She is a blessing every day and all I want to do is feed her soul and return the favor of joy she gives me! This is a good start!
Your Turn:
I would love to hear more special ways you make birthdays special for your little ones, or maybe someone made your birthdays special growing up? Leave a comment and let me know!
Thank you for coming by! I hope you enjoy these ideas and that you share some of your own! Might as well pin a picture to remember! Please follow along over on our facebook and pinterest pages, we'd love to see you again!
It's a Blog Hop!
“Magic moments” with children are those moments that are touching, funny, insightful, and ones you want to remember forever! How do you really connect with your kids? What special moments will you tell them about when they are older? Share all month!
Share your “magic moments” with us to help inspire others to connect with children in meaningful and lasting ways. “Magic moments” happen through a play, a planned activity, a craft, reading a book together, or a conversation in the car on the way home from school. We invite you to open your eyes to the many Magic Moments throughout your week and return next Monday to share them here with us!
Your co-hosts will feature their favorite posts each month and will be pinning to the Magic Moments Mondays Pinterest Board! Please follow us to follow the Magic!
 
If you have a blog, link up below. If you don't, leave a comment below to share your Magic Moment! If you're on Twitter, share on there and tag #sharingmagic.
Magic Moments Monday Host Bloggers:

Lalymom
Lalymom

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2 Comments

  1. Happy Birthday! We just had Kz’s first birthday. We prepared him by singing Happy Birthday a few times in advance so he would recognize it at the party. When all of his family and friends belted it out, he beamed with a cute, shy smile. I will be pinning this for next year! xo Krissy

  2. How awesome that you turned her birthday not only into something fun but in to a learning experience also! When we were just in Chicago we went to the Museum of Science and Industry- love that place!
    Is there going to be a theme for every week? Is there is a list with the themes somewhere or how do we know what the next theme is.

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