Indoor Energy Buster - Sleeping Bunnies

After a wonderful, albeit green, Christmas, winter is upon us!  At last!  For the last couple of days we've been having such a great time playing in the snow, and enjoying the winter scenery.  Of course the parts like cars getting stuck in the street and needing to shovel our way out were not aspects of winter that we missed, but they seem a small price to pay for the little kid's joy at finally having snow!

Backing up a little, we had a fantastic family Christmas.  We spent it quietly at home, enjoying each other.  Mini Muffin was very excited for Santa's visit, and enjoyed reading each book, or playing with each toy as they were opened.  She also seemed to get as much joy out of delivering presents to others to open, as she did opening presents for herself.  Grandma (my mom) was up for the week, so we continued to enjoy her company (and appreciate her help!) through Christmas itself.  We had a wonderful family dinner, during which Little Smiling Man discovered a love for orange glazed carrots, turkey and stuffing! 

Our Christmas day ended rather strangely; with our first ever trip to the emergency room for either of our children.  Little Smiling Man had developed a rash on his trunk two days prior.  On Christmas Eve is was worse, and looked kind of like a viral rash.  Christmas Eve was spent holding little man (all night) as he came in and out of sleep and seemed to writhe with discomfort.  On Christmas Day it was a bit worse again, so we creamed him up and went with it.  He was pretty happy and crawling everywhere during the day.  When I took his onesie off Christmas night before bed, he completely freaked out.  His skin was raised, raw and angry.  It was very difficult to comfort him, so we decided to get him checked out.  We must have timed our visit perfectly, as we were in and out within an hour!  We learnt that his rash was actually hives.  Ouch!  There are no antihistamines for babies, so we were told to keep it moisturised, and keep giving Advil for pain.  Poor monkey.  Today, a week after it started, it's pretty much healed and is now itchy because it's peeling.  As for causes, infant hives can be caused by a drug or food allergy, or be a reaction to a virus.  Based on duration, we're guessing it was viral, though it could possibly be related to his flu shot.  I guess we'll know for sure when he gets his second flu shot dose in a month.  In the end, it all worked out fine, and it was very comforting to know that we had been doing all the right things for our poor Little Smiling Man.

And, now that we're through all of that, and are enjoying true winter weather, I thought I'd share another one of our favourite indoor energy busters - Sleeping Bunnies!  It's a very simple song (the tune can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHcFQ9gaMF4), and is one of Mini Muffin's favourite indoor ways to get moving.

Sleeping Bunnies

(child lays on the floor pretending to sleep)

See the sleeping bunnies,
Sleeping until noon.
Come let us wake them with a merry tune.
Oh how still,
Are they ill?

(wait and build expectation in the child)

Wake up sleeping bunnies!

(child jumps up)

Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop!
Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop!
Hop little bunnies, hop, and stop!

Mini Muffin loves jumping all over the place as she pretends to be a little bunny.  We also change it up as many times as our imaginations will let us.  There are sleeping dinosaurs that stomp around, sleeping kangaroos that jump, and even sleeping airplanes that fly.  We also had sleeping foxes (after much discussion we decided that our foxes would hop), roaring lions, stomping bears, and crawling puppies.  It's a very fun way to get moving, bust some energy, and enjoy song time together.  Even Little Smiling Man gets in on the action as I bounce him like a little bunny in my arms! I think Sleeping Bunnies will be a favourite in our home for some time to come.

Indoor Energy Buster - Balloons!

We are having an unseasonably mild winter so far.  We've had small amounts of snow on the ground twice so far this winter, but here we are on December 16 with not a snowflake to be seen... aside from the paper ones decorating our windows!  With these warm temperatures, everything has been falling as rain.  Lots and lots of heavy rain.  I can only imagine how much snow we'd have on the ground if it had been just a few degrees cooler!

With heavy rain outside, we've been spending more time inside than usual.  And, as we all know toddlers have a lot of energy which needs to be burned off - either outside or in.  Yesterday, we pulled out a tried and true classic to help us burn off our cabin fever.  Balloons!  Mini Muffin actually received it in her advent calendar, and the timing couldn't have been better!

It never ceases to amaze me how much entertainment a balloon can bring.  It was fantastic!  There were lots of smiles, laughter, red cheeks, and huffing and puffing from all the exertion. 











Mama helped make it a bit more challenging - bumping the balloon to the other end of the room, around a corner, or way up high.  Mini Muffin had fun playing "catch" with me, and crawling into corners and behind furniture to retrieve it.  And, of course since it's so light, it's harmless for things on shelves, so there was no mess (aside from the usual chaos around the house)!

Mini Muffin bounced, threw, kicked and chased this balloon for well over half an hour.  She was in constant motion.  I tried to catch the fun in a picture, but with all the motion every single one is blurry.  With hindsight, I suppose that these blurry pictures actually captured the moment perfectly.