stuff to do when there are 2

I thought i'd start a thread on 'things to do'. Our
household juggles a soon-to-be 1 year old and
soon-to-be 3 year old (AND he just started preschool
**sniff, sniff**).  So we have to manage our playtime
wisely and select age-appropriate activities.  Here
are just a couple things we love.

Puzzles: We love puzzles made by Ravensburger and
Melissa and Doug, if you are into puzzles, you'll
appreciate teh durability of these brands.  There is
another brand called Learning Horizons, and we have a
lot of their stuff: matching, sequencing, puzzles, and
more.  Ibraheem really enjoys doing all of these
learning activities.

Books: I started keeping all his books in a wicker
laundry basket so he can see the cover of the book,
since obviously he can't read hte spine of the book.
While Imraan is mostly consumed with board books
(SANDRA BOYNTON ROCKS), Ibraheem loves story books:
Franklin, Dora and other fun tales.  Another series we
just discovered is called Elmer, and we found 2 of
these books with Urdu translation, which helps him
learn word association and me to read urdu!

Pretend play:  We love play-doh and also have a play
food set (melissa and doug).  we love to imagine going
to the grocery store (we have a little stroller for
him) and he loves to pretend he owns a cafe and makes
food on demand for anyone passing by.  (wouldn't that
be grand!).  I also set up the indoor tent a lot which
is something they can do together!

Life with 2 is dynamic and challenging.  We have made
an effort to encourage Ibraheem to teach his younger
brother things like, throwing a ball, peekaboo, hide
and seek, and other things that can keep the 2 of them
busy for 15-20 minutes.  He's really good abotu
sharing and giving him food.  It was certainly
difficult at first, but we've learned that its best to
give the older sibling an important role to play with
the new baby.

For me, I've been keeping a blog (albeit, i'm
extremely behind), taking lots of video and photos and
that's always a fun activity later: watching old
times!




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