Who Needs Paint Brushes?

 Peter's favorite thing to play with these past couple weeks has been the doll house.  He has a variety of dolls and action figures and little animal figurines that interact in the house and he can spend 30-45 minutes playing independently with them.  It's pretty phenomenal.  He and I spend a lot of time playing together with it too.  It's so fun to see how his play changes as he matures and I use it to teach all sorts of concepts from greeting people when we see them (as the dolls visit each other) to taking turns with a toy (as the dolls both want to read the same book at the same time) to simply the words "open" and "shut" as we open and close the windows of the house.  The dolls and animals do all the things he does - take naps, go for walks, play with toys, read books, eat snacks, visit friends, etc and so I think he finds it super relatable and engaging.  It's been wonderful for his language skills.  He said "ball" for the first time today as the dolls rolled a ball back and forth to one another and there are several others he's first said while playing with the doll house.  His language is still WAY behind where the books say it should be, but I see steady, consistent progress and it's been so fun to see his eyes light up when he gets a new word and starts using it on his own.  The doll's neighbor is Batman and the batcave is also always a favorite spot to visit with its trap doors and secret elevators.   I don't know who enjoys the doll house more - me or Peter - but today, especially, as it rained ALL day, it was a nice thing to have.

I also decided to try some textured painting with him today so we got some different paints and a bunch of cars that were in the bin next to the doll house.  Some with large, bumpy wheels; some with small, smooth wheels, etc.  Then we ran them through the paint and made fun designs on the paper.  He loved to see the designs appear but he kept getting upset that his hands were getting paint on them.  The longer handles of the brushes had kept that from happening, but the small cars were too close to the paint and his fingers were getting messy.  I kept trying to reassure him that it was fine and we'd clean when we were done, but in the end, that was the downfall of the activity for him.  However, the cute thing was, during his snack later, I watched as he shook out some milk from his sippy cup onto his tray and then took a monster truck and ran the truck back and forth through the milk and admired the tracks it left, just as we'd done with the paint.  I guess he did like the activity, despite the messy fingers.