Stress ball balloons

I came across stress ball balloons when I was reading Positive Parenting. The author suggested a few alternatives to spanking and stress ball is one of the tools at her calm down area (go ahead and read the article by clicking the link, it's refreshing to read about non-punitive discipline). The stress ball balloons help kids to identify their emotions. They are also good to let off some steam. Let them squeeze the balloons. Or they can tear up paper, roar like a lion, clap their hands loudly. Anger and frustration are normal human emotions, and it is no exception for children. They should know that it is ok to be frustrated, angry or etc but they should know what to do with those emotions. Hurting another person when they are angry is never ok for instance.

I made my stress ball balloons from here. These are balloons stuffed with play dough, with faces drawn with permanent marker pen.

 

I filled the balloons with the play dough I made with my son. It could be quite tricky to do it alone. The author rolled the dough into sausages and let it stand, then lower the balloon into the play dough sausages. The way I did was to stretch the opening as wide as possible with my thumb and pointing finger on my left hand, while I insert the play dough sausages into the balloons with my right. 

Squeeze away the dough at the balloon neck. Push out the air pocket and tie the balloons. Give the balloons a good rinse if they are covered with dough. There you have your gentle parenting tool!

(My son loves the stress ball balloons even though he was quite hesitant to touch them in the beginning. Balloons with faces? Creepy lol! We identify different emotions with the balloons and tell many silly stories with them. He squeezes them. He moulds them into different shapes. He even uses them as main casts in his imaginative play. Cheap and simple, but oh so versatile!)  

You might also like:

5 Healthy Responses to Children's Emotions

Play dough

My 3-year-old son, Z, is a little chef. He likes to help me bake. He also often pretends to cook and serve us various exotic food and drinks eg lion cake, strawberry and monkey milk shake lol. To encourage more imaginative play, I made some dough for him.

There are many recipes online. The one that I used can be found here. (This is the correct link, I made the dough for stress ball balloons and decided to set aside some for Z to play with.)

The casts are:

Add boiling, hot water into the mixture.

Uh oh, this is not good.

I added 1.5 cups of hot water into the mixture and the dough became too wet. So don't be like me, be sure that you add the water as you go.

 

I added flour until it did not stick to the bowl. Keep adding flour and kneading, and you should get something like the dough Z played with.

To be very honest, what I visualized didn't come true.

I imagined that he would play with the dough - make cookies, pizzas, meat loaf etc. I even prepared different moulds, plastic knife, spoon and measurement tools for him. The reality was, he looked at the dough and then his eager Mommy, and back to the dough again before gingerly touching it with his finger tips. I could almost hear him say "yuck" under his breath.

The dough was only played thrice. All three times initiated and prompted by his Daddy and Mommy. Heh.

Fret not, Mommy has more tricks in her sleeves! More activities coming soon!

Maple syrup and pear muffins

 

Yum, maple syrup + pear muffins. 

I got the original recipe here.

I tweaked it a bit with the ingredients that I had (again), replacing yellow pear with green pear and omitting walnuts as I didn't have it at THAT moment. When. My. Son. Wanted. A. Muffin.

After having the muffin, I would definitely go with yellow pear in the future. Green pear was still hard after baking. There is a reason why certain ingredient is called for in a recipe. Lesson learnt!

I baked another version of this muffin (with the ingredients I had then) and both times the muffins turned out moist and not too sweet. Just lovely. But perhaps next time I'll stick to the original recipe and taste for myself the legendary muffins of the faraway land.

My ingredients:
a) Dry ingredients:
Self raising flour - 1 ½ cups
Baking power - ½ teaspoon
Cinnamon powder - ¼ teaspoon

b) Wet ingredients:
Melted butter - 60g
Maple syrup - 100ml (my maple syrup was sold in a 100ml bottle)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Milk - ½ cup
1 pear, cored and diced

Preparation instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon powder.

3. In another bowl,  stir maple syrup, butter, egg and milk together.

4. Mix dry ingredients to wet ingredients gradually, stir until just combined.

5. Mix pear into the batter.

6. Spoon into lined pans and bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes or until inserted toothpick (or be like me, use a fork or knife!) comes out clean.

Done and enjoy!

战争

儿子看到我的杂志，指着封面问我是什么。

满目疮痍。一片苍凉。是战争*。

战争是什么？

我望着他稚嫩的脸。这孩子从小就在我们的保护下长大，从没被责打；大声斥骂也寥寥可数。他的世界是安全的，和平的，美好的。战争对他来说太遥远了。

看着他，心里开始痛起来。孩子，妈妈不能永远荫庇你。你慢慢长大了，也会慢慢地认识到这世界并不完全美好。妈妈企望到时你孩提时所受的爱护，照顾及传承的信仰能让你昂首面对世界。

现在呢，就让妈妈告诉你：

战争是一些人为一些事生气，而用枪和坦克车来伤害对方。伤害人是不对的。可以生气，不要伤害人。要慢慢讲，知道吗？

*正确来说应该是内战。叙利亚的政府和反对派武力对峙，造成许多平民死伤。

又吃蛋糕

妈妈，我要吃蛋糕。

妈妈飞快地想想冰箱里的材料。

OK, 行！

今天就吃枫糖浆+ 梨子蛋糕吧！

Chocolate muffin

So this is the continuation of the previous post. I know some may like to try the muffins we made, so here's the recipe and how-to!

Muffins are very easy to make, and less guilt inducing to eat as doesn't contain as much oil as cupcake. If you are familiar with the process, it takes only 10-15 minutes to mix everything together, pop them in the oven for 20-25 minutes while you play with the kids, then snacks are ready!

The original recipe was given by an acquaintance. I improvised her recipe as I didn't have all the required ingredients. I replaced fresh milk with soy milk, butter with cooking oil. The muffins still turned out fine!

Ok, the ingredients:

a) Dry ingredients
Self-raising flour - 240g
Sugar - 200g
Baking powder - 2 teaspoons
Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Cocoa powder - 2 tablespoons

b) Wet ingredients
240g fresh milk
2 eggs
100g melted butter

Preparation instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

3. In another bowl, combine all the wet ingredients.

4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with spatula to combine.

5. Line the muffin tray or grease it generously, divide the batter evenly into the tray.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Simple delight!

烘焙乐

那天和哥哥一起烘巧克力蛋糕解嘴馋。

妈妈把蛋啊油啊面粉啊糖啊刷刷刷混在一起。哥哥撒上五色星星。耐心等候二十分钟，然后大家呼呼呼吹气把刚出炉的蛋糕都吃进肚里。

巧克力蛋糕。家的味道。

我是消防员

戴上墨镜，换上制服，穿上靴子，呜呜呜地开着车。

妈妈我是消防员。我去救火啦！