PAT deserves a PAT on the BACK

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Parents As Teachers (PAT)?  

My parent educator is fantastic and is the constant voice of reason when I go on my paranoid first time parent ramblings.  Short of physically coming to my house with her car to drive me to events, she could not make it easier for me to get to an event.  If anyone is looking for a PAT educator in the Francis Howell district, I would be happy to pass her name along!

So, with the help of Kelly (and my the calendar on my iPhone which I can sync with my laptop), I finally got organized and put all of the dates into my calendar for the many PAT events coming up in Amelia's age range.  

Last week, we got to bring Jason with us to Family Jumping Gym Night.  Exciting for us?  Not particularly.  But, PAT knows exactly how to engage little ones and they did not disappoint!  Amelia did a host of activities during our visit to the gym, but it was the last 15 minutes or so that she enjoyed the most.  They brought out a huge parachute for the kids to wave.  Then, the parents took over the parachute and made a "dome" over the kids who got underneath.  Lastly, the kids rode on top of the parachute as the parents walked it around in a circle.  The new word of the evening, "parachute" was spoken in such sentences as "me ride on parachute" and "parachute fun!" and "Mia go under parachute" the whole way home.

This week, we attended "Art in the Park" on Wednesday morning.  The theme for the art activities was "Wild, Wild West Adventures". They did such a great job coming up with 6 different theme related activities for the kids to do (and even sent more theme based ideas home).

Amelia's favorite was creating this ride-on "neigh, neigh" from an empty wrapping paper tube, some construction paper, and some yarn hair.  She rode it to each station and insisted on riding it down to the playground after we completed all of the centers (well five of the six), the whole time yelling "neigh, neigh" of course.  She (more like "we") also made a vest and stamped on a bandana to complete the cowgirl ensemble.

Here's the picture she made at the first station.  She was still pretty interested at the point.  By the time we got to the station where the vests were made, Amelia was pretty much just saying, "me ride neigh, neigh to playground, mommy" and riding in circles around me.

After a long day on the range, we came back to the old homestead and she munched on the trail mix snack sack she had made.  Actually, she picked out the 3  M&M's that were in the mix, popped them in her mouth and then announced she was "all done". No clue where she gets that!