Chalking It Up

The weather has been cooler, lately. That means it's a lot more pleasant to play outside nowadays, especially in the mornings. Cambrie even gets to wear her favorite sweater again.

It's really only borderline-sweater-weather (and certainly not cold enough for a hat), but she loves that hood.

And, well, she does look so cute in it.

Over the past week or so, we've been discovering what is quite possibly the best use of a single dollar. I mean, like, ever. That thing is...

Sidewalk chalk. (Thank you to Grandmommy for slipping it in with her birthday presents.)

We have spent hours on the concrete, drawing words and pictures for the little one. Cambrie's recent obsession with the ABC's has spurred this game to even greater heights. Thanks to little ABC hop-scotches (and singing the song twenty-five times a day), she can actually sing the entire Alphabet Song (or Aff-bat song) by herself. Sure, she skips six or seven letters, and she usually loops back to do LMNOP and WXYZ twice, but who cares! Those are my favorite letters, too!...sorta...

To be honest, playing with chalk while with a two-year-old is kind of a doodler's paradise. The things we get to draw include family trees,

See Cambrie? She has pigtails in chalk form, too!

Cambrie thought I had missed a few facial details.

...number lines (she loves to jump on the zero in "10"),

...shapes, that we can stand in, hop on, collect sticks in, or assign captions to,

This really is Cambrie directed. "Mommy! Daw cicle a-dere! A-nex  a-quare!"

Yes, the captions are all on Cambrie's command, too.

...and road maps we can drive our cars and trucks on.

Recognize any of these buildings, Atlanta friends? The topmost one was at Cambrie's request, yet again.

These are the types of games that make me feel grateful to be a stay-at-home mom. Though I really do miss the adult conversation, the constantly changing projects and the demand on my creativity of an out-of home full-time job, I can't deny that spending mornings like this is 1) low stress for me, 2) beneficial to Cambrie's growth and development (ABCs, numbers, motor skills, etc.), and 3) just too stinkin' fun.

I guess we'll just have to see whether the quantity of chalk itself outlasts my daughter's interest in it.