We had kind of a rough week here, sleep-wise. Beans has felt the need to be up and at ’em around 5am almost every day. She refuses to be nursed back to sleep, or even to snuggle in the big bed while mama dozes. Sometimes she wakes her big sister with her caterwauling, and then all hell breaks loose and I’m still bleary eyed and bumping into things. On one of these mornings, Beansie outdid herself and we all saw the clock turn to 4:30am, meaning she was toast and down for a nap by 7:30, and I had to keep Swee happy.

Enter Rainbow Fish. My sister-in-law sent a beautiful birthday package for the girls from Germany and included a copy of Rainbow Fish and the Whale, which was immediately put into heavy reading rotation around here. While surfing Pinterest, I saw this project and thought, we could do that!

The tutorial called for you to stamp fish scales along the outline with the curved end of a piece of celery. It was a cute little activity, and it held Swee’s interest for about an hour, which was excellent. Definitely tape the corners of your paper down if you try this one. Our completed fish does not look like the sample. In fact, you can’t even tell there’s an outline of a fish under all the paint that Swee applied, but no matter. She is exceedingly pleased with it, and with the fact that I promptly hung it up in the kitchen for all to admire. We discussed the story while she was painting, and she asked some really thoughtful questions about why the fish were unkind to the whale. It led to a good talk about how we should treat people, and how we would want to be treated. Overall, it was a great way to spend an (early) hour with my big girl.

Today, we made a fun Father’s Day craft – I’ll share early next week!