Montessori Daddy!

Thursday was my birthday, and my husband and Tyler worked together to make it very special for me! It wasn't a good birthday because I received an extravagant gift or fancy dinner out, but because everything was from the heart. It was also quite Montessori in the way my husband included Tyler in all of the preparations!

While my husband is 100% on-board with Montessori and has a decent knowledge about the philosophy, I've been the one, naturally, as I stay home, to do all of the reading and research, activity and work creating, preparation and demonstrations. Though he did read "Raising An Amazing Child The Montessori Way" with me long ago, he often learns the key elements as he goes along, with me gently letting him know how to do things in a way that may better fit the philosophy. Thankfully he's eager to learn and our home seem Montessori all-around because of it!

First, Tyler and my husband made cupcakes. I had to stay in another room with the door shut during all of this (great excuse to catch-up on my favorite blogs) and I have to say the activity in the kitchen sounded fun! I was glad that they were making something homemade and together, as one of Ty's favorite books recently is "Spot Bakes a Cake" where Spot and his mom bake and decorate a cake for his Dad's birthday. Literacy Extension!

Kudos to my husband for taking pictures. He knew I'd want to see! Ty had the job of placing cupcake liners into the pan.

 He also dumped ingredients into the blender

Tyler got to push the buttons. I'm not sure why a blender was used instead of a mixer and find it cute that the lid couldn't be found so they used a plate! To be honest though, my husband does most of the cooking and baking in our home so he knows what he's doing!

 

The next day, Tyler got to decorate a few of the cupcakes! My husband had done the purple dots and Ty did more decorating with colored icing tubes.

That morning they headed outside for a bit for some mysterious reason. I again had to hide away and try to figure out what in the world they were doing by what they were saying when they returned! Though my husband forgot to take pictures, what they were doing was gluing leaves they had collected outside into a homemade card. My husband told me later that Ty had done all of the gluing and leaf placement himself. Yeah, Daddy...and Ty!

After lunch I was given my surprises as Ty and my husband sang me Happy Birthday! What more could a Mama ask for?!

When I told my husband I was going to write this post today, he laughed and said "I didn't even realize that what I did was Montessori. It's just the way our house runs. I wouldn't know how to do it any other way!" Those words were like another belated gift!