I know I’ve mainly been posting about H’s Firsts lately, but there have been a lot of them all at once. This one I’m actually really excited about. I’ve been working on an Advent calendar to match the ones I made for Adam and myself last year. I followed the exact same tweaked tutorial from The Purl Bee and finished hers last week.

But then I had to ask myself, “What in the world do you PUT in an Advent calendar for a baby?” It’s not like I can give an 8-month-old chocolates and small toys. I thought about it a lot, and I’m really proud of myself for the solution. It’s one of the more creative things I’ve concocted.

I decided to put 24 different textures in her calendar. She spends so much time hanging out with me in my sewing room, I’ve seen the way she loves to play with pieces of yarn, old magazines (she REALLY loves those), and especially wires. Now, obviously she won’t be playing unsupervised with most of these, but we really want her to explore and figure out all the cool things she can do with her little hands and fingers. So, why not give her a cool new sensory item from around the house each day?

So the sensory goodies are, starting from the back left: old wrapping paper, plastic canvas (for cross-stitching), parchment paper like the doctor’s office (she loves to roll around on that), aluminum foil, stiff felt, soft felt, a Post-It pad (Adam recently discovered how much she loves those), quilt fabric, fat green yarn, Play-Doh, blue tweed from an old skirt (she is half-British), batting, an old pair of (clean) yellow socks (she loves anything relating to feet). The front row is pink cardstock, orange tissue paper, a Christmas bow, plastic from a presentation sleeve, a USB cable (Adam’s idea), blue flannel fabric, red and orange canvas fabric, silver smooth ribbon, green grosgrain ribbon (hidden next to it), brown an white yarn that she already loves, and a page from her favorite magazine to tear up.

And here it is all filled!

So far it’s been a big hit with her. I filled it late yesterday afternoon, so she played with the magazine page a little before bed. But then this morning she got the silver ribbon and has not stopped playing with it all day. I call that pretty successful. And the best part is that I’ve been pointing to today’s treat, and she goes right to that pocket and picks out the right treat for the day. I love this, and all I had to pay for was the felt!