Nature at your window!

In further attempt of introducing my baby to nature, I decided to take nature to our window so that he can see and observe it every now and then.
Unfortunately we don't have balcony. The space in our window is also very tiny, but then I decided to have tiny window garden, a tiny slice of nature for Ruhaan. So I bought smallest potted plants and placed them in the tiny space outside the window. To make sure, those light weight pots don't fall down, I fixed a ribbon outside of the plastic pots to secure them.

I am keeping grains in window since long time for birds. But these small plants added more food for birds. I could see more birds visiting our window than before. When more and more birds started sitting in our window and make noise (specially common myna, you can't call it chirping), Ruhaan started observing them, their behavior, what they do and how they fly away. He started pointing to window to make me show him birdies outside and also started waiting for them. Sometimes he wants to see them in our window at night, we then tell him birdies are sleeping.

His morning starts with looking out from the window. Now me and Ruhaan get quite big topic to discuss through out the day too. I have local plants in the pots, which get flowers in winter. I show Ruhaan new flowers, he likes different colours. It rained few times so I tried to show him rain from the same window, but he didn't understand much. But when it was too windy, our small plant were swaying vigorously and we could hear whistling of wind. After that we had a big discussion in some unknown language with lots of surprised expressions.

So I can see Ruhaan is learning about Nature, elements. He is now interested in knowing what is outside our home and he wants to observe it; explore it.

By the way, my favorite bee-eaters are vanished completely from our neighborhood. Actually in this season they are supposed to be here. But number of common myna has increased and sadly lot of crows took place of many different birds. One day I found a common myna eating one of our small plant, I had to shoo her away. Crow and myna are kind of kicking out all other smaller birds. But Ruhaan is very happy with them, his birdie friends :).


 

Baby's introduction to surrounding nature

A big hello to all my readers after a very long break and Happy New Year 2014! Past few months while I was missing (virtually) from my blog, we (me and baby Ruhaan) together learnt a lot about surrounding nature.

During summer, stuck at home and indoors in Dubai, I was trying to introduce Baby Ruhaan to many animals through 'Old Mcdonald's farm'. But on our big holiday in India he saw dogs and cows first time on street. Instantly doggie became his favorite street animal :). India is very stimulating place for babies, lot of colours, lot of people, lot of natural greenery and of course lot of animals too.
Till we came back to Dubai, awesome weather awaiting us so we started our outdoor and park days.

Safa park has been our favorite park so far, mainly because of the lake and birdies around it.  Kids love birds, Ruhaan was entertained mostly by noisy ducks. They don't fly away quickly and they run behind food making quack-quack all the time.
Very funnily Ruhaan prefers to touch the grass only in Safa as compared most of other parks ;). Still he tries to avoid to touch grass by hand taking lot of efforts, making funny face. He crawls and inspects grass and tastes the dry leaves (yuk). They say if you allow the touch of different textures on your baby's feet, they develop their balance better.

So I removed his booties and let him explore the surfaces right from slab flooring near entrance of our building, grass in park up to the sand. And I must say I can see the result.

On my Green Living front, I am trying different natural teethers for my baby, as it's his teething time. I include raw carrot, dried dates, celery, but always have to keep watch to avoid chocking. These teethers not only help babies for teething but also add some nutrition instead of polymer teethers. Thankfully Ruhaan's first tooth came out without much trouble !!! I hope same goes with rest, fingers crossed.


Another things I specifically do with Ruhaan is, let him smell different things. Vegies, fruits, plants, trees everything. Most of time I smell the food myself, before feeding him and then let him smell it. Unfortunately that does not create his interest in eating more than a spoon or two, but it helps him to learn new odours. He recognizes good smells, if he smells flowers (kept in flower shops in mall), he smiles. He likes the smell of carrot/celery/apple/mint too. But I always have to be carful that things are not entering his nose.


It is an amazing experience as mum to explore the environment, nature surrounding us. Taking all that in through our senses again with baby and teach him to do the same! If we make our babies aware of the nature from early on, it will be simpler to teach them how to live with nature in unison. They will definite develop caring for their surrounding!