The Olympics at our house

I really enjoy the summer Olympics and as with many things, the joy of them is heightened with children around. I've had a lot of fun talking to Mini Me about how the world has different countries, cultures, and languages, and how the Olympics allow all those groups to get together to play games. 


A couple weeks ago we checked out G is for Gold Medal from our library and spent some time reading and talking about it. Mini Me got really revved up to see the Opening Ceremony and sports he'd never seen before.


One day we traced cups and used pool noodle stamps to make an Olympic flag. We decided to host a family Olympic competition over various nights the next two weeks. We'll do five events: archery, track, swimming, cycling, and an obstacle course. I think we'll even award medals and such! I wonder what our winning anthem will be...

We were gone the night of the opening ceremonies so we recorded it to watch together another day. Yesterday we spent the rainy (Praise the Lord!) afternoon watching the ceremony. The kids loved the fireworks, fire, and dancing, and provided us a dance show in our living room! It was so much fun we decided to continue it with a special floor picnic for supper. We ordered pizza and watched a few events while we ate. I think my husband was shocked that I was encouraging so much TV and eating "out" - those are rare, rare things in our house but hey, it's the Olympics! And that's pretty special.

A Year of ABCs: Letter N

Math: N is for Noodle Necklace
We used our super fun pool noodles (here) to make a giant necklace and our equally super fun colored pasta (here) to make a different kind of noodle necklace!   Little Lady did a great job stringing both sizes of noodles - lots of concentration!  We tried to make patterns... eh.  We did count after she strung the noodles and we were so close to getting nine noodles.

Science: N is for nose We talked a lot about our noses for N week.  Little Lady really loved playing "steal your nose" (thanks, Papi).  We also had some kitchen fun one day after doing some baking.  I pulled out three strong-smelling liquids and had Little Lady smell them: vanilla, vinegar, and lemon juice.  

Then, we played a nose game and she had to match the mystery liquid to it's bottle only by its smell.  We played a lot and she did okay.  She kept insisting her favorite smell was the vinegar (maybe she is making the connection between that smell and a clean bathroom!)

The best part of our nose experiment was having Daddy do the nose game and identify the mystery smells.  He may have vomited a little in his mouth when he smelled the bowl of vinegar.  Ha!  I guess we always clean the bathrooms when he's at work!

Art: N is for noodle paint and noodle shapes
Little Lady used a cut pool noodle to stamp and paint, which she loves to do.  We also tried to use our colored pasta/noodles to make sun shapes by placing the noodles on a piece of black construction paper and leaving it in the sun all day.  What I thought was a perfect sunny day for it turned a little breezy, then cloudy, so the noodle sun shapes did not work.  We'll try again soon.


Movement: N is for nails
We re-used this activity to much delight, and Little Lady practiced hammering golf tees into the bottom of an egg carton.  On a second try, we colored the bottom of the carton and I had her try to hammer the color I called out.

 I realized during this activity that she says "Hiiii-ya" like she's doing karate every time she is making a physical effort.  Hammering those golf tee nails in resulted in a lot of "hiiii-ya".  I was laughing very hard.

Spanish: N is for niña
Our sweet little niña is learning so much about her world!

Good listener papers

Mini Me is four and is one fantastic kid (biased, biased, biased, I know, but you gotta meet this little guy).  He's inventive, loving, curious, witty, and just really great.  Every once-in-a-while we go through a very typical "tough" spurt where normally the problem is him not listening to instructions from his parents.  

The thing that irritates my husband and I is the need to repeat ad nauseum something we want him to do: "It's time to get your shoes and leave!"  "Please find your shoes!"  "Get your shoes on, let's go!"  "I ASKED YOU TO GET YOUR SHOES!!!"


One day after this very conversation I asked him in the car if he could find a solution to help him be a better listener the first time.  We talked about how it's important for him to listen right away for safety and efficiency and out of respect for his parents.  


After several minutes in the car, he came up with some solutions to the problem, all of which involved punishing him (and I was red-faced because he got those ideas from past experiences).  I told him I wanted him to find a reminder for himself so he could be a good listener before getting in trouble.  We talked about being preventative vs being reactive (I'm not sure he got that part but I really like those words).


It took another half-day of thinking, but he came up with a really brilliant idea.  And that idea is still working.  


He wanted to use "sticky papers" to draw himself reminders of how to listen.  He wanted to put one on every single wall in the house.  After some brainstorming with me, we decided that he could draw pictures of ears on the Post-It notes, and put one in each room of the house.  


He got to work:

He made seven papers and really concentrated.  

We hung them in most of the rooms in our house, even the hallway.

Each paper has a drawing of one - or several - ears, and he also insisted on writing his name on each one.  Can you see the ears? 

When he hasn't listened the first time, instead of repeating our instruction, my husband and I now say, "Do you see your purple paper?" or we go tap the paper hanging on the wall.  

And guess what?  He does what he is supposed to do.  Sometimes it's immediately, sometimes it includes a grumble, but reminding him of his reminder is a step in the right direction and we no longer repeat.

I think it works because it was his idea and his handiwork.  Whatever the trigger was...we'll take it!  

I have found one flaw in our system, though.  On a recent trike-ride/walk, he would not heed my repeated warnings to stay close to the curb on a street with no sidewalk.  I got ready to ask about his purple listening paper, only to realize those only "apply" in the walls of our house!  

We'll keep working on it, but we're glad for his great progress.

Re-usable Swiffer covers

Remember how I really love our cloth diapers (here)?  And how I cried real tears when Little Lady potty trained herself out of them (here)? 


Well... I didn't actually get rid of all the BumGenius 4.0 pocket diapers with snaps.  Shhhh....


I kept a purple one for the baby memory boxes.


But I also kept all the newborn absorber inserts because I noticed long ago that they are the exact same size as the Swiffer duster head.  

I've been plotting for months to make these re-usable Swiffer covers and finally found thirty minutes to do it! 


I only made five covers to start with.  I sewed elastic straps to the diaper inserts and ¡viola!  They fit right on. 

 I can sweep to my heart's content, toss them in the wash, and re-use them.  

 It's one more step to using less paper at our house since we started using cloth napkins a year ago (here) and haven't looked back.  


We'll see what paper-less idea I have in store for next year...

Colored water in a spray bottle

If you have a spray bottle filled with water and add a few drops of food coloring, you can have fun in any season!

In the winter, we sprayed coffee filters taped to the side of the dishwasher.  The magical part of this was that I drew on the coffee filters first with a white crayon.  In theory, the wax residue of the crayon should resist the colored water, leaving you with a fun "secret" picture after you spray. 

The kiddos also had fun just spraying white paper. 

The result of our magic spray art was not phenomenal.  Can you see the stick figure here? 

Here is a flower.

When warmer weather came (read: 100+ degrees), we were still having fun with the colored water in the spray bottles.  I hung a white sheet over the fence, prepared the colored water, and let the kids spray away.  

Mini Me tried really hard to get some color mixing to happen.  Little Lady liked to spray as much as she could in one area to get a vibrant, dark color.   When the white sheet was boring, it was fun to spray leaves and flower petals and see the color droplets!  Even I had fun with that part.

Our end result.  It looks tie-dyed!   It was colorful fun on a hot morning (and the sheet came out of the wash as good as new so we can do this again and again!).

A Year of ABCs: Letter M

Art: M is for monkey mosaic
We tore bits of colored paper and glued them to a picture of a monkey to make our magnificent monkey mosaic!  

Literacy: M is for Goodnight Moon
Can any other parents recite this book by heart like we can?  It's a great one and we made sure to highlight this book, as well as several other moon, monkey, and mouse books.  Another favorite is The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. 

Science: M is for Melting
We talked about how ice melts and showed how a hot oven can melt crayons!  We prepared star-shaped crayons for Little Lady's birthday party by putting broken crayons in molds, then melting them in the oven.  Mmmmm....

Math: M is for Memory Game
We were going to play a memory game with family photos but I didn't get that accomplished so we used our store-bought memory game.  With three matching sets, we worked with Little Lady on simple game rules and matching.  Mini Me had fun being the teacher with this activity.

Movement: M is for Marching Band
We've had several new additions to our instrument bin this month so our M-week marching bands were new and exciting - a jingle bell bracelet, new maracas, and some bamboo flutes make for one good parade!

Music: M is for Mister Sun

This old Raffi tune really sticks in my head and is appropriate for our summer weather.  Mister Sun, sun, Mister golden sun, please shine down on me!    I usually belted this out while the kiddos marched.  ha ha!  

Spanish: M is for mesa

I thought about getting this word to "stick" by having the kids pound on the table and shout "mesa" but then I thought again.  Bad idea.  So we just said "mesa" a lot.  

Getting to know my tag team partner

My husband and I parent by what I call the tag-team method.  This method started when Little Lady was born and I had a new part-time teaching gig and we decided that it was unnecessary to pay for day care.  Being blessed with somewhat flexible bosses allowed us both to work our schedules so that we don't need to send the kiddos to day care.  When my husband works, I'm at home and vice versa.  

We don't live near family we can use as last-minute or go-to babysitters, and we were new in town when Little Lady was born and didn't know anyone well enough to watch our kids.  While we had done the tag-team to some degree when Mini Me was tiny, the complete do-it-ourselves method really kicked in with the birth of our second child.  If I needed a haircut, I could either take the kids or schedule it when my husband was home.  When he was asked to be on a church committee, he could only accept the appointment if they changed the meeting nights to a night I didn't work and could therefore stay home with the kids.  If I need to make a major Target run and want to do it kid-free, I wait until my husband is available to kid-wrangle or brave it on my own.  If I have to attend a work meeting outside my normal hours, my husband has to ask for time off or we call on a long-distance grandparent to drive over.  And so on.


We tag-team parent.  Some weeks it seems like every time I arrive home, he leaves.  Sure, we are too cheap to pay babysitters and now that we do know and trust good babysitters, we probably could use one every so often.  But at this point, we're used to the tag-team.  We're good at it.  And to some degree, we are proud that we've made it through the "little years" so much on our own.  We certainly have that village of loved ones who adore and care for our children, but it's a widespread village who is too far to reach on a day-to-day basis.  

Tag-team parenting has its benefits: it's easy on the budget.  It's fantastic that my husband and I both regularly bear full, solo parenting responsibilities.  Our children are truly being raised by both parents and are accustomed to our unique yet united parenting styles. 


But tag-team parenting also has some challenges: it doesn't allow my husband and I a lot of time together at home.  When we are together at home we try to spend time as a family of four or allow each parent some one-on-one time with each child.  Spending that small amount of time in family time is important and special, but it means two things.  First, any at-home tasks we have to complete are usually done with children underfoot.  If I need to clean the bathrooms, mop the entire house, dust, sort outgrown clothing, cook, etc., I either do it with the kids by my side or I cut into our family togetherness time to do it (so my husband can watch the cherubs while I frantically get something done).  Second, it doesn't leave my husband and I a lot of time alone.  


By the time our angels fall asleep at night, my desk usually looks like a war zone with mail, scribbled notes, a book to fix, photos to sort, and the like.  I want to blog, catch up on email, read the news, and veg out online.  I have meals to plan, grocery lists to write, and my own leisure activities to pursue like sewing, crafting, or reading.  Sometimes I get that time to myself because my husband is gone.  Each month, we spend five nights in meetings.  He works one night a week all year long, and some semesters I teach two nights a week.  In the summer he is in an evening golf league and a softball league.  The bottom line is that between work, church commitments, leisure and tag-team parenting, we don't get a lot of relationship time. 


We've tried in the past to have date nights out and date nights in.  For a long stretch we even had two date nights in per week where we really designated time together.  I think that got lost in a bout of bedtime routine horrors with Little Lady.  Sure, we could cut the tag-team performance and get more babysitters.  We could lessen our committee commitments and leisure activities.  Overall, however, we feel that we have a pretty decent balance of us time, me time, parenting time, work time, and community time.  It makes life complicated but we sure do our best.  It's not always perfect, but I don't think we are alone in our tag-team game; other parents surely play, too.


Or, we thought we were doing our best, and then we went on vacation.  We planned our week-long trip to an all-inclusive Caribbean report last fall.  I was lost in our tag-team world and the vacation snuck up on us quickly and all of a sudden we were on a warm beach with drinks in hand.  We had no mail to open, no laundry to fold, no phones to answer, no dishes, no dirty floors, no work stress.  And most significantly, no child needing us at any hour of the day.  Lest that seem crass, let me reiterate that we missed our babies dearly and did talk to them every day.  But any parent will know that children are demanding.  Sometimes that demanding feels good - I like to be needed - and sometimes it makes me feel utterly weary.   

All we had on that beach was us and our relationship, and by the middle of the week I looked at my husband and realized that I still liked him.  I still loved the guy who is behind the great dad and hard worker.   I realized how submerged we had become under our parenting selves - and we only have two kids!  How did that happen?  How could I keep overlooking how fun he was to be around as a person and not just "Daddy"?  It was like a honeymoon all over again.  Or maybe better than a honeymoon because we felt like we had been through the trenches of the baby years and came out still loving each other under all that parenting stress that arises.  (Please tell me it's not just us who felt parenting stress).

We reconnected in a huge way.  We might still be riding the high of our tropical getaway so I'm hesitant to say that it was life-changing, but it feels like it.  Our time of purely, only us was probably better than therapy.  I fervently wish we could afford to take a long, solo vacation regularly but that doesn't seem probable.  How lovely it would be, though!  

We came back home and went immediately into the tag-team routine again.  In the first twelve days we were back, we were only home together for three of those evenings.  Somehow, though, everything seemed a bit easier given our delight that we still had something spectacular together as friends and spouses.  

Sometimes I do feel like we take our tag-team to an extreme... save money, be with the kids, do it ourselves.  Sometimes it works perfectly for us and sometimes it doesn't.  I think now we are willing to get that babysitter a little more often so we can get out of the house kid-free for some reconnecting.  Even if we don't, we both feel better knowing that underneath the well-oiled machine of our parenting switch-offs, we are still great friends.  And who else would I want to tag-team with if not a dear friend?

Red, White, and TWO!

The Fourth of July is one of my most favorite holidays and it's my dream to someday have a home suitable for entertaining so I can throw a bang of a Fourth of July party every year.  This year it worked out for us to celebrate Little Lady's second birthday with our families right on July 4, so it was a small taste of the fun I would have throwing a big party.  It was perfectly appropriate this year to have a Red, White, and TWO theme for her.  


Now is the part where I say, "I can't believe my baby is two".  


I can't believe my baby is two.  Wasn't it just last week when I asked the exasperated nurse three, yes three times, "Are you sure it's a girl?  Are you sure?  She's a girl?"  even I stared at Little Lady in all her girl-ness.  She was a welcome surprise and a joy from the start.  Having a Fourth of July themed party certainly fits this year because she is quite the firecracker.  We love her silliness, her snuggles, and even her loud opinions.  In fact, the personality we celebrated on her first birthday still rings true. 


To say I threw a "themed" party is a little of a stretch because I didn't go to a lot of trouble to make a big hoopla.  It was still fun, though!  


We sent lovely red, white, and blue photo invites:  

Red, white, and blue star crayons made from star-shaped ice cube molds was our fun party activity (that we never used)!  

A red, white, and blue cake.  Thank you, Cake Lady!  

Red, white, and blue ice cream: vanilla ice cream, warm raspberry jelly (called Granny jelly at our house because Granny Great makes it), and blue berries.

We were not short on red, white, and blue decorations and the BEST thing about Fourth of July parties is that everyone comes dressed for the occasion.... in red, white, and blue!  I didn't even have to ask.  And it made for some really fun group photos. 

Here is our birthday girl.  What a fun day we had.  I love you, sweet daughter!

Handprint fish thank you

My husband and I were very fortunate to take a trip in June to an all-inclusive Caribbean resort.  It was wonderful in every way, especially since we knew that we were leaving our two precious little ones in great hands.  Nothing we could give or say would truly show our thankfulness for being able to leave our children in such loving care, but the kids and I did try to make a simple thank you for all the fun they had with their grandparents.  

"With appreciOCEAN and gratiTIDE": the wording is completely stolen from another idea somewhere online that I read a while ago.  We cut out foam fish and used sandpaper for sand.  Both kids had fun decorating with markers.

The kids love doing painted hand print art because they giggle like crazy when I paint their fingers and hands.  Mini Me's fish on the left, is a catfish.  See the whiskers?  A couple googly eyes, stickers, and a personal message later, our thank you was complete.

I think I'm losing it

My blogging desire, that is.  

I have always enjoyed summer - as a kid, as a new teacher, as a college teacher, and now as a mom.  There are endless things to do, especially since my children are ages almost-two and four.  Our days pass in the blink of an eye as we play outside, go on walks, go to library events, spend afternoons at the swimming pool, bake, play, and go on play dates and family visits.  It's a busy time and our weather this summer has been quite conducive to outdoor plans.  


With all that outside fun, plus the nine days I was gone with my husband for vacation, a few more trips to see friends and family, and a massive purge-the-baby-stuff garage sale, not to mention the day-to-day cleaning, cooking, wiping, organizing, etc., the days really just slip away.  In the midst of all that excitement I've lost my blogging mojo even though in the past I was always sure to make time for it.  


We are still making our way through Little Lady's year of ABC activities and Mini Me always joins in with those.  He is into reading and building train tracks and playing baseball so I feel like enticing him with other activities requires too much coercion which is most definitely not the route I want to take with our fun activities.  


Despite all the blogging I did - and thoroughly enjoyed - last summer, I just keep forgetting to photograph and share the really great pinwheel and balloon Fourth of July activity I did when we had a four-kid play date, or the fun obstacle course we built in the backyard one day.  I attribute my mojo loss to our wonderfully relaxing beach vacation... things just haven't seemed as urgent since then!  


I am not beholden to anyone and probably don't need to explain that there is a lack of new kid activities posted this summer, but I feel like I'm not finishing something I started and I hate that.  I'll still blog and will have a burst of kid activity ideas one of these days but until then, the kids and I will probably be at the pool... or making new scented play dough or checking out a new city park or having balloon bop wars or reading or learning to ride a tricycle or making sand art or...