CPS-3

The American Cancer Society is launching a new research study they are calling the Cancer Prevention Study - 3. This is the 3rd major research project undertaken by the ACS in the last 60 years. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of smokers were enrolled in a study that proved the link between cancer and smoking. In the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of participants were in the second study that showed the link between obesity and cancer. This is a big deal!

Cancer is a subject near to my heart due to the very high frequency of it in my family. This study is an easy way us to help the world understand cancer a little better. You must be between the ages of 30 and 65. You can be a man or a woman. You must be willing to make a 20 - 30 year time commitment and you must never have been diagnosed with cancer, excluding two forms of skin cancer (basal or squamous cell) that are not reported to health registries.

Since I'm now 30 years and a few days old, I signed up for a blood draw appointment that will take 30 minutes (or less). It took me about 25 minutes to complete the online questionnaire. I will have to do similar questionnaires in years to come but overall, the time commitment is beans compared to the time that is lost when someone dies of cancer.

To show the importance of this study... most people now know that smoking causes lung cancer. That solid knowledge came from the first CPS in the 1950s and 1960s when it took three years, 22,000 volunteers and 188,000 study participants to prove it. 

The ultimate goal of CPS-3 is to have more than 300,000 people enrolled. Here is the website for more information and to find a study site near you. I'm driving out of town to my appointment - this is worth the gas money! I hope thousands of people will participate in this study and help us continue to learn more about cancer.

Love you, Mom!

Traveling with young children

My intention behind this post is not to give all kinds of original, fabulous travel tips but mostly to share how we travel with small children, and to write it down so I can remember these days in the future. We are starting to hunt for a new vehicle and it makes me think of all the miles we've put on our current car.

I think we travel a little more than the average family since all of our relatives are out of town.  And by travel I do not mean airports and long vacations: I mean plopping bottoms in car seats for a weekend trip to see family. We live about two and a half hours from the family we visit most frequently. We travel at least one weekend out of every month and usually our trips involve driving down one day and driving back the next. Sometimes we have a full day to visit in between. Either way, I feel like it is a lot of time strapped in the car in one stretch, especially for little children who need to run and play and who do not sleep in car seats! Well, maybe the rare occasion of once a year they will conk out, but they are certainly not car sleepers over all.

Because of my husband's work schedule, I most often travel by myself with the kids. I've done this since Mini Me was a baby so I don't give it a second thought, but sometimes people gasp when I mention our road trips with just me and the kiddos. Then their mouths fall open when they find out that we do not have a DVD player in the car.

We could manage a DVD player if we wanted to and I imagine it would make our trips very peaceful. But I do this "thing" where I firmly believe in building habits early and making lifestyle choices now that I want to continue for the long haul. Remember game night? We will always live far away from family and weekend trips are inevitable. The car is a wonderful place for a family to spend some time together - talking, reminiscing, laughing. If we disallow a DVD player now, we are acclimating our children to car trips being times to talk and play and chat, not a time to zone out in front of a screen. We do allow Mini Me to use his LeapPad in the car, but only for a short amount of time each trip - never for the entire duration. Most of the time, he forgets he brought it and it sits unused. I realize that just because I deny my young children a DVD player in the car does not guarantee that they will be teenagers who will be singing rounds of "Row, row, row your boat" with me in the car.... but a mom can hope, right?

Traveling with a two and a four year old - even traveling when they were two and a few months old, or three and one - involves having a lot of "ammunition" ready, especially when I am traveling by myself. My ammunition always includes: a snack and a drink, car toys (that are always in the car), one or two house toys (selected by the kids before we leave), a few songs ready in my head, books, and a car game.

When we start out, Mini Me and Little Lady almost always are talking to each other. They can go anywhere between twenty minutes and an hour just goofing around with each other. Little Lady is still rear-facing so they can see each other perfectly. As long as they are happy together, I never, ever interrupt with my ammunition. Usually, I just stay quiet and let them self- entertain.

Once they tire of each other, I dole out the car toys. They mess around with these, trading them and playing for a short bit. Sometimes this lasts a half hour or more, but usually shorter.

Next, we either start to sing or talk about what we're traveling past. We talk a lot about big trucks, turbines, and people Little Lady likes to wave at as we pass them.

I always wait until we are past the half-way point to offer a snack. It takes up about ten minutes and is a good way to soothe the kiddos just when they are starting to get antsy. If they ask for the snack before we are more than half-way, I distract them with something else.

Books and house toys come out as we are almost to the end of the trip. The kids seem to forget that they chose a special toy for the car so the novelty of that "surprise" is good entertainment.

At the last, we play car games - simple ones like counting trucks that pass or playing "I See Something". Another song is also a good choice and these days Little Lady is great at belting them out with us.

My super-secret ammunition that only comes out on a really terrible, crabby car trip is the weird, random junk that I keep in the center console. I have empty bubble containers, miscellaneous figurines, broken sunglasses, gel stickers, and pretty much things that are garbage-worthy. Somehow it's the junk that's always a winning shot.

It is amazing how each trip can be so different. This summer, we made one trip where we all just talked to each other the entire car ride. The only ammunition I had to use was a snack. That was a very fun ride.... much unlike the trip where I had blown through all my ammunition except a snack a mere thirty minutes into the trip. Eeek! The console junk saved me for a while, but that was one crabby ride and I was extra happy to reach our destination.

Overall, the kids travel very well on our weekend jaunts. We're heading to a new place this weekend and I'm really excited to get out the new magnetic travel games I made for them (HERE). I hope they love them as much as I do, and I hope they provide hours of quality family time! ;)

A Year of ABCs: Letter P

Math: P is for puzzle search
Mini Me and I always have fun with this mixed-up puzzle game idea (see here), so we did it again with Little Lady to practice sorting skills. The more you spread the puzzles out, the more fun it is!

Art: P is for pink and purple princess
The monkey mosaics we made during M week were very enjoyable for the kiddos so we did something similar. We cut up pieces and bits of various pink and purple materials - felt, sparkly craft foam, paper, and used some of our colored pasta. Using clear-dry purple glue stick, Little Lady glued all the bits on and had a jolly ol' time while she worked. The purple glue stick was a big help to show her where she had just smeared the glue.

Movement: P is for painting 
We did some more squirt bottle painting outside for P week, and used pink and purple colored water in the bottles. There was a good deal of running, squatting, and reaching high as I instructed Little Lady to try and 'paint' different things.
 

Spanish: P is for plato
Plato is an easy word to work into our lives - at least three meals a day! Little Lady says it without the "l" sound, which makes the word "duck" and always gives me a chuckle.

Photo memory game

I intended to do this a very, very long time ago and, ahem, finally did it.  I say that about so many things, but the ideas just stew around inside my brain before I have a chance to execute them.  

I developed doubles of various photos of the kiddos, my husband and I, and the grandparents.  

We use them to play memory!  We have a large set of 10 matches and it's a perfect addition to our family game night (here).  Little Lady is remarkably adept at this game.  The other day she beat me... fair and square... I didn't even help her!  She is still working on turn-taking and only flipping over two "cards" but she knows what matches and what doesn't and that she can keep a match.  It's so fun!

The kiddos also have fun with the photos, just looking at them and jabbering.  All in all, it was a simple and fun investment to add to our games and activities.

Learning to use scissors with craft foam

Little Lady is the ripe old age of 25 months (that's 2 years and 1 month in normal-speak) and I got the wild idea that she was ready to learn how to use scissors. She has great fine motor skills and loves to sit and do art-y things, so it seemed time to introduce something new.

With a child's-size pair of blunt-tipped scissors, we practiced how to position her fingers and how to open and close them. She loved it! I never took my eyes off her when she had the scissors in hand. When the phone rang, I confiscated them and didn't hand them back until I was off the phone, even though I was still sitting right there. It's important to practice scissor safety!

The first thing I had her cut was scrap pieces of craft foam. It's thin enough to cut easily but still has a bit of stiffness so she can hold it far out, giving a good length to start hacking at with the scissors.

 When she gets a little more adept at the craft foam, we might try cutting straws, then finally we'll make it to paper. 

I loved seeing her mouth opening and closing in time with the scissors as she concentrated, and every time she snipped a piece of foam off and made it zip across the table, she laughed. Ha ha!

Magnetic games for kids

Magnetic pieces are not intended for children under three.
I feel that I should start with that warning first, in good conscience!

Check the magnetic game listing here!

I'm so very excited about my new idea. I know I'm doing it at the end of the summer travel season, but we have a long trip coming up Labor Day weekend and I was aiming for that. Plus, we travel year-round so the summer travel season slipped my mind. 

After seeing ideas here and there for magnetic cookie sheet games I decided to make my own version. After some brainstorming and hunting down the supplies, I put together a little magnetic game set with nine different activities! 

All the activities fit into a small pouch and the magnetic tray is 8 inches by 10 inches - the perfect size to fit on little laps in car seats.

The version I made for my kids includes a mini felt face, a sandpaper and yarn activity, a set of colorful ABC magnets, a photo puzzle, food photos on glass gem magnets, a sparkly and fuzzy tic tac toe game, a half-and-half animal matching game, tangrams, and magnetic foam people and animal and dinosaur figures. Finally, the magnetic tray is also a chalkboard to draw and write on! You can fill a lot of car time with nine different activities. I think a lot of creative play will happen when all the game pieces get mixed together, too.

Though I was hiding it for a big reveal on our long trip, the kids found it and had fun playing with all the great pieces. I know it is going to be a favorite activity for them.

Though it took a considerable amount of time, the game was fun to make and I thought I would try to sell it on our Etsy (chirp, chirp) shop. I only have one magnetic game set listed right now (here) but I am willing to make them to order. Check out our shop and let me know what you think!

The Olympics at our house: the games

Archery
A Nerf bow and arrow and our hand-painted target helped us in our rousing archery event. The archer with the most bulls-eye's in two minutes was the winner and I think Daddy regretted taking his shots from the "Daddy line" several feet behind ours.... those Nerf arrows only fly so far!
Gold: Mini Me
Silver Little Lady (and Mommy)

Obstacle Course
We ran several different obstacle courses in the house one evening. We love obstacle courses. We hopped, somersaulted, put puzzles together, shot baskets, and tossed bean bags.
Gold: Mommy (I didn't pull any punches in this event)
Silver: Mini Me 
His "loss" of gold caused a very tearful run to his room with a slam of the door. We had a good talk about how not everyone is a winner all the time, how a silver medal is still a great prize, and how the big fun is learning, playing, and cheering everyone on. We didn't anticipate this life lesson, but it was a good one.

 

Track
We did a long distance portion of this event (around the fence line), a couple sprints, and several 2-man relays. I am certain that by the next summer Olympics, Mini Me will beat me in this event with absolutely no problems. He is fast.
Gold: Daddy and Little Lady
Silver: Mini Me 

 Swimming 
We went for an afternoon at the pool together for this event. We put the kids in their float rings and swam them across the pool. Little Lady and I were shamefully pounded on in this competition... for more than one round. Mini Me decided that Daddy did most of the work to win, so he could wear the gold all by himself!
Gold: Daddy
Silver: Mommy

Cycling
We set up a tricycle obstacle course in the driveway and timed the kids (Little Lady with a teammate/parent) on how fast they could go through it. Little Lady vetoed her tricycle and wanted her little truck, instead. She did a good job on it, though!
Gold: Mini Me
Silver: Little Lady

 
Our informal little family Olympics have been the highlight of the past couple weeks - we spread the events out one-at-a-time over the course of the real games. We've enjoyed watching the TV events, but the kids talk about our events a lot, also. I think I'll tuck our sparkly medals in a safe place and we'll look forward to many more family Olympics in the future.

The entertainment of the month

.... continues to be our sticky wall. We moved it and made it bigger and boy, do the kids play with it! Little Lady particularly loves destroying inspecting and recreating her brother's awesome creations.

Our home made pinball game

Last week Mini Me and I made a little pinball game from an old CD case! I saw the idea in my Parents magazine (here).
He did the majority of the work as we designed the face and put it together. It's a bit of a dud, as our small bead is not perfectly round and sometimes has trouble rolling over the craft foam as we try to get it into the mouth.  It might have helped if I had a piece of craft foam big enough to not leave that ugly seam on the bottom.

But - he thinks it's great and again this morning he picked it up right when he got out of bed. After a few minutes I heard him say to himself, "This is fun!".

We got around to doing it

My mom and I have opened an Etsy shop (along with hundreds of thousands of other people....)!
Check it out here... 'cause all we can hear are the proverbial crickets chirping.
My mom and I both enjoy spending our precious free time sewing and crafting and thought we would see if we can make a little business of it.
We only have a few items listed in the shop right now as we test the waters. My mom makes wonderful baby towel bibs and terry cloth/flannel burp rags.

I'm contributing my sensory finger puppets, felt faces, and magnetic travel games.

Sometimes I look at some of the items on Etsy and think "People really pay for that?" so I hope someone - many someones - find the items in our shop interesting and priced right. Out of a billion Etsy members, we surely have to have some takers, right?
Check out our shop here and if you like what you see, spread the word!

Letter O: A Year of ABCs

Math: O is for "one"
One day we had an "o" snack at the train table and the kiddos enjoyed lining up their "o's" on the numeral "1" and the word "one".

Another day we cut a numeral "1" from a cereal box and enjoyed coloring it and carrying it around.

Art: O is for orange octopus
One morning we enjoyed a very messy paint session outside where we created a lovely orange octopus and some beautiful Olympic rings from pool noodle stamps!

Movement: O is for obstacle course and Olympics
We are putting on an impromptu Olympics at our house (read here) and one of our events is a family-favorite obstacle course! Read here and here to see more obstacle courses we've done... we just love putting these things together.
 

Music: O is for "Open, Shut Them"
This is an easy song with easy actions that is good to prepare kids to listen or eat nicely at the table. Sometimes we use it to get hands folded in laps so we can pray.

In which I get philosophical about control freaks

At the pool a few weeks ago I overheard a woman saying: 

"It was such a terrible day, I just wanted to go sit in my car on a gravel road and eat chocolate and get away.  I want a vacation.  Not with kids and not even with my husband; I want a vacation from making all the decisions all the time about everything.  I don't want people to ask me what's for supper or what to wear or where something is.  I'm tired of being in charge!"

I know this woman through kid activities around town and I think she's a great mom.  However, my first judgmental thought was, "Selfish!"  A split second my rationality finally kicked in and I thought, "Wow, I could have just said that myself.  I get you, Mama, I get you!"

I continued to slosh around the pool, making sure Little Lady wasn't drowning herself by trying to pick up dive sticks with her feet, and I reflected a little on what this woman said and my own identification with it.  

I'm in charge of everything because I want to be.  Well, most things.  I'm sure my husband would pick up the pace if I explicitly said I didn't want to do certain tasks.  I don't have to perfectly plan every one of our meals; I choose to.  I don't have to make sure our toys stay organized and in place; I choose to.  I don't have to make sure everyone's clothes coordinate; I choose to.  

Now, I do have to be in charge of my kids and make discipline decisions and health decisions and stay on top of the details of their lives.  That does wear me out.  But so many things that wear me out are of my own doing.  I'm a control freak and I know it.  

Because I have a willing husband who would take on a few more responsibilities if I "allowed" it, it's pretty ridiculous for me to cry martyr for all my efforts when I'm simply choosing to take control and do things my way.  Really, if I let my husband do the bills I would be riddling him with questions and/or checking his work to make sure it was done to my specifications.  I know myself well, and I would likely do that.  

This pool mom's vent to a girlfriend has been on my mind these recent weeks and has been a good reminder that I can't complain so heavily about the tasks I choose to do my way.  Do I wish I had a little minion who would do exactly what I asked, exactly the way I wanted it done?  Why yes - isn't that why people have children?  Kidding.  The reality is, families and relationships don't work that way.  And I need to learn to unclench even a little more... or deal with the weariness of being in charge.  Motherhood, thy name is exhaustion.  Right?  

So, Venting Pool Lady, I'm not necessarily calling you a control freak.  I'd just like to say thanks for allowing me to reflect on my own control freaky-ness.  My need to be in control might seem out of control to many people but I swear, I've got it under control.

Five ways to use clear contact paper

I'm at the end of another roll of clear contact paper and reflected on the variety of ways we used it.  Don't laugh that I'm reflecting on how to use contact paper, just enjoy the examples:


Window sun-catchers:
Fold over the contact paper and cut out any shape you want, leaving one end un-cut.  Peel the paper off and add tissue paper and other colorful bits to the shape, then fold the top part down.  Seal it, and hang it in the window.

Who is that handsome little man?

Little Lady made one, too!

 Collages:
Click here for an example of a nature collage we made.  You could make a collage out of a wide variety of things.  We even had a rock in this nature collage!

Laminate photos:
Yes, this idea is right on the contact paper itself but I use it quite a bit.  When my husband and I left the kids for vacation earlier this summer we laminated photos of them with us and put them on their teddy bears.  Mini Me still snuggles the bear and photo every night.  


Make a wall mosaic:
I taped contact paper to the wall, sticky side up, and had the kids use colored shape blocks to make a mosaic right on the wall!  We also used our little wooden letters to add to it. It was awesome fun for every one of us.

Make toddler games:
I laminated extra wallet photos to make a small memory game that is nice and durable.

Click here to see the toddler game set I made to practice colors, shapes, and numbers by covering felt shapes with clear contact paper!