Polka Dot Cottage » parenthood

Wet

Lisa — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:30:00 +0000

School let out for the summer a week ago today. Sometimes I think we’ve done nothing in that time but find more and more ways to get wet.

Hose, lake, pool, sprinkler.
I haven’t been posting much, lest my keyboard get soaked

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Backyard Bingo

Lisa — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:00:51 +0000

Neil and I came up with this game to get our kids out of the house and running around the yard a bit. I’m calling it Backyard Bingo, but in reality it takes place all over the yard (not just in the back) and technically it’s not really Bingo, either. So it’s totally mis-named, but it’s fun just the same. If you’d like to make a similar game for your kids, here’s what you do:

Go outside without the little ones and take pictures of things around the yard. Make a nice mix of easy and challenging. Zoom in really closely on some objects. Take a lot of pictures so you can make more than one game, in case it’s a big hit. I took 48 shots, and used 12 for this first game. Now we can easily play three more times with the rest of the images.

Print all of the images for your game onto a piece of heavy paper and give it to your players. You can make one for each child, or just a single sheet to share, if they want to search as a team.

If your kids have a camera or can take flip videos, have them photograph the objects as they find them.

Our rules were that you had to find every object on the game board, but you could definitely turn it into a true game of Bingo, if you like, and just have them find a row across or down.

Really, that’s it. My boys started out playing separately, but quickly teamed up to help each other fill in the blanks on their game boards. They had fun running around the yard, they got a little exercise, enjoyed some teamwork, and spent some time being more observant of the place where we live. Sometimes our surroundings become so familiar, we cease to really notice them anymore, so I like how this game made them pay attention to details.

We’re eager to play again, but I only have enough pictures for three more rounds… I have to make them last!

[It occurs to me that this would be a fun game for a group of neighborhood friends to play, as well, using objects from everybody's yards.]

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Do you want to hear about the rain again?

Lisa — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:38:22 +0000

I am dying to show you some really cool sewing projects, but I haven’t made them yet. It’s Spring Break around here, both of the kids are home, and when we’re not traveling to/from Grandma’s house, or playing some cutthroat UNO, we’re exploring color theory with Sharpies and prepping for a family party this coming weekend for a certain someone’s seventh birthday.

Essentially this means all I have for this space is small talk. Such as: We had two more days of rain at the beginning of this week.

And: Today was finally sunny, and I brought the boys for some much-needed haircuts.

That’s all I’ve got. And I can’t set up the sewing machine until after the party. So. For the next week, this blog will have to survive by my wit alone. You poor, poor readers…

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The Edison Museum

Lisa — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:47:04 +0000

I tend to avoid taking the kids to museums, as this is the dramatic kind of reaction I usually get. But when Aidan came home from school and told me he was writing a biography report on Thomas Edison, I suggested we visit Edison’s laboratory museum.

It was an idea that was met with actual enthusiasm by my ten-year-old – something I honestly was not prepared for. And when I mentioned the same to Eamonn, his response was “Thomas Edison? He’s my favorite inventor!”

Who knew 1st-graders had favorite inventors?!

So we trekked the 35 minutes over to West Orange, New Jersey yesterday, parked half a mile away when we discovered it was also the day of their St. Patrick’s parade, and enjoyed a little self-guided tour punctuated with the muffled sound of marching bagpipe bands.

I highly recommend this as an outing for those of you with kids that are not into Museums with a capital M. Admission is $7 for adults and free for children under sixteen, so it’s very affordable, and each person in your group is given a little gadget they can put up to their ears to hear information about the various rooms and buildings.

This gadget thing was the best. idea. ever.

My kids never lost interest in any of the exhibits because they were enjoying the ability to control the story. The narration engaged them, had them looking around the room for particular objects, and laughing at amusing little anecdotes they heard. The interactivity here was just the right amount, and it was key to their enjoyment of the tour.

I will have to revise my opinion of visiting museums, if I can find other places that use similar technology. These guys loved it. More photos of our trip here, if you are interested.

The only down side to this entire experience? They Might Be Giants’ song “The Edison Museum” has been knocking around my brain for three days, and I may just lose my marbles if it goes on much longer. Ack!

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Lunch-making under the influence

Lisa — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:29:33 +0000

I thought I’d have a little fun tonight, making my own snack packs for the boys’ lunches, using recycled bags I’ve been collecting from my (too) numerous trips to the local bagel shop. I filled one with cheese crackers, set one aside to fill with popcorn later tonight, and I put cookies in a couple others.

It was just after I wrote “PB = Peanut Butter, or is it Pookie Bear?” on a cookie pack that my nine-year-old suggested that I not make his lunch and drink Mike’s Hard Lime at the same time.

Fourth graders have no sense of humor.

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Drowned Rat

Lisa — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:22:51 +0000

It’s not so much that I mind the headlice – sure all of the laundering, freezing, scorching, treatment-giving, and nit-picking etc. is a royal pain, but I can deal with that.

I don’t really even mind driving the kids to their two different schools to have them checked out by their nurses before being allowed back into class.

I’m even ok with the fact that our little “patient zero” is still too nitty to go back to school today.

What pushes me over the edge is the weather. Flood warnings and wind advisories. Thunder rumbling in the distance. And me, running in and out of schools and drug stores, kid or two in tow, becoming more of a drowned rat with every errand.

Oh, the joy of wet shoes and jeans, and having to change all of our clothes when we walk back in the front door.

I’m taking a coffee break before I have another scalp treatment to give – this time I’m unleashing the pesticides.

After that it’s one more run through the rain with the six-year-old, back to school for yet another head check, on the off chance that he can catch the last few hours of class.

The phrase “not worth the effort” comes to mind, as I sit here, sipping my coffee, in my comfy and dry sweatpants… what’s another day of school missed, anyway?

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What’s more fun than a box full of yarn?

Lisa — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:59:02 +0000

Yesterday I opened up a box of Peaches & Creme from Elmore-Pisgah. Twenty-two little balls of totally affordable cotton worsted, in a plethora of pretty colors. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I am presented a box full of like objects, my first impulse is to sort them. So there I sat, on the floor, with my big box of yarn, looking for sets of three that were pleasing together.

I was soon joined (grudgingly at first, but enthusiastically before long) by my 6-year-old, who had his own ideas of what colors look good next to each other. We sat there like that for several minutes – making matches, jumbling them up, re-ordering – when someone suggested bowling.

And thus began an hour-long series of build-them-up and knock-them-down games that were surprisingly enjoyable for both of us. It actually felt like a real shame when I had to take away three of the balls to start my next dishcloth.

I love that kind of spontaneous fun that erupts from looking at a collection of objects in a non-traditional way. It’s like the game of Go-Fish that my 9-year-old and I played the other day with a big bowl of my medium-size clay buttons. “Do you have a button in the Triangles pattern?” “Nope, go fish!” Fun.

Before I go, a quick aside: have you heard about the Craft Hope shop at Etsy? I have a full entry about this nearly ready to post, but in the meantime, I think the shop can speak for itself. Go have a look!

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Nit wits

Lisa — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:34:05 +0000

The littlest member of the family brought home a gift for us this week. If you recognize that very fine-toothed comb up there, you know of what I speak.

I’ve always thought it was rather sweet how the boys end up sleeping together most nights, sharing blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals. And I have never minded it when they wanted to spend the night in my bed while I am away on a trip. This week, though, I’m singing a slightly different tune, as every. single. soft. thing. those two have touched in the last week needs to be laundered.

I’m tempted to make everyone sleep on the cold, hard, kitchen floor tonight until every nit has been picked. Blech. My scalp itches just thinking about it.

This whole thing started two days ago with a call from the school nurse. The day before that it was surprise dental surgery for Neil, which landed him in bed (or on the couch) for most of the day sleeping off the anesthesia, and me in the car picking up medication and playing taxi.

So, yeah, kind of a busy-having, challenging, weird week. It’s taken me three days just to get a small pile of orders out the door, in between laundry processing, scalp treatments, and drug store runs (and if you’re one of my customers who has experienced a delay, I do apologize)!

On the plus side, I bought a rice cooker online, which arrived here in record time, and gave us the most delicious sticky jasmine rice for supper last night. Mmmmm.

Ok, well, I just wanted to check in and let you know I was alive. I owe email to a few of you who were interested in shawl pins, and I will get to it, I promise. For now, though, I have some laundry-related tasks to attend to. Oh, joy.

P.S. Not a fan of bug talk? You’ll be happy to know I’ve been sitting on a less skin-crawly entry since Tuesday, and I expect to get it posted in the next few days. Just waiting for one last little bit of information I need to add.

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Collaboration

Lisa — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:45:32 +0000

I’m not always on the ball teacher-gift-wise, but this year, I managed to get it done with a little help from the kids. Erin’s coffee cup cozy tutorial is something I’ve been eyeing since she posted it last year, and I finally decided to try it, when I realized that it’s a perfect project for kids and moms to do together.

I don’t normally ask the boys to get involved, to be perfectly honest, because it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. They are reluctant collaborators. They do like to make things, but on their own terms, in their own time. Crafting with Mom usually involves tearing themselves away from whatever screen they are attached to at the moment, and that’s never a popular option.

Still, I asked for their assistance this time, because I want them to be actual participants in the gift-giving process, and not just the messengers of the finished goods. There were a few groans here and there, but for the most part, they were accepting of their roles as fabric-choosers, button pickers, and fabric cutters. I traced the pattern onto the fabrics they picked out, they cut out the shapes, and I sewed the whole thing together according to Erin’s instructions.

I learned something unexpected from this little project. If you know me at all, you know I have a tendency toward the matchy-matchy. So when I asked the boys to pick out fabrics and a button, it was all I could do to keep from twitching as Eamonn revealed his selections. The main aqua/gold/green/brown fabric, didn’t have much in common with the pink/green/orange button, and neither of them went with the red checked pattern of the lining fabric. Oy. But you know what? Although I would never have chosen to put those colors and patterns together myself, the resulting cozy is my favorite of the three. All of that stuff really works together. The lesson here? I really ought to be more adventurous with color and think like a six-year-old now and then.

This project used entirely things I had on hand: fabric from my stash, and buttons I made some time ago. Even the packaging was was scrounged: Sew Mama Sew gift tags I’d printed out last Christmas and hadn’t needed, twine, and small heavy-duty brown bags that at one time carried sandwiches from the bagel shop. The only brand new components were the coffee shop gift cards I snuck into the bags.

These were fun. If I didn’t have a million other things to do, I’d make one for myself Thanks for the pattern, Erin!

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Dear Tooth Fairy

Lisa — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:37:08 +0000

It was just three days ago that I asked Eamonn if he had any loose teeth. Maybe he was nervous about the idea of losing a tooth? I’m not sure, but whatever the reason, he resisted my attempt to check his front teeth, or to show him how to check for himself. I never did get to see if anything was loose, but I assumed it wasn’t. My older son was 7 1/2 before his first tooth fell out, and I had no reason to believe Eamonn would be any different.

So, you can imagine it was a bit of a surprise last night, when Eamonn opened his mouth to laugh and I saw a little hole where his bottom left front tooth had been. Somewhere in the last three days, that tooth disappeared, and nobody even noticed! I suspect it came out in the bagel he had for lunch but there’s no real way to know.

I’ll admit I was momentarily distressed that I wouldn’t be able to keep Eamonn’s first baby tooth socked away in the top drawer of my nightstand, like all of his brother’s baby teeth. But then I laid eyes on his letter to the Tooth Fairy. Oh, this is a much better keepsake than the tooth itself. Old teeth don’t make me giggle quite so much as that letter, which is quintessentially Eamonn: my silly little, growing-up-so-fast, 6 1/2 year-old, tooth-losing, boy.

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Polka Dot Cottage » parenthood

Wet

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