Now With Better Content!

I left the computer for a few minutes - to load the dishwasher and stare resentfully out the kitchen window - and came back to find that The Baby had painstakingly written a few words.

Her name, OK!, kitty.

And then my phone rang and it was my mom calling from school, saying that The Girl had slipped into one of the mammoth school-yard puddles that's been claiming my kids daily, and that she (meaning My Mom) was going to zip over and grab her a dry outfit. NO, SHE CANNOT BRING THE GIRL HOME, even though it is 2 o clock and my kid is wet and COLD at school. Pshaw.

Here are some of The Baby's recent drawings and they are all - hmmm - self-portraits. What's with the self-absorption, my child? Why so few drawings of your mother?

Look at all the buttons! In real life, she would never STAND for that.

That is a picture of herself on her self-portrait's shirt with another picture of herself and so on, twerpy little kids all the way down. And this is, I must say, a completely recognizable picture of her. She looks JUST like this.

Hello Everybody and How Are You?

Do you know that nursery school song, the Hello Everybody one? We sing it a lot around here, especially in the morning - or more accurately, I sing it as my children grumble and rub their eyes and complain about what they're having for breakfast. The poor mites.

Things were pretty bad last week, but I can't talk about them. We're okay, but I'm a little bit creatively blocked, which was bound to happen. Maybe I've written down every word I could ever possibly have in me, and now I'm doomed to a life of staring blankly at my grocery list, wondering what the word for "bread" is.

Here is a book review: I was sent a copy of Molly Sabourin's upcoming book, Close to Home: One Orthodox mother's quest for patience, peace, and perseverance. I was a bit worried about what I'd write when I was asked to review it, because I know very, very little about Orthodox Christianity, but I needn't have fretted - it's a lovely, approachable book, and I found Molly's writing on living her faith as a mother very moving. Beyond that, I found her descriptions of her own spiritual growth and challenges as a mother very thought-provoking - and while there's an obvious audience of Orthodox Christian mothers, I do think that other Christian mothers could find spiritual sustenance in it, as well.

And speaking of sustenance - I need to go grocery shopping. Thanks for all the kind thoughts and prayers.

Here is my post for today.
And I did not sleep last night, so I feel like a zombie. Off I lurch.
xo

I was GONE!

I was at the dentist's yesterday, of course. I am always at the dentist's office.

My first Canada Moms Blog post is up, and I'm pretty pleased with it - I DID end up writing about the small town general store that we dream of buying. See you there!

10 Words The Baby Likes To Write

1) Her name.
She's been doing this for a while. Of course, she's a month away from being 4 (MY BABY IS A MONTH AWAY FROM BEING FOUR!), so this might not be that remarkable. Still, I think that she is a GENIE-US.

2) Her brother's name.
Her brother is HER favorite! "I love The Boy much more than I love you," she told the poor, poor Girl on the weekend.

3) The Girl's name.
If she must.

4) MOM
Although she refuses to write Dad. I guess I am just much more naturally lovable. Also, she hates writing the letter D.

5) xoxoxxoxoxo
Hugs and kisses. Generally attached to notes in which she demands various unreasonable things, like a dog or candy or total political power.

6) POLXIMMMMO
What does that mean? I asked her.
"Look it up," she snarled.

7) LION
The king of the jungle! She's never written the word cat and just skipped right to lion, which is telling, I think, about her personality.

8) XONIACH L+D-Xi?
Your guess is as good as mine.

9)Nick Jr
As in the website.

10) i (heart) you.
Awwwwww! My little grump loves me! Not as much as The Boy, but still.

Spring, phooey.

And WHAT does it look like here right now? Like this:

It really breaks my heart in a stupid sort of way to hear other people taking about bare lawns and crocuses coming up and meanwhile the tips of our small climbing gym in the backyard have FINALLY started showing above the snow. Am I bitter? OH YES I AM.

It's the first day of spring!

And it's supposed to snow all weekend. FINE, THEN. BE LIKE THAT.

I'm going to write my first Canada Moms Blog post this weekend, and you can have a looksee over there to see what other bloggers have already written, if you haven't already. I should get my first post up this weekend, but I can't decide what to write about:

1) The desperate state of affairs at the school in Attawapiskat?


2) How I still want to buy the general store in Great-Grandpa's town. Wouldn't that be fun? My kids have big plans involving having many jars full of candy.

3) The Northern Ontario separation movement? There's plans afoot to have us detach from southern Ontario and join Manitoba.

4) The group that wants to reintroduce black bears into southern Ontario's green spaces? (just a minute. hee hee hee hee heee heeeeee. Okay.)

5) Or how everyone I know drives a truck. WHERE IS MY TRUCK?

What do you want to hear about? Any other ideas?

It's spring! I cannot believe it.

I have a springtime post up today at 5 Minutes for Parenting. It's more jolly and lightweight than one of my usual sob-fests, but I'm feeling a bit discouraged these days and wanted to put something happy out into the world. See you there, I hope.

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in the usual fashion - a leprechaun rampaged through our house, leaving gold-wrapped chocolates and black licorice pipes in his wake, and then I made corned beef for supper. And drank some Irish ale, the end.

I'm finally not as sick. I didn't sleep for a few nights on end and began to feel like I was going to curl up and die, but now I'm sleeping again and I REALLY love sleeping. Sleeping's my favorite! And if I owe you an email, I'm REALLY sorry. I haven't been up to much these past few days.

On that note, I'm gone. I hope you're doing well.

Go check this out

Go here, scroll down to Ontario and TA DA, it's me!
Can you tell that I couldn't think of anything to write about myself? "Beck breaths air and eats food! Beck likes cats but not dogs so much! Beck hates writing about herself in the third person!"

People, People Who Neeeeed People

We're still sick and I can't do anything but sit around, so I may as well do that on the computer and share the joy. You're welcome.


So. My friendship post. When I wrote about my sketchy little post idea yesterday, some of the comments were a bit pointed, and I get why - there's sort of nothing that puts me on my guard more, certainly, than someone announcing that there's a mighty judgement a-comin'. And I think we've all met those poor deluded women who think that it's still high school and who still pick their friends on the basis of hotness/wealth/popularity, but that seems like its own reward and not worth talking about.


One of the things about the internet is the way that we can narrow down who we want to know to a laserlike point - should I only want to know Christian (but liberal Christian!) bookish SAHM women who Want To Write and Love To Bake and who are rather crabby, I could likely surround myself with them. I don't think that's good for us - it's certainly not good for me, this closing of ranks, this forming of narrow clubs and I think it leads to more loneliness in the long run.


If I carry that attitude over into real life - the I Can Only Befriend People Who Are Just Like Me thing - I'm going to end up rejecting a lot of great people who would have enriched my life immeasurably. And while I am all for being very picky about who I marry, I don't feel the need to be anywhere near as picky about my friends, for Pete's sake. I mean, my husband sleeps in my bed and fathers my children and brings home my bacon and so it's very important to me that we share values and morals and tastes as well as a house. But my friends go for walks with me sometimes and come over to drink tea and talk about books and it's just not as important that we're Soul Twins. All we need to do, really, is get along, find each other affable and like each other, and the suggestion that friendship should come with a lengthy list of prerequisites is... well, mean-spirited.

That sounds so nice, doesn't it? But I'm not friends with people because I'm charitable but because I like them - and when I try and pin down the elusive qualities that makes someone likable in my eyes, the ability to comprehend character vanishes like dust. So anything I could put down ("Be kind-hearted, have a functioning moral compass and a sense of discretion") would lack the actual smiling realization of that moment when you realize that you've found a friend or the let-down when someone opens their mouth and you realize that you could never really be friends at all.

And yet when I try to write about friendship and not-friendship, it comes out sounding cliquey and mean-spirited and Get Out Of My Club. Someone defter than I am could likely figure it out, the invisible dividing line between who we befriend and who we don't, but I'm too clod-fisted to do the topic any justice.

So. Do you find making friends easier now that you're an adult (I certainly do) or do you find that the constraints of adult life make it harder? What do you need to have in common with someone to make friendship possible?

Boring boring boring

I posted this week's menu plan and some recipes at my food blog.

Golly, What a Surprise

It's March break! And that means.... wait for it.... that we are SICK.

The kids are mostly fine and in high good spirits, but my husband and I are lurching around like zombies. Zombies in a zombie movie called "March Break Zombie Attack Pt. 12". I went to the grocery store for a little while, since we needed food ("Buy doughnuts!" my husband croaked feebly at me as I left, doughnuts being the one thing between him and the cold, cold grave, apparently.) and midway through my little grocery store expedition, I considered just laying down in the aisle and giving up right there. I mean, what's the point? It's freaking MARCH BREAK and we all know what that means.

I actually have some interesting post ideas:
1. I read a post a while back and it was a somewhat hilariously uncharitable list of things that would make the writer reject someone as a friend. Afterwards, I realized that I was an unusual combination of amused and really offended, which makes it probably just as well that the author and I could never be friends. So I was thinking afterwards if I have any unspoken inner list for my friends, and it was sort of eye-opening to realize that I did and what was on that list.

2. Did you hear that things are a bit worrisome financially right now? Apparently.

3. I can't remember what three was. It was pretty good, though. Isn't that interesting? Can't you just not wait? Well, you're going to have to - I'm going to lurch off the computer now. Ugh.

My husband says that windows are easy to fix: all you need is a supply of window glass, a glass cutter and measuring stuff and silicone window goop. See? EASY. At any given time, he can make ANYTHING AT ALL: a robot! a window! supper! It is a great comfort to be married to him.

Sometimes I write a post and it really pleases me, and today's post at 5 Minutes for Parenting very pleasantly pleases me quite a bit. See you there.xo

I Am Sick

I am! And although I have lots I'd like to write about, I'm not really up to it.

After I locked myself out of the house yesterday, I phoned my husband for rescue - but he was very busy at work. He suggested breaking a window and getting in that way, so I did. The Girl absolutely could not BELIEVE IT ("WHY DO I HAVE TO LIVE IN THIS STUPID FAMILY ANYWAY?" she wailed as I hit the window with a shovel. Because YOU ARE JUST LUCKY, KID.) and then I very calmly was able to get back into my house, the end.

It didn't cost us anything to fix it - my husband can make windows. So you can't even tell that it happened and now I have the smug feeling of being smart enough to marry someone who can at least fix my many, many mistakes.

I am dull.

Other Boring Things I Could Blog About:
1. My housecleaning schedule (and here everyone I know just about dies laughing. SHUT. UP.)
2. Folding Laundry + Murder She Wrote: The Perfect Evening.
3. Me lecturing all of you about eating more vegetables, especially the kind that taste sort of iffy.
4. How I have a bad cold and it's sapping my creative energies.
5. The Baby just told me that she would like me to write "about the planets." Mars, in particular.
6. And also the sun.
7. Where are MY KEYS?
8. Wholegrains: embrace their wholesome awesomeness.
9. Maybe I should consider a mid-life career chance to nutritionist.
10. My dad would like me to blog about the coffin we will eventually choose for him. This was in the context of a conversation I just had with him on the phone, but it was still pretty off-putting.

Hopefully I'll be less boring tomorrow.

IMPORTANT UPDATE! I just had to break into my own house by smashing through a window. That makes me more interesting, right?

Not Of General Interest

I was tweeting yesterday with some people about menu planning, and I thought that my weekly meal plan might be helpful or illustrative - you can see where I've scheduled plan ahead cooking and when I do my baking and things like that. So that's up at my food blog (which I'm planning on undating more frequently now), and let me know if you're interested in any of the recipes - if they turn out, I'll post them.

Krafting With Kids

As a disclaimer, I do not spend all my time doing crafts with my kids. We mostly just keep a lot of craft supplies available to them, as well as stacks of craft books and five million issues of Family Fun Magazine who should hire me ALREADY. Then we just let the poor darlings get so bored that they HAVE to craft. (as Susanne commented: You know, I really think of me as a creative person but with my son all I usually do is leave him alone until he gets bored enough to come up with something. Like he has a huge box full of cartons and containers and such clean recycling crap. Together with some paper scissors and glue that's usually sufficient.)

But sometimes I DO have structured craft time with the monsters, especially with the household preschooler. It's good for them and it's also good for me to feel like I'm making an effort to keep my kid happy and crafty.

So here's my list of my top 10 favorite crafts to do with the 3-6 group. There's probably some margin on either side, age-wise, and you know what your kids will like to do, I'm sure. This post would have been WAAAAY better with pictures, but I can't find my cord for my camera (wait! My mom's camera is here, and so now there's a couple of pictures), so you'll just have to use your imaginaaaation.

1. Paper doll chains.
You know the kind, where you fold the paper accordion-style:

(note the equisite craft table!)

and then cut out a half-person on the fold with a hand stretching out to the other side:

and when unfolded, voila - a line of paper people holding hands, Coke-commerical style.

You'll have to cut them out, and then your child can industriously colour them with markers (markers are more satisfying for crafts like this since less effort is needed to colour with them which means the little people won't be as likely to rip. Look at me sharing my hard-earned maternal knowledge!) and maybe some glitter glue.

And yes, that IS pretty basic, but all three of my kids have loved colouring those little guys. You can also fold a piece of paper in half and cut out things - leaving the fold untouched - that will then stand up. Cars! Cows! Houses!

2. Egg Carton Caterpillars.
You take your empty egg carton and you cut out a strip of the egg cups - however long you like - and let your child paint it in caterpillar colours (poster paint - the kind from the dollar store - is what you want for this, not watercolours which just suck into the cardboard in an unsatisfactory manner.). If you have little dot stickers, those are fun, as are googly eyes for the face. Once your caterpillar is painted and has a face and some time to dry, you carefully poke to little holes in the top of its head, and thread a pipe cleaner through, twirling the sticking-out bits in an attractive manner. My kids also liked to glue on little construction paper feet, but even without them, a caterpillar is a VERY satisfying thing for your three year old to make.
(there are some lovely egg carton caterpillars if you scroll down through Karen's Lenten crafts post.)

3. Collages
JUST LIKE the kind you made out of fashion magazines when you were 16, except I tend to let the kids use flyers from grocery stores instead of moody pictures of fashion models. The Baby likes to take rectangles cut from construction paper and glue the food that she cuts out to them - and then she can play store, which is fun. I've also made posters of Foods That I Like with the kids, or had them cut out a lot of food and then sorted them into posters of the food groups. Cutting with scissors - did you know? - is a really important pre-literacy skill.

4. Wooden Spoon Puppets
We buy wooden spoons from the dollar store, and then the kids paint them (with poster paint, of course!). The outside of the wooden bowl is, of course, the puppet's head, and once it has been painted to your child's satisfaction, they can glue on lengths of yarn for hair. I really like this craft because it results in a toy they can play with afterwards - my kids really liked making spoon self-portraits.

5. Rain painting
An important caveat: you'll probably want to do this one with older kids who won't be distressed to see their painting getting wrecked. But when it's raining outside, I often have my kids do a scribbly watercolour painting and then carefully lay it out on the sidewalk for a minute or two. The rain will do neat things to the paint.... you can also do this with a sturdy paper plate and some poster paint, too.

6. Rock Painting
On one of those endless walks with your preschooler, you can have them pick up any likely-looking rocks - not too small or bumpy! - and bring them home and wash them up. When they're dry, your kid can use their handy dandy poster paint to decorate them. My kids like to paint some rocks green or red and then add details with a black permanent markers to make frogs or ladybugs. Should you make enough frogs and ladybugs, you could use them to play tic-tac-toe.

7. Beautiful flowers
Many things in the house can be made into beautiful flowers. Cupcake papers, for one - poke a hole in the bottom with a green pipecleaner, which you fold over a bit and then anchor in place with a piece of tape. Or you can cut out some construction paper flower shapes and have your child decorate them to their satisfaction, and then have them paint some popsicle sticks green. While that's drying, cut out some egg carton cups (egg cartons! the raw material of the preschool art world!) into single cups, and fill them with playdough. Glue the flower to the top of the popsicle stick, insert the end into the playdough, and voila: a flower that you can display with pride.

8. Paper Bag Puppets
Brown paper lunch bags are ENDLESSLY useful for crafting with little kids, although we mostly just make them into puppets. My kids like making dogs - red tongue lolling from the mouth and floppy ears glued on - and owls.

9. Doll Fashion
... or teddy bear fashion, should you have a manly child.
Felt is one of the best things ever - it's easy to cut and it doesn't unravel! If your child is old enough to wield a pair of small sharp scissors, they can cut out attractive ponchos and vests for their bears or dolls from felt. They can decorate their attractive fashions with glitter glue and marker, too.
Once your kid is old enough to use a needle and thread - and I'm making no guesses when that is, since The Girl has been sewing since she was a steady four and The Boy has only been allowed to sew since he was six and The Baby will have to calm down WAAAAY more than she shows any signs of ever doing before I'll consider it, but you know your kid - anyhow. Once they can sew, they can make fetching doll pillows and little purses from felt, with you helping them to fashion a handle from a piece of ribbon. Very nice.

10. The City
This is a fun ongoing project, and a big hit amongst all the little boys of my acquaintance. Save up cartons - especially the small, single serving milk kind - to be little houses, and larger cardboard boxes to be towering buildings. (if your cartons are covered in that waxy stuff, you'll need to glue on construction paper so that your child can decorate them.) Your child can decorate the buildings to their heart's content, and little cars can drive about the metropolis's thriving streets.

Phew! There. Have fun!

Obviously, I Was Swamped

I spent ALL of yesterday cleaning and then I passed out on my couch for half an hour's well-earned rest. And there went my blogging time. I WILL do the kids crafts post tomorrow, though.
And today? I have a post up at 5 Minutes for Parenting about how March and I are just FINISHED. See you there!

Now I Feel Like A Genius

Who knew that so many of you were just waiting to hear about what I do with my monsters all day? I'm glad you liked that post.

I'm busy cleaning my FILTHY HOUSE this morning, but if I manage to not pass out from the cleaning fumes, I'm going to write another post about easy-to-do crafts. We'll see.

The Cure For Cabin Fever

So you're stuck at home with little kids and it's been a particularly cold, snowy and icy winter and you're pretty much housebound and everyone has a raging case of cabin fever AND a bad cold? HEY, ME TOO!

I think every mother has her strengths, and I know where mine are NOT: I'm horrible at setting decent schedules, at enforcing rules, and at mediating conflicts. I'm equally horrible at housework and my kids never have matching socks. So I'm not saying that I am The Best Mother In The World, by a long shot - but my strengths as a mother are that I'm relaxed and fun and creative, and I'm REALLY good at thinking of silly ways to spend long winter afternoons with little kids. And with no further adieu, here is a big list of goofy things I've done with my kids to while away endless winter afternoons, because you're probably running out of ideas by now, too:

1) I suggested this to Joy yesterday and it was a hit: A Beach Day. Put on whatever music says "hot summer day" to you - maybe reggae, maybe Latin American dance music, maybe Raffi - spread out some beach towels and put the kids into their swimsuits. Play limbo. Catch some rays. Maybe have a picnic, complete with ice cream cones. Have a relaxing swim in the tub.

2) Open a bakery - get out (or make) some play-dough, take out all of the cookie cutters and plastic rolling pins and cookie sheets and let the kids make "cookies." Paper lunch bags are a nice addition to this, too, as is a toy cash register.

3) Make icebergs. This is maybe one of my kids' favorite things to do EVER. We save plastic baby wipe boxes and those little plastic cups that single-serving applesauces come in, and the kids have free reign to fill them up with water, action figures, coins, toy cars and food colouring and put them in the fridge. Later on, pop it out in the bathtub and the kids can excavate all of the stuff out of the iceberg while it melts. (this is also a LOT of fun to do in the summertime when it's actually hot out, too.)

4) Get a couple of pails of snow and dump them in the bathtub. Your bath toys are probably tired of just seeing water all the time.

5) If you need to keep your three year old out of your hair for a few minutes, give them a paper punch and some junk mail.

6) This is always, always a hit: save envelopes for a while, as well as any official looking junk mail that comes in. Then set up a toy office corner - envelopes, mail to open, stickers, rubber stamps, pens, maybe an old typewriter, a calculator... We even have a toy coffee maker and some cookies set out, since all office workers need coffee breaks, and you would not BELIEVE how long my kids can while away at The Office.

7) If a day really seems to be going down the toilet, quickly bake up a batch of cupcakes, frost them and let the kids go all out decorating them: put out tons of candy and sprinkles and the like and step back. This is ALWAYS a hit.

8) Set up a tent. Put sleeping bags in it. Take out all of the camping things: flashlights, backpacks...my kids have gone so far as to make a rock circle for a campfire - and let the kids spend the day camping. Make s'mores in the microwave. Read spooky stories around the "campfire."

9) Get out all of the doctor toys, all of the stuffed animals, and a package of band-aids and popsicle sticks from the dollar store. All of those poor animals OBVIOUSLY need vets, right?

10) Make a drawing of a house with several rooms, and then let your preschooler pour over old catalogs and magazines, cutting out furniture and people and decorations and gluing them into their lovely new home. This sounds pretty basic, but EVERY SINGLE ONE of my kids has LOVED doing this.

A few final things - some of these require more out of you than others, but I don't actually recommend that you actually step in and take over playing, so much. Imaginative, free-form play is REALLY important for little kids, and I worry that a lot of modern kids just don't get enough of it. And sometimes the kids will be gung-ho for your suggestions and other times they'll just look at you blankly and as in so many other things in motherhood, you just have to try not to take it personally. Oh, and try and rise above the mess that happy, busy kids DO create: things can be cleaned and BELIEVE ME, they're only small for a little, little while.

Now go have some fun.