The Valentine Scavenger Hunt

I don't normally create work for myself.  In fact, I go out of my way to avoid it. BUT-there is something about Valentine's Day that makes me want to work twice as hard. If the day is really supposed to be about love and friendship, we should put some effort into it.  That's just my feeling.

This year, my boys are in a public school in the morning and a private one in the afternoon. That meant not three but FIVE sets of Valentines for the parties.  Like I said, work created...

To top that off, I don't let them buy Valentines. We make them. We have always made them and we always will. The theme this year was supposed to be glitter...love those sparkles!

We made three sets of red and gold glittering Valentines and quite a mess in the process:

They came out cute, and are absolutely worth the glitter I am still sweeping up off the floor. 

However, I had one child that didn't want glitter cards.  We had this problem last year when he wanted a non-Valentine shoebox for school.  So, he came up with his own plan-and since it was for the Montessori Center, I followed the child.

What would you rather have?  A bug or a hug? That's a good question.  I was the one that insisted on the heart sticker, just to remind him of why he was passing out insects.

When the goal is not to create work, we try to get rid of all this Valentine stuff immediately.  I can only imagine how creative some moms get about tossing things out when their kids aren't looking.

I couldn't  just let them tear it all up for the pencils and trinkets and then wait until next Sunday night to take to the curb before my buddy Quincy comes to get the garbage while the boys watch in fascination.  Yes, I talk to my garbage man-I talk to everybody. Service is better that way....

 We had a "Valentine Scavenger Hunt." They each had to go to a corner of the family room and dump their Valentines out on the floor so they could see them:

Frances was ready!

Once they were ready, I called out something for them to look for in the cards and bring it to me.  We kept score of who had the item.  All three of them REALLY got into it!

Just a heart!

Cats!

 

 When we were done, I set the stopwatch to see how quickly they could put everything back in their Valentine boxes....2 minutes, 35 seconds!  THEN, I counted their tally marks and gave them candy for them. Yes, it was real Valentine candy.  Sometimes you need a little, but they earned it!

Right now the artwork wall is all love and hearts:

I'm going to miss all the pink and purple when the green and gold arrives in March!

The Play Date Chart

Play dates rock.  They save your sanity. You are not the only mom having the issues you have. No matter what-I have seen some of the best of the best moms lose it in the last eight years of parenting. It will happen.  You need a play date to see another mom do it.


I wasn't always the play date queen and because I work from home it is a lot easier to have a schedule and see the same people at the same times-park or library after school for example.  Play dates are one of the best things for children on the spectrum, if you can find the right friends and moms to have them with.  While we have consistent friends we see a lot, I make sure we play with lots of kids. 

The greatest play dates of my preschool career were in Pittsburgh with my daughter and her friend from Korea. Neither of them were very verbal at the beginning of the school year, but by March they had nailed the concept of "Expressive Language."  They deserve their own post one day, I'll get to it.

His mom would bring him to our house and instead of ringing the doorbell he would scream: "FRANCES!!!  I'm here!!!!"  and she would stop what she was doing and go get him, and then do whatever they did for two hours....  The last time I was in Pittsburgh I heard that his family went back to Korea and that poor woman can't find chicken nuggets and he won't eat anything else. That is a problem.




Apparently my son is keeping track of who gets a play date when, and shared his findings with me in chart form:

Play date chart

Ok, let's over analyze this just for the fun of it. First off, Kindergarteners don't know how to make tally marks.  That's first grade math. So all of you thinking "Aha!  Kenneth doesn't know something!" You are right.  He will learn it next year. 

Second, he truly feels he and his brother are wronged in the play date department. Here is a translation of his chart:

K- 5
L- 3
F- 19
M- 10

Last time I checked, there wasn't anything wrong with my memory, and I don't remember the inequality he is recording.  Not to mention, if I had had ten play dates of my own, (I'm the M-for Mom), I definitely would remember that.  Sweet!  

I have to get him to start tracking other things-like who reads the most and who picks up the toys.

Play on....

The moment for a lemon drop....

"We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"

"A what?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

"No thank you, said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops (HPSS, p.10-11)."

Sometimes we have to cling to what comforts us.  Dumbledore knows he is about to drop a very well loved toddler off with some jerks.  We as readers know that he has been there before and is going to go there again-if he wants a lemon drop, let him have it.



They are fat free and yummy.....I don't mind going to the Dollar Tree if I know I can leave with a box!!!  Besides, I can always say Dumbledore made me do it!

A Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of...

 

(Southern) American Girl Hissy Fit...

My college roommate and I went to New York two years ago and we took my daughter.  :0)  It was a wonderful trip to the American Girl Cafe.  She was six and did what we said, and we bought what we wanted to buy for her.

Now she is eight.

She had a mission and a list of what she wanted before we got there.  This year, her doll was going to the beauty salon.

When we got off the train, before we hit the store, we stopped at the library to re-group.

Best kept secret in New York City-the children's room of the public library.  Please, go there to decompress and wash off the commercialism of it all. There are couches, literacy, clean bathrooms without lines. Only in America do we have long lines to buy M&Ms you could get at the check out of a grocery store but not walk into a famous library with an awesome collection of children's books.

Next up, Little girl heaven/hell....

About the beauty/glamor/stupidity of it all.....I agree, I should make my daughter shelve cans at a food bank. I should have her write letters to children after an earthquake.  I should and do send in mittens and hats for the school drives.

But I also have this to say:

You don't know what you will do until you are a parent.

Furthermore, if you already have the doll, it's a lot cheaper to wait in that line to get the doll cleaned up and redone than buy another doll.  If the doll has been well loved and played with, then definitely do it.

That's all I'm saying..now back to my story.

The appointment line is long. Think about the OMG! elf that Crumpet describes in the Santaland Diaries.  The good news is that they plan the appointment around your schedule. So once you get to the appointment counter, you might go straight to a stylist or come back after your lunch...

By the time we got to the front my daughter had had enough....she was melting down.  The wonderful woman said we could come back in thirty minutes and then go straight to our lunch when we were done.  But my child didn't want to come back in thirty minutes and then go to lunch.  Her doll had to have braids right this minute.

Now see, I talk about the hissy fit all the time-but I have never fully explained what I mean when I say that.  I am not going to use Google or the Urban dictionary, this is coming straight from me.  Every Belle might have her own definition, but here is mine:

Every now and then, when something is (by your definition) wrong, or unfair, or over the top crazy, or not the way you thought it should be and you are probably right ...you speak up. The filter is off and the right words come to you.  You don't stop to think what the other people are going to think, you just boldly and somewhat loudly say it.  A Belle won't cuss or take the Lord's name in vain while she is going off for two reasons: 1) It cheapens what you are saying and 2) You might get confused with someone from New Jersey.

I threw a hissy on my daughter and in front of my Connecticut born and raised best mommy friend in the middle of the American Girl Store in Manhattan:

Try to hear a loud southern accent as you read this......

"Little girls from all over the country save their money and wait in this line to have this plastic doll's synthetic hair braided.  You are very lucky that you can hop on a train and be here in less than two hours and that your grandmother and your father gave you extra money for this experience.  This nice lady has to make every little girl and her mother happy and she does her best every day. Now smile, say "Thank you Miss Anne" to her, and we will come back in thirty minutes or I'll hail us a taxi back to Grand Central Station."


Frances knows when her time is up-she put on her best smile ever and calmed herself down.

"Thank you Miss Anne-I'll be back!"

We were able to have a nice little economy/math lesson on how she could buy a few small things or one big thing and she picked the big thing.  Fine-that was her choice.

Then we went back to the beauty salon and waited for our name to be called.

While we were there, I made the stylist teach us how to care for the doll.  We don't put glitter pens on the doll, we don't cut the doll's hair, etc. and so on.  Since I was on a high and mighty roll, I asked her stylist,

"How many countries do little girls come from?"

"Ireland, Thailand, Belize, Italy, India...literally, I've worked with little girls from all over the world."

"Where do the most polite and well behaved little girls live?"

"England"

"And the rudest?"

The woman didn't want to answer me at first, and maybe I shouldn't post what she said...just in case someone on staff from American Girl is paid to be a lurker...you never know...so I'll sell out and say all over the world there are rude and polite little girls and geography doesn't have anything to do with it.

Ha ha ha...

After it was over I made sure my daughter said thank you and I said an extra thank you for making little girls happy.

Of course, my daughter must always have the last word:

Where on earth did she get that spark????


Next time we go into the City,  we are hitting Central Park or the MoMa....I need a memory of something else.

Snow and states of matter....

Yesterday was the first official snow day of the winter in my New England town. It was a little gift from the universe for a couple of reasons:

1) It was a Saturday- I didn't have to work on the laptop and hear them say, "Can we go out now?  Can we go out now?" We could do whatever we wanted!
2) I had everything they needed:  waterproof gloves, hats, snow pants, boots...for all three of them and everything matched.  This was a first since I moved to Pittsburgh.
3) I was determined not to turn the television on until four.  I really wanted to have a fun day of "Mommylicious" activities...


One of the ideas came from my daughter's backpack. Slacker moms, please, always take a minute to open the backpack. You never know when something good will be in there.

 She had had a science lesson on "States of Matter"

This is one of those times I had my "Mommy Game" on-I could reinforce the lesson with her while teaching it to the younger two-score one for Page!

We went outside and collected snow-then observed it about every thirty minutes (this also reinforced lapsed time...bu-wah!!)

 

Let me back up-the younger two could not believe that snow became water. They thought I was the coolest mom ever. 

"Guess what boys?  You boil it and it becomes a gas and disappears into the air!"

"No way!  That is the awesome-st thing I've ever heard of!"  I can't wait until he hears something better...


So that is what we did:

 

We used the first full snow day of the year on states of matter.

I could get all mushy about this...we are all in different states...sometimes we are solid, sometimes liquid, God help you when you are only vapor floating around, but you will become solid again....trust me....take those moments, make them teachable...CHECK THE BACKPACK!!!!

Anyway, at four o'clock all three of them were watching Wow Wow Wubsy! and I was cleaning up the mess we made on our experiment.

I hope Maria Montessori comes to me in a dream and tells me she is proud of me....

Try to stay solid, or know you will be one day....

Happy Snow Days!!!!

Always a story.....

This year the Three Kings came to my house.  Normally they all come at once and fill shoes with little things and in Spain they bring children the big gifts-at least the family I lived with did it that way.

The Kings decided that at my house, they had to come at different times and leave my children special letters-so Three Kings day lasted all day on January 6th and trickled over to Saturday morning.

Boring grumpy Balthasar was the first to arrive before the school bus got here. His letter said he was cold and going back home, but not before he filled their stockings with things they needed-books, toothbrushes, socks, and popcorn on the cob...

Gaspar arrived after school, and told them Balthasar had forgotten what it was like to be a child having fun, and left them each a special toy....

That night we had a Three Kings party, which will become a Mommy Quack tradition, and next year will be much more structured (I had no idea my friends would show up).  But this year, they loved finding plastic babies in cupcakes and playing pin the crown on the king.

Three Kings Party!

Finally, Wise Melchior arrived the following morning, because he didn't want to interrupt the dinner. He left all three of them board games with a note instructing them to play nicely TOGETHER.

The one they want to play over and over again is "Rory's Story Cubes."

This is one of those brilliant ideas that is so simple yet so perfect. 

Nine cubes with different pictures on them.  You role the cubes and get nine images.  You use them to make a story.  That is all-so be it.

You can take this 101 ways....

• You can play in teams-my son and one of his friends took turns making a story with the same set of cubes.
• I have a friend with the most witty and cynical 11 year old I have met in my life. She was telling a story, got irritated with a cube and rolled that one just one more time.
•  You can pick a theme..."Once we went to the beach..." or "I hear a storm is coming..." and keep going with the cubes.
• My three year old looked at me, looked at the cubes, and stacked them.  "Once a little boy stacked the cubes...and they fell down. (He knocked them over) That's my story mommy."  How did I get such a sarcastic three year old?
• My daughter finds a way to always work Disney characters or friends from her class in her story.
• Your story can match your mood..tell me a sad story, tell me a happy story...tell me the one about how it all works out in the end...

Here, you guys try it:

Once upon a half moon...an old woman walked down a narrow path with wooden cane and saw a light at the end of a path and someone put up a hand and said stop....etc...Feel free to write one and share it...

I hope that Melchior will continue to bring gifts for them to do together.  I think he found these at Jordie's Toy shop in Guilford, but he has seen them on Amazon too. :0)

Jack, Harry, some Mushrooms,and Rachael Ray...

I am so old that the kids I babysat for are now adults.  Don't laugh, this will happen to you. They aren't just adults, they are pushing thirty. The good news? You can hang out with them and have relationships with them as adults.  The bad news?  You can hang out with them and have relationships with them as adults.

One of my little babysit-tees used to drive me up the wall. I blame this one on both of us having red hair and being intelligent. But I really,  no matter what happened in 1993, I enjoy his company now-and over the Christmas break, I had the privilege of a cooking lesson with him.

Yes, he taught me how to cook.

Jack and I had a wicked good time riding the train together to DC, shopping, cooking, and social network computer playing....rock on old friends and new times!

AND THEN...

Guess what?

I get a text....from my baby/buddy Jack...because he needs MY expertise.. in the great, fantastic, no one else can hold a candle to it..world of....HARRY POTTER...

The text:


Hey P-I've been invited to a Harry Potter potluck party, what should I take vegetarian?

In less than one second..I responded:

A mushroom dish...you see in Deathly Hallows they had to camp out after Yaxley saw where 12 Grimmauld place was...and then they had to find their own food, and Hermione made mushrooms in a billycan, which is some kind of cooking pot..and then she got really good at identifying edible fungi but if you don't mind I can't remember the exact chapter right this minute please forgive me...but the point is, something with mushrooms and edible plants you find in the woods would work for an authentic vegan dish at a Harry Potter party.

Jack didn't judge me at all!

In fact, he decided on Mushrooms and Kale from the royal highness of all things on the Food Network you can can actually cook: Ms. Rachael Ray!

He made it, and it looked like this:

Ok, let's put this in perspective...I used to race him on the shores of Wrightsville beach and he told me my prom dress was ugly and he told me the love notes in my car my boyfriend used to leave me made him want to throw up. If he can make this dish, I can make this dish.


Let's start with the kale-is kale Superman's dad? No wait, that's Ka-el.  How do I find this?  Is anyone going to know if I use spinach? Probably not, but still, let's be as real as we can. Kale, kale is that seaweed?  No, that's kelp...Voila! I found it-in the generic mainstream grocery store even. Thank goodness I don't have to go to the hippy store. 
 
Chop the kale?  How do I chop?

Mother nature really seems to be working for the common person-to chop the kale you fold it in half, chop off the stems, and then chop finely. Got it-here is a website for everyone else.

Ok, use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter...ugh the north...

get the mushrooms dark..then add the chopped kale and the spices...

This is mine:

The real test is-would Ron Weasley eat it?  I can only imagine what the first years of marriage to Hermione were like.  She was a lawyer and he had been the 6th son out of seven children to a stay at home mother???? That can't have gone over well. Jo, if you stumble across this blog, please let me know...

Happy cooking to my vegan friends and anyone that needs a side dish...Harry Potter, old friends made new again, and Rachel Ray always provide!