Month: January 2006

I remember when those book orders that schools sent home actually had books. Oh the books are still there in boxed sets designed to be attractive to adults, but my kids never covet the books. My kids always want the “miniature dragon painting kit” or the “SECRET CODE door alarm” or the “Super Secret Diary Kit with Charm”. (These book order people really know the “hot” words for kids.) My kids want the overpriced kitch. I have continued to pay them allowances despite our tighter finances and what they do with their allowance is their choice, but I cringe whenever those book orders come home. All I can really do is force them to think it through before they plunk their money down. I make them sleep before deciding. Sometimes this causes them to forget the essential item completely. I try to remind them of the things they were planning to save money for. But if all my tactics don’t work, then I let them spend the money. They may regret it, but buyers remorse is an important learning experience and it is better to have it over something small and kitchy than over something large and expensive. Of course they frequently aren’t remorseful at all. In which case maybe the money they spent is worth it to them even though it seems a waste to me.

At 8pm last night I remembered that today it was my turn to host Gleek’s preschool group. I remembered it last week. I remembered it over the weekend. And then I forgot until 8 pm the night before. Fortunately I had the letter N and the number 2. Noah and his ark were a perfect fit. Kids love a chance to pretend to be animals. I scrounged a bag of noodles and some yarn, instant Noodle Necklaces project.

I managed preschool. I even managed it while juggling NotMyBaby and I-want-mommy Patches. Then I managed the afternoon which included two trips to pick up kids from school, three friends coming over, leaving, and coming back again multiple times, endless demands for snack food, dinner, and homework time.

I’m tired. I had stuff I wanted to write today. I felt in a writing mood, but there simply wasn’t space in my brain for words to coalesce. There definitely wasn’t time to sit in front of my computer. Well, until now when all the kids are abed and I’m too bone weary to write anything profound.

I need to sleep, but if I sleep then it will be tomorrow and I’ll have more things to do. maybe I’ll watch some Firefly.

A friend sent three magnadoodles to my kids for christmas. According to wisdom only known to those in the packing room at Amazon.com instead of packing all three into one huge box, each magnadoodle was packed individually in it’s own huge box with a ream of airpack bubbles. I checked, each of these boxes could have fit FOUR magnadoodles. In the christmas rush I shoved these boxes and their surfeit of packaging to the side and forgot about them. Today my Gleek discovered them and there was glee.

Gleek carefully ripped each bubble pack from the others and strewed them all over the family room. Then she and Patches stomped on these little plastic pillows to make them pop. They weren’t very good at it and they aren’t very heavy, so often the airpack pillow would squirt out from under their feet and they’d land on their bottoms. giggles. Then they took to popping the airpacks with plastic pickup stick swords. giggles. Then they piled all the non-flat airpack pillows into one of the huge boxes and played “baby.” I would never let a child sleep in a box full of plastic bags, but they thought it was great. even more giggles. In all they played with the airpack pillows for a full 90 minutes.

You know right on those airpack things it clearly states “This is not a toy.” I suppose I could be considered an awful mother for allowing my kids to play with them. But, honestly, they are in more danger in the bathtub than they are playing with airpack pillows. I don’t let them bathe unsupervised and I don’t let them play with airpacks unsupervised either. And in both cases once the play is done the potentially dangerous item (water or plastic bags) is quickly disposed of.

Toward the end of the play NotMyBaby woke up from his nap. NMB is in that stage where he chews on everything. Plastic bags are definitely unsafe to chew, so NMB never even got his hands on one. I took scissors, popped all the remaining inflated ones and pitched them all into the recycling bin. The box got to stick around and be played with.

I’m always so glad when my kids are nice to each other. This afternoon they ran around outside wearing shorts and eating popsicles while playing a game and watching a hot air balloon. I live in Utah, this is January, the weather outside is about 45 degrees and gray. My children are nuts. But they had fun right up until the point that they realized they were COLD. At that point Gleek tried to come and leech heat from me by climbing into my lap. But she wouldn’t relinquish the popsicle, not a chance.

The popsicles were an experimental mix of tang and milk frozen into “sip & lick” popsicle molds. These molds are special because the “lid” of the mold forms not only the stick for the popsicle, but a little cup to catch the drips. The cup includes a little straw for slurping the melted liquid. I took one look at them and pictured children blowing melted popsicle fluids into huge sticky bubbles. Gleek looked at them and saw pure joy. They were at a thrift store, Gleek spent her own money and they came home with us. Last night the kids were checking the freezer every 10 minutes to see if the popsicles were done yet. The tang + milk was really yummy in frozen form, but as it melted it separated into orange curds and clear whey which was pretty yucky. Fortunately the kids ate them so fast that I only knew about the separation from the sticky little drips that Patches left all over the house. Well, I could have done without the sticky drips, but I got them all wiped up. I think.