Wednesday Activity

Pig tails

While walking out of Sam's Club the other day, I commented to Kiwi that her pigtails were blowing in the wind. I even stopped to show her the reflection of herself in the glass with the pigtails flying back.

Instead of thinking this was funny, she immediately clamped one little hand onto each pigtail, got a very worried look and said, "Hurry Mommy, hurry" as I pushed the cart through the parking lot.

"Hurry Mommy! My piggies going to blow away!!"

Even though I knew she was completely serious, I couldn't help but laugh before I explained to her that her pigtails were stuck to her head and would not blow away.

Even so, she kept a death grip on those tiny pig tails until she was safely in the van and away from the wind.

Let's Hear it for clean garages

We have now lived in our house for four months. Although we got unpacked and settled inside pretty quickly, our garage has been a different story. Things have just been so busy and the thought of tackling the random boxes and things we didn't know where to put seemed too overwhelming. Today, for the first time in a long time, we woke up with nothing on the schedule. There was no excuse for us not to dive in and tackle the mess that was the garage. I am pleased to say that we can now actually park both of our cars in the garage.

Along with the peace of mind that comes from not tripping over clutter when retrieving something out of the garage, we also found some lost treasures.

The find of the day for Little Man was an old stop watch which he wore around all day timing different things like how long it took us to clean the family room and our shopping trip.

Mike found a book about Microsoft Works 3.0 which is over ten years old which in the computer world means it is about a million years old.

And my find? I was fortunate enough to stumble across these babies in a bin. I could hardly believe the luck. A pair of forgotten Christmas p.j.'s just weeks before the holiday season. You better believe that these will be making an appearance soon. My husband, who all too well knows my love for everything holiday, predicted I'll be breaking them out Thanksgiving night to fat dog after dinner. He could very well be right. As long as it is Christmas themed, I let a lot of other details slide. I watch cheesy movies with horrible acting because they are full of Christmas songs and scenes, I wear socks with reindeer on them, and this year I will be able to dance around my house with my children wearing snowmen and Christmas trees.

Kiwi's find was not actually from our garage. Our neighbors across the street, whom we have only met briefly, rang the doorbell today and asked if we wanted this little bike with training wheels. They were also cleaning out their garage and their daughters have outgrown this bike. I thought this was very a very kind and neighborly thing to do. Kiwi came to the door to see what was going on and I told her to say "thank you" to our neighbor. We are forever prompting her to say please and thank you about something or the other, so she did her obligatory thank you without even knowing why she was saying it. She then caught sight of the bike, pointed and said, "Mine" in a very excited voice. She's definitely two.

It was a good Saturday.

Something fishy's going on

The stuffed animals are up to something. I'm not sure what it is, but it's definitely suspicious. Every night I cram them into their bin and every morning they are spilling over again with seemingly more numbers then before. Kiwi has a little doll crib in her room that used to sleep just two or three animals and dolls and now it too is over flowing. I think they may be multiplying at night.

This came up in a discussion with some friends the other day and I am not alone in my suspicion. Apparently this is happening in homes all over the city. I, for one, am a little alarmed. For although they look innocent with their stitched on smiles and it is true that they are not the brightest of toys (their brains are made of stuffing after all) the truth is we are greatly outnumbered by them. So those of you with stuffed animal bins, containers, baskets, at your own home I might be sleeping with one eye open if I were you. Because if they figure this out, we could be in for a world of trouble...

Wednesday Activity: Fish

This week's theme was fish. After our weekly yoga session (which Kiwi opted out of and instead sat wrapped in a blanket drinking milk and watching us) we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss. Although this book actually has little to do with fish besides it's title, it is chalk full of rhyming words which I told Little Man to be on the look out for. I found some cool videos on National Geographic's website with real ocean scenes and all of us enjoyed those. It was the first time I had visited their website and it was great. It even has a section for kids.

For our activity, we made aquariums. I wish I would have wrote down the website where I found this idea, but I didn't. All you need is two paper plates, paints, construction paper, plastic wrap, some glue, tape, and a stapler.

To make the front of the "aquarium" cut out the center circle of the plate that will go on top. We then painted both paper plates. After the paint dried, I cut some fish shapes out of construction paper and the kids decorated them. We also found some foam stickers in our craft box that included some dolphins and fish. These were stuck on the plate and the paper fish were glued. We used some crepe paper for waves and some glitter because...well, because it's glitter.

Both the kids then decorated the outside of their aquariums and then I taped plastic wrap over the circle opening to make it look like glass. I then stapled both plates together and we had aquariums. This project could also be done using a washed meat tray instead. I actually think that might look better because there would be more room to put the fish and it would be a little deeper then the plates stapled together.

Today's New Day

Today is a new day. And I got to wake up to these beautiful faces.

One morning a few months back, Little Man asked me, "Mommy why are you always so happy to see me in the morning?" Later I was thinking about it and I really am excited to see their two little faces every day. No matter how hard or exhausting the previous day may have been, we get a new start every morning. How lucky am I? Instead of spending my day with co-workers that I may like or may just tolerate, I spend the day with these two amazing little people who I love more then anything. The monetary pay is low (read: nonexistent), the hours long, but I just can't beat the people I get to spend my time with.

One of those days

If you need to find me for the rest of the evening, I will be on the couch reading my book. I am not planning on moving until it's time to drag myself upstairs and go to bed. These are the three most common things I heard today:

1. No, mine!

2. Ouchies (said in very whining voices by both children and used for various minor injuries or siblings touching one another)

3. The third and most common one isn't actually a word, but it goes something like this, "Waaaahhhhhhhh" Between the two of them there was basically a constant whine or cry going on all day.

Kiwi is nursing a cold so we stayed home today. Since she is not feeling her best she was basically on the verge of a breakdown all day. Look at her wrong and it was all over. Little Man spent the day running around pushing all of mommy and Kiwi's buttons. He is usually pretty kind to his sister, but today he seemed to delight in tormenting her.

Days like today deserve evenings of doing whatever I want to. And tonight it's reading my book (A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)

I have some thoughts floating around in my head about how to tie this into a nice little post about how the bad days help me appreciate the good ones. It's all true, but I'm just going to leave it how it us. Because my book and the couch are calling.