I drove behind a semi-truck for a couple of miles that was either full of freshly cut evergreen trees or Vicks Vaporub.
I heard bells chime on a classical recording yesterday morning.
Last week I could see my breath….
Tip Tuesday — SICK!
What do you do to entertain your kids when they are too-sick-to-go-outside but not-sick-enough-to-lie-passively on-the-couch? Or when one is sick and the other is bored silly?
What are some alternatives to TV-watching for little kids (under three) when Mommy is too sick to do anything but lie on the couch?
These questions are brought to you by Keryn.
A few answers can be found on Tuesdays past. I had a great answer to the first part of the question but then I read the second part and was all…um…TV-free…of coouuurse.
1. Buckets — Obviously you’d want a barf bucket handy. Another good one is a bucket, bowl or Rubbermaid tote full of beans (preferably uncooked) and some cups and scoops to dig with. They love it and the beans are easier to clean up than sand or rice.
2. Finger painting with pudding. You can choose colored varieties like banana, chocolate, butterscotch and pistachio or you can just use vanilla and color it with food coloring. Have them paint on LARGE paper or plates and then can lick themselves off. I discourage cross-contamination by “helping” each other get clean, especially if only one is sick.
3. Make them clean. Like the other two, I have used this. When I just can’t get up off the couch, I have Laylee clean her room which takes anywhere from 1 to 10 hours. There’s a lot of whining but I can handle that in a semi-narcoleptic state.
4. Tell them they’re your mommy. When I’m sick, I like to have Laylee pretend she’s my mommy. She covers me with blankets, reads me stories, brushes my hair and sings to me. I encourage the singing so if it stops, I know to freak out and go searching for body parts.
I’m sure you all can do better than this. Please answer Keryn’s question so I can steal your ideas next time one of us goes down.
reasons: 83 more sleeps, Papa Murphy, spider-cide spray in my crawlspace
Heartache on a Scale from 1-10
How can she complain about being fat? I weigh twice as much as she does. She gets a 3 from the judges. I get at least a 5. I may be having trouble in my marriage, but at least my husband doesn’t yell at me in public. I have nothing to complain about. I can only claim a 6.
I was only 13 weeks along when the baby died. I guess I don’t really know what it’s like to lose a child. It feels like a 9, but I’m sure it’s only really a 4 or a 5. You don’t get a 10 for suffering unless your child reaches at least age 5 before they go.
She talks about how miserable it is to have a boyfriend who cheats on her. Her suffering is her own fault. She should just get out of the relationship. I don’t think she should even get a place on the scale. At least she’s not single like me. I’ve been so lonely for so long. I’m an 8.
Your best friend is moving away. You’re 6 years old. You’ll get over it. I know you think your heart is broken, but you don’t yet know the meaning of suffering. This is merely a 1.…
Laylee Says
Laylee [to my hairdresser whom she chatted up for a full hour]: I have a sister and she’s big and big and bigger as you.
Hairdresser: Really?
Laylee: Yeah, and she has PINK HAIR!
Hairdresser: Wow. I’d like to see her sometime.
Laylee: Yeah, except you can never see her because she’s like angels. You can’t see angels. They just play around in your bed at night but you can never never see them.
Laylee [reading the side of the sippy cup]: This side says “this is a big cup of water”. This side says “Flooze is it lounces.”
Laylee: These cookies don’t taste GOOD on the table with the sun shining on them. Can you please go outside and try to move the sun around?
Yes. I wonder how long until she stops believing I’m all-powerful and realizes that we need angels for far more serious things than playing around in our beds.
Austrians With British Accents? What the VonTrapp?
I shed a little this week. Okay, I shed a lot. Laylee said, “You look like somebody else’s mom.” I wasn’t sure I was happy with the result until I walked past a mirror yesterday. Staring back at me was my face with Fräulein Maria’s haircut. This I like.
I’m not Austrian. I can’t speak with a British accent. I prefer the name Dan to Georg. I only know four chords on the guitar. I never wanted to become a nun.
But I like the hair, and I adore bursting into song while Dan and I are making out in a solarium full of blue studio lighting meant to simulate moonlight. So, I’m pretty much Julie Andrews reincarnated. Is she deceased? If not, she probably wants her hair back.
I am relieved that I like the hair. You may remember the last time I drastically changed it and it wasn’t pretty.
On a random side note, I came into the living room the other day to find my guitar case laying on its side. I asked Laylee if she knocked it over. She said, “No, I didn’t. I was just jumping on it and singing a song.” I haven’t had the heart to open the case yet and survey the damage. Fräulein Maria probably wouldn’t confront Laylee openly either. She’d guilt her into bawling about it at dinner, causing a tremendous bout of indigestion.
reasons: crazy 8’s
Tip Tuesday — Toy Story 3: The Mama’s Revenge
Today’s topic is brought to you by Jessica of Sweet Mama Entropy, who gave some great tips on how to organize and store toys back in March. The toys truly do seem to multiply but I don’t see them doing much to replenish my home.
My number one favorite tip is to get rid of stuff. Consider happy meal toys and party favor novelties disposable. Once their charm has worn off, send them packing. If the charm has worn off for you but not your child, and if it’s within her field of vision, send it packing in the dead of night.
My mom used to go through our toys with us every few months and let us keep a certain number of stuffed animals. The rest had to be donated to Goodwill. We had a really great Christmas one year where we were heavily involved in a used teddy bear donation program. We gathered the bears and helped wash and brush them to be given to other children. It really helped us feel better about giving up our toys.
Integrate some toys into the decor of your home, rather than letting them become the decor of your home. Buy nice baskets or storage ottomans or even cover cardboard boxes with pretty fabric. If you can keep your entire house from looking like the Romper Room while still allowing your kids to feel like they can play somewhere besides their bedroom, I think you’re on the right track.
Then a tip for another day is getting your kids to clean up their toys. At this point, I am using the old “you clean it up or I’ll clean it up into a trash bag in the garage” shtick. I guess it works for lots of people. One 3-year-old in Laylee’s ballet class picked up a toy in the waiting room today and said, “We have this! Well… It’s in the trash. Well… Actually it’s out in the garage because we were in trouble of it.”
Hmmm…. So I’m not the only one to use this tactic? I once used it on a college roommate. No joke. We would put all of her stuff in a garbage bag in the laundry room. I don’t remember what we exactly thought gave us the right to do this or how she accepted it but I do remember that rather than clean up the stuff out of the laundry room, she would go in there and retrieve one item at a time as needed. Then she’d leave it on the floor, the kitchen counter, my bed, and I’d put it back in the garbage bag. Very strange.
Please share your tips for controlling toys, forcing your children to clean like slaves, or tormenting your college roommates.
Get Me a Rubber Bag
Some bugs will be “sleeping” well tonight.
Seeing as we live in the land of cows, sailboats and gigantic soul-sucking slugs, it is not surprising that the grass to creepy-crawly ratio in our back yard is about 6.9 to 1. That is 6.9 bugs, slugs or indescribably weird mobile mutant mucus logs per 1 blade of grass.
They can be classified into 3 major groups:
1. Spiders — anything with more legs than Magoo. This number is fuzzy. He moves at a speed which makes the counting of limbs impractical, if not downright dangerous.
2. Bees — anything that flies and is not a dragonfly or butterfly. Dragonflies and butterflies are too pretty to be classified as bugs. All other flying insects are bees and will be repeatedly yelled at and told to “GO MAKE HONEY! GO NOW! BEE GO!”
3. ReallyYuckyUglyBugs — All other bugs fall in this category. I am constantly “removing” bugs from our house. Laylee says that if they’re nice bugs we can take them outside and reunite them with their families. If they’re strikingly unattractive really mean, they must die at the hand of los kleenexicos.
Today she was playing outside when she found a ReallyYuckyUglyBug.
Laylee: Mom! I found a ReallyYuckyUglyBug!
Me: Where is it?
Laylee: OUTSIDE!
Me: Okay.
Laylee: It’s right HERE.
Me: What do you want me to do about that?
Laylee: Just get it and take it away.
Me: Remember about bugs? Where did we say they live?
Laylee [looking at me like I’m a moron]: OUTSIDE.
Me: Exactly. Where do you want me to take it?
Laylee: Away.
Me: Outside is away. Do you want me to let it live inside our house instead?
Laylee: Yes.
Me: Where? In your bedroom?
Laylee: No. In the TRASH!
Yes, I see. And once I’ve finished the ethnic cleansing of our backyard, would you like to help me develop a plan for world domination?
Pssst….
Picture of the Prodigal
I can’t explain why. I needed this boat to come back.
Picture of my favorite house between here and Seattle, nowhere near the water, taken through a dirty windshield while driving.
Boats Can Read but Cows Cannot
Apparently the little boat that sailed into the night reads my blog. On Wednesday I finally called for its return.
Last night at the mariner’s house one small square window was glowing with a dim light, the first sign of life I’ve seen there all summer.
This morning the ship was back afloat the billowing grass, missing only its mast, no doubt having been smashed in some outrageous journey… or taken down for winter storage.
In one field near the house a herd of cows likes to graze. Frequently they can be seen lounging around a sign that reads “Premium Angus Beef: Call for details.” How the rancher gets them to aid in his advertising is beyond me. Needless to say, I fear they are hopelessly illiterate.