Family Time

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

Over here.

How do I regain innocence in a world where ignorance is no longer an option?

My motherhood is my renewed connection with all that is good in the world, and my magnifying glass over all that is frightening and wrong. My children are the hope that makes tomorrow unquestionably worthwhile.

I find it fitting that my post today is over at Parenting, a company based out of New York City.

It could kill them.

Laylee has learned to shell her own peanuts by chewing the shell into tiny shards, spitting it all over my counter and then eating half of the peanut and dropping the other half on the ground.

I know very well from my pediatrician’s advice and the King James version of What to Expect that Magoo shouldest not cometh in contact with a nut or a nut product until he reacheth the age of two, lest he become a human incendiary device and explodeth into a firebomb of allergenic destruction and woe be unto him. I think that’s almost a direct quote from the book.

He also has very few teeth and nuts are a huge choking hazard so I’ve taken great pains to make Laylee understand that there will be dire consequences for leaving peanuts around where he can get them.

Me: Don’t drop the nuts on the floor!
Laylee: Why?
Me: Because Magoo’ll get ’em and they could make him very sick.
Laylee: Why?
Me: And he might even DIE!

So today, she’s actively destroying peanuts at the kitchen counter and Magoo attempts to climb up on her chair.

Laylee: Magoo, NO! You can’t eat peanuts because they’ll kill you…
[She raises her eyebrows and looks at me like a snooty librarian peeking over her reading glasses to say, “Boys, you should know better than that.”]
… and then you’ll die.

Her subtle warning is lost on the little jub who grunts and continues to pull himself up until she gently nudges him off to blam himself on the kitchen floor.

Five minutes later she asks, “Why will peanuts kill Magoo?”
Me: [Because they’re sadistic, bloodthirsty and evil and they hate little round Jack-O-Lantern-headed boys.] Because they are hard and round and they could choke him [to death with their bare hands].

Now peanuts are not the only things around here that have it in for poor Magoo. He is also being ferociously hunted by walls, too long pants, and air currents. He also needs to be protected from the shish. I know, I know, I said that Magoo was going to kill the little shish, but it seems it may be the other way around.

This evening I walked into the livingroom to the sound of splashing and crunching, never a good combination. Magoo had one hand in the fishbowl and his mouth was full of something blue and he was crunching away. ACK! JackAgain! I rushed over and pulled from his mouth… some bluish aquarium rocks. They’re round glass pebbles, big enough to clean easily and just the right size to block his airway completely if he breathes funny or tumbles off the couch, his preferred method of dismounting.

Not good. “No Magoo! NO SHISH!” I said seriously as I lifted him down and ran to get my camera. I left the shish in place just long enough for him to climb back up so I could get this picture. He looks menacing, but he’s the one in real danger, I promise.

In random CD news, can I tell you how much I am loving the Curious George soundtrack? If I like it so much, why don’t I marry it? Because I don’t believe in bigamy, and Dan has promised never to die, at the hands of a rogue peanut or otherwise… ever. Thanks for asking.

It’s like Jack Johnson is prancing through a sunny tropical jungle, when he comes across the essence of Simon, Garfunkel, Raffi, the early Beatles, and a kid-friendly Jimmy Buffet. He bottles it, comes back to New York, gets some friends together and lays down a record one lazy afternoon. Happy, happy music my friends.

reasons: Laylee asleep with her arms outstretched completely trusting completely secure, the patio drenched in blue moonlight like it was lit on a soundstage

And now I’m wishing a big hole would open up and swallow Laylee’s.

Me and my big mouth.

She did this to me, you know? With the questioning. Why? Why? Why?

I broke down. I did and there’s really no use placing blame….

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But he wouldn’t budge.

Last night I came home late. Dan had put the kids down already, which is always a sort of bitter-sweet experience. Bitter because I love them and I adore to squidge them, and sweet because I get out of doing the real work and yet I can enjoy them in their most lovable state, the one where they’re sweetly sleeping and not wiping their spaghetti mustache on my pants because I didn’t get them a nakum fast enough.

Magoo woke up shortly after I arrived, screaming as though he’d had some terrible nightmare, like the one where you’re driving to Butte, Montana naked in front of a crowd of people and you NEED to pull over to pee so bad but every exit is blocked by evil clowns sucking back helium and singing that Celine Dion Titanic song. I’d scream too… if I’d ever had a dream like that.

Dan went to save him, but I ended up joining in the fun (okay, I completely took over after Dan got him to the calm-snuggly phase).

He was so cuddly and squishy and needy and it was one of those moments I fantasized about before I had children. Me and my baby dolly alone in a dark room, the nightlight softly glowing. I rocked him back and forth, humming nonsensically soothing songs. I kissed his peach fuzz and gently squoze him. He nuzzled into me, batting his sweet sleepy eyes, his bottom lip sucking and fluttering in and out.

I knew what he wanted. I knew I still had it and I knew I had to either give it to him right then or abandon him and go have “the talk” with Dan about whether or not we were ready for round three of Operation Repopulate Seattle with Attractive Small People.

I thought “Seattle needs more cuteness and we need to start that crusade tonight” was a pretty hard sell.

So I offered my weaned-two-months-ago-but-his-mom-still-inexplicably-has-the-goods bubby a taste of the special milk “he” had been missing so desperately.

Yeah.

He acted like I was trying to jam my elbow down his throat.

My appendages bashfully retreated as he walked off arm in arm with his new girlfriend.

“Mom, I’m with Nuby now.”

Yeah, whatever. Suck rubber. What do I care?

~This post inspired by Jess~

This post originally appeared on The Parenting Post on August 7, 2006.

It was me. I let them in and I make no apologies. I made the uniform before she was old enough to say “huntsman,” “dwarves” or “Michael Eisner’s marketing empire.” I bought the videos. I spent the ten bucks at Home Depot and put the removable stickers up all over her room.

In my grey‐hoodie‐wearing‐leatherman‐carrying‐aspiring‐ documentary‐film‐makering days, I swore that if I ever had children, they would not know what a Disney princess was, let alone have a room littered with them.

Then came an itty-bitty thing called reality.

I gave birth to a girly girl and I suddenly wanted to shroud her in pink satin and staple very small bows to her bald head.

As a new mother, I grew a memory and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the princess-loving days of my tomboy childhood. I always wanted to be Snow White, but with an older sister who was much more feminine than me, I was doomed to remain a prince for all time and I was not going to deprive my daughter of the girlish joy of make-believe.

I made a conscious choice to dip my family’s feet into the world of mainstream media and now I get to decide whether the princess stickers go in the cart, whether we buy the shoes with Dora on them, how many minutes of TV we watch a day and what makes up those minutes.

I hear so many parents of young children talking about how they can’t stand the fact that their entire house is covered in Teletubbies paraphernalia or how they’re so sick of listening to alternative metal music but Little Timmy just can’t get enough of Korn. “We’ve spent so much money following their tour around the country, painting Timmy’s nursery black, getting his tattoo and fashioning pictures of the band members into an attractive mobile for his room. I can’t wait for him to outgrow this stage.”

To the parents I hear saying this type of thing, I have to ask: What time do your children put you to bed at night and are you allowed to sleep with a sippy cup?