Love The One You’re With

On December 9, 2008January 23, 2009 By LynnIn TurtleHead9 Comments

Last Friday I took the kids for a playdate with my two good friends, Andrea and Andrea. Andrea The Red has two boys and Andrea The Brown has three boys; neither one has any girls. Both of them were saying that they are often confronted by friends, family, or strangers alike who tell them that they simply MUST keep trying until they have a girl. Recently someone told Andrea The Red that if she grew old and never had a daughter, that she’d really regret it. Andrea The Brown confirmed that she gets comments like that all the time.

For the record, though, they are both quite finished with the baby having.

I didn’t say too much at the time but as a parent of both boys and girls, I must say, I emphatically disagree with these random people and their freaky attitudes. I do admit that being the parent of a girl is different than being a parent of a boy. But I think it’s being a parent, period, that is the beautiful, wonderful, crazy experience that changes you and makes you a family.

I can get that some people really feel like they want a boy or a girl because they envision the kind of activities they’ll do together, the kind of sharing they’ll do, the kind of bond they’ll have. But really, every child is their own person. If you have a baby and try to impose expectations on that relationship — we’ll play ball together! she’ll be an artist like me! he’ll be a doctor! when she grows up, we’ll bond over motherhood! — then you’re in for a heap of trouble. Maybe your son won’t like to play ball. Maybe your daughter won’t ever have children. Maybe they’ll call every day, or maybe they’ll move halfway around the world and you’ll only see them twice a year (sniff). Maybe you’ll be close with them, or maybe your personalities will clash and you’ll argue and he or she will spend their whole life making choices specifically designed to piss you off.

You never know.

So boy or girl, you just have to raise the kid you were given. Let them be the person they are going to be; get to know them and appreciate them for who they are. Build as close a relationship as you can and keep them close for as long as you can.

And love your boys or girls, and tell those other people to screw off.

Hors D’oeuvre

On December 8, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead8 Comments

I’m in charge of the food for the PTA Christmas meeting next week.

Does anyone know of any good hors d’oeuvres that are bite-sized, don’t require utensils, and don’t require heating?

Suuuuuure, Lynn, some kind of fantasy hors d’oeuvre. Sigh.

Happy December

On December 8, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead1 Comment

I feel like I was a bit cranky in my posts last week, so I just want to emphasize that I think this advent calendar of activities is great. I hope to do it again next year and I’d recommend it to any and all.

The kids are loving it — they rush to the calendar each morning to open the envelope. After the Captain labours hard to read the little strip of paper, he glues it to a collage he’s making of all the activity strips. At first I thought that was kind of silly, but now I like being able to look back at all the things we’ve done. Maybe I’ll let him have a few mementos of some events to add to his artwork.

I’m loving it, too. With the cold weather and all the shopping madness out there, we’re pretty much sticking to home these days, so it’s been wonderful to have a planned activity to do every day. Just a little something different, a little something special, to break up the day and give us something to look forward to.

And there’s more to it, too. Since I’m home with the kids all the time, I think it’s easy to fall into a pattern where I’m busy doing cooking or cleaning or laundry or emailing and not really taking the time to spend with them that I should. The kids really like the fact that no matter what other jobs I have on for the day, there will be a guaranteed time in the afternoon when I’m all theirs, concentrating just on them, spending time just with them. This imposed time to spend with them has made me realize that I could, and should, be doing this more often — setting aside the day-to-day chores, even for a short while every day, to just be a mom and enjoy my kids for a while.

I think it’s definitely made for a special December this year.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to prepare a massive bubble bath for the whole family.

The Hills Are Alive!

On December 5, 2008December 5, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead2 Comments

I thought that when I finished with NaBloPoMo, I’d take it easy with the blogging, but I didn’t mean to go totally AWOL. I’ve just been crazy busy with the PTA stuff. I’m running an art program for the school and the learning curve is way steep, plus I’m spending hours and hours photographing and documenting all the art prints that the school owns. It’s a lot of work but actually, it’s kind of nice to have a real project on the go with real deliverables and real deadlines. I’d kind of forgotten how to do work, if you know what I mean, and this is a nice refresher. Not that I’m anxious to like, have a job or anything, but as a sideline, the PTA is a nice diversion.

On the home front we’re busy with our advent activities and it’s going fairly well. Tuesday we put up the tree and the kids had a good time and actually did a pretty good job of not grouping all the decorations on three bottom branches. Plus, so far we’ve only caught Little Miss Sunshine removing ornaments one time, so that’s a pretty good track record. Wednesday we made paper snowflakes to decorate our windows, which was okay. It turned out the cutting of the snowflakes was too tough for my 5 and 4 year old, even using tissue paper, so I wound up cutting out most of the snowflakes and the kids just got to tape them to the windows. I also had some jelly-type window stickers of snowmen I’d bought at the last minute to add to the window decorations, so they put those up too, which pretty much saved the activity.

Yesterday we watched The Sound Of Music, with popcorn and chips. Did you know that movie is FOUR HOURS LONG? I do. Four hours of running commentary — “Now Maria is feeling sad because she thinks the Daddy doesn’t love her. Now the kids are feeling sad because the Baroness doesn’t know how to play ball. That one is Kurt. That one is Liesel. That one is Gretel. That one is Maria. NOW EAT YOUR CHIPS.” — is very tiring. I intended to just watch the songs and also to skip the Nazi bit at the end but the older two kids were surprisingly engrossed, and got really mad when I tried to skip any parts. After the wedding part, I tried to shut off the video and they insisted it could not be the end because they hadn’t seen any credits (my own need to always watch the credits comes back to bite me in the ass!), so I would up giving a mini-lecture on WWII and then talking them through the finale. All this time, Little Miss Sunshine was bored out of her skull and she’s also teething so she basically sat next to me on the couch and provided an ongoing background soundtrack of whining for four hours. FOUR HOURS. Actually, by the end of it, it kind of felt like FOUR DAYS.

Still, now the kids are going around the house singing “So Long, Farewell” and that makes me very happy. Still, next year? SHORTER MOVIE.

Today is a PD day so we’ve already made our rice krispie treats (our planned playdate with the Carl Sagans fell through as the Saganette is very sick with the flu). Now I only have eight hours left to fill! Where was that Sound of Music DVD, again?

Advent Begins

On December 2, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead4 Comments

We’re off to a bit of a rocky start with our Advent Calendar activities. Yesterday, Gal Smiley showed up in our room at 5 a.m. yesterday wanting to open the first envelope, and if she’s that excited about a little envelope action, I really can’t wait until Christmas morning. We made her go back to bed until 6, but as soon as she was out of bed she was opening up the envelope to see what was inside.

Then, there was a lot of crying when everyone found out we wouldn’t actually be hanging up our stockings, as the slip of paper indicated, until after school. Yipes.

Later that day, the kids and I decorated our mantle and got out a few decorations, then picked out a stocking hanger and hung up our stockings. Captain Jelly Belly declared the whole event to be “very boring.” Way to have the Christmas spirit there, buddy!

This morning the slip of paper said, “Put up the tree.” The Captain said, “That’s boring, too!”

Then I said, “But you love putting up the tree…picking out the decorations, hanging them up, remember?”

And the Captain said, “But it doesn’t say we get to do decorations! It only says to put up the tree!”

Memo for next year: manage expectations better, and be more explicit in the slip directions!

Sentimentality Defined

On November 30, 2008January 23, 2009 By LynnIn TurtleHead7 Comments

When my mother was in high school, she had to make a Christmas stocking out of felt as a project for Home Economics. It had a name at the top and cut out felt shapes decorating the front. My mom made hers for her younger brother, my Uncle Mark, so it had little boy things on it like a train and a baseball bat. My mom added a jingle bell to the train and thought she was a shoo-in for the top mark.

Then some other girl showed up who had decorated both sides, even though the assignment was only to decorate the front, and so she got an A, while the rest of the class only got a B. My mom is still really bitter about this. If that woman is ever walking down the street and she sees my mother approaching, she should cross to the other side.

Anyway, the story has a happy ending in that my mother went on to use the pattern and the idea to make Christmas stockings for everyone in her entire family. When her four daughters were born, she made each of us our own special stocking with our name on it.

I’m pretty sentimental about practically everything in my life, but these stockings are a step beyond. I’ve hung mine up every year since I was one, and it is a very big deal. Here’s my stocking, the same one I’ve had since I was a baby. It features a plate, spoon and fork (because I apparently loved to eat); a telephone, a bear, and a duck (all representing toys that I liked); and a Christmas tree (every stocking has some sort of holiday symbol on it).

When I met Sir Monkeypants many, many years ago, he once lamented to me that he never had anything with his name on it growing up, because he has an unusual name. The first year we were together, I asked my mom for the famous stocking pattern so I could make one for Sir Monkeypants. My mother was pretty reluctant to hand over the pattern — I think she didn’t really like the idea of me making one of our special family stockings for some Joe I’d only been dating for a few months. She bit her tongue and let me make one, though. When Sir Monkeypants and I got married, I think it was a huge relief to my mom that his Christmas stocking had finally been made legitimate.

Someday I will remake Sir Monkeypants’ stocking, because the stuff on his is so specific to first year university. It features a bike, a UFO, a pig, a present, and music notes.

I had a lot of fun making Sir Monkeypants’ stocking, so when my kids were born, I made theirs too. I think my mom would have liked to have done it, but I was very excited to be creating a family heirloom for my own children so I considered the torch passed. FameThrowa drew all the pictures for me and I turned them into patterns. I’m pretty FREAKIN’ PROUD of these stockings, let me tell you.

Here is the Captain’s. His pictures are of fish, a football, a snowman, a car, and his special sleep buddy, a blue monkey.

Here is Gal Smiley’s — both FameThrowa and myself consider the pony on hers to be the pinnacle of our stocking-making success. Other items include a soccer ball, a handbag and high-heeled shoes, a wreath, and her special sleep buddy, a yellow sheep.

And now, I unveil for the first time, Little Miss Sunshine’s — it’s not quite assembled yet, but if I get it done today, it’ll be ready just in time for our first Advent Activity tomorrow. The Little Miss’ has on it a snowflake, a bunny, a beach ball, a teapot, cup, and cupcake, and her special sleep buddy, a brown bear.

Let the holidays begin!

Stocking Pee

On November 29, 2008January 23, 2009 By LynnIn TurtleHead

Today at lunch, Gal Smiley and Captain Jelly Belly decided to make up some jokes about Christmas.

Their invented jokes are quite hilarious, mostly because they are so very very UN-funny. For example, here’s one from Gal Smiley:

Q. Why did the jingle bell jump in the sleigh?
A. Because it wanted presents!

The Captain made up this one:

Q. Why did the elves fly?
A. Because they were riding on reindeer!

Oh yes, they are quite ready for SNL.

The Captain did crack me up with this one, though:

Q. Why did the boy attach a long string to the bottom of his stocking?
A. Because he really liked pee, and he wanted it to look like his stocking was peeing!

Ah, five year old boys. They never change.

I am Queen Mommy

On November 28, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead9 Comments

Why don’t any of the Disney Princesses have a mother?

Belle from Beauty And The Beast lives with her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Ariel from The Little Mermaid lives with her sisters and her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Jasmine from Aladdin lives with her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Snow White lives with her father and evil stepmother. Mother’s whereabouts: dead.

Cinderella lives with her evil stepmother. Mother’s whereabouts: dead, and the dad is too.

Aurora from Sleeping Beauty has a mother and a father, but her mother is hardly in the movie at all. Her father makes all the early decisions about spinning wheel burning, and then she goes off to be raised by fairies in the forest.

I’ve never seen Mulan, but wiki says that she does have a mother and a father, although it is her need to protect and honour her father that drives her to run off and join the army.

Gal Smiley has no interest in Disney Princess stuff, but most of her friends do. Until now I’ve kind of been encouraging her to notice the princess stuff, just so she can know what is going on when she visits a friend. Now I’m thinking, hey, wait a minute…how about some positive mother-daughter relationships for a change, Disney? Is it too much to ask for a nice, kind Mommy every now and again?

Perhaps Disney feels that a strong, positive maternal role model would mean that the Princesses in question would have no need to be strong and fight for themselves? That’s lame, Disney, lame.

I’ll have to give this one some thought.

And while I’m thinking about it, what kids’ movies have you seen that do have a positive mother figure?

Jump Jump For My Love

On November 27, 2008November 27, 2008 By LynnIn TurtleHead2 Comments

I got this little quiz from Zoom. I’m not a big one for online quizzes but when it comes to board games, I am weak.

You Are Chinese Checkers

You live a hyper, fast paced life. You rarely ever slow down.
You are good at juggling many things at once. You are the ultimate multi-tasker.

You enjoy being in a group – in fact the bigger the group, the better.
You are an enthusiastic competitor, and you can be a little ruthless when you play games.

What Board Game Are You?

I like Chinese Checkers just fine — I had a game as a kid. The description is pretty accurate, except that I really don’t like being in large groups of people. Sad to say, I confess to the ruthless thing. But it’s all in fun! Really!

Really!

On The First Day Of Christmas

On November 26, 2008January 23, 2009 By LynnIn TurtleHead9 Comments

Andrea at Quietfish is always doing something beautiful and crafty with her daughters. I read about these projects on her blog and I always think, “Oh, that’s so lovely, but I’d never have the energy to put that together.”

Then, an hour later, I’m thinking, “Well, I do have that big pile of wrapping paper scraps just sitting around.”

And an hour after that, I’m thinking, “And, she did make things really easy for me by providing the pattern and the numbers and everything.”

And two hours after that, it’s all, “I guess I have a lot of activities I want to do with the kids this month, anyway, so really, is it going to be that much extra work?”

Next thing you know, I’m making a 25 mini-envelope advent calendar filled with daily family activities:

Advent Calendar

Advent Calendar Closeup

I’m pretty excited about this calendar and the kids are too. I’m just afraid I’m going to run out of energy by the time we get to December 25th! At least my shopping is pretty much finished. I don’t think I would attempt this if I still had all my shopping to do, too, because the mall? It sucks the life out of you. Seriously. The only known cure is Diet Coke, The Elixir Of Life.

Anyway, here’s what we’ll be doing every day in December. Assuming I survive the first week. Don’t tell the kiddies, it’s a surprise!

1. Hang up our stockings.

2. Put up the tree.

3. Make paper snowflakes and hang them in the window.

4. Watch The Sound Of Music [but not the scary Nazi parts at the end] with chips and popcorn.

5. No school! [It’s a PD day.] Visit with the Carl Sagans.

6. Play a board game with Mommy and Daddy.

7. Wrap a present for your brother or sister.

8. Have a bubble bath in the big tub.

9. Visit Santa; take a toy to Toy Mountain.

10. Build a fort in the front room.

11. Make a paper chain and hang it up.

12. School Christmas Concert Day!

13. Make a book about Christmas. Or Star Wars.

14. Make gingerbread houses [from graham crackers – no baking required!]

15. Make Peppermint Bark.

16. Dance Party!

17. Go to the KidZone. [An indoor playground.]

18. Bring a present to school for your teacher.

19. Put a giant piece of paper on the floor and make a city map for cars and trains.

20. Get dressed up for dinner – we’re having take out!

21. Make a snowman and have some hot chocolate.

22. Go to the bookstore [or library, if you have quieter children than I do] and read books about Christmas.

23. Go for a drive – in your PJs – to look at Christmas lights.

24. Bake cookies for Santa.

25. Open presents, and call your grandmothers to say Merry Christmas!

Here are some other ideas I had that I didn’t use in the end. Most of them are very easy, so I’ll use them if I need to make a last minute substitution for some reason; otherwise, we’ll do them over the school break.

Decorate a cut-out tree with Fruit Loops.
Make rice krispie squares.
Colour a picture and mail it to Grandma.
Go to the video store and rent one movie each.
Make a giant mural by gluing on pictures of toys from flyers and magazines.
Build a train track all around the Christmas tree.
Go sledding.
Make a silly crown and have a parade (the Captain has big plans for this one on Christmas day — I think he thinks we will be parading all through the town, so watch for us on your street!).

It all sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Hopefully it’ll be fun, too!

Many thanks to Andrea for the idea, the patterns, and for making me a better Mommy!