Sally Says

What have I been doing all week?

I can honestly say I spent way more time cleaning up vomit than I would have liked, but other than that my time was all focused on the carnival.

The Daisy Days carnival is in two days, and I'm READY.  I have separate boxes for 19 different activities, withall of the equipment and supplies ready to go.  It was a lot of shopping.  Luckily, all my purchases are tax deductible.  There are instruction sheets for the volunteers in each box. 

In the past month David has built a wheel of fortune, a bucket toss, and a 4 foot tall fishing screen with elaborate hinges that allow it to be stored compactly.  Other volunteers have built some giant wooden daisies for hula hoops to be tossed over and a cool toy car racing ramp.  I've painted daisies onto a long cloth for a bean bag toss.  I've also designed a set of cake walk mats and a coloring sheet.  ("Wow Mom!  I didn't know you could draw!")  I've done a lot of organizing and typing and editing and spreadsheet creation and prize shopping and thinking about how things will work. 

I'm sure it will be a big success.  Here's a list of the games we've put together and/or organized.

• Bounce House

• Pony Ride

• Cake Walk

• Face Painting

• Hair Salon

• Pre-school Manicures

• Tattoos

• Auntie's Apron (volunteer wearing an apron that has lots of pockets, with prizes in all the pockets)

• Race Track

• Pluck-a-Duck (scoop a floating duck out of a pool to find out what prize you get)

• Dinosaur Dig (toy dinosaur prizes buried in a sand box)

• Wheel of Fortune (David's pride and joy - when he finishes)

• Fishing Screen (cast fishing line behind the screen and a volunteer with clip a toy fish to the line)

• Dinosaur Diner (toss play food through a hole in a dinosaur)

• Basket Bounce (like basketball free throws but with an easel for a backboard and a laundry basket)

• Bucket Toss (throw beanbags into buckets)

• Hoop-a-Daisy (toss hula hoops over giant wooden daisies)

• Bean Bag Toss (onto my daisy decorated cloth)

• Topple the Tower (bowling with playground balls and towers of blocks)

• Art Table (free quiet space for melt-down-prevention)

Whew.  I hope we have a good turn out.  If you're in Albuquerque, come to the Church of the Good Shepherd preschool carnival on Saturday, May 2 from 11-2 for all the fun.

I won't know what to do with myself next week.  I know.  I can write up a report with statistics that show what prizes and games were most popular and what the expenditures were for each game.  More spreadsheets!  I can milk this "mommy's working" business for at least another week.

Foamapalooza

David called me into the boys' bath to take pictures of foamapalooza.  I obliged.  Here they are.

 

 

 

iPod

 

Charlie loves my iPod.  I have cover-art for albums on it as well as a few cartoons.  He can actually navigate pretty well.  It's my easiest tool for keeping him quiet when we're having to wait someplace for a long time.  He'll wander around, earbud in one hand, iPod in the other hand, singing along under his breath.  It's funny to see how different generations of adults respond to the sight of the little fellow with my iPod.

An example of why parenting is fun

Tommy ran up to me when I was getting dressed this morning, shouting all of this as quickly as he could.

"Mom!  Mom!  I figured something out.  The reason there wasn't very much oxygen during the Ordovician Period was because they didn't have TREES.  At Earth Day Miss Kathy said trees were important because they make oxygen.  And when Nigel Marvin was searching for the SUPERCROC in the Ordovician he had to keep breathing from that tank thingie because there wasn't very much oxygen.  And I looked around and there weren't any trees ANYWHERE.  Do you know what I think? Maybe they didn't have trees back then.  There have to be trees to have oxygen!"

Cool Trick

There's a funny TV show that Charlie's started watching called Yo Gabba Gabba.  One segment has kids or grown ups showing their "cool tricks."  A drummer drums, a break dancer dances, a kid hangs a spoon on his nose...you get the idea.  Charlie loves this part.

 

Charlie's been wandering around the house all week, holding a spoon to his nose.  He says, "My cool trick is spoon on nose!"  He then spins around in a circle until he falls down.  I guess that last part is just for dramatic effect.

I've Been Holding Out on Them

Last night at dinner...

Charlie:  What this Mommy?

Me:  It's a lima bean.  Try it.

Charlie:  Yummy!  I LOVE it!

Me:  Huh.

Tommy:  Why haven't we ever eaten these before?

Me:  Well, I don't really like them much.  I'll eat them if they're on my plate to be polite, but they're not my favorite.  I accidentally bought a different bag of mixed vegetables than usual.  This mix has lima beans in it.

Tommy:  These are great!  Lima beans are my new favorite vegetables.  They're better than red bell peppers!

Charlie:  Lima beans me favorite too!

Tommy & Charlie:  Lima Beans!  Lima Beans!  Lima Beans!

Me:  Remember that library book we read about the boy who buried his lima beans and they turned into a monster?

Tommy:  You'd have to be crazy not to like these.  You're weird Mommy.

Me:  Want mine?

Tommy:  Sure!

Complicated Charlie

Charlie's changed a lot since his 2nd birthday.  He's so much more complicated now. 

He's practicing saying his long name - first, middle and last all together.  He's asking everyone if they're a boy or a girl so he can figure out how that whole classification scheme works. 

If he's not cooperating with me it does no good at all to threaten any sort of time out because he offers to "stand in corner" before I even get to that point.  He'd rather stand in the corner and count to ten than do what I'm asking.  Obviously, counting is more fun than not kicking during diaper changes. 

He's just as obsessed with practicing with the mouse and playing on the computer as Tommy was at this age.  He loves playing on Noggin and Nick Jr. and I can leave him alone to noodle around for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.  But then when I return he's often done something like hidden the Start Menu someplace where I can't find it.

Unfortunately, I have THIS to continue working on, so I'll have to explore his complications at a later date.  I need to get back to working on carnival stuff while Tommy and Charlie are both at school.  May is going to be so much calmer than April.  Let's just slap some pictures up here for you and be done for the day.

     

Belated Easter

I never did post anything about Easter, did I?  We had a nice day.  I skipped my usual Sunday breakfast out by myself because it just seemed wrong to leave my family behind on Easter morning.  We had a nice quiet morning eating candy.  I didn't get very many pictures for some reason.  I took a bunch first thing in the morning, but it was pretty dark out still, so they aren't very good.

 

 

The Easter Bunny filled their plastic eggs for them, and they're still eating the candy a bit at a time.  They tend to forget about it.  Charlie's more of a candy eater than Tommy, but he's too young to really focus on asking for it frequently.  Luckily, Mommy and Daddy are not too proud to raid the baskets after they go to bed.  They'd never get through it all without help.

 

We spent a long time excavating fake dinosaurs fossils out of plaster eggs on Easter morning.  Eggs, Easter, it all fits except for the dinosaur part.  Tommy's had them for a long time, but I wasn't willing to let him try them before now.  They're for ages 8 and up so I knew he'd need Daddy's help to prevent frustration.  I suspected they'd be super messy too, and I was right.  Both boys REALLY enjoyed working on them though, so it was a good choice for a very chilly, overcast Easter.

  

  

We had a lovely Easter dinner over at the home of our new-ish Irish friends.  They have four kids, and Tommy ADORES them.  It was a perfect evening with good food and good conversation, and the kids kept themselves occupied running around the whole time.  We introduced them to the proud American culinary tradition of deviled eggs, and they seemed to enjoy the few they got to eat.  Tommy inhaled most of them.  He loves deviled eggs. 

All in all it was a very nice Easter.  I hope you had a nice one too.

Big K

No.  Not K-Mart.  Tommy had Kindergarten registration today.  It wasn't actually all that exciting.  I just had to fill out a bunch of forms while he fiddled around trying not to be bored.  The school is having a Kindergarten ice cream social next week so we can meet all the teachers and have a bit of a tour.  THAT will be the fun part. 

Tommy was so very Tommy when we got there.  We were standing around in the entry way with other parents and kids.  He started going up to groups of adults and kids, introducing himself.  "Hello.  I'm Tommy.  I'm a new kid here at this school.  Are you going to be in Kindergarten next year too?"  The other kids just looked at him in terror, as if he'd grown a third head.  The grown ups thought he was cute.  He was a bit discouraged by these reactions after about five minutes.  He perked up a bit when his good friends Henry and Claudia arrived with their mommies.

We finished our paperwork before our friends did.  Since it was a bit crowded we just quickly said goodbye and left.  Henry rushed out to ask if he could go to the playground with us while his mom finished the forms, but I told him we were leaving.  I'm not sure why.  I guess it just didn't occur to me to turn around and take the boys to the playground instead of leaving.  Tommy and I went to have ice cream at McDonald's.  He kept asking about Henry, so we ate quickly and then drove back to the school.  Henry was still on the playground so Tommy got to have ice cream with Mommy AND play on the big elementary school playground.  It was a good start to this whole Big K thing.

Here's Tommy in front of his giant elementary school.  I'm sure it just looks big compared to his little church-run preschool.

Through the door

9 pm - strange mutterings from the other side of Charlie's closed bedroom door draw my attention

"Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe.  WHAT'S THAT?!  It's a BEAR!  Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe.  What's that?  Me nose, two ears, two eyes.  It's CHARLIE!  Ahhh!  Under covers now!"

We were reading We're Going On a Bear Hunt right before bed.

Eggs

Between the two of us, Charlie and I have managed to accidentally break a full dozen uncooked eggs in the last two days.  I have a mild cold which must be making me clumsier than usual.  I actually broke SIX yesterday morning, the first and second right in a row and then 4-6 when I dropped the carton trying to catch the second one.  Charlie's two, so breakig eggs is more understandable for him.  He really wants to "me do it" but only remembers to set the eggs gently in the pan 75% of the time.  Oh well.  Eggs are cheap the week of Easter.

Have I ever told you how much Tommy and Charlie love hard boiled eggs?  I don't often boil eggs for them, even though they really love them, because then I run out of eggs.  We go through 18 eggs a week easily.  If I boil eggs, the two of them will eat an entire dozen in one afternoon.  Then they won't eat dinner and we're out of eggs.  I shouldn't complain because eggs are really good protein for growing boys.

Because we have no trouble eating them, we start dying Easter eggs a couple of weeks before Easter, and do it multiple times.  I boil a dozen eggs every 3-4 days for weeks and they get to dye every one of them.  The trick is to save have some eggs on hand to dye the day before Easter, and then forbid them to eat any of the freshly dyed eggs from that batch until the actual holiday.  There was much begging and whining for eggs at lunchtime today.  With all that practice, they're pros at dying eggs by now.  Charlie did make a bit of a mess with the dye the first time we tried though.

 This picture was from our first egg dying attempt at the end of March.  Charlie's arm was blue for at least 24 hours.

This was today.  We've discovered that we really like the colors you get using Betty Crocker gel food colors with vinegar and hot water.  They're super bright and not much messier than the color tablets.

 

Happy Easter!

Bedtime Monkey Business

Both boys were in bed and quiet by 8 pm as usual.  At about 8:10 I heard a bump, but I just ignored it because I figured Tommy was messing around with his water cup or something.  It was quiet until 9 pm.  Then I heard a louder bump.  I went to investigate. 

Tommy's door was open and he had dragged the memory foam pad we keep for guests out from under his bed.  It was wedged at the opening of his door.  He'd pulled all the covers off his bed and used them to make up a new bed for himself right inside the door.  He looked so proud of himself, and it did look perfectly comfortable.

We kept trying to figure out what he was doing, but he was being evasive.  At one point he said he was trying to move the whole thing into our room, and I suspect that's when he made the bump that was loud enough to convince me to investigate.  We put everything back together and made him get back in bed.  

Finally, as he was settling in, he asked David "what game were you playing?"  Ah ha!  The truth comes out.  He was quietly watching David play video games.  I don't think he was being truly sneaky about it.  He doesn't really think that way.  He was probably just quiet enough that we didn't notice he'd opened his door.  I'm thinking he got tired watching at some point and decided to make himself a bed just inside the door so he could watch in comfort.  You can just see the TV down the hall from Tommy's door.

Guess we need to be more vigilant about bumps in the night.

In more exciting bedtime news, Charlie let David put him to bed Wednesday night.  I had a carnival planning meeting at 7 pm.  (Lots of people at the meeting volunteered to buy/do stuff for me so I have less on my plate now.)  The boys start baths at 7:10 or so and I usually put Charlie in his crib at about 7:50, so I was thinking I'd be late to the meeting.  

After dinner David asked Charlie if it would be OK for Daddy to put him to bed and Charlie said "yes."  I was shocked.  He really understands stuff these days, so he wasn't just saying yes without any idea of what we were talking about.  He walked David through all the steps I usually do - turn off the lamp, sit in chair with his blanket, sing Moon, Moon, Moon, etc.  He was very excited to be teaching David about bedtime.  He and David talked about Charlie having a sippy cup of water instead of nursing and Charlie was OK with it.

So I went off to my meeting, and David and Tommy did all the bedtime stuff with Charlie, and it worked like a charm.  Charlie has a cold this week, but as soon as he's well I'm going to start going to the movies or something at bedtime to see if we can get this boy weaned without too much drama.

Breaking News: Week Passes. Nobody Notices.

Now, I'm sure YOU noticed that almost a week has passed without any pictoral snuggly goodness from me.  I'm just saying I didn't notice.  Whew.  I've been busy.

So.  Long ago, I volunteered to be the "carnival games" coordinator for Tommy's preschool carnival.  You know what?  The carnival games are a big part of a preschool carnival.  Sure, somebody has to handle the food, and she's doing an amazing job.  And somebody is coordinating all the volunteers, so I'm not having to staff the games.  And somebody else is coordinating stuff that makes me shudder and break into a cold sweat like cold-calling businesses for donations.  Glad I'm not doing that.  There's also a plant sale and lovely gift baskets to assemble for a silent auction.  I'm sure there are lots of things that other people are doing that I'm not even aware of. 

However, you can't have a carnival without an actual carnival, if you know what I mean.  That's the part I'm doing.  What was I thinking?  It's a lot of work, especially when there isn't a lot left over from previous years and almost no budget to speak of.  Well, David and I have a budget, but that's not actually very useful in this instance.  Budgets that allow spending are always more useful than budgets that curtail spending.

So that's what I've been focusing on.  The rest of the family is fine too.  Tommy is as busy as ever.  That boy has an amazingly full social calendar.  Charlie has a cold, but he's not too miserable so far.  My headaches are back.  Let us never speak of them again.  David's back on a normal work schedule.  He's been doing a bunch of woodworking for the carnival games, so he's been happily puttering around in the garage on the weekends.  See?  You didn't even miss anything after a week.  I'll try to get back to taking pictures tomorrow, but don't be surprised if April is a light blogging month.

Oh, and if you have Pre-K kids and live in Albuquerque you should really go to the Church of the Good Shepherd preschool carnival.  It will be Saturday, May 2nd from 11-2.  The games are going to be SPECTACULAR.  (Hopefully.)  (If they're not, don't tell me.)  If we make lots of money I might even feel OK asking to be reimbursed for some of the game materials and equipment. 

Literal

Me:  (quoting from My Friends Tigger & Pooh) Any time, any place, the Super Sleuths are on the case!

Charlie:  No.  They on grass.  Right over there.