Mom-Day

Week in and week out I hang with my kiddos. And they like that. But they LIVE for Saturdays. In our house, Saturdays are better known as "Dad-Day!" They are revered. The kids deeply look forward to their special mornings with their dad and it's basically the best!

So Mondays are kind of hard. Dad goes to work and people are generally disappointed in the prospect of another five days of "real life." Then Mom-Days were born! Mom-Days take the place of boring humdrum Mondays you see. They also, theoretically, make the prospect of Dad going to work slightly less horrible. This does not always work in actuality.

On this Mom-Day we made muffins. In the spirit of open and honest blogging, we make Mom-Day muffins weekly. C gets to pick which kind and today it was banana nut. I was a little surprised by this choice as we had banana muffins last week but I abide by the picks of my dude.

We listened to music and played all sorts of games. Including dump a package of index cards all over the kitchen floor, penguin family and reading stories. Only the true classics at our house.

We played outside. It is cool spring but dry the past few days which is great. So of course we went outside. We planted some flowers and found a worm. We ran. We jumped.

It was fun. Fresh air rocks. 

But then. oh my gosh everybody, the FedEx man came. With a VERY important package. The Penguin Pinata for C's birthday party. 

It currently is living on top of our fridge. (As seen in the photo.) The discussion of making sure we are really gentle with it until the party has been had. We have been watching pinata videos on YouTube to make sure that he understands that the penguin will be broken open at the party. Verdict is still out on how that is going to go down but we'll keep prepping him for it. 

Fun fact: did you know that a few weeks ago the biggest penguin habitat opened at the Detroit Zoo? The Polk Penguin Conservation Center is huge. And pretty sweet. I am pretty sure we have watched the YouTubes a bajillion times and my nearly four-year-old's biggest dream right now besides "Christmas at Disney World" is "The 'Troit Zoo." 

Well after watching more 'Troit Zoo penguin building YouTube videos with our lunch, we played and snuggled, then we went up for rest time. BOTH kids slept which is very unusual these days. 

They woke up only shortly before Dad came home and Mom-Day ended. So all in all, a pretty darn successful day.

I am going to really miss our low-key Mom-Days in the fall. But the preschool schedule is nice, we have Wednesdays off. So I am sure we will fill it with all kinds of fun!

The Thank You Book

If you've been here a few times you probably know that we love Mo Willems. The man can seriously almost do no wrong. (Except for the fold out spread in Knuffle Bunny Free... that was just dumb.)

So it goes without saying that we are big Elephant Piggie fans. It's a series of 25 books. The final book, The Thank You Book was released on May 3. I had it preordered and it came as promised that day. But I didn't open the box.

I couldn't really bring myself to do it. It just seemed so final.

Kind of like this.

But today I gave it and opened the box. And I read the book. And it was good. Piggie thanks everyone who is important to their stories and it is a cute little retrospective for children. (And me.) I may have gotten a little teary as I finished. Elephant Gerald and Piggie are stand up characters who have taught my boy how to wait, recognize when he was cranky, share, make friends, deal with disappointments and other important life lessons. 

My heart is sad that Elephant and Piggie are saying goodbye as characters but I am so glad that there are 25 books in my home that I can go to anytime and hang out with them. 

So as one of the readers, I have to give a big thank you to you Elephant Gerald and Piggie right back double. We love you always.

Hello Friday! We've Been Waiting For You!

one. Let's talk for a minute about tree helicopters. We have a giant silver maple in our yard. As you probably know, in the spring, maple trees drop all their helicopters. As such, our yard in the spring looks like this:

Only a lot, a lot more. Every year, they drop right on or near C's birthday. We have in the past had water parties with swimming for his birthday because that is one of his favorite things. The helicopters don't preclude that of course but they make it annoying. But it has rained every year on his birthday. 

This year we planned an indoor party just because we know it will rain. It just will. It rained the day he was born. It rained when he turned one, two and three. It's going to rain. 

BUT all the helicopters dropped this week!!! Like right now! Two weeks out! So on the off chance that it doesn't rain, which is slim, the kids can at least run around outside and play without a bajillion helicopters all over. Assuming we sweep/mow/rake before then of course. (We will.) 

two. Grace and Frankie. Oh my gosh. Do you have Netflix? I love this show. I love that there was a commercial on during The Good Wife finale for this show. We finished the second season last night and it is brilliant. Super interesting look at people and life. So very funny. I am quite certain that it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea but I totally dig it. 

three. This article.  Which basically states that people don't appreciate Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead enough. It's true. They don't. But I do, We quote this movie all the time. Seriously. It's true movie love. And has just become mandatory Friday night viewing. 

four. I am embarrassed to admit that I have lived here for almost six years and have never gotten a library card. My Minnesota library card still works just fine for ebooks and Husband had one for here. But his expired and C has been asking to go to the library. So we are going to try to go get one today. I am not quite sure what two forms of ID they want (and I think it's hilarious that they care that much because even the New York public library just requires a driver's license) so wish me luck. 

five. So the warmer of the month for Scentsy is this camper. Consultants can get the warmer and scent of the month early and I was going to un-enroll for the warmer because I don't camp and I don't really know anyone who does. Well, my mistake, I wound up with the thing anyway! 

And then the warmer earned itself a cult following and sold out in 1 day. Now it is backordered until June and people still keep buying them! So as luck would have it, another consultant bought mine from me. That makes me happy because it is going to someone who wants it and I get my money back. Everyone wins. Well I will for sure when it arrives to the consultant tomorrow and is in one piece. But things are looking good. 

six. We are at the inside out/backwards clothing stage. C cannot be bothered to take the time to put his clothes on correctly. But at least he's dressed? Let's hear it for small victories! 

seven. In bad news, the strawberry patch we've gone to for the past few years is no longer letting children under sixth grade come to pick. AND you can't just show up, you have to make reservations. SO... I am in the market for a new strawberry patch. It's just majorly lame because C has been talking about it already and my kids just LOVE strawberries. 

Happy Weekend Friends! Linkin' Up with Kelly this fine day. 

Good Days

The sun is shining! It is wet outside from last night's rain but the sun is shining and I love it!

Yesterday C had his last soccer class of the session. I really dig this class. The uniform is too too cute and the games they play really teach soccer skills without any real competition. I am not opposed to competition by any means, but this is definitely the kind of 3-year-old soccer I prefer. When he's a little older, and he wants to, I will sign him up for "running in a swarm up and down the field or maybe playing with grass" soccer.

Getting his certificate

M on the other hand, would already be involved in soccer should there be a team she could join at 18-months-old. She LOVES sports and the hardest hour of her week was watching the other kids not play soccer. Every week I would let her out of the stroller and she would grab C's ball and run and kick it. The coach even commented how good she is. "She just got more kicks than some of the kids who actually take the class!" And it's true.

She also throws really well and she can jump already. I don't know what age jumping is actually supposed to occur but it seems ridiculously early to me. I think it's great but on some level I just want her to slow down! I didn't say she could get so big!

Today was our field trip. All the kids practiced saying "May I please have a chocolate fudge sundae?" before we left. 2/3 said their sentence and paid with no problem. I had put the exact amount needed into a baggie for each of them so it would be easy, but we have one super shy kiddo and she wouldn't say a word or hand over the money. But we kind of knew that going in since she wouldn't even practice.

They ate their ice cream, while wearing crowns and then they played for a good long time. It was a super fun field trip. We don't have many of the indoor playground places in this area. The closest one to us is Chick-Fil-A but we really only have one location (that isn't in a mall) and it is always SO CROWDED. I have never taken my kids there even though they have all sorts of special program and things for kids. I would go back to Burger King for sure because it was WAY not crowded and the kids had a really good time.

I feel like May is going really fast! And I have so much to do still!

Penny, Nickle, Dime and Quarter

Oh me oh my.

School is at my house this week. I am in my final countdown for hosting school. I have Thursday and then May 24 and 26. Normally, my friends, I would wax poetic about how I can't believe my little boy is done with 3yo preschool and going to 4yo preschool next year. And so on and so forth.

But people, I am tired. We started our little version of school last April. We absolutely took breaks, but still. In a typical schedule preschool they have 72 days of school. When we are done, we will have had 85. That's pretty good. But tiring.

Anyway, today we learned about Money. Nothing too fancy but my goal was to have them name the President on each of the four main coins, the name of the coin and it's value. We are going to fall a little short on that. I will be happy if by week's end we can name the coins. Well, C is actually very good at it. Nickle, Penny and Quarter he's got down. He has a little trouble with Franklin Roosevelt. But I hope to get the girls up to speed about the names of the coins.

We read The Coin Counting Book.

For math we did coin patterns. Again, C breezed through this one with no problem but the girls had trouble distinguishing between the three silver coins. 

I had assigned homework. I gave each kid a "dirty" penny to give a bath/wash with the dishes and try to clean it. Obviously soap and water doesn't work. So for science we tried to clean pennies with lots of different things: milk, water, vinegar/salt, ketchup, cocktail sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic lemon marinade and salsa. The kids were able to slather on the things they thought would work to get them clean. 

After some time we rinsed them off. Water, milk and Worcestershire were the only ones that didn't work. Vinegar/salt, ketchup and the marinade did the best. I should note that I think some of the pennies suffered from being in a condiment for too long and went past shiny and back to black. But the kids didn't care.

To have some gross motor play I set up a coin toss similar to lawn darts. They also had coin rubbing for craft and a coin filled sensory bin. I didn't take any pictures because I was busy keeping things under control. 

Thursday we have a fun day planned of coin stacking and sorting, painting banks (not piggy shaped because those were like $6 each and so I bought little boxes for $.99 and I am cutting slits in the top, reading a story about shopping, writing the names of the money, role playing with shopping and then we are going on a field trip to Burger King for sundaes and then playing in the play place. This will be awesome because Husband is going to be home to help me and then he is staying with M during the field trip. 

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day.

I am so thankful to be a mother to my babies.
I love my mom. She's great,

But today we had to say goodbye to The Good Wife and I don't feel emotionally prepared for it. How can it be over?

THAT was the end?

Happy Mother's Day to all of you. I'll be over here processing what just happened.

7QT: Random Roundups

Things are pretty good over here! Plus it's Friday!! So I am going to join Kelly for some QT this fine morning.

one. Wednesday we got word that C got moved up the waitlist for MORNING preschool! All of my concerns about rearranging nap and lunch and whether C would adjust to not being crabby in the afternoon are gone! Hooray! Best news ever.

two. My husband is super handy. A really long story short: we needed a new lighting fixture for our dining play room. I ordered one. My husband put it up last night and I am VERY happy.

three. Have you seen the puppet Great Clips commercial? Well I hate it. Because C find it terribly upsetting. First the puppet can't find his "family" and then he didn't get a haircut and a lollipop. He saw it once. And hasn't stopped talking about it since. With tears.

It came on again yesterday evening and we covered his eyes right away but still... super concerning. It does not matter that I have spent two days telling him the puppet found his family and got a haircut and a lollipop, the kid is convincd that the puppet is still sad. We've got all the empathy over here. He's always been super in tune with people, always a sympathy crier even as a baby.

four. The internet approaches. I had to ask them to move their truck yesterday so I could get C to school.

five. Then M and I stayed out the whole time. We went to the museum but it was super crowded and even though there is an entire area that is for under 4, kids don't read the signs and the caretakers/chaperones etc. apparently don't care. So we went to the park and we had a great time. She is such a good little climber.

They have  little rock wall on the equipment labeled ages 2-4. (I don't know why they label, it's pretty clear which age range each section is for.) Well she would just scramble right up then go down a slide then run around and do it all over again. But she did get tired out and I had to convince her to use the stairs a few times.

six. If I could wave a magic wand I would invent two things. First, an indoor play area for children of some sort that opens at 7:00. While I am not the earliest riser my kids are, and a lot of things don't open until 9:00 or 10:00. That's a lot of my kid's day right there. Especially when morning nap factored in we couldn't go anywhere because by the time things opened it was nap time. This is a solvable problem!

seven. Also, I would build an entire playground for preschoolers. In a perfect world playground developers would understand that little kids want to be big kids so a few dinky slides and a climber doesn't compare to the giant play area over there!

We love our park. (The play area is fenced in now. And there's swings at the red arrow.) And you better believe both my kids play on the "big kid" side anyway but I'd love a larger area for M especially who doesn't realize she's 12 feet in the air and could careen to her death anytime.

Okay. Have a great weekend friends!