Nerdy Parenting

My kids were watching TV yesterday and called me in to see the tutorial on how to make Backyardigans Hopscotch. Since I had absolutely NOTHING to do today (add sarcastic tone here), I decided to give it a go. We got transfer paper and a twin sheet and the backing and all that fun stuff together. I printed out the sheets in reverse onto the iron on paper and gathered up all the supplies to go over to my mom’s house with the kids. She had asked for help with installing some laptop memory into her computer and offered to watch the kids so I could get some writing done in exchange. I figured we could whip out this little hopscotch board and the kids would be busy and I could get all the work done without her going crazy.

2 hours later…

we have a hopscotch board that needs to be remade.

It is a great little project, but let me give you a big tip. DON’T USE THE REVERSIBLE KIND OF TRANSFER PAPER!!! I don’t know if it is just me, but I can’t get that stuff to work for anything. I follow the directions and it doesn’t stick, I alter the directions and it sticks to the paper. I follow the directions and it doesn’t get hot enough, I go right on the paper and it burns the sheets…it was a big mess!

I would highly suggest using the non-reversible transfer paper for this project.

A twin sheet is WAY too big for this project as well. At least I only used half of it to mess it up today, so I can use the other half to fix it. You are probably better with a toddler sheet if you don’t plan on making mistakes. At least the sheet was only $3 on sale at Walmart!

I’ll be making it over with that kind of paper tomorrow and my kids are even more excited to play with it now that they’ve seen what it is supposed to look like.

Here is a link to the project

I’m sure everyone has their two cents on the “big announcement” Monday that John and Kate are getting a divorce. I don’t get caught up in celebrity news very often, but I did get caught up in this story because I watched the show before all this happened.

I think it is so absolutely sad.

If you remember from a few posts ago, I was saying that they could be an example for all of us if they make it through this. Marriage isn’t easy, as anyone who has been married for any stretch of time knows. I think it is more difficult if you get married young, because so much of who you are forms as you age into your thirties. I’m convinced after being with the same person since I was 19, that this is a huge reason so many people get divorced after about 10 years. I am not even the person I was when I was 19 and neither is my husband. I very much doubt I’ll be exactly the same at 42 that I am at 32. Like everyone else, we struggle to find a new happiness in one another as we age and change.

There are two choices people can make at this time. Either you decide that someone else can make you happy, or you can make yourself happy and adapt to your spouse.

I’m convinced that if you can adapt, everyone will be happier in the long run. Moving on to another person just means that in 10 years you’ll be facing this same issue again.

If you stay together and don’t adapt you become one of those couples that snap at each other for everything. The anger builds up and eventually you find yourself arguing over which stamp to put on the envelope to mail the home insurance bill.

If it were easy, everyone would stay married.

I wanted to pass on to all of you a great find I had at Target yesterday.

If you check in the dollar section, they have some great workbooks for the kids. I see these things all the time, but I thought these were pretty cool. For Ella, I got an alphabet and numbers 1-12 book and for Harry I got one about dinosaurs and one about space.

I never see workbooks on space, so I thought that was super-cool for the kid of two amateur astronomers! They have dot-to-dot constellations and all kinds of neat things. For a buck, you can’t beat it!

For those of us looking for ways to save money here and there, from turning off the computer at night to getting a lower auto insurance quote, its great to know that Target will always have that dollar section in the front of the store.

I came up with this idea for a father’s day project. It is to make a cell phone or mp3 player case out of an old neck tie. It is simple enough that the kids can help out with it and make something for daddy!

Check it out:

How to make an old necktie into a mp3 or cell phone case

My picture isn’t the best- I don’t have a tie that is cut-able on hand today, so I had to pin it in place to give people an idea of what it would look like. My husband donated all of his old ties to the salvation army 2 weeks ago, so now I have to run down there to buy one! Figures!

I’m about a month behind on this “news,” but here it is.

I always watched Jon and Kate casually before the whole media frenzy, just as with every other TLC show out there. I thought it was kind of funny- this controlling woman with this easy going husband and 8 little personalities to control. I always thought that if they could survive that, I certainly could. It made my really difficult days seem trivial. Now I just feel sorry for them.

Now I’m stuck with constant overload of this family. Every magazine has them on the cover and Headline News and E! must have taken out some kind of audio based stock in their names. Pennsylvania is investigating child labor laws as well.

It is ridiculous. If this family is going to be investigated, then every other reality or documentary is going to have to have the same laws applied to it. They are being persecuted for having the same kind of problems that 50% of American families have. If they did not have marriage problems, no one would be caring any more about them than they do about the Duggars or the Little People Big World family.  I have never seen one of them on the cover of a tabloid magazine and I don’t see their respective states up their butts.

For some reason, America finds joy in watching families fail. I find no joy in it.

Am I still watching the show? Yes. I’m watching because I hope that they will make it through. I hope that they can find a balance. I hope Kate can learn to be both the caring wife and the super-structured mom that it takes to run that family (isn’t it really the mother of all administrative careers?). I hope that Jon can grow up and be the man he needs to be for his family and not lament the loss of his “life” while subconsciously blaming Kate for it and gallivanting around with a younger crowd. If they can make it through this, maybe the rest of us can too.

I will not be listening to the noise. It glorifies failure and promotes nothing positive in a world that needs some models of success to hold on to.

Yesterday, we woke to bunnies in the yard.

The grass in our yard is much more accurately described as weeds. We live in a wooded wort of area, so to try to get real live grass to grow is pretty difficult. We would have to till, even the ground, re-sod and all those wonderful things that cost money we don’t have. For now, we just let it go.

I pulled up a section of the “grass” to make a vegetable garden this year. We had a very small one last year, so this year I pulled out a whole 8×16 foot space and we planted lots of veggies.

I was worried that the bunnies were going to start eating all the young plants that were growing in my new garden, so I tried to get the kids dressed to run out and get the fencing that I’ve been meaning to get. The kids were enamored with the bunnies.

Harry stood by the window watching them for a very long time. “Hey mom, can you go get me a bunny?”

“Get you a bunny? What do you mean?”

“Go outside and catch one of them.”

“I can’t catch a bunny honey, they are wild animals and they don’t like to be with people.”

“Then you can buy one for me at the pet store.”

The mom brain kicks in.

Hells no. We ARE NOT having a rabbit in my house. They are stinky and I have nowhere to put one. Aww- he is using those sad eyes on me. I had a bunny as a kid. He really wants one. Well, maybe I could get a cheap cage from the online auctions or something… What am I thinking! These things are much more work than our dumb little fish. He’ll forget about it tomorrow anyway. Nope. Not to give in to this one.

“Bunnies are too much work Harry. You have to feed them and clean them and they need someone to watch them when we go on vacation.”

Cue whining. “But I want one!”

“For now, you can watch our bunnies in the yard.”

I joined him to watch the bunnies. They were running around the yard mating. The little one would run away and eat some clover and the big one would follow behind and mount it. They did this for about 5 hours yesterday. When they say to do it like rabbits, I always thought it was because they reproduced at quick rates. I guess its because they do it for a LONG TIME! Who knew?

“Guess what Harry. I think we’re going to be able to watch some baby bunnies grow up this summer.”

My kids send me a little online greeting card for no reason this week other than to thank me for being a good mom.

Daddy has been working mad hours because he had to fire his assistant, so I’ve had to pick up the slack for the past two weeks. Its been many long hours and days.

I know the kids didn’t send it themselves, which makes it more special. Its nice to know when your spouse appreciates what you do. Its nice to wake up to screaming kids and have a little surprise waiting in your e-mail box. It reminded me that greeting cards online are a nice easy way to say thanks. I think me and the kids are going to have to send one to daddy today.

We won 3 goldfish from a local carnival last weekend. I actually thought it was pretty cool for the kids because it gave me an excuse to pull out our old fishtank, clean it up and give these guys a new home.

We got everything ready and got them all set up. The next day, two of the three weren’t looking so well, so we went to the pet store and I let the kids each pick out a fantail goldfish. By the next morning, the two carnival fish were "gone."

Now I woke up this morning and one of the fantails is “gone” too.  I had five fish at one point and now I have two.

I thought goldfish were supposed to be easy to care for?! These guys are being little prima donnas. I hear their little fishy voices: Uggh you put black rocks in here instead of green? You used GE instead of Sylvania light bulbs in the light fixture? A shark figurine? Puh-lease. I can’t take it! I’m just going to end it now!

We took Harry to see Star Trek this weekend. I had already seen it (duh!) and I didn’t think there was really much in it to justify a PG-13 rating. Sure, there is violence, but he sees that in Lego Batman and Indiana Jones. There wasn’t blood and guts everywhere, no cursing, the “sex” scene was a girl in her underwear (he sees that at home!). So call me a bad parent, but my preview said it was fine.

He was so excited! He kept turning around and giving me a thumbs up during the parts he really liked. Every time one of the characters said their line from the Burger King toy, he grinned uncontrollably.

Now, his new favorite is Scotty.

I’m wondering how I’m going to accommodate that. I’m doing some research and I’ve found some t-shirts at Cafe Press including ones that say “Beam me Up Scotty” that I think he would like.  There are always the action figures and things I suppose.

Having a slightly different age level of interest is interesting. Ella wanted to buy those little  patio sets they sell for kids at the grocery stores with characters like the Backyardigans on them. Harry was looking through the pile for one with Scotty on it. No matter how much he looked at WalMart, there were no Star Trek V-Smile or Leapster games.

There ARE Star Trek party supplies, so if his mood swings that way when birthday party planning comes, at least I’m safe there. Actually more safe than what his party wish ot date is- Lego Indiana Jones. It can’t be regular Indiana Jones that they make plates for- it has to be Lego or it isn’t right. I’m actually better off if he changes his mind before November. Then again, it is May and he started planning his Lego Indiana Jones party immediately after his last birthday in November so I can’t hedge my bets on his mind changing.

Kids and their obsessions- I just have to keep telling myself that it is a sign of his intelligence and to play along. At least its things mommy likes too.

My husband got a new toy for his birthday in April. I organized both sides of the family to get together and chip in for a PS3. I did some research and found out that only specific models are backwards compatible, so in order to play our old games I had to get one slightly used off of Ebay. I had a great experience with it and would totally buy one from this company again. The system was in great shape, very minimal wear, and everything we needed came with it.

I had no idea how much this thing does. It holds pictures and makes slide shows, we can rent and buy movies on it, try trial versions of video games, download playlists of music, watch BlueRays…I didn’t realize what it did. Yes, this nerd was a little behind on her gaming- I have 3 little kids- the extent of my video game knowledge for the past 3 years has been whether V-Smile or Leapster is better. (V-Smile makes great games, but is cheaply made and doesn’t work as well!)

As a family system, I don’t think it gets much better. I was a little turned off by the initial pricetag since it is so much more expensive than X-Box 360, but I am so glad I looked past that. Anyone looking for an all out entertainment system should take a look at PS3. After playing it for a few days, we decided not to banish it to the game room, but to hook it up to our main TV and speakers and added it into the audio racks so we could enjoy it in our main living area.