Slime!

I thought it was time to post a fun little project you can do at home: homemade slime!

I recommend that you do this in a large bowl in the sink, or else pretty much tarp an entire room.

Put a lot of corn starch in a bowl.  Add water a little at a time, mixing with your hands, until it feels right.  It is done when you try to pull your hand out fast and get clumps, but pull your hand out slowly and it runs.  Add a few drops of food coloring and let the kids go to town.

I suggest you strip your kids down at least to the waist, maybe more if they’re under age 4 and prone to fingerpainting.

There are recipes online for slime using Borax.  I think that for kids under age 5 or 6, you should just do the corn starch one, especially if they try to eat science experiments.  With the safe slime, all that will happen is they will think it’s yucky and maybe get a green mouth.

Enjoy!

Out to Lunch

Is that what we did today or my perpetual state of mind?  You be the judge.

I took the kids to lunch today with some friends.  First of all, I should make a note that I do enjoy taking them out to restaurants.  My kids are very well-behaved, by anyone’s standards.  When my husband and I take them out, we all have a lot of fun.  I suppose this is because of one of the best pieces of advice I ever read.  In one of those child-rearing books that are so popular these days, the author was commenting on restaurant behavior.  He said that the children whose parents were really enjoying their company were behaving far better than the kids whose parents were mostly paying attention to each other.  When we take the kids out, alone or together, we give them plenty of our attention.  This pays off for everyone, including the other (grateful, I’m sure) patrons.

Today was another story.  I took them out with three other moms and their kids.  I try not to do this, since I know what will happen, even without the aid of a crystal ball or the Psychic Friends Network.  What prompted this temporary lapse in good judgment was this morning’s play date.  The other moms said they were going out to lunch, would we like to join them.  I wasn’t in the mood for the meltdown that would have occurred, in stereo, if I said no.  So I agreed to go along.

As predicted, my son kept annoying the boy seated next to him, while my daughter tried to sit on her brother’s head.  One of the other moms kept telling my kids to settle down.  To be fair, the other boy was definitely baiting my son, but that is no excuse.  They somehow managed to eat their lunch, after which my daughter asked for ice cream.  Now, I had no intention of buying ice cream, but she did ask nicely.  Besides, they had both had a pretty good lunch.  So I agreed, of course.

It turned out that was the best decision I made all day.  Because the other moms didn’t want to buy ice cream too, they all left.  I was alone with my kids at last.  It could not have been more fun.  We laughed and talked, sharing the ice cream.  It was amazing what a difference I saw in their behavior.

Never discount the time spent with these little ones.  Even if it’s just cheap ice cream in a semi-fast food restaurant, they’ll thank you for the moments you took to nurture them.

Signs of Life

My son has a new hobby.  He likes to make signs.  For absolutely everything.  It started one night after dinner.  He was in the bathroom and my daughter kept trying to go in with him.  This was bothering him, especially when she ignored his repeated requests for privacy.  When he came out, he decided that we needed a sign for the bathroom:

(The extra drawing is my daughter’s artwork.)

Next thing I knew, he was making signs and hanging them up all over the house.  We have the “ghosts” in the kitchen doorway, the “cool tool” sign in the kitchen, the “in” and “out” signs by the front door and on the porch.

Speaking of ghosts, apparently we have a “nice” haunted house.  My son made a new sign for the bathroom:

As a result of the original “PRIVIT” sign in the bathroom, my daughter became quite distressed.  She wanted to be able to join her brother in the bathroom.  Being the sensitive boy that he is, he didn’t like seeing her so upset.  So he decided to remove the original sign.  I suppose he figured it might not be enough just to take the sign down.  After all, he hadn’t informed his sister of the change in the rules.  So he produced yet another sign:

There is peace in the land at last.

Homeschooling

I had to post this, since it relates to that parenting seminar mentioned in my previous post.

We are a homeschooling family.  No, we’re not vegans, we don’t grow all our own food, I don’t make our clothes, we’re not “religious nuts” trying to shelter our kids from all things evil.  Yes, the kids are learning “real things, like math and reading, they do have physical education, and they have a better social life than I do.

I do like some of the comments I get.  Most people who ask how long I plan to do it are just curious.  So I say, truthfully, that I don’t know.  I hope to send them to school eventually, but by then, they will be old enough to choose for themselves.  Some people, though, ask because they think that you can’t possibly do it all the way through high school.  For those people, I give the same aforementioned answer, but I long to say, “I plan to homeschool through graduate school.”

At the parenting seminar, I posed a question about how to handle my 3-year-old’s challenging behavior when she doesn’t want to go to one of the group activities.  I couldn’t believe that the woman leading the seminar had no better advice than, “You’re trying to parent two different children the same way.  Maybe you should reconsider and send them to school, or at least send one of them.”  I politely said that we felt their educational needs couldbe better met at home (while inside, I was thinking, And you think the public schools are going to take interest in their unique personalites?).  So her advice was to hire a sitter or ask another mom to babysit, or have someone else take my son to the activities (which are actually for both kids).  Wow, yeah, I’ll get right on that.

Fortunately, there was another mom there who is familiar with homeschooling and had great advice for me.  Once again, I think I’ll skip the parenting experts.  Geez, I hope they don’t comebeating down my door with CPS workers next week ’cause I’m not sending my kids to school.

A Word from the Experts

I attended a parenting seminar today.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I mostly went so I could write about it for our church newsletter.  I’m nota perfect parent by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I do think that my husband and I get it right pretty often.

Anyway, it started off fine.  Lots of stuff defining parents, making sure that the kids are in on the house rules, talking about what respect really means.  So far, so good.  Then we entered Dangerous Waters.  The people leading the seminar started talking about the big D: Discipline.

This is something I just don’t understand about many of my Christian brothers and sisters.  Why does it seem like so many people view parenting as and “us against them” proposition?  Our kids are certainly not the enemy!  Many Christian parenting “experts” seem to employ a rather punitive style of discipline.  A classic example is the kid who crayons on the dining room wall (yes, speaking from experience here…a great story, one for another time).  Little Joey draws a picture in red crayon, he has to clean it up.  Nice and simple, right?  Not so with these James Dobson groupies (sorry to any fans of Dr. Dobson).  Not only must Joey clean up the crayon marks, but he must serve some other kind of sentence, such as jail time (time out) or community service (extra chores).  The experts have assured us that this is to make certain that our children experience pain–otherwise, they are liable to do it again.  I fail to see how inflicting pain really helps anyone learn to behave.  I think it mostly just serves to enforce to them that they shouldn’t get caught next time.

I’m not sure what I was hoping for, but whatever it was, I don’t think I experienced it.  I think I’ll stick with trusting my instincts, making some mistakes, and hoping that the kids turn out pretty much ok in the end.

They Grow Up So Fast

Well, it’s official:  My 5-year-old is no longer a little boy.  We went to visit my husband at work this afternoon, after he was done teaching for the day.  His student teacher was also there, surfing YouTube.  He found a pretty cool video and was showing it to my son.  He wanted to see it again, but we had to leave.  I told him we could find it again at home.  We did, and he enjoyed watching it.  I went to the kitchen to get some chores done.  When I checked in with my son, he was doing his own surfing–finding all sorts of neat videos to watch.  Of course, I immediately had mom radar going, to make sure he wasn’t stumbling on something inappropriate.  But he was able to find all kinds of kid stuff, from Hot Wheels cars to Thomas the Tank Engine to marble chutes.

When did my baby get to be old enough to surf the web on his own?!

I think I need a nap.

Being a parent is tiring.  I think the tasks of parenting are a lot like having a dam in your living room.  The dam has holes in it and you have to stop them up with your fingers.  The problem is, there are 11 holes.  So you have to keep switching fingers and hope that you stopped the flow long enough that you can stop a different one for awhile without flooding your carpet.

The latest one for us seems to be having the 3-year-old give up naps.  When our now 5-year-old stopped napping, it was easy.  One day he just didn’t take a nap; now he only sleeps if he is extremely tired or he’s sick.  But our daughter wasn’t really ready to give them up.  She has had a long loveaffair with naps.  Lots of kids resist when you tell them it’s time for sleep; not our girl.  She would practically run to the bedroom and leap into bed, pulling her special blanket up to her chin.  She would always be out in less than 5 minutes, leaving me to spend some quality time with her brother.  Unfortunately, we reached a point where she was not able to get to sleep at night.  It would be 9pm and she’d be asking for another movie…or snack…or story…or a trip to the zoo.  We realized Something Had to Be Done.  That Something was eliminating afternoon naps.

Once she stopped sleeping during the day, our daughter became fairly easy to settle down at night.  Unfortunately, this magical fairlyland of Easy Bedtime has its price.  Our sweet little girl gets to bed time and she turns into Queen of the Grumps.  She is cranky, stubborn, irritable, fussy, and generally unpleasant.  Tonight, we had the great War of the Pajamas.  Stage 1: Yell a little about how Mom picked the wrong pair.  Stage 2: Insist on picking another pair, but refuse to enter the bedroom alone.  Stage 3: Take 15 minutes deciding whether to wear trucks, kitties, or rocket ships.  Stage 4: Refuse help getting undressed and into pajamas, then cry because it’s too hard.  Stage 5: Finally accept help, but complain that the pajamas are too tight, too hot, itchy, or just “don’t feel right.”

In fairness, I should mention that she has some sensory integration issues.  So probably her pajamas didn’t feel right.  However, the problems are mostly just magnified by her exhaustion.  At any rate, we did resolve the problem and she was off to dreamland in just a few minutes.

I’m sure that as she grows, all of this will sort itself out.  Inthe meantime, though, I sure could use a nap myself.