So many snacks, so little time

I am officially the mom of a school aged child. Thursday, it is our turn to bring snack (and, also, L's first ever "picture day"!). Being the kind of mom I am - "type A" but trying not to be, conscious of not feeding my kids or anyone else's sugar, wanting to make things easy for her teachers - I am racking my brain to come up with a good snack idea. I don't have the time or energy to do some sort of super impressive, crafty treat. I found a bunch of those online. But if it involves using a leaf shaped cookie cutter (to make a snack that goes with this week's "leaves" theme, naturally!), I'm just not going there.

Instead, the kids and I trolled the aisles of CostCo yesterday looking for ideas. I think I've settled on cheese sticks and multigrain crackers. The cracker box explicitly says that they were made in a nut-free environment, so we've satisfied the "avoid problems for kids with nut allergies" requirement. If I unwrap all of the cheese sticks ahead of time, then that is a relatively clean and easy snack for the teachers to deal with. Maybe I'll throw in some apples, too? Fuji's are on sale at our grocery store for $.88/lb right now, so buying 8 wouldn't break the bank.

Cheese, crackers, apple. Hopefully that will be good. Today I asked L what her snack was and she seemed disappointed. "Just a small graham cracker." I think that means that someone forgot to bring snack so the teachers had to break into their emergency snack stash. Alas...

Right on the heels of the preschool snack on Thursday, I am also bringing snacks for Bible study preschool hour on Friday. These ladies made it easier for me by actually telling me what to bring. No stress about making the right choice! Friday the snack goes with the Bible story, which I am going to guess is Joshua and the battle of Jericho. I am to bring "Rice Krispie Treats cut into rectangles" and chocolate frosting.  I can't say I'm completely thrilled about the nutritional quality of the "snack", but frankly if my kids like the preschool hour and I can get in some good Bible studying with other ladies one morning a week, I'll deal with it. And I'm sure my kids will love the special treat.

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By the way, I found out this morning that my blog has been accepted onto BlogExplosion, an online blog directory. I actually had to apply and have my blog approved, so that's pretty cool! 18+ people think my blog is interesting!

Junk pile, I banish thee

No matter how hard I try, I can not avoid having a pile of dumped junk on the counter in our kitchen. Before we moved, we had a junk pile that drove me crazy. The second it was clean, more things appeared.

I promised myself that after our move I would not allow the same thing to happen. We have a nice little kitchen peninsula with stools for the kids to sit while I am cooking. It makes me feel happy to be in our kitchen when that area is empty (except for a bowl of fruit or, like now, pretty squash and fall veggies). How often is the peninsula free of junk? Maybe 1/2 of 1 day out of the week. Sad. Right now in the pile: 2 magazines, 2 packages of childproofing locks for cabinets, 1 air freshener plug in with no air freshener, a handful of change from my grocery shopping trip, fly swatter, 1 of B's socks that he gave me while I was putting groceries away. All of these things have homes -- homes that are not my kitchen counter. Why? Why do they always end up there?

This week my goal is going to be to keep that counter free of junk. It will be one small step towards sanity.

Are we late yet?

Eric and I are both 'type A' people, so it's no surprise that L - our first born - has always shown those tendencies.  I have always tried to be very careful to be encouraging to her in all situations because she tends to be hard on herself. This has been the case since she was very young. Ex: until recently she didn't like drawing very much because she "can't draw like Daddy".  We had a small issue with potty training because she was so hard on herself when she had an accident that it made it mentally really difficult for her. (We recognize that about her and have been talking with her pretty much forever about just doing the best you can, it's ok to make mistakes, even mommy and daddy make mistakes sometimes, etc.) 

This past weekend I caught a glimpse of another piece of me that has handed down. This one though, I think, is my fault. It's a little embarassing and a wake up call for me.

Last weekend Eric had class, so I planned to take the kids down to Bend for the weekend. We planned to leave Friday, but had no target "leave time". As I loaded everything into the car and started hooking L in to her seat, she said, "Are we late, Mommy?" like she was very concerned. Unfortunately, this was not the first time she has asked me that and it wasn't the last. She proceeded to ask me if we were late about every 10 minutes for the first hour we drove. You know how some kids say, "Are we there yet?" Well, apparently in our house, the refrain will be, "Are we late yet?"

Over the past couple of weeks, L has been asking me pretty regularly when we get into the car if we are late. Even when we are late, I've been trying to take that as a sign to back off a bit and just relax. It's like she's holding up a mirror saying, "I can tell you are stressing out so I'm going to stress out too!" And I feel silly because 99.9% of the time, "lateness" is not a very big deal at all. But it is true, I definitely get anxious when I feel like I'm late for something.

Good lesson. Our kids pick up on more than we know, and those things sink in, sometimes more than we would probably like. I'll be working on not worrying about lateness, and just enjoying the moment instead. And also not cursing like a sailor everytime we are in the car together.

Just kidding on that last part!

I'm a Survivor

Tonight is the season premiere of Survivor. To be honest, I have no idea where they are or any details about this season, other than that apparently there is some guy who is going into the game planning to destory the food source of his own tribe so that he can swoop in and be the savior later. Or something like that.

I have a little secret and it will explain my interest in this season of Survivor.

I seriously considered applying for this season of Survivor. Multiple times I thought about what I'd say in my video. I have read that only about 10% of the people they cast on Survivor know actually apply and the rest are "LA people" (model/actresses or wannabes). Here is my serious thought: wouldn't it be refreshing to have a normal woman (not stick thin, not hideously ugly) on the show? Plus, I am a stay at home mom. I don't recall a lot of those on the show. And, if that wasn't interesting enough, my former job working with adjudicated teenagers might be a draw. Such a sweet face, but a tough personality when needed.

I researched my application plan to a small extent. I knew that this season would be filmed over the summer in the U.S. and I thought: Hey! Eric won't be working, so it would be less weird for the kids! Plus, who wouldn't love to win $1 million??

I actually got to the point of pulling up the application and requirements online, only to discover the deadline was the day before. Foiled!

But then, a couple of weeks later, I was at the gym on the treadmill and there was an ad on tv: they extended the deadline and were doing an open casting in Portland, a mere 3 hours drive away, the next day. You can imagine Eric's response when I said, "So, do you think I should take the kids to Portland tomorrow?"

In the end, I didn't apply. But if I did, I'm confident I would be competing against this season's Survivors.

Would I have won? Probably not. My near-obsession with being on Survivor is not entirely consistent with my character. I have never left North America. I am a control freak.  I tend to have problems with anxiety in unpredictable situations. I have had stomach problems my whole life that cause me to eat a basically spice-free diet. I am not very good at letting people get to know me, and am not very skilled at "making friends".

But... I'm also someone who is generally underestimated in terms of my intellect. I'm also very healthy and strong, but not intimidatingly so. I've got some extra stomach and thighs (not to mention butt!) to use as a backup energy source.

And, what an adventure it would be!!

I'll be watching tonight and sizing up my competition. Maybe I'll apply for season 20-whatever sometime, too!

VictoriaElizabethQOC = Cool stuff

Meet my friend, Victoria. She doesn't know this, but when I refer to her I almost always call her "Babyfit Victoria", not like I know any other Victoria's that I am differentiating between. She is enormously creative and makes beautiful clothes and costumes for toddlers, on top of being a stay at home mom of 2 toddlers (both girls, with the same age span as mine) and pregnant with her third, a woman of faith and someone who desires to live a healthy life as much as possible.

I knew Victoria made little things for her daughters, but had no idea the scope until L's 3rd birthday, when she received this:

It was, without a doubt, the hit of the party! And ever since has been a top tier dress up outfit for not only L, but also for her brother...

                                                  

I'm following yesterday's post with this because Victoria has made and is, I think, still making pretty cool costume sets for dress up. I'm especially liking the Clown Princess outfit!

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Check out her site (link is below), and if you like what you see, drop her a line of encouragement or buy a cute little item for someone you know who loves a little dress up!

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VictoriaElizabethQOC  --- Hosted by Etsy.com

Halloween costumes, already?

It's that time of year again - preparation for Halloween. At this time last year L was obsessed with "Where the Wild Things Are", so I decided to make her a "wild thing" costume for Halloween. I grew up in a time when your parents (or you) made your costume. I have seen pictures of my own halloween costumes as a kid - I don't think I ever had one that was store bought. It made me a little sad when I was teaching 1st and 2nd grade to see that pretty much all of the kids in my class (or maybe I can truthfully say all - I don't remember) were wearing store bought costumes.

As a parent of two toddlers, I can certainly relate and don't want to judge parents who buy their kids costumes. Who has the time or energy to put into making elaborate costumes, especially when there may be more than one child to "costume" for the big day. Plus, kids change their mind every 5 minutes (at least mine do) about what they want to be. Who wants to spend a week making a lion costume only to find out that their son, who was obsessed with lions 8 days ago, suddenly wants to be a race car driver and hates lions now?

Anyway, last year I made L a "Wild thing" costume. Trust me, I looked everywhere online for a shortcut. I was really hoping someone else made a homemade costume that I could buy on ebay because their child already wore it. But I had no such luck, the time of a stay at home mom, and the necessary sewing skills.

So this is the photo I used as inspiration:

Here's what I ended up with, after about 2 weeks of work. See if you can tell which "Wild Thing" I was going for.

The problem with going all out last year is that now I feel like I really should be super creative this year for both kids. Neither one are old enough to have a consistent and definitive idea of what they would like to be. When I ask L, she answers with whatever she happens to see or be doing at that exact moment. B, of course, would like to be "car" or "shoe". I think I'm just going to decide and they are going to go together - 2 pirates, 2 animals, etc. But I need to decide now -- if I am going to sew costumes again, I need to give myself enough time to actually finish without causing myself serious stress in those final days!

If anyone has a great costume idea for a 2 and 3 year old boy and girl, I'd love to hear it!

Happy Grandparents Day... PS - You're old!

Yesterday was Grandparent's Day. L & B's grandparents may be wondering why they didn't receive anything for this special holiday. Well, there is a reason...

In the middle of last week, I started an online search for Grandparents Day related coloring sheets for my kids to color for their grandparents. At "almost 2" and 3.5, coloring sheets are just our speed and a lot easier on Mommy than trying to get them to produce some other kind of project.

Quickly, I realized I was going to have a problem. My kids' grandparents are just so darn young! All 4 are in their 50's, and definitely do not look "old". I don't think sending them a coloring sheet with a "You belong in a nursing home" underlying message would really elicit the celebratory response we were going for. And I couldn't help laughing at the suggestions of "Play bingo together" and "Visit their nursing home" as suggested Grandparents Day activities (though I don't think my parents - or Eric's - would find that as funny).

 I thought I found a winner here. Nana Sharon loves to garden, so I thought "Granddaughter-Grandmother gardening" might be a good one.

There are lots of canes and glasses in "Grandparents Day" coloring sheet world, not to mention extremely conservative clothing.

 

Cane: check! Glasses: check! Conservative clothing: check!

This one goes one step further, "You're old and you need a better bra."

There is just something creepy about this one.

"Your metabolism isn't what it once was, Grandpa!"

I ended up finding more generic coloring sheets and/or pages that said "Happy Grandparents Day", rather than ones with pictures of grandparents. There would definitely be a market for coloring sheets with young, fairly hip grandparents for occasions such as this.

Happy Grandparent's Day to Grandpa Barney, Grandpa Mark, Nana Sharon, Papa Sisu and YaYa!

Fabulous color sheet examples provided by:

Coloring Book Fun

Apples 4 the Teacher 

Activity Village