Seeing Red

Yes, that is me after attempting to dye my own hair. I had been going for flirty-fun, not haha-fun, but go ahead and have a good laugh.

Things that made me laugh even though I was extremely depressed and humiliated after doing this to MYSELF:

1. A story on the evening news about a Phoenix man who played a huge hoax by attaching flares to helium balloons and releasing them into the night sky. Apparently thousands of people believed they were seeing a UFO.


2. Lunesta commercials that say "Call your doctor right away if after taking Lunesta you walk, drive, eat or engage in other activities while asleep." Do people actually take this stuff and just hope they don't take drive their kids to school while they're still asleep?

Things I have learned from this harrowing experience:

1. Some things are worth paying a professional, hair coloring and dental work being at the top of the list.


2. In times of tragedy, count your blessings. Like for example, I don't look half-bad in hats.


3. I am way too insecure about what people think of me.


4. I should have more faith in my friends and aquaintances and believe that they are not so shallow as to judge me as a person based on my physical appearance.


5. The Inernet is my friend. After I pulled myself together, I went to my computer and typed in "removing semi permanent hair dye" and found this page. I tried multiple washings and using hot oil, but ultimately opted for a chemical product called Color Oops.

Aah, much better!

New Book Blog!!

Check out the new book review blog my friend in Ohio and I just set up: Meg and Mag's Bookshelf. I just posted a book review of Expecting Adam. This is my favorite thing about the Internet, being able to work on a project with my friend that lives clear across the country! Stop by and give us your reading recommendations.

Book Review: Siblings Without Rivalry

I finished reading Siblings Without Rivalry a few weeks ago, but for some reason didn't get around to writing a review of it. I read it for the parenting book club that I attend. It was a really easy read and had lots of examples that the authors took from parenting seminars that they taught. There were several pieces of advice that have stuck with me since reading it and that I am trying to follow:

1. Not taking sides in an argument between siblings
2. Helping children solve their own disagreements
3. Emphasizing teamwork, not competion among siblings
4. Not casting children into roles within the family
5. Valuing each child fo their uniqueness

Some of this stuff may seem like it is for people with older children than mine, but I want to take a proactive approach on this issue. I would rather be educated early on so that I can prevent as much sibling rivalry as possible. I want my children to be good friends and I hope this is not too much to ask for. I don't want them to see the other one as their competion for attention, love, etc.

This book also made me realize that it is not too late to develop a closer relationship with my brother. The authors describe how many of the people in their workshop ended up having revelations about their own relationships with their siblings and went on to try and repair those relationships. My brother and I are five years apart and have totally different interests and have never really been close. However, I think if I just made more of an effort to stay in contact, we could be closer than we are now. Especially since we share the bond of both being parents now.

Right now I am reading three books at once, something I don't normally do. They are:

Expecting Adam

Operating Instructions

Practically Perfect In Every Way

My friend Michelle and I are planning to start a blog together, completely devoted to book reviews and I hope to have it up and running before I finish all those books, so check back soon for the link. Michelle is great at picking good books, so I think it will be an interesting blog.

It's the Process, Not the Product!

While my husband was out of town, I decided to do a fun, kid friendly meal, and hopefully distract my son from the fact that Daddy was not home for dinner. I thought we would make sandwich faces. Here is what I envisioned them looking like:

My son, however, had different ideas. First of all, he didn't want any cream cheese on his and then decided to use the goldfish (I had intended them to go on the side) as his main adornment. Later, I let him make one with peanutbutter and raisins.

They are both supposed to be monsters. The first one is a one-eyed monster with a very large mouth. The second one has 14 eyes and a row of raisins for the mouth at the bottom of the face.
Sometimes I have a really hard time not getting frustrated with him when I have this great vision worked up in my head of how a project is going to turn out. I have to remind myself that it is the process and also spending time together that matter the most. I also have to remember that he is not always going to be interested in every activity that I think sounds really fun, and it won't be a good time for either of us if I push him into it. I would like to hear if anyone has any other thoughts on this or similar experiences.

P.S. We are still planning to do a cooking project with the edible googly eyes from our swap partners but decided to wait and use them on some sort of dessert, since the main ingredient is Milk Duds (probably wouldn't be too great with garlic flavored ceam cheese).

Warming Up

I was beginning to think we were living in the land that spring forgot, but it was beautiful in our neck of the woods this weekend. The kids and I spent about three hours at the park soaking in the sunshine, having a picnic, feeding the ducks and, of course, playing on the playground. My husband, Jeff, was out of town for the weekend, so the kids and I were on our own. So besides the weather warming up, we are also warming up for our business' busy season. We own a moving company and summer is the time when we do the most volume. It won't be long and Jeff will practically be living at the office. I sometimes complain that he is busiest when the weather's the nicest and we could be out biking or camping together, but the truth is, it is probably much better that I can take the kids to the park and do things outdoors when Jeff is tied up with work. If I had to spend the long, dark winter without him around, it would be so much worse.

Doodling

Science Night & Clinton/Obama Balloon Races

My son's co-op preschool recently had a science night. Have I mentioned how much I love co-ops? His teacher did such a great job planning it and it was so much fun. These were the stations she had set up:

1) Volcanoes:
The kids would dump a cup of baking soda into a clay volcano and then pour in a cup of vinegar (with red food coloring) and watch the eruption. My husband was in charge of this station and it was one of the most popular.

2) Water and Oil "Lava Lamps":
The kids would fill a water bottle (lable removed) a little over halfway with water, then add oil, food coloring and a small rubber toy. The lid was then glued on and they could shake it up and then watch what happened when it settled again.

3) Slime:
I don't know what recipe they used for this since I was manning the lava lamp station most of the night, plus my son wanted nothing to do with it. He gets his neatness trait honestly from his dad.

4) Rainbow Carnations:
Each child got to take home a white carnation that was stuck into a florist's vial that was filled with food coloring. By morning our carnation had turned turquoise on the tips of all the petals.

5) Microscope and Magnifying Glass:
Pretty self-explanatory, but also pretty engaging for the kids.

6) Balloon Rockets:
The kids got blow balloons up with these little handheld pumps (great for preschoolers that can't blow balloons up yet) and then shoot them off down the hallway. Plus each kid got to take home a balloon and pump. My son played with his the entire next morning.

Then his two cousins, Big T and Little T, came over after school. He showed them his balloon and pump, which reminded Big T of an experiment that her class did at school with balloon airplanes. We decided to replicate it at home. We took fishing line and tied it to a chair, then threaded it through a straw and tied the other end to another chair. We did this twice so that we could have races. Then we took two balloons, blew them up, taped them to the straws and let go! This kept all three kids busy for most of the afternoon :)

It got me thinking though, maybe this is how each political party should choose their presidential canidates in the future. They could write each contenders name on a balloon and just let 'em rip. It would be a much less painful process and definitely more clear cut then the Clinton/Obama race. Plus you wouldn't have the primary canidates (who are supposed to be on the same team) tearing each other apart, and we wouldn't have to deal with all the ugly tv ads and hideous yard signs. Come to think of it, we could decide the whole election this way, not just the primaries. After all, when it is all said and done, we still end up with a politician in the White House no matter what.

THANK YOU, SWAP PARTNERS!!

We got packages from both our swap partners yesterday. Both packages were extremely creative, but very different from each other.

This one was from Mama Bird at Surely You Nest and her two children.

Their package was full of really unique projects for the kids and I to do together. They sent us the ingredients to make bath bombs, which is very cool because that is the type of project I would think sounds really fun, but would never go and track down all the ingredients. They also sent us the materials to make edible googly eyes, little pots with sunflower seeds and soil, and some craft supplies. My son is dying to make the googly eyes, but I want to wait until after we go to the grocery store so that we can get the stuff to make sandwich faces to the put the googly eyes on. I think the sunflower seeds are going to be great too since he has been really interested in a new book that we got about sunflowers (I mentioned it in an early post). I think I am most excited to make the bath bombs and then see my kids' reaction when we put them in the tub.



This one was from the mama over at The Belly Chronicles and her two children:

They sent us an ocean themed package, which included a beautiful book about shells, drift wood, a conch shell, a heart-shaped rock and two amazing handmade felt journals with my kids' names on them (I will have to find out how they made these). This package really touched me because I had mentioned in the questionaire how we love the ocean but don't live anywhere near it. It probably would have been more accurate to say that I love the ocean and want my children to develop an appreciation for it too, so it was really neat to have these artifacts come into our home that they can touch and feel. My son immediately sat down to write in his journal and then wanted to use the driftwood to pretend he was camping. It was also very sweet of them to include a knitted ear-muff for me.

After receiving the packages my son said that he wants to go on an airplane and meet his swap partners. This has been a wonderful experience for us. My son has gotten the idea of an exchange and developed a curiosity for maps, and I feel like I have made some new blogger friends. Thank you again to my swap partners and everyone who participated.

Thursday Meme

I was tagged for a meme by Mama Bird at Surely You Nest. She is one of my partners in the Little People Care Package Swap. So here goes:

Ten Years Ago...I was finishing up my freshmen year at Washington State University. By then I had already decided to change my major to education, after trying interior design and communications for a semester each. I eventually did get a degree in elementary education. I was also newly engaged to my now husband. We will celebrate our nine year anniversary next month. People are always surprised when they hear how long we're married and I can see them doing calculations in their head trying to figure out how old we are. It doesn't help that I look younger than I am anyway.

What's On My To-Do List:

1) Clean-out my office. I have started working from home about 10 hours a week, helping my husband with his business. I could be a lot more efficient if I wasn't tripping over piles of junk trying to reach the printer or digging through mountains of debris in order to find a paperclip.

2) Buy a birthday gift for my nephew who is turning four. His party is tomorrow. Part of me is tempted to buy him a garage for his toy cars (he loves the one at our house), but I know it would be much more practical to buy him some summer clothes. I really appreciate it when my children get clothes for birthdays and Christmases.

3) Bug the Shriners until they agree to see my daughter. She has loose tendons in her ankles which her physical therapist now believes are at the root of her inability to walk. My previous experience thus far in trying to get her the services she needs tells me that I just need to keep making phone calls and be as sweet as I can while I'm doing it. BTW, I am not a phone person, so this is somewhat torturous for me.

If I Had a Billion Dollars...I would set up a program like the drop-in centers that I heard about at Mama's Village in the US. They are free facilities (apparently all over Toronto) where parents can take their children, meet up with other families and get information and support during the first six years of their children's lives. They often have crafts and some of them have gyms where the kids can ride bikes and such. My family is involved in a co-op preschool which serves a lot of the same pursposes, but we also pay $100/month to be members and it is only available to us certain days and hours. I have always heard that other countries are more family-friendly than the US, but have only recently been getting a taste of why people say that.

3 Bad Habits:

1) Drinking Coke or Pepsi (I'm not picky) pretty much everyday. I keep telling myself if I could only kick the habit, I could probably lose 10 pounds easily. Does anyone know of a Cola Drinkers Annonymous group I could join?

2) Letting the laundry pile up.

3) Ignoring the things I should really do in order to do the things I want to do.

5 Jobs I've Had:

1) Dishwasher in one of my college's cafeterias--I would have to scrape food and paper products off people's trays and into a trough that would take it into a giant composter. The water running through the trough was orange because it was recyled through the composter. Have you ever smelled compost in large quantities?

2) Clerk at a Rite-Aid--I spent an entire summer asking people if they wanted to sign-up for a Rite-Aid card and "facing" shelves (moving the items to the front of the shelf).

3) Filing Clerk--I spent another summer doing almost nothing but filing papers. It was more boring than "facing" shelves.

4) Day Camp Counselor for the YMCA--I don't know if I would call forcing five-year-olds to do crafts, go on nature walks and play organized games fun, but at least I was outdoors.

5) Subsititute Teacher--worse than being a dishwasher.

*The best job I ever had was the year I taught third grade in Stockton, CA. The only reason I quit was because I decided to be a stay-at-home mom.

5 Things About Me:

1) I love to sleep and am so thankful that my kids are good sleepers. If they weren't I would never had time to blog.

2) I love to read and often feel a compulsion to read. I feel like if I am not reading something everyday, I am going to get stupider.

3) I am really bad with due dates. I often have fines at the library and started using Netflix to avoid fines at the videostore. It is a miracle that I mailed my swap packages on time, but I still have not mailed birthday presents to two my friends' little boys (their birthdays were Feb. 21 and March 10). So, it is sort of wierd that both my children were born on their due dates.

4) I have a loud and unusual laugh. I think it surprises people, because I am generally a quiet person. My children love it when I laugh.

5) I am a lapsed-Baptist. I don't know if I've heard that phrase before, but I have heard lapsed-Catholic several times. Anyway, my husband I have had a hard time finding church since moving back to Washington. We tried one for awhile until we started to feel like maybe it was a cult. Then we tried being Methodists for awhile until we realized that we would have to go through a whole process of confirmation before we could become members (plus there were no kids anywhere near our kids' ages). We also tried a foursquare church but everyone there was really phony--the type of people that give Christians a bad name. It has been about a year since I have even gone to church and I think I am ready to try again, but I will have to muster some bravery from somewhere first.

I am tagging my other swap partner at The Belly Chronicles.

Nothing To Do But Sit Back and Wait

Yay! We mailed our packages off to our two swap partners today! I waited until the last minute, which is sort of my MO, but I also had a lot of family stuff come up over the weekend that prevented me from finishing up a bit early. I have to admit that I am much more nervous than I thought I would be over what our partners will think of the stuff we sent. Is it creative enough? Did I send enough? Are my sewing skills good enough? I am going to wait until our partners have received their packages before posting any pictures--I don't want to give anything away. I know as a mom I like to be surprised along with my kids.

I am going to keep this post short, it is getting late and my son has already made me promise that I will help him make one of the things we sent off today for him to play with.