Friday, August 19, 2016

If you let them read books


One area that I exercise my privilege is that I practice almost no restraint when it comes to buying children’s books. We’ve started going to the library, which I love and appreciate and genuinely use for my own reading endeavors, but if I’m honest it is more as a civics lesson than anything for kid’s books*. This being the case, Andrew has approximately 10,000 books in his room. His baby sister has (as this post is being written while feeding her before bed) three. 

 

We just don’t want to clutter her pretty head with all those words and ideas.

 

HA! But seriously, this was a parental oversight and/or failure on my part. I naively thought that we’d migrate Andrew’s more baby-ish books to Miranda. This hasn’t worked for the titles in his room. Similar to his parents, Andrew has a penchant for hanging on to books that he will likely never read again. The other factor which we need to put our foot down about is that as I buy Miranda books they have a sneaky tendency to migrate to Andrew’s room. This started out sweetly because we’d all do stories together in his comfy chair before naps. However, it feels like it has become a one way funnel.

So it’s time to remedy this one. We will try the following action items.

1.     We will install a proper bookcase/shelf in Miranda’s room rather than the basket we currently use. Her library should look more official.

2.     With all the hypocrisy we can muster we will get Andrew to do a bit of a book purge.

3.     He’s got to return books to her room when we are done reading them or at least the flow of book traffic needs to be more even. I actually would prefer that no one member of the family OWNS any books himself, rather that the whole family has a library, but I understand that we all four have certain titles that are special to us.

 

…maybe there is a book on book sharing.   

 


*Cutest moment - we checked out a dinosaur book which had the other titles in the series on the back. Andrew became obsessed with finding the other books so when we returned the first book we talked with the librarian and he found them elsewhere and placed a hold for us. Now we’re swimming in dinosaur library books.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Things

Things I think I like but don't.
Outdoor movies. 
Fairs. 
Farmers markets. 
Walks. 

Things I shouldn't like but I do
Trashy television. 
When my lips and brows are freshly waxed. 



Things I want to be better at but don't chose to put effort into
Doing hair and makeup, dressing cute. 
Career building. 
Sewing. 
Learning a second language. 

Things I feel like I should know but don't and am not clear how to learn
House crap. 
How to know when to fix something yourself or when to get help. 
How to find and hire professionals. 
Time management. 
How to deal with unwanted body hair. 
How to determine the need and when to go to the doctor. 

Things you can directly link to any mental health episode I might have in the near future
Traffic. 
This presidential election. 





Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Birthday blast!

The birthday bonanza was a success!

Day out with Thomas 
This wound up not having a birthday vibe at all. It was cute enough. If you want to save yourself the semi-steep admission ticket you could have had an almost equally cool experience by packing a picnic and watching Thomas come and go. But it was a fun afternoon. 
Baby #2- failed to pack her anything to chew on so she got an empty ice cream cone. 

The birthday party
His party was SO FUN. His interests are shifting at the moment and his two passions in life are construction vehicles and more recently dinosaurs. So rather than pick one we did a trucks and dinosaurs party. We'd been feeding his construction love with a storage tub full of mulch which he drives his little trucks in. We doubled down for his party and filled a kiddie pool of mulch and buried little dinosaurs. I collected more trucks from a thrift store run and borrowed a few from my mom. He was in hog heaven. We also set up the sprinkler maze Michael built which has been at all of his birthday parties. Everytime I checked in on the birthday boy he was deep in an activity (typically digging) with one little buddy or another. It was the sweetest thing, he had so much fun. I don't know what to do about how much everyone in our life spoils him but that's a sweet problem to have. He is an appreciative kid for a two/three year old so for now I think it's cool. 

Actual birthday
Today we took Miranda to daycare and had a day with Andrew. We went to a trampoline place for toddler hours. Andrew and I jumped for over an hour. We both LOVED it. We may have to make it a mother/son regular outing. 

Then we went out for breakfast for lunch. 

We were pretty birth day'd out (Michael and I) but capped the day with a leftovers  dinner and one more happy birthday song with his truck candles (they also got to go in the bath with him- he was a fan). 

**bonus: this year he was super in love with his captain zoom birthday song. I got a cassette tape of this song from one of my aunts on my fourth birthday and thanks to the Internet was able to find it again in 1999 for the first of my friend's children. Since then I've gotten one for basically every little one year old I know. Now including my Andrew. And this year he loved it. It made me pretty happy. 

Another awesome thing: my aunt was able to drive her wheelchair down into our backyard and got to be at the party! It was her first visit to the new house and I was so glad it worked out. 

Additional win: Michael reminded me about our family birthday plate and it was even somewhere that I could find it! Now it can stay out for September, October and December.