Crafty Little Kids' Books

While my little book girls busily defoliate the library shelves----I have this habit of looking for crafty children's books. Here's what I found this morning:

• 
  Masquerading as a warm little tale of a pioneer family, this book is actually totally creepy. The mom and the kids sew and make bean stew all day, and while the mom sews on her schoolhouse block quilt, the kids reminisce about the fire that nearly killed them all two years ago, and while one kid sews on her bear paw quilt, they all reminisce about the time Paw nearly got et by a bear. Fun.
• 
  I love this book. Swain presents four different pieces of art, and asks these imaginative little questions and draws these engaging full-page pictures about each one.
• 
  While my girlies aren't old enough for the concept behind this book, as a quilter I'm fascinated by how American slaves used symbology in their patchwork quilts. This story follows the path of a little girl who uses her mother's quilt as a map as she and her father escape to freedom in Canada. Nothing scary actually happens on the pages, so you'd also be able to ad-lib the words and just talk about the quilt blocks and the people who used them if you chose.
• 
  Another bittersweet story about a slave, this is a fictional account of the childhood of Marietta Tintoretto in Renaissance Venice. The illustrations are lifelike and beautiful, and it's an accurate slice of life picture of the Renaissance, although you'd have to also explain the concept of historical fiction here if you were homeschooling with this, say.
• 
  Okay, this is literature by no means, but it has sock monkeys! Real sock monkeys! And they're all dressed up and dancing and stuff!

I totally need to make some sock monkeys.

Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper

After an excitement-filled morning watching Sydney repeatedly hang----and then drop to her doom----over and over and OVER again, in the afternoon we chilled down in the playroom.

The girls busied themselves industriously----if by industrious you mean that they tore up a bunch of my scrapbook paper and then drew on it and then taped it to the wall with the carpet tape that Matt was supposed to use to tape down the flooring four MONTHS ago and then fought over the same square inch of a six-foot-long roll of butcher paper.

The girls wanted me to hang with them, so instead of washing dishes or folding laundry or blogging for bucks I took some scrapbook paper and the Halloween Papel Picado paper bunting templates (a free download from The Toymaker )and created this: I didn't realize how much I would love these paper buntings until I started making them. I mean, seriously, look how awesome:

I like how the scrapbook paper doesn't necessarily match the overt theme, and since Will now wants another bunting just for her room, I think I'm going to try making a couple of more buntings from recycled materials--magazines, old book pages, newspaper, etc.

The downloadable templates for this bunting also include a cat and an owl, but I thought I might save those for a different activity. In upcoming years it would certainly be interesting to explore the Papel Picado with the girls as well as other aspects of the Day of the Dead, but for this year we're mostly exploring Halloween as a celebration of autumn. Why, then, you may ask, did I put skulls in our bunting?

Well, as Willow would explain to you, "Momma just likes skulls." What can I say--I'm an existentialist.

Tattoo My Babies Like I Still Live in Arkansas

It's not even two o'clock pm, yet, and the girls and I have done so many prosaic things already:

We frolicked outdoors in the autumn chill.

We had a lovely outdoor picnic lunch, during which Sydney, who just yesterday had to have her entire lunch removed from the table until she agreed to try her slice of dried peach (Mean Momma Rule #487: You must taste--as in put in your mouth, not necessarily swallow--every single item of food on your plate. If you refuse--goodbye, plate. See you next meal!), ate all the rest of the entire bag of dried peaches.

We played on the playground, and the Willow learned a new trick:

And we did it all while tattooed up like gangstas:

For a while, I've been wanting a set of these Satetytats. It's a cool idea--when you go somewhere crowded, stick a temporary tattoo on your kid that reads "If I'm lost, call _____". I almost bought some, and then I thought, "Temporary tattoos, huh? I wonder if one can make their own temporary tattoos..."

Turns out that you can. You can buy temporary tattoo paper that can be fed through your home printer. The tattoos don't look quite the same as commercial temporary tattoos, because whereas commercial tats actually use an ink that sort of dyes your skin, these tats embed your printer ink in a medical-grade adhesive that then sticks to your skin. Our tattoos have a shiny rather than a matte finish, for instance, they tend to wrinkle a little, and they're not as durable, being designed to come off with one wash. Awesome, however, they still are.

I meant to just print off a sheet of the "If I'm Lost" tattooes, but then I got all caught up in the possibilities. Transformers tattoos for Matt!

Tats made from scans of some of the girls' favorite picture books!From my digital collection of artwork that depicts breastfeeding!WordArt of the girls' names, and some of their own original artwork!Buffy the Vampire Slayer tats, and tats from my own original photography!Oh, and the tattoos with my cell number in case the girls get lost in a crowd:Gangsta, right?

Hit the Big-Time

I sort of get paid for writing, now.

My newest gig is over at Green Options, a blogging community devoted to sustainable living. The blogs located under Green Options are each themed, and the topics range from politics to the arts to business and technology. I write under the Crafting a Green World and the Eco Child's Play blogs, and you'll be able to find me over there in each blog three or four times a week, earning some extra chump change and spewing my ever-ready opinions out to an even bigger audience--you probably didn't think I had even more opinions than the ones I unburden myself of right here, did you? Well, I do.

My first post? A manifesto, of course. And then I go off about zoos.

And what have my kids been doing while I've been posting on THREE blogs, and grading papers, and meeting with students, and washing the entire contents of our house in the sanitary cycle of the washing machine in panicked reaction to Will's pinworm infestation? Why, playing crazy games with numbers, of course!

During the Great Study Cleaning, the girls got ahold of some vintage Bingo cards I'd been saving for...something, and, always the ones with the awesome ideas, Willow cut the cards up into their individual numbers and the kiddos thought that this was just pretty awesome.

When I saw them playing so happily together with such an obvious learning tool, I tried to elbow my way on into their game with a little lesson on how to line them up in order from smallest to largest, but that lesson sucked, and it's so much better when you're just faced with a line of obscurely ordered items and you get to figure out the complicated pattern behind them for yourself:

Go see my big-bucks blog! See if you can figure out what word the Eco Child's Play editor had to correct my spelling of! See then if you can figure out exactly how many post-graduate degrees (hint: more than one) I have and I still misspell that word!

Alphabet

Alphabet:

Alphabutt:

Having kids makes life so much more awesome--disgusting, but awesome.

P.S. You know what's less awesome and more disgusting? Pinworms.

Talk me down off the ledge, people.

Babywearing 101

I taught a babywearing class today at Barefoot Herbs Barefoot Kids. Babywearing is another one of the million+ things that I absolutely adored about having babies, one of the many things that I'm learning to grieve as the younger of my babes grows by the day big enough to run and hike and climb by herself without needing or wanting to be carried by Mama.

What is babywearing, you ask?

It's a way of life. It's a method of bonding to your newborn, promoting a positive breastfeeding experience. It's a way of comforting and calming a person new to this world, whose only idea of security is the warmth and closeness of an adult body. It's a connection to a more traditional, less detached society, in which babies and children are included necessarily and matter-of-factly in all aspects of life.

Babywearing helps babies cry less. Babies like to be in contact with bodies; they do not like to be put down alone--this is an instinct ranging from a time in which a helpless infant lying alone would be in desperate danger from any number of predators. Some babies tolerate being put down well, but for other babies, to be put down alone is confusing, frightening, and stressful. Stressed babies don't nurse as well or grow as quickly as happy babies.

Babywearing is good for the baby intellectually. Baby's job is to learn about her world. When worn she learns about bodies, about movement/motion, about her environment, about human behavior.

Babywearing is good for the baby physically. Conforming to a warm body shape is more comfortable than conforming to a carrier or crib. Constant motion stimulates the balance reflex and the inner ear. Proper positioning is good for hip/joint development. A carried baby avoids flat head syndrome. The wearer's body temperature regulates the baby's body temperature, and the wearer's respiration reminds the baby to breathe.

Babywearing socializes the baby. The baby sees faces from near head height, learning about people and their behavior, seeing dialogue, experiencing the wearer's interaction with the world. Proper positioning allows the baby to gauge her own appropriate level of stimulation.

Babywearing is especially beneficial for special needs children--preemies, ill children, children with mental or motor delays, children who fail to thrive. It's comforting, comfortable, and good for their brains at the same time. Less energy spent crying/fussing/maintaining their own body temperature is more energy spent growing and learning and healing.

One of the great things about native-style carriers, however, is that they're mainstream enough that you have a good choice of independent crafters and WAHMs and a few businesses from which to purchase one, but they're not so mainstream that ugly and ill-sewn ones are available at every Wal-mart in the country. It's open season, then, for the independent crafter and small business, and it's nice to find a product in which this is the case.

For ring slings, I like Divas N Babes, especially this red and black one, and Chicken Scratch Slings, especially the skulls one (I think skulls belong everywhere), and this one with the skulls and crossbones all over it, on account of I like things that are awesome.

For mei tais (which, seriously, I won't correct you or anything, but is pronounced "MAY-tie"), I way love, of course, BabyHawk, especially this one with the tattoo print, but I also like KozyCarrier, especially the blue camo fabric. I bought my own pink skulls and black mei tai from MaterialNana--it's a nice thin one, with no padding, good for going and getting gone.

But one of the other great things about native-style carriers is that you don't absolutely have to buy one--you can sew these yourself. The best instructions, I think, are from Jan Andrea at Home on the Web. I followed her instructions to make the ring slings I used for myself and gave as gifts, and the mei tai I used myself.

Willow Says Vote

Although Willow is apparently a Republican now, there was a time when Matt and I could force her to manifest our own party affiliation. That time? Infancy.

Yes, four years ago today, I made a T-shirt transfer, ironed in onto a 3-6 month T-shirt, and dressed my kid in it before most public outings. Then, by popular demand, I created this adult-sized T-shirt transfer for a few good friends: If you can't force your six-week-old to stump for your causes, then who can you force?