Dinosaur Lovers Unite!!!

I already have the Craftster Dinosaur Swap to thank for inspiring me to finally get off my butt and create my daughter's dinosaur quilt already, but that's on the giving side of the equation. On the receiving side of the equation (which is a good side of the equation to be on), I have my swap partner to thank for what is likely the most crazy-awesome swap package that I have EVER received.

And the girls? Well, I'll just say that they're beside themselves, and allow you to imagine for yourself the exact strain of hysteria that has swept through our house in the wake of this package.

First, a sweet little note:
"A surprise!" you think. "Why, I LOVE surprises!" And you are so, so correct. Because some of the surprises are this:
And some of the surprises are this:These handmade coloring pages are the coolest thing: The girls have already done several (as you can see). There is one in particular, of brachiosauruses in love, that I'm going to secretly slip to Willow (not Sydney) to color tomorrow, because I dearly want to then frame it and hang it in their room. Not that I don't find Sydney's artwork beautiful, mind you--I'm her mother, I think it's awesome--but...Brachiosauruses in Love seems meant for Willow, I'll just leave it at that.

So that stuff alone is awesome enough, I'm sure you agree, and you can't even count the adorableness of all the other miscellaneous toys and dinosaur paraphernalia also included (excavation kits! volcano eruptions! crayons! sunglasses!), but this blows all that out of the water:

I mean, are you kidding me?!?

This playset is INCREDIBLE!!! It's made up of all these great fabrics, mostly recycled, all with really interesting textures that contrast really well, and there are little dino hiding spots tucked in----and little foam dinos to play with--

--and tons of extra foam so that the girls can make their own little dinos to play with! Sydney is sleeping with this playset right this very minute. She's also, not that you need to know this, insisted on sleeping on the living room hardwood floor, on top of two big pillows, inside her pink flower sleeping bag, with a sock monkey, stuffed whale, and plastic My Little Pony, while listening to on CD. And even then it was after 9:00 pm before she went to sleep, a stark contrast to Willow, who fell asleep in the car at 6:00 pm (on our way to the park, which we then did not get to go to) after shrieking for half an hour about sunscreen that she'd gotten in her eyes while playing with it without permission. Man, kids do NOT like to have their eyes irrigated with water bottles!

But yeah...dinosaurs. The girls are re-inspired, I am re-inspired=another successful swap.

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups: Good, but Not Reese's Good

First of all:
Suck it, Will Shortz! I OWN you on Mondays! The rest of the week...let's not discuss it right now.

So I've been wanting to try Alicia Silverstone's chocolate peanut butter cups for a while now. They're vegan, and she said that they're better than Reese's. Y'all, seriously. She SAID that. And they're VEGAN!

I already knew there were delicious vegan desserts in the world. There's after all, and my dear friend Mac's tofu peanut butter icebox pie to consider. Thanks to Vegan Lunch Box, I make a mean, and delicious, chocolate brownie that's sweetened entirely with pureed fruit and some maple syrup, and my fantasy life revolves around an entire cookbook filled with nothing but such wonders, but these vegan chocolate peanut butter cups...they're good and all, but they didn't so much wow me.

You start with the cutie little cupcake liners:
I bought these at Daiso back in August. Aren't they cuuuuuute? I have no idea what the Japanese on them says--it's probably something filthy.

Then you make the peanut butter filling, and you put that in:
Mine is so dark because the filling is half graham cracker crumbs, and I have chocolate graham crackers left over from chocolate graham cracker haunted houses. That's packrattitude for you (I totally just made that up!)

Finally, you spread the melted chocolate/soy milk mixture on top:It looks crazy yummy, right? And it is good. I think I'm just mad because Alicia Silverstone SAID that they were better than Reese's, and so I was all, "Mmmm, I'm going to eat these, and they're going to be better than Reese's, but not as bad for me, and also vegan!"

That's not how it happened. But the kids adore them, at least:Because, you know, it's so hard to get kids to eat chocolate and peanut butter mixed with sugar.

I think that I'll make a curry tomorrow.

Someone Else's Hand-Me-Downs

Sydney is VERY picky about her clothes. This has made the process of receiving hand-me-downs from Willow tiresome, likely for all involved. The purging of the winter wardrobe and the unveiling of the summer bins this weekend have resulted in a large stack of hand-me-downs that Sydney will not wear at any price and that thus are destined for either resale or donation, a large stack of hand-me-downs that Sydney claims she will wear when (if) I get around to sewing on decorative buttons or flower appliques or stenciling unicorns, etc., and a small stack of hand-me-downs that were deemed suitable for wear as-is.

The girls are nearly the same waist size, only Willow is taller, so, cropped pants still being stylish (I hope), some of these hand-me-downs have actually gone back to their original owner. Those AWESOME camouflage pants that looked so cool on Willow when she was three years old actually look even cooler as calf-length capris, and some other pants are in the same large stack on my work table waiting to be cut into shorts.

In other words, though, thank GOODNESS for the Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale. Along with some more T-shirts for baby bags and quilts (how awesome will a Godfather baby bag be? SO awesome), ANOTHER dinosaur board game, a sheet that will become jammy pants, a brand-new Hello! Kitty Figure-Baking Oven that it's probably wrong to be this excited about, and other sundries, I bought several long-sleeved jersey cotton shirts in Sydney-approved colors and patterns-- --to be sewn into summer-weight skirts and leggings, and Sydney got to get some hand-me-downs that she thoroughly approved of:

You gotta love her sense of style, at least:

I'll try to remember that shirt when I'm up late sewing butterfly appliques onto an otherwise perfectly serviceable pair of pants.

A Parent Library for Your School?

This was the last thing that I had to do:
Because of course the Parent Library that I set up at the girls' school this year must have a crafty sign. My contributions to the sign are the letters, cut from scrapbook paper and cardstock using the Winter Wonderland Cricut cartridge (during which time I also made the girls approximately one thousand dancing reindeer and stylized bunnies, and also several 3D stand-up trees). Willow's contributions include a background of Do-a-Dot marker; button, rhinestone, and googly eye embellishments--

--and her name in pencil, which I TOLD her not to do, but the kid just can't seem to help herself. After three years in school, she writes her name on everything that she does.

I highly recommend the installation of a parent library in your kid's school. The library, which in our case is a very large bookshelf in the school office, consists of parenting books, books about schooling and child development, and books in enrichment areas, but the key is that all of these books are endorsed by the school. Can't figure out which book touting which discipline method you should read? If you trust your kid's teachers, why not check out the one that they like? Without this library, I would have never known that the Montessori teachers at this school, as a group, are ADDICTED to the Positive Discipline series. Between all the head teachers, I think that they own every title. And it's a good series. I like it.

It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be to come up with a pretty large collection of titles for the library. One month, I attended the early morning head teachers meeting, during which time I explained the concept of what I wanted this parent library to be. I told the teachers that I imagined that they likely found themselves talking about the same issues with parents over and over--ADD, perhaps, or sleep discipline, or cliques. With a Parent Library in the building, the teachers could request that books be added on those issues, particularly their favorite books to recommend, and then whenever they speak to a parent, they can send them over to the library to read a particular book. The teachers were pretty excited, and had LOTS of suggestions for books to include.

To squeeze some extra books into my very small library budget, I also asked the teachers for any books they'd be willing to move from their private collections in their own workrooms to the parent library bookshelf. Each of the teachers, based on their own classroom experiences, had collected a large assortment of books, everything from books on bipolar children to the bullying of girls, and depending, of course, on what ages they taught. If they moved a book from their private shelf to the parent library, they would still have access to that book (although not necessarily immediately, because it could be checked out, but could also easily be recalled), and it would free up some space in their work areas. I received stacks upon stacks of books this way, including that entire Positive Discipline series. And then I didn't have to go back to the teachers to double-check that they endorsed any of these particular books, as I did with the independent purchases--if a teacher has a book in her own collection, it's endorsed.

Here's an example of what the Parent Library now contains:

ABOUT MONTESSORI

• · The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori.
• · The Essential Montessori by Elizabeth Hainstock. 1986
• · Maria Montessori: Methods, Schools, Materials. 1978
• · Montessori: A Modern Approach by Paula Polk Lillard. 1972 (2 copies)
• · The Montessori Revolution in Education by E.M. Standing. 1969
• · Our Peaceful Classroom by Aline D. Wolf.
• · The Secret of Childhood by Maria Montessori. 1966
• · To Educate the Human Potential by Maria Montessori. 1985

CHILD DEVELOPMENT

• · All About Attention Deficit Disorder: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment by Thomas W. Phelan. 2000
• · Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals by Tony Attwood. 2003
• · Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius by Thomas Armstrong. 1991
• · Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock. 1968
• · The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood’s Most Misunderstood Disorder by Demitri Papolos and Janice Papolos. 2002
• · The Child Under Six by James L. Hymes, Jr. 1963
• · The Difficult Child by Stanley Turecki. 2000
• · The Emotional Life of the Toddler by Alicia F. Lieberman. 1993
• · The First Three Years of Life by Burton L. White. 1975
• · How to Parent by Fitzhugh Dodson.
• · How to Parent so Children will Learn by Sylvia B. Rimm. 1990
• · Living with the Active Alert Child by Linda S. Budd. 1993
• · Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons. 2002
• · Odd Girl Speaks Out by Rachel Simmons. 2004
• · Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates. 1984
• · Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson. 2000
• · Sexual Development in Childhood. 2003
• · Tics and Tourette Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents and Professionals by Uttom Chowdhury. 2004
• · Understanding the Human Being by Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro. 1991
• · The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian. 1997
• · Your Eight-Year-Old: Lively and Outgoing by Ames and Haber. 1990
• · Your Four-Year-Old: Wild and Wonderful by Louise Bates Ames, PhD, and Frances L. Ilg. 1976
• · Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant by Ames and Ilg. 1976
• · Your Two-Year-Old: Terrible or Tender by Ames and Ilg. 1976

EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING

• · A.D.D. and Creativity by Lynn Weiss. 1997
• · Beyond A.D.D by Thom Hartmann. 1996
• · Fundamentals of Early Childhood Education by Melodie A. McCarthy and John P. Houston. 1980
• · Marching to Different Drummers by Pat Burke Guild and Stephen Garger. 1985
• · Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years by Elizabeth G. Hainstock. 1968
• · Positive Discipline: A Teacher’s A-Z Guide by Jane Nelsen. 2001
• · Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation by Ernest L. Boyer. 1992
• · Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move Beyond the Dance of Discipline in Today’s Classroom by Robert J. MacKenzie. 2003
• · Skill Streaming the Elementary School Child by McGinnis and Goldstein. 1984
• · Teaching Children with Autism: Strategies to Enhance Communication and Socialization by Kathleen Ann Quill. 1995
• · Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry by Kenneth Koch. 1971

MONTESSORI LIFESTYLE

• · Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul. 1998
• · Children: The Challenge by Rudolf Dreikurs. 1964
• · The Discipline Book by William Sears and Martha Sears. 1995
• · Girl Wars: 12 Strategies that Will End Female Bullying by Cheryl Dellasega. 2003
• · Growing Up Again by Jean Illsley Clarke and Connie Dawson. 1998
• · The New York Times Parents’ Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson. 1988
• · P.E.T.: Parent Effectiveness Training by Dr. Thomas Gordon. 1975
• · Peaceful Children, Peaceful World by Aline D. Wolf. 1989
• · Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen. 2001
• · Positive Discipline A-Z by Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott, and H. Stephen Glenn. 2007
• · Positive Discipline: The First Three Years by Jane Nelsen, Cheryl Erwin, and Roslyn Ann Duffy. 2007
• · Positive Discipline for Preschoolers by Jane Nelsen, Cheryl Erwin, and Roslyn Ann Duffy. 2007
• · Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and Classroom by Jane Nelsen. 1999
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher. 2001

The library still needs some books about tween boys and the rest of the works of Maria Montessori, but for this year, at least, its budget is tapped out.

The gold standard check-out procedure for a library this small is to write the title/author of each book on its own index card, and alphabetize it in a card file. When parents want to check out a book, they print their first and last name and the date they took the book on the card. When they return the book, they note that date, as well. If the school needs a particular book back for any reason, they have all the parent telephone numbers on file, so they can call the parents, or just grab them at pick-up. And I rubber-stamped the school name and address on the inside cover of each book, just in case somebody forgets where their book came from.

Over the long-term (which I won't be around for), I would have liked to have provided a few take-home Montessori materials for the library, and a collection of Montessori-endorsed children's books (they're real big on peace, you know). But for this project for this year, I'm afraid that I'm just going to have to stick a fork in it, and hope that next year's librarian will have some bigger and better ideas.

And perhaps I'll write my name in pencil somewhere, too.

Day at the Park

In the morning, perhaps there are ineptly homemade waffles (perhaps the veganization? Next time, will just use recipe for vegan waffles), lots of amateur guitar playing, some on the computer, books read together and alone, seeds planted, an episode of The Magic School Bus, and the most minimal amount of housework conceivable, but in the afternoon, we pack a backpack with more things than surely anyone needs when their destination is less than a block away, and we spend five hours at the park:
Repeat daily while there's warmth and sunlight, and when there's not, go to the library.

Betsy McCall, My Paper Doll

Sydney has a new passion these days. She has always been extremely into character-driven imaginary play, leading her not only into a love of media figures such as Land Before Time or My Little Pony, but also into a far bigger enjoyment of things like dolls, little animal figures, and princess/fairy/unicorns than her sister ever exhibited. I have seen this child, when no other toys were available, play a pretend game, conversations and all, with her fingers, for Pete's sake.

But also? Sydney loves paper dolls.

We did a lot of paper doll play after Thanksgiving, when I bought a paper doll cartridge for my Cricut, and she loved them just fine then, but now that her manual dexterity is just this much more advanced, and after I happened upon some awesome old paper doll high-quality scans on the internet and printed them out for her, we have hit a paper doll renaissance. I'm talking, every day there are new paper dolls to cut out and play with. Every moment there are paper dolls on the child's mind. There are paper doll parts everywhere, including the car.

At the moment, the paper doll crush is deeply tied up with the Betsy McCall paper dolls from the 1950s. I print the pages in color (on a laser printer, not an inkjet) and cut them out for Sydney, and back the doll itself with adhesive-backed cardstock. The outfits can stay on plain copier-weight paper. Paper dolls are fiddly with their smallness and their tiny little tabs, so Sydney really just now has the manual dexterity to dress them up without getting too frustrated:
See?
Not frustrating at all!

And then she carries them around and plays games with them, and changes their clothes, and plays some more:Willow is NOT into paper dolls, and I didn't play with them as a child, either, so I'm actually surprised at how cool I think they are. And they have a lot of educational value, as well, beyond just the sheer enjoyment of them. The whole point of the paper doll is the outfit, see, and so many creators have taken a lot of care to make up some very detailed, and very specific period pieces for the dolls. For Sydney, at least, this could be a great way to teach history.

Sydney and I have also found PLENTY of awesome high-quality paper doll scans online. Our very favorite is Teri's Paper Doll Scans; I've printed out, all ready to cut out, some Easter paper dolls, and some 1940s paper dolls (Sydney will appreciate the ballet outfit, in particular, but I really like these because they remind me of old photos of my Mama, whom I miss), and I am just waiting on the merest excuse to jump into the whole world of 1940s film stars.

While Sydney plays paper dolls, Willow and I indulge her newest passion--vibrating electric football. Our house is just full of awesomeness this week.

But How Do You Feel?

Last week's post-storytime craft at the public library was this odd little guy:You were supposed to take a paper plate (I'm horrified, by the way, at the HUGE number of paper plate crafts in the world) and draw a face on it. Then you get a bunch of pictures that show different feelings and you glue them around the edges of the paper plate. Then you punch a hole in the arrow, put a brad through the hole, attach the brad to the paper plate, and fasted it on the back side. THEN you punch two holes in the edge of the paper plate and tie a string on it so that you can wear the whole contraption around your neck.

I am still not in love with these gimmicky children's craft activities, despite your resounding assurances of their developmental solidity. But wow, the girlies adore them. Sydney actually wore her plate around her neck for part of the day, and Willow plays with her plate nearly daily, moving the arrow around to the different feelings and then saying, "I'm angry!" in an angry voice or "I'm sad!" in a sad voice, etc.

It does have me rather interested each week, though, in what that week's craft will be, and in what new and specific way it might horrify me. Today my guess is that we'll do something with pipe cleaners, toilet paper tubes, markers, and circle stickers...