Motherhood Crisis

Yesterday I had a Mom crisis. I took my kids to the Children's Museum of Phoenix. We usually go on Tuesdays, it's right next door and both of the kids really like it. It had cooled off a little bit, meaning it was only 93 degrees instead of 110, and I though they would enjoy getting outside to play on the climbing stuff and the giant colored worm-tube thing they have, especially since lately Chompy is getting really brave about what she can and can't do.

no pants were worn in this picture.

Unfortunately, although Chompy is very interested in climbing, she is not so interested in wearing pants. Sometimes, it's worth the effort to wrangle her into shorts, or pants of some type, and sometimes it's not. She's a pretty headstrong gal, and she can really fight you. I'd already fought with her about toothbrushing, barrettes, biting her brother, throwing things at the cat, and pooping in the bathtub yesterday, so I decided if she didn't want to wear pants, she didn't have to.

I didn't think anyone would care, but as usual I was wrong. We said hi to about 6 different employees on the way in before we made it up to the 2nd floor and outside. I pushed my stroller into the corner and lifted Chompy out and she immediately made a bee-line for the stairs leading down to the play area.

That's when one of the "playologists" (they really call them that, okay? I didn't make it up) approached and asked if my child had pants. I said yes, I have some in my diaper bag, but she doesn't feel like wearing them today! I expected a laugh or an understanding nod, but instead got a rather snooty, "We usually like for children to wear pants." Well, me too, lady, me too, but it just wasn't happening this morning. I just said, "Oh well, I'll try and re-pants the girl later."

Now I can understand if my kid was freezing to death, but it's 95 degrees. I would also understand if she wasn't wearing a diaper because, hello, hygiene. She was wearing a diaper, and pants really served no practical purpose, so aside from it being socially unacceptable, there really was no problem. I'm not a big fan of rules for the sake of rules, or doing something just so it looks a certain way.

I was feeling pretty self righteous about it, too. What right does that lady have to tell me my child has to wear pants if she doesn't want to? There's a whole holiday devoted to not wearing pants. Chompy's just a hipster in the making.

Then it happened. Chompy was playing with a little boy named Max who was about two. They seemed to be having a great time. I was excited because she made a friend and seemed to be having fun. Chompy and Stinko actually have a lot of cousins they get to play with, they just live really far away, and they LOVE other kids. The mom kept trying to get Max to stop playing with Chompy, though. I thought to myself, my gosh, what if it's because my daughter isn't wearing pants. I'm raising a child who won't be able to make any friends because she's too weird and I didn't bother to teach her that she needs to wear pants in public.

The mom finally managed to collect her son and put his shoes back on, which took about twenty minutes, and they disappeared inside. I felt guilty. It started to get too hot to play outside. I wrestled my child into her shoes and up the stairs. After she was worn out, I managed to get her pants on her before she got back into the stroller.

Then I realized that that other mom was also the mother of a two year old, and probably had to fight her own battles, and probably didn't even notice. She was probably thinking, "For God's sake I'm about to pee my pants and it's going to take me twenty minutes to get his shoes on!" I like to think so, anyway.

 Plus, Chompy made friends with another kid wearing a diaper and a Batman cape. The day was a win.

Week 9: Robot Battles!

This idea was pulled from the interwebs about 3 years ago. It was the second  year I was married and my husband and I actually did this one night with dinner guests and it was easy and super fun. I got the idea originally from Red Ted Art.

I modified it for grandparent camp this year a bit, by making it a robot battle. I will say the kids under 3 weren't very interested, but buddy the kids from 3 until 9 were completely into it. The best thing is that the robots were made out of all craft materials and recycled things that Grandmother and Grandpap had on hand. The motors are 1.5-3V hobby motors that cost between 1-2 dollars.

Materials:

Hot glue gun and hot glue

1.5-3v craft motor

1 AA battery

electrical tape or soldering iron

anything you can think of to make a cool robot

We probably should have used the double sided foam they used on Red Ted Art. The vibrations tended to wiggle loose the hot glue pretty quickly, but it worked okay without it.

1. Hot glue the battery to the motor and attach the wires, one to each end of the motor. Make sure the motor spins.

2. Attach  something to unbalance the spinning end of the motor. Each of the kids chose something different. Some used plastic beads, some bits of wire. The point is to unbalance the motor enough so that it vibrates.

3. As soon as you verify that it wiggles, let the creativity begin! The only important part is to make sure the motors end can spin. We attached at least one end of the wire with electrical tape so it could be un-attached to stop the vibrations. Building our robots.

The kids really loved seeing how each of the robots moved, and building something that moved on it's own. Modifications went on and on, and we didn't even get through the battles completely, but I don't think anyone cared.

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The battle circle. Whoever pushed the other robot entirely out of the circle first won! This was great because it's entirely random, so the littler kids had just as much of a chance of winning as the older kids.

The kids chose so many different materials to build their robots. This one is made out of a toilet paper tube with yarn and pipe cleaners attached.

Pipe cleaners and toothpicks!

The bead attached to the front of this motor is what causes it to vibrate.

This project was fun at our dinner party and fun for the kids. Two AA batteries wired together will allow the motors to spin faster...a 9v battery will burn out the motor pretty quickly, though.

This project was a blast!

Flood in the Desert

So I only work one day a week...okay I should rephrase that to I work one day a week at my easy job and 6 days a week at my hard at home job. We had a massive thunderstorm in the middle of the night. I left 20 minutes early for my shift, knowing that Phoenicians are terrified of wet roads. Seems as though in this case their fears were justified.

This is the I-10 headed west at 43rd Avenue. They closed the highway just in front of me. I watched the police rescue a couple from a baby Toyota.

Week 8: Big Kid Wall Art

When my husband and I rented a house in Baltimore, we really wanted to put some art on the walls that we did ourselves, and we looked into buying canvases. Holy Toledo that stuff is expensive!

For a canvas that is only 2 by 4 feet it costs almost 40 bucks, and that's before you buy anything else, plus, we wanted something bigger.

So, my amazing husband found something better.
Hollow core doors from Home depot. He bought three for 20 bucks a piece. They are super light and easy to hang with a wire and a couple of nails.

They are awesome.
One we used to make our own giant chalkboard to hang on our wall,  and one I painted with Chompy when she was about 8 months old. It's hanging in our living room now above our couch. It looks sort of like an abstract map of the world.

So the other day when Chompy and Stinko were restless, and it was 114 degrees, we decided to break out the last board and give it a go.

Chompy painting when she was Stinko's age now. Home made finger paints.

So in the above picture, notice the chaos is contained. I actually had to coax Chompy onto the board and dip her hands in the paint. She ate some, she crawled through it a couple of times. She enjoyed it. Notice how clean the floor is.

I grossly underestimated the chaos that doing this with two children, one of whom is a human tornado.

It started out pretty well. I had the sense to roll up the carpet at least. I am using washable paints. Stinko is not interested in eating the paint, so that's a plus.

Stinko belly flopped into the paint immediately. Chompy is wearing her painting shirt. 

The painting shirt was useless.

I threw the kids directly into the bathtub, which I had to fill and empty twice.

The hand print on the chair is due to Chompy deciding she needed a paintbrush halfway through and climbing up on the table to get one. Luckily the paint is washable. I am, however, still finding paint to wash, and we painted two weeks ago. 

The art looks fabulous on the wall, though! When we get the other one hung it will look even better!

Simply beautiful! 8 foot by two foot wall art for 25 bucks! Win!