Categories
Kids/Parenting

Manly man

I’m the oldest of four daughters. While we were growing up, my dad would often (i.e. at least weekly) encourage us to eat some portion of our dinner with the promise, “It’ll put hair on your chest!

As you can imagine, this didn’t really motivate us.

We were just on vacation at my parents’ house (home again; feels so good not to have that trek hanging over my head!). Hayden was reluctant to eat his Venetian pasta rolls. My dad hastened to assure him, “It’ll put hair on your chest!”

My brother-in-law joined in. “You want a hairy chest, don’t you? Like Papa, right?” (My dad.) “Like Daddy?”

“Yeah,” Hayden said. “Papa has a hairy chest. So does my dad.” He dropped his voice to a mutter. “So does my mom.”

Hayden with two of his faves: Papa and the iPad

At the time, I knew anything I said would’ve made it worse. But I think I missed the obvious punchline:

“See? It works!”

What silly phrases from your childhood come back to haunt you?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Welcome to Chez Beck

The winner of the Tom & Drew Boys Giveaway is An Ordinary Mom! Send me your address and I’ll pass it along!

Rebecca loves imagination play. She’s pretended to be Sully from Monsters, Inc. (“Suwwy”), Buzz Lightyear, and Bolt. (No idea why she tends to pick male main characters.) But lately her play has centered around “my west’aunt!” Chez Beck is set up in Hayden’s room (where Rebecca sleeps until Rachel’s ready to share a room). She’s taken to very carefully laying out each and every kitchen toy she has. But on Sunday she developed a new innovation in restaurateurism:


That would be tables.

What kind of fun pretend games do (or did) your kids like?

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Contests

Giveaway: Tom & Drew Boys!

Our next giveaway is from Tom & Drew Boys!

As the mother of a boy, I’ve long lamented how hard it is to find clothes cute enough to rival my daughters’. Tom & Drew Boys is on a mission to change that with little manly clothing for tiny guys.

They sent us a sample of this shark shirt. Hayden was thrilled! The shirt is nice, too—nice fabric, sewn appliques.

You can get a free gift from Tom & Drew Boys, too!

To enter the giveaway (aka rules)
To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post!

For additional entries:

  • Follow this blog (see the sidebar) and leave a comment saying you did.
  • Tweet about this post and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the Tweet itself.
  • Mention this contest on your blog or Facebook and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the FB or blog post.

Entries (aka comments) must be received by midnight on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. Winner to be announced Wednesday, July 13, 2011.

Today is also the last day to enter the EnDANGERbles Giveaway!

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Rachel’s birthday

Yesterday my baby turned one! It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year—and only a year—since she joined our family. We love her so much! Here’s my little cutie:

rachel and bday cake
Celebrating with homemade angel food cake and strawberries. (We had angel food and strawberries for Rebecca’s first birthday, too, I believe)

rachel opening presents
Opening presents

rachel's animal cars
Fun little wheely animals!

rachel eating bday candy
She knows the good stuff! And yes, that is a wrapped candy bar bite in her mouth.

rachel's cute bday outfits
Cute outfits! (Note the candy still in her hand.)

rachel with her car toy
My personal favorite: a little car & dashboard. (I wanted a toy like this for my second or third Christmas. Apparently I could find the toy in the catalogue on command and point to it to tell my parents and anyone else who asked what I wanted.) (Oh, and I got it. It was awesome.)

smiling birthday rachel
Happy birthday girl! (With cake in her hair)

I keep wondering if she’s crazy small or if I just don’t really remember the other kids at this age. I mean, she can walk across rooms and my other kids couldn’t at this age. So finally I dug out some pictures and stats of the kids on their birthdays—she’s totally normal. (Take THAT, grocery-store-guy who asked if she was two or three months old!)

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Crazy Hayden sayings + 20 gratefuls

Every so often, I’ll hear one of the kids say something hilarious or adorable while I’m sitting at the computer, and straight away I open up a new post to write down those cute things. Here are some recent things Hayden has said:

“Mom, Rachel just smells like some weird vampire. Those guys are funky!”

“If you break this fourf wall . . .”

Hayden was playing with a truck and announced that it sold “Chocolate fondues!” Rebecca asked “I haf a chockit fonnu?”

Hayden pulled up a picture of Disney princesses on the Internet and called for Rebecca to come over to see “your favorite blog!”

I mentioned last week that Hayden rode bikes with the neighbors. Back and forth on the sidewalk. It’s cute how much they loved it. (It’s also been cold and rainy, so they haven’t had many chances to do this). Over the weekend, I walked Hayden and his bike across the street to play with the little girl his age over there. She got her scooter out and again, they rode back and forth on the sidewalk till we had to go in.

He needs a helmet and really likes his friend’s bell, so I started him on an incentive chart. He can get up to 4 smileys a day in each category: no whining/fits, be nice to sisters, obey quickly, and extra/misc. He’s just about got enough to earn his helmet (horrible that I made him earn his own vital safety equipment, I know—we did have one, but he’s outgrown it). Next on the list to earn: the bell!

He’s very excited about kindergarten in the fall. He’s working hard on his letters. We’re learning letter combinations now, including ck, sh, st and more—so Hayden has actually read his first words this month! (It was see, in case you’re wondering.) I’m so proud! He drew a cow (when we were learning “ow”):

I’m also proud of this adorable picture he drew of Rachel’s lovey, a caterpillar named Cally (both shown here).

He loves to create awesome buildings out of his block sets and cardboard boxes. We’re regularly impressed by the symmetry and balance of his creations. Here’s one of his buildings: the sign on the awning was dictated to me and our friend Brianna. It reads, “Hayden’s Toy Story 3 [it’s a movie theater, but he and Rebecca insist they’re showing Cars 2 on both screens]. Hayden’s Bookstore. Everything is $18. Hayden’s Fanciest Candy Store and Also Necklace Store.”


The gratefuls! Monday:

  1. Our freedoms.
  2. Those who have sacrificed (and are now sacrificing) to preserve those freedoms.
  3. A day off!
  4. Rachel going from hands and feet to just feet without support.
  5. Craft store sales.
  6. Ambitious art projects (I’m so NOT that, but I’m ready to try now!)
  7. More exciting (and delicious) projects coming up for Wayward Girls’ Crafts
  8. One (and only one) fun find at garage sales/thrift stores over the weekend.
  9. Lining up the first teacher for the first class for my writer’s group!
  10. Ryan putting Rachel to bed.

Today:

  1. Finally, May-worthy weather!
  2. Time at the park (even if we all got a little sunburned)
  3. Takeout for dinner
  4. Lining up more teachers for my writers group
  5. Homemade doughnuts
  6. Going to bed early! Seriously couldn’t keep my eyes open after 10:30 last night.
  7. Rebecca’s imaginary toys at the park (which she told her daddy all about at dinner)
  8. New friends for Hayden at the park.
  9. Rachel said “Hi, Dada” three times this morning!
  10. Man—just a great day!
Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Catching up with Rebecca/Suwwy (and her robots) + 20 gratefuls

And my first twenty things to be grateful for:
Yesterday:

  1. Rain—don’t have to water the garden! (Borrowed from my friend Elisa, who’s also participating!)
  2. My garden (okay, my sugar snap peas) is growing.
  3. Ryan just cut both yards and they look very neat.
  4. Hayden’s drawings—today he drew me an awesome cow 😀 .
  5. Getting things done with the rest of the Executive Committee of my writers’ group.
  6. Chopped!
  7. Chatting with my sister, which I missed today.
  8. Contact lenses and glasses.
  9. Already having my pineapple CUPside-down CAKES, done and posted on Wayward Girls’ Crafts for this week!
  10. Sleeping in! (relatively)

And today’s:

  1. Naps, even if in theory only.
  2. Rachel kicking with delight!
  3. Checking things off my to do list (like this post!).
  4. Putting the kids to bed early-ish.
  5. That Rebecca’s hair will grow. (See last picture.)
  6. Potty training! (And being done!)
  7. Finishing off the cookies we made last night—no more temptation.
  8. Left overs and Ryan reheating them.
  9. Tuna salad sandwiches with celery, making me think of my mom.
  10. Hayden including his sisters in playing with his blocks. And his blogs. But more about that next week.

One day—it was a Friday, but that doesn’t matter—there was a little girl—and that does matter—learning to use the potty. And as she sat on the potty, she perched her fingers on her knees, with her pointer fingers out.

“Dees are my wobots,” she informed us. So these are Rebecca’s Robots:

(Her hands. Also note the plate of shredded cheese, which is pretty much all the child will eat for dinner.)

Her robots talk and help her do all kinds of things (being her hands). They love their mommy robots (my hands) especially.

Some cute things Rebecca has said lately:

  • Teese neveh wive in cups! Teese wive in bowws! (Cheese never lives in cups! Cheese lives in bowls!)
  • Wohwa’kates: roller skates
  • Yeh weww: yeah, well (at the beginning of a sentence)
  • Beebee: I’m not even sure what the exact translation of this would be (baby?), but it’s something she says a lot when she’s playing with Pinky, her stuffed animal. It’s either what she called Pinky, or what Pinky calls her. Or maybe both.

And some more:

Another favorite game is MontahINK! (Monsters, Inc.) Rebecca is Suwwy (Sully) and Pinky is either Boo or Mike ‘Akow’ki. I’m usually whatever Pinky isn’t, though sometimes Rachel gets that honor. Hayden has played Mike and Wannaw (Randall). Once I was even Wannanoos (Mr. Waternoose).

Her hair, obviously, spends a lot of time in her face, so today I did this (she cried, but she’s come to accept it):

I’m not really thrilled with how I did, but cutting my kids’ hair too short is something I’m good at.

What do you think? What are you grateful for? Isn’t Rebecca pretty much the best little girl in the world?