Sisters Theater Presents....

Over the holiday Lydia received from one of her aunties a set of cardboard finger puppets. She has really loved playing with them. On Friday when I got home from work she immediately started parading her finger people all over me, when I remembered that I had once mentioned a goal of making a puppet theater for them. I went to the garage and was mulling over how to create it with the boxes that we had available when I noticed that we still had a science board tucked away behind the frig.

It would be valid to wonder who keeps science boards around the house? Well, not us. We had it because we used to, before having kids, really liked making puzzles. We would use the science board on top of the table and then close it up and move it if we needed to use the table for something else. So it's really a puzzle moving board, which I am not certain makes more rational sense. Regardless, I had one.

The one we had had giant writing on the back of it which meant that the flaps didn't flap in the right way, so I bent them right off and reattached them with duct tape. Now being able to have the blank side facing out. I took a box cutter and cut a square in the center panel for the stage.
For about an hour the girls decorated the outside. I pulled all the stickers, pictures, glitter glue out along with markers crayons and I happen to have form flowers that were glittery left over from an Easter craft. They loved it.
Once their decorations were complete, I had them select from a box of fabric squares that I have. For a while I was hoarding fabric squares because I thought they were pretty and was determined that any day now I would be making quilts. Now that that delusion has subsided, I just have a shoe box full and use them for silly moments such as these. I simply took duct tape and stuck it on the inside creating a curtain.
We named it Sisters Theater and the show begun! Lydia really loved it. She performed several shows and we dug out other puppets that we had around. Mostly little finger puppets and a few that are supposed to be wash cloths but we always used them as hand puppets.
Vivian on the other hand, is still trying to come to grips with the mysteries of the theater. We have all been there, comfortably in our seats watching the show thinking, "How did they do that!!??" However, most of us sit and allow the show to transform us; to take us to another world, Vivi just goes to look.
The next plan is make puppets. By we haven't quite had the time yet.

How we used our Elf on a Shelf: Sky

Three years ago strolling through Straub Park with friends each duo pushing their own stroller with babies experiencing their first holiday season I had a minor rant about the Elf on a Shelf phenomenon. I remember it clearly I ascertained that I did not want to deepen the levels of deceit for my child by creating another potentially devastating life moment. I didn't want to compound the already heart shattering experience when they find out that not only the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa and now unnecessary Elf were not part of a holiday dream team providing gifts and tokens to children but rather an contrived series of falsehoods.

 

 

Fast forward to this past holiday season, one of my best friends has a little 8 year old boy that with all of his heart still believes in the Fab 3 of the holiday bunch but also their elf. He believes so much that he eagerly at the beginning of November begins to ask when the Elf is going to return. There was something about that story for both Eliot and I that warmed our hearts. We loved the idea that our girls would have a level of naivety, innocence, imagination, majesty and more importantly, hope. 

To our mind's eye, Lydia being only 3, we didn't really need to introduce the Elf until just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  We purchased a girl elf, because we have daughters, we read the book and watched the cartoon and we asked for an Elf to come to our house, all together as family. And so she did. Lydia named her Sky.

 

There a million variations to the Elf tradition floating around this year. We never intended our Elf to be a creepy mastermind extrinsically motivating our daughters’ right choices however it is the cultural story behind Santa as well. We just don't overdo it that storyline. Though in full disclosure we differently threw those lines out there in moments of frustration, "You better watch out, Santa Claus is coming!" or "Santa doesn't bring presents to kids that don't listen." But overall, it's just not really our style.

 

For the first few days our Sky, the girl elf, was very much a 3D virtual where is Waldo. Lydia would wake up in the morning and hunt for her. We also didn't really like the mischievous elf idea.
Why would an elf that didn't follow directions or cause raucous work for Santa? It didn't make sense to the narrative for us. Then some friends posted a link to a blog that suggested Kindness Elves, the elf leaves notes to promote compassion and love through the holiday season. That sounded like a nice idea. Then I read from another friend about the Wandering Wise men from the Little People nativity set going on adventures all over the house to tell the Christmas story, well that sounded pretty good too. Sky did it all! Why not, right?

One morning she was found in the Christmas tree promoting hugs. Sharing and encouraging compassionate and empathetic action. Another morning she was sitting on the chalk board pointing
down to the note that said “Be Nice!”, so we took a few minutes and brainstormed ways of being nice.

 

One morning she was found holding Baby Jesus and we talked through the whole manger story and Jesus birthday which she knew well from preschool. There was a morning that Sky was on one of the globes. We sang He has the Whole World in his Hands, which Lydia loves and we chatted briefly about that.

 

One morning Sky was hanging on our pantry with a note that read: give food to those that need it. A young boy in our neighborhood as a school community service project had placed Metropolitan
Ministry barrels for food collection. So we took the opportunity to talk to Lydia about the fact that not everyone has enough. We took her to Publix and she picked out some food to give to those that needed it.  

We really enjoyed our multi-purposed elf buddy, Sky and we look forward to continuing to use our elf in ways that will inspire and provoke important conversations and actions especially during
the holiday season. For our family the season is not over until the official 12^th day of Christmas, Epiphany, on January 6^th.

Gingerbread House Disaster

The evening begun with simple joys. Pouring out all the candies in divided plates, adding more candies than what comes in the silly kit. There was fondant which we kept pronouncing FUNdant and laughing all the way. We let the girls use the rolling pin which they thought was awesome! Though the FUNdant never really expanded in the rolling process, perhaps foreshadowing the construction of our gingerbread house woes.

The laugher, the candies and rolling all stopped. It stopped because that damn gingerbread is heavy and that squirt bag of frosting was not enough. We tried in several different orders. We even read the directions, but nothing was working. The house had beat us. We had to get back up frosting which luckily we had a in the fridge. At one point a frosting battled occurred, many were hit only a few injured.

 

Way past a traditionally recommended bedtime, bellies filled with more candy than Halloween night and various vanilla frostings we constructed a building block version of a shack. We happily stuck the candy décor all over the outside as best as possible with extra frosting and gooey fingers. Then we had to dunk everyone in the bathtub to take the sticky, ickies off and then try to convince them to fall asleep. 

Not all family projects go successfully. We learned that we should have started this one a little bit earlier and we need to remember to let the pieces all harden before planning on pouring 3 tons of candies on it if we hope that the walls simply don't slide apart every time the fan blows. Clearly, I am still working through  a little of my frustration. But more important than a well made gingerbread house was the amount of laugher and silly that we had. Not every family moment will be a Hallmark commercial in the making but if we are honest those are usually the best ones.

And if I add a little bit more to my own parenting reflections, sometimes it's good to show kids that not everything has to be perfect. Sometimes things just need to be fun. Sometimes things need to be flexible. Perfection isn't the ideal. The ideal is joy. The ideal is love. The ideal is laughter. We accomplished that  ideal for sure.

Playroom Order

We are lucky to have a playroom. It is perfectly located next to the family room. It will likely some day be a guest room (or craft room if I get my way) but for now it is filled with Ikea furniture that holds all the toys. Neither girl has toys in their room at this point, (which will likely change in a couple of weeks) but for now just books.




Since this room has a door I could close it and ignore what's inside. However I don't do that at all. I have organized the bejesus out of it. Everything has a place most things had sticker labels for pictorial reference (until Vivi realized they we removable.) I try to consider what the area would best be used for and place accordingly. For example next to the kitchen is a couple of cubes of storage that have all the kitchen items, food, pots and pans and such. There is a puzzle section, dress up, cars, princesses, etc.




My daughters are very fortunate and have an abundance. The room is well used and thus sometimes there is a need for little people to be in the (play) microwave because they were "hiding" or "hungry." Sometimes Mickey needs to be in the ball box because he wanted to "play soccer." These sort of things just happen.




My problem is that I really enjoy having everything in the "right" place. My compulsion is to put it back. Most of the time I do. Hours of life given to cleaning up this one room. It takes a lot of will power, focus and control not to have the immediate gratification of having a place for everything and all of those things in their place.
The room is well played in. My girls have a vivid and healthy imagination which should be encouraged. My new mom mantra is:
Playroom doesn't have to be in perfect order
Playroom doesn't have to be on perfect order
Playroom doesn't have to be in perfect order
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Big Farm Breakfast

Lydia goes to preschool 3 mornings a week. Her class however does meet 5 days a week and on a day that she was not there they had a farm breakfast. We saw the pictures on Facebook and decided that we could have a farm breakfast dinner.

They have been talking about farms at school and Lydia was quite surprised to learn that so many foods came from animals. When I told her, her response was, "No, Mom that's silly." After a while of convincing she proudly explains that eggs and chicken nuggets come from chickens. Milk, cheese and hamburgers come from cow and strawberries come from trees.

I like to let the girls cook. For Lydia this was not her first time in the kitchen. However for Vivian it was. She worn a very fashion forward hot pink apron and enjoyed mixing things with dad.

On the Farm Breakfast Menu was:

• Pancakes
• Fruit
• OJ
• Eggs
• Bacon

Lydia pours the ingredients into the bowl and mixed them. I let her use an Ikea kids knife to cut strawberries and bananas. She cracked the eggs for the scrambled eggs but she really did not like getting the sliminess on her fingers. She did happily mix them up.

 We cooked everything in an electric griddle that way Lydia could actually make it. And she did. She poured the batter in, sometimes overly excitedly and she stirred the eggs. We cheated a little and made bacon in the microwave, but for a 3 year old it worked perfectly.
Our dear friend Aunt Brigitte came over to eat and help! She brought OJ and oranges which Lydia peeled for each of us, well I think she made it peeling alone only hers. We ate a great farm breakfast! It was a really fun evening.