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4.19.2009

Bad Mommy

Aw, lookit that Gerber Graduates commercial mom playing dragon slayer with her little boy!!!

I suck.

OK I'm not that bad, but I'm definitely not the FUN parent. No Barbies or Hot Wheels for me. If it doesn't have some kind of educational component to it, then I'm not interested. Hmmph. So there.

Whaaat? I feed you, don't I? I teach you stuff, read to you, hug you ALL the time, clothe and bath you, find your bedroom floors when you cannot, would give life and limb for you, wipe your snot and poop, tickle you, brush your hair, floss and brush your teeth, among half a million other things. MUST I play with you too?

Of COURSE I love you, but I honestly don't feel the same way about Polly Pocket. And no, brushing Rainbow Dash's mane is NOT fun for me.

(Nor is playing Wii tanks for the 10,000th time - are you listening too, lil' bro?)

But... Huh.

Hmmm... last night we played Disney Princess Bingo, and tonight we played Trouble!! And I did Wii Table Tilt so you could watch.

I DO play after all!! I'M OK!!!

(Guess I didn't need to write this post ;)

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4.14.2009

Keeping Them Safe

This morning I was thinking about Victoria Stafford, the eight year old Ontario girl who went missing after she left school on Wednesday, last seen walking with an unidentified woman.

Who is this woman? What was Victoria doing walking with her? This got me thinking about my 6 year old girl, who's finally gotten over the paralyzing shyness that was the signature of her toddler years. I decided to talk to her about it.

Me: "Hey... listen. What would you do if a grownup you'd never met before came to talk to you after school, and she was really nice, and she said that I told her to come pick you up?"

Alyssa: (shrugs) "I'd go with her?"

OH.MY.GOD.

What followed was a lengthy, and a bit repetitive, discussion about how you NEVER EVER EVER go ANYWHERE with a grown up you don't know, NO MATTER HOW NICE THEY ARE.

Both my kids know about "bad strangers". The only problem is, is that I don't think they understand the concept of "bad strangers" playing nice to try and trick people.

I just pray to God that she got it. We may have to talk about this again (and again, and again).

Scary stuff.
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4.13.2009

Niiice.

My 4 year old: "What did you say punk?" (accompanied by giggles and smiles, with his world famous cutest ever dimples).

Me: "Where on earth did you hear that?"

DS: "Spongebob!!"

I suppose it could be worse. He was saying the F word a few weeks ago. That wasn't cool.

But this "punk" thing... is it wrong of me to think it's cute? I swear I have a wound on the inside of my cheek from biting it, trying my best not to smile or laugh. Oh my FREAKIN' GOODNESS he's just the cutest thing that ever existed.

Should I stop him from saying it? Is "punk" a bad word for a four year old to say? (Is it any worse than him wanting to play "real" boxing after playing it on Wii? Oops ;)

Am I the only mother who is lost some times? And why on earth don't kids come with manuals, anyway!! Sheesh...
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4.05.2009

Prep For The Big K

I know it's only April, but I'm a big believer in being proactive when it comes to my kids' education.

Big sister A is happy and thriving in French Immersion, and Lil' J is signed up to start in September. In an effort to get him prepped and keep up with the English side of things at home, I'm creating simple puzzles and exercises for him to do.

These days there are so many wonderful published resources out there (work books - we have a whole shelf full :) and web sites galore, but once in awhile there's a gap that a parent can fill with a home made tool.

Word searches are a big hit with Alyssa, but for J, I can't find any that are simple enough. Any easy solution is to simply make my own.

Below is the first one I created (in jpeg format, so if you like it you can "right click save as" to your computer). My goal with this one was to have a small number of simple words, all left to right, horizontally, like they would be if they were read in a book. I added the "name" line at the top because J likes to write his name. We'll work at this level until he's comfortable finding them all, and then we'll move on to diagonal and vertical words...



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4.03.2009

How Do You Answer That?

Here are three that stumped me, as asked by my daughter. There are some things that a six year old just doesn't need to know!!

How would you have answered?

"Mommy are (army) tanks real? What do they do?"

"Mommy, I understand why bums are private 'cause poop is yucky, but why are boobs private?"

"But Mommy, how does the sperm get to the egg to make the baby?"

For the tanks question I clumsily stammered some inappropriate response about shooting something or other and then quickly changed the subject, and for the boobs and babies question I told her she wasn't old enough to know. What would you have said?
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