Yo

A Short Play

Characters:
6-year-old
3 - year -old
Mother - not telling her age

6-y.-o.: Mommy, I ran out of thread in this. (hold up empty bobbin) Can you give me more?

Mother: No. We're leaving for the library in a few minutes. I thought you wanted to go and meet the alligator. Could you please put that back?

6-y.o.: Oh yeah! I forgot. (run upstairs to put the bobbin back & to turn off the sewing machine)

Five Minutes Later

Mother: (standing at the bottom of the staircase) Girls, we're going to leave. Are you still coming?

3.-y.-o.: (standing on the stair landing) It's not working. It's not working. (saying it through gritted teeth by the end)

Mother: What's not working?

6.-y.-.: (appears next to her sister) Oh. I made my sister a yo-yo.

Of Toads and Air Conditioners

I went out earlier today to wait for my daughter's bus and what was sitting on my driveway sunning itself but a large toad. I walked to the backyard, drained the water out of the kiddie pool (okay - I stepped on the side of the pool until all the water was out), walked back to the driveway and the toad was still sitting there. I knew I couldn't tell my daughter there had been a toad in the yard without her wondering why I didn't catch it for her. I promptly found a flower pot and ran around the driveway chasing the toad, who was very happy to jump away from me, until he jumped into the flower pot. As my daughter exited the bus I showed her the toad. She was overjoyed.


We don't have central air. Who thinks when they move to New England that it will really get this hot - and in June no less. We have one room that we affectionately refer to as Sanctuary during the summer. During the rest of the year it is just the T.V. room. It has a window unit in it. We also have one other window unit for one of the girl's bedrooms. I was waiting for my husband to put it in since my daughter's and I have spent the past two nights sleeping in the T.V. room. He doesn't mind the heat. This afternoon, after checking the indoor temperature, I put the air conditioner in the window.

The one side never really fit quite right. I found some bright pink duct tape and taped it over so I'm hopeful more cool air will stay in the room this way. And the washcloth is there for the same reason. A slight gap. Hmmm - bet I could put duct tape there too. At least the girls can sleep on a bed tonight and maybe me too. I'm sure they won't mind sharing.

An activity for sick kids

While home for two weeks with two girls (not both at once for both weeks - just for about ten out of the fourteen days) we watched a lot of t.v. Actually, the t.v. was on a lot (they learned about ancient Egypt and Queen Nefertiti one day - gotta love the History Channel); however, the girls spent a lot of time just lying on the couches zoning, napping, complaining about their stomach's having growing pains, etc. On the occasions when they were feeling well enough to venture off of the couches we made paper dolls.



I read on another blog (now, this was during the sick period so I have no idea which one - sorry) about doing them. We had paper and scissors on hand so I went to town. I made paper girls and tried to make a paper octopus at the request of my three-year-old but it came out more like a paper alien or insect - only six legs, not eight.

We borrowed a book from the library, before the sickness set in, titled May I Have a Cookie? In the story a young alligator and his mother are making cookies. Alfie, the young alligator, tries demanding a cookie once they are cooked and then tries to sneak cookies but his mother keeps asking him if he can think of a different way to get a cookie. He decides to go to his room and make his own cookies out of paper. The girls wanted to do this and since I had the paper out, and thought, how much of a mess can two sick girls make, and really, we were not going to make edible cookies together until they got better since I did not want to be sick as well - so the pretend cookies were made and were beautiful.

The issue was that I didn't hide the glue well enough. Once they were well they tried gluing many, many things together, for example - nesting dolls. How are they going to nest if they don't come apart? Then, after they notice they don't come apart or that the glue really didn't stick well they want to wash the dolls to clean up their mess.

Overall, the paper activity was a nice break for all of us during our latest bout of sickness. I highly recommend it - but if you choose to make paper cookies I suggest using glue sticks instead of liquid school glue, just in case it doesn't make it back in its cabinet.

Making food for the babies

The baby fish that is. My dear husband is going away on a business trip soon and I am being trained to make baby brine shrimp to feed to our baby guppies and plattys. What do baby brine shrimp look like? So glad you asked. Click here. If you ever grew these you have grown brine shrimp. In twenty-four to thirty-six hours we'll know if I followed his directions correctly and if I can be trusted to grow brine shrimp while he's out of town.

Elixir

Have you ever watched the Powerpuff Girls? The Powerpuff Girls were created by Professor Utonium. He mixed up the perfect little girl potion (sugar & spice & everything nice!). Chemical X accidentally mixed into his potion as well creating - the Powerpuff Girls. My girls have seen this movie a few times and we own at least six Powerpuff Girls books. Recently, my six-year-old has decided that she needs to make Chemical X by mixing all the chemicals in the house together. I banned her from making Chemical X.

Every time I catch her mixing up a new batch of 'soap and water' (it's all she is allowed to use) it has turned into something new - a poison from the Barbie movie Mariposa (TM), a sleeping potion, anything but Chemical X. I have apparently only banned the making of Chemical X in the house. I don't want to squash her creativity but I don't want her accidentally poisoning herself or her sister by mixing something up that she shouldn't or, even if it is only soap and water, having her or her sister drink it and making themselves sick from the soap. If only it was nice outside and I could supervise water play out-of-doors instead of all over my kitchen, living room and bathroom.

Future Scientists

For our older daughter's birthday my husband purchased a number of 'kits' at Michael's (the craft store) of all places.

These include:

• grow your own sea monsters (totally cool - it worked - every playdate has to look at our sea monsters)
• grow carnivorous plants (container needs to be placed in the fridge for EIGHT weeks - ummmm - it is in my garage - real estate in the fridge is at a premium)
• grow your own crystals - experiment just started a few days ago - hoping for some spectacular crystals (and for my husband to stop imitating The Dark Crystal characters 'Skekie's bad').

The safety glasses, sported by the older of the two budding scientists, are from the crystal kit. Note - she has the magnifying glass by her tooth that is growing in.

Crafty Cooking Kit (TM)

My older daughter received a Crayola Crafty Cooking Kit (TM) as a present. We had a blast using it. It would have been a 'not too messy' craft if I hadn't left my younger daughter alone with the flour bucket (see above image). What I didn't take a photo of was the floor, where most of the flour that used to reside in the bucket wound up.


To make the dough just add margarine & an egg. Mixing up the icing is a breeze. Just add water.


The paint tray. Before the girls completely obliterated the colors to become black, black and you guessed it black.

And - some of their creations. Faces, a rainbow, unicorns and monochromatic themes once the others became too much work.