Shhh… don’t tell him I’m blogging!

So no sooner do I make this post, my son turns the table on me. Who knows, maybe he can read, AND he reads my blog and figured he confuse me. 😉 Almost since the very moment I hit publish on that post, he’s been a lot better behaved. I won’t even presume to say he’s over his “phase,” I know he’s not. And it’s not like he’s given up tantrums and whining 100% – he’s just turned them down to once/twice a day and turned down the duration from several hours to just a few minutes. I can TOTALLY live with this.

The other thing – and I’m not sure what to make of this – is “manners” has become a game to him. It’s become “fun” to try and come up with as many things to thank me for as possible. This… is really weird. Don’t get me wrong – I am loving the appreciation, but I feel like there’s got to be a catch somewhere.

“Thank you Mommy for making me dinner”
“You’re welcome”
“Thank you Mommy for the spoon”
“You’re welcome”
“Thank you Mommy for the napkin”
“You’re… welcome…”
“Thank you Mommy for the water”
“uh… actually you got yourself a cup of water…”
“Oh… then thank you for the cup so I could get myself some water”
“uh… you’re… welcome..?”

He’s got to be plotting something. Trying to distract me so he can catch me off guard. This just isn’t normal.

Well, still, I guess I’ll be blissfully ignorant (and slightly paranoid) in the meantime. However, I’m sure that clicking the “publish” button on this post is a guarantee this momentary blip will come to an end. It sure was cute while it lasted!

If little boys are made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails, what are *squirrels* made of?

T
he other morning, before dropping Zach off at daycare, he asked me “what squirrels were made of.”

The things is – he sometimes asks me questions like this when he already has an answer in his head. When I mentioned Zach’s question to my Facebook friends, my friend Jamie replied that when she asked her son the same question to see what he would say, he said “Skin and Fur” – but I know that wasn’t what was in Zach’s mind. I explained it was as if he expecting me to say that squirrels were made of chicken or something…

To which Jamie gave me this reply:

Speaking of chicken, Alex was eating a chicken nugget the other day and asked me what chicken nuggets were made of. I told him chicken of course and I guess it was the first time he ever realized he was eating an animal, his eyes got huge and said, “a bock bagock chicken?” “Yep” “The kind with feathers?” “Yep” “So there’s a chicken in my belly?”…. at which point the conversation got really weird and uncomfortable trying to explain how it’s ok to eat animals that are raised for food, but not ok to bite his brother…

ROFL!!! I’m still cracking up over that.

Later that night, I asked Zach to tell me what he thought squirrels were made of. His answer? “nuts“

I guess you are what you eat…

Custom Monsters

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*disclosure: I just signed up as an affiliate (figured I might as well since I was going to link to them anyway). So if you click the image above and make a purchase, I do get a commission.

Cupcakes do not need to be dressed up

Why do all the parenting magazines I get focus on food presentation? As, if I make the carrot look like a caterpillar, my kid will suddenly be interested in eating it.

REALLY? I mean does any kid really fall for that? Mine doesn’t. I’m so desperate to get Zach to eat vegetables, that I even bought that book Deceptively Delicious. Even if he can’t see the vegetables, even if can’t taste the vegetables, he still somehow always knows when they’re there. It’s like he has Veg-dar or something. If he sees so much as a microscopic green parsley leaf in his food he has to pick it out. (oh, and whine about it, too)

How did I end up with a kid that hates vegetables this much? I love vegetables. I’m not exaggerating – I could sit and eat a head of lettuce, just like that, with no dressing. Just pick off the leaves and munch them like they were potato chips. (Spaghetti Squash may be the only vegetable I really don’t like).

But then the parenting magazines will take things too far. They’ll make cupcakes look like little turkeys for Thanksgiving.

REALLY??? This is one thing that doesn’t need to be dressed up. We don’t have any problems getting the kids to eat cupcakes. While it may be FUN to dress up a cupcake to look like a turkey, it doesn’t need to be done, he will eat it anyway, and my time is probably better spent trying to make the turkey look like a cupcake so he’ll eat that. (He’s not big on meat either. I honestly don’t know how he survives.)

As I posted on Twitter – I told Zach if he ate asparagus, it would make his pee smell. He thought that would be really cool. It almost worked. In the end, he chickened out.

I think what we need is more Popeye’s. I remember as a kid, watching Popeye cartoons, I was encouraged to eat spinach. Of course, I don’t know why. It’s not like I really wanted to look like Popeye. Zach does like that “party in my tummy” song – it so cracks me up. (If you go to that link, and get the song stuck in your head, you can thank me later) 😉 But it’s not enough. I think the real solution is that we need more vegetarian super heroes! (and less turkey cupcakes!) Captain Cucumber saves the day!!!

Or maybe not.

Any teachers out there?

There’s this great program that they do in Rachel’s school called “Art Through The Ages.” It’s completely run and taught by the PTA and the idea behind the program is to teach kids both history, and art history, while also giving them an art class. The time period is discussed along with what things were happening in the world and a particular region at that time, art during that time frame is shown and discussed, and then the kids get a chance to try their hands at creating similar art using similar methods from the time. Rachel loves the program. She comes home and tells me all about what she learned, and what she made.

This year I offered to help. Honestly, I really didn’t think they’d need me or that they’d pick me to lead the lesson. I thought maybe there were better trained people and I would just be helping them. I chose the Renaissance time period. Yesterday we had the training, and I found out that, in fact, *I* will be leading the lesson. (There was someone listed as being available to help me – but I haven’t heard from them).

So the history portion (as far as I understand it! Someone PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong!) talks about the shift from God-centered thinking and artwork, to human-centered. People sent less money to Rome to the Church. Because of the bubonic plague, there were just less people around in general, which meant less famine, less (business) competition and a “middle class” rose into being that had more expendable money. Some of this money was spent on the arts; Music, plays, artwork. Artists could make a living on their craft – and this gave rise to an explosion in creativity.

This is the point that we’re supposed to do an activity with the kids to get them to “feel like they’re in this time” – and unfortunately the activity just made no sense to me. The activity they had revolved around having a few kids pick a “job” (for example: corn farmer) and having them set a price for their product – and would the rest of the class pay that much, (if there’s just one corn farmer – do you have much choice) – and then if there are more corn farmers – how does their competition and price change.

I just don’t get the connection between that activity and the Renaissance. There’s got to be another activity (non-art-related – that comes later) that can give them a better understanding of the time period. Unfortunately, I’m on my own if I want to try something different (which we’ve been given the freedom to do) but aside from the fact that I 1) suck at public speaking even in front of kids! and 2) suck at teaching in general – WHAT?! What do I do??

The ART portion of the lesson I think I can do (or at least do better than what is planned for the HISTORY portion) – I’ll be covering the new concepts that came about during the Renaissance such as “vanishing points”, “foreshortening”  – I can show paintings during the Medieval time and compare that with paintings during the Renaissance. I can show how vanishing points work – etc. Then the kids are to try their hands at creating a “fresco” (which actually isn’t really a fresco – from what I understand – fresco means painting on WET plaster – secco is painting on dry plaster. Most FRESCO’s were a combination of fresco and secco because while the fresco had more permanence, the colors couldn’t be as vibrant – so most artists went back over their fresco and added details with the more vibrant colors – secco) The kids will be painting on DRY plaster. (Do I bother to explain the difference between fresco and secco? They didn’t even mention it in the training and just said the kids will be doing a fresco – which is wrong!)

But what about the HISTORY portion? Any ideas? Any resources? (I could use more painting samples too – any websites out there that have a lot of examples I can show the kids?) (I should probably add that this is for a 4th grade class)

Man, I am NEVER doing this again!!! There’s a VERY GOOD reason I don’t homeschool – I absolutely SUCK at this!