two easy games

Evelyn has made that sudden leap into kindergarten readiness. A few weeks ago she had no interest in letter sounds or practicing her numbers and then suddenly it became all about Bob books and writing words and finding numbers.
It's well timed. Now that the crazy house prep is over I've been spending a chuck of each day getting things ready for the Great Homeschool Experiment so my mind is back in teacher mode. It's also nice to have her interested in a few quiet activities for my still tired afternoons. So this week we've been making some little learning games. Nothing too schooly or strenuous, just a few activities for my fascinated girl. I feel a little bad, actually. Second child guilt I guess. I was much better at this with Briton. This time around I've been a little, um, distracted by life, I guess. But I thought I would share.

Mini Word Books

When Briton was almost five, he had a great little spiral bound book that flipped this way and that to form different three letter words. It was one of his favorites and lived in my bag most of the time for grocery store or errand running entertainment (ah, yes, that's what I did pre-iphone!) And though all our book culling and moving, I've always kept it, knowing that eventually Evie would love it too. Predictably, however, now that she's ready, I can't find it anywhere. SO instead we've got the DIY version.
They are simple and can be made with any old paper, but I like cardstock because it holds up better. Fold a peice of paper in thirds and then cut a flap 1/3 of the way down on the top and bottom fold. Cut all the way to the fold line so that you can flip the sections individually.

Write a letter pair on the wider section and then fill in the three smaller flaps with a letter that makes it a word. Trust me, and do it in this order, otherwise you may end up with a flap that doesnt make an actual word. Then, using the first letters as a guide, write letter pairs or "word families" for the other two wider flaps. For our current cards the word families we used were 'est', 'ank', 'an', 'ag', 'ay', 'ill', 'ot' and 'ow' and then combined with consonents like 'n', 'r', 'b' and so on to make a good range of words. The nice part is that they are so simple and fast to make and yet you can just toss them in teh recycling bin when they have those words down and make new ones.

Number Eggs
I was cleaning out a closet on Monday and found the leftover plastic eggs from our Easter egg hunt. Normally I'd store them away for next year but I'm trying to reduce what goes into storage at the moment so had planned to send them to Goodwill when Evie asked to play with them. After watching her take them apart, put them together and then hide and find them over and over, I had the idea to add numbers to one half of the egg and corresponding dots to the other and make a number game of it. We've played it two ways. First I pulled them all apart and tossed them i a bowl for her to put back together. When she got bored of that I put them together wrong and hid them in the yard for her to find and then rematch. I'm afraid a few may still be out in the yard, but even with a few pieces missing, she's been highly entertained by it.

I'm forseeing the need for more of these types of games to get us through the summer. Any suggestions? What learning games do/did your kids love?

the easy peasy dress: a tutorial

I was feeling much better this weekend, thank goodness. Well enough to sew and then bake and then sew some more. Not all in the same day of course, but over the course of three, which considering that I was falling asleep every time I sat down for most of the last week and a half, is pretty good.
This dress what the first project. I'm not really sure I can technically say that I "sewed a dress" here, it's more a case of turning something into a dress. But I'll count it. And you should too.Because this is the EASIEST DRESS YOU CAN EVER MAKE. No, it's really that easy. If you know how to turn on your machine and press the pedal, you can make this. I saw an image on Pinterest and I'll be totally honest, I didn't even click through to the page with directions because just looking at the idea was enough, but to give credit where credit is due, I went there today, and she did it just about the same way as I did, except I didn't do the measuring part. I'll explain below.

Also, it's probably the cheapest dress you'll ever make too because you probably have three quarters of what you need in your house right now.

That would be:

A t-shirt (long enough to come to the knees of the person who will wear the dress - so Evie's was made form an old fittedish t of mine.
A sewing machine
Thread
Elastic thread

That's it my friends.

The shirt I was using happened to be striped and that made things a whole lot simpler. If you happen to have one to use, find the stripe that runs closest under the armpits as possible without actually crossing the stitching of the arm. If you don't have a striped shirt, no worries. Take a ruler and a pencil and draw a line across the front of the shirt just under the armpits and then repeat on the back. You only need the one line to get you started.

Take an empty bobbin and wind it with elastic thread. You'll want to do this by hand and with some tension, meaning wrap it tightly. I'm not sure if wrapping it tightly necessarily helps with the shirring (which is what this technique is called) but it helps to get the maximum amount of elastic thread on there as possible, and you'll need that. Don't let the idea of hand winding the bobbin scare you off, it only takes a minute.

Load your bobbin as you normally would and load the top of the machine with whatever color thread you want. Set your machine to the longest stitch length you can on a plain old straight stitch and line the needle up with that line, starting under one arm. Take a few stitches, back stitch and then sew all the way around the shirt on the line, back stitching at the other end.
Now, using that first line (see how it's starting to bunch a little? You want that!) Move the fabric down so that the needle is about 1/4 inch away from the line. Use your foot as a guide. The edge should line up with the first line you did. Now repeat. Keep sewing parallel lines until you have sewn about 3 inches of shirring. You may have to stop midway and re-load your bobbin. If you urn out mid row just back stitch over the spot where you ran out and keep going, although it's much easier if you check your bobbin after each row is finished so that you have a newly filled bobbin at the start of a row.

I also ran a row around the sleeves, same technique.
And that's it! Trim your threads and hand it off to your girl. Shirring is one of my favorite sewing tricks, especially when it comes to little girls and summer dresses. Once you have it down it's just about the easiest way to make tube tops and simple dresses but starting with a ready-made shirt makes it even faster.

Let me know if you try it! I'd love to see pics!

the best kind of laws

Briton's class at school has been hard at work on an economics unit that involves creating their own country and developing cities, economies and governments for their new land. When he brought home the giant map he creates I loved that all the places in his country are named after his friends. Cleoland and Hunter Valley, mountain ranges named after the boy who sits next to him, the ocean sharing a name with his teacher. It's very sweet.
Yesterday he brought home a list he had compiled about his "people". It starts with their needs versus their wants.

Needs: Family, Friends, Water, Food, Shelter.

Wants: Candy, Toys, Pets

I'm glad to see family as a need. And honestly, kinda surprised that toys are a want, I figured in a land populated by mostly 8 and 9 year-olds, toys would be a necessity.

Then we move onto the rules of the land. They are quite numerous, and almost all of them are funny in one way or another, but I'll just share a few of my favorites.

#1 No Slaves. - This one is written in all caps. I'm trying to decide if this is the first and most important rule because a) he has been learning about slavery or b) feels that, as an 8 year old under parental rule, he i a slave. I'm going to hope for the former.

# 2 Only solar power - That's my boy!

#8 No stealing from anyone, especially Ms. Busching's Chocolate - Ms. Busching is the G and T teacher at his school and is his favorite of all time teacher - and I'll tell ya what, I wouldn't want to steal her chocolate either. Strangely there is also #9 - No eating chocolate in front of Ms. Busching.

And finally my favorite- #4 No cooking endangered animals. - Because we wouldn't want that.

I'm thinking of framing these as the rules of the house.

I love kids. I mean, who needs TV when you find lists like this in their backpacks?

Anything funny coming from your kiddos these days?

an ode (of sorts) to motherhood

My first Mother's Day as a mom came when I was six months pregnant with Briton. Not technically a mother yet, I suppose, but close enough to count, I decided. I had all sorts of ideas in my head about what Mother's Day should be like. Peaceful and realizing and elegant and perfect. Which is strange because I'd spent plenty of Mother's Days with my own mother and they were never like that. But I guess pregnancy brain got the better of me and I had high expectations.
Will was just weeks away from his thesis project due date and had very little time to spare, so I set about planning my own Mother's Day Picnic. We were dirt poor. Will was still in school and I was an underpaid second year teacher; we couldn't really afford to spend a chunk of change on Mother's Day, but never the less I stocked up at the glorious (and pricy) deli at a local market and then headed to Target to buy picnic dishes, silverware and a blanket. Because it all needed to match. It all needed to be perfect.

Of course it wasn't perfect. By the time I'd shopped for everything I thought we needed and had picked up Will for the hour he had to spare from the day I was frustrated and angry and weepy. We were not supposed to be rushed. I was not supposed to do the planning This was not how it was supposed to be. Looking back I see the ridiculousness of my attitude. And I marvel at how Will managed to not smack me upside the head. But at that moment, it all seemed wrong.

How much I have learned since that day. I wish I could go back and shake (gently) the younger me out of that funk, tell her to enjoy the silence of a riverside picnic, not matter how quick, because soon enough being by a river, or near stairs, or in a car or anywhere, would be more about keeping the kids from falling in or down or out than it would be about enjoying a few minutes with good food and the man I love. But I'd also hug her, because I get it. Before kids, you think Motherhood will be perfect, and it is, but not that way you imagine.

Motherhood is messy. The other day I was holding the six month old baby boy of a friend. Her first. He spend most of the afternoon gnawing on my scarf, obviously enjoying the feeling of the knobby surface against his teething gums. My friend kept worrying, not over the baby, but over the scarf, telling me that she was sorry he was getting it wet. I kept thinking that baby drool was not the worst thing that has ever been on my clothes. It probably wasn't the worst thing that had been on my clothes that day, because, like I said, motherhood is messy.
And Mother's Day is messy, wonderfully so. Now a days, a perfect Mother's Day is feigning sleep while my children stand two feet away and whisper (loudly) about if it's time to give me my present. Or the feeling of a box being dropped, none to gently, on my stomach only to be snatched away by a different pair of hands who think that no, it's really not time. It's construction paper cards and funny paintings and running out to get milk before breakfast because a certain boy poured himself the last of it yesterday and then put the jug in the recycling bin without letting anyone know we were out. (But he gets points for recycling the jug instead of leaving it out on the counter).

I've been feeling a little nostalgic this week. Spending a lot of time in bed, exhausted but too sore to sleep, will do that I guess. My grandmother, my dad's mother, died 33 years ago on Friday, but even though we spent a mere nine months on earth together, she had a profound impact on my life, inspiring me from the beyond. I've been very lucky in my life to be mothered by a whole tribe of women. My aunties, who took me to museums and drove me around in their VW bugs and bought me ice cream and Barbies regardless of whether I was supposed to have them or not. And Grandma, my mom's mom, who taught me to sew and cook and make and who made me feel like I was the most important person in the world, even though I was one of many grandchildren.
And then there is my mom. I found a card yesterday (too late to mail it of course) that said "Even if she weren't my mother, I'd still go out of my way to be friends with her" which perfectly sums up how I feel about my mother. She has taught me more about motherhood by example than any book could ever do and I probably don't tell her enough how much she means to me. But she knows it anyway I bet. Because that's how mom's are. Still, just to make sure she does know it - I love you mom.

Happy Mother's Day everyone.

and we're back to dresses

Remember when Evelyn suddenly wanted to wear leggings all the time? Dresses were so OVER. It was skirts and leggings, shirts and leggings and occasionally dresses and leggings. But only certain dresses. Once I got the leggings pattern down, we were set. I stocked up. Skirts, tees and leggings. Done.
Yeah, well, we're back to dresses and nothing but dresses. There were tears this morning because she couldn't find a dress that was long enough to wear without leggings (because I haven't been buying dresses so they are all waaaaaayyyyy too short) Eventually we found an acceptable skirt and unicorn shirt but I can see that, before we start culling and packing the kids clothes, I'm going to need to stock up on at least a few dresses. Thank goodness Briton could care less what he wears. I'm not sure I could deal with two children who have to change their clothes three times before heading off to school. (Yes, mom, I know, it's just payback for all the clothes changing I did)
I'm so in the mood to sew but just don't seem to have the energy or time right now. So I think we'll be hitting Marshall's this weekend to get a few things to tide us over until I have some sewing time again. But until then, I've been collecting images on my Pinterest boards of dresses that I would like to make for her. Like this one. Or this. Or this, ok, really I want that one for me.

I realized the other day that I'm going to have to seriously pare down what we bring in terms of clothes. Ironically, we've worked really hard with this house to create as much built in storage as possible which means that we have almost nothing storage wise to bring with us. No dressers, no book shelves. nada. So we're going to have to buy a chest of drawers for the kids and also one for us, but they are going to have to be small to fit in our tiny little rooms, which means the amount of what we can bring is also going to have to be small. Plus, even though our budget will be tight, we'll be in NEW YORK. I'm sure there will be several clothing shopping outings. For Evie and for me. Oh darn.

simple and good

For Will's 30th birthday I took him on a surprise trip to Rome, which sounds glamorous and extravagant when I just say it like that. In reality, it was a very, very shoestring budget vacation. We were already living in Europe so we took advantage of some uber cheap Ryan Air flights and instead of staying in a hotel, I found a convent near St. Peters that rented out rooms. Yes, a convent. Run by Phillippino nuns. Which meant that the language barrier was quite something when it came to checking in and out.
Because we were a) on such a tight budget and b) had a toddler in tow, we didn't eat at very many restaurants. I can only recall one, actually. Instead we bought groceries at the little market across the street where the nuns shopped, stopped in delis and at Pizza windows or bought sandwiches from a lady down the street who had a small shop and who adopted us the first day, squeezing out cheeks and kissing us every time we passed. I've never eaten so well in my life. Honestly I could have spent the rest of my life eating foccicia hacked from giant slabs in the market bakery, fruit ripe to the point of bursting from greengrocers, and squash blossom pizza. And also salami sandwiches. Salami sandwiches made up a good percentage of our meals because Briton would eat salami by the pound and because it was easy to buy the ingredients, toss them in our bag and have them ready to go whenever we got hungry, a beautiful thing when you are travelling with a two year old. They were simple. Fresh bread, fresh mozzarella, torn apart with our fingers, and slices of spicy, buttery salami. Nothing else. Nothing needed.
I've been in a cooking funk lately. Too tired, too busy, too blah when it's humid to really be interested in standing in the kitchen. So we've been having a lot of really simple suppers here. Some of the time that means Mac and Cheese or Ramen, I'm not going to lie. But it's also mean grilled chicken and lettuce on naan or sliced steak (grilled again, I'm taking full advantage of the grill while I can!) on tostadas. Or Salami sandwiches. They aren't quite as good as those Roman meals. But I'm amazed at how wonderful a really really simple meal can be.
What's your favorite simple meal?

good, bad, happy, sad

I think life has never been quite as much as a roller coaster as it has been this last week. The move is falling into place more easily than I could ever have hoped, with very little effort (other than the crazed work schedule before the house went on the market) on our part. I'm not quite ready to talk about this house, don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I will say we aren't having to keep the house super tidy these days, which has been a big relief, particularly since I've been spending a lot of time on the couch or in bed over the past five days.
But on the New York end we are set, having very very luckily landed a 2 bedroom plus and office apartment a mere three blocks from Will's building on campus. We've seen the outside of the building, which is a very pretty "pre war" as the craigslist ads say, and is next to an old school fire station (which could be interesting, but we are up high so hopefully wont be too bad). The spot is a block from the library and sits right between two big parks so really, we couldn't have asked for more. Except maybe to see the inside. At the moment we only have a floor plan, which is not so bad when you're married to an architect who can scale little pieces of paper to match your furniture. This has allowed us to figure out, at least in theory, which of the things we have will fit and what we'll need to acquire. Now we are busy debating what the different rooms will be used for. Should we, for instance, give the largest room to the kids? Which would mean that we would need to switch down from a queen to a full size bed (Which I just realized that we have in our basement) or should we take the large room and put our desks in there and give the kids each a room. Or have them share and turn the study into a playroom/schoolroom. Decisions, decisions...I've been spending a lot of time with those little bits of paper, I tell ya.

So this is all good. Very, very good. And much stress has been relieved. But that means, of course, that we now have time to dwell a little more on what leaving means. Evie will not get on the school bus with her brother for the first day of school, spontaneous evening playdates won't just happen in our yard, kids running around putting on a "play" while parents drink a beer on the mudroom steps. Briton will not get to join the student council or the crossing guard as a fourth grader as he had planned. Friends, these friends, will not be a quick stroll up a quiet street away. Change is always hard, even when it's a good change.

And so, between rearranging little yellow squares of paper, dreaming up all the interesting things we can do with a new space, trying to decide how many boxes we need to pick up, adding to my stack of cool educational books and hearing my kids talk excitedly about all the things we will do in New York (and a lot of sleeping, because man this bug had got me good) I'm feeling a little heartbroken to leave my life behind. All part of moving, I know. But sad, never the less.

Still, under the sad, I'm getting excited. Now back to my yellow squares. Any brilliant idea about space configuration?