by beagoodmom on March 10, 2010
Geetle has 3 school reading projects going right now. One earns her a ticket to Great America, one earns a ticket to a minor league baseball game and the other is required “at home” reading for class. Its hard to keep track, so she reads her “at home” reading each night as part of homework. Any leisure reading she does before bedtime goes towards the Great America ticket. The reading she does in bed each night goes towards the baseball ticket. Sounds like too much, but she is keeping track of it all by herself and she reads that much each day anyway.
In order to keep the Great America and baseball reading logs separate, we taped one to her homework planner and the other is hung by astring on her dining room chair. Each morning at breakfast she takes the pencil that also hangs there and records what she read the night before in bed. So far, she has not forgotten. Having it right there, in a place she sits at least twice a day, is key.
Recording the entries herself makes her very proud. Rather than hound her each day to see if she logged her reading, we gave her this tool so that she can succeed on her own. It seems to be working.
by beagoodmom on March 10, 2010
Have I ranted about this before? I rant about it all the time, in my head, so I am not sure if I have ever written it here…..
I absolutely hate it when companies say things like “For every yogurt you purchase, we’ll donate $.05 to the Cancer Society.”
If Yoplait wants to donate money to a charity, then they should do it. Why do they have to do it only if we buy their product first?
If the consumer wants to donate to a charity, they should send their own nickel!
Is there really a subset of consumers out there that think “Oh! I will by this Oatmeal because they are going to give $.10 to the Ronald McDonald House! How generous of Quaker! And, bonus ego points, that’s like me donating the money myself!”
More importantly, I think its down-right unethical for a company to say “Sure, we like charities and all, but you gotta buy something first, make it worth my time. I ain’t a charity!”
Annoys the crap out of me. I belong to the subset of consumers that refuses to buy the product that gives a nickel to the charity.
Rant Complete.
by beagoodmom on March 9, 2010
I am sure Spring will get better, but here is what I have done to mark its glorious arrival, so far:
- spent 45 minutes draining and disinfecting our 3 humidifiers for storage.
- picked up bottle caps, straw wrappers, Matchbox cars, orphaned mittens, month-old newspapers, a frisbee and half a snorkle mask from the yard, where they were once happily buried by snow.
- discovered that we failed to rake up ALL the leaves and dead flowers before the snow fell last winter.
- spent $40 on new rainboots for the kids.
- changed Giggles pants every day after we walk Geetle to the bus, because she slipped and fell in the grass, getting 2 wet/muddy knees.
Yay. Spring.
by beagoodmom on March 9, 2010
I didn’t! I have just been reading so much that I have not started any new projects. Plus, its cold down in my sewing room!
But I did make something recently. Something we needed.
A Cat Splat Mat!
1/4 of a bath towel and an 8 inch wide strip of fabric made into double fold bias tape and sewed to the edges.
Washable. Functional. Cute.
by beagoodmom on March 8, 2010
There is a song called Downtown, by Petula Clark. Its a catchy little number. From the 1960’s, I think. When I was in high school, a group of girls did a retro lip-sync version for the school talent show.
Whenever anyone says they are going downtown, I hear it in my head.
Unfortunately, now when I hear it, I think of poop.
Giggles asked me where the Poopies were going when we flushed them. I told her they went downtown to the water cleaning plant.
Mistake.
Now I hear the song in my head every time I help Giggles in the potty. And I think of poop every time.
by beagoodmom on March 8, 2010
Giggles is fully potty trained now. She goes by herself at home and will go at public places too. We just wait for her to tell us she has to go and we go. Unlike alot of early trainers, we are not really bugging her every 10 minutes with “do you have to pee?” Maybe its because she is so good. But maybe its because she is our third child and we are getting lazy. Either way, its working. She rarely has accidents.
Pookie is a reluctant reader. He is good, but he does not like to do it. Last night I went into his bedroom at bedtime and told him to get a book and read it to me. Usually he would say “Mom will read it” and push it in to my hand. Last night he quickly grabbed “Who Took the Cake?” opened it up and read it to me. Proper cadence. Proper volume level. Proper enthusiasm. As soon as he was done, he closed the book and dropped it over the side of his bunk bed with flair and told me “Good Night.” I waited until I was in the hall to laugh.
Geetle enjoys a game called “Don’t Say it!” She is getting very good at describing things without using the forbidden words. Also, its a good game for playing with Mom and Dad when they are a little distracted. She describes things to us as we unload groceries or as BAGD does homework. We guess the answers and she loves it. I bet it would be fun in the car too. She comes up with very creative clues.
Pookie continues to insist that Nixie sleep in his bed. In fact, he won’t go to bed without her. He is afraid to pick her up, but the other night when he thought I was taking too long bringing her to his bed, he came looking for her and tried it.
by beagoodmom on March 8, 2010
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by beagoodmom on March 8, 2010
Lately, Geetle has been wearing her hair in two low ponytails, right behind each ear. Its cute. When I ask her how she wants her hair in the morning, she calls it “the regular.”
Yesterday, I convinced her to let me braid the hair, rather than make ponytails. So, when we went to Walmart, she had 2 low braids, her rock n’ roll t-shirt, a pair of baggy boot cut jeans, and her fushia plaid sneakers. Add her red glasses and she was adorable. She looked 12. I wish I could have tricked her into a picture. Those braids are a keeper…but it might take some convincing. She is pretty pleased with “the regular.”
by beagoodmom on March 8, 2010
We are successfully used 7 of the 8 travel sized tubes of toothpaste we found in our bathroom closet! Only one to go!
by beagoodmom on March 6, 2010
Compliments of the old Funny Books:
1-6-04 : Pookie learned to say “Tada!” and he says it alot. 1st word? We aren’t going to count it.
1-23-04: In the bathtub last night we squirted water and Geetle tried to catch it in her mouth. Pookie screamed into a cup to hear his funny voice.
3-15-04: Geetle is finally learning to fall without hitting her head. Pookie and Geetle took turns walking around holding their new cell phone up to their ears and pushing the buttons.
3-26-04: Pookie is very good at putting the blue square in the correct hole in his rocket ship shape sorter. He does it 15-20 times in a row. We sing songs while the kids bounce on my lap. Pookie especially seems to know that when I pick him up, he needs to grab my thumbs and hang on for the bouncing.
3-27-04: We colored with crayons for the first time yesterday. Geetle ran her crayon back and forth over her paper in wide swoops. Pookie tried a few scribbles and then bit the tip off a green crayon. I took it away and he was VERY upset.
5-20-05: Some funny sentences from Geetle this week:
- “That’s Mommy’s car.”
- “Where Mommy’s pants?”
- “Geetle eat Donalds with Mamaw!”
- “Pookie no like bananas.”
- “What happened to the boats?”
- “Geetle no like water.”
- “Carry bag? No! Carry two bags!”
- “Geetle want treat!”
7-25-05: When Geetle got in the car the other day, the weather was quite warm. She said to Daddy “Car Hot!” and then blew on the car to cool it down.
7-25-05: Pookie likes Winnie the Pooh. He can name all the characters. In one scene Tigger tries honey for the first time and does not like it. He spits it out to one side and then the other. Pookie thinks that is funny and sometimes he pretends to do that after he drinks his milk. He also likes to hug and say “I capture you!” like Roo does when he is trying to capture Heffalumps.
7-31-05: Geetle wanted to go outside today and said she needed her shoes because “I can’t go outside in my toes!”
8-12-05: We went to the beach with Uncle JB and Bean. Pookie learned to jump off the pier. By the end, he was jumping off and bobbing up in the water by himself. I just stood there in case he had any trouble surfacing. He loved it.
8-13-05: Geetle answers alot of questions by saying “Oh Yeah!”