November 17, 2007

Holiday Gift Guide: A Kajillion Ideas!

Y’all, what’s up with it being mid-November already?  It totally took me by surprise, but I’ve recovered enough to present my second annual gift guide.  It’s grown exponentially, as I’ve included ideas for everyone, not just boys.  I’ll post it in installments so you don’t fall asleep reading.

I looked over last year’s post and I stand by all those gift ideas for the boys.  The safes are being used.  Drew was re-reading Little Lit just last night.  The pillows are now beloved.  The jump rope has been used for nefarious purposes, but I can’t be everywhere at once, can I??

Best of all, the boys have been taking music lessons and are collaborating on actual songs now, so the years of buying cheap instruments have paid off.  You haven’t parented until you’ve tied a red bandanna on your head and moaned “Where do we go now? Where do we go now?” into a hairbrush while your kids drum and strum “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

I’ve divided the gifts into rough categories for easier browsing.  Readers, please comment with additional ideas!

Today’s installment: Teachers, Babies and Toddlers

TEACHERS

Some teachers, especially those instructing the higher grades, are not remembered at the holidays.  Other teachers are bombarded with body lotion and apple-themed items.  I went straight to the teachers themselves for gift tips.

Kimberly at Parenting Without A License put it well:

As a teacher can I ask you for the love of god, please, please, PLEASE take all apple related items off of your list. (This also includes all school bus, crayon, and “inspirational teacher” themed geegaws). Unless you’re dealing with a first year teacher, I promise you we have more than enough “Apple Crap.”

Oh, and another thing?  Those gift cards to the educational supply/toy store? While appreciated, they aren’t the super fabulouso gift you all claim they are.  Sure, we appreciate them, and it saves us from spending our own money on stuff for your kids, but think about that for a sec…What you’ve essentially done when you give a teacher a giftcard like that is say, “I bough my kid a present; you can pick it out.”

Finally, the home baked goods?  Lots of teachers don’t eat them.  The prevailing attitude being, “dude, I don’t know what your kitchen is like, or what your hygiene policies are.  Also, I’m not sure if you baked these before or after little Jackson got a “D” on that report, so I’m not certain there wasn’t anything “extra” in the mix.”

Lots of parents give us mugs.  Every year.  For every occasion.

So, um, yeah.  Teachers like wine.  Or gift cards to restaurants.  The movies are good too.

Personal letters telling us how much you appreciate what we do for your kid, however?  We save those FOREVER.

Reluctant Prophet seconded the moratorium on apple related items: We could pretty much decorate entire houses with apple stuff, and still not run out.

What to give?  Cash, gift card for spa or shopping, boat totes from LL Bean, cookbooks, Starbucks cards.  Have the room mother collect money from all families and purchase one large gift.

A thoughtful reader noted that sometimes it’s uncool for teens to bring teacher gifts to school.  She suggested mailing a gift card to the teacher at home or school, or dropping the gift in the office.

BABIES + TODDLERS

It’s been almost a decade since I had a baby, and the industry gets together and changes all the rules and toys and equipment every two years, so I’m hopelessly out of date on this one.  I consulted Aunt Lulu, however, and we came up with some ideas.

When our boys wet the crib we had to change the whole damn deal (or stick the baby on the other end of the crib until he wet that end, too).  Now there’s the Ultimate Crib Sheet which snaps over the real sheet and can be easily removed when wet.  A family would need two– one to use and one to wash.

I’m sure we’ve discussed this before, but monogramming is a big deal in the South.  Aunt Lulu says that she loves the sheet she got that was monogrammed with her son’s initials.  She’s also seen them done with “God bless this precious child.”  I might also suggest “Dear God, if I have to change this damn crib sheet again I might go ballistic,” but that would really be a gift for the parents.

The LL Bean Boat Bag made another appearance here.  I’ve linked to the one that zips, which is key if you travel as much as Aunt Lulu does.  I’m not as preppy as she is, so instead of the classic, I’d get one of these customized bags in groovy colors.  I would order long handles, a zipper and an outside pocket to make it the most useful.  Tip: Not sure what color to get?  Look at the colors your recipient wears and decorates her house in and choose accordingly.

My nephew has something I can only call a Ball Popper.  It has three plastic balls that go in one hole and pop out another, much to his surprise and delight.  There are infinite varieties of this toy around.

You can’t go wrong with a big plastic truck that the tot can push around.  Garbage truck, Dump Truck– anything will be a hit.  These Haulers would be fun as well.

Aunt Lulu identified some hot books as well: Good Night Gorilla, Daddy Hugs, Mommy Hugs (these are two separate books about hugging!).

I thought the Mini Masters Boxed Set looked awesome, as I am a fan of anything that causes children to accidentally absorb useful information.  This is a set of four board books, one each with pictures by Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh and Degas.  You can also get others, like Painting with Picasso, separately.  Toddlers who learn that Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” when they are two will have a definite advantage when it’s time to study for the Art History exam in college.

I don’t know much about dolls (although Porter had a naked baby doll for a while) but this UglyDoll makes me laugh.  Would it make a little girl cry?

CAUTION:

You will not be popular with the child’s parents if you purchase a one man band or anything with thousands of little pieces.  If you’re going to order from Young Explorers and hope to receive it before Christmas, well, I hope you placed your order last summer.

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Stay tuned for the next installment of the gift guide.  Feel free to suggest other teacher or baby/toddler gifts in the comments.

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I still need a Wordpress podcast expert to help me set up feeds for the blog and iTunes.

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November 16, 2007

Friday Caboodle

If one of your boys ties a rope around his willie and asks one of his brothers to pull hard on the other end, don’t panic. Apparently (because I only heard about this adventure– don’t you think I would have terminated it if I had witnessed it?) your boy will be a bit bruised, but his penis won’t pop off.

I never do memes - people tag me and I have the best intentions, but something happens, and it’s not the meme. This week, though, I was tagged by both Maggie and Lynda to provide either 7 or 8 random things about me, and I have to wonder - don’t y’all know ENOUGH about me? The fact that Bill and I have matching tattoos? That we’re not that great at remembering the tooth fairy?

I guess not.

1. During my life, I’ve had crushes on at least 3 gay men, (not counting George Michael) but I couldn’t convince any of them to play for the other team.

2. I love vegetables, including the ones you’re not supposed to enjoy, like Brussels sprouts and beets. Cut Brussels sprouts in quarters, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in the oven til slightly brown on edges and tender. Toss with bacon for extra yum.

3. I don’t travel without dental floss: my front teeth attract green food. If you hear me asking Bill “AC?” during dinner out and see me giving him a fake smile, I’m asking him to check if my teeth are all clear or not.

4. My favorite counter cleaner is Fabuloso. It comes in several colors, but I recommend the purple. No matter how bad your boys smell, it’s strong enough to mask their scent. I buy it in a spray bottle but I’m posting a picture of the other type of bottle to say DON’T be stupid and go looking for beverages on the cleaning aisle and drink Fabuloso instead of Gatorade like some people did.

5. I’ve read a lot of books about the Kennedy assassination.

6. I adopted a beagle-dachsund my last year of college and named him Sherlock. The night before I got him snipped we had a big party at a fraternity house. I let Sherlock eat a hamburger, and a Charlottesville band called Down Boy Down played. Boyd Tinsley was a member of that band. He’s now in the Dave Matthews Band.

Sherlock lived to be 18 years old. He was devoted to me, and was suspicious of Bill, then Finn, then the duo. Eventually he got used to them. Kibbles n’ Bits helped.

Sherlock hangs with Drew and Porter

Sherlock and Porter enjoy delectable Kibbles n’ Bits

7. I can curl my tongue.

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For those of you in the Birmingham area– be on the lookout for the new glossy magazine Lipstick. It’s free, and you can pick it up in salons and spas.  I’ll be contributing!

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Hey- if any of you have a talent for Wordpress AND know how to post podcasts, will you email me? I have three recorded and uploaded, but I’m stuck on the part where I’m supposed to create a feed for the blog and code the podcasts for iTunes.

A year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Wilderness Week– and More Underwear

November 13, 2007

A Cheater’s Guide To Spiffing Up Your House

WARNING! This hint for making your house look fresh should NOT be read by interior decorators or perfectionists, as the system I advocate may cause you to retch.

Tools: Can of white latex paint, old newspaper, paint brushes of various sizes, paint stirrer if stirring is important, paper towels, painter’s tape. No ladder! (A small brush for pretending to paint the trim around windows and a sponge brush for quickly running over the baseboards are great).

Don’t worry about second coats, thickness of paint, or even doing an entire door. The theme here is that women will only look at the walls from their eyes down, and men will not look at them at all.

Background:

Our baseboards and trim were sparkling white when we moved into out house in January 1998. Five minutes later Finn had run around the kitchen a thousand times, dizzy with excitement about his new home, falling against the walls in the process. Two days later, after we’d carried the twins in and out of the house in their car seats, clumsily bumping them against the trim, it became apparent that underneath the shiny white surface was dark wood, waiting to be unleashed.

Unleash it we did. Through the years, there’s been wrestling in the kitchen, resulting in the loss of Porter’s two front teeth and lots of paint near the door between the kitchen and the den. There’s been climbing on the walls, resulting in more of the same. And there have been the activities of daily living: lugging in sacks of groceries, carrying laundry to the washer, watching Porter fall off the counter, taking the ant farm with him, and wondering for a split-second whether priority should be given to catching the big-headed ants, mopping up the blood, or heading to the hospital. But you’ve read the stories. You can look at the woodwork for yourself.

This has been cleaned (!)with 409. It just needs to be repainted.

Ditto. Nasty, scuffed. One year I covered all the dark scuff marks with Liquid Paper but that is NOT the method I am advocating here.

Method:

1. Buy some white latex paint and a few paint brushes of assorted sizes. Also grab some painter’s tape to mark off the walls if they are a different color than the trim or your kids will be “helping.”

You could try to match the white of your trim to the white of the paint you’re buying, but that sort of ruins the spirit of this project. It’s much better to do as I did and just have your husband grab a gallon of whatever he sees and bring it home.

2. Stick newspaper on the floor and tape the walls.

3. This is the second most important step– decide ahead of time how you’re going to handle this psychologically with your children. Will they be painting as a punishment? Will they have to observe you painting for five or ten minutes, watching you have all the fun, before you grudgingly let them participate? Will you market painting as a valuable life skill that once perfected, can be performed for money, rain or shine, drought or no drought?

If you have toddlers I don’t recommend this project for you, unless you have some alone time.

4. Start painting. If you’re anal like I am, you might wash the walls first to get the ancient glops of dried applesauce off the molding. Alternatively, save time by skipping this step, paint over it and the food will blend right in.

I chose to sell this as a marketable skill, which inspired Finn to finish the foyer, Drew to participate for thirty minutes, and thrilled Porter, but not enough to keep him away from his pogo stick for more than eight minutes.

5. This is not “real” painting. Start at about eye level and paint lightly down the woodwork, morphing into a semblance of a true paint job at about your waist line or wherever the nicks start.

At the bottom, just paint low enough to get the scuff marks, but don’t worry about getting it all perfectly aligned with the floor. No one looks down there. The less you mess around way down low, the less you’ll spill on the floor and have to clean up.

Wow - it looks like this area just got a professional paint job!

THE BIG REVEAL:

If you look closely, you can see where the bright white and the cream meet up on the woodwork. I’m only showing you. A guest inspecting your molding so intently needs a drink or a job. Send him to carve the turducken. (Click to enlarge)

On this door I painted the bottom, then used the tiny paintbrush to swipe around the knob and lock (grimy there!) and the bottom of the lowest row of panes. Then I sort of blended the paint up into the higher regions of the door and called it a day. It doesn’t look perfect, but that is not what I was going for. (In the photo you see a big white stripe on the left between the hinges, but in real life, with no flash, you don’t notice it much at all.)

If you’re really in a rush, forget the kids, the newspaper and the tape, and just dab white paint on the scuffs. Use dim lights when guests come over if you’re paranoid.

Happy spiffing!

I posted this as part of Works For Me Wednesday at Shannon’s!

Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Cleaning Out My Closet

Bloody Sunday

It wasn’t the pickax Drew wielded overhead, bringing it down steadily onto a concrete block, repeatedly, until it was crushed into Oreo-sized bits. When I saw the shards flying about, I made him put on a pair of safety glasses. That was a good mom-move, but I could have made it fifteen minutes earlier.

While Drew chipped away at the block, Porter collected a variety of sharp, rust-covered objects and placed them into the sand pile, creating an ancient village. All of us are up to date on our tetanus shots, so I let this activity continue.

Nor did I stymie their attempts to climb onto the roof of the storage shed. They worked up quite a sweat in the process and came in for water and Goldfish.

Later the duo got their BB guns and walked to the pond to hunt. They returned in high spirits, having shot the head off a turtle. Was this part of growing up male, I wondered, or did it foreshadow Dahmer-like tendencies?

Either way, I didn’t have time to ponder long, because that’s when I heard a whimper from Drew and, “Mom, Drew needs you and there’s blood!” from Porter.

The culprit was the fish knife, encased in an intriguingly decorated leather case. It sliced deep into Drew’s thumb, and blood spewed onto the porch that I had swept not five minutes earlier.

I left Porter at the house with his grandmother on the way while Drew and I rushed to the emergency room. He’s a tough kid, but tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he complained of feeling dizzy.

The doctor came and asked Drew what he’d been doing that morning. I tensed up, hoping Drew wouldn’t go into the excruciating detail that is his habit. It wasn’t even noon, and the boy had chopped concrete, scaled buildings, murdered helpless animals and slashed his thumb. And those were only the activities I had witnessed. None of this made me look like the mother of the year.

Perhaps because of the gallons of blood he’d lost, Drew murmured only that he’d been opening the fishing knife and cut himself. He then endured a terse lecture from the ER doctor on the danger of playing with knives, while I gave thanks that the doctor didn’t know the half of it.

Once they numbed his thumb in preparation for stitches, Drew cheered up quickly. In fact, he was he was too peppy for my liking. I caught him looking at his identification bracelet, which said “Age/Sex” in large letters, and snickering.

“Why do they have to put that word on there?” he asked, pointing. He wasn’t pointing to the word “Age.”

“So the doctors and nurses know you’re a nine-year-old male, and don’t get you mixed up with that granny down the hall.” She was moaning, “Lord Jesus, I was at the altar, and then I was at the hospital. Just take me home now.”

I made a mental note to ask Finn whether he and Drew had been discussing matters of a reproductive nature. I may have to dust off my Talk and prepare to give it again, solo this time.

While we waited for the stitches, we admired Drew’s socks. They reflected a full morning of whacking, hunting and climbing and were destined for the trash, so I captured them for posterity.

Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: All About You

November 8, 2007

Hussies?

Sixth-grade girls are calling the house. They’re polite when they ask to speak to Finn, but after I’ve gotten him to the phone and debated and rejected the idea of eavesdropping on the conversation, my curiosity turns, just a little, to disapproval.

Back in my day, we didn’t call boys on the phone. The first time I called a boy was to ask him to a high school dance.

It just wasn’t done. Now that I think about it, that’s a Southern reason for a lot of forbidden activities. Last year I wrote about the fact that we weren’t allowed to go in boys’ rooms, either.

Wow, considering this and my last post, I’m either one of the last holdouts for morality here, or I’m way behind the times.

Or maybe we just didn’t have time to call boys because we were expending so much energy getting up off the sofa to change the channels on the TV, dialing the rotary phones, and popping popcorn on the stove.  Hard times!

Last year in My Tiny Kingdom: Wednesdays: Bible Club, Smelly Van & Pink Thong