It's that $5 in your pocket kind of feeling.

So you may or may not know, but I hate to spend money. And I hate to shop. I know I'm not a typical girl.

Lately I've been finding all kinds of things that I need to buy. I go in fazes. I don't buy anything for a long time, and then suddenly there is a ton I need to get.

Last week I learned that I need some more maternity clothes. I have been feeling really uncomfortable in my maternity clothes and wondered why. Then last Saturday, I put on a pair of maternity jeans I hadn't worn yet in this pregnancy. I had put off wearing them, because the last time I was pregnant they were really big, and didn't really fit until later in my pregnancy. But they were the only maternity pants I had clean, so I put them on. And guess what? They fit! It suddenly made sense to me, why nothing esle was comfortable. It was all too small. And if they are too small at 4 months, I can only imagine how they will fit at 9 months. And let me tell you, on average, maternity clothes are not cheap.

Cinderella has out grown her tennis shoes. She has been wearing crock type shoes all summer. But it is getting a bit cold and wet for those kind of shoes to be practical anymore.

My children have outgrown or lost their winter accessories. So we need new gloves and hats.

And last but not least. Guy. He is almost 21 months old, and is still small enough to wear size 12 month clothes. However, I know he has got to be on the verge of needing the next size up.

When we visited my family in August, my parents neighbor was getting rid of a bunch of little boy clothes, and so I came home with a box full of 18 month size clothes. I took them and I washed them, along with the clothing from a box in the closet that was labeled 18 month boy clothes. After they were washed and I was sorting through them, I had a large pile of shirts, and a large pile of pants.

Then I noticed that all of the stuff that had come out of the box in the closet wasn't 18 month size. It was 24 month or 2T size. So I gathered all the 2T and 24 month stuff, and put it back in the closet. Then I didn't have a lot of time or energy for a while, so the piles of 18 month clothes, that were not needed right away, stayed in piles on top of the kids dresser.

Well, time went by, and I had a friend request 9-12 month size boy clothes. So I pulled those out of the closet, and made some piles of those, on a different spot, on the top of the dresser. However I never remembered to get them to her. So they stayed there. Also I started to get lazy, and stopped hanging Guy's clothes in the closet. Most of them made it into the drawer, but a good portion of them ended up (you guessed it) on top of the dresser. So by this time, the top of the dresser was a big mess of clothes, and none of it was really organized anymore.

One day I kind of looked through it, and realized I only had 2 shirts that were 18 month size there. "What happened to all of those shirts I had?" I wondered. I wasn't sure if they had been misplaced in all of the time it took me to get back to the clothes, or if they had all been the larger size that had been put back in the closet.

Also since that time, Guy has started showing interest in potty training. We aren't seriously doing anything about it right now, but I am wanting to get it so that he is not wearing so many shirts that snap over the diaper. So I felt like I also needed to buy a bunch of 18 month shirts for Guy. And I knew that could cost a fortune.

Well yesterday we were getting ready to go shopping for some of these things that we needed, and I decided I should take an inventory of what colors and styles of pants we have for Guy in the 18 month size so that I can get shirts to match. To do so, I decided I needed to clean up the whole mess on top of the dresser. So I started putting things away. When I got to the 9-12 month size clothes, I decided it has probably been long enough that my friend has probably already gotten clothes that size and doesn't need these ones. So I needed to put them away.

But before I could put them away, I needed to find a place to put them. So I started pulling boxes out of the closet, to see if I had any that had clothing too small for Guy, and room in the box for more. Well while I was cleaning out, I discovered a treasure. I opened a large Rubbermaid type tote, and found it half full of 18 month boy clothes. Pants, shirts, PJ's. Some of it was even brand new stuff, that I had received for baby shower presents and forgotten about.

It was a wonderful feeling to discover this box. It was like putting on a pair of pants you haven't worn for a while, and when you reach your hand in the pocket, you discover a $5 bill that you put there forever ago and forgot about. It was so nice to realize that I didn't need to buy those clothes. I still had a lot I did need to get, and we got that taken care of. But I didn't need to buy any 18 month size clothes, and that is great!

Now we just have to see how long it takes him to actually fit into that size.

Cars, Trains, Boats, and Planes

Plus any other kind of vehicle you can imagine. This has become a major focus in my life lately, and all because of one little boy.
I don't know if all little boys are this way. My brothers are too close in age for me to remember what they were like when they were little. But this kid loves things that go.

I also used to wonder, before becoming a parent of both genders, if part of gender differences in young children come from parent expectations, and what toys parents give the kids to play with. Well that might be part of it, but not entirely. At least in our case.

Guy loves the Little People bus and plane, which belong to Cinderella. He also loves the Little People digger, which belongs to him. He takes the three of them all over the house. He drives them along the floor, along the window sills, along me, along the couch, and if he can get away with it, along the table. He also likes to fill the plane and bus with other various vehicle type toys. A bike, smaller cars, etc. We don't really have a lot of vehicle toys, but those that we do have, are usually being played with by Guy.

One of Guy's favorite things to do, is to look out the windows of our apartment that face our parking lot, and point to all of the cars, and say "ar" (car), or "tru" (truck) and sometimes even "bu" (bus). When we are out walking or driving down the road his dialog is usually the same.

I never knew the difference between different types of tractors. And to tell you the truth, I never really cared. Well now I am learning. We have found library board books all about different tractors. (Those have been some of his favorites). By name right now I can only identify a standard tractor, and a digger. But I've heard the names of many more, and am sure I will know them before too much longer.

It is definitely fun to have a kid whose interests are so different from what mine have ever been. It is a great opportunity to learn more about what is out there.

When We're Helping We're Happy

The is a children's song, that is taught in our church that goes, "When we're helping we're happy, and we sing as we go. For we love to help Mother for we all love her so." It has a series of tra la la's, and then repeats the verse only inserting Father instead of Mother.

Anyway, Cinderella has taken to singing this song lately. She will see her father or I doing a task, such as the dishes, or cooking dinner decide she is going to help, get her stool out and come sing the song.

I have to admit, that even though some times are not he most convenient to have a 3 year old help with, it is kind of hard to turn her down when she is singing a song such as that.
I am learning, that there is value to allowing her to help instead of shooing her away and doing it myself.

For example, yesterday at the grocery store. When we go grocery shopping we use two carts. Daddy takes one, with one child and I take another with the other child. Yesterday, Cinderella insisted on being my shopping buddy, and that she wanted to walk. This is an OK step, because when JR. arrives, we will need the space in the cart for him/her.

Well because she was walking, she felt like it was her responsibility to help pick out all of the items that we purchased. We started with bell peppers. Last week she "helped" her daddy pick one out, and insisted on one that had a large bad spot. He couldn't think of anyway to convince her to get another one, so we took it home, and used it as quickly as we could. Anyway, I was a little hesitant to let her pick it out this time, until I had the thought. "Teach her the way to tell if a pepper is good." So I let her pick a pepper, then we looked it over, and I pointed out the bad spots. I told her, "it is OK if the pepper is green, yellow, red, or orange. But we don't really want to see any other colors. What color is this?" She responded with brown. So I told her we should probably look for another one. We continued this process until we found a pepper that was in pretty good shape.

Anyway, she and I continued through the store, with me allowing her to pick up items off of low shelves. I then taught her about dented cans. And we reselected when we needed to. It took me a lot longer to get our groceries, but Cinderella felt like she helped, and it was a learning process for both her and me. So I would say it is worth it.

Cranberries

I remember as I was growing up, Thanksgiving time was the only time that I ever really saw cranberries other than the dried kind or juice kind. And I never really gave cranberry sauce a chance.
In my mind jellied cranberry sauce that had been dumped out of a can, and sliced (how it was served at our dinner), seemed awfully similar to pickled beets. Now I never gave the beets a try either. But pickled beets, were one of those foods that I just figured from the way my cousins would talk about them, that they had to be nasty.

Well last year, my husband wanted to bring sweet potatoes to the Thanksgiving feast we were attending. Well I've never been a big fan of sweet potatoes either. I have a hard time with something that looks like it should taste like a dessert, but doesn't. Anyway I told him I wanted to try a different sweet potato recipe and see how I liked it. We found a recipe that was a crock pot recipe, that had orange juice, cranberries and brown sugar in it. I think it might have had apples too. Well I like cranberry juice, and I like dried cranberries, so I decided I would give the recipe a chance. It turned out pretty good. But only used a small part of the bag of cranberries I bought. Then I noticed a recipe on the bag. Cranberry Orange Bread.

That sounded pretty good, so I decided I would make it. It was yummy. However it called for a cup and a half of chopped cranberries. I started out with the cutting board, and decided that wasn't practical, so I put the in the blender. That did a much better job, except it reached a point that it would just push everything to the outside, and not chop any more. Which left me with some whole berries. I've decided that I need to get a chopper to more effectively make this dish. Then I forgot about the hard part of making it, and just remembered how good it tasted. So when I saw cranberries on sale at Costco, I bought a 3 pound bad, and made my bread yesterday. It still tasted yummy, but was definitely a lot of work. So I'm writing this post to let you know, 1 1/2 cups of chopped cranberries without the right kind of equipment, is a crazy task. It is possible, but quite time consuming. Now that I've written it, maybe I'll remember that little fact myself.

Preschool F is for fish

So I taught my second lesson in preschool today. I was assigned the letter F, and the number 4. Last time I kind of neglected the number and I didn't want that to happen today too. So ever since my last lesson I've been trying to figure out just how to teach today's lesson.

When I taught my first lesson, I discovered this really cool series that our library carries, called "The Sound Box Library" by Jane Belk Moncure. There are books for most of the letters in the alphabet, plus some other sounds that come into play with reading. Anyway I highly recommend them. Ever since I discovered them, I have been checking out the letter of the week, to read over with Cinderella to reinforce what she learned in preschool that week. And I plan to use them in my lessons.

Well when I checked the library system, a week an a half ago, for the F book, there was only one copy and it was checked out. I figured the chances of me having it for today were slim, so I looked for an alternative. I came across a book called "Four Fish, the Sound of F" by Alice K. Flanagan. That gave me an idea, because I was still wondering what to do, to teach the number 4. I hoped the book would all tie it in, so I reserved it. When it came, I noticed it didn't really talk much about the number four. It just concentrated on the F sound. But that was fine. And it gave me an idea.

I would do my preschool lesson, about fish. As soon as I decided that, I remembered a time when I was in college. I was taking a preschool class, where we taught preschool. The teachers were divided up into teaching two separate classes. One day afterwards, I noticed the children in the other class going home with little clear plastic cups with blue jello, and gummy fish in them. When I recalled this, I thought it might be a fun activity, and could add to our snack.

So I did some research trying to find the instructions on this activity. I found instructions from the Kraft Foods Jello website. I also found a lot of blog posts and other Internet listings of people messing this idea up. I was kind of concerned, about weather or not it would work. One of the tips someone gave, was not to use Swedish Fish, because they "melt". Well, I was looking for ingredients on Monday, and didn't want to rush to a million stores looking for gummy fish that aren't Swedish Fish. I ran over to Albertson's because it is our closest grocery store, and I needed to get some groceries for dinner that night any way. Well Albertson's had two choices. Swedish Fish, and their name brand "gummy fish." I decided to take my chances with the Albertson's brand that looked suspiciously an awful lot like Swedish Fish. But I got enough supplies to do a trial run for our Family Night treat that night.

It took about a half an hour to make up the jello and get it to the right consistency. I left out the fruit on the bottom, so it was just jello with fish in it. It seemed to turn out OK. The fish were starting to dissolve on the outside, which made for, in my opinion, an unfavorable texture. But the kids didn't seem to mind. So I decided that for this time, what I had would work.

The girls were supposed to show up about 9:30. And I didn't want to waste time making the jello while they were here. But I wanted the girls to be able to put their own fish in their jello. This jello ended up being the trickiest part of today. And it was all on timing. After I made the jello, I only needed to refrigerate it about 5 min for it to be the right consistency. So I started the jello, so that it would be ready, about 9:30, maybe a little after. Thankfully it ended up being a little after, because the girls weren't here at 9:30 on the dot. So we were able to get it to work. The girls stuck their fish in, then we put it back in the fridge to set up the rest of the way.

Then we talked about the Letter F, and what sound it makes. Then I had a tracing paper, with upper and lower case F, and some fish on it, for the girls to trace. When they were done tracing, we read the book "Four Fish".

Then we "went fishing." I had printed some fish onto card stock from my computer yesterday, and had them all cut out. I made a "fishing pole" for each girl, with a bamboo skewer (I cut the pointed end off), some yarn, and a clothes pin. Then I had them stand behind the couch and put their strings over the couch. I then sat on the couch and had a fish "swim along, and bite" a hook. Then I would have the girl pull her pull up, and add the fish to her collection. Each girl caught 4 fish.

At this point I knew the girls needed a change of pace. The jello wasn't quite all the way set up yet, but it was soft set. So we had snack. We had gold fish crackers, and our jello fish bowls. Guy enjoyed his just as much as the girls did.


I still had one more activity for the girls, but I got the feeling that the needed a little less structure for a while, so I let them have their play time.

When there was about 15 min. left I had the girls clean up the toys, and then they came and made fish bowls. This was an activity that I printed up off the Internet. It had 5 fish that were numbered for children to paste onto a picture of a fish bowl. Because I was focusing on the number 4, I got rid of the 5th fish, and let them have 4 fish to put in their bowls. They colored the bowls, and fish, and then glued the fish on the bowls.

Over all I think it turned out pretty good. It was a bit of work, but I made sure I was all ready last night before I went to bed, so I didn't have to worry about it, and not sleep. :)

Do you care?

OK so I know I am totally having one of those moments that Satan is taking advantage of me, and my pregnancy hormones. But right now I am feeling a bit insignificant. I haven't had a lot of time to post things on my blog lately. And I am kind of curious as to weather or not people even read it.

So this is a call to all of you lurkers. (If there are any. And for those of you who don't know what that term means it means reading and not commenting). I don't mind if you lurk. But right now I want to know if anyone actually reads this. So if you could just take a minuet to let me know if you actually take the time to read my blog, and would appreciate it if I continue it, I would appreciate it. Lurkers and non-lurkers alike.
Thanks.
Oh and you don't need a Google account to leave a comment. If you don't have one, if you could click on the name/URL link and at least enter your name so I know who you are. You don't have to enter a URL. Then it will let you post a comment.

Frustrating

So does anyone have any tips on potty training a child who doesn't seem to care if she wet her pants and doesn't seem to mind wearing wet pants. And won't even own up to having wet her pants? I just don't know what to do with this child.