media-free weekends

We have a pretty consistent rule in our house, though "rule" sounds harsh.  It's more of a lifestyle.

The children do not watch TV on the weekends.

A few years ago I announced that we were not going to watch TV on Saturday or Sunday.  Saturday and Sunday were No Show days.  Actually, my children watch very little TV.  They pretty much only watch shows on PBS or they watch DVD's.  Now we have Netflix on the Wii so they watch episodes of kid's programs that we've selected.   So calling the weekend No Show days made more sense.

Here's what we did today, without any TV, computers, or screen media of any kind:

Ate breakfast.
The kids ran off to their rooms and played with each other and several of their gazillion toys that are not the TV.
Then we painted pictures. 
I took out some garbage and noticed that even though it was blustery, it was quite warm.
We played outside.  All morning. 
We cleaned up the Halloween decorations.  We did some other yard projects.  They ran around the front yard.  They ran around the backyard.
They tried to fly a kite.  3-2-1 blastoff is almost as fun as actually getting a kite up in the air.
They played with a ball.  They went down our slide.  They played on the teeter-totter.  They played make-believe.

Then it was time for lunch.  The kids prepared their own pb&j sandwiches.  We never watch TV while fixing or eating meals anyway, so there's that.
After lunch, the kids ran off and played with each other and their toys.  Again.

Then this great thing happened after lunch.
The girls were playing with some stamps I had before I even had kids.  I dragged the box into the house -it had been on a shelf in the garage waiting for the perfect moment to make a debut in the kids' life.  I have flowers, and leaves, and other pretty curlicue types of stamps and all sorts of pretty bright flower colors.

This is while Gabe and Wolfie are burying a treasure box.  Yes!  Gabe decided that he wanted to bury some ale in the ground to age it for two years.  Yes!  He tells Wolfie, "Hey, do you want to bury a treasure that we'll dig up 2 years from now?  We'll have to measure some coordinates to remember where it is."  So Wolfie gets to dig a hole in the ground, one of his favorite past times.

See below:

The rest of the afternoon included games, cards, pretend, some banging on the piano, books, some homework, smooching, wrestling, chasing, pretending to be kittens, playing with more toys, etc. etc. etc.

Dinner, bath, books, bed.

The kids don't know what they're missing by having a media-free day (but honestly, I really don't think they are missing anything).

I've Done This

I've awoken to the sound of a toddler crunching strawberries in my bed at 5:00 in the morning.

She can now open the refrigerator by herself.  At least we don't keep the left-over Halloween candy in there. 

Why Can't I Just Be Mama?

My children call me Mama.  It was a poignant and personal decision I came to while pregnant with my first child.  Just as it was my privilege (and my husband's) to name our child, it was also my privilege to re-name myself.

A rare and privileged opportunity.

So I am Mama.  And Gabe is Papa.

And now my children are beginning school and entering the world and the teachers and parents and helpers and doctors and nurses and everyone else who has influence over my child uses universal terms like "your Mom" and "your Dad".

When Wolfie was two, three and four, he would always always always refer to me as Mama.  He would adamantly correct anyone who said Dad or Daddy. 

"His name is Papa."

This week Wolfie and I did an activity together which was sent home from school.  Homework, you call it, but it was a word game.  He needs to fill out an evaluation form and answer questions:
1) Was this activity fun?  Yes or No
2) Who did this activity with you?
3) Comments:

The comments part cracks me up.  Future blog reader ;)

But he wrote "Mom".  I admit, I was a little disappointed. 

This afternoon he made a reading test for me.  At the top he wrote Name                                 
I love the authenticity of this.  I took it seriously.  I asked him if he wanted me to write June or Mama.  He told me to just write Mom.  Again with the Mom.  Again I was a little disappointed.

I don't know.  It's just my thing, right.  I'm allowed to have my thing.

PS - I wrote Mama.

beat it

If you want to know how to play the intro to "Beat It", you only need to know these 7 keys.

We all took turns.

When it was my turn, Luna said, "You're awesome!" but it sounded like "You awshum".

Look close at the bottom left, in case you don't know who sings "Beat It".

One Less Step

Tulip has entered that little girl phase where she likes to play mommy with real live babies.  You know how girls age 4 and up will glom onto toddlers or babies and try to pick them up and carry them around and as a parent you say things like, "Please put her down" for the gazillionth time because you can clearly see that the four-year old carrying the two-year old is going to end in a fall down disaster? 

Though, with sisters, it rarely does.

Tulip started "mothering" her sister recently.  She brushes Luna's teeth.  Luna seems to enjoy this and Tulip likes having both the authority ("Luna, come on.  It's time to get your teeth brushed") and the skill (she can, after all, do this entire task without any adult help).  So I'm letting that one go on.

Now Tulip has figured out the leverage of hoisting Luna out of her booster seat when they are done with a meal.

It's great.  It's a hug for Luna from her big sister.  It's trust for both.  It's care.  It's love.

Sure, it's one less step for Mama too, and it's also what growing families do.

I've Done This

I've taught my children the beauty and awesomeness of the palindrome.  

We began with "stab live evil bats" because I know my son can spell all of that.  Of course, this was in honor of 11-02-2011.

So, now you know one of my Mom geek secrets.  So fess up, what do you do when you get your Mom geek on (or Dad geek)?

Halloween costumes went down like this...

Wolfie wanted to be a tornado for Halloween.  I'm always so impressed with his imagination.  I experienced technical difficulties constructing the tornado for the Halloween party we were going to Thursday night so Gabe suggested Wolfie elaborate last year's Ultrabot costume (a superhero robot that lives in Wolfie's imagination).  He totally saved Halloween.  The red bicycle helmet sparked a thought and then one idea led to another and the Eon Kid materialized in our living room.  Wolfie asked me if it was okay for him to be the Eon Kid instead of a tornado for real Halloween.  Sure, sweet boy.

Tulip wanted to be a black cat.  How simple.  Classic.  Easy going, just like Tulip.  Then we remembered we had this cheetah costume in our dress up box.  There were feathers all around the neck and wrists and when Tulip would play superhero Cheetah Girl, she would get all sweaty from chasing Ultrabot around the house and those feathers became too itchy.  Too often the costume, much to my chagrin, would come off in about 20 minutes.  So I tore off the feathers, except for the embellishment on the skirt.  I think she realized that her costume was pretty glamorous because, after wearing it to three Halloween events prior to real Halloween, I overheard her telling people that she was a cheetah ballerina.  Yes, of course.

Luna wanted to be a ducky.  Oh yes, darling little girl, you will be a ducky.  Gabe and the girls saw ducky costumes at Costco but they were for babies under two.  He then took the girls to Target and Luna picked out the cute baby blue dinosaur costume and if you don't say dinosaur with all three modifiers, Luna will be quick to correct you.