Tea and the Galactic Resistance.

One of my favorite things about having kids... 
Some days you open your teapot, and find this

I didn't have the heart to disturb them.

Long live the resistance. 

oolong and obi-wan,

-shawnacy

Things that are happy - small but significant.

THE GREAT WAVE-HOKUSAI - image

So it's been quite a week. or quite a number of weeks. i was talking to a friend recently and saying how i felt like i had been hit by a particularly grueling wave set, recently. Like in the ocean (yeah yeah, california girl... making ocean metaphors...) the waves come in sets... three, six, ten at a time, and then there's a period of calm. 

and i feel like i've been ducking waves for the past month, coming up for a quick breath and then heading back down to avoid getting thrown... but i'm hoping that the set has passed, and that i'll have some time to ... maybe just tread water and try to remember where i was headed before all of this... 

and there are certainly some things to be glad about. excellent times with family, i gained a beautiful new sister-in-law :), long talks with good friends. and all the little things that can somehow both lift and quiet your spirit. things like 

the fact that there are mustaches in my pencil jar:

Laughing like this:

Going on Nature Walks and making collections:

These sunny jonquils:

Good buddies:

Sunset Picnics:

These awesome faces:

and all the lovely things bursting into bloom outdoors. in the spring i always want to be out. the house is always messier and the yard always cleaner... mostly because outside looks like this:

my neighbor's frog :) anni calls him whiskers.. for some inscrutable reason. 

little bird

and because there is, finally, GRASS!! 

living in the high desert... grass is a big deal. the kids plopped down and rolled around in it for a good long while. long enough to get all itchy and happy. 

What about you? what are the things that lift and fill you when you're hollowed-out by life?

slow and easy,

-shawnacy

Rainbow City ... and a funny story.

Remember the Shoebox City project I made a big deal about a while back? ... yeah... so the project is done. And the fabulous lilla a has posted the results! It looks SPECTACULAR!

isn't that the coolest looking thing EVER?!  


... now here's why we're not in it. 


##1. This has maybe been the longest week of my life. ... My grandpa's passing (his obit is HERE, if you're interested), helping with the STAR testing at the kid's schools, and a few  other big things that have been occupying my mind and heart... time has been limited. 


We did try, however. 
Which leads us to reason


##2. Annika wanted to make a castle. So we got the shoebox out and were using egg cartons to make the bumpy parts on top of the castle walls (do those things have names?). We colored in some windows and a drawbridge and portcullis... and then Anni said it needed turrets... this is where things started to go south. 


I had the genius idea to use toilet paper tubes (sounds reasonable, right?) and top them with more egg carton pieces. So we cut things out and glued them all together. I set them on the table to dry and went about doing other things. Anni came up to me a while later and said they were dry and could she color on them... Go ahead! was my enthusiastic reply. i really needed to just get the thing done, so i left her to the task of decoration.... and when i walked in again about a half an hour later, this is what i found. 

... i wont bother telling you what this looks WAY too much like. 

And so, because i wasn't really gung-ho on sending the poor unsuspecting lilla a ... THIS kind of castle, and we didn't have time to make anything else... i laughed a lot, and then made the decision to opt out this time.

yeah.

...thanks for playing folks, hope all your attempts were smashing successes, and that you weren't too offended by our... unfortunately-shaped castle turret. 

Snicker and Snort,

-shawnacy

Something Pretty, Something Smart

How is it Friday already??
I'm stunned. And also happy. Friday nights are Family Nights here at the ranch, and I have some tricks up my sleeve... 


So, without any more ado, here's this week's picks, because every week should contain:

Something Pretty,

Something Smart,

Something to Do,

and A bit of Art.

... and maybe one or two things Just for Fun. 

Something Pretty:


## i really love paintings done over text. something about the dual forms of art coexisting so beautifully.... 
and these ones from Coco de Paris are a perfect example of how that's done. 

Something Smart:


## watch this wowwing video of the milky way.


The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

## Check this post from Black Eiffel for inspiration to read more classics. (and then spend some time walking through the rest of the blog.. its tip top) love the visuals.

Something to Do:


## loving these DIY Rope Bracelets from Honestly WTF, via Poppytalk. Aren't they the nifty-est! 

## and could someone please bring me one of these Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cakes... pleeeeeaaaaseeee!!??

can that be for real? five minutes? ... seems too good to be true.


A Bit of Art:


## Hop over and read this super-cute and sweet Book called Extraordinary by Sarah Mensinga. 

## and how about this art made out of STAPLES!! Yes, thank you. 

 

Just for Fun: 


## i'm not sure if i should thank my friend Tina, or shoot her for sending me here. Awkward family photos. i'm not even remotely kidding when i confess to you that i spent way too many minutes convulsed with laughter ... i nearly gave myself a concussion, when - in one badly timed convulsion - i hit my head on the corner of the desk... you might want to consider grabbing a helmet before you open the link... don't say i didn't warn you. 

you know you just real-life laughed. :)

Frolicking Ferrets,

-shawnacy

Family Dinners

So. We're still without a functional camera. (*snarl) 
But, as with so many things we can't do anything about, it looks like I'm just going to have to suck it up and make the most of what I have at hand.


And I've been intending to do this post for a while anyway.






Today's topic: Family Dinners.

which, at our house are actually something more like this:

As you may have gathered from reading one or two posts, we have quite a large family. Large and kind of insanely busy. But we do the very best we can to make dinner time a family event. I sometimes wonder if it's really all that important (especially when they race through their food and ask to be excused about 14 seconds after I'm finally able to sit down...), but time and time again, I've heard from them that dinner time is the best part of their day. And so... I keep it up. Even on those days when all I have time to do is re-heat some leftovers and slap a jug of milk on the table. 


Here are some of the tricks I've crammed up my sleeve to make it both manageable and fun:


## 1. Thoughtful Preparation. 
This does not by any means imply that every meal has to be a Thanksgiving kind of spread, complete with soup course and cut-glass bowls of olives. However, I have learned that a small amount of preparation goes a LONG way. I have made a habit (by sheer force of necessity) of planning out menus a week in advance. I write down the weekly meals on a cute little chalkboard thingy we have hanging in the kitchen, and keep to it... loosely. Switching tuesdays meal to saturday if it's a better fit, or if I'm simply NOT in the mood to roast a duck. (<--- something I have yet to try)

image

(this one is much cuter and fancier than ours) Mostly, it's for my benefit, to remind me WHY in the great big world I bought three packages of frozen spinach, and not one can of tomato sauce. 
Along with the menu preparation, I also have the kids help set the table, and if time allows, create some kind of fun centerpiece. It's hilarious sometimes, the things with which they choose to 'decorate' our table.


## 2. I usually have some topics of conversation picked out.

We run the orbit of the table first, always, to find out everyone's 'high point' of the day (I honestly never cease to be shocked at how often the kids say that 'right now' is the brightest part of their day), but I've found that, sometimes after that, if there isn't some kind of stimulating conversation to ground us all, things can easily crumble into 

'stop kicking me!' 

'I'm not!'

'yes you are, I can FEEL IT!'

... and etc. ad infinitum. 

so. to avoid such algonquin round-table fare, I usually have some kind of conversation game ready at hand. Sometimes we play round-robin story, where one person starts telling a tale, and then breaks off in the middle and the next person takes up the thread. Or any of those alphabet games that start, 'i'm going on a camping trip and i'm taking with me...' 
Lately, though, we've been on a pirate joke kick. This game started with the eye-rollingly pun-ful joke, 'Did you hear about the new pirate movie?... it's rated Arrrr.' (admit it, you just giggled a little.. and THEN rolled your eyes) But this game is super easy for little kids. They just think of any word that contains the phoneme 'ar' in it, and build their own joke around it. 
some good ones from our family this past week have been: 
'what is a pirate's favorite body part? ... his ARRRm'
and, from the slightly older kids: 'what is a pirate's favorite civil war cemetary? ... ARRlington.' 
It's good silly fun, and at least a few rungs above the endless bickering. 
There are tons of products out there that you can buy - like this table topics game - or make - here are some great ideas from rex and regina - to liven up (or maybe just focus) your dinnertime discussions. 

##3. Manners.
I am attempting to instill some primitive kind of politeness in my children. Using silverware, sitting rather than standing at the table, once in a while employing a napkin... to this end, we do a few different things to encourage rudimentary manners. First, those who have managed to get through dinner with a modicum of decency will receive a manners marble (which I talked about a little bit HERE). 

Sometimes, though the thought of a little blue marble just isn't enough to motivate. These are the days we pull out the pennies. I give each person at the table 5 pennies at the beginning of dinner. When they catch someone talking with their mouth full or eating with their fingers, the offender has to pony up one of his or her pennies, giving it to the one who caught them. At the end of dinner, they get to keep however many pennies they have remaining. 


## 4. And lastly, sometimes you gotta break the rules.
Dinner can't always be a thing of white napkins and polite observations about the weather (or pirates...) 
So every once in a while I'll mix it up, and throw everyone a crazy kind of curveball. Like the other day when we played this great little camp game. 
We have 7 people around our table, so I chose seven kitchen utensils - I mean the weird ones, no 'big spoon' business. We had the beaters from the mixer, a whisk, a garlic press, and a lemon squeezer among others. 
I laid out each utensil in the center of the table and had a set of dice ready to go. Each kid got a roll, and whatever number he landed on, that was the utensil he had to use to eat his dinner. (i got the leftover. It was a pair of BBQ tongs.)
It was a mess, and a hoot, and nobody's manners were going to win any awards, but it was a fun, memorable night. And sometimes, I think that's even more important. 




What about you? How do you survive dinnertime?
Whatever your solution, make family time something special tonight.

Violas and Veggies,

-shawnacy

Marble Jars and Positive Discipline

Probably the most puzzling and certainly the most dreaded part of being a parent is discipline. We all hate it. We hate doing it, and we hate that there is a need for us to do it at all. 
But.
Let's be honest. Nobody's kids are perfect (certainly not mine). And from time to time we have to pull them out of the candy drawer, or off their brother, or away from the street...again, and plop them into time-out. It happens.  
Sometimes, when we're really busy or stressed out (or when they have ADHD plus a lot of other things plus a billion brothers and sisters), it seems to happen a LOT. 

I was getting really tired of all of the behavior issues we were having, and of how somehow I had become little more than a warden and a referee. 


So a few years ago, I re-vamped my approach. 


First thing, was to HAVE. A. PLAN. 
For the times when the kids were home, I needed to have something for them to do. There are tons of ideas out there for fun things to do with kids. Many of them don't cost any money and don't really take much on your part but a little bit of planning before hand. I was a teacher for quite a while, but for some reason, the idea of having a 'lesson plan' for our home time never crossed my mind. 
But let me tell you, it has changed things for us. 
All I do really is keep a list of projects, games, activities, books etc. (it's just one of my bookmark files) and add to it as I find things (I add stuff pretty much every day). Then, at night (I try to do this once a week, but sometimes I get behind and do it the night before... works either way) I pick some activities for the week (checking to make sure I have everything I need in the way of any materials) and just plop it into my daily to do list (I use teuxdeux.com.) Here's mine for today and tomorrow. 

THURSDAY

APRIL 14, 2011

• press here book pojcect
• finish red and orange bags
• call abt. gre in lit. when?
• Walking
• post organ to ebay
• groceries
• J- takes the car
• outside time - build a fort
• ch. breast caserole
• write up alchemist thing
• rave on

FRIDAY

APRIL 15, 2011

• Poem project with ink blowing
• LAUNDRY!!
• Walking
• Shrimp pasta
• bike ride
• family night

And that's it. Most days it isn't even anything particularly special. Just going for a walk, or playing outside with water tubs while the boys and I have a game of catch, or having a stack of drawing books from the library on hand when they get home from school with some notebooks and sharpened pencils... that's really all it takes. 
And they have a directed activity that isn't too stressful, and I was relieved of my policemama duties, and we're watching hardly any tv anymore, and everyone has a (mostly) peaceful time at home. 
It was crazy how well it worked. 


and then, Secondly, I came up with the Marble Jars. 

Essentially it's the same kind of thing they have in every elementary school classroom. You know, the kind where you get to put a bean in the jar every time you're caught being good, and, when the jar is full  you all get a pizza party... that kind of thing.


We don't do allowance in the traditional sense here at home, because it seems to devolve quickly into little more than paying your kids to do their chores. Which I think maybe gives them the wrong message. Instead, when they get their chores done for the day, or when they complete their homework without complaining, or have a tidy room at the end of the day, or practice their good manners at dinner - then they are allowed to put a marble into their jar. When their jar is full they are rewarded with something fun of their choosing. Sometimes they choose a toy, other times a trip or outing. And when everyone in the family has filled their marble jars once (or twice... we're working on our fourth filling!) we get to do something special as a family. Last time all the jars were filled, we went to LegoLand. 


So it's really just an incentive program to get them focused more on what they can do that is positive, rather than on how they're going to get punished for NOT doing what they ought. 


Here's what we give marbles for:
Room inspection - just before bed (no punishment if they're not clean... but also no marble.)
Homework - done quickly and cheerfully
Chores - the assigned ones, and any they choose to do on their own (I nearly fell out of my chair the first time Nancy volunteered to scrub the kitchen floor)
Good Manners at the table
Being helpful and kind




So really, that's what it boils down to. Being prepared, and giving them a reason to want to be responsible and kind. 
This has been working really well for us, but I'd love to hear your ideas. How do you keep the peace in your house?

Marbles and Manatees

-shawnacy