Sing... Sing a Song... Sing out loud... Sing out strong...

I have to tell you that was one of my favorite Sesame Street songs growing up.  My siblings and I could really belt out all the good ol' Sesame Street tunes.  I can still sing a little Rubber Ducky or C is for Cookie whenever the need arises.  Hey, I teach preschool, sometimes the need does arise...

But my kids... they have grown up with the classics.  

Brahm's Lullaby?  Nope.  

Maybe a little This Little Light of Mine?  Not really.  

How about I'm a Little Teapot?  Not exactly.

Yes, they have heard, and even sung, those songs, but I think the songs they will tie to their childhood will be the Hair Bands of the Eighties.

Never mind they were all born twenty years after the eighties ended.  They love themselves some White Snake, Poison, and Guns and Roses.  But their favorite has always been Def Leppard.

Yes my boys have been able to sing the chorus of Pour Some Sugar on Me since they were about two or so.  I can't count how many times I have had to watch the two VHS tapes my husband has of Def Leppard.  I think it's amazing that Rick Allen can pound on that trap set with one arm, 

and Joe Elliot is kind of cute, 

and we all miss Steve Clark, 

there's only so many times I can endure the entire 90 minutes of Def Leppard tunes.  Thankfully the VCR has bit the dust and the MP3 has headphones.

Though Def Leppard is their favorite, other bands certainly get their chance to be featured in the Feehan concert hall.  In kindergarten, Braedon's teacher, Mrs. Gall got to chuckle at his rendition of Smokin' in the Boys' Room, sung in the boys' room.  I had to explain to her that he falls asleep to Tommy Lee and the boys.  She, thank goodness, thought that was hilarious.  

Another kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Elben, frequently duet-ed with Braedon in the hallway to You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi.  Braedon was very jealous that Mrs. Gall and some of the other kindergarten and first grade teachers saw Bon Jovi in concert in the spring of his kindergarten year, by the way.

About a year ago Ron and Calob (my 19 year old stepson, also a hair band fan) went to an AC/DC concert.  The other boys were heartbroken that we wouldn't spend $110 each to take them to the concert as well.  As he was reading this over my shoulder, Ron just said he needed to check Def Leppard's tour dates to see if they would be in the area any time soon....

So while other children might enjoy The Wiggles or VeggieTales, mine will be able to karaoke with the best of them as they get older.  I guess that's something to be proud of...

Loving the Lovies

Linus van Pelt was famous for dragging a blue blanket behind him in the Peanuts cartoons, much to the dismay of his older sister, Lucy.  According to Wikipedia, his blue security blanket debuted in 1954.  And the term 'security blanket' also is derived from Linus and his blue blanket.  Linus is often portrayed holding his blue security blanket over his shoulder while sucking his thumb.  And Linus actually grows out of this security blanket bit by bit over the course of three decades (during which he does not really age), but many a strip is devoted to family members and Snoopy unsuccessful attempts to break Linus of his relationship with this security blanket before he is ready.

In early childhood terminology, these security objects (they are not always blankets) are frequently called lovies, though I don't think I've ever heard them called that in real life.  Many children have a comfort item that helps them go to sleep or that they cuddle during the day.

We have several stories in my family of various family members' lovies.

One cousin had a blanket named Bubby that she slept with.  She didn't like it to be washed.  She had it for years and as she got older her dad cut it in half, then a few months later in half again, until it was down to a scrap.  I think she may still have that scrap of a Bubby.

Her sister was attached to the Mama Bear of a sewn set of the Three Bears.  Just the Mama.  And when one mama wore out, her mom had to buy the whole set and make a new Mama.  I think we found a whole bunch of Papa and Baby Bear un-sewn patterns one time.

My sister had a 'guin' (rhymes with fin, starts with a hard g).  It was a full sized fuzzy blanket with the satin edging.  She would pinch bits of fuzz from guin as she sucked her thumb.  We were finding guin throughout the house for years after she had outgrown it.  That darn fuzz would hide in the strangest places...  She did not care about the color of the blanket.  When she had worn one down to threads, Mom would get her another.  I don't know how many guins we went through.

I was also a thumb sucker and I don't think I necessarily had a lovie (Mom or Megan might correct my memory) but I did like to run the satin edging from blankets on my top lip as I was going to sleep.  By the way, I still sleep with the edge of the blanket or sheet on my top lip (which my husband finds odd), though I no longer suck my thumb (which I'm sure he would have found even more odd).

My boys each have a lovie.  Braedon has a pillow that he pinches.  He is actually on his third.  This one used to be called Lumpy in a previous life (at my parents' house).  Now it's just Pillow.  It does not have a pillow case.  The interior is foam that it now made up of several small lumps, thus the name.  The outside of the pillow is a texture similar to the inside of the pockets of jeans.  Braedon pinches and rubs the outside of the pillow to soothe himself.  He used to do the same with his jeans pockets in public, and maybe he still does, if so he now manages to do it without pulling his pockets inside out.

Colby has a Pooh Bear, a small stuffed animal that started out like a glow worm.  Its face lit up and it played music when you squeezed its belly.  That interior electric box was removed long ago when Pooh Bear was washed and when it wasn't missed, it was discarded.  Pooh Bear used to have a tag on his tush that Colby liked to wrap around his finger while he held Pooh Bear upside down under his nose.  I'm pretty sure the tag is either gone now or else it is worn down to a shred.  But Colby still likes to "sniff Pooh Bears butt" (his phrase) as he falls to sleep.  He does not have to have Pooh Bear every night.  Sometimes he goes several nights without Pooh Bear, but then he finds that rascal hiding out in some odd place in the house and the butt sniffing begins again.  Pooh Bear has been washed several times, but Colby says he doesn't smell right straight out of the wash.  We worried for a long time that Pooh Bear would be lost for good and Colby would be distraught, and though we kept our eyes out we didn't find another Pooh Bear until last summer when Ron came across one at an auction.  Of course now I think he would make it without Pooh Bear, but it's kind of nice to have the additional Pooh Bear around the house.

Brody was without a specific lovie for nearly the first two years of his life.  Then two years ago I received a very nice blanket from a family of a student.  It is a woven blanket made of embroidery-sized threads and has a picture of bears on it and some saying about teachers.  At the time, I was still rocking Brody at night and started covering us up with that blanket while we rocked.  He quickly latched onto it and now calls it his 'hair blanket' because of the fringe around the edges.  He sleeps with it every night and falls asleep running his fingers through the blanket's 'hair'.

Lovies are great comforts.  I don't think they hurt children.  Most grow out of them or adapt them as they grow, like Linus did.  What lovie stories do you have to share?

Grocery Deals for today

HyVees in Osceola, Creston, and Washington are holding a Crazy 8 Sale today from 8 to 4 pm.  I know our local Fareway also matches those ads, if they carry comparable items.  Hint, if a store is limiting your purchase, these are good deals.  Also if you do not need the canned goods for yourself, consider taking advantage of the deal and donating your purchase to the food pantry.  Here is what it included:

HyVee Milk, half gallon... 88 cents, limit 2 (cheaper than buying a gallon)
Midwest Country Fare Tuna, 5 oz... 28 cents, limit 2
HyVee Chicken Noodle or Tomato Soup, 10.5 oz... 28 cents, limit 2
Midwest Country Fare Mushrooms, 4 oz... 28 cents, limit 2
HyVee White Bread... 68 cents
Bakery Fresh Italian Bread... 88 cents
HyVee's Kitchen 12 piece Chicken Pack... $8.88
Amana NY Strip Steak, 8 oz... $3.88

Also this is the third day of the 3-Day sale at HyVee.  Here is what is included in that sale:

HyVee Yogurt 10 for $3
Country Pride Chicken Breast, 2.5 lb... $3.99, limit 2
Banquet Frozen Meals... 59 cents, limit 12
Hormel Always Tender Port Spare Ribs... $1.29 lb
HyVee Russet Potatoes, 5 lb... 88 cents
Midwest Country Fare Ice Cream, 4 qt pail... $3.88
VO5 Shampoo/Conditioner, 15 oz... 69 cents (food pantry will take these as well)
Peter Pan Creamy Peanut Butter, three jars for $2.98
Jack's Original or Half & Half Pizza... $1.88

And in HyVee's weekly ad, butter is under $2.  That's a good price.

Fareway has three kinds of whole wheat bread priced under $2 a loaf.
Also I don't have the coupon in front of me, but it appears you can get free Tones Spices...Mini Spices are on sale 2 for a dollar.  There is a coupon for one dollar off any Tones Spices in the 11-14 SmartSource coupon insert.  Woo Hoo!

It's been a busy week and I didn't get a chance to look at the ads until now.  I'll try to do it sooner next time.  Our budget is tight this week, but Ron is off to buy some cheap milk.  And if I can get those darn Tones coupons found, we'll pick up some free spices too.

Balance

It seems it's all about balance.

It starts at a young age.  Infants balance to hold up their head, then sit, and before long they learn to stand and then walk on their own.  They have to practice a lot to gain that balance in order to proceed to the next level.

As young children, we continue to balance our bodies to gain motor control.  Running, hopping, throwing, riding a bike are all skills that require us to practice over and over in order to gain the balance and control we need to improve.  We also must start to balance our needs and wants.  We must learn the balance in social situations--learning to share, but also to stand up for ourselves when we are being taken advantage of.  It's sometimes a fine balance that takes a time and a lot of practice to understand.

As older children, we begin to learn the balance of school work versus play time.  We begin to have to balance our time in order to get our chores done, to juggle commitments, to complete projects.  We may even start to learn to balance a meager budget of birthday money and allowance.  The social balance is still there.  And as peer pressure begins, we have to balance the opinions of our friends with the opinions of our parents.

As teenagers, we add to the mix balancing our time and responsibilities between school, work, extra curricular activities, and family.  We also begin to learn the balance between developing friendships and developing a special relationship with our first love.  The balance between right and wrong often challenges us with risky behavior as a teen.  We learn to balance a checkbook.  We learn to balance several deadlines at once, while also balancing our sleep schedule.

As young adults, the balance might be figuring out how to get the bills paid, while also having fun.  It also often involves balancing a load of classes at college or work responsibilities.  We balance our feelings of love and lust, and of love and hate.

As parents we not only must continue all of these balancing acts in some shape and form, but we also must begin to teach our children balance in their own lives.

Balance is a skill.  It takes practice.

We don't expect perfection from our infants and young children learning to balance their bodies in space.  We offer them many opportunities to practice, challenge themselves, and sometimes stumble and fall.  We also offer them encouragement and praise their accomplishments.

Somewhere along the line we begin to discourage the practicing aspect of balance.  We begin to expect perfection, perhaps even before we allow ourselves or our children to stumble a bit.  We forget that we have to work through the struggles in order to grow and develop.  We wouldn't expect a child to take off on bicycle the first time they ride it.  We expect them to struggle and face the consequences of a fall to the pavement.  We also shouldn't expect all these other skills to just fall into place without practice and being allowed to fail a few times and face the consequences.

We also need to practice balancing as parents.  We strive to do our best for our kids, but we also must forgive ourselves when we lose our balance.  We should recognize the consequence, and practice some more.  We should not expect perfection from our kids, but also not from ourselves.  Balance is a skill that will always be evolving in our lives.

It's all about balance.

Crayola Crayon Maker

Think back to your youth.  What happened when your crayons broke?  Or when they became a stubbie (as Junie B. Jones would say)?  They were not nearly as fun and I bet you wanted to throw them away and get new ones.  New pointy crayons are always more attractive than broken or stubby crayons.  

I am a teacher and a mom to three young children.  I also volunteer as a Sunday School Teacher.  In all those areas I am in contact with crayons.  I am frugal.  I like to use that word--it sounds better than cheap.  I have a friend who calls it thriftilicious, which is a fun word too.  Anyway... I asked for a Crayon-Maker for Christmas and my sister got me one.  Yay!

(Yay!  That's my first picture)

To use the crayon maker, you take all those broken and stubby crayons and peel off the paper.  Then break them into two or three pieces.  You place them in the metal tray at the top of the machine, turn on the timer (which turns on the light bulb), and wait about 15 minutes.  When the crayons are melted, you pour them into the molds, and wait for the safety screen to unlock.  In about 30 minutes total, you go from brokens and stubbies to pointy and sometimes swirly crayons.

Things I wish I had known.

*The lightbulb that provides the heat is not included.  But on the outside of the box it does tell you what size you buy.

*The crayons you end up with are about half the length of a normal crayon.  I'm okay with this because this size actually helps develop proper grip for the preschoolers in your life.

*The box shows swirly crayons.  Some of mine were swirly, but most were not.  I was okay with that.

*The timer and melt tray do not always work properly on my machine.  The timer will shut itself off at random times, so I have to listen for the ticking.  I actually got to where I could tell when it was time to dump by the smell of the melted wax.  (I can also tell when my breads are done by smell--pretty cool.)  The melt trays on my machine also don't always fall into the grooves properly and sometimes I have to jimmy them to get them in the proper placement for pouring.  For these two reasons, I would not recommend this for a child.  I get frustrated with them, imagine how frustrating it would be for a ten year old.

It sounds like I didn't like my new toy.  But I did like it.  In fact I had it cooking crayons nearly every waking hour of my Christmas break.  And no I did not go around break my boys' crayons to play with my toy, like my lovely sister keeps claiming.  I have access to plenty of old crayons that are wanting to be new again.  And the Crayon Maker does come with some new crayons as well.  I refuse to melt down perfectly good crayons, though.

I believe this machine retails for less than twenty dollars.  If you are a frugal teacher, day care provider, mom, or someone who likes to color, I recommend the Crayola Crayon Maker.  The kids were interested in the process and proudly showed the completed crayons to others.  But I would definitely plan to provide supervision with children using this machine.

(I was not asked to review this machine and am receiving no compensation.  I just wanted to share my thoughts with you.)

Chocolate Mint Brownies

I had to make a dessert for work for tomorrow.  This is a simple brownie recipe that is also delicious.

Ingredients
2 boxes of brownie mix (If you are going to bake in a square pan, get the smaller mix.  Or get the larger mix if you are going to bake in a rectangular pan.)
Items needed for the boxed mixes (typically oil, water, eggs)
Bag of mini York peppermint patties
Frosting (optional)

Directions
1.  Mix up one brownie mix as directed.  Pour in the pan.
2.  Open and break up the peppermint patties.  Place on top of the brownie batter.
3.  Mix up the other brownie mix as directed.  Pour on top and carefully spread.
4.  Bake for 45 minutes at 350.  (This is for a rectangle batch, would be less time for a square batch.  Just add a little time to what the box says since you have doubled the recipe.)
5.  Frost when cooled.

I frosted mine with Grandma Lewis's Homemade Hot Fudge sauce.  Yum!!  But I'm sure you could use any chocolate frosting or unfrosted brownies are also yummy.  Now if I can keep these boys out of the brownies until I can get them safely to work, we'll be in business....

Preparing for 101 in 1001

First off-- Happy 2011.  Do you say 2000-11 or 20-11?  I have been saying 2000-10 with the preschoolers at calendar time.  Though, I'm not really sure why, because I say 20-10 everywhere else.  I may try to transition into saying 20-11 in this new year.

It was a late night last night, being New Year's Eve, and all.  And my brain is a bit fuzzy this morning.  No alcohol was consumed, I am just tired.  So this post may ramble a bit.  I don't seem to be capable of organized thought yet...

At the beginning of 2010.  I had stumbled upon a blog that a friend was using to keep track of some goals she had set for herself.  As I began reading the older posts I realized this was more than just some New Year's Resolutions.  It wasn't really a Bucket List either.  But a bit of a combination of the two.  And as I continued to read and follow links, I found that there was a whole group of folks participating--making their own lists and writing about them as they checked them off.  This was a project called 101 in 1001 or Day Zero.  I thought that this might be something I would be interested in doing.

The basic idea behind 101 things in 1001 days (I like this better, Day Zero sounds so end-of-the-world) is to create a list of 101 goals for yourself and giving yourself a timetable of 1001 days to complete the list.  Apparently the website that is the home-base to the project is being revamped, but here are a couple of websites that explain and give examples of this project.

Day Zero Project  Looks like this is the official website for the time being.
101 Goals in 1001 Days  This has a lot of info to getting started including free worksheets to use to brainstorm and organize your list and links to several other people's lists for examples of goals.
Also googling '101 in 1001' and 'Day Zero Project' will bring up several examples of goals that folks have set.  This is a world-wide concept and it is interesting to see the variety of goals out there.

Back to me... I used to do some weak New Year's Resolutions back in the day, but they never really amounted to much.  By setting some goals and giving myself more of a timeline, maybe I could feel successful in reaching them.  And number one on the list was to start my own blog so that I could keep track of the list and be a bit accountable to someone other than myself and a piece of paper.  (Never very successful for me...)  Anyway I did a bit of research and planned to get started on my birthday, April 6, and therefore get finished 1001 days later right around the new year of 2013.  My birthday came and left and we still had dial up and it was taking forever for pages to load and I didn't think I could handle a blog on dial up.  So I abandoned my list for the time being.

We now have a basic DSL and things load faster.  And LOOK I started a blog.  So I am in the process of re-furbishing my list and starting on my birthday this year.  I like the idea of starting on my birthday because it is not really a list of 'New Year's Resolutions' then.  And I like that I have an end-date that makes sense in my brain.  So I am setting a goal to have a list brainstormed and organized and be ready to start this project on April 6, 2011.  Anyone else participating in 101 in 1001?  I would love to have a support group.  What do you think?