Beta Bet

 Meet our new resident monster, Beta Bet! He just arrived this morning from Monster Land (Amazon). He really has an appetite for letters, but he likes to know what he's eating, so you need to tell him the name of the letter you're feeding him first.

This is Beta Bet's older brother, Alpha Bet. Alpha Bet is being sent back to Monster Land because his mommy misses him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's made out of mere paper and may not be long for this world. Doug loves feeding him so much that I couldn't just stop the game, and I really didn't want to have to make a new monster every few months. My knowledge of the Greek alphabet is quite limited.

 

 Doug loves Beta Bet now too. We'll probably use the cardboard box he came in to build him a nice cave to sleep in.

In case you're curious, Beta Bet is a Melissa & Doug product called 'Make Your Own Monster Puppet'. All the pieces are velcro, and much like Mr. Potato head, you can mix and match them. The only potential drawback I see so far is that it's designed for a child. My hand is a bit cramped working its mouth. I wonder how well Jeff will be able to use the puppet. Other than that, I love it so far.

That is all I plan to accomplish today. I have a monstrous cold and am going to climb back onto the couch! Ttfn!

Knit & Knat

I've picked up knitting again. It was either knitting or sky-diving. Knitting has the added benefit of being portable and something I can do while I watch tv. Sky-diving, not so much. I learned to knit in college, classes were offered (non-credit) through the student union. I only ever learned how to make a knit stitch though. My project for the class was this humungous knit purse. I forgot to account for the fact that knit materials are stretchy and the very long shoulder strap I made went past my knees! But I digress.

My cell phone drove me back into knitting again. That sounds odd, but let me explain. For some unknown reason, despite a few resets and two software upgrades, my phone will randomly light up in the middle of the night while it's charging. It lights up when it finishes charging, but also lights up every now and again just for the fun of it. My phone charges next to my side of the bed on a table. I had hoped that turning the phone over would help, but enough light comes out the sides to be annoying when I'm trying to sleep. I'll just about doze off and then my phone will light up, mocking me; "Oh, were you just about asleep? TOO BAD!". I had stuffed it in a sock for a while, but the phone didn't fit well with the plug on. I had decided that at some point I was going to knit a cozy for my phone, and I finally got around to it:

                                      

You can see how skillful I am with knitting needles! (or not). I knitted a long strip, folded it up and stitched up the sides.  I forgot how to finish projects, and the end unraveled on me a bit. I managed to fix it, but I imagine that this cozy won't last forever. It's doing a great job keeping the phone from lighting up the room though.

Through the Bloggess I heard about this charitable organization called Project Night Night . Project Night Night makes up these tote bags for homeless children that have a security blanket, a stuffed animal and a bedtime book in it. They take donations of  new and homemade items. I really enjoyed knitting, to the point that if I wasn't knitting I was wishing I was. Knitting while I watch tv also means that my hands are too busy to snack. Anyway, I had all this yarn sitting around from college and I thought I'd knit a blanket and mail it to this organization.

I particularly liked the look and feel of this yarn:

                                                         

It's a homespun yarn and I thought I would knit a nice, simple, soft one piece blanket out of it. Not so much. It was very difficult for me to work with. I'm not sure if I needed smaller needles, more skill or if it is better for crocheting with. So I put it aside for maybe another project later.

I ended up finding some multicolored 'baby' blanket style yarn in my collection. I went out and bought some green and yellow yarn to match it. I decided to make squares, two multicolored squares per row, separating the green and yellow squares. Something like this, but not in a diamond pattern: 
  
                                      

I also found this pretty multicolored baby yarn with pretty silvery thread wound through it:

                                             

It's probably a little difficult to see it in the picture, but trust me, it's pretty. I thought I'd use that to knit a border for the blanket.

I like the idea of knitting squares and sewing them all together. I'm hoping that it will be studier than one knit piece that could fall to pieces with one broken thread. It's probably going to take me a while to finish this project, I am a slooooow knitter! I'm sure my craft club will get sick of seeing it!

The 'A-B-Cindys'

The literacy project is coming along. We took a break for the month of December. We had started the letter 'F' when my in-laws came to visit, but then we got busy doing fun things with them, so I put 'F' on the shelf for a while. I decided to wait until the holidays were over to re-do 'F'. I probably could have moved on if it was another letter, but Doug was still confusing it with 'E'.  Doug is doing pretty well with the alphabet song too. He now only occasionally sings "A-B-Cin-Dee".  My God-Mother's name is Cindy, and Doug adores her. If you sing "A-B-C-D-E" it does sort of sound like you're singing "Cindy", so I can't blame him there. I once heard a small child sing the middle of the alphabet "EL UH MENTO PEE!". Doug does fairly well with that part too now.


Here's our new and improved surprise box:

Doug gets excited on Mondays when he sees it. I have a large foam letter 'F' from our alphabet mat in there as well as a picture to color with the letter and a fire truck. I also include about 5 things that start with the letter of the week. On the second day of the week, we watch a Sesame Street video on the computer about the letter. I also give him a laminated letter that looks like a  Highway that he can drive his cars on. Usually on Wednesday I give Doug an envelope with 'Letter' mail. It has a felt letter and objects that begin with the week's letter either made out of felt or laminated with a Velcro back. I usually do a worksheet on Wednesday too. I make them myself. I put about 12 letters, all capital letters, on a sheet and he has to circle the ones that are the letter of the week. On Fridays, I cut about 12 letters out, all the same, and stick them to the walls with tape and Doug has to hunt for them. When he's gotten them all, he has to feed them to 'Alpha Bet', the puppet I made. Alpha Bet needs Doug to tell him the name of the letter Doug's feeding him, because Alpha Bet is a picky eater. We also do a foam letter project, in which we create something that starts with the letter of the week using that letter:

I usually try to do one special activity a week with the letter. For the letter 'B' I blew up a bunch of balloons and wrote a large 'B' on them. For 'C' week we made cookies shaped like the letter 'C':

 I think Cookie Monster would approve!

 This was our special activity the first time we did the letter 'F':

I found some clip art of fish and then I enlarged the fish and put a large capital letter 'F' on each one. I then printed them out and laminated them. After that, I took some sticky back magnetic strips and put them on the backs. To make the fishing 'hook', I took a binder clip and put some very small, crazy strong magnets in them so they'd be able to pull up the fish. Because of the very small magnets, we never let Doug play with this unsupervised. Doug absolutely loved this activity! I think I'm going to try to come up with a new activity this time we do 'F'.

We've also started working with numbers. I have a different box that I bring out in the middle of the week to talk about numbers. It has a coloring page with the number on it and a corresponding number of things on the page. It also has a large foam number in the box as well as the amount of corresponding legos. I also give him a number worksheet that I make. It has the number printed at the top and three columns below it. Doug has to pick the column that has the number of objects in it that match the number of the week. I'm thinking of also integrating a video from Sesame Street into this activity too.

Just looking at all the various activities we do is exhausting. No wonder we took a break!

New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

I like the new year. It feels fresh and full of promise.  This year I'll turn 30, in a few weeks, in fact. I'm not sure yet how I feel about that. I've been telling my husband that I've lived most of my adult life in my 20s (think about that, it's TRUE) so being 30, is.... different. Probably not bad different but just different. Jeff will be 33 this year, so he's already done the '30 thing'. My biggest apprehension about getting older has to do with the fact that in my 20s I acquired two (TWO!) chronic illnesses. I know as I age, my risk for more only goes up.

Along with many other people, I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions. All the ones I've come up with pretty much boil down to one thing: do healthier things for myself and my family.

 For example, this is unhealthy and pretty stupid:

That is a picture of my diaper bag. With all the contents there, plus Doug's sippy cup, the bag weighs close to 12 lbs. TWELVE POUNDS. Twelve pounds on my shoulder every time we leave the house. I don't have to tell you that this is bad. It's bad for anyone, but horrendously bad for someone with fibro. I was able to pare it down to 9/10 lbs. I wanted it closer to 8. Next week I'm going to go look at Vera Bradley's 'Mom's day out' bags to see if that would better fit our needs. The diaper bag plus Doug means occasionally I'm carrying 40 lbs. Yes. 

In other fibro related resolutions, I've decided that I'm allowed to say 'no' to things. I'm allowed to say 'no' to things that I feel are going to over tax me. It probably won't happen much, but saying 'no' more means saying 'yes' more to Doug. 'Yes, we can go to the park' 'Yes, I'll get out of bed right away' 'Yes, I'll play with you' 'Yes, I'll make dinner now'. So please don't be offended if I say 'no' to you.

I've also decided that I'm allowed to wear sneakers all the time. I have TONS of gorgeous, lovely heels in my closet that I haven't worn for years (mostly because I'm getting smarter). I've found that if I wear heels, I will spend the next day in agony. The muscles in my calves do not remember how to relax well; they need the support of sneakers. I do have some nice flats I can wear from time to time. I've also found that low wedge heels are acceptable for a while. Don't worry Erin; I won't wear crocs or sneakers to your wedding! I shall be cleaning out my closet soon though.

I also want to change the way we eat. I obviously am going to try to include more fresh fruits and veggies in our meals. I feel that when I cook, we do eat fairly healthy things. However, when I don't cook, we don't eat so healthfully. Unfortunately when I don't feel well, which happens from time to time, making dinner is the last thing I want to do. So we go out or grab some fast food or order in. My goal this year is to reduce the number of times we do that. I plan to go through my recipes and find things that will freeze well. I can make double one night for dinner and freeze the rest. That way when I'm having a flare up, we can just defrost a nice homemade dinner. I did a similar thing when I was pregnant with Doug, and we had some nice dinners to have when Doug was a newborn. I also want to make more soup. Mostly because homemade soup is delicious.

I also plan to do completely crazy, off the wall things this year. Absurd things like eat breakfast AND lunch. Drink more water. I've decided to set my exercise goal to be one aerobic activity a week (chasing Doug through the store with a huge cart won't count, but it sorta counts). Once a week sounds low, but with the fibro, I want to slowly increase exercise. I'd also like to start yoga again. See the insanity?

What are your New Year's resolutions?

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

Christmas Magic

I think most people have a memory from their childhood that is magical. For me, it was my first major league baseball game. When I was very small, I loved the Baltimore Orioles. One day my parents put my brother and me in the car and told us that they were taking us to a surprise. They tried to see if we could guess where we were going, but we had no idea. I think we guessed a toy store and then we thought we might be going to see my aunt and uncle who lived in Baltimore. I don't think we ever managed to guess. At any rate they took us to see an O's game at Memorial Park. I don't remember much about the game itself, just that it was an amazing and fun surprise for us.

Having a fun memory like that for Doug is important to me. Last week we decided rather spontaneously to take Doug up to Strasburg to see Santa on the train. We'd done it the year before and Doug loved it. I was a little apprehensive about the 6+ hours in the car for us, there and back. I was exploring our options when I recalled the Red Caboose Motel which can be seen from the train. I checked it out and it was pretty reasonable. Moreover, sleeping in a caboose was going to blow Doug's little mind. We decided not to tell Doug where we were going, to make it a surprise.

Doug wasn't really able to guess what we were up to. He had decided that we were seeing Santa. I'd told him earlier in the week that we'd see Santa at my high school. Because of the trip, we ended up not going. In addition to Santa, Doug was also convinced that we were going to see some animals. I have no idea where he got this idea. Luckily for us, The Red Caboose Motel has a petting farm.

Doug was very excited when we pulled up to the motel. Jeff went in to check in and Doug was begging me to stay in a red caboose. I told him that I had no power to make that happen, but we lucked out and got a red one, thank goodness.

When we woke up Saturday we had breakfast in the Motel's dining rail car. The hostess wisely seated us next to the window so we could have a view of the tracks and the Strasburg station. Doug was quite pleased because he got to see the railroad crossing signal go down three times while they coupled the engine to the passenger cars.  He also got to see quite a few Amish buggies go up and down the road. FYI, according to Jeff, an open buggy is an "Amish convertible".

We decided we'd buy tickets for the train ride when we got to the station. The first train ended up being sold out, but we were able to get on the second one. We attempted to go and do some shopping in the railroad themed shops, but Doug would have none of that. He insisted on being outside to watch the train. It meant he wasn't begging us to buy things, so I couldn't really complain. He really has a one track mind.

Doug was absolutely delighted by the train ride. An interesting aside, Strasburg runs two Santa trains at the same time, half an hour apart. So at one point, the trains meet and stop so one can pass the other. When this happened, Santa had just walked into our car, and then he was gone! He had evidently ducked into the bathroom. We noticed that Santa couldn't be seen on the other train either. Evidently to protect the Santa story, the Santas hide, so that the children won't see two Santas at the same time or Santa on the other train.  I thought that was well done!

Doug got to meet Santa and had a wonderful time. Even though we'd told him many times we were going home, he was still disappointed when he realized we were almost home and wouldn't be sleeping in a caboose again. I fear that no other hotel shall live up to the caboose. I hope we were able to create a memory for him to cherish.

And That's Why We Have Turkey at Christmas

This is Doug's Nativity set. My mother gave it to him last year to keep him from playing with my nice set and much to my delight, it's kept him from trying to get to mine and he loves to play with it. It's become a nice learning tool for Christmas.

However, it has become a bit unconventional. Most of the things that came with the set are further back in the manger. Doug has been adding other toy animals to this set, as you can see. I'll admit that I placed them more strategically for this photo, Doug usually just lumps them all in there.

Doug's assortment of creatures helps answer some questions while bringing up other important issues. For starters, you can clearly see that in Jesus' time people were concerned about the environment. Case in point, the wise man opted for a compact camel. You will also undoubtedly notice the dinosaur present. Many people are very confused about evolution, Jesus, and dinosaurs. You can clearly see that there was a dinosaur present at his birth. The writers of the gospels left them out, probably because dinosaurs were so prevalent in those times that they were easily forgettable. Another item of note is the ginormous squirrel. Either there was some serious exposure to radioactivity in those times or evolution has made squirrels smaller. I'm afraid that one poses more questions than answers. You have probably also noticed the dolphin. The birth of Jesus was evidently so momentous that sea creatures were drawn out of the oceans and into the desert. I don't imagine the dolphin lasted long once he got there. And lastly, this scene finally answers the age old question, "Why do we have turkey at Christmas when we just had it at Thanksgiving?". The answer is simple: because there was a turkey present at the first Christmas. As you may be able to see, the turkey is standing very close to the cook fire. It may have been intentional to make turkey for dinner that night or perhaps the turkey was accidentally pushed into the fire. We may never know for sure.

The Man

Meet Charlie, our elf. He came to us from the North Pole (Target) to keep an eye on Doug for Santa (Mommy & Daddy).

I had seen these elves in the stores for a while now and I was hesitant about getting one. Other people's children either loved them or feared them. But after three time-outs on Friday night, I decided it was worth a try.

Doug was interested from the beginning. Saturday night he came out of his bath to find Charlie perched on top of the entertainment center. We read the story that came with him and reiterated several times that Charlie will see if you're being naughty or nice and tell Santa Claus, who will in turn bring you more or less presents. You can't tell Doug that Santa will bring him coal. He loves coal. He has a collection of coal he has found while watching trains with Grandpa. So rather than a threat, he'd be over the moon to get some more .

There have been several times when Doug's not doing what we told him (cleaning up, sitting down to dinner, etc) and we've said to him, "Charlie is watching you!". At which point he usually jumps up and goes and does whatever it is we've asked him to do. The other night we were having dinner at my mom's house and Doug was having no part of sitting down to dinner. Desperately, I showed him a large snowman salt shaker and told Doug that the snowman knew Charlie and would report back. Doug was not impressed. I've also told him that Charlie has friends in stores who can report back to him. This keeps him from running around the store like a maniac and heads off the issue of running into a whole display of elves (Charlie's friends. They're watching you!). I also make a point to tell Charlie how well Doug did something, so that Charlie doesn't become 'The Man' (Elf) and Doug won't resent him.

I have to say, so far I'm pleased with this new tradition. Doug's begun to clean up hos toys without much fuss from me. I think we may modify St. Nicholas Day to say that St. Nick sent the gifts via Charlie, who's seen Doug being good (hopefully) to help reinforce the message that Charlie reports back to the bog boss. Hopefully this will continue to work right up until Christmas.