And we try again.

I really thought I would get the hang of this whole blogging thing.  At first I thought I would never find enough things to say.  Now I feel like I never find the time to say them.  Writing takes a lot of dedication and it seems like my dedication in this area is lacking.  Mainly because that dedication is to my family and crafting (which is what saves my sanity sometimes).

Here is where I shall try again this time try to fail better.

Last I wrote was about my difficult child.  Not everyone has one, but that isn’t to say that all the other children are angels.  This is difficult to a different degree.  I feel like I should start there because it’s been a year and we fell back into the pit.  Hard.  So hard I began to wonder if I will survive his teenage years.  Or if one of us would end up in the hospital.  I don’t mean this tongue-in-cheek.  I mean this as one of us could end up injured.

I would start at the beginning, but I don’t really remember where it began any more.  It was tantrums that I remember most. Ferocious long lasting exhausting tantrums.  Sometimes an hour in length.  Sometimes where we would have to leave the store.  Once where a kind police officer tried to talk to him as I was wrestling him in his car seat so he could be safely buckled and I could breathe.  Sometimes in the school parking lot with his older brother and I standing outside of the car while it rocked back and forth from his thrashing.

He had a reputation before he ever started school.  Thankfully the teachers are patient and everyone believed it was a phase that he would grow out of.  Honestly I did too.  I prayed for that.

Is he neurotypical?  Yes.  I talked to his doctor starting at 2 years old about whether he should have an evaluation.  I talked again at 5/6 about whether we were still on track or if we needed to have an evaluation or therapy.  It’s always on my radar.  Is this explosion going too far, should we go back to the doctor or find a therapist.  I have googled and read and talked with other parents but finding other parents with similar stories is hard.  Most people just kinda laugh it off and I’m afraid to say how it really is except to a chosen few who are supportive and let me vent when I need a break.

What can be so bad?  Why haven’t we had an evaluation or therapy?  Honestly, we thought it was just a rougher than usual “terrible two” phase.  Therapy isn’t completely off the table either and we will likely explore that option more at his next check up.  None of his teachers or doctors feel that there is a need for an evaluation.  Could I speak up, sure.  I could force the issue but I don’t believe that is the answer.  Maybe in the next year I’ll be proven wrong and I don’t know what sign I’m waiting for that says that is what he needs.  He is very smart, clever, creative, outgoing, has lots of friends and charms most people he meets.  He makes eye contact, can follow directions, talks well with others and likes to play in groups as well as alone.

He is a strong willed child and I don’t want to break that, but convincing him to do things is difficult unless he wants to do it.  Before he was able to talk well this consisted of screaming, throwing things and himself, pinching, biting, hitting, kicking, headbutting.  Nothing stopped it.  Not yelling back, getting down to his level to talk, whispering, singing, holding him close, putting him in time out, leaving the room, nothing.  Worry was always there that he would hurt himself or me or his brother or his father.  Never sure what would set it off, but once he was there was no stopping until the storm was over and that was most likely a half hour at best.  You knew it was done when the screaming turned to tears and you weren’t wrestling a baby grizzly bear anymore, you were holding an utterly exhausted child who fell asleep crying and is dripping with sweat from his exertions.  Sometimes, I cried too.  I’m sure we looked a mess.

It could come from being asked to put his toys away, or that we had to leave somewhere, or go somewhere, or it was time for bed, or don’t throw that.  I did my best to offer choices, rearranged his clothing drawers so he could easily pick out his own shirts and pants, cups for drinking in easy reach so he didn’t have to ask for a glass of water.   He should be independent for some things.  Sometimes its a hard no and often those would be the times he strained against his bonds and erupted like a volcano.  Learning to communicate helped but as he grew so did my worries that this behavior would follow him in school and would he be allowed to stay?

Kindergarten was the biggest test I thought.  It was all day and school lunch and a tired boy coming home.  His teachers loved him and praised him for being so kind and gentle and nice towards his peers.  I thought we were finally through the rough patch.  It was just a rough patch.  We will be okay.  Until we weren’t.

First grade is the bigger challenge.  There is more independent work and the work is harder than Kindergarten.  His brain is in overdrive and his body is growing quickly.  He is tired.  And we find ourselves back in the pit.  Never for sure what will trip him up and wondering if an explosion will happen at school.  At home the tantrums have changed and admittedly when they start my patience is at zero.  We have been through it too many times before and my switch flips to angry.  His flips to angry and silence and when given a choice between two, he takes the third option of not choosing anything.  Trying to send him to his room for a time out becomes a physical battle because he won’t go willingly and sometimes we just need some space to settle before addressing whatever issue I didn’t see coming.  Space also prevents us from escalating each other but we never seem to take it like we should.

I know this sounds cryptic and typical for the most part.  Our last escalation went along these lines.  Family board game night and he was having bad luck with his dice rolls.  Usually he is lucky but we were playing a cooperative game so as a team we were still doing okay.  Suddenly he shut down.  No words, not looking at us, no longer playing.  Try to talk to him about what is wrong and no one is mad about his dice rolls.  Still nothing.  No responses.  Well, you can either continue playing the game or you can go play with your toys.  Nothing and now its his turn and we are at a standstill.  Its okay if you don’t want to play but could you talk to us.  You can go play with your toys but if you aren’t going to play you need to leave the table so we can finish (mainly because he’s non responsive to the game, distracting, angry if his turn is skipped or someone else takes the turn for him, and has draped himself over the table obscuring pieces and dice).  Parental frustration sets in with continued no responses.  Okay, maybe you are tired and need to get ready for bed.  No response.  Okay, let’s go with a grab to the arm to guide him upstairs to get ready for bed.  Things take a physical turn as that pushes him over the edge and I end up with him in the recliner trying to prevent him from hitting his head on the gaming table (which we set up in the living room for game nights) and whispering “you are safe and loved” and “I don’t want you to hit your head” to no avail.  No words from him, just grunting and thrashing and pulling and wrestling until we are both sweaty.  When he finally breaks free after 30 minutes or so of me trying to calm and talk to him he leaves the room with no words but not to his room or to play just into their toy area and stands there. He is completely shut down.  The game is over whether we want it to be or not and we never find out what the real issue was the pushed him over.  Like most parents, I just want him to listen and I try to give options to give him some control.  After a few minutes, he comes back in and crawls back into the recliner with me and still has no words and all I can tell him is that I love him before he falls asleep in my arms.

We have run the gambit of time out and taking things away and clearing his room with the threat of leaving him just a mattress on his floor and to please just listen and do what he is asked.  His response is to take his mattress off his bed by himself.  Removing things doesn’t do much for him.  He adapts to that and does without.  Timeout doesn’t always work because he isn’t able to leave for his room so we can all have some space.

He isn’t an ogre although it sometimes feels like he is.  Every time I think we have found something that works it turns out to be just another layer of onion.  First, I spent my time researching strong willed children but it wasn’t quite enough.  The things that worked with his brother don’t work with him.  Offering choices that are acceptable to me also doesn’t work for him.  On one hand I know he will carve out his own path throughout his life, but I don’t want to break his spirit before he gets to the point where he can.

I’m sure there are lots of things I have left out.  The battle has changed somewhat as we try new techniques and again I am hopeful.  This time I researched explosive child and while not everything in every parenting book is something that works, I at least have a new perspective to try.  I also found another mom to talk to and that helps with my stress level.  Lastly, I had been on the fence about melatonin.  I know for this child that sleep is extremely important.  It’s not something that happens every night, but we have given him a half dose while we were wrestling with consecutive days of issues.  Sleep helps.  My pit now has a ladder and while I am not at the top or even halfway up, at least my feet are on it.

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t say something good about him, that I don’t feel he is doing this on purpose.  School is important to him and he tries very hard to keep it together there.  We tried some new ways of trying to communicate with him to find out what he is struggling with and have had some successes.  The one that stands out to me the most is at another family game night (we do these a lot) and this was an every man for himself and points count type of game (it’s called Imhotep).  We hadn’t played much and suddenly he was starting to shut down.  I was paying attention more and noticed and stopped the game to engage him before he completely slipped into his no man’s land.  He said he didn’t like the points.  I asked why as they were a goal of the game.  His response was that they put too much pressure on me.  His words, and I was a bit surprised.  I asked him if playing without points would make it easier.  This of course made his older brother mad because competition and it’s the goal of the game.  I told brother that it would only be a few times which my difficult child repeated with relief in his voice and that he wanted to understand how the game worked and it wouldn’t be forever.  We put the scoreboard away and just played the game without worrying about winning.  His choices in game were much different after the scoreboard went away.  He wasn’t trying to copy what everyone else was doing.  He was trying the options that he was interested in.  For now, we are more cognizant of  which games are cooperative and which are more point based and it becomes a discussion for what we play during game night.

Is that the end of all of the struggles?  Not hardly, but it’s a start on one of them and we will just keep peeling the onion and hopefully help him to learn how to express himself appropriately and deal with the feelings that come along.

The next layer is how brothers treat each other as the oldest has had two pairs of glasses destroyed this week and will be off to the eye doctor for an exam and new glasses.

I guess its time

For me to actually make some time for myself.  When I initially thought about this blog, I intended to make this a regular writing time for myself.  That obviously didn’t happen.  However, with both of the boys off to school for full days I find that I am finally having some time for myself and I thought that I would give this a try again.  So, here I am!

I’m not certain that I have the same vision for this blog as I did originally.  I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time but life has a funny way of evolving a person.  I still hold on to that dream but whether or not I become a published writer is something that may or may not happen and that is just the way that it goes.

Up until now the boys have taken the lion’s share of my time and I’m thankful that one of them is easy.  Honestly, he was the first and if the second had been first there would not have been a second one.  I can joke about it, but he has been a handful and he requires more attention/supervision.  This year with him being in all day school has been both happy/sad/scary.

Happy because he is so excited for school and loves learning.  Honestly, I don’t really even need to take him to his room as he is running for the door and takes himself right in to class.  He is highly motivated to learn.  He has been trying to teach himself math and trying to learn to read.  I’m a little afraid to help him in this because I am not a teacher.  Very much not a teacher and the fear comes where I don’t want to teach him incorrectly or mess anything up for his teacher.  I’m sure that’s not really a big deal at this point considering it’s Kindergarten, but its one of the random things I worry about.

It’s sad because he is the youngest, the last, and my baby.  He has been my buddy going everywhere with me and now he is doing his own thing.  Sad more for me than for him and a part of growing up.  I’m ready for him to do this and its helpful that he is ready for the challenges.

I also am a little afraid.  I’m not sure how to put it all into words, but I will try.  The oldest is a good kid.  I don’t have to worry much more beyond the normal drama of 4th grade.  The younger, well, he is a different story.  He doesn’t do “no” well.  But it’s more than that.  He is fierce.  When he was two I timed his temper tantrum at 40 minutes and we had them lasting up to an hour.  I have run the gambit of things to get them to stop.  Just when I thought that maybe he would grow out of them, they rear their ugly head again.  My fear is that he will be over the top at school and will have to leave.  Or that he will fight with the kids he is supposed to be friends with.  He’s so motivated that I don’t know that he would jeopardize being at school.  But it leaves me fearful that when I got to pick up there will be a story of him doing something or that my phone will ring and I will have to go pick him up and take him away from the place he loves.  Fearful that I will have to try to explain to him about behavior and consequences.  That’s not exactly right, we to talk about consequences and behavior and it can end with screaming and doors slamming and a small boy who just can’t seem to keep himself in check.

I don’t think that any of these are the right words for him.  He can be very sweet and funny and kind, but when the storm comes it comes in hard.  I am sometimes full of joy and sometimes my heart is shattered into a million pieces.  Every morning is a chance to get up and try again.  I’m sure that I sound like a horrible parent and believe me, sometimes I feel that way.  Every day I just get up and try to do better.  There is a lot more to say about him, but I need to find better words.

Pokemon Week Day 1

Well, it more like Day 1 and Day 2.  This Momma lost a little of her motivation this week.  I have a feeling that we may try to make up for that…

During Superhero Week we were supposed to pain superhero banks.  We didn’t get to that activity and so I thought it would be a good idea to start off our week with Pokemon banks.  We had acrylic paints and Mason jars and once we settled on our Pokemon, we got to work.

Larger Blonde chose Talonflame (I think that’s who he settled on) and he is red and grey.  So, one half of his bank will be red and the other grey.  His red was coating pretty well although he was not terribly confident in his painting ability and so ask me to do touch ups when he was finished. We did get to his grey, and it will need another coat before we can begin painting the face.  I’m hoping they will be happy with the results.

Smallest decided on the only Pokemon he really knows – Pikachu.  To give his a little flair, I went with the gold.  This is where I learned a bit about paint glass.  You really should have glass paint.  Surely they make such a thing….  The gold went on but stayed fairly see through until I got about 5 coats on it.  Yep, I kept painting after Smallest went down for a nap.  I think his is finally ready for a face though.

We all took a trip to the library in the afternoon to get some books.  I was completely surprised to find that all but 2 of the Pokemon books had been checked out including the one movie they had.  Is someone else stealing my ideas?? Maybe we need to keep our trips to Saturdays….  Either way, it was pretty ironic that most were gone.  We did take the two that were there and enjoyed our walk in the sunshine.

Larger Blonde also started a Pokemon Drawing challenge that I found and I’m glad to see him expand on his drawing.  Usually he does the bare minimum when it comes to art so I’m glad to see him trying.

Day 2 for Pokemon week was a bit of a free day.  We are still waiting for our banks to be touched up and dry so hopefully on Day 5 we can finish them.  The boys played their leap pads and jumped in the trampoline.  It was a bit more tv than normal, but every now and again that is okay.  I’m going to try to modify some of our earlier games to fit with our Pokemon theme and I think we will be using the catapults and ping-pong balls.  Sounds like it could be fun right?

You can see what kind of Pokemon activities I had planned for here.  I’m hoping that I find my motivation soon…my not having any directly coincides with more disagreements from the boys and I would much rather encourage them to do activities together so they can learn how to play nicely with each other.

Lastly, since we did not earn our Self-Control badges last week, we are working on them again this week.  Things are going better so I am anticipating that we will be able to add those to our superhero capes at the end of the week.

Ending Circus Week

I got a little busy with out activities and didn’t get things posted like I had planned to, so here is the ending of our circus week.

On Day 4, we were back to work and so had to do some quieter activities.  I noticed that in Larger Blonde’s classroom his teacher had a big stack of red solo cups and the kids always ran to play with them.  They built with them…all kinds of things. So, I thought it wold be fun to do at home and picked up some smaller cups and colored craft sticks to see what they could to with those.

They had some fun building, although the Small Blonde had more fun knocking things over.  We got our workbook pages done and did some coloring and then it was time to head home.  Once nap time was over, we finally had a chance to play a game that I had planned for earlier in the week.  We built catapults out of craft sticks and used paper plates as targets.  Our missiles were pompoms.

(please excuse the paper shreds on the floor…they were so excited to play I couldn’t get the vacuum out first so I had to wait until they were done).  I would have to say that this was the most fun activity we did this week.  At least in their eyes.  They could compete with each other and had an equal chance on who would score the most points.  Of course there were prizes.

On Day 5 we had more games to play.  Two of them did not work out so well.  The first one was the ring toss.  I had them color the rings on paper plates so that we knew whose rings belonged to who.  However, because the paper plates are thin, they did not sail like a frisbee.  I probably could go back and staple a couple of layers together and it might work better….we might have to try that another time.

The Small Blonde had quite a bit of trouble with this game even without the plates sailing. The next game we did, I didn’t even take pictures of.  We tried to do a squirt gun race.  We went outside for this one.  I took two plastic cups and put holes in the bottom by the edge so yarn could run from the mouth of the cup through the hole at the bottom.   Then with each cup being on a different piece of yarn, I tied them to some things in the yard so they were about chest high to Larger Blonde.  You are supposed to squirt the water into the cup, hitting the bottom of the cup and causing it to travel down the length of the yarn. First one to the finish wins.

I’m not sure if I needed bigger cups, or if the yarn caused the hang up, or if the hold really needed to be in the corner of the bottom of the cup.  Either way, the boys couldn’t make them go.  I still think this has potential to be a fun game, but to modify things we are going to run nylon cord through a straw and tape the cup to the straw.  I’m hoping that will work out better.  I think we can try this again during space week and we can dress our cups like rocket ships.  Either way, it didn’t go well and we headed back inside to do something else.

I may have mentioned that our local library has cake pans available for check out.  If not, they do.  We checked out a clown face and we baked a cake.

We took turns stirring and getting it ready for the oven.  While we waited for it to bake and then cool, we tried another game.

You may know this as the fishbowl game.  You take wide mouth cups and put water in them and then toss ping-pong balls into the cups.  Since it was supposed to get super hot outside, this needed to be modified for an indoor game.  So, we simply took out the water.  We had smooth ping pong balls and golf ball type ping pong balls.  Each boy got one type and tried to toss theirs into the cups.

The Small Blonde ended up being pretty good at it much to the chagrin of his older brother.  That being said, Older Blonde did not do a very good job of losing to his brother.  So, we had more talk about self-control and not letting our Hulks out.    In fact, this was a pretty bad week for not keeping our inner Hulk under control and so neither one earned their Self-Control Badge.  We are going to try again this week and see if we can’t tame that inner Hulk a little bit.

Once nap time was over, it was time to decorate our clown.  They had fun decorating, but I think they enjoyed eating it more.

I know it may not look all that tasty, but they each had a hand in mixing, backing, and decorating it.  We read a recipe and followed directions and planned out some colors.  Now it is time to return the pan to the library.

What do we have planned for this week?  Well, I got a little behind in my planning as we had some company this weekend so we are going with Pokemon Week!

Day 2 and 3 of Circus Week!

This day went a little better than I had thought it would.  I thought the Older Blonde would be bored with these activities.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Of course they both had to wear their superhero capes.

First we started with making trains out of shapes so I could get a little bit of work done.  Here are all of our shapes.

I made one as a sample to show them how things could work together.  I thought this might lead them to making other things out of their shapes, but Smallest quickly got bored with it so we moved on to the next activity fairly quickly.

It was time for buttons!  I drew lines on the papers for them to follow with buttons (it was really more for Smallest so he could work on his small motor skills).

Surprisingly, Older Blonde was having more fun with it.  The plus side is that it gave me more time to get some things done.

After that we did some color pages and some workbook pages and headed home for nap time.  Before the night was over we did some target practice in preparation for a circus game the next day.

However, I did not anticipate that things would go sideways.  How?  Well, the Older one had chores that he should be doing.  In exchange for these chores he could earn money based on how much he did during the week.  This has not been going so well.  While the list is posted at his eye level and he sees it every day, Older Blonde has not been so motivated to take advantage of this opportunity.  This am he was up at 6.  He spent his time watching cartoons he didn’t like (his words) while he waited for me to get up.

I think we have talked it to death – the whole doing chores for money.  We even gave him a mulligan – that if he forfeited the paltry sum he had accumulated over 2 weeks AND worked hard at getting chores done this week he could have 2 new Skylanders (mainly because it was buy one get one for $1).  Today is Wednesday and he has done 1 of his chores.  Just one.  In spite of being reminded of the deal and the chores.  Part of me wonders if he’s not ready for this (he’s 7).  Part of me wonders if we didn’t handle things right (because we are far from perfect parents) with this chore/allowance thing.  Part of me wonders if he’s lazy or normal.  Honestly, we haven’t found a way to really motivate him.  I’m hoping we find something soon.  It’s starting to drive me a little nuts.  Not that he won’t do what we ask him to….I think we get the normal amount of eye rolling and heavy sighing for that.  It’s the initiative that seems to be non-existent.  Like completely non-existent.  This goes for practice and schoolwork as well.  I’m starting to think it’s becoming a never-ending battle.

Anyway, sideways.  We spent a lot of time talking about chores and responsibility and by the time that was over, well, I was feeling a bit discouraged and irritated.  So, it was a free play day today and that’s okay.  Tomorrow is another day.

Day 1 of Circus Week

I know, two posts in one day!

Today is our first day of Circus Week!  I’m sure you are probably wondering how we decided on this theme and the only answer I have is something popped up in my Pinterest feed that looked fun and when I looked more, I found a whole bunch of fun things that we could do and so here we are!

We of course started our day with some workbook pages (and let Mom get caught up on the blog) and then we moved on to our first project – making tie-dyed shirts!

It was a little harder that I had thought it would be.  Mainly because our driveway is gravel and it was windy so the ground cover kept blowing up and rocks kept getting everywhere.  We decided to try to do a little Mickey Mouse on our shirts and a couple turned out.  Right now they are all in the wash for the final step.

So, here we are making our shirts!

Smallest was getting the shirt wet for me.   I did offer to put gloves on him so he could dye his own shirt, but he didn’t want to wear gloves.  No gloves, no dyeing.  That’s okay though.  He picked out colors while I did the coloring.  I didn’t do my homework ahead of time so I didn’t have any soda ash to soak them in first…in fact…I didn’t even wash them ahead of time <gasp!>.  Instead we just jumped right in.  Hopefully everything will turn out okay.  If not, we had fun doing it and we could always do it again.

Here is  Older Blonde adding dye to one of our shirts.  I suppose I should stop calling him Small Blonde…it gets kind of confusing with Small and Smaller Blonde… Anyway, Older Blonde took time to make sure that each dye was lined up in a particular order.  He had fun choosing color order.

Here the boys are doing their work today.

Here is part of our finished work.

Here are all of our shirts ready for sitting for the next 6 – 8 hours before rinsing.

Honestly, this took a little longer than I had thought it would.  They seemed to have fun.  Once we were done, they wanted to enjoy the day outside some more and played on their swing set until it was time for lunch.  After lunch it was nap time and after nap it was more outside play time.  Hey, if nothing else it pays to be flexible.  Although I really should have gotten out the stuff for the squirt gun races….Ah well…there’s always tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay – our last day of Superhero Week!

Friday was our last day for Superhero Week and I learned a lot!  Mostly that I over plan. That’s okay though – some of the things I didn’t get to can be used in other weeks with just a little re-imagining.  For example, we were supposed to make superhero mason jar banks.  We ended up not getting to them and so I think we will use them in our Pokemon week or maybe even space week instead.  All we need to do is paint them according to our theme.

On our last day of Superhero Week we finally got our logos designed and applied as well as our helpful badge for being helpful for the week.

This is CatFalcon.

This is SuperP.

We did our workbook pages and had some free play and jumping practice on the trampoline.  Then it was time for superhero bingo. This was a huge hit!  It was really good for the Smallest as he was learning how to match pictures and he caught on really quick.  We picked up some prizes at the dollar store (like coloring books, pinwheels, those little wash cloths that expand in water, and bubbles).  We even did a cover all at the end when Smallest started getting bored.  After Superhero Nap time, they wanted to play again even though there were no prizes involved.

Small Blonde and his dad played a coding game as well and that went over really well and he has been asking to play over and over again.

Our evening ended with a Boy Scouting Night at our local baseball park complete with fireworks.

On Saturday, our library had its kickoff for the summer reading program.  Since it was a beautiful day, we walked.  The boys wanted to wear their capes.

There were hot dogs, and a bounce house, and some outside games.

Here is Giant Jenga.

And a bean bag toss.

No prizes, but it was still fun and of course we headed in to the library to check out some books.  It’s no fun if you don’t get any books.  We also have a great children’s room and they had a couple of games set up in there and the boys took advantage of those as well.

Overall, I think it was a good week.  The boys had a good time and are looking forward to our next week where we will be working on Self-Control and the theme will be Circus!  I learned that I am not cut out to be a teacher and that I do over plan things.  However, that is not all bad because then I have back up activities in case something doesn’t work out or they breeze through it and are looking for more.

The big thing was that there wasn’t as much fighting.  There was still some because they are brothers and are still learning lots of things about getting along, however they weren’t as frequent.  When it came to bingo they helped each other and had fun.

I am going to call this a successful week and I look forward to Circus week!

If you want a look at the things we did, here is a link to my Pinterest Board for Superhero Week.  There are some super talented and creative folks out there who share their ideas and I am very grateful that they do so otherwise it would be more difficult for me to pull together this kind of stuff.  I thank them all.

And now for Superhero Wednesday!

Well, today went a little better than yesterday.  We had a bit of a sleep in which I think we all needed and after getting our workbook pages done, it was finally time to check on our snow globes.  If we were to do this project again, I would need to remember that we have to keep the lid in mind.  We could have filled the jar with more baby oil and left a smaller bubble at the top.

Here they are!  Captain America and Falcon in their snow globes.  See how we really could have filled them more?  I was worried more about how much displacement would occur with the superheroes going in but forgot to think bout how much would go into the lid.

Of course they were still fun to shake!  And using oil instead of water means the glitter settles slower.  You can’t even see our heroes for all the glitter!

We played with those for a while and then they had some superhero jumping practice  while I got things ready for the obstacle course.  I just grabbed some yarn from my stash and some packing tape and went to work.  If I were to do it again, I would take a little more time and space things out a little more.  Overall, it didn’t turn out too bad and I didn’t want it to be too easy.

Next time I would also be sure to tape some down to the floor as the first thing they did was to crawl under the whole thing.

I laughed and encouraged them to not just crawl under it, but to try to figure a way through it.  The Small Blonde took to the task immediately while the Smallest Blonde decided that he was perfectly content crawling underneath.

It kept them busy until it was almost time for lunch.  Then we got our exercises in and again it was time for a Superhero nap.  Small Blonde had free time to use for reading today, although he really needed to spend some more time cleaning his room.  You see, he is missing the squares he needs to put his Perler beads on.  Even though he looked high and low yesterday (he says) he still wasn’t able to locate them.  I took a look myself and couldn’t seem to locate them either.  They have to be in there somewhere….I guess we will have to see what tomorrow brings.

They are still loving their superhero capes but we did have one little snafu with those.  Somehow we managed to misplace the one for Smallest Blonde so tonight we will be making him a replacement.  I thought we had looked everywhere, but I guess not since we haven’t found it.  Tonight I will make him a new one and we can get on with the business of making our logos and finish up earning our helpful badges.   Maybe even finally get our masks made.

One thing is for certain.  I have learned a lot this week and I consider it my practice run. I think both boys have had fun so far, but I had higher hopes for myself in terms of what we could accomplish.  That’s okay though.  It’s accomplishing what it needs to.  The boys are not squabbling as much and that makes the days easier for everyone.  On the plus side, they are working together on some things and that is fun to watch.  I think my ultimate goal of us getting to be closer as a family is something that is attainable.

Superhero Day 2!

Today was a bit of a blah day.  I had bigger plans than what I had time for.  I think this week will mostly be an experiment that I can tweak for the rest of the weeks of summer.  At least I’m hoping.

Two days a week I do go to work and I take the boys with me (before you think that it would be impossible to keep and eye on them and actually do work, I have a partnership in a long arm quilting business so if it’s quiet it’s just me in the shop).  As long as things aren’t busy, it’s not so hard to keep them occupied.  When it is busy, it’s a little more difficult.  Today was not a busy day so we were able to do some things together.  For these days, I plan more paper/drawing/coloring activities that they can do on their own.  Today I had some word searches, plus their workbooks, and some coloring pages.  We did a bit of exercise to get our day started and then got into the workbooks.

I took some time to make superhero logo puzzles out of colored craft sticks.  I lined the sticks up and then put painters tape on the back so I could do my drawing and then removed the tape.  Here’s the back.

Here are the fronts.  Please don’t laugh, I’m not the best artist….

In case you were wondering, the orange is Captain America, the red is Superman, the purple is Hawkeye, the green is Green Lantern, the yellow is The Flash, and the blue is supposed to be Batman.  As I said, I am not the best artist….

I pulled them out first thing when we got to work thinking that the boys could work together.  Smallest could sort the colors while Small could put the pieces in order.  Things did not work out that way.  Smallest preferred to drive airplanes over them messing up the pieces and that drove Small crazy because he wanted them all laid out perfectly.  He did say they were hard and I was glad, because I was afraid that they would be too easy and that they would get bored with them.

They each got their workbook pages done and Smallest reached a hard page and partway through decided he had enough and closed the book and walked away.  That’s okay.  We all have good and bad days.

I had plans for them to make superhero masks and pick their superhero name and we could work on a logo for their capes, but Smallest could not find his cape this morning and was a bit distressed so I put those activities off until tomorrow.  Instead they colored and Small Blonde decided that he wanted to be CatBat with a Cb on his cape so we will get that done tomorrow.  I’m not sure what to name the Smallest Blonde.  But I will have to come up with something tomorrow.

Today wasn’t a total bust, but I think the older boy was expecting more fun and less work.  He ended up with a bit of a double whammy because I set aside quiet time for him to work with his Perler beads on some superhero patterns we printed out together.  However, he couldn’t find the squares on which do his partners.  I was a little surprised, because I thought he knew where they were although his room is a mess and so I wasn’t completely surprised.  Instead of work on his fun craft he spent his quiet time cleaning his room looking for his square peg boards.  Some days truly go better than others.

We ended the day on a high note with pizza and a Spiderman movie so that wasn’t too bad.    It feels like we got a little off track today, although I think I just over planned the day.  Tomorrow we should have time to do more fun things and then I’ll feel like we are back on track even though we haven’t really gotten off of it.

We are still working on being helpful and I hope to work on a helping hands project with the boys tomorrow.  Our snowglobes should be ready tomorrow morning as well.  I think the boys will be excited to see their results and that should launch us into a good start to tomorrow.

Day 1 of Superhero Summer Camp at home.

Today was our first day of my Master Plan to have Summer Camps at Home.  This week is Superhero Week.

Today we had some fun.  With our library being closed today for the holiday, we took our weekly trip to the library a couple of days ago so we started off our morning with some workbook pages and reading our library books.  We had quite a bit of free play this morning also because of no library trip.

Things took a turn toward fun when we made our superhero capes.

They were very simple – made from t-shirts we picked up at Goodwill.  I really should cut the collar and add a velcro enclosure so it will break away.  Both boys wore their capes all day and I anticipate that they will be looking for them first thing tomorrow as well.  Smallest Blonde was disappointed that he couldn’t fly but they both spend a lot of time on the trampoline trying to fly.

After cape making, I made their first badge for the character building exercises we are trying to do.  This week we are working on being helpful and Small Blonde has been working really hard on being more helpful.  Smallest Blonde sometimes does what you ask him to, but he’s 3 so that’s pretty expected.

Here are the badges.  Small Blonde is excited about adding his to his cape at the end of the week, but we have a little more work to do yet.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch and then Smallest Blonde was down for a nap. During nap time, Small Blonde had the opportunity to play a superhero video game but when his dad needed some help with a project outside, he gave up some of his gaming time to be helpful….hmmm….what a nice development.

Once nap time was over, we got to the other main projects for the day which consisted of making our superhero snow globes and superhero snack mix.

We picked up jars with lids and glitter at the dollar store and found a couple of superhero figures and baby oil at Walmart.  We glued their figure of choice to the inside of the lid and added our glitter and oil to the jar.

Small Blonde chose Falcon.

Smallest Blonde went with Captain America.

Here we added the oil after adding the glitter.  Small Blonde chose gold while Smallest Blonde went with pinkish/purple.

While we were waiting for the glue to cure, we started making our Super Hero Snack Mix. Here we are with all of our dry ingredients.  Really, it’s a modified Chex mix…because I like Chex mix and chances are that I will end up eating most of it.

We took turns adding scoops of our ingredients.

Next, we mixed everything together, added our butter and seasonings, and got it ready to bake!

  

Unfortunately, we burned it a bit.  However, we still ate some while we finished our evening watching Batman.

Tomorrow should be a new adventure and I hope it goes as well as it did today.