busytown birthday

We are a household of ardent Richard Scarry fans. Of the few child-related things Nathan brought with him to our relationship, the Richard Scarry Lithuanian Children's Dictionary is easily my favorite, and George has taken a shine to it, as well as the big, beautiful Nursery Rhyme book, the silly Cars and Trucks book and the Busytown television show (not to mention the handful of other, small, Golden Books we've accumulated). The kid loves Huckle and Lowly, Hilda Hippo and even the sort of creepy apparent watch thief(?), Bananas Gorilla. So, it followed that he'd have a Busytown birthday party. The only other theme option was Wall-E, and despite my son's undeniable, undying love for that particular trash-compacting robot, I'm trying to avoid full buy-in to the Disney machine for as long as possible, even when it includes environmentally conscious messaging and strong female leads.

We thought about inviting lots of people, like we did last year, but the house is small, the days are shorter than our childless friends sometimes realize and we were all varying degrees of sick, so it was a good thing we stuck to George's besties and, of course, Mimi (my mom) who came through in a major way on the present front. More on that later.

George has been to plenty of his friends' birthday parties, plus mine, and he was really excited to have a party of his own. He "helped" us get ready, mainly by standing in the way of the vaccuum and eating all the snacks before guests arrived, but once people showed up he made the rounds giving copious hugs and generally being a pretty adorable host. He interacted comfortably not only with his little friends but also their parents, which is a relief on two fronts. I want him to be at ease with people of all ages, and I'm so glad that we have parent-friends whom he genuinely likes and trusts. It's incredibly interesting to see his social skills developing in the way they are; he's attentive and grateful and those are both things I hoped for, but didn't want to be too didactic about. 

For favors, I made each of the kids a Lowly doll (half of which we forgot to give out),

and Nathan made a little plywood apple car for the kids (and my mom) to sit behind and have their picture taken. 

I found some Busytown fabric at my favorite local quilt shop and made a little bunting and table cloth. We also used some of the stuff from Richard Scarry's Best Ever Make It Book (link at the bottom) -- a crazy awesome $1.99 Value Village find -- to make the invitations, spruce up the cupcakes and decorate the house a little more. 

It was cute and (for all intents and purposes) went off without a hitch but, more importantly, George had the time of his life. He was thrilled to have everyone over and every time he passed by me, he was either giggling or had to stop and tell me "havin' fun!" 

He got amazing, thoughtful presents, including this one from my mother, that is already the source of unending cuteness and hilarity:

He's a lucky little chicken, and I'm lucky to be able to celebrate him. Happy birthday to my best dude, who will soon be my oldest, but always my baby. 

two

Today, our boy turned two. We did his favorite things: ate pancakes and veggie sausage, played at Time In with two besties, split a pizza, "cooked" in his kitchen, posed for photobooth pictures and ate a 'dilla with beans after which the aforementioned very lucky little guy donned a sombrero as he was serenaded and given a real, full-size soccer ball he's since dubbed "new one." Everywhere we went, people wished him well and he returned the sentiment with "happy day!" Happy day, indeed. Exactly two years ago, when we were settling in for our first night as a family of three, I never could've guessed how cool this kid was gonna be. 

Since his first birthday, we've made a tradition of visiting the mall's photobooth (which, alas, is new-fangled and not the charming old variety) on the 14th of every month. He's grown more aware, funnier and less distracted by the buttons and his own likeness each month. His hair grew in; his sleeves got short and then long again; he learned what the pre-flash countdown meant, and developed a preference for animal backgrounds. Here is our year, 2011: 13 months to 24 months of George and Mama, smooching and waving and being caught off-guard, through colds and hat-hair days and the better part of another pregnancy.  

(Yes, we were "proud to be fabulous" two months in a row.)

 It's been a good year. To many, many, many more like it, and not like it, with plenty of photobooth duets, trios and quartets. 

thrifty sunday: boring

I'm still alive. Sometimes barely, as this baby keeps me awake all night with punching, kicking, somersaulting and various other acrobatic moves we can only guess about. George was never so active. I mean, he kicked and wiggled and everything, but as memory serves, it was pretty tame in comparison. Added to the sleepiness is the fact that it gets dark before 5pm, and every day seems a little shorter...because it is. By the time the solstice rolls around, it'll be dusk at 3:30 and I'll never change out of pajamas. 

During the Halloween season, George was really into "spoosy" -- or spooky -- stuff. When it was rainy but we felt cabin-feverish, an easy outing was strolling the local, newly-moved-into-a-huge-building Value Village. They had aisles of masks, wigs, hats, sparkly wings, and clothes being sold as costumes that I would usually buy to wear as normal parts of my wardrobe. I am somewhat shameless in my appreciation of thrift stores' ramp-up to Halloween policy of gathering everything I like into one section -- 70s prairie dresses, fur vests, 60s minis and sequined formalwear -- and I try to ignore the stigma. This year our budget didn't allow for much and I don't fit into anything without at least 10% spandex, so George and I roamed the store with mostly empty pockets as he begged to see more "spoosy stuff." Here are the things I decided we couldn't live without:

A sweater-romper-thing with oranges on it! $2.99 - The thought of leaving this on the rack was unbearable. The cinched waist is a little hilarious given six to nine month-old babies' chubbiness. 

A teeny little velveteen and eyelet dress, $1.99 - For a baby born circa Valentine's Day.

A fancy-ish wintertime dress for a little lady who's moving to a colder clime. San Diego doesn't have much use for long sleeves or high necks or things that go nicely with wooly tights, but no Pacific Northwestern six year-old should be without a few calico statement pieces. A belated birthday present still waiting to be sent. 

Awesome coloring book, untouched by crayons, $.069! Another present, as George is still too little to appreciate creative prompts like the ones found here. No outlines of cartoon characters or funny-looking animals, just open-ended ideas bound in a book. I think its intended recipient will love it, as she has a newly-found interest in art. One holiday gift down.

A new shirt for George, $1.99 - Poor George is kind of low on clothes. He has t-shirts and leggings but not many long sleeved tops or regular pants, and with his opinions on daily outfits growing stronger I want to give him realistic options that don't leave him looking like a clown when put together. Not that there's anything wrong with a toddler dressing like a clown. 

You've undoubtedly noticed the weird, shady quality of these photos. There's no daylight indoors and I hope you'll excuse me for not standing outside in the wind and hail(!) to snap some pictures of my meager thrift store finds. Have you gotten anything good lately?

how to keep a toddler entertained

Later this month, I'm scheduled to do a little workshop with some ladies who have recently graduated from transitional housing through Lydia Place, a local women and children's shelter. The topic of my workshop: DIY kids' crafts! I'm so excited to meet these women and share a few easy, cheap ideas. We don't have a ton of money to spend on all the cool new toys, or a rainbow of natural play dough so this subject is one I've researched and explored kind of a lot. The funny thing I've learned is that there will be a few "real toy" hits -- for example, George still loves his wooden shape sorter and he daily plays with puzzles -- but by and large, you can get away with giving your kid spoons, whisks, bowls, garbage, and he'll be just as entertained as if you'd spent a zillion dollars on an array of beautiful, handcrafted wooden toys. 

At the workshop, I'll be sharing recipes for play dough and fingerpaint and all of that stuff, but I've recently sort of accidentally stumbled upon two major wins: rainbow rice and an odd use for an old oatmeal carton. 

George is just now getting to the stage where I can trust that he won't put things in his mouth, so until now, sensory boxes have been a no-go. Knowing how good it feels, I'd love to offer him a container of dry beans to sink his little hands into, but there are plenty of Italian markets in his future, so I'll keep the choking hazards to a minimum right now. Somewhere, I saw a picture of kids playing in a bin of rainbow-colored rice, and I decided to replicate it using a little rubbing alcohol, food coloring and a bag of white rice left over from the last time I made a microwavable heating pad. I put a cup and a half of rice into each of six ziplock baggies (though any container with a lid would probably do), added about two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and about 10 drops of food coloring. I shook and smooshed the bags around until the color was evenly distributed, then I opened the bags and let the rice dry. The rice doesn't absorb the alcohol, unlike it would water, so the drying time was pretty short. 

I didn't take a picture of the rice arranged in a nice, even rainbow, but here's George, in the midst of his nearly hour-long first session of play:

We had fun hiding his little plastic pig in the rice, spooning it into a seahorse stolen from the sandbox, naming the colors and had admittedly less fun trying to convince him to keep the rice in the box. 

The other DIY is so easy and so weird -- to me, anyway -- that I won't blame you if you disbelieve in its amazingness. I've heard of making old Quaker oats containers into drums and knitting boxes, but the book Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready offered the idea that led to turning an oats carton into a... straw sorter. 

 I covered the outside of the carton with wrapping paper, leaving the top as it was (though paint is always an option, or if you're feeling especially fancy, mod podge-ing another piece of pretty paper to the lid). Using a regular hole punch, I made holes around the top of the lid, about an inch apart, as far in as my totally standard hole punch would allow. As two-thirds of our family enjoys drinking most everything from a straw, we have tons of straws. I cut the bendy parts off of ten straws, then put them in the container and handed it to George. He'll spend at least 15 minutes at a time meticulously inserting the straws into the holes (or, hole, as he has one favorite), opening the lid and extracting the straws to start over again. It's helped along his counting skills, as he likes to count the straws as they go in, and his dexterity is improving, too. He often wakes up and, upon walking into the living room in the morning, requests "game" which I play with him for a few minutes, then leave him to do alone while I make breakfast. Totally free, and miraculously engaging. 

Do you have any tried-and-true recipes or projects that I could share with my workshop? 

for a two year old

Today was our buddy Lincoln's second birthday. We celebrated with cupcakes and time in the sandbox and lots of play with his new little kitchen.

I wanted to make a gift that he would really enjoy -- one whose fun wouldn't wear out immediately, that would be useful in at least a couple of ways for a while. I have a cache of crafty ideas waiting for just the right recipient, and this one I found in Alicia Paulson's book Stitched in Time seemed right up Linc's alley. I hope I was right!

Using iron-on transfer sheets for the printer, I printed out some pictures from the past year: friends' faces, mama and papa, the dinosaur at the zoo, one of our chickens Lincoln took a shine to, and a few others. I ironed them onto some white twill, and with some polka-dotty quilting cotton for the backs of each card and felt to stabilize the middle, I made 14 memory cards (two of each photo). I sewed around each picture and pinked the edges to curb the fraying. 

To finish off the gift, I whipped up a little felt bag for storage, and (sloppily) embroidered the front. 

Happy birthday, Lincoln! I hope you like your present.