Keeping Up

Last week my son and I made homemade gum.  I didn’t get any pictures- and you know how I just love fiddling with pictures- so my husband said, “Why don’t you write about the playhouse we’re building?” “Why don’t I?” I responded, “Because that's way off-topic.” He said, “Yeah. Like you've never been off-topic before.”  With no comeback in sight, that pretty much settled it.  Aside from being off topic I also (secretly) worried that anyone reading this would think I was being very irresponsible in my parenting.  I felt like I was saying, “Give them power tools.  They’ll entertain themselves all the way to the hospital.” Stephen, somehow sensing my need to fool everyone into thinking I am Little Miss Perfect, rose to the occasion.  With joyous cries of, “Look at me! You’ve got to take a picture of this!” He promptly jumped off the top of the ladder in dare-devil fashion.   Not once, but Five Times.  Fool that I am, I took t...

Today is the first day of school for Houston ISD which means I am finally back to getting things done (...hopefully...once I get in practice again...it could happen...)! Saturday we attended Open House at Stephen's school and had a quick 'meet and greet' with his new teacher.  She passed out a "getting to know you" questionnaire, asking us parents to catch her up on our child's strengths and desires.  One of the questions was: What makes your child laugh?   My pen hovered over that question as I looked up at my husband who was busy reading over my shoulder.  Our eyes met and simultaneously we both blurted out, "Make up Tag!"    So that is today's shared entertainment.  Stephen and my husband Eric started this game when summer began.  It started out humble, with only one rule.  You had to call your tag, then call out of the game - and fast!  I personally called the game I WIN TAG.   It started with something...

St. Arnold Brewery Stephen can't wait until school starts and his teacher asks the students what they did over the summer. He insists he is going to stand up, pump his fist in the air, and proclaim, "I went to a BREWERY!" The Parent of The Year award is always just outside of my grasp. When Grandma came to visit, my husband Eric made arrangements to amuse her. One of the things on the list was to take her to St. Arnold for a tour on brewing. It IS educational, so we brought Stephen along, and I was amazed at how many others came to the same conclusion. There were more kids on that tour than adults! Which may be why they served root beer free, while charging (on a 'chip' system) for their other brewed items.   So that's the setup for how we decided to do this week's activity. While trying out their root beer, Stephen decided it was the best he had ever tasted. Eric said IBC was still his favorite, and Grandma and I were undecided. So...

This week's mention isn't really a FUN thing to do- but it is an important thing to do.  Teaching your children how to run their own household isn't something that happens over the weekend.  Bit by bit, year by year, we help our children acquire the skills they will need to be successful when they venture out on their own.  Some of it can be subtle, like teaching them money management though an allowance program.  They think they are getting money, but really they are getting a lesson on spending vs. saving.  But some lessons are harder to disguise.  Like laundry.  I still haven't figured out how to make it look like more fun than it really is.  Any tips are welcome. The reason I am mentioning this today is because we all make mistakes when learning to do laundry.  It seems pretty simple, yet somehow almost all of us have managed to bleach our dark's at some point, or forgot to check the pockets and found things...

Many will disagree with me, but fishing is GROSS!  So when Stephen wanted to go fishing with his big brother Aaron I devised a string on a stick in the hopes of NOT catching anything. Too bad you can't fool them forever. It didn't take long before Stephen realized everyone but him caught something, and that everyone but him had an actual rod and reel. So even though it meant upgrading to poking a hook through a wiggling, slimy worm, then catching a fish and trying to disengage the hook from their lips, or worse, their throat, then argue about releasing the fish, or having it for dinner, then losing the argument and having your kitchen stink like..well, dead fish...well, even though it meant all those things, I bought him a nice rod and a tub of fat worms. And it slowly turned into into relaxing afternoons by the lake with him fishing, and me sitting nearby with a book in one hand, and a wet wipe in the other.  (He often needs help getting those worms on the hook- a...

When I heard Alspaugh's Ace in Kingwood was having gardening classes, I said, "Sign us up!" Stephen loves gardening and has several plants growing around his club house that he bought with his own money.  His real pride is his honeysuckle that cost him $20 of allowance, and has grown twice it's size since he planted it.  (He has grand plans of hanging out in his club house, lounging on his beanbag and reaching out the window to feast on the sweet liquid in the blooms.)  So gardening is a good choice of entertainment for him.   When they called to say the next class was coming up and mentioned it was 'Fairy gardens' I became a little concerned.  My son may like his hair surfer-boy long, but he is 100% rough and tumble, trouble-making male.  Fairies?  Ugh. Turns out, he is also very open minded.  He said, "It sounds fun and I'll just leave the fairies to fly off into your garden."  The above picture is his garden.  He ...

This is a blog about things to do for bored kids, and I know it's not fair for me to say, "Hey, go find an author and drag him home!"  That could cause a bit of embarrassing paperwork down at the station.  So I won't. What I will do instead is simply brag that I did.  And there was no paperwork following the incident.  Meet Tom Watson.  He is the author of Stick Dog, and is awaiting the October release date for his followup book, Stick Dog Wants a Hot Dog.  While patiently waiting, he has been touring around, interacting with the kids and signing copies of his books, and, as it shows it the picture above, he also signed any artwork the kids bought him. He was definitely not stingy with his autograph (which is a work of art on it's own!), and I worried he'd have no strength left in his wrist for my own copy of his book!   Let me dispel any tension this may be causing you- he was still in top form and signed through three grades wor...