mathmom's blog

For the kids' cousin's birthday, we planned an outing to the local swimming pool. When we got there, however, it was closed due to contamination, so we needed a plan b. We were already in swimming suits and it was hot (well, hot for WI), so we decided to put the sprinkler on. My sister-in-law had the great idea of water balloons. We found them at the 2nd store we tried ($1 for 250). Grandma had laid in a supply of squirt guns (Grandma is always prepared). It was a great plan! There was running through the sprinkler. There was putting water down the slide for a "water slide". The water from the hose was very very cold, but that seemed to make it more fun. After filling what seemed like hundreds (actually a few dozen) water balloons, there was a water balloon fight where no one got very wet: I recommended filling the balloons less full, and they didn't break on the people, only when they hit the ground. There were squirt gun wars. My favorite was the bucket....

Luke just turned 4, and we had a family birthday party for him. There were presents and a cake with candles. He has apparently gotten over the worst of his fear of fire, since his eyes were glowing happily when we lit the candles, and he didn't protest when we moved the cake closer to him so that he could actually blow out the candles instead of blowing across the table. I think he doesn't remember previous birthdays, since he keeps saying "This is my first birthday party!" We do correct him, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. He does love to help me bake, and he was very clear about what kind of cake he wanted. "Blueberry chocolate chip," he told me on the playground earlier today. I'm not surprised, since he's fascinated by blueberries, although his sisters both don't like them. So this afternoon I went to my favorite search engine and looked for vegan blueberry cake. (I realize I should have planned ahead. In my defense, I ...

Amanda's 6 th birthday party was a week ago. She wanted a mermaid party, so we decided to invite a few girls (on the theory that the boys might not be really interested) from her class to our house for a mermaid event. There are only 10 girls in her class, so I decided to invite all of them over on the theory that most of them had soccer or other activities and wouldn't be able to come. All but 2 came, and a few brought siblings, so we were pretty full up. Fortunately it was an absolutely beautiful warm fall day, so we were able to take much of the stuff outside. The first thing we did was the most fun birthday activity I've ever done. We got a long roll of butcher paper and I painted a few pieces of seaweed on it. Then we got out ALL our brushes and a box of Crayola poster paints. I told the girls to paint undersea things--- octopi , sea horses, mermaids, fish... Some painted jellyfish, or clams, and Ella added a ship. It came out so beautiful! Everyone had fun....

Eleanor went to her first sleepover last weekend. I wrote earlier about the "sleep over" she and Amanda had in Eleanor's closet, but this was at a friend's house across town. The sleepover had a "Star Wars" theme. Earlier that day our family had actually gone to the Durham Museum of Life and Science and seen people in costume as Star Wars characters---various storm troopers, bounty hunters, a very impressive looking imperial general... So Eleanor was prepared. She also gathered the two books she had about Star Wars (both gifts =) to read before bed. After the pool party, the kids went to the friend's house and watched Star Wars in the media room. Eleanor watched much of it standing in the doorway (she wouldn't go out) repeating to herself, "I have to remember it's not real. It's just pretend." This is the way I prefer to watch suspenseful movies (although I internalize my rational voice) so I sympathize. I remember watchin...

At Eleanor's birthday party , Amanda got fed up pretty quickly with our preparations. There was a playground, so she wandered down to play by herself. Then I think she got confused about which way our shelter was (it's not one of the ones we usually see at the park) so she went down the path, looking for our birthday party. Meanwhile, we finished with the preparations (Michael was hanging up balloons, I was setting out table cloths and such) and Michael went with the first few kids down to the playground. I thought Amanda was with him, he thought she was with me. Neither of us knew something was wrong until we saw her walking up to the playground, cowboy hat in hand, with a strange parent. "Is this your child?" I think what happened was she didn't find our shelter, but found another shelter where there was another birthday party. One of the parents figured out what was going on, and looked for another birthday party at the park. She knew our names, and she ...

Eleanor celebrated her birthday last weekend. We had the party at the park, the same one we had her 3rd birthday party. We decided on the park because she wanted to invite her whole class, I didn't want to spend lots of money at at "venue" (which we have done many times before, but for smaller groups) and we didn't have room or activities for 22 kids plus parents plus siblings at our house. They have a great playground at the park, so some of the time could be spent playing... but I knew from experience with Eleanor that a playground only keeps 7 year olds occupied for so long before they get bored. So, hearkening back to my childhood parties, we had bubbles and chalk (I was only missing the paper bags to put them in--we had purple plastic goody bags). We had big bubble makers, pipes, lots of little wands, and lots of bubble juice, most of which was used up. I think I'm going to have to learn how to make bubble juice. The other activity we had was a picture ...

We celebrated Luke's 2 nd birthday today! Yay ! We went jumping this morning at the local bouncy place until Luke was so worn out he couldn't climb up to the slide, and then we came home for a short nap. Michael and I hadn't gotten around to getting Luke a birthday present (oops) so Amanda, Eleanor, Luke and I went to two toy stores looking for the two toys I had determined Luke really needs: a basketball hoop and a toy vacuum cleaner. We found a hoop that has suction cups that (sort of) stick onto the back door, so the basketball is taken care of. Apparently there was a run on vacuum cleaners, because they weren't in stock. We could have gotten a pink bubble mower instead, but we chose to get a "popper". One of the best things about having a food allergic child is finding creative substitutes for difficult foods, in this case, substituting rice krispy bars for birthday cake. Much easier to make, and the kids are guaranteed to like it. Michael lit two...

Amanda wanted a "superhero party" for her birthday. I was willing, especially since having my children plan the parties really takes the stress off of me (I hate planning parties). Since I won the actual party at the jumping place, I decided to make nice capes (from Puking Pastilles ) as party favors (also much better than more candy or cheap toys). I made 14 capes. I still can't believe it, but I started early and worked steadily, and finished a few days ago. One superhero birthday party, coming up. (Please note: nothing else about the party has a theme: not the cake, not the napkins, nothing else.) I loved Amanda pretending to be a superhero. She would run and jump in front of me, saying " SuperAmanda , to the rescue! How can I help?" She did seem to think that wearing her cape made her less likely to be hurt, and better able to jump and run and everything. I could tell that thinking of herself as a superhero made her feel powerful. Today, I noticed t...

We did get to Jumping beans yesterday, even though my instincts told me to go swimming since it was such a beautiful day. Well, the kids got exercise anyway, even if they aren't outside. They have a 10-pass card where you get $2 off per entry if you pre-pay. I finished up my card, and as a bonus they now have a "plinko" board: you drop a circle shaped tile down a board filled with nails, and it lands in a slot at the bottom. Depending on the slot you could win a free 10-pass card, a free admission, a free ice cream cone, and so on. I dropped the first tile down and got a free admission. I decided to drop again---I couldn't do much worse, I figured, so I chose to drop the second. I ended up winning a free birthday party! This was great, since I had been planning to have Amanda's "super-hero" birthday party there anyway. I will be having it on a Friday rather than a Saturday, but that's not a big deal (maybe Eleanor will take the afternoon off, ...

Eleanor turned 6 last week, so today she had her 6th birthday party. I was up worrying about it for an absurd number of nights, but it ended up being a lot of fun. I think this mostly has to do with the fact that although we invited 10 people, only 4 were able to come =) I'll skip telling you about my myriad lists (3 shopping lists, schedule, to do lists for days before the party... I only do this because I am so disorganized that if I didn't, nothing would get done...) and go straight to the party. We started out decorating kitty masks (made out of foam---my sister's idea) and crowns (Eleanor's idea, she saw them when we were at the craft store). 5 and 6 year old girls can be very creative, and they take much more care in their work than, say, 3 year old girls who mostly want to squirt glitter glue everywhere. The masks worked just like I hoped, which is pretty good considering that I couldn't find a pattern online so I just made it up. (For those of you who ...