Thrifting Toys

I went out for a very quick thrift yesterday morning, since the kid needs a few summer things before we head out on vacation.  Imagine my surprise to find it was half-price day!  And imagine my delight when I saw this.

I have been searching for the Fisher Price schoolhouse forever!  Probably since childhood because I didn't even have it then.  It's in good condition, though it's missing all the pieces.  Who cares.  We have 9 zillion pieces to put in it.

I also hit a garage sale and scored some Lincoln Logs and bristle blocks.  I'm saving the bristle blocks for our 10-11 hour car trip coming up in two weeks.  The Lincoln Logs are already in action.

I was a bit annoyed to find that the Lincoln Logs have followed the trend of making their sets less creative.  Instead of a set of general building items, this set contains only what is necessary to build a frontier veterinarian's office.  Hmm.  What happened to the green pieces for making the roof?  What's up with the crappy plastic roof pieces that only fit if you've built the structure exactly to specifications?  Ellis quickly got bored of the frontier vet office and used the toy in a way that suited him. I'm sure that soon, he'll be using the logs as swords, just as he should be.

Of course, for pure awesome toy enjoyment, nothing beats a box from the garbage.  When I saw this giant carton in my neighbor's recycling area, I all but ran out to get it.

Behold Captain Ellis' spaceship.

(Please also enjoy the background views of my messy dining room.)  Well, the only that beats the box, I suppose, is the packing material inside of it.

I'm still cleaning it up two days later.

Last Day of School

Yesterday was Elly's last day of pre-school for the year.

I can't believe how much he's grown.  I also can't believe I cried a little bit at drop off.

It's been a good year for him.  He really has liked school and is looking forward to another year of pre-school in the Fall.  He will be changing schools next year to attend our neighborhood school, which we can walk to (hooray!)

His class was structured around units, the latest of which was a nature unit.  Each unit had a school-to-home project.  For the nature unit, he and Sarah visited the North Park Village Nature Center and explored the pond habitat.

We then made a collage of the habitat.  Please note the butterfly suspended by cotton yarn.  Totally Elly's idea!  The collage does not feature worm-eating.

As for teacher's gifts, I feel like you can't get better than jam.

Stash Busting Progress Report

In my continuing effort to use the vast array of art & craft materials that I already own, I embarked on a stash busting adventure.

So far, I've made progress on the quilt top.  I've also made cloth napkins, three sun bonnets, a book bag for Elly's friend's birthday party, and I'm working on a mama bag for a friend of mine.  So far, so good.

I'm particularly proud of the napkins, which are made from a ring sling gifted to me when I was pregnant.  I love that it's getting repurposed like this.  It's also been used in other places.  And the rings themselves are now part of a hand knit baby scale that a doula friend of mine made.

Note to self: do not walk away from the sewing machine and leave Ellis in charge.

Even an everyday napkin needs embellishment.

For the book bag, I used stash fabric I've had forever, including some American Jane.  Possibly my favorite red polka dot fabric ever.

A few of Elly's friends have been wearing some truly adorable sun bonnets.  Since I have perpetual I-can-make-that-itis, I decided to try my hand at pattern design for a gift for someone.  I dug into my designer stash, making what I hope is good use of my Heather Ross fabric (bought on super sale last summer at a fabric store that was moving.)

The back piece is giving me some grief, but I have plenty of time and supplies to get it figured out.

For the mama bag, I'm using scraps from the other projects as well as some stash fabric.

So far, it has received the Winnie Seal of Approval.

I'll keep you posted on more progress as it happens.

Child's Play, Five Ideas to Engage Your Kid that Don't Involve You Dressing Up Like A Monster

There's a lot of talk about kids and play these days.  With a 4 year old only child, I struggle with getting him to play by himself.  Don't get me wrong.  I love my child and I enjoy playing certain things with him.  Legos, blocks, trains, anything that involves building and doing.  I don't, however, enjoy imaginative play.  I don't want to pretend I'm like a scary monster chasing him around the house.  I'm dull that way.  And I HATE hide and seek.  Also, sometimes I need to do crazy stuff like make dinner and pack our bags for a day out.

He gets rather desperate for playmates sometimes.

Here are five ideas that work for us a lot of the time.

1.  Legos (actually, Duplo Legos) and other building toys like blocks or Magna Tiles.  The Magna Tiles are a little pricey but they do make a great gift from the grandparents (thanks, Mom and Dad!)  Although building toys are great on their own, add any other toy and you've got yourself a whole new bunch of awesome.  Elly particularly enjoys legos and dinosaurs.  I also highly recommend adding a hexbug to the mix.

2.  Play games.  Real ones.  Maybe I'm crazy, but I taught my 4 year old to play Othello.  And I totally wiped the court with him, but in a kind and gentle way.  I like games for their ability to not make me pretend anything.  There are the usual "age-appropriate" games like Candyland and Zingo.  However, we prefer games with a wider age-range or that are actually for older kids.  We like Jenga and dominoes (both of which double as building games) as well as Uno.  We also like Spot-It and Set, both for much older kids.  We play with "Ellis" rules for Set.  He only needs to find one commonality between the three cards.  He likes these "big-kid" games in particular.  I think it makes him feel cool.  The trick, though, is to make sure they don't feel frustrated.

3.  Let them play with your camera.  This is a bit scary.  But it's not as scary as letting them play with, say, your iPhone.  Ellis has discovered he can take pictures of himself.  Now that was an easy 10 minutes of parenting.

4.  Mud garden.  I reserved a corner of my garden for Elly to just mess around in. He loves it.  Combine the mud garden with the hose, spray bottles, sticks, clothes pins for maximum enjoyment.  He had built a sort of dam using random wood and sticks.  He loves to flood it and squirt it with water.  It usually gives me enough time to get my gardening tasks done.

5.  Yarn Play.  Yarn and furniture can become a spider web, an obstacle course, a ropes course for "guys".  We've also used it to make a "boat" of sorts.  I cut lengths of yarn and we tie them to our dining room table, to chairs, to whatever.  Ellis loves doing it and it works on hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.  He's learning to tie different kinds of knots and things like that.