The construction paper egg wreath that almost wasn’t*

Sebastian is supremely excited about Easter coming up, which is evidenced by the fact that when he asked me to decorate the house on Sunday evening and I said we’d do it later because I was trying to recover from a Saturday evening without the kids and with a couple of bottles of wine, unbeknownst to me he marched upstairs by himself, got the box of decorations out of the closet and either carried or threw it down the steps.  I was outside so I’m still not entirely sure how he got the tote downstairs.  Luckily I have about two decorations so it was pretty empty.

So after setting up a little egg tree and a couple of rabbit candles, I figured it would be a good idea to find some kind of craft to make.  I headed to pinterest last night after the kids went to bed and spent a good hour hunting around.  (I know it’s been said so many times before, but holy hell time just disappears when I’m on there.)

I actually didn’t find what I wanted, but I did find this website, which is remarkable in that this woman seems to have an endless mental capacity for developing fun things for her little boy to do.  I am exceedingly jealous, and will probably also steal most of her ideas. 

But that’s not where I got the idea for what I did.  I got that from here.  I obviously didn’t follow the craft exactly as it was presented because I didn’t like the way the printable eggs looked, but it did give me a starting point.

While Sebastian was at school this morning I set about cutting out a ton of construction paper eggs.  I probably could have let him attempt that himself, but he gets easily frustrated if something doesn’t work the way he wants it to and I’m not sure he’d be satisfied with a subpar egg.  Plus he’s been extra sensitive lately.  (I think he might be sick again.  Let’s all whisper-read that so maybe it won’t be true.  And it shouldn’t be true as he’s still on his antibiotic for his strep, but I did forget to send the kids’ medicine when they went to see their grandparents this weekend.  Cause I’m an awesome mom.)

While I cut out the eggs and paper plate Adele yelled at me for not letting her play with the scissors and also ate the scrap paper.  I let her because I only got 5 hours of sleep because someone decided to wet entirely through her diaper, pajamas and sheets.  I was too tired to care, is what I’m saying.

When Sebastian got back from school I thought he’d be excited about the project I’d painstakingly laid out for him to do, but as the aforementioned possible sickness and also probable sleep deprivation from listening to his sister scream probably already led you to realize, he was not.  No, all he wanted to do was watch a show.  When I refused, he offered to make the egg wreath and then watch a show.  I also said no to that.

Mad because she wants to play with the glue. 
Also, don't look in my messy cabinet.  It's impolite to judge.

And so after much screaming and tears and a long time-out in his room wherein he put his pajamas on, which is what he always does when he’s sent to his room to cool down (maybe pajamas help keep him comfortable, which in turn helps him calm down? Possibly?), he finally decided that maybe making the wreath might be kind of neat.  (I just realized that it sounds like he was punished for not wanting to do the craft.  He wasn’t.  He was punished for pitching a fit because I wouldn’t let him watch TV because he has limits on that sort of thing.)

And he did enjoy it.  I put some glue on the plate and showed him where to put a couple of eggs and he did the rest.  It took about two minutes, if that.  Since I had some eggs left over I tried to get him to make another one, but he was done.  He wouldn’t even hold it up and let me take a picture so I let the bunny do that, which he’s convinced is the Easter Bunny.  His uncle and almost-aunt bought it for him last year and he pulled it out recently and has hardly let it out of his sight.

It’s a fun little craft, provided you have a preschooler who is not possessed by a demon, as mine seems to be lately.  Maybe we’ll try it again on another day that isn’t so fraught with drama.

The finished product.  With bunny. We will hang it up with pride.

*I realized after I posted yesterday that it was my 200th post.  It was … decidedly unworthy.

Random Monday: In which I discuss time change, wild children, and The Walking Dead

1. It’s the Monday after the time changed, in case you didn’t know.

2. I feel as awful as you’d imagine, and probably as awful as everyone else has already told you they feel.

3. But I also wanted to share that I think Sebastian is growing up a little too quickly and I would like all of you to make him stop.

4. First it was that I could put his clothes out and he would put them on.

5. But just recently he’s started changing his clothes periodically throughout the day, getting them out of his closet himself and coming up with remarkable outfits.

6. Like this one:

7. And I love it.  I do. 

8. Now his sister hasn’t mastered that art, obviously, and while he was looking particularly stylish in a shirt that used to be mine, this is what Adele looked like:

9. In my defense, it was a wicked rushed morning and all of us wanted to go back to bed at about 7:45 a.m.

10 Who am I kidding, her hair always looks like that.  Unless I go somewhere.

11 Like this weekend.  I took the kids to visit some friends of mine that I don’t get to see as often as I like.

12.  Adele had pigtails.

13. Which while adorable totally didn’t make up for the fact that she ran up and down the wooden-floored hallway for a good 30 minutes to an hour, yelling at the top of her lungs.

14. Sebastian also decided that that would be fun.

15. My kids are wild.  But I kept reassuring everyone that they weren’t like that ALL THE TIME.

15. No one believed me.

16. I also said that somehow the combination of Christopher and myself created super crazy children.

17. But also pretty awesome.

18. Sebastian also takes it upon himself to close the bathroom door upstairs whenever Adele goes up there, because she likes to unroll all the toilet paper and throw it into the toilet and take all the shampoo bottles and hid them in random places.

19. He just does it, without me asking him to.

20. He also will fetch things for me or give toys to Adele when she’s fussing, to try to make her feel better.

21. And earlier he stole two cookies from the counter without me knowing.

22. At least he told me about it when he was done.

23. But my point is that he has his own mind, and is getting big enough to execute thoughts he has, like sneaking cookies or changing into pajamas whenever he gets sent to his room for acting out.

24. Sometimes he changes into pajamas six times a day.

25. Hey, did anybody see The Walking Dead last night and were you as disturbed as I was? 

26. I couldn’t sleep.  The end got me, and kind of won’t let go.

27. I know that wasn’t really what I was talking about, but my mind won’t shut it off.

28. I blame the time change.

Homemade Friday: Vanilla Wafers

I seem to be in the mood to make things that are supposed to taste like other things that you buy in the store.

(Wow.  That may be the lamest sentence ever written.  I win everything.)  (Also I'm really tired.)

First it was graham crackers.  And now it’s vanilla wafers.  I’ve always loved them, but I don’t really buy them for my kids because of all the extra, unnecessary ingredients that are included.  

I was searching around online, looking for something, anything to make the kids for a snack and this recipe caught my eye.

It looked simple enough, and I even took the time to read it all the way through before I started, which as we all know is totally against my personality.  So I knew ahead of time that I’d have to let these set for 30 minutes before they were baked.

I had just enough time to get them put together and baked and ready for when the kids woke up from their nap. 

And they really loved them.  As did my husband, who I had to make stop eating them so there would be enough for the kids.  Apparently he doesn’t understand that these snacks need to last more than a day.  (That shit takes time to make.  Time that I could spend watching Teen Mom.)

The joys of strep throat

I think I wouldn’t mind my children being sick if they weren’t such assholes when they were.  (That’s right.  I said it.  With love.)

It’s like, they’re feeling so shitty and so they won’t stop until everyone around them is feeling just as bad.  Especially their mother.  There’s hitting and kicking and yelling and hair pulling and very little napping from the worst culprit.

They fight with each other and anyone else within temper range.  The youngest will gleefully rip up a picture her brother was coloring, squealing with delight as he rages in fury.  The oldest rages in fury quite often.  Especially when Mama tells him he can’t do something he wants to do.

Why couldn’t they be the type of sick kids who just want to lie around and cuddle their mama?  Son, I would gladly let you watch TV all day when you’re sick if by bedtime you weren’t ready to throw all your toys onto the floor in anger because it was time for bed and your little mind was so glazed and baked that you just couldn’t handle the simple task of putting on your own pajamas.

Right about now my mom is telling me to stop being so honest.

But as I can’t throw them out of the house until they stop acting like street thugs, instead I’m telling you.

They are no longer contagious.  Let’s hope their moods will also improve.

Also – let’s hope someone shows up with a huge bottle of wine soon.  Or maybe a box.  I hear Franzia is pretty good.

(Tomorrow I will stop complaining and write something that isn’t so negative.  I hope.)