The Bug - Take 2

Two years ago, Smunch had to make "a bug" for his second grade class. It doesn't seem like our school demands a lot of home art projects from the kids, so it's hard it object. And Mam was raring to go when it came to her turn this year. Again, it was supposed to be made of household objects. This time, we used some wooden bits intended for parrots, popsicle sticks, jewels and stray edges of gold ribbon.

Introducing "Jewel bug", a Mamrific, glittery creation that apparently went over quite well at school.

The Bug

I arrived home from the road trip to Los Angeles to find the front door open...because Daddy was home...because Smunch was sick. Oh, that hadn't been part of the plan at all! As if abondoning Daddy on our anniversary wasn't enough, he ended up taking the day off work to tend to a sick Smunch!

Of course, Mam had strep recently, as mentioned in a previous post, so naturally my mind went there and I took him to the doctor just a few hours after I arrived. No strep. But he had a 102 fever, which meant I had to keep him home the next day. That was O.K. with me, although my discombobulated self forgot to call the attendance line the next day...when he awoke with no fever at all. I took Mam to school and left him at home.

When I got back, I decided this was a plum opportunity to get started on an at-home art project Smunch needed to do. He needed to make a real or imaginary insect out of "household objects". I started gathering random stuff. A strawberry basket, tissue paper, a Ziploc plastic container, poker chips, leftover jewels from Mam's birthday party, wired ribbon, old wine corks and popsicle sticks, whatever. It just had to have all the parts of an insect that Smunch had learned about.I let Smunch play creative director while I handled the hot glue gun. We had a lot of fun...when Smunch was paying attention. And I think you'll agree that the outcome was...well...creepy crawly at the very least!

My Artists

Also a couple of weeks ago (where does the time go?) the school district had an art show. You don't have to be any kind of Picasso to be featured here. Every child in the district gets a piece of art on the wall. It's fun to pop in and hunt for your own piece of art. Fortunately, Mam didn't seem to notice that the placement of her painting was less than ideal, even after it took us 10 minutes to find it!Smunch got a much better spot on the wall, but he wasn't feeling very photogenic, even though he was pretty happy. So...all you're going to get is a photo of his thumbprint artwork.

Thank You Celery

Despite my obsession with cake decorating, I don't consider myself one of the more crafty moms around. And when it came time for Mam to write the Thank You cards for her birthday gifts, I didn't have any creative ideas. She'd been given a set of stamps with some ink, so that seemed like a logical choice. She made one or two cards with some cardstock I had lying around. They weren't...uh...pretty. Really.

And I had a hard time getting her to make any more of them. Until I randomly came up with this...

A couple of days after the initial cards were made, I was cutting up some celery in the kitchen. First, I cut off the bottom of the bunch. Huh, funny how it kind of looks like a rose when all the stalks are gone. I showed it to Mam and immediately realized this was the perfect stamp...at least when combined with some red paint.And eight Thank You cards were stamped out just like that. Somehow, writing on the back of them even came easier once Mam decided she loved this project. Of course, that means I love it too!

Open House

My kid's only in first grade and already I'm bored by the annual Open House. The idea is great, but I'm already in the classroom so often, that there are no revelations in there for me. I tried to get Mam to visit the kindergarten room, but she was vehemently disinterested. Smunch visited the second grade rooms for just a second, but apparently it's some kind of bad karma to actually see one of the rooms where you might spend a lot of time next year...at least that's what the kids would have you think.So, for me, it was mostly another art show. I know how much effort all the teachers have to put into this night. I appreciate it. Really. I do. But it would be O.K. with me if they didn't! Hopefully, Daddy got more out of it than I did. I do love this little bird-shaped pinch pot. No clue what we'll do with that when it comes home, but I think it deserves a place of honor somewhere.And then, there's Smunch's self portrait. Is it totally wrong of me to look at this and want to say, "Oh, honey, you're so much cuter than that"? I'm sure that'd be all wrong, but seriously, I hope he knows that while his eyes are really this big and this blue, he's an attractive kid...an attractive kid without a tan.

Meet the Artist

I know. I was just at one of these kinds of events, wasn't I? This one was markedly different. The artist had more time for chatting. I got no autographs. But I got to feel like maybe I had a teeny, tiny part in the product.Note: I think the artist is markedly better at painting a straight picture than the photographer was at taking a straight photograph of the painting!

School Things

It was the week before spring break, so naturally, there were "school things" last week.

First, there was Smunch's first display in the district-wide art show. They didn't pick anything all that exciting from his collection, but he was pleased to see it there and then go off to look for his friends' artwork.

Then we had the kindergarten open house. It was a really big deal for the kids. They each had a checklist of all the things to show their parents. I spend enough time in the classroom that I'd seen most of it before. So, I spent more time chasing after Mam as she visited this friend and that. The room looked great though. They do a much better job of showing of their artwork than they can do at showing off the more academic stuff, but face it amateur handwriting just isn't as pretty as a bunch of watercolor flowers on the wall.
The week was capped off by Mam's "Spring Sing" at preschool. It was as adorable as always. It never ceases to amaze me how they can get 100 preschoolers to sing a dozen songs with hand movements and everything.
And, as usual after these sing events, we all went back to the classroom for refreshments. The siblings who attended were invited to sit at the snack tables with the students. I'm not sure exactly how Mam felt about that. You?

Home Improvement

The truth is, there's very little in the way of home improvement going on around here...unless you count the bi-weekly sorting of clutter that happens before the house cleaners come every other week. So, Smunch decided to take matters into his own hands.

After visiting many parks in his oh-so-varied life, he realized that there was something missing from our home. He duly procured some pens and paper and created his own remedy to our poor skills as homeowners.

He started with the bathroom next to the kitchen/family room.


















His mission accomplished, he moved on to the hallway bathroom where he noted the need for "separate, but equal" facilities.













The master bathroom presented a special problem. After all, Mommy and Daddy share the bedroom, so it'd be sort of cruel to make either of them go find a different toilet in the middle of the night. But Smunch had it all figured out.

Safari Close to Home

Today was kind of a weird one. It was all about the animals though. Smunch woke up early this morning. He crawled into bed with us about 6:30 and waited for his favorite morning show, Caillou, to start...asking about it every 5 minutes or so. Sometime after that (in my hazy stupor, I'm not sure when), he brought me a piece of paper and asked me to draw a vase for him. I stuck one hand out from under the covers, grabbed his black crayon and drew him a vase. It kept him happy until he was finished with this masterpiece...the inside of a 'thank you' card for his speech therapist at the school district. Today was his last day with her. Of course, the problem was that he was so busy with this artistic endeavor that he didn't want to eat breakfast!

On a side note, Smunch's much-improved speech fluency is deteriorating slowly again. Maybe the big swings in his ability to speak will get smaller, at least.

This afternoon, I took Smunch to school. We always go in the back way and there's a lovely grassy area there, surrounded by trees. Only today, it had been "decorated". It turned out the kids were going on a safari! This was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. I dropped Smunch off and went home to get my camera. I'm not really sure I captured the scene very well. One of the other classes actually had a checklist of animals they had to find and binoculars for looking for animals. I loved the monkeys and birds hanging from the trees. There was even a family of opossums hanging from a branch. There were lizards sunning themselves on rocks, a "lake" (blue tarp) with fish, turtles and manatees. I couldn't help feeling like it would have been absolutely magical as a kid.


Smunch's class was much more of a free-for-all, with no real structured activity around this amazing set-up. Still, the kids were awfully excited and very cute. Mam, who was with me, was equally enthralled. Although it wasn't the most impressive item in the jungle, Smunch was enamored with a little peacock he found.

Smunch was pretty mystified that I'd turned up at school again. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall and observed him "in his native habitat" instead of disturbing his school day with my picture taking.

I tried to get out of there as quickly as I could, but I also remembered that this is his last Friday at preschool...ever. And on Fridays they get to play in the "far yard". I whisked Mam off for a quick trip to TJ's so we might have something to eat tonight, dropped off the groceries and headed the mommymobile to the far yard.

The far yard contains the "circlecycle". It sounds weird, but this has got to be one of the coolest things ever invented for a preschool playground. I'll bashfully admit that seeing the circlecycle in action was one of the things that sold me on this particular school. It's a really cooperative toy. Five kids can ride at a time, but they all have to get together and decide how to do it first. They can ride forward or backward, but they all have to pedal and coooperate to make it work like it's supposed to. It's true playground genius!

Of course, it's not all fun and games with the circle cycle. You don't want to be caught trying to dig the track out of the sand when someone else starts pedaling and you certainly don't want to get so curious that you stick your head in there while kids are riding at mach speed. I've noticed that some preschoolers haven't quite developed this sort of obvious common sense, but still...