Oh What A Night!

I only wish I were posting about the song -- and yes, I have it going through my head right now, so you can share in my misery.

Last night, we were invited to a friend's house for dinner. They live in our neighborhood, and ordinarily we'd walk, but it was raining, so we needed to drive. And about forty-five minutes before we were supposed to be there, I realized that I didn't have anything I was bringing. Oops.

So I made Nana's Apple Cake because a) it's dairy free -- her son also has a lactose issue, so it's appreciated b) it's yummy and c) it has three ingredients so I can get it cooking quickly. Yeah.... At 4:52 I finally called her and asked if I could borrow her oven to finish cooking it. We were supposed to be there at 4:30.

Her kids are both boys, and very (stereo)typical boys, at that. Little Miss was super excited to see them, and she ran into the house and started playing. Eventually, they migrated into the basement where the bouncy house was turned on. That required adult supervision, as four children in a two person bouncy gets a little dicey. Especially with some kids who like to turn it on and off. And some kids who like to try to make the walls fall down.

My friend and I left our husbands downstairs to monitor the situation while we chatted and got dinner finalized.

Fun Event A: Mister Man came upstairs holding his arm and crying. And no, I don't know why my husband didn't handle it while downstairs, so don't ask.... He'd fallen on his previously broken arm, at which point we all decided maybe the bouncy house wasn't the best thing to play with right now. Tears gone, we started dinner.

Fun Event B: My friend made great chicken fajitas. She crock potted the chicken in salsa. Neither child would eat the fajitas, although both tried them, to their credit. Neither child would eat the spanish rice my friend made either. She very kindly made them chicken nuggets. And I only twice had to shush Mister Man from going on about how yucky the food was.

Fun Event C: After dinner and before dessert, the kids were all playing upstairs. We had each gone upstairs to check on them a few times when her older son suddenly burst into loud howls. Yep, Mister Man stabbed him in the eye with a Lego toy. We're still not sure of the whole story as Mister Man didn't get much of a chance to explain himself beyond the typical "but it was an accident" story. And her son never game many details either. Mister Man was too wound up from the long weekend and was sent on his merry way home with my husband to go to bed.

Fun Event D: After dessert -- ok in the middle of dessert after my friend's younger son decided he was done eating watermelon and Little Miss quickly followed suit -- the two went upstairs into his room. I checked, and he had turned on a Baby Einstein video. Whatever. I went back downstairs until a couple minutes later when we felt and heard the thud. And then the screaming. I was closest and made it up the stairs first, and my friend's husband was close behind. I opened the door to the room and saw the dresser tipped over with her son underneath. I pushed the dresser back onto the wall, by which point the dad was scooping up the boy to check him out. The television that was atop the dresser had crash landed on the bed, missing Little Miss by about three inches. Her son appears to be fine, although many of the objects that were atop the dresser previously had broken in the fall. The dresser didn't land all the way on her son, as the foot of the bed stopped it. Apparently, he had tried to climb the dresser to reach the VCR to change the movie, and it had tipped. He fell back against the footboard of the bed and probably has a pretty bruised back. The drawers also fell out and landed on his legs, but thank GOD the dresser was stopped by the bed.

We left after that.

I asked her to let me know how both her boys are doing today, but I've gotten a few good reminders and lessons here.

1) Tonight when I get home from work, I am anchoring Little Miss's dresser to the wall. Mister Man only has a very low bureau that he could never topple. But I'm still considering anchoring that, as well.

2) Dinners need to be earlier. We'd been invited for 4:30 with dinner around 5:15 or 5:30. That's too late for an evening out for us. We need to be eating between 4:30 and 5 because social dinners take so long to eat. And the dinner never starts on time anyway -- my friend had forgotten to make rice, so we didn't start our meal until almost six.

3) These kids need to be supervised when playing. While the wee ones can play with some kids with only check ins every five minutes or so, with these friends, there needs to be an adult present at all times.

4) My husand needs to stop showing the wee ones Spiderman. Spiderman cartoons from the 1970s has turned into his little ritual with them, and I've been against this for a number of reasons: it pushes bedtime too late, they get into a very demanding mode where they expect Spiderman, I don't like them watching much tv anyway, and although this is a very sanitized version there still is cartoon violence. In talking to Mister Man after I got home (who was absolutely filled with shame and crushed and could hardly talk, poor kid) I determined that he wasn't trying to hurt anyone but that Spiderman shoots things out and throws things and the bad guys just get captured and don't get hurt. He can't draw the line between what's ok and not, and with his issues in knowing where to draw the line already in some of his social issues, Spiderman is just too much for him. Spiderman didn't necessarily cause the Lego stabbing, but it certainly didn't help the matter. My husband, fortunately, had already thought of the same thing, so we're on the same page.

My biggest concern is that Mister Man is in daycare all morning with the boy he "stabbed" (it was a Lego square ship like thing, so stabbing is a little severe of a description). The boy even when we left was playing the drama up to the hilt -- not saying that he isn't hurt but his mom said he was milking it. Mister Man has two boys in daycare who already get on his case about everything where we've been working with the teachers to ensure the behavior is appropriate. If my friend's son starts talking about what Mister Man did in daycare, we could have a problem. We'll see when I get home.

And meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out when the right time is to call my friend to apologize again for Mister Man and to see how both her kids are doing. But I'm not expecting a dinner invite anytime soon.

Play Ball!

I’ve learned quite a bit about t-ball in the past couple of days, and even my childless friend who was visiting this weekend and got stuck chasing the wee ones’ schedules today claims to have enjoyed it.



First, if there are opening day ceremonies, find out from experience parents whether or not this is truly a worthwhile event. Our opening ceremonies consisted of a parade, $1 burgers and custards from Culver’s, moon walks and more. Or so they claimed.

Really, we stood by the south entrance of the football stadium for a really long time trying with all our might to ensure that our children didn’t scale the locked fence. We made sure that no child disappeared. We searched for additional teammates. And twenty minutes after our parade was to have started – add in fifteen minutes planned prep time and you have squirrely five and six year olds confined in a small space for over a half hour, ha! – we began our parade.

The parade consisted of everyone, including parents and kids, walking about a half mile to the baseball fields. Then we stood with the other four members of our team amidst other teams while various officials gave twenty-three minutes of speeches. And yes, I kept track.



Fortunately, Mister Man wasn’t bored. He did sand angels with his legs – as did his teammates – until I caught him. He then picked up sand and poured it over his head and onto his shirt. Then he made roads in the sand. When I finally gave up and moved him four feet onto the grass so he could no longer reach the sand, he made like a billy goat and pulled up the grass.

I then had a conversation with him about how playing with sand and grass during a game was not going to be ok. And I mentally planned in some time for a shower later in the day.

The ceremonies finally ended, and the 400 kids were released to go have fun on the moon walks. Yep, both of them. One was a ten foot high slide and the other a moonwalk. And the bigger Little League kids of course came over after awhile and spent most of their time either sitting at the top of the slide blocking everyone from going down or kicking and shoving kids down. If they were knocked down, they bounced on kids at the bottom and them climbed back up the wrong way, stepping on kids on the way up. Yep, I've got a letter to write to the league about suggested either disuse of the moonwalks in the future or potentially some authority monitoring the moonwalks.

And the line for the Culver's food? Yeah, we didn't even try that one. Even after hanging out for over an hour, the lines were twenty people deep. We're just not that patient!

That was at 11am. At 5pm, we had our game. You can imagine how much wound up and exhausted all those five and six year olds were by yesterday evening. Our coach is also new to t-ball, so in our single practice on Thursday, we didn't exactly discuss how a game works or what is expected of t-ball.

Fortunately, parents are allowed on the field in t-ball, so my husband helped Mister Man out at "shortstop." He tried giving him all the hints, from the ready position to what to do if there is a man on first and second and the ball comes to him. Forget the fact that there are no outs in t-ball and the ball is supposed to always just be thrown to first. Mister Man appreciated the advice, however....



After the practice on Thursday, I realized Mister Man needed some remedial t-ball skills. I taught him how to stand and swing, and it really made a huge difference. He's a rules based kid, so drawing two lines on the driveway where his feet belonged made a huge difference -- compared to the "stand here, step forward, swing with your hips" that was being coached. Too amorphous for my boy!

It made a huge difference, and he actually was hitting the ball instead of the tee and hitting it well.



The last batter each inning hits a "home run," and Mister Man was that batter in the second inning. He was so thrilled as he rounded the bases!



Today, we were supposed to have another game. In fact, we should be there this second. Unfortunately, the rains have returned, so we were called off. I think one game this weekend was enough though. Both wee ones went up for naps before one, and I haven't heard a peep for either!



PS I promise the next post won't be about t-ball!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame!

Spring has finally arrived. I knew this partly because I wanted to go sit on my deck in the sunshine to work this afternoon and partly because we finally had our first t-ball practice.

Opening Day happens to be Saturday, but that's what happens in Chicago. Our first pratice was snowed/colded out. Our second practice was rained/colded out. And Tuesday? Yep, more rain and cold.

Tonight... Mister Man was introduced to t-ball. While they aren't yet best friends (my husband is currently at Play It Again Sports hunting for a tee among other accoutrements), they seemed to do ok for a first meeting.

He wasn't the kid who got hit in the face by a batted ball and started crying (yes, that happened). He actually knew where first base was. He eagerly charged every ball.

The rest of it though? Well, we might need to practice a bit. This is our first organized sport, so I know it will take awhile. He did hit the ball though (and I'm doing my darndest to make him a lefty!), and he had fun doing it.







At the end of practice, we received our shirts, hats and socks. Mister Man was thrilled that his cap and shirt had his name. But best of all? He loved the idea of being number four!

I asked him to model his new uniform, but he was too tired by the time we got home. This big boy was still at practice when bedtime rolled around, and he's smart enough to know to go to bed when he's tired.



So can anyone guess what team we are?

Anyone?

*crickets*

Yep, we're the Mets! Ok, if you can figure that one out, let me know. I'm completely confused.

Happy Spring!

Peer Pressure

This morning, I was getting Mister Man ready to head off to daycare. He almost tied his shoes for the very first time. Almost. That's not the point of today though.

Little Miss was already on the bus to preschool, so it was just to two of us. His shoes were on, as was his coat -- and yes, I know it's April 15. In Chicago, we still need a coat this late into spring.

We were almost to the car when I realized that he didn't yet have a hat on. We wear a hat just about every day, either for protection from the cold during the winter with a ski hat or from the sun with a baseball cap during the summer.

I've gotten sightly out of the habit lately, but with the wee ones playing outside at daycare and during gym at preschool, I know it's time to start focusing on the hats again. Little Miss chose her lilac White Sox hat without a fuss.

I remembered that I had a hat already in the car, so I suggested that he just put that one on.

Mister Man: I don't want to wear that one.
Me: Really? Why not? (It's always been one of his favorites.)
Mister Man: Because.
Me: (I'm intrigued now) Well, can you explain why?
Mister Man: Well, some of the kids don't like the Cardinals.
Me: Ahhh. So you want to be like the other kids?
Mister Man: No, I still don't like the cubs. I just don't want them to know that I like the Cardinals.
Me: That's ok. You don't have to tell them.
Mister Man: I just don't want them to make fun of me for liking the Cardinals.

Ouch.

Really? He's five. He's in preschool for goodness sake. Kids not only are choosing teams and pressuring others, but my boy has picked up on it. My boy who doesn't always fit in the greatest and struggles with some of the social cues has figured this out.

And I absolutely did not make him wear the Cardinals hat. I'm just hoping that no one starts ripping on the Vikes. Then we might have to have a little chat.



Poor kid. Where does it go from here? What will actual elementary school be like? Middle school and yikes -- high school?

Tasty Tuesday!

This past Saturday was Mister Man's half birthday, and yes, these are occasions that we celebrate in my house. It isn't done up all the way like a full birthday party, but the half birthday child chooses the dinner and also a type of cupcake. Cakes are for full birthdays, and cupcakes for half birthdays in my house.

Mister Man requested a chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips. And strawberry frosting. Uh-huh. Mommy doesn't like chocolate cake, so it's possible that someone tried to talk him into a different type of cupcake and failed miserably.

So instead, I did my darndest to make a type of chocolate cake I could eat. And enjoy. I had intended to puree and strain strawberries for the frosting but when I bought strawberries at the store, I forgot I was buying them for my mom for her Easer salad and neglected to get any for myself.

Instead, I got creative with a half package of strawberry Jell-O. The flavor was good, albeit somewhat crunchy. If I did that again, I'd heat the milk slightly and stir the Jell-O until dissolved instead of adding it into the frosting with the powdered sugar.

No one complained though. In fact, my dad had three. I'd say that's a ringing endorsement!







Double Chocolate Cocoa Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Cupcake:

Ingredients
2 c chocolate chips (or about 3/4 c chocolate chips left in the bag and a bunch of panic until you remember the milk chocolate melting discs that you chop to make up the remainder -- it was GOOD with two kinds of chocolate melted in the cupcake)
3/4 c butter, room temperature
1 1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c milk

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (don't skip this step or shortchange it!). Beat in eggs and vanilla until well mixed.

Add cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined. Add 1/3 c milk. Mix again. Add 1/2 c flour. Mix until just combined. Add the remainding 2/3 milk and mix well. Add the last 1 c flour and stir until about halfway mixed in.

Add the chocolate chips and stir with a spoon until just mixed in.

a) Fill ice cream cones about to the first lip of the cone where it starts to get wide (this makes about 28 cones) or b) fill greased muffin tins with the batter until about 3/4 full.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. If you do cones, it will take longer. Be patient. It's worth it.

Frosting:

Ingredients
1/4 c butter
1/3 c milk, heated
1/2 package strawberry Jell-O (or be good mom and puree about 1/3 c strawberries and strain them)
3 c powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

Cream the butter. Heat the milk until simmering, then add the Jell-O and stir until the Jell-O is dissolved. Add the milk to the butter and beat to combine. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar (slowly) and mix until well combined. If you're adding strawberry puree instead of Jell-O, add it at with the milk (not heated).

Wait until the cupcakes are fully cooled before frosting.



(And, yes, Donald Leopard and Sizzy joined us for the cupcakes, too)

Go check out this week's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Enjoy!

eBay Is On The LIST.

The wee ones' preschool does a fundraiser every year in conjunction with Cinco de Mayo. Because we're a small school with few parent volunteers, and the kids attending are preschoolers, many of which have special needs, our event is during school hours. We don't do the fancy galas that the other schools in our district do but rather have events during the day for the am and pm classes.

We invite parents in to see the events, which includes student performances and a dance troupe from the high school. During this, we have raffles and a silent auction.

The raffles have always gone over well -- including by people not connected to the school, which rocks. The silent auction garnered some negative feedback last year. Because some parents aren't able to attend at all and others have kids only in the am classes, many parents didn't feel it was fair because they wouldn't be there at the end of the auction. Although we offered last year to proxy bids for people if they told us their max bid, not many people took us up on this.

This year, we tried to get a little creative and move into the digital age. Some of us thought it would be great if we could list our silent auction items online for people to bid on -- no arguments of it not being fair because they weren't there and there's also the possibility of opening it to a wider audience for things like the three games of Cubs tickets we have.

In doing research for this, I found two companies doing online auctions that sounded like they might work. cMarket specializes in nonprofit fundraising with online auctions. They had all sorts of neat ways to do things, so I contacted them. Unfortunately, they're not for our school. They have a $595 auction setup fee, in addition to taking a pretty hefty portion of the auction's winning bid. I ruled them out pretty quickly.

eBay was the other possibility, as they have a nonprofit bit setup, as well. You have to vet your organization through Mission Fish and then it sounds like you can potentially list your item and get the listing fees back so long as the proceeds of the auction are for the nonprofit. Totally cool.

Of course (being the non-eBay person that I am), I had a ton of questions. I wanted to know things from: can we group our items together so people can find them easily to how long we can have the auction run since the presale brochure goes out well in advance of the fundraiser itself to how the fees truly work. I couldn't find any of these answers to my satisfaction online, so I sent off an email listing my seven questions very clearly to eBay.

I was promised a response within 48-72 hours. I was fine with that.

I waited 48 hours. Nothing. I waited 72. I was annoyed, but I wrote it off as bad customer service and a sign that I really shouldn't count on this working. And yes, we found an alternate solution that I think will work well -- at least for this year -- late last week.

A full week after I sent my email, I received a response from eBay. I was irritated that it wasn't even close to their 72 hour promise, but I was intrigued to see what it would have to say in the hopes that I could use it for next year or at least pass the info along to other PTOs in our district.

Below is the email verbatim.

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to

We are committed to making your eBay experiences pleasant and
fulfilling.

Sincerely,
Sid P.

eBay Customer Support
_____________________________________________

Yeah. I have to say that I believe I will never be using eBay for anything. Ever. How exactly does that come even close to being helpful? Seriously?

And I had such high hopes for the potential of having an online auction. Nope, it's a raffle ($1 per ticket) for our regular items and classroom baskets and a super raffle ($5 per ticket) for our more unique items. Here's hoping that it works out well. We got some really great donations this year, but I know the economy is rotten.

Regardless, we will not be using eBay this year. Or next. Boo.

Hippity Hoppity!

Happy Easter to all who are celebrating... and bear with me if you aren't!

It's been a bit of an unusual Easter, with some good tradition still thrown in there fortunately. I went to Maundy Thursday mass to sing in the choir, but I couldn't do two services today and Holy Saturday -- especially with my husband at the Brewers game and me without childcare.

It turns out that the service I missed last night had some drama to them. There was a bonfire outside the church that was contained in a container like what you would put beer or wine in. And it didn't stay contained and sort of spilled outside. And one of my fellow choir members accidentally set her bulletin afire when she held it too close to her taper while trying to read the text. Bummer!

Fortunately, the Easter Bunny did come to our house, although the wee ones were still sleeping when I left to go to church. That means that not only did I miss them finding and going through their baskets but there are no pictures of this. My husband doesn't exactly get it.



Oddly, the Easter Bunny in our house didn't bring chocolate this year, but he brought some stuff the wee ones definitely enjoyed: several new placemats (including a way cool periodic table one and a neat Spiderman plus a planets one), Spiderman activity book, Curious George dry erase board, a tiny sunflower container, a pair of big boy scissors, and the like. I believe everyone was happy with it.

After church, we went to my aunt and uncle's house, which is pretty traditional. Except that my parents and one other set of aunt and uncle were the only ones there. Two of my mom's five siblings didn't make it, and none of my cousins did. That's a first. One aunt and uncle did literally nothing for Easter but couldn't be bothered to come, so their three children (and spouses and children) didn't make the journey either. Sad, but what can you do. Even my sister didn't make it.

My aunt and uncle were going to have an Easter Egg hunt for the wee ones, but that fizzled somehow and instead they got presents. Two outfits and a swimsuit for each of them. Ahhh, clothes. My favorite kind of gifts nowadays.

And since Little Miss's swimsuit literally shredded in the water this past Saturday at swim lessons, the new suit couldn't have come at a better time. Again, I wasn't there and I'm going by what my mom said, but she came home a swimsuit short and claimed she'd never been more embarrassed in her life.





And then we all stuffed our faces, as normal. Ham with all the trimmings... and non-dairy foods for Little Miss. My aunt and uncle are good that way! I even have proof that it was a good day:



Yep, that would be my husband who had volunteered to shepherd the wee ones for awhile, sound asleep in a chair.

I think my aunt and uncle (who are childless) were ready for us to go by the time we packed up. The wee ones get a little riled up around Grandma and Grandpa, and then couple it with no nap and sugar that they kept eating throughout the day. Their poor cats -- who are also not used to having children around -- may never recover.

I'm thinking that after a good nap, I'll be just fine. And no tempting Easter candy to eat, either!

Happy Easter (or not)!