I've Been Watching Too Much TV

Kids TV, that is.

We've been doing a pretty good job of limiting LBB's tv watching to 2 hours or so a day lately. But when he was sick, that is all he did. All. Day. Long.

So that's what I did. All. Day. Long. :)

Some thoughts that passed through my head during our tv-athon:

• Elmo can be sooooooo condescending. Case in point: "Why don"t we ask a baaaaab-y? Baby, how do you get dressed? {Tosses hat on baby's lap. Baby stares at him.} Hahahahahahahaha!" Geez, Elmo. Does it make you feel better to pick on a baby? Bully. 
• Have you seen Color Crew? It's a show about crayons. That color. Pretty simple concept. But the crayons, especially the blue one, are little....creepy. Then there's the eraser...he looks and sounds evil. And don't even get me started on the fact that they don't talk (besides to say the color name.) My LBB has enough issues with not talking...I don't need the little bit of tv he watches to encourage that.
• I have MAJOR issues with Chuck and Friends. I get that it's a show about friendship...and bulldozers. What boy wouldn't love that? But here's the deal. I'm NOT ok with how they portray friendship. Am I the only Mom that has a problem with the fact that Chuck is the worshipped friend while the other trucks fade into the background and praise everything he  does, including the (let's be honest) stupid and misbehaving stuff? To make matters worse, Chuck's mom Haulie totally encourages his behavior. In the most irritating episode I've seen, Chuck gets a new horn. Chuck's other friend gets a new siren and a new voice changer. Pretty cool. Now Chuck arrives to the junk yard as his friend is sharing his new siren and voice changer, and gets royally upset that HE wasn't the center of attention. He goes back to his mom's shop (pouting of course) and she asks him: "What's wrong? Didn't you show your friends your new horn?"  I have a major issue with this. It drives me crazy when Moms thinks it's a-ok to just bring their kids around to other kids and show off their new things. And I have an even bigger problem when they encourage their kids to feel that they are more important than their friends. At the end of that episode, Chuck apologizes to his friend for getting upset that he wasn't the center of attention (and stealing his big brothers wheels to try to show off even more). THEN...for some reason, his friend apologizes to him for showing his friends his siren and voice changer and sharing with their friends. WHAT? It's ok to share new toys, which is what his friend was doing, but it's where it's coming from. If you are showing to share, ok. (That's what his friend did.) If you are showing to show off and make yourself look cool, not ok. (Which is what Chuck was doing.) Ugh. Sorry about that...it's a touchy subject. Haha.
• We love Curious George. I love his curiosity.  I love that he uses great problem solving skills. And I think LBB really relates to him. But. What does The Man in the Yellow Hat do for a living? I am sure it has something to do with the museum, but he never goes to work there for long periods of time. He must have money, because his apartment is pretty awesome, and he's got that country place. The country place is apparently his family's. He makes a reference to his childhood there when George finds his old bike. But, his mom is still alive because he emails her. So...how does that all work? At first I thought he his family was dead or something, but I'm realizing that's probably not the case. Any thoughts?
• And my favorite show to let LBB watch? The Backyardigans. Hands down the best, in my humble opinion. Imagination, friendship (the good kind), and outside play? You can't beat that. I love that not all of them play together in every episode...it teaches little ones that it's ok to make other friends. I love that they use their imagniations to have fun adventures. I love that each character is absolutely unique. And I love that at the end of the show, they go to a different friend's house each time for snack. Such a good good show. There is singing and dancing, and my LBB just adores that. :) 

So, that's that. My random thoughts that have been building up in my brain. :) Thanks for reading, and thanks for going through the whole Chuck & Friends rant. Wowzers. :)

Nerve-wracking

This little guy is a bundle of excitement. You never know what's going to happen.

Sometimes he acts like he is going to happily color a piece of paper (what Mommy doesn't love a new drawing to hang up), and then he ends up coloring all over his face. In 5 seconds.

And then sometimes, the excitement isn't so fun. A few days ago, LBB was having a normal LBB day. Then, he woke up from his nap...and he was just burning up. We took his temp, and he was a very warm 101.3. So, we gave him so tylenol. Got him in just his diaper and some shorts, and worked on getting him cooler. An hour later his fever was up, but not by much, so we waited it out. Bedtime rolled around, and his fever hadn't moved much (just a little upwards), but knowing that our pediatrician isn't concerned until it REALLY spikes, we got him to bed and hoped a good night's sleep would take care of it.

An hour later, we checked on him...and he was laying there. Eyes wide open. Completely in a daze. That is definitely not my LBB. If he is awake, he is moving. I immediately worried. We took his temp...and it had shot up to 103.4. Now, I'm a worrywart. I know that. So we called the pediatrician's triage nurse, and while we  waited (impatiently) for a call back, LBB vomitted ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE.

We went straight to the ER. His fever kept spiking, and once he threw up, I didn't care what the nurse said. I wanted to make sure everything was fine. :)

Thankfully, after 2 1/2 hours in the ER, LBB started feeling better on his own. We have no idea what caused the fever. No idea what caused the vomitting. He rested the whole next day and was uncharacteristically calm. He slept on the couch, but by 5pm, he was back to normal and playing choo-choos and giggling away. :)

Thank goodness.

It is nerve wracking when your little one feels so cruddy. That's the highest his fever has ever gone. Something was just weird about it. But, no matter the cause, I'm just glad that he's a-ok now. All day yesterday he was his normal LBB self, and that makes this Mommy very happy.

I like LBB's excitement, but I could pass on the fevers and trips to the ER. :)

Farm Animal Exhibition

We've been having Farm Animal Exhibitions lately.

Actually, it is just LBB that holds these exhibitions. And they are daily.

The most amusing part...the fact that these exhibitions revolve around one very vital part of being a living being.

Each exhibition focuses on {drumroll please}...

...the fact that each animal has a potty place.

The other day he showed Cat #2 that each animal shares a characteristic. He's shown me. He's shown Dear Sweet Hubby. He's shown his GiGi. He's shown his PaPa. It's kind of a big deal. :)

Now if I could just get to get that excited about going potty himself.

Decorating Vintage-The Entry Way Edition

Another "installment" of my Decorating Vintage Series! Today, I'm focusing on a little bit of our entry way. Our apartment has a lovely little entryway...and without anything in it, it seemed like wasted space. Turns out, it was the perfect spot for an entryway table. We took the IKEA expedit coffee table we had, took the legs off of one side, and installed them onto the other legs, making the table much taller. Then we attached the legless side of the table to the wall using some "L" brackets. It's just the perfect height for the entryway...and as an added bonus the cat's litter box fits perfectly underneath. Score.

Now the top of the table? Well, that can be a problem. After all, what better place for clutter to accumulate. But if you take the time to make it look nice, amazingly you have no desire to get the entryway cluttered. :)

And my favorite part (besides the cute handprints of my LBB):

Some of my vintage books and the lovely Brownie Hawkeye camera a dear friend gave me a few Christmases ago. :)

Vintage can be anywhere in the house. When used just right, it gives just the sweetest touch of character to your home.

Do you go vintage shopping at all? What is one thing you are ALWAYS on the lookout for?

It's A Sham.

For a chair. :)

In fact, this chair. Meet Poang:

And meet Cat #2. The furry, dimwitted kitty that loves this chair. Not because it's comfy. No. That's not why at all.

Apparently, Poang has a perfect combination of whatever kitties see as desirable when it comes to ripping apart furniture.

Case in point:

Yes. Lovely, isn't it? No, she's not declawed. I could go into my whole soapbox speech about why we shouldn't declaw cats. But. I'd be lying if I said the thought to get her declawed hadn't crossed my mind. Mulitple times.

But, that ship has sailed. Onto dealing with the chair.

I've been drooling over slipcovers from Bemz. But, my checking account hasn't. And while I would love one of those gorgeous slipcovers, I just can't fathom spending more than...let's say more than $25. I'm thrifty.

Thank goodness I can sew. I  got 2 yards of home decor fabric (on sale for 50% off. Score.) at the fabric store. Then I headed home and went about to making a slipcover sham for the chair.

First, if you are covering a Poang cushion, make sure you get 2 yards of home decor fabric that is 54" wide.

Cut off the lovely white ends so all you see is your beautiful fabric.

Next, fold the top (skinny) over about 3/4". Sew straight down to make one finished edge.

Yes, you'd probably use pins. But, pins hate me, and to be truthful, I'm not too fond of them either. :) They jab me unexpectedly. I forget about them and run over them with my sewing needle. No, pins and I do not get along. At. All. (Although I did have to use them later in the project.)

Now you'll want to cut your fabric in half, from top to bottom (skinny top. I have no idea how best to label this.), essentially making two 26" x 2 yards rectangles. Am I making any sense? If not, check out the picture below. :)

Alrighty. That's what one rectangle should look like. Now...here comes the "play it by ear and hope it works" part.

Take your cushion and lay it on the WRONG side of your fabric. Leave about 10" of fabric on the finished edge side. This will become the top part of the sham. Fold the fabric over.

Now, take the second rectangle, and place it on top of the cushion. Make sure finished edge is by the other finished edge. This will become the bottom part of the sham.

Starting to look like a pillow sham, isn't it?

Now you'll want to trim the bottom of the fabric. I left about 2 inches past the end of the cushion. Does that make any sense? I hope so because I failed to take pictures of this step.

Essentially I ended up with about 6" or so of excess fabric from one piece and about 18" excess from the other.

Next, you'll want to flip the rectangles over so they have the RIGHT sides together. Line up the bottom edge (not the sham edge) and pin. Yep, that's right, I said pin.

You'll end up sewing a square "U". The larger rectangle will be on the bottom, and it will be longer than the smaller rectangle. Make sure you line up the UNFINISHED bottom edge, not the finished edge. Start sewing at the finished edge of the short rectangle, and sew down from there. (This makes your square "U".)

Now, the next part is another cross your fingers and eyeball it. Slip the cushion into the cover, and fold the long edge of the cover over. I estimated where I needed to sew it over into a flap, and it ended up being about a 5" overlap over the short rectangle.

You are just going to sew the two sides from the fold down to the finished edge. You now have one long, rectangular sham, right?

Turn the sham so it is right side out. And begin the awkward task of trying to stuff your cushion into the sham. I don't know what is more difficult...this or trying to put a duvet comforter in. Haha.

But.

If my directions made any sense at all (I sure hope they did...if not, please ask!), you should end up with something like this:

It's not as fitted as the original slipcover. But...I like the way it looks casually comfortable. Dear Sweet Hubby was impressed. And Cat #2 can't quite figure out what happened.

It took me about an hour to do this, from start to finish. I really apologize for the semi-cruddy tutorial, but I hope it gives you an idea of the process. In summary, if you can make a pillow sham, you can make this slipcover. :) It was a lot of eyeballing and estimating, but I'm very happy with the results.

Here's What I've Been Up to Today:

Preschool planning. Preschool planning. Preschool planning.

And I'm loving it. :)

This past year of early preschool with LBB has taught us a few things about what works. What doesn't. And what we need to work on. So I'm having a blast sitting down and actually working on his curriculum.

It is tailor made just for him, so that means I'm putting a lot more work into it than if I ordered a curriculum (which would be nice...I just like to make sure it fits him to a tee. And this is a fun age to plan for!)

But, I've already got the school year calendar done. Planner printed out for the first 5 weeks. Curriculum themes planned for the whole year. And now I'm working on each week individually. My goal is to have the whole year planned, printed, and mostly prepared for before school starts. :) This past year I would do a few weeks at a time, and that caused us to sometimes get...a tad lazy. I'd forget to prep a week, then we'd skip a week. But, no more! I will be prepared!

Once I get the planning done, I get to adapt the dining room to a homeschool room that works for us, so that's my motivation. :)

What has your Monday been filled with? (And sorry for the scattered post...I'm a tad tired. I'm on attempt number 892 of going caffeine free. Wish me luck.)

Sunday Book Review: One-Dog Canoe

I decided that once a week, I'm going to start sharing a book review.

Mostly because the book we read today is just so darn cute. :)

Dear Sweet Hubby, LBB, and I dog-sat my parent's adorable little Shih Tzu this weekend, and LBB did such a wonderful job. He fed her. Hugged her. Gave her treats. Played with her. And even helped put her out for potty time.

He was "Dog-Sitter Extraordinaire."

And to thank him, PaPa and GiGi got him this book:

from amazon.com

It is the cutest story about a little girl who takes her pup out for a canoe ride, only to have lots of forest animals ask to join her on their canoe ride.

The story is written in wonderful rhyme. The pictures are beyond adorable. And the ending is so adorable and almost guaranteed to make a certain 2 year old gasp in delight. :)

LBB thought it was a hoot when the moose asked to join the canoe ride, and when I asked him if he thought the moose would be able to ride in the canoe, he emphatically said "Yeeeaaahhhh." :) Turns out, the Moose could.

So, whether you are looking for just a cute read, taking your little one on their first canoe trip, or studying forest animals, this book is a sure bet.