Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Snapshot Sunday
Sorry for the day late. It's windy here. Very windy. Tis the season for spotty internet connection in the country.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
This one's for you, girl.
My sister and her family stayed with us over the summer. Her daughter adored Gray and was rarely away from him. In organizing my pictures of their visit, I came across a few pictures that show how much she was with him. I do believe he went through Ash withdrawal when she left.
Dancing with Gray.
Teasing him - he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
Dancing with Gray.
Teasing him - he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Manners, manners.
I went over to Katherine's blog to get some poetry recommendations and came away with this -
"All that bratty childish selfish bullying competitive starving obnoxious avoidant behavior that our society seems to think is normal for young children no longer looks normal to me. Of course, we will all have our human moments of bad behavior, and children are as human as any one. But that stereotype of children - that siblings always fight, boys are mean, boys against girls, bitchy girls....you know - the ways we expect kids to act. All of that has become normalised in our society.
I've come to see that as social construct. Kids are as human as all of us. They act as they are expected to act. They are as polite as they are required to be, just like all of us. I'm not saying that homeschool kids are different so much as I'm saying that homeschoolers have different expectations for their kids. So what used to look like normal behavior to me, now looks like social construct. Children are lovely people. If your child is over the age of two and isn't fairly good company, you probably need a parenting class. Likely, you need to learn to say no effectively. Beyond that, school does a poor job of socialising most young children. Because, school was never designed to socialise children. In fact, it would be most accurate to say, left in school, young children socialise each other. This has happened enough generations that the results look normal. We seem to have collectively forgotten that results arrive from choices and decisions."
Now maybe it's because I'm perusing blogs late at night after two days of an unusual, splitting headache, but I want to run with this. It's been more and more noticeable to me over the last few months that this is true, that adults *expect* children to have "bratty childish selfish bullying competitive starving obnoxious avoidant" behaviors, and to see it spelled out so clearly was a breath of fresh air.
Kids *are* as human as all of us - they are as polite, not only as they are required to be, but as is demonstrated to them. I've been working on a post about manners that ties into this. When our first was just a babe - 10 months old - we started prompting manners. "Say thank you", "Say please", maybe trying to prove to others that we were good parents, that we knew how to raise a polite child.
When she was around 14 months old, we decided to stop prompting altogether and just start being more polite ourselves - allow her to learn by example, as it were. We started doing what we should have been doing from the beginning - thanking people for her, in front of her. Thanking each other. Asking each other politely for things. Saying "You're welcome". Our relationship improved. It took a few months for our daughter to start saying 'please' and 'thank you' regularly. But she did. And when she says thank you and please now, you know she means it, it's not prompted.
Where we've really seen this pay off is with our second born. She's never been prompted by us and we guard against prompting by others. She is, at a mere 27 months, partly by nurture, partly by nature, one of the politest kids I've ever met. 'Tanks' was one of her first words. 'Tanks, Momma' is a phrase I hear at least ten times daily. Melts my heart every time. 'Peeaaase' features prominently in her vocabulary as does 'Welc!'. She hears it from us, and from her sister. Her brother will hear it from his sisters and from his parents.
Little gets my husband aggravated faster than holding something out of his children's reach and chanting 'say please' or 'say thank you'. Do they say please and thank you every time it's appropriate? Of course not. Neither do most adults I know, yet most adults expect more politeness from children than they are willing to give either to their children, their spouses, or even strangers - all in the name of teaching them how to be proper adults. Do we model for our kids, or sometimes point social niceties out to our oldest daughter in private? Of course. We're not negligent, just respectful of our children's feelings - as respectful as we are of other adults.
That's just one small point I pulled out of the worthy quote above.
The other that jumped out at me was this "If your child is over the age of two and isn't fairly good company, you probably need a parenting class. Likely, you need to learn to say no effectively."
There is no doubt that at times I have relationship snags with my children, but they are just that - snags. They are not constant or persistent. They are, for the most part, either age-appropriate issues to work through, issues relating to eating/sleeping/stimulus, or simply relationship "static" of the same sort that afflicts my relationship with my husband or used to afflict roommate and sibling relationships - the kind of static that happens when any two humans live in constant contact with each other. The kind of static that my children have with each other occasionally. It's not pleasant when it happens, not pleasant at all. I've learned that apologizing for temper flares goes a long way in smoothing both adult and child relationships. I've learned that explaining *why* my temper flared helps my daughter pinpoint in herself why she's getting cranky. I've learned that finding a 'yes' acceptable to all of us is almost always an option, that it was hard to break the automatic 'no' habit that I was raised with, and that saying 'no' *effectively* is much easier when the majority of their life is made up of 'yes'es.
It makes me really sad when I see children and parents in constant conflict, or who would rather not be around each other. It makes me really sad when I see siblings constantly beating up on each other, verbally or physically. It doesn't need to be that way, though it unfortunately does appear normal these days. Both my husband and myself love to be around our children. They are very good company - bright, sparkly little humans.
It makes me breathe a little easier to hear parents of children older than mine, who parent in a similar fashion, saying these things since I often hold back because "maybe it's just because mine are so young. Maybe as they get older, it will all fall apart." Maybe it won't.
But now I need to go back and get those poetry recommendations...
"All that bratty childish selfish bullying competitive starving obnoxious avoidant behavior that our society seems to think is normal for young children no longer looks normal to me. Of course, we will all have our human moments of bad behavior, and children are as human as any one. But that stereotype of children - that siblings always fight, boys are mean, boys against girls, bitchy girls....you know - the ways we expect kids to act. All of that has become normalised in our society.
I've come to see that as social construct. Kids are as human as all of us. They act as they are expected to act. They are as polite as they are required to be, just like all of us. I'm not saying that homeschool kids are different so much as I'm saying that homeschoolers have different expectations for their kids. So what used to look like normal behavior to me, now looks like social construct. Children are lovely people. If your child is over the age of two and isn't fairly good company, you probably need a parenting class. Likely, you need to learn to say no effectively. Beyond that, school does a poor job of socialising most young children. Because, school was never designed to socialise children. In fact, it would be most accurate to say, left in school, young children socialise each other. This has happened enough generations that the results look normal. We seem to have collectively forgotten that results arrive from choices and decisions."
Now maybe it's because I'm perusing blogs late at night after two days of an unusual, splitting headache, but I want to run with this. It's been more and more noticeable to me over the last few months that this is true, that adults *expect* children to have "bratty childish selfish bullying competitive starving obnoxious avoidant" behaviors, and to see it spelled out so clearly was a breath of fresh air.
Kids *are* as human as all of us - they are as polite, not only as they are required to be, but as is demonstrated to them. I've been working on a post about manners that ties into this. When our first was just a babe - 10 months old - we started prompting manners. "Say thank you", "Say please", maybe trying to prove to others that we were good parents, that we knew how to raise a polite child.
When she was around 14 months old, we decided to stop prompting altogether and just start being more polite ourselves - allow her to learn by example, as it were. We started doing what we should have been doing from the beginning - thanking people for her, in front of her. Thanking each other. Asking each other politely for things. Saying "You're welcome". Our relationship improved. It took a few months for our daughter to start saying 'please' and 'thank you' regularly. But she did. And when she says thank you and please now, you know she means it, it's not prompted.
Where we've really seen this pay off is with our second born. She's never been prompted by us and we guard against prompting by others. She is, at a mere 27 months, partly by nurture, partly by nature, one of the politest kids I've ever met. 'Tanks' was one of her first words. 'Tanks, Momma' is a phrase I hear at least ten times daily. Melts my heart every time. 'Peeaaase' features prominently in her vocabulary as does 'Welc!'. She hears it from us, and from her sister. Her brother will hear it from his sisters and from his parents.
Little gets my husband aggravated faster than holding something out of his children's reach and chanting 'say please' or 'say thank you'. Do they say please and thank you every time it's appropriate? Of course not. Neither do most adults I know, yet most adults expect more politeness from children than they are willing to give either to their children, their spouses, or even strangers - all in the name of teaching them how to be proper adults. Do we model for our kids, or sometimes point social niceties out to our oldest daughter in private? Of course. We're not negligent, just respectful of our children's feelings - as respectful as we are of other adults.
That's just one small point I pulled out of the worthy quote above.
The other that jumped out at me was this "If your child is over the age of two and isn't fairly good company, you probably need a parenting class. Likely, you need to learn to say no effectively."
There is no doubt that at times I have relationship snags with my children, but they are just that - snags. They are not constant or persistent. They are, for the most part, either age-appropriate issues to work through, issues relating to eating/sleeping/stimulus, or simply relationship "static" of the same sort that afflicts my relationship with my husband or used to afflict roommate and sibling relationships - the kind of static that happens when any two humans live in constant contact with each other. The kind of static that my children have with each other occasionally. It's not pleasant when it happens, not pleasant at all. I've learned that apologizing for temper flares goes a long way in smoothing both adult and child relationships. I've learned that explaining *why* my temper flared helps my daughter pinpoint in herself why she's getting cranky. I've learned that finding a 'yes' acceptable to all of us is almost always an option, that it was hard to break the automatic 'no' habit that I was raised with, and that saying 'no' *effectively* is much easier when the majority of their life is made up of 'yes'es.
It makes me really sad when I see children and parents in constant conflict, or who would rather not be around each other. It makes me really sad when I see siblings constantly beating up on each other, verbally or physically. It doesn't need to be that way, though it unfortunately does appear normal these days. Both my husband and myself love to be around our children. They are very good company - bright, sparkly little humans.
It makes me breathe a little easier to hear parents of children older than mine, who parent in a similar fashion, saying these things since I often hold back because "maybe it's just because mine are so young. Maybe as they get older, it will all fall apart." Maybe it won't.
But now I need to go back and get those poetry recommendations...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Christmas trees
We have our Christmas tree. Hannah raced up the hill to show her daddy which one she wanted for her room.
She carried it back to the truck all by herself.
And when she got it home, she decorated it all by herself.
It was a long search for the family tree.
So while we searched, the girls ate snow.
And walked on snow-covered logs.
And made the season's first snow angel.
Now the tree has been picked, cut down, brought home, set up in our house, and is waiting impatiently for Father to have a spare minute to help us decorate. Hopefully soon...
She carried it back to the truck all by herself.
And when she got it home, she decorated it all by herself.
It was a long search for the family tree.
So while we searched, the girls ate snow.And walked on snow-covered logs.
And made the season's first snow angel.
Now the tree has been picked, cut down, brought home, set up in our house, and is waiting impatiently for Father to have a spare minute to help us decorate. Hopefully soon...
Giveaway winners
The winners of Rainbow and Daisy are Diana and Beverly - both from MJF!
I was surprised that there were so few entries for the contest since there have been over 500 unique hits since Thursday to the tutorial. Maybe it's such an easy craft that a giveaway isn't so thrilling? Thank you to all of those who've sent this around the internet and linked to it - it was a fun tutorial to do!
I was surprised that there were so few entries for the contest since there have been over 500 unique hits since Thursday to the tutorial. Maybe it's such an easy craft that a giveaway isn't so thrilling? Thank you to all of those who've sent this around the internet and linked to it - it was a fun tutorial to do!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Sock Stick Horse - Tutorial
Just in time for the holidays! This is a really easy, fast, inexpensive, very cute stick horse. If you are even a part-time crafter, you probably have all of the stuff needed to make it in your house without heading to the store. An old broom handle can be the stick, fabric scraps can replace the batting. You can do without the rick-rack and accent with fake flowers or more buttons.
You'll need:
Adult sock (woman's cotton size 6 worked better for me than larger or stretchier socks)
Thread and needle
Ribbon
Rick-rack
Felt
Two pieces of fabric
1/2 inch wide, 3 foot long dowel
2 buttons for eyes
Batting
Hot glue gun & glue sticks
Get out the sock and the batting. This little sock will stretch much further than you'd think possible.
Stuff the sock with the batting. Get it really firm.
Cut one 34-35 inch piece of ribbon for the reins. Cut two more pieces of ribbon, measured around the sock at the intervals shown by the measuring tape below. If you're using rick-rack or a contrasting ribbon as an accent, cut those now too. These will be your bridle ribbons. I can't tell you how long to cut them since the size varies for each sock.
On the two short ribbons, hot glue the accent to the ribbon. Ignore my very well-used ironing board, please.
Now we'll attach the reins to the horse's head. Hot glue one end of the rein ribbon in two places on the head, where the glue spots will be covered by your bridle ribbons. Hannah wanted to know why I was saying "I love you" to the horse.
Repeat with the other end of the ribbon on the other side of the horse's head. Make sure you don't twist the reins - I've done that.
Now hot glue the bridle ribbons on, being sure to cover the spots where you glued the reins on and be sure you put the ends of the ribbon under the horse's chin.
Glue the button eyes on.
Freehand cut two felt ears. With pinking shears, cut a smaller ear shape for the inside of each ear. I always pick one of the fabrics that I'm using for the mane. Hot glue the back and the front together for each ear.
Now glue the ears onto the horse's head.
This is the closest I've ever glued them - these ears were a tad bigger than my usual horse ears. Usually, the ears are at least a 1/2 inch apart at the top.
Now, using pinking shears (so the fabric won't fray over time), cut ten pieces out of each piece of fabric that you've chosen for the mane. The pieces should be 3 inches wide and 5 inches long. Match all of the pieces of fabric up so that you have one of each with wrong sides together.
Twist the fabric pieces like a candy wrapper.
Now hot glue these on the horse's head. A few will go in front of the ears, but not past the top bridle ribbon.
This can be tricky. You have to hold the pieces where you need them and sometimes do some additional gluing to get them to stay where you want them to stay.
Here's the finished mane. Now "poof" the mane out by separating the fabric pieces. This will give your mane more body and hide any of the sock that's showing through the mane.
Voila! Two finished horse heads.
Here are some more finished heads to give you an idea of the different looks you can get using different fabrics. I always just use scrap fabric I have on hand. If you like quilting fabrics, you could use quilting block packages to create some really darling manes using more than two types of fabrics.
Now you need to attach the head to the stick. To do this, hand sew around the cuff of the sock. Keep both ends of your doubled thread long.
Cut through the batting with some scissors to get a place for your dowel. Put the dowel in. It should go all the way to the first bridle ribbon. Trust me. I've done it lower and it doesn't look right - the horse's head bobs and hangs.
Now pull the thread tight enough to get the cuff close to the dowel. Put hot glue around the inside of the cuff and tighten the thread up quickly. Hold until the glue is dry. Knot the thread and trim.
And you have a stick horse!
My younger daughter has a horse that I made with 40 inch reins. Much, much too long. My older daughter is riding her horse that she's had for almost three years. These are much loved toys.
All of the horses above have homes, except for these two, so I'm giving them away! If you would like one of these horses for your child for the holiday this year, leave a comment telling me your favorite December tradition (I need ideas) and whether you'd prefer Daisy or Rainbow. I won't be hurt if you rename them.
The drawing will close on Sunday, December 7 at noon, MST. I'll have each of my girls draw a name for one of these horses and I'll announce the winners on Sunday evening or Monday morning.
For shipping ease, I'll just be sending the head - you'll need to get a dowel and attach it. Have fun!
If you want to see one of these horses in action, check out these videos. Cutest damn cowgirl in town.
The difference between Night and Day.
We've been traveling a *lot* over the past few months. Fall's that way - we've got to get enough hay to feed our animals, enough wood to heat our house, and enough visiting before the weather locks us in. We haven't travelled far enough to put us in a new time zone, so I'm not sure where the question came from, but Hannah asked last weekend if it was daytime at Grandma and Poppa's house when it was daytime at ours.
Enter an awesome website. It's constantly updated, so you always see exactly where on earth the sun is shining.
http://www.opentopia.com/sunlightmaprect.html
Enter an awesome website. It's constantly updated, so you always see exactly where on earth the sun is shining.
http://www.opentopia.com/sunlightmaprect.html
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