Slow Down, Gym Shoe!

Sweet And Sassy!

I wanted to do something special for Little Bear to celebrate what, in a few days, will be her first day as a first grader in  new school. I had heaard about this place called Sweet And Sassy, which is basically a salon and spa for little girls. There is one only a few minutes away from where we live, so I thought it would be a great place to take Little Bear! I was hoping to have them put some permanent coloring in the front of her hair and to let her get a mini-manicure.

Unfortunately, I don't believe in calling ahead, because calling people causes me so much anxiety for some reason! So I was basically just counting on everything to go well. When we got there, I was dismayed to find out that they didn't offer hair coloring, and that all of the stylists were booked solid so even a manicure wasn't an option for Little Bear!

Fortunately, the lady who greeted us, Michelle, was very helpful, and managed to make the visit very special and fun for Little Bear anyway. 

First, Michelle painted Little bear's nails! Little Bear had never gotten such a professional polish job! Michelle sprayed Little Bear's nails with some "sticky stuff" that she said would make the nail polish stay on longer, and then painted her nails with the bright neon green color that Little Bear had picked out.She added a sparkly topcoat, and then sprayed some stuff on it that would make Little Bear's nails dry faster. Pufferfish, who was watching wistfully, got the same treatment! Check out these fancy hands!

(Pufferfish's hand)

(Little Bear's hand)

Since they couldn't style or color Little Bear's hair, Michelle told Little Bear she could make it glittery. She braidd Little Bear's hair (since she wasn't a stylist, she explained,she couldn't actually brush it or use any other tools, but she did her best) and then sprayed it thoroughly with glitter spray. Then she gae Little Bear a couple of glitter stars on her cheek! And, of course, Pufferfish got the same things!

Michelle was so nice to the girls, and Little Bear loved her so much, she kept spontaneously hugging her!

Since I didn't have to pay for an actual manicure or hair styling, I had some money leftover, so I let Little bear make her own personal bottle of lotion. We did this once before at Club Libby Lu... there are a bunch o huge bottles of different colors and scents of lotions, and bottles of glitter and stars, and you can layer these things into your own bottle however you'd like. Little Bear lved making her own personal, crazy blend!

I also bought a bottle of the glitter spray, which I thought was the kind that Michelle had used on the kids' hair. (Later, when we tried it, it didn't seem to show up as well as the kind Michelle used, but you can also use it on your skin, so its pretty cool stuff either way!) And I got them a couple of those really tall lollipops. Plus, another employee wrapped up the bottle of lotion and the glitter spray in fancy bags, and gave them each  balloon!

Here is a direct quote from Little Bear: "It's fun, it's cool, and it's a girl's favorite place! Michelle, thank you for doing my nails! You're good at it! I wish that you could live with us!"

I think it was a perfect outing for Little Bear and Pufferfish! We'll definitely be going back there... maybe we'll bring Tigerlily next time, if I can afford it! But next time we're definitely going to make an appointment!

An Overview Of The Week

i haven't blogged for a few days, so I thought I'd give you an overview of the past week1

Monday: Sarah, Monkeyboy, Little Bear, Pufferfish, Rafael and I went to the DuPage Museum of Natural history, which is on our passport program. They have historical displays on the first leel of the museum. But the best part is the basement, which houses a huge model raiload that actually works! You can stare at it forever and try to find weird things in the display, like the Batmobile! The basement also has a huge toy room with a measurement theme, where kids can measure themselves and pretend to cook and build bird houses. We were a little disappointed to find that our favorite exhibits, the antique washtub and washboard and the giant antique bikes, which we loved when we visited the museum last year, were no longer on display. So we didn't stay as long as we did last time!

After the museum, we walked to downtown Wheaton to visit the Popcorn Shop and get our fill of penny candy. We sat over by the fountains and had s little feast. You may remember that the last time we went there, Little Bear ended up falling ino the fountain! This time, I just saved some time and let them go wading!

 

 

Tuesday: Our theme of the week was the ocean. So Monkeyboy, Little Bear, Pufferfish, Tigerlily, Rafael and I went to this place called Living Sea Aquarium. Its basically a pet store where you can buy reptiles and tropical fish. But they also have small sharks, giant goldfish, and stingrays! the best part is, if you're there at two o'clock, you get to help feed the stingrays! All the kids got to take a turn at that! Then, at home, i hid seashells (which I had bought a whole basket of at the Dollar Store) in the backyard for them to hunt for. The seashell hunt was a big hit, and they got to keep the seashells they found!

 

Wednesday: Jimmy took the little girls to the city to see their grandparents. So Monkeyboy, RaFael and I went to the Wild Wednesday event at one of the local nature centers, where we got to meet a red-tailed hawk! (Every Wednesday we get to have a new animal encounter!) We also walked around the lake, searched a dried up creek bed for snail shells, and went fishing! (Unfortunately I left my phone in the car, so I didn't get to take any pictures.}

Thursday: Jimmy took the little girls to the city again! Monkeyboy, Rafael and I met Tigerlily and her mom at a near by park, where they had a Kidz Club event going on. We got to see a magician! Afterwards, the kids hunted for frogs and fed the ducks! 

Friday: I had court in the morning for my stupid traffic ticket, so Jimmy watched the kids. When I got home, Tigerlily, Little Bear, Pufferfish and I made tie-dyed T-shirts! We also made crayon and watercolor resist paintings of fish in the water while we waited for the shirts to dry.

It was a pretty good, full week! I've been trying to take Monkeyboy with me and the little kids as much as possible, to help him feel included and to get him out of the house, since he doesn't really have any friends here yet. Marcus (one of our former unofficial foster kids) came to stay for the first half of the month, and Topher and Brittni also came to visit for a weekend, but other than that Monkeyboy has been on his own. He's actually been a good sport about coming along on our journeys, and he even helps out a whole bunch with the little kids! Rafael adores him. I usually get him an Arizona Tea at some point in the day when he comes with me, which he thinks is his payment for helping out, even though I usually get drinks for myself and the other kids as well. Monkeyboy loves nature. He could spend hours hunting for toads, bugs, snail shells, or whatever, and he knows a whole lot about fishing. He seems to always forget that he loves nature, because he gets preoccupied with his video games, but if you manage to get him out of the house, he's really in his element!

Anyway, next week we're going to be doing an insect theme, and hopefully the kids will love that too!

And now, for a few strange moments, courtesy of the little kids!

Little Bear: (talking on a pretend telephone) "Hello? Yes, my Auntie Nicki is here. What? Oh, no, she is not paying for your taxi! Goodbye!"

*****

Rafael: "Boys are gross and girls aren't."

Me: "Who told you that, Rafael?"

Rafael: "Nobody! I saw it on the news! They said, 'Boys are gross and girls are not.'"

Hmm...

Buy My Books!

When I worked doing child care at the CHARGE Syndrome conference, it really made me want to experience that unity and familiarity at a conference myself. Since I didn't get to go to the BlogHer Conference, I decided to try and go to the CHADD Conference in October.
I am signing up to volunteer for an eight hour shift at the conference, which means I'll get to go to the rest of the conference for free! So all I need to worry about is the hotel rooms (probably 3 nights, for $140 a night) and transportation to get there (I'll probably take a Greyhound bus, for a whopping $46 round trip! You can't beat that!)
One of the things I'm going to do to save up money for the trip is to try to sell some of the books I've self-published.
The latest one, most appropriate for selling to get to this trip, is called Why I Am The Way I Am, and it is an explanation of ADHD, by someone who has it. This book is for friends and family members of people with ADHD, who want to better understand what ADHD is and how it feels to have it.
The next most recent one, which some of you may actually have reviewed in your blogs a while back, is a book for children with autism and their friends, classmates, and siblings. Danny, Danny, Superstar is written and illustrated from the point of view of an eight year old boy with autism. The story is about how Danny and his classmates participate in a talent show.
Finally, I have written a novel, called Skye Blue. It is a sort of coming-of-age story about Skye, who has been raised on the streets by her brother, a troubled con artist who often drags Skye into his scams.
If you're a book lover, please consider buying one of these books! (I've linked the titles to the pages where you can buy them.)
 By the way, Lulu is a self-publishing company that charges no set-up fees for authors. Unlike through other self-publishing companies on the Internet, I never had to make any sort of payment to them. They even include a free ISBN number, which you'd normally have to pay about a hundred bucks for. When you buy a book, they take out the production costs, and the rest goes to me. So I feel very comfortable telling book lovers who want to get their hands on some rare and new books to try browsing Lulu.com and supporting the authors there!
Thanks for your support!

Our Passport To Adventure!

The museum association in the county where I live sponsors a really cool program in the summer, which I found out about a few days ago. Kids get a little "passport" booklet, with each place listing the name and description of a small, local museum. When kids bring their passport to one of the participating museums, they get a stamp on that museum's page. Kids who visit at least seven of the museums over the summer get a prize!

It turns out that our suburban area is a wealth of nature museums, art museums and history museums, most of which are free or are just one or two dollars for admission. The museums are places that may seem boring at first glance, but most have special hands-on exhibits just for kids.

Last week Little Bear, Pufferfish, Rafael and I visited a "history of comic books" exhibit at one history museum, and got our first stamp.

And today, we took a journey to a nature center, about a half an hour way, to get our second stamp! I thought the kids would enjoy it because it has a genuine cave Sure enough, they did like climbing into the small cave, and mostly climbing on top of the cave! But their favorite part of the nature center was the indoor section, where they could look at live animals and touch things like animal fur and beehives and snake skins.

I mentioned in my last post that Rafael doesn't really enjoy the little arts and crafts and stories and things that I usually do with the girls... so I'm going to try to fill this month with more adventure-based activities. I figure that if I can get the kids to explore a history museum for half an hour, and follow it up with a picnic at a new playground, they will have learned a little something and gotten lots of exercise and fresh air!

So anyway, here are a few pics from today!

Pufferfish explores the cave. The nature center let us check out a bag that included binoculars, magnifying glasses, and a flashlight, to help us explore!

 

Little Bear checks out some frogs and tadpoles, with her passport in hand.

Rafael and Pufferfish look at toads.

The kids insisted that I take a picture of this turtle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh no! Little Bear is shrinking! Now she's shorter than the grass!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standing inside the middle of a tree!

Taking a break on the observation deck.

Five more field trips to go! It looks like this will be a fun couple of weeks, after all!

We're Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo, What About You You You

When everyone came to Pufferfish's birthday party this past weekend, Tigerlily's parents ended up inviting two cousins, Becca and Patty, to stay for a few extra days. They also ended up taking Little Bear home with them! They were braving a full house full of five girls between the ages of four and fifteen!
Yesterday Tigerlily's mom, Sue, invited me and Pufferfish to go along with the rest of the crew to the zoo. It was a great day for it... sunny, and warm but not extremely hot. We packed a picnic lunch, brought a stroller, and rented a wagon, so we had a big load! Want to see some pictures? Sure you do!

Sue wanted us all to climb onto this buffalo statue for a picture. It was pretty easy for the first few people to get on, but it got harder as there was less and less room to grab onto and pull ourselves up. By the time I got on, Sue had to basically shove me up there and toss the baby into my hands!

They have these giant dinosaurs right now that actually move and make roaring noises! It freaked Pufferfish out! She was standing with them when I backed up to take this picture, but when it roared, she made a beeline for me and wouldn't go back! I kept telling her, "Its just a big toy, its not real!" I'm not sure she believed me!

I'm not sure this is what this photo opportunity is supposed to turn out looking like...

Was Little Bear hugging Tigerlily, or strangling her? Only she knows for sure!

Cousin Becca spent a lot of time with Pufferfish! Pufferfish is usually really shy around people she doesn't see all the time, but she really warmed up to Becca at the zoo! Becca spent lots of time carrying Pufferfish around and playing with her, and Pufferfish was happy as a clam!

The penguin exhibit is one of my favorite parts of the zoo. We never have time to see even half of the animals at the zoo, but I always make sure to see the penguins! (Plus, its right by the splash pad!)

The big girls painted the little girls' faces in the Family Center. Here is Little Bear, looking like a butterfly!

Pufferfish and Tigerlily both turned out to be kitty cats!

Pufferfish posing for a picture with Aunt Sue!

Pufferfish watering the plants. This is the first time that she's been big enough to actually squeeze the squirt bottle handle herself!

 At least we wore them out!                                                                                       

























A great time was had by all! I love going to the zoo. I'm glad its summer so we can go more often. When Diana's sisters and Monkeyboy were little, Diana's mom used to take them all to the zoo at least once a week! They would choose one small section of the zoo to visit, and spend the whole time going to each exhibit, reading all the signs, and learning all about the animals. If the zoo wasn't 45 minutes away and I didn't have to pay for parking, I would totally do that! Maybe we could just live at the zoo!

Riding the Rails!

Since we've been doing train week, today was our big chance to ride on a real train1 Little Bear, Pufferfish and I took a short train ride to a town just a few stops away. It was perfect, because Metra doesn't charge you at all for kids under six years old, and Little Bear is still five! so both of the girls were free. I let Little Bear hold my ticket and give it to the conductor, though, and she found two more tickets on the train, so now she has three tickets to keep as suvenires!
Little Bear was really scared of getting on the train, when I first told her we were going. She was afraid it would go to fast, or that it would crash. She kept telling me that if she had to go, she wanted to sit on the bottom floor. But as soon as she stepped onto the train, all of her fears disappeared, and she was having a great time! By the end of the ride there, she told me that on the way back she wanted to ride on the top deck! It was just like the paddleboating drama last summer!
Anyway, we just went a few towns away. We walked to a near by park to play at the playground for a while, and then went to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. The train station in the town we went to had a pedestrian tunnel that went under the tracks, so while we waited for our train to take us home, I let the girls run back and forth in the tunnel. We discovered that it was really echoey! If you stood at one end of the tunnel and clapped your hands or stomped your feet, you would hear the sound twice... once when you did it, and once when it bounced off the wall at the other end of the tunnel! A fascinating lesson in science? A great way to keep two little kids amused and stay safely away from the parking lot and train tracks? You be the judge!
They both absolutely loved our train adventure. And they were exhausted by the end! When we got back to our train station, I put Pufferfish in her car seat, and by the time I had backed out of my spot, she was passed out cold!
Anyway, here are some pics.

Little Bear and Pufferfish wait in the train station, and Little Bear proudly holds the ticket we just bought!



















Little Bear overcomes her fear of riding the train!



















Pufferfish looks out the window at the scenery!
 



















Playing in the echoey tunnel.




















Riding on the top deck on the way home!
 



















It was so much fun. I think it will be nice in the summer, at least every few weeks or so, to take short little train rides! It really is cheap thrills!

And now, for no apparent reason, here's Little Bear and Jamaya!

Adventures At The Children's Museum

We're doing our train week this week. Since one of the children's museums near us has a temporary train exhibit, I thought it would be fun to go there! Tigerlily, whose family is moving back out to our town this week, got dropped off at our house so her mom could do some work around their new house... so she came with us!
I had actually been a little nervous when I found out that Tigerlily was coming with us. I've taken four or five kids out at once, but they've always been far apart in age. For instance, when I used to have Melissa and Maggie with me, and they'd go places with Monkeyboy and Little Bear, I'd have two ten-year-olds, a six-year-old and a three-yeaar-old. I knew I could give the bigger kids more freedom in a place like that, while keeping an eye on the six-year-old or having the older kids keep an eye on her, and only have to keep the three-year-old in my sight at all times. Or, I would have an older kid, like Sarah, with me. But this time, I was going to be in charge of a kindergartener, a preschooler, and a toddler! Plus, Tigerlily's mom was very nervous, and kept warning me that Tigerlily would run out of my sight a lot and wouldn't listen very well. She actually asked me if I knew of any children getting lost at the children's museum who had never been found... like, children who had been kidnapped! (Luckily, I don't think thats ever happened there! I used to work there, and when kids get lost, the exhibit guides are pretty quick at working together to find a lost kid within five minutes!)
I used some bright blue painter's masking tape to make labels for the backs of the kids' shirts that said my name and phone number, so if one of the kids got lost, they could be returned to me even more easily! Plus, all the way to the museum I kept talking about how we were all going to stick together.
It ended up going really well! All of the kids, even Tigerlily, were very well-behaved. I tried to let them take turns deciding which exhibit we'd see next. Every twenty minutes or so, I'd suggest that we move on to the next exhibit. We got through the whole museum in about three hours, which was perect, because the kids were all still happy, getting along, and not overtired. Nobody got lost, and everyone had fun! It was a real success!

The train exhibit itself didn't turn out to be that great. I've seen them have far better temporary exhibits. This was basically just a large model train with some wooden farm animals around it (not sure why the farm animals were there!) In fact, most of the exhibit seemed to be more about farm animals, and not so much about trains! They did have a train ride outside, which we rode on, and the girls loved that a lot!
























They also loved the other exhibits. The first one we went into was the grocery store. Its a kid-sized grocery store, with miniature shopping carts and actual empty grocery packages. They have a working scanner at the cashier's counter, too, so kids can actually scan the groceries!









































































Another cool thing that they have all around the museum is working payphones set up. Kids can actually call each other in different rooms of the museum!














































Tigerlily: "Pick up, come on, pick up, pick up!"

Me: "Who are you calling, Tigerlily?"

Tigerlily: "You don't want to know!"


Other favorite sections were the water room...















































the Live Chicks exhibit...















































the body sculpture...
























and, of course, the face paints!















































(I told Pufferfish, who loves to color all over herself whenever she finds markers around the house, that this was her big chance to color on her face and get away with it! she was fascinated by the concept!)



The children's museum is one of our favorite places...
























...in the world!



And now, for no apparent reason, here's Tigerlily!

Train Time!

Today Little Bear, Pufferfish and I busted Monkeyboy out of school early and went to this train-themed restaurant near us. Its one of those places where you sit around the counter and a train delivers your food. I had been telling Pufferfish that we were going to learn about trains this week, and this morning we made a train as an art project. So she was really excited when we went in and she saw the train going around the counter! She started yelling, "Chugga-choo-choo! There! See?" Also, the restaurant is right across from the actual train tracks, so the whole time we were eating, real trains kept going past. Pufferfish was in Heaven! As for Little Bear and Monkeyboy, they were more impressed with the huge rootbeer floats!

There are a couple of other train-themed things to do that I'm hoping to be able to do with the kids... the children's museum has a train-themed exhibit right now, and I thought we could also take a short ride on the actual Metra train, maybe to Elmhurst or something. Little Bear has been asking to go on a train ride. she actually rode the Metra quite a few times when she was little... the last time was probably when I took her and Monkeyboy to the Metropolitian Arts Center for a food decorating festival about three years ago... but she doesn't remember it. I think a short train ride would be perfect because they could enjoy it without getting tired and bored. And I have a bunch of coupons for the children's museum. Learning about trains is one of the most fun themes ever!

Little Bear waiting for our food!

Pufferfish pointing at the train on the counter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monkeyboy prepares to tackle a huge rootbeer float!

The train brings mine and Pufferfish's desserts!

Little Bear rides the horse in the front of the restaurant.

Pufferfish's turn on the horse!

A Gaggle Of Girls!

At the beginning of the week, Little Bear spent a few days in the city with Tigerlily and her parents. Then, Tigerlily spent a few days at our house! Last night Diana and I took Little Bear, Pufferfish and Tigerlily to Chuck E. Cheese. Diana's best friend met us there, along with her own three girls... Princess, age 5, Munchkin, age 3, and Sweetie, age 15 months. So there was a grand total of six little girls between the ages of 1 and 5 with us! It was like our own mini party!
It was a pretty long outting, but all of the girls had a lot of fun. I took some pics with my phone. I have my camera, but a lot of times my phone is way more convenient and easier than trying to drag out my camera every time I want to take a picture! Anyway...
Here's a cute one of Pufferfish with Sweetie. They're about seven months apart, but they're the same size... because Pufferfish is tiny! They're both fascinated with each other. Pufferfish is constantly going up to Sweetie and hugging her and saying, "Baby!" and Sweetie is always trying to follow Pufferfish around! Its so funny to me that when they're this little, seven months makes such a big difference, but five years from now, being seven months apart will make them practically twins!

Here is Pufferfish riding in the car with Chuck E. Cheese himself! She's just as independent as the big kids, and spent most of the time running around on her own. To her, grown ups were only good for one thing... putting the tokens in the slots so she could play games and go on rides!

 

Here's Princess dancing in front of the video camera! Princess is one of those little kids with a BIG attitude! She was having the time of her life, but by the end of the night she was so tired and cranky, she was in rare form! At one point she and Little Bear got in a fight, and Princess climbed into the Monster Truck ride and started screaming. FInally she screeched, "I THINK I'VE HAD TOO MUCH CAFFIENE TONIGHT!"

Here's Tigerlily! Her favorite part of the night was probably when Chuck E. Cheese himself came out to greet the kids! As soon as we got to the restaurant, she was asking if she would see Chuck E. Cheese. (Only, at first, she kept calling him Mickey Mouse!) She kept saying, "I think he should shake my hand!" When he finally came out, Tigerlily ran up to hug him!

A self-portrait of me and Tigerlily. Tigerlily likes adult company, and could often be found sitting at the table with the adults when the other kids were playing! She's such a funny kid.

Here's Munchkin, Little Bear and Tigerlilysitting in that photo booth thing that turns your picture into a sketch! It was actually one of their favorite attractions at Chuck E. Cheese. The kids spent a lot of time arguing about who would be in each picture, since there were four older girls and the little photo booth could only comfortably fit two or three. But Little Bear managed to finangle her way into every single picture taken there!

We stayed at Chuck E. Cheese until it closed! Luckily, even though the ride home was half an hour long, only Pufferfish fell asleep, Little Bear and Tigerlily stayed awake the whole ride, and fell asleep immediately as soon as we got home! It was a really fun night for everyone. Chuck E. Cheese is Hell on Earth in some ways... but if it keeps six hyperactive little girls busy and happy for four hours, then its all worth it in the end!

Finally A Spring Day!

I'm exhausted today, and hopefully the little girls are too! We spent just about the entire day outside!
First, Pufferfish and I went for a walk around the block. I finally have a new phone (The people at the Verizon store kindly replaced mine even though it didn't have any sort of warranty or insurance!) and while we were walking I took a picture of Pufferfish. So then Pufferfish kept wanting me to take more pictures of her! I put a few of the pictures together with the new photo editor I just downloaded. Check this out!

Then we played outside in the backyard until Little Bear came home from school. After lunch, we went for a walk at a near by nature center, and then stopped at a playground for an hour or two.

Last but not least, we went back home and played in back some more The girls played in the boat. We have a boat in the driveway because we are cool. (Actually I can't even claim any of the coolness... its Jimmy's boat!)

I think they got enough fresh air! I love spring! I want to try to do something outside from now on, as long as it stays nice out! Because spring is the best time of year, in Chicago. Once summer comes, it starts to get too hot, and mosquito-y, and then you can't get the kids to go anywhere outside except for the pool or splash pads! So I plan on getting the most out of this nice weather!

I hope you're enjoying it too!