One Handed Motherhood

You may have noticed I haven't posted in a while.  The reason is two-fold...one, I was out of town for a week visiting my in-laws in Arizona.  Two...I broke my wrist just hours before hopping on the plane.  So, not only have I been absent, but the splint I was wearing made typing (one handed hunt & peck) painfully. slow. 

What happened? Well, it was a glamorous story really...it was Memorial day, and I was taking out the garbage. Let's just say that traction-less flip-flops don't mix well with a smooth, concrete garage floor that has been wet by rainfall.   I'm sure I was a sight to see, my legs flying out from under me, landing on my wrist (left, thank goodness) and screaming in pain.  My first instinct was to not act TOO horribly injured, so as not to freak out my kiddos.

I could still wiggle my fingers but wasn't sure if it was broken or just really, really, REALLY, really hurt.  I moaned and groaned around the house for about an hour, teetering between the options of racing to the ER and hoping we still make our flight, or just swinging by Walgreens on the way to the airport, picking up a wrist brace, and dealing with the whole thing out in Arizona.  Being that our crappy insurance requires we pay 100% of ER visits, you can see why I didn't want to chance a trip there just to be told it was sprained, and then be handed the same brace I could have gotten at Walgreens for a fraction of the cost.  But, after an hour of ice and still wanting to throw up ever time I moved a molecule, we packed up the kids, two Lunchables, and headed for the hospital.


To make a long story slightly less long, I got a splint and a sling, and we made it on our flights, with instructions to visit the doctor for a cast upon our return a week later. 

Let me tell you though, traveling with two toddlers, 8 pieces of baggage, one grumpy husband, and a cast that needed a special TSA inspection was no picnic.  But, we made it through, and even managed to create some great memories and photos.

All in all, I am very thankful for a few things... 1) that it was my wrist and not one of my kids', 2) it was my LEFT wrist and not my right, and 3) it happened while I had my husband around 24 hours a day for a week.  (And here I thought changing a poopy diaper on my wiggly 17 month old was hard with TWO hands!)

I am happy to announce that as of yesterday, I have a new cast which allows me to use my fingers.  Imagine my joy when I was finally able to shave my right armpit again!! However, I still have yet to gain the strength to hook my own bra on in the morning.  My husband did not like doing my ponytail for me (way too girly!), however, for some odd reason doesn't seem to complain about "hooking me up" every morning.  Now, what to do when he leaves town this weekend...go bra-less, or keep it on until he returns? I'm frankly not excited about either option.

I told Sammy he could help me paint my cast, and I decided to go with this x-ray view of my arm/wrist.  We did it with acrylic paint, and I used a little iridescent paint for some shimmer.  Now I can point out exactly where my break is! And when people ask me what I did, I can tell them I stepped on it, and have fun seeing their reaction.  For now, my designer head is FULL of ideas to improve the design of arm slings, so if any manufacturers out there are looking for someone to improve their product, contact me!!

Rainy Day Project: Paper S'mores

This idea totally came from Sammy.  He thought of the idea of making paper smores while we were making paper garland.  And since I had just finished telling him that we could make ANYTHING out of paper, we had no choice but to do it!

 Supplies needed:
- Glue (note the price tag: brand new bottle for $0.49 at Goodwill!)
- Scissors
- Corrogated cardboard (we used an old box on it's way to the recycle bin)
- Construction paper (white, brown, red, orange, yellow)
- Rocks

We started with the paper smores.  I got out some graham crackers for reference.

 We used the corrugated cardboard for the crackers because it has more rigidity and thickness than just paper.  Cut two squares and use a pen to add the perforated line and little holes for some realism!

 Then we just took a strip of white paper to make a marshmallow, and a piece of brown paper for the chocolate.  This, of course, is "Sammy's" brand chocolate.

 Sammy assembling the s'mores (while eating a graham cracker)

 Mmmmm...pretend yummy pretend s'mores!  A little tip...turn the marshmallow on it's side for a more realistic "smoosh" effect when you put the top cracker on!

Well, we couldn't just stop at the smores.  Contrary to what some rediculous microwave smores contraption manufacturers lead you to believe, you CANNOT make s'mores without a fire pit.  So, the paper fire pit is up next.

 Take some various fire colored shades of paper.  I used red, orange, yellow, and a darker yellow.  Cut them in strips.  The length doesn't matter too much (these are the short length of the paper, 8 1/2" long).  What matters is that the darker color (red) is the thickest strip, and they graduate to the lightest color (yellow) being the thinnest, as you can see above.

 Next, cut some spikey flames on the tops of each piece of paper.  Tip: to speed up this process, fold each strip in thirds or fourths and cut, unfold and the whole piece is done.

 I actually ended up making two of the brightest yellow pieces (the skinnier strips). Next you're going to glue them together, end to end, to form one long piece.  Make sure the flat bottom edges are lined up flush to each other.  Glue them together in order of height, from the tallest down to the shortest flames.

 It should look something like this above...a long strip with all of your colors ranging from red to orange to yellow and a common flat baseline.

Next you'll need to get your base ready to glue the fire pit to. 

 Cut a cardboard circle...ours is about 6 or 7" in diameter. Then make a circle of glue in the center where the fire will stick.  Our glue circle was about 3 1/2" in diameter.

Now to make this thing 3 dimensional!

 Starting with the red end, roll the entire strip of "fire paper" tightly around a pencil or pen.



Slide the pencil/pen out while holding the rolled paper together, taking care not to let the whole thing spring loose just yet.

 Set it on the table and let go...it'll naturally want to spread out a bit.

 The flames may catch on each other a bit so play with it a little to get it to spread out to your desired width.  Then, pick it up carefully.  Squeeze it tight if you have to, to keep it from slipping apart.  If it does, no worries, just roll it up again.

 Carefully set it on top of your glue circle on the base.  Then you can fine tune the width and the positioning of the flames.

While the glue is drying you can go gather some rocks.

We picked some small ones out of the landscaping in the front yard.  You could use marbles too, or even make paper rocks too...cut circles, or crinkle up some scrap paper into little balls!

 Now squeeze some more glue around the fire where you want the rocks to go.

 Stick the rocks into the glue around the fire pit!

 Sammy picked up a little scrap strip of cardboard and put his marshmallow on it as a roasting stick! Now that's my creative little guy.

 Now enjoy your fat free, calorie free s'mores!  Here Sammy is trying the "smooshing position" of the marshmallow on it's side. ;-) Very authentic part of the s'mores experience.

After we were done he requested that I make a paper gazebo (since we have a fire pit in the center of our gazebo), but unfortunately Mommy was tired it was Sammy's nap time so we didn't get to that part.

Rainy Day Project: Recycled Paper Garland

We have this sweet lady across the street who saves fliers and various pieces of scrap paper for my boys to color on.  The other day we were visiting in our cul-de-sac and she ran back in the house to bring me a stack of colorful fliers.  So, since it's raining and we're stuck inside, today I thought we'd utilize this colorful paper and make a project...paper garland!  This is a great project to recycle scrap paper including junk mail!

Supplies needed:

- Paper (colored and/or white)

- Scissors

- String or yarn

- Toothpick or skewer and some tape (or a blunt plastic tapestry needle that's safe for kids)

- Glue

- Crayons, Markers, etc

- Hole punch

- Optional extras: paper edger scissors, paper crimper, paper punch, glitter, stickers, etc...

Our stack of paper from our neighbor.  (It's all blank on one side)

So, basically we made various kinds of beads out of paper to string on our piece of yarn...

 This project is great for short little attention spans because there are many different things to do...color, cut, glue, punch, string, etc.  I started by having Sammy fill the white pages with colors. While he did that I got the string and "needle" ready...

 

I swear I use these bamboo skewers for craft projects more often than for cooking.  I cut one in half and used some masking tape to secure one end of yarn to it, and had a nice "needle" that was easy for kids to use.  On the other end I tied a bread bag tab just to keep the beads from sliding off.

Once I got that ready Sammy had a colorful piece of paper to turn into tube-shaped beads...

 

I cut it into a couple strips.

...then rolled them up the long way and glued it into a long tube.

 

 Hold the tube with the seam against the table for a few seconds for the glue to grab hold and dry a bit.

 

I did this with pieces of the colored paper too. Some of them I let the writing show to add a little graphical interest...others I rolled so the blank side showed.

Now have some fun looking through the tubes or pretending they are walrus tusks or giant straws...

 

 Next we get to play with SCISSORS!  Cut the tubes up into beads!

 ...meanwhile, Toby is having a blast tearing up my kitchen.  This is one of his favorite activities.  But, since he's still at the crayon eating stage, I let him trash the place explore while we do projects. 

 I'm not sure where you even get these things, because I found them at a garage sale, but Sammy had a blast rolling strips of paper through this paper crimping tool.  We then used the crimped paper in some of our other "beads."

Another type of bead we made was just a strip of paper folded back and fourth in a zig-zag...

 ...Then we used a hole punch to go through the whole thing. You can also easily make flat beads by cutting different shapes and punching holes in them.  We did circles, squares, triangles, and of course, fish.

Here are some of our beads. It might be helpful to you to put them in two piles...the 3-dimensional ones and the flat ones. (an opportunity for your child to learn how to sort things)  This will help with threading them, because it works best to alternate flat ones and 3-D ones.  (thus preventing smaller tubes from slipping inside the larger ones) Then you can tell your child to alternate between the two piles.

 A little tip, if you're making fish, you can easily make mouths with a hole punch only half way on the paper. ;-) Depending on your child's level of patience and attention span, they could even decorate/color each fish.  (Milk this sitting-down-being-busy thing for all you can!)

 Now you can really keep your kiddo's fingers busy with threading their beads on the string!  Sammy didn't last for all of that part so Mommy finished it up.  But I figure, hey, if I can get him to sit and work on something creative with me for even a few minutes every day, I'm doing my job!

 Don't be afraid to let your kid's creativity take over and side track from the project.  Their little heads are full of great ideas!! Sammy picked up one of his little "tube" beads and said "We can make it into a tiny little cup!"

 ...to which I replied, "That's a GREAT idea!  I'll make a handle!"  And, we made a tiny little cup.  Well, proportionally it looks more like a pitcher, but he got a kick out of it.

 

 Sipping some pretend water from our teeny tiny little cup!  Sammy had another great idea too.  When we strung a white tube between two flat squares he said, "Momma! It's a paper s'mores! Let's make paper s'mores!"  (And of course, we DID, complete with a paper fire pit to roast over, but I'll save that one for another post!)

So you see, a little side-tracking is great for the imagination! Now, back to the project at hand...

 Concentrating on stringing the beads. I think the long length of the bamboo skewer as opposed to just the end of the string made it easier to feed the string through the beads.

 We got quite a string going!

 Sammy showing off his awesome paper garland!  If you don't have the patience to make a long string, you could also do these as little vertical dangling decorations too, much like the hearts we made on Valentine's day.

 So much fun!  I hung it on the underside of our fireplace mantle, where it currently waits for Daddy to come home to see!

 There are an infinite amount of things you can do with paper. This is one project that ANYONE can do.  Feel free to go nuts on your paper decorating too...glitter them up if you want!  Heck, you can even throw in some cheerio's or dry pasta in there.  Anything with a hole in it goes. Got little girls? Make it into a necklace!

This project can so easily be adapted to go along with any holiday theme!  With Memorial day coming up, try making this with red, white and blue paper and cut some star shapes.  You'll have some one-of-a-kind decorations for your Memorial day bbq and a great conversation piece!  Put some supplies out on a little table if you have kids coming over and they can make their own to take home!

Enjoy those rainy days....Happy paper recycling! :-)