Last week ALL FIVE of my kids were invited to the birthday party of a girl we know who was turning nine. ALL FIVE! After fretting for awhile about whether the other mother REALLY MEANT IT and whether maybe I should decline on behalf of at least three or four of them, I decided to accept. I called to R.S.V.P., and as I hung up the phone I thought of PRESENTS.

I aim for around $10 for a child’s birthday party gift. Sometimes I can get a better and more-expensive present by finding something on a 50% off clearance and putting it aside for a later birthday. But in this case I needed gifts from FIVE children, and my gift cupboard was bare, and I don’t have any girls that age so I wasn’t sure what she might like. I turned to Twitter for help.

Marie Green suggested a diary. OMG perfect! I was 9 when I got my first diary!

Eco Snoopers Secret Diary With Lock (photo from Amazon.com), $10.
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Oh, good, school’s out. No more lunch-making, bus-catching, homework-nagging. Now we turn our attention to scrabbling for ways to alleviate boredom.

Orb Factory Sticky Mosaics (photos from Amazon.com). Beth recommended the sticky mosaics, and I got the jewels one for Elizabeth for her birthday. Not only does Elizabeth totally love it, _I_ totally love it. I don’t usually like to do projects with children, but we’re on our fourth mosaic and I’m still having to prevent myself from working on it after she goes to bed. I bought the dinosaur set for ME to do (I’ll use the resulting pictures to decorate the room of dinosaur-loving Henry), and I can’t wait for it to arrive.  I wish they made sets for grown-ups.

They’re not CHEAP, it’s true:  about $17 for a box that includes 4 or 5 mosaics.  But after hesitating over the first set, I wouldn’t hesitate again:  well worth it for the fun, the fine motor skills development, the finished pictures (the three we’ve done so far are all on Elizabeth’s wall), and the project I LIKE doing with a child. If they sold them individually instead, for $3-4 each, I’d probably put one in my cart every time I went to the store.

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This is the sixth in a series of periodic posts in which I test out easy, inexpensive, low-mess, low-parental-involvement activities for young children to do. In the first, I tested dry pasta in cake pans. In the second: painting with water. The third: marshmallows and toothpicks. The fourth: unspilly stuff in a bowl. The fifth: no-mess paintbrushes. Today’s test: PVC plumbing pipes.

We got the idea for this when Paul needed some pipes and joints for a project he’s working on in the basement (I don’t know what it is—it’s better not to ask, I’ve found), and when he brought them home from the store the kids were fascinated.  On his way home from work the next day he picked up a bunch more so he could take his back from the kids.

Intention
The children will quietly build things with the pipes and neither bother their mother nor hit each other with the pipes.

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Farrell asked last time about Valentine’s Day gifts for children. Here are some of the things I’ve done in previous years:

1. Small heart-shaped box of chocolates, the kind that has about 4 pieces in it.
2. Box of conversation hearts.
3. Plastic heart full of Skittles or M&Ms.
4. Baggie into which I’ve put a couple pieces each of all the Valentine-wrapped/colored candies I bought for myself (Kit Kats, M&Ms, Hershey Miniatures).

I used to make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast on Valentine’s Day morning, but that, uh, didn’t go so well.

More ideas for kids:

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse! book by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond (photo from Amazon.com)

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This is the fifth in a series of periodic posts in which I test out easy, inexpensive, low-mess, low-parental-involvement activities for young children to do. In the first, I tested, um, dry pasta in cake pans. In the second: painting with water. The third: marshmallows and toothpicks. The fourth: unspilly stuff in a bowl. Today’s test: no-mess paintbrushes.

Intention
As the package says, I will be able to “Say ‘YES’ to painting!”  Painting is something I generally (for generally, read “always except for like three times”) say no to.

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Every year I look forward to wrapping holiday presents. I imagine Christmas music playing in the background, a steaming mug of coffee nearby, the children quietly playing with a festive spool of ribbon, the perfect creases in the brightly-colored paper surrounding the boxes, the sense of reward and accomplishment afterwards.

Ha. Ha ha. HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA.

Ahem. Let’s just shine a brief and unforgiving light on the reality, shall we? Tantruming children demanding attention, wads of dog hair stuck in the forty tons of tape I’ve used to hold together a crushed and lumpen package, a growing sense of hatred for all things holiday-related, the mug of coffee gone long cold and probably spilled down the back of someone’s pants. The sense of irritation and exhaustion afterwards, when beholding the stack of coyote-ugly boxes that look like they’ve been wrapped during Craft Time at the mental institution.

For my fellow wrapping-haters, here are a few ideas for non-traditional present-presentation ideas that might make the whole process a little easier, or at least give you the illusion of having creativity, spare time, and a quiet household on your side:
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Oh, do you have a feverish, bored, restless kid, too?  We should form a club!  Here are some ideas for keeping sick kids occupied, at home or in the hospital:

1.  Knitting spool.  It’s fun when something from my childhood is still around in basically the same incarnation.  This is one of those things that makes a long knit rope, and my mom gave me one when I was a feverish, bored, restless child back about…well, no need to do the math.  I bought William a $3 Boye version at a craft store (I think Walmart has them, too), plus…

2.  Yarn.  I bought a $2.50 skein of Red Heart multicolored yarn, which I found at Walmart.  The multicolored yarn results in a STRIPED rope, which is significantly cooler than the Hippie Natural Unbleached Yarn rope I made as an ill child in the 1970s.  I like #950, which makes a rainbow.  Who’s a hippie NOW?
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Between a four-year-old, a toddler, and a husband who routinely peels off his dirty socks while he’s watching the evening news and tosses them on the living room carpet, since apparently that’s the cue for his personal magic cleaning fairy to swoop in and whisk his laundry away to the hamper, my house has a bit of a clutter problem. Toys, books, shoes, crayons, and forgotten half-chewed waffles tend to accumulate on every available surface throughout the day, making it a real challenge to do the deep-cleaning I so greatly enjoy.

(Note: by “deep cleaning” I mean “sitting on the couch eating pretzels”. But the point is, if I really did want to vacuum, it would be hard to do so when the floor is three inches deep with LEGOs.)

I like to exact revenge on my husband by 1) power-nagging in that oh so attractive fish-wifely tone, and 2) draping his various discarded clothing items over his computer monitor (sometimes with a note: “OH HAI WE GOT LOSTED CAN YOU HELPS US FIND THE WASHING MASHEEN?”), and as for my four-year-old, I’ve started being more strict about having him pitch in. He’s definitely capable of putting away his things and carrying out other small tasks around the house, and I’ve been thinking it would be helpful to have a chore chart for him.

In poking around online, I’ve noticed that chore charts tend to have one common theme: they are butt-ugly. I know the home decor aspect of a chart isn’t really the point, but still, it doesn’t seem like it should be so hard to find a chart that’s both useful and non-hideous.

Here are a few chore-organization-solutions I eventually came across that I think are pretty cool-looking:
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(Winner in the Worst Mother’s Day Gift contest: Jana, who was commenter #9. Yay, Jana!)

This is the fourth in a series of periodic posts in which I test out easy, inexpensive, low-mess, low-parental-involvement activities for young children to do. In the first, I tested, um, dry pasta in cake pans. In the second: painting with water. The third: marshmallows and toothpicks. Today’s test: unspilly stuff in a bowl.

Intention
The preschool-aged child will satisfy her seemingly endless Stirring Impulses, without wasting food or getting any more flour behind the cupboards.
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This is the third in a series of periodic posts in which I test out easy, inexpensive, low-mess, low-parental-involvement activities for young children to do. In the first, I tested, um, dry pasta in cake pans. In the second: painting with water. Today’s test: marshmallows and toothpicks.  This would be, of course, for children who are no longer in the young “trying to kill themselves with everything that exists” stage; my test children were both aged 3.75 years.

Intention
The children will make structures with the marshmallows and toothpicks, without eating the marshmallows or poking themselves with the toothpicks, and will thus justify my impulse buy of pastel, bunny-shaped marshmallows
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