Let's Talk About Screens, Baby*

*With apologies to Salt-n-Pepa. 

Ever since I miserably failed at not letting my tiny people watch TV (Ironflower was 7 months old and teething, The Wiggles were the only thing that stopped her from howling. It's been downhill from there), I have at least tried to limit their screen time.

Unless they were sick. As there is nothing better to me when I am ill than a Law & Order: SVU marathon, I've always let them watch too much TV when they are sick.

But TV is not, and has never really been, the problem.

I originally started this post almost 2 years ago, when I was still blogging regularly (and I could still think of my children as tiny. Ironflower now has at least an inch on me and Lovebug is almost as tall as I am.) At the time, I had just discovered that the children were sneaking their Kindles into their rooms when they woke up in the middle of the night.

The consequences of that little rebellion were painful for all of us.

But of course screens eventually came back, if for no other reason** than Ironflower and Lovebug have laptops for school now. The new system involves severe guilt tripping and punishment for anyone who uses screens when they're not supposed to. There's also a list of requirements before you

can even ask for screens, which boils down to:  

Sometimes I feel like most of the parenting I do involves whether the screen list has been followed, because it's very rare that any of them just decide to ignore the list and play. Ironflower will sometimes, to read or draw, but even that it is becoming more rare. And Lovebug and Hugmonkey can play (unlike some children I've met), but they don't as much as I'd like. 

So I'm looking for suggestions that have actually worked in real life, not Parenting magazine life. Got any? 

**I'm lying. Their father didn't want to give up video games and I didn't want to give up TV or social media, either. Plus, it's the 21st century and we are not Amish. 

KizVuz Holiday Party 2014

This was the second year we were lucky enough to go to the KidzVuz Holiday Party. I can only hope we're lucky enough to go again next year, because my kids are already planning on it! 

After posing for pictures at the step and repeat, we went into the event space at Chelsea Piers. Which was awesome, by the way. The first thing we did was get frozen yogurt from 16 Handles. In addition to their awesome name, they had awesome yogurt too. 

Before their yogurt was even finished, the Ubisoft video game area had suckered the kids in. Hugmonkey was in such a hurry that he let me finish is frozen yogurt, so it was a win for everybody. I let the kids play for a while, they checked out the new Rabbids game and Monopoly. They enjoyed both and I didn't understand either, which seems to be how video games work at our house. After I pointed out all the kids waiting eagerly for their turns, the kiddos agreed to check out the rest of the party.

Ironflower spent a lot of time at the School Specialty craft table. She made flowers and picture frames.

We also saw our friends from BatteryPop, where they were playing the promotional video Ironflower appeared in. Then it was on to iScream, where Ironflower asked me to add all of the cute pillows (especially the donut shaped one) to her Christmas list. We did get one of their blankets in our swag bag and Ironflower is totally in love with it. And if she wasn't? I would totally steal it because it is super soft and warm. 

While the boys weren't as into iScream's products, they were very happy with the candy art at the iScream table. 

I felt like this year I really got to talk to all of the people sharing their products and ideas and that made me so happy. Once again I didn't talk to other bloggers as much, except I finally got to chat with Gay NYC Dad, which made me so happy. I also had a nice talk with Jill from Scary Mommy, who was there to talk about her Thanksgiving Project. It's such a great cause, if you can help, please do. 

I managed to have those conversations while the kids were back with the video games. Because of course they went back to the video games. 

Before that, though, Ironflower got a braid from FiercelyFabNYC, which she really liked. We also talked to Emily from Ribbon Barrettes; definitely the most inspiring 5th grader I've ever met. She is selling ribbon barrettes (my fave thing in 1980) to raise money to help find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. 

We spent a very long time in the HP area. First it was the art project while I talked to someone about printers. I really want a new printer. From HP. Then we played with the HP Stream laptops and tablets. I couldn't get Hugmonkey to ditch his long enough to make our Flipbook. Which is not surprise, except that later he was all about dressing up at the Broadway Kids Night table. 

The kids also had a lot of fun learning about the Gamma Heroes and playing an app involving them. 

Perhaps my favorite thing was discovering Sweet Loren's. It's frozen cookie dough, which normally doesn't thrill me. Not that I won't eat it - because of course I will, I love cookies - but there's a lot of bad stuff in most pre-packaged foods. This dough, however, is made with whole, unrefined ingredients. It's dairy free. And the cookies taste like Famous Amos ones. For real. They sell it at Whole Foods and I'm definitely going to buy some the next time the kids want cookies. 

I'm sure I've forgotten something, so make sure to check out more from the KidzVuz Holiday Party on Facebook. 

Big Hero 6

Thanks to an email from Sandbox Strategies, Game Mill Entertainment and Disney Interactive, the kids and I got to go to a screening of Big Hero 6 yesterday. I admit that when I got the email, I hadn't really heard much about Big Hero 6.

But my kids had off from school that day and my dad is awesome about driving us into the city for stuff (I hate taking the kids on the train. I also refuse to drive into the city. This could be a bigger problem, but between my husband and dad it's not. Yes, I am spoiled.) So I figured, "It's a Disney movie. It's gotta be decent."

The kids were just happy to get to see a movie in the theater. That before going to the theater we walked around Times Square was a big enough bonus that I'm pretty sure they would have sat through that horrible Dora movie they all used to love.

And then on our way in we got popcorn, drinks and 3D glasses.

It began to matter even less how good the movie was. We heard a couple of presentations first; one on the very cool NintendoDS game that continues the movie's story and one on the characters being added to Disney Infinity. I'm pretty sure Lovebug would have taken notes if I'd had a pen. The games look cool, but any game reviews will have to be written by Lovebug at a later date.

Big Hero 6 is the story of Hiro, a brilliant 14 year old and his group of equally brilliant friends. There are some sad moments, but the creation of Baymax (the large white being who sort of looks like what would happen to the Pillsbury Dough Boy if he went badass) mitigates them. I loved, loved, loved the characters in this movie. They were diverse, interesting, smart and not one of them fit some simple stereotype.

I think this might be the most subversive Disney movie ever.

I loved it.

And I don't think that it was recently turning six that made Hugmonkey sit so still in the theater. My kids were completely enchanted; they loved it too. We are all looking forward to watching it again with Daddy and honestly? There are very few kids movies I want to sit through once, let alone twice.

While there is humor in the movie, it's not snarky. There aren't a lot of jokes meant to appeal to just adults. And there is absolutely no romance whatsoever. I have nothing against romance (unless it's Nicholas Sparks - then I loathe it), I may have teared up during the wedding of The Princess and The Frog. But my kids aren't interested in romance. My daughter doesn't need the idea of a wedding always being the happy ending shoved down her 9 year old throat. And of course I'm gonna love a movie that turns smart nerds into superheros.

This is definitely worth seeing with your kids, no question.

Happy 6th Birthday, Hugmonkey!

Dear Hugmonkey,

     I am having a hard time realizing that my baby is a six year old kindergartner. As much as I enjoy watching you learn to read and add and use sarcasm, it's difficult to accept that you won't want to sit on my lap for too much longer.

You are starting to read independently and it's such a joy to watch. Your favorite right now is to read the "Fly Guy" books by Tedd Arnold. You've gone from tentatively playing Mario Kart on the Wii to setting up the Xbox so that you can play Minecraft on it. You definitely love your screen time. Even when you play outside with your friends, half of the time you guys are acting out video games.

You are such a social butterfly. You have already made so many new friends in kindergarten without forgetting about all of your preschool friends. You love to play with everybody. It's so fun to hear your detailed descriptions of your days at school; most stories feature the kids you played with or read with or interacted with in some way.

You started karate this year and I am amazed at your ability to concentrate and focus during class. Social as you are, you've done a great job paying attention in karate and during your soccer games. You love to help in the kitchen; you make preparing breakfast for everyone so much easier every day. You've also developed a strong interest in drawing; suddenly you are making all these detailed pictures.

You still tell your stories, but now you act them out with figures and/or cars and/or trucks. You love nothing more than to play pretend games with your brother and sister; you really bask in their attention. You make me smile every day.

                                                                                                 I am so lucky to be your mom,
                                                                                                           love,
                                                                                                         Mommy

Summer Notebooks: The Return

Even though my kids still have almost a month of school left, I spend part of every day prepping for their summer vacation. Some of it is just figuring out what summer activities they are going to do, since I don't send them to regular summer camp. But the rest of it is planning their summer notebooks. I'm not a fan of too many worksheets, but I'm even less of a fan of my kids forgetting what they've learned all year.

It wasn't until last summer, when they didn't have regular camp and I couldn't pretend that they were going to be learning enough all summer, that I realized that I needed to take action. But every time I looked at workbooks, even the "summer bridge" or ones by companies I liked, I got frustrated. Or rather, the teacher in me got frustrated. Tasks were too simplistic to be useful or were geared for kids who struggled with things my kids didn't struggle with. So last year, basically at the last minute, I made my own.

By next year I'll probably have mini binders and all kinds of stuff, but now I'm just using spiral notebooks.

Every morning, they have to do a certain number of pages (usually 2 or 3) before they can have their beloved screens. They can do extra pages if they want to earn more screen time later in the day. I correct it as soon as I can, and I make them come back and fix their mistakes.

Hugmonkey's summer notebook tends to be more similar to worksheets:

Last year there was a lot of tracing and matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This year we'll be focused on counting skills, beginning sounds in words and sight words. I also like to have him draw pictures of family activities as an introduction to journal writing. He can't read the directions, but his siblings can read them if I'm not there, so it works out well.

For the older kids, there will be a lot of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division fact review. (Even though Lovebug won't officially be learning multiplication and division until the fall, he's got the process figured out so he might as well start memorizing). I also have them write sentences about family activities or to answer questions we've been talking about as a family. My favorite thing to do is to gather up non-fiction books, assign them pages to read and have them answer questions pertaining to the pages.

They are both far more into fiction (as am I), so it's a good way to work on reading comprehension and get them out of their comfort zones.

I'm thinking about doing a summer series on my kids' notebooks, detailing how and why I have them do certain things and how to make summer notebooks for your own kiddo. But then I remembered that some of my regular readers are teachers or former teachers, so I'm not sure if the series would be useful. What do you guys think? Is that something you'd want to read about, or would you skip those posts?

Did You Check For Underwear Today?

It's not a surprise when a 5 year old boy gets a hole in his pants.

It's not completely unprecedented for that hole to be across his behind.

But I'm pretty sure my kid is the only one who wasn't wearing underwear when that particular hole happened.

He'll wear rabbit ears. He'll wear necklaces. He'll wear his coat.
Anything but underwear. 

Lately Hugmonkey has had an aversion to underwear. I try to remember to check to see if he's wearing any, but since he's been dressing himself (WITH UNDERWEAR) for two years now, I'm not very good at it. Obviously, I didn't check on that fateful day.



Talk about a rookie mistake.

We don't know when the hole happened. Apparently, Hugmonkey didn't notice. I can only assume it was after school, otherwise I'm sure his teacher would have called me to bring him some new pants. And underwear.

But instead there he was, running around the playground, mooning his schoolmates and their parents - until Hot Guy (who was doing pick up that day, #thankyoubabyjesus) happened to notice. They left the playground at once. I'd like to think that no one noticed, but that seems unlikely. It was a BIG hole. Seriously big. He really was giving the full moon to everyone, which I really didn't expect to happen until he was at least in high school.

I'd  also like to think that no one who knows our family noticed; surely our acquaintances would mention that our son was exposing himself to the entire playground? Right? You'd tell me (or rather, Hot Guy), wouldn't you? Right?

I'd also like to report that Hugmonkey has learned his lesson and is consistently wearing underwear again, but that would be an exaggeration. However, I have gotten much better about checking before we leave the house.

I have also gotten a little paranoid. I find myself eyeing the other parents suspiciously, wondering if they were mooned by my 5 year old and didn't mention it to me or Hot Guy. And then I wonder why they didn't mention it and what they must think of parents who let their kids go to school without underwear.

But then I remember that the idea of a five year old mooning people is pretty funny.

The Preschool Valentine's Day Performance: A Critique

While I am related to one of the performers in this piece, I promise you, my review is completely unbiased. This critic would never let her feelings for her child and his classmates color her perception in any way.

Prior to the performance, this critic talked to one of the artists. Here is what he had to say:

"This is going to be the best show ever, Mom! You are going to love it!"

Pretty heady words coming from someone who had never performed in front of an audience before.* Could the show live up to the hype? In the words of one sibling person who got to see the dress rehearsal, "They are really cute."

 After a brief introduction, the show got underway only a few minutes late. The venue was packed, with a number of latecomers needing to stand in the back. But despite its small size, the classroom theater was well-appointed, with plenty of festive decorations.

Excitement was in the air as the performers filed in to the tune of, "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Their voices were the perfect level for the small venue, though there was some faltering as they assembled themselves on the risers. Still, it was an enthusiastic and bold opening. One doesn't normally associate "Yankee Doodle Dandy" with Valentine's Day.

Our photographer would like to apologize for the blurriness. And the fact that this is the only performer who would sign a release. 

Next up was The Pledge of Allegiance. The performers nailed their lines in this segment. Too bad not all of them managed to use their right hands to cover their hearts. But this critic has seen plenty of adults at sporting events have the same problem during the national anthem, but with less grasp of the words. 

The song about Groundhog Day was followed by a delightful scene where one performer interviewed all the other performers about their feelings on six more weeks of winter. Answers varied, as did enthusiasm levels. But no one ran off the stage crying or refused to answer. In fact, all the performers were engaged throughout the entire show. Having seen many of them participate in soccer games last fall, I can assure you that this was an amazing feat. The producers and the directors of the show are to be commended. 

The part that touched this critic especially was during the song about love, during which each child brought a specially made Valentine to his or her mother. It was beautiful to see the mixture of pride and love on all the faces in the room, which I suspect is what the show creators were aiming for. 

Another highlight was the song, "Forever Friends". Not only was it the most upbeat, it featured the performers using inflatable guitars. Hand gestures can be cute choreography, but nothing beats a bunch of kids with guitars almost as big as they are. 

The Preschool Valentine's Day Performance was not the best show ever if you compare it to Wicked or a Bruce Springsteen concert. But compared to other preschool performances, it just might be. Unfortunately, it was in limited run so you can no longer get tickets. Hopefully they'll bring it back as a revival for their kindergarten concert. And the performer was completely right about one thing: I totally loved it. 

*The performed had participated in a couple of programs at his old preschool, but he just stood still during them, like a deer caught in headlights.

Merry Christmas Eve

For a lot of reasons, I did not send out holiday cards this year. Even though I so love getting them. Especially if they have pictures. So, as an apology (and an idea for a really short blog post), here's a digital card. Just for you.

Wandering Wednesday: Lego Con

Okay, technically it's called "Lego Kids Fest", but really it's a Lego convention. I don't know where I heard about it, but when I discovered that one was going to be about two hours from here, all I could think was, "Road trip!"

We love our road trips. And our Legos. I thought the experience would be a great Christmas present for the kids AND it still cost much less than Hot Guy and Lovebug's coveted Lego Death Star .

Giant. Piles. Of. Bricks. 

After the initial huge piles of Duplos (which my kids never play with anymore, except for when there are HUGE piles of them), we strolled over to the Lego creations. This Lightning McQueen was pretty sweet. 

Life-sized Lego Hagrid. 

I make a point of encouraging Ironflower's Hermione obsession. 

Giant pile of regular Legos. Hugmonkey and I did this while Hot Guy and the big kids went to the Lego Master Builder Academy. The Master Builder Academy was Lovebug and Ironflower's favorite part of the whole experience. They got to meet a Master Builder and learn some building strategies. 

Hugmonkey and I also hit the Lego City area; you could build vehicles or buildings and add them to the Lego City display. 

We met up again at the monochromatic build. All the bricks were the same color (obviously) and the same size - the classic two by four. And yet the projects were amazing. 

Ironflower's. 

Hugmonkey's. 

Lovebug's. And theirs weren't even the best. 

Squee! Lego Harry Potter! 

I wonder how much it would cost to buy that whole display? 

This was where you made vehicles and raced them. 

We spent a lot of time there. 

We built buildings to add to a giant map of the United States. 

Lovebug made the Empire State Building. 

More time at the giant Lego pile. See the cool city Lovebug is adding to? Well, the only negative part of the trip happened here. A boy around 7 or so had made a giant Lego gun, and then decided to destroy the city. He knocked down every building, yanked a house out of a toddler's hands and destroyed it and just acted like a little jerk. No parent stopped him or said anything (except me and Hot Guy, not that he listened) and no one from Lego stepped in. 

Next we went over to the family build competition. We had to make things from Star Wars, to the joy of the boys in the family. 

We played Ninjago, which is actually way more fun than I thought. 

The boys did Mindstorms while Ironflower and I went to the Lego Friends area. We would like you to know that while we are technically against the idea of "girl" and "boy" Legos, we had a lot of fun building with the Lego Friends sets. We don't know why, but they seem to be addicting. 

There was an area with Lego Castle stuff. 

There was Batman. 

The whole thing was four and half hours long and we were there for every minute. We actually could have used another half hour or so - we didn't get to the Lego art area or take a picture with Lego Santa. 

Way better (and cheaper) than our trip to Legoland a few years ago. I mean, Legoland is really just an amusement park with some Lego details - there's no Master Builder Academy and only a teeny building area. Lego Kids Fest is a much better option for kids who love Legos. And Disney World is a much better option for kids who love amusement parks. 

Happy 5th Birthday, Hugmonkey!

Dear Hugmonkey,

     Today you are 5 years old. I am constantly entertained by the person my baby has turned into. Though you regularly remind me that you are not a baby anymore. You are so affectionate that I can handle it, though. You give the best hugs; it's so sweet when you hug your friends at school and your siblings when you think they need it.

     You still love school, even though you are learning a lot more than just how to get along and write your name. You've developed a serious love of rhyming this year and you've gotten really good at it. I love listening to you "read" your letter books; you'll be reading actual books before we know it. I love how you'll rhyme or count to entertain yourself.

     Though your real way to entertain yourself is still by telling stories. You'll "read" books by reciting what you think is happening in them, you tell stories with your cars and Lego people and you thrive on telling adults your stories. You've gone from having an imaginary alternative family to telling tall tales about your friends at school; one visited Antarctica last weekend and another has created a game that's better than Minecraft.

    Speaking of which, this year you have learned to actually play games like Minecraft and Temple Run. You love your Kindle, but you'll happily watch your brother play games on the Wii if the Kindle is charging. You've even starting playing Mario Kart on the Wii. You've also learned to build your own Legos this year, instead of just following the kit or getting Lovebug to make you Legos. You've gone from enjoying swimming lessons to actually swimming. You've gone from being dragged to games and classes to playing on a soccer team of your own. You've gone from dressing yourself in what I've laid out to having very definite opinions on what you want to wear. You still love your green frog rain boots, though.

     I am so happy that I get to be your mom. I love you so very much, my handsome* guy.

                                                                                                                      love,
                                                                                                                     Mommy

                                                                                                         

                 

*You have specifically requested that I stop calling you cute. 
   

Not A Happy Anniversary*

Hugmonkey still talks about Hurricane Sandy. After things got basically back to normal around here (and once again, we were so fortunate in how quickly that happened), he became obsessed with the weather. We had to check it every morning to see if there was a storm coming and if there was a storm coming, we had to research it's possible impact. That's pretty complicated for a kid who had just turned four.

A year later, sometimes he forgets to check the weather. But he still needs reassurance that Hurricane Sandy can't come back.

Buzzfeed has much better pictures of the storm's impact. 

Every time I reassure him, I wonder what I will say when the next storm hits. And then I think about all the other kids, the ones who went through so much more than Hugmonkey did. I wonder how they are coping, I wonder how they will handle the next storm. I wonder about the kids who survived the flooding in Colorado and the tornadoes in Oklahoma and Missouri and all the other crap that keeps happening. 

Sometimes my heart hurts a lot. 

If you can, please donate to Habitat for Humanity to help the kids (and adults) who have been through too much lately. 

*I know that technically the storm began on Sunday night - October 28th. But for us, it wasn't scary or that bad or power-free until October 29th. So this is my anniversary. 

Friday I'm in Love: With Jell-O

So, as we all know, I am not exactly a domestic goddess. When it comes to cooking, I'm not even a domestic priestess. Or noblewoman. Or servant. We should all be happy that my children don't starve to death when Hot Guy isn't here, is what I'm saying. I'm so nervous in the kitchen that I don't tend to let them cook with me (though they'd probably be better at it), unless it involves decorating cookies.

But then I saw that JELL-O had Halloween recipes. Making Jell-O is only slightly more difficult than boiling water, so I figured I might be able to handle their Spooky JIGGLERS recipes with assistance from the children.

Hugmonkey even helped me with finding the right JELL-O Gelatin at the grocery store.

If I was smart, I would have taken a photo while we were actually at the grocery store. 

We decided to make the Halloween JIGGLERS Hands, mostly because Ironflower wanted to be able to use Halloween cookie cutters on the leftover JELL-O. 

First we traced our hands. 

Some of us more carefully than others. 

Then we cut them out. 

Next was water boiling. 

And powder mixing. 

Then there was chilling time in the fridge. 

The laying on of the hand patterns. Lovebug was at basketball practice.

And then we added in Halloween cookie cutters. 

Lovebug's hand. Because you can't just trace a simple hand outline in second grade.

Pumpkin. Though it could be an apple. 

Post-practice snack. 

Ironflower would like to do commercials. 

So yummy! 

As soon as everyone was done and I was trying to shoo them upstairs, all I heard was, "This was so fun! When can we do it again? It was fun cooking with you, Mom!" So thank you, JELL-O. I owe you one. 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.