By the Way

Oh! By the way -- during this shower, my daughter came up with an interesting idea for keeping soap and water out of her eyes -- she put on her swim goggles that were hanging in the shower (she likes to sometimes wear them in the bath to look at her Polly Pockets and things underwater...)! If you put the elastic underneath your child's hair so that you can still wash it, it actually works pretty well!

Keeping Up With The Jetsons

A thought popped into my head as I was giving my daughter a quick shower before heading out to some function the other day.

Normally, she takes baths and loves them, but sometimes when we are in a hurry and bathing is necessary, I will give her a quick shower. It is somewhat torturous for me, because, as happened this particular day, I was standing outside of the shower, reaching in and trying to wash her hair. I was getting my clothes soaked, the bathroom floor soaked, and she was VERY crabby -- it was not pleasant for either of us!

So, as this was going on, and she was getting impatient with me, and I with her, I remembered the cartoon "The Jetsons" that I used to love to watch when I was little. For anyone who ever watched that show, do you remember how they had this WONDERFUL bathroom where the Jetsons would step on a conveyor belt looking terrible with "bedhead" and the conveyor belt would move them along through an automatic shower/hair salon/toothbrusher and they'd pop out on the other side all clean and coifed? That would be a dream come true in our house!! Aside from the time that it would save, it would be such a pleasant way to start the day, instead of our usual battle with our 7-year-old over hair brushing, teeth brushing - you name it!

What I would like to know, is how is it that no one has designed and marketed this miracle machine that was depicted on a children's cartoon in the 1960's!?! (I watched reruns, by the way...) It's been nearly 50 years since this show was on -- why can't I get this for my bathroom?!? Maybe someday, but until then, I can dream!

Phew!

Phew! We FINALLY bought our new mini-van last night and now we can back to our regular lives! This has been such a project -- I won't even bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, we are now the proud new owners of a Toyota Sienna, and we are all very excited to have a mini-van again! The four of us and all of our "stuff" piled into a Dodge Stratus and driving anywhere for longer than 30 minutes -- not a good time!

For a family on the go, this has a huge amount of storage area, a plethora of cup holders (the saleswoman said to me last night, "If you have a powerful thirst, this is the car for you!" She was joking, I think, but seriously there are at least 8 cup holders in there...), a ton of overhead lights (that will allow my daughter to read in the car without waving her little flashlight around and blinding the rest of us), power sliding door with a sensor to detect when fingers are in the way, and a bunch of other wonderful things that we are excited to discover.

Of course, now we have a new problem to deal with... Our older daughter was apparently throwing a small temper tantrum tonight on the way to dance class, because my husband was driving her there in the "old" car. Apparently she no longer likes the other car and does not want to drive in it any more! Ah, 7 -- it's a delightful age! I'm sure she'll grow out of this by the time she hits her teenage years, right? (Yeah, sure...)

Bubbles!

Here's a quick tip I gave to a friend of mine the other day. We were talking about bathtime, and she was saying that her little girl is not a big fan and she was talking about getting bath crayons (which are great, too!). I mentioned that something that my girls have enjoyed, is playing with bubbles in the tub. We have a little container of bubbles, with a little bubble wand, and my older daughter LOVES to play with that in the tub. The other day I had both girls in the tub at the same time, and my older daughter entertained my younger daughter by blowing bubbles, while I washed her hair! Bubbles are so inexpensive -- you can even make your own with dish soap and water -- and kids love them! And the bathtub is a great place to play with them -- it's a novelty for the kids to get to play with them in the house, and there's no need to worry about a mess!

Catching Up

I'm still here -- it's been a crazy week in our house (what else is new, right?) -- I have still been researching mini-vans and we are planning to go out Friday and try to make a deal -- I'll keep you posted on that!

We survived "Spring Break" in our house (my daughter's one week break from first grade). There were the usual moments of boredom -- which is funny, because we were trying to talk her into taking a dance camp this summer and she FLATLY refused. We said, "Ok, but you are going to be bored being home all summer, "No I won't!" Fast forward to halfway through the FIRST day of her week's vacation, "I'M BORED!" Really? We did talk her into taking a mini-camp through her dance school and it's called, "Me and My Shadow", I believe, and she can bring her sister along with her -- how cute!!

In spite of the initial boredom, she did get to do some fun things including a family trip to the Strong Museum -- that was really a great day! Grandpa took the girls to the indoor playground at the mall near our house, which is a lot of fun for them. We had movie night one night, and what did she pick to watch, "The Santa Clause 3" -- a Christmas movie on the hottest day of the year, thus far -- I believe it was 86 degrees that day/night! She was a little apprehensive about playing outside in the backyard -- big "bee fear" that we need to work through... But the weather has been nice and spring-like and I think we are all anxious to move the lawn furniture out and get out of the house!

Tomorrow is my father's birthday, so we have been getting ready for that -- Nana and my girl baked cupcakes for him this afternoon, so when he is here watching the girls tomorrow they can have a birthday treat! We signed his cards before bedtime and my older daughter signed her own name and her sister's name and she drew a picture on the card for Grandpa. I then turned the card over to my little one and gave her the pen and she made her own "drawing" while her big sister had a breakdown over the possibility of her artwork being scribbled over... We worked through it. She also made a happy birthday sign for Grandpa, and we are looking forward to going out to dinner with he and Gramby, and the two great-grandmothers for dinner tomorrow night!

Oh! We have an unexpected treat to look forward to this weekend -- my older daughter and I were invited to be guests of a friend of hers from school, and her mother, who were lucky enough to get 4 free tickets to see the ballet "Cinderella" performed by the City Ballet this weekend. We are very excited about that, and it was so thoughtful of them to think of inviting us!