Pirates and Pixies

No small bones about it, I'm foisting my interests all up on my Kid. It started innocently enough: NBC was showing Peter Pan Live (and I wrote all about it). Then, he got into Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Then, as part of our prep-watching for our upcoming vacation to Disney World, we watched Disney's Peter Pan for one of our movie nights. It was all over from there...

And I love it.

So, when he asked me to make him fairy wings so he could play Tinker Bell, I couldn't say no. We took a trip to Michael's to pick out some flowers and paint, and I finally forgave Jake for having wire hangers in his closet. (He's getting better, but there are still a couple. I struggle not to go all Joan Crawford on him, but it's what keeps our marriage interesting.) I used this tutorial, which was pretty darned clear. My one note: even though I used Q-sized stockings, they compressed my hanger-shapes, so they wound up thinner than my original design. It's cool; he loves them, and so do I!

The Kid had asked me for "black and white stripes with orange squiggles and flowers," and I think I delivered. It's definitely the most Tim Burton-y, Halloween-y thing I've ever made! He's been flying around the apartment for the last couple of days, and I get to be his Peter Pan. Not complaining!

So, then.

I realized if I could make fairy wings, I could probably make a pair of swords for swordfighting, too. The Kid has been initiating swordfights with everything from chopsticks to plastic cucumbers to rubber snakes. Jake and I hadn't had The Play Weapon Talk yet--it had never come up. But both of us figured, if The Kid uses safe foam swords to play pirate, how could we argue?

Especially because I'm a craft-nerd who already had all of the materials, and didn't have to buy anything...

Tutorial after the jump.

A Very Crafty Holiday: an overview

I'm a big fan of TV. Like, huge. (Picture me saying that as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.) Before The Kid came along--and when he's not home--I have the TV on non-stop. It's my background noise when I'm doing whatever it is that I'm occupied with; there are only a handful of shows I actually sit and watch.

I do try to stem my couch potato impulses when I'm hanging out with The Kid, and not have the both of us posted in front of the TV all the time. To be honest, he probably watches a total of two hours a day...don't judge. :P

Not defaulting to turning on the TV was much easier when I worked outside of the house. Spending a full day with The Kid was an event, and it was treated as such. When you only get two full days a week together, why would you spend it watching TV? But now, I have to make a concerted effort to come up with fun and nourishing activities. And it turns out, I love doing crafts with my kid! (I probably could have told you that before, but now it's confirmed.) "Becoming more comfortable with arts and crafts" was on my resolution list a few years ago, when I realized that to effectively teach Creative Drama to young kids, I was going to have to give them art projects. I think I've been pretty successful on that end!

Here's a roundup of some of the crafts The Kid and I have done together for the holidays...

Glued circles and rectangles to a piece of blue paper to make snowmen!
(I can't believe it hasn't really snowed in A2 yet! Did I just jinx us??)

Made and decorated gingerbread cookies!
(Cookie recipe from Cook's Illustrated; amazing sugar frosting recipe from The Kitchn.)

The old preschool stand-by: dreidel suncatchers!
(Basis for this activity from The Artful Parent; I used watered-down glue instead of liquid starch,
because my grocery store didn't stock the starch. I also put the wax paper inside a dreidel cut-out.
Because Hanukkah.)

I went into The Kid's class to teach them about Hanukkah. Guess what I did with them!

We made peppermint marshmallows! They. Were. Excellent. And somehow, we still have some.
(Recipe from A Beautiful Mess.)

We made some ornaments for our tree. Meet Santa and Jewish Guy!
(Basis for this activity from Red Ted Art. I looped some embroidery floss through Santa's cap to make an ornament.
Jewish Guy used pretty much the same technique, using blue paint for his body, and a small felt circle yarmulke.)

And we made a handprint snowman ornament using a kit made by a parent in the 4s class at The Kid's school!

Whew! It's been an artful month! I think doing art with The Kid is so much fun. It allowed us to explore both of the winter holidays we celebrate in our family in a tactile way. Springtime crafts soon?

Creativity Now!

The Kid has dropped his nap. Like, completely. An afternoon nap means he chooses not to can't fall asleep until 11pm. No amount of reasoning ("oh my god, kid, when you're a grownup, you'll wish you got to take a nap!") is changing this fact.

We've implemented "rest time" most days, which means we still get a story or two or three and a snuggle, and then he plays alone in his room for a varying amount of time so that we all get a break. Depending on what he chooses to play, this can be anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, so if I want to get anything done, I have to prioritize tasks like a madwoman. Or just go on the internet for 20 minutes. That's good, too. (Of course, my learning how to prioritize tasks is a topic for a whole 'nother post! The transition to stay-at-home-mom is a delightful yet weird one.)

And so I'm absolutely thrilled that The Kid's exploratory creative play phase is intersecting with this need to stay awake all day. The fact that he can play by himself in his room is wonderful, and he has fun in his garage with his creatively named trucks, Garbage-y, Cement-y, Excy (the excavator), and Bully (the bulldozer--we'll save the "bully" talk for a later time). He's also converted his closet into a tow truck, which essentially means that he drags a bunch of toys into his closet and hangs out for a while.

The emerging desire to create is also coming out in a newfound attention to art projects and storytelling. And this is where we're both starting to learn how to accept each others' creative ideas and run with them.

I'm apparently so much better at this with my students than I am with my kid. A few years ago, I realized that if I was going to effectively teach K-1-ers, I had to learn how to do art projects myself, so I figured out how to do, assign, and teach elementary visual art projects. I was expert at using emerging creativity language: flexibility, fluency, originality, and elaboration. Of course, even though the projects my students were doing were about the process of creating, there was still an outcome--a character design, a cultural exploration, a review of the day's lesson, an original scene or play--and so I find myself struggling a little bit with providing open-ended projects for The Kid. I recognize that he needs time to explore materials and create abstractly, but it's hard for me to live in the moment and not focus on what it's going to be.

I'm working on it by cutting out shapes for a project and letting him glue them wherever he wants, and letting him choose colors and materials for whatever he wants to do. So, we'll "make a face," and he'll direct me on what papers he wants to use, and what shapes I should cut. I am working on the confidence to have him cut his own shapes! (He does use the scissors frequently, but of course he doesn't have the fine motor skills to cut actual shapes yet.) Painting and drawing abstractly are much more comfortable worlds to live in, though I'm also working on the impulse to ask "What's that?" I find myself asking much more frequently, "Can you tell me about what you're making?"*

The Kid is perfectly comfortable with being "The Foreman," as he is sometimes in his construction sites. (Hey, he's aiming for a management position!) But where I'm learning how to be accepting of his visual creativity, he's doing the same with my verbal creativity.

He's also exploring the world of storytelling, and wants us to make up our own stories, usually about construction trucks. As if he doesn't have a million books about construction trucks. But anyway. We're more than happy to--his favorite right now is one I made up about a team of trucks who build a road up and down a mountain--but he gets really upset if we don't tell a story exactly the way he wants. So, a story I tell about a dump truck with a head cold (yep) might lead to a tantrum if I don't include a mechanic helping the dump truck feel better. (I was really proud of the excavator who brought chicken soup, personally.)

I've tried telling him that if he wants a story told exactly the way he wants, he should try telling the story himself, but he's not into telling his own stories yet. Yesterday, we had to have a long talk about how different people are creative in different ways, and the only one who can tell a story the way he wants it is him.

And then I realized the same is true for my acceptance of his art projects. If he doesn't make things exactly the way I think he should, it's okay. And desirable. And necessary.


*NOTE: The Artful Parent has been a great resource recently for directing my creative language, as well as helping me find projects to do with The Kid.

A Room of His Own

The Kid's garage, complete with trucks, books, and costumes.

Back when we were preparing for the move, I asked The Kid, "If you could have anything decorating your room, what would it be?" His answer was immediate:

"A garage!"

"You mean, like the parking spaces we have on the floor in the living room?"

"No, like, a shelf where I can park my trucks."

And so the wheels set to turning. I wasn't going to go out and buy a garage for The Kid's room; we had plenty of shelves that could be repurposed. But, of course, me being the Type-A wanna-be crafter I am, I didn't want to just put a shelf in The Kid's room and tell him that's where he had to put his trucks every night. It had to be something special. I set to planning.

The Kid stayed with my folks while we moved so he didn't get underfoot, and so he had a place to sleep while our furniture was in transit. We wanted to make it a priority to unpack his room first thing, so that when he got to Ann Arbor, he had a place of his own, even if the rest of the apartment was an absolute mess. Which it kind of still is.

The decals went up first thing! Even if The Kid had no furniture, he'd have some trucks in his room.

But as his arrival day approached and we still didn't have any furniture, we were getting anxious. Would we have time to set up his furniture? And would I have time for the craftiness I wanted to do on his garage? (I didn't want to tell him "Well, this is your room, but this shelf is going to look totally different once I have the time to do it..." and then procrastinate my way to not fixing it. I know myself pretty well.)

So, thank goodness the furniture arrived a couple of days before my parents and The Kid. Jake got the call that the movers were two hours away while we were sitting in a theatre watching The Edge of Tomorrow; we were supposed to get 48 hours notice, and so assuming the furniture wouldn't come for days, we went on a movie date and made plans with local friends. Surprise! We canceled all of our plans, and the next day, I ran out to Michael's to get my supplies.

I spent the majority of the next day out on our deck crafting. (I can not express how excited I am to have an outdoor space!) It was a beautiful day for garage-making, and I'm absolutely thrilled with the way this turned out, especially since I had no plans or directions, no Pinterest inspiration, just what I was seeing in my head.

Since I had no directions, after the jump is the step-by-step for what I did, in case anyone else wants to do something similar. Or, if you're just curious.

Take a Seat

There are certain things that are true when two semi-adults blend apartments. One of those true-isms is that someone will wind up with furniture about which she's (oh, um, I mean they're) not wholly fond. When Jake and I moved in together almost ten years ago, he was mostly happy to toss the furniture from his studio apartment in favor of mine.

But there were The Chairs.

The Chairs had lived with Jake since 1999, and were the very definition of institutional-chic. Like, they looked like they belonged in a hospital waiting room, which is not exactly the look anyone is really going for in their home. Except for a 19-year-old college boy, who may-or-may-not have gotten them extremely inexpensively.

And so they were sequestered to our bedroom, buried under laundry and piles of books, and only sat upon if both of us were putting our shoes on at the same time, and someone needed a surface to perch on for a second. In the midst of The Great Purge, I decided that there was no way these chairs were moving to Michigan with us. I hated them: I hated the color of the wood, I hated the look and feel of the upholstery. There was no way these chairs were getting loaded onto a moving van and getting shipped 800 miles away, just to get buried again.

Unless I made them different chairs.

The practically-free status of these chairs made them perfect candidates for experimentation. I figured, I could teach myself upholstery and painting/staining (via Pinterest, of course!) and if they turned out looking awful, well, I wouldn't have sunk a lot of money into them, right? So, I set off to research, as is my wont.

First consideration: what color should the wood be? I looked into Chalk Paint, but ultimately decided that I didn't love any color enough to commit to opaque paint, and that I'd rather let the wood show through. That led to a trip to Strosnider's with The Kid. Oh, how I love my neighborhood hardware store! I bought sandpaper, a brush, and a dropcloth, my mini-consultant helped me choose a stain color, and we were good to go.

Next, of course, I had to choose the fabric for the upholstery. After far too many hours browsing on Fabric.com, I finally bought five samples. Five minutes with my mini-consultant after I got the shipment, and I had chosen Premier Prints Suzani Summerland/Natural. (No, I don't let The Kid dictate my life, but the boy has an eye for color and pattern!)

Then, I just had to...um...do it. It took me several days, since I could only do so much while (a) I was at home, and (b) The Kid was sleeping or able to help me. And I was seriously proud of the outcome! The pseudo-before/after is at the top of the post, and the how-to is after the jump!

Two Jews in a Room Crafting*

There are certain things a little Jewish girl doesn't get to do growing up. Okay, yes, I did have goyish experiences at my friend Emily's dad's house, or in the neighborhood at the Bardziks' or the Chicos'. (As the names would suggest, those families had different traditions from mine.) I grew up super-assimilated liberal Reform, but we didn't have a Hanukkah bush or anything, so it was up to my friends to invite me over to their houses. My manners were too good to beg for invitations, but someone usually pulled through.

As I grew up, the desire to hang lights on a tree and dye eggs passed. I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter; why should I want to decorate as though I did?

But among the many wonderful things that come from being married to a person who comes from a non-Jewish family--we don't have to fight over where to spend Christmas (his family!) or who hosts Seder (my family!)--one of them is being able to bring traditions I always coveted into my own home. We're raising The Kid Jewish, but it's fun to expose him to the things Jake grew up with. The Kid helped us trim our tree in December, and this week, for the first time, we dyed eggs in our apartment.

I took a half-day at work yesterday because our babysitter had an appointment, and I thought The Kid and I could do some kind of fun Spring craft. I had no idea what, but I figured it would come to me. I took him out to Strosniders to buy supplies for a project I'm probably going to post about sometime in the near future, but there was nothing else inspiring there. We stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a couple of things, and there, on the impulse-buy-end-of-aisle display, were spring crafts galore. Including the Glob Easter Egg Coloring Kit. I'd never done it before, but I thought...hey, let's boil up some eggs and make them pretty colors!

The dye is natural, extracted from cabbage (the blue dye), radish (the pink dye), and annatto (the orange dye), which is apparently what gives cheddar cheese its color. Not having ever had dyed eggs in my house, I wasn't sure if you could eat eggs colored with regular dye, and I didn't want to waste a carton of hardboiled eggs, so this sounded like a great idea.

And it was!

OK, I had to look up instructions for boiling eggs. (Jake is the master egg-cooker in our house.) But when that was done, we went for it with gusto! The Kid's favorite color is orange, and he had a lot of fun dunking eggs and swirling them around until the tint was exactly what they wanted. I got slightly artsier with techniques I'd read about in fancy-schmancy magazines, but the white crayon absorbed the dye almost as much as the uncovered eggshell, and the dye got underneath some of the rubberbands. The stripey eggs turned out pretty well though, and more importantly, we had an awesome time.

The Kid couldn't wait to eat one of his pretty eggs: he had pancakes for dinner at the diner around the corner, and he kept shouting, "When we get home, I'm gonna have an egg for dessert!" So he did.

Yes, both of our hands are still stained orange, but it was a small price to pay. Super-fun time. Multicultural house. Getting to help my son do the stuff I wanted to do as a kid. (Damn, that last one makes me sound like a proto-stage mom. I'm not going there, I promise.)

Breakfast for the next week!

* Anyone else have William Finn in their heads? I hope so. You're welcome.

Food Friday: Birthday Hamantaschen!

It's my birthday! Since I work Sunday-Thursday, I get to have a super-chill day. I woke up late--The Kid kindly let me sleep until 7:30--spent some time in the kitchen, went to the local diner for birthday pancakes, and now I'm chilling out watching An Idiot Abroad while The Kid sleeps on the couch.

(This child, who hasn't napped for four days, insisted for 45 minutes that he wasn't sleepy while I insisted he just spend some rest time in his room so I could take a shower. After 45 minutes, I let him come out to hang with me in the living room, and he promptly fell asleep on the couch. I'm letting him be.)

Tonight, we'll carry on our grand birthday tradition: I got to ask Jake to cook me anything I want for my birthday, and I'm getting flank steak, broccoli rabe, and three-cheese polenta. He and The Kid baked me a cake last night, and I can. not. wait to chow down!

This weekend is also Purim, and since baking is one of my favorite things to do with The Kid, we made hamantaschen this morning: apricot, blueberry, and Nutella. Here's my Mini Chef putting the ingredients together for the apricot filling:

Don't worry, the oven's not on.

I'm not going to duplicate the hamantaschen recipe here, because I hardly deviated at all from The Shiksa's wonderful procedure (other than the Mini Chef helping me measure, stir, dump, and knead, then leaving me to fill and fold).

BUT!

The Kid dressed up as a chef for yesterday's Purim Parade at his school (natch), and we decided that in order to make his costume more holiday-appropriate, we'd make some paper hamantaschen to put in his pocket. "Recipe" for paper hamantaschen (a cute and easy holiday craft) after the jump!