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?

Happy New Year! (Or: It's 2015, Where's My Hoverboard?)

I don't normally do the resolution thing. I tend to do most of my reflection around Rosh Hashanah, and this year was no different. But since 2014 has been so full of changes and transitions, I thought this was as good a chance as any to sit back and put my thoughts down in words. So, at risk of being super-boring and doing the same thing as every other blogger, here are some reflections and (I guess) resolutions.

House and Home

In 2014, I made a huge transition from being a full-time working-person to being a Stay-at-Home Mom. (Which, yes, is also a full-time job. Just a very different kind of one.) I went from cooking maybe once a week to making dinner--and lunch--five times a week. There was a very steep learning curve, and I think I've been doing a pretty good job of adjusting.

In 2015, I'd like to:

• focus on being more mindful during my time at home, and not default to checking my phone every five seconds. 
• figure out a daily small-cleaning schedule, so I'm not rushing to clean when we have people coming over. (Though, my parents visiting once a month is a great cleaning deadline every four weeks or so!)
• focus further on pantry-cooking. I've been doing a good job of weekly-menu-planning every week, but I could do more with what we have in our pantry, and make sure we're well-stocked in there.
• learn more about cooking and become less reliant on recipes!

Work

In 2014, I left Imagination Stage--leaving both a desk job and secure teaching job behind--and made connections in Ann Arbor, teaching one class a week with Wild Swan Theater. I continued working with The Inkwell in a marketing capacity from afar, because I love the future. (But where's my hoverboard, McFly??)

In 2015, I'd like to:

• continue to make connections in the theatre community here in A2, building more classes into my schedule.
• take time to write every day, whether blogging or playwriting.
• on that note, move forward with editing my plays and work on getting them out to other people.
• make a concerted effort for "office hours" while The Kid is in school, particularly Inky hours.

Health

In 2014, I started working out for, like, the first time! I have a trainer and go to spin classes. That's going pretty well. I've also been tracking what I eat, both for calories and nutrition. That's going pretty well, too! But here's what I'd like to work toward for mind-health in 2015:

• Read. Books. I've become way too reliant on my phone, and much of my bedtime reading takes place on a small iScreen. I'm going to replace that with reading actual books. (Yes, I'm a nerd who let book reading lapse!) At first, I'm aiming to read one book a month, since I don't have a lot of time for reading. By the end of the year, I'd like to read two books a month at least. I have a stack I'm really excited about, and first up: The Family Fang.

Ok, I think that's enough introspection for one day! I think that all of these goals are attainable over the next 12 months, and I have some self-assistance lined up for some of them (like NaBloPoMo, which will help with the write-every-day thing). Here's to a wonderful year!

A Very Handy Halloween

The Kid and his Halloween inspiration.

We talk about costumes a lot around here. The Kid has recycled all of his past Halloween costumes into dress-up clothes, which he wears pretty darned frequently, along with the ones he's picked up as gifts along the way. (In fact, as we speak, he's wearing his pirate costume from two years ago, which fits him much better now. He's not being a pirate, he's just wearing the costume.)

A while ago, he told Jake and I that he wanted to be a construction worker for Halloween this year, which came as no surprise. But he already has a construction worker costume, and we wanted to get him something new. You know, ignoring our budget, for special-ness.

And so when he told me that what he really, really wanted to be was Handy Manny--a character he loves so much that he started calling my parents Abuela and Abuelito for no other reason--I jumped on it. "OK," I told him, "If that's what you want, we're Doing This Thing."

Handy Manny plays "pin the eye on the spider" at his nursery school Halloween party.

I set up a secret board on Pinterest (Did you know you could do that?? It's amazing for remembering things you don't want anyone to know about...like your kid's Halloween costume...) and got to finding costume pieces. There are actual Handy Manny costumes for sale out there, but I'm a dramaturg, and my kid was only going to wear pieces the character would actually wear, god damn it. No one wears a shirt with their own face on it. The great thing about Handy Manny is that he's just a guy who wears regular clothes, which meant not only that we could source pieces from The Kid's actual wardrobe, but that most of what we bought could be worn again and again in non-costume ways.

The downside to dressing like a regular-cartoon-person is that when you add a puffy coat for a Michigan Halloween, your kid kind of looks like...a kid in a down jacket going door-to-door begging for candy. But there were definitely a few people who approached him and asked if her was Handy Manny, so that was really cool.

So, if you ever find yourself in possession of a three-and-a-half-year-old who wants to be Handy Manny more than anything else in the world, here is how you do it:

The foundation of the costume was jeans and a couple of shirts we already owned. No earth-shaking purchase there, but it gave us the darker-green sleeves and collar Manny had. And, really, I wasn't going out to buy a new pair of jeans.

Then, we had to add Manny's unique elements.

We bought these shoes from Target, which have paid for themselves several times over. The Kid calls them his "Manny shoes," and he's worn them so many times. They're already a little worn on the toe, but they're super-comfy and utilitarian.

I got Manny's hat on Amazon, being sure to follow the customer comments and buy the child-sized one, even though my kid has a huge head. :) Since Manny keeps a pencil behind his ear, I sewed a plastic one to the hat with embroidery floss, making sure my stitches were tight enough that the pencil wouldn't fall out, but loose enough that we could remove it in case a kid running around with a pencil behind his ear proved dangerous. I also made the artistic (read: safer) decision to point the eraser forward, even though Manny wears his the other way 'round.

(One person did think he was Ash from Pokemon because of the hat. Generational differences, I guess!)

Manny's tool belt came in the form of a $0.77 apron from Home Depot. (Seriously. $0.77. Also, I miss the "cents" key.)

Because Manny doesn't shill for Home Depot, I embroidered up a patch with our favorite tool and the slogan of Handy Manny's Repair Shop. I made it an iron-on, so no actual sewing was necessary.

And--of course--we stuck google eyes on all of his tools. :)

It was an incredibly successful day of trick-or-treating in downtown Ann Arbor, and evening spent with friends outside of Detroit. More importantly than the candy haul, The Kid loved his costume!