Preschool subscription smack down

I wasn't too impressed with day 1 of our "Berry Best Preschool" subscription.  I haven't looked ahead at all so I can only judge day by day....and today, day 2, was another bust.

It starts out so exciting, two activities organized into a little pouch with a theme...

Unfortunately,  the activities are just kinda dumb. The instructions say to have the adults cut out all the pieces - now I'm understanding why they sell a "pre cut" set for more $$$. I suppose I could try to have TC cut her own,  but scissors haven't gone well so far and I'm spooked. The learning activity was a worksheet - count the items and glue the number in the box. The cutting and gluing felt like unnecessary complications to make it a bigger activity. ..but it wasn't real educational or much fun. The artwork so far looks just like the mimeographed worksheets of my youth, these are NOT computer assisted I guess. Maybe that's whimsical.  It feels kinda slipshod.

Activity #2, the craft, was embellishing a snowy owl. Worksheet, 3 feathers, and a stick + feet to cut out and paste on. Eh. Meh. 

I felt like again this was more work for me than my preschooler, didn't occupy much time, and was very low quality.  It's not refrigerator gallery work. It came with just a couple facts about owls,  not enough to teach anything from, so I can't even really give it credit for being more educational. Carefree Crafts includes a set of facts about the month that are much more interesting and we'll curated.

and speaking of Carefree Crafts, they are KILLING IT this month. So much win. We're gonna do everything the first week and then be sad to wait for more. 

First up we stuffed a little teddy bear!  We were sent a bear "skin", fiberfill, and a little heart to stuff inside (like at build-a-bear workshop).  That went pretty smooth, then we didn't even have to stitch her up, it was velcro! Finally there was a little scrap of felt and a pattern to cut a vest, I did that and let TC color on it with markers for some additional mileage out of this craft. Her name is Pinky and she was a a hit:

2nd craft was to decorate a ladybug mailbox for Valentines.  This is exactly what I prefer in crafts right now for TC - stickers she can independently take the backing off (small motor skills + phenomenal practice with patience) nothing messy, no scissors or glue - and again TC loved it. Neither of these are projects we will keep forever but they will be played with some and ready to go once next month's projects come. 

If you are keeping track, Carefree Crafts is winning by a mile. I should be rationing the projects better since we only get 1-1.5 per week, but they are WAY more fun and interesting so far than the 6 per week we are doing with BBP. 

My Ipsy Glam Bag and Bijoux Box should arrive mid month, so we are just starting our subscription box odyssey.  Gotta do something to pass this long crazy winter! 

Berry Best Preschool Subscription + Other Crafting Meltdowns...

We had an utter craft-tastrophe this morning with at least a dozen mega meltdowns and a river of snot and tears, all caused by various craft frustration. Egads. It actually started with milk on the cheerios (I want it! No I don't! Now it's there! World is ending!) Three year olds are far from sensible (or maybe it's just mine who thinks the world is ending if I ask her to slow down, pause, or listen at any point), but this was a bit over the top. Scissors, stickers, coloring - it all just fueled the fire. Ugh.

Now that we've all calmed down (chocolate milk for her, Dr. Pepper for me, chocolate chunk cookies for all), here's a look back:

We're trying out a new monthly subscription sorta like our crafting one, this is from Berry Best Preschool and includes art + curriculum, supposedly a learning activity and a craft for each day. We ordered the 3 day a week subscription for February, and started it today. The "learning activity" was a worksheet to trace and practice making #9s. Sounds easy enough, and I'm pretty sure they do similar things at TC's daycare, so I didn't think twice.

Cue first meltdown.

I'm not sure what I did wrong here, but TC didn't want to follow directions, listen to directions, or allow me to demonstrate. It pushed her well over the edge into toddler tantrum territory. Not awesome. Also, she's terrible at making #9s, so I feel like I kinda failed too. Hmmm....

The "craft activity" was much more benign and one of the few things we accomplished today without tears (ahh, parenting....). It was a "puppet" to celebrate groundhog's day (which was yesterday, so kinda odd to make it today...). The package contained the groundhog printed on brown paper, and a paper bag. The instructions said to pre-cut the head and body of the groundhog, and allow kids to affix the pieces to the paper bag. I used some leftover glue dots (which I still hate, but were easier to use/cleaner than actual glue) and it didn't really feel like TC did much for this. Also, here's what it looked like:

Um....isn't the point of a puppet that the MOUTH looks like it is moving? this "puppet" splits head from body...WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THAT?!?!?! It makes no sense, and wasn't real fun to put together.

So, it's pretty early to judge this subscription, but day 1 was kind of a bust. I would guess we'll have a lot more tracing worksheets for the "learning activity" and I'm okay with that since it is a good thing to learn, but we'll have to come to a better working relationship with them (and each other). As for the crafts...very dubious so far. This one was sorta a dumb product AND not real kid-involved to make, so I give it pretty low marks.

Fingers crossed it gets better!

Carefree Crafts - subscription box update

Well I think we might be officially hooked on crafts. TC has become militant on getting at least one craft each day. Her policy is enforced with tears, temper tantrums, and what amount to toddler sit-ins. While a huge part of me LOVES that she took an interest in creative stuff, it's often not the most convenient. So I think the Carefree Crafts subscription is here to stay, since it means we have more easy projects on hand.

We have almost finished our January projects, and I'm bummed because it was really convenient to just grab a pre-packaged craft from the pile and jump in. Nothing required set up, or much clean up. I'm not sure if this happens every month, but everything also color-coordinated, so our little "gallery" was even cute. Here's a quick review:

Project #1 was a snowman "coaster." The coaster was silly, but it's fine as a wall hanging. We actually mailed it off to help decorate Lucy's hospital room, a little Midwest scene setting to go along with the hearts and princesses. Next we did the "stained glass" mitten sun catcher, which was the messiest because it involved glue, but not too bad overall. The snowflake lacing mobile was kind of over TC's head, but she colored the snowflakes and I did the lacing and she was not bothered by my contributions.

This little guy (well, below is a stock photo - ours is already missing in the tidal wave of toy mess that is our livingroom during this polar vortex) we assembled and were supposed to use to play "Huckle Buckle Beanstalk" which is a form of hide and seek where you hide an object, or sort of like "hot and cold." My favorite part has been listening to TC try to say Huckle Buckle Beanstalk, which she thinks is his name. Totally worth the price of the subscription. It comes out something like "hickle hickle beanpot" usually.


Then we did what was probably my favorite project because it was mostly peel & stick foam (no glue dots!), a little penguin measuring stick. This was also fun because we worked on counting when deciding which number to stick on which line, and TC decided that Huckle Buckle is the penguin's mom. So now they have earnest conversations and live together in a princess suitcase.

We have one more project that involves water colors, so I've saved that for when I feel particularly caffeinated and patient, though TC LOVES to paint, so I'm sure it will be a hit. We actually did the first step - coloring on coffee filters - and it was a bit of a mess, since TC decided she was going to give herself a "cat-too" and the so-called "washable" markers have decided not to wash off even after a soak and scrub in the tub. Oh well.

We went ahead and signed up for February's box, and I can't wait till it arrives! With the harsh cold we've had this month indoor activities have been particularly appreciated, I wish we had them today. We burned through several slapped together craft projects and could have used many more.

Verdict: feeling pretty good about Carefree Crafts, can't wait to get the next shipment!

Goodbye mermaid wall decal

I am very slowly working on some household projects, one of which involves trading rooms with The Cupcake sometime before winter. The rooms are about the same size but will work better switched for a few (not extremely interesting) reasons, plus it will be a fun change, so I'm making a tiny bit of progress while I wait to win the lottery afford the necessary accoutrements. A few free things I was able to start with included taking down the mermaid wall decal that was over TC's crib: 

 

 

It was really cute for TC, but not really what we had in mind for our bedroom, so I took a deep breath and started peeling. It came up pretty easily, though there was no way to "save" it unless you were willing to spend hours - it stuck to itself and tore easily coming off. It also apparently took off some paint, as you can see all the tiny dots of teal on the final product below:

 

 

The particles of missing paint weren't even noticeable on the wall, except for one small area (under 2" square) that came off pretty significantly:

So it definitely wasn't at all reusable, but it was mostly removable. We're planning to repaint anyways, so no big deal. All in all, it went up and came down better than I thought it would. I would definitely do a decal again in the future.

Mega-Pain-In-The-Ass

I survived Megabus. I wouldn't recommend it. While it was dirt cheap, their customer service policy seems to be "we're cheap, deal with it" but with a few hundred F-bombs thrown in for good measure. We had to endure 4 segments, 2 there and 2 back.

Round one, Minneapolis to Chicago: ugh. Overcrowded, so we all have to sit separately (me + 7 teenagers) filling in seats next to people who were trying desperately not to share them (uh, sorry? buy 2 seats next time? or just stop being a douchebag?). We leave about half an hour late, and I resign myself to headphones and a book, only to realize a half hour later that we are on the wrong road and going the wrong way. Apparently Megabus does not have GPS, and decided to improvise at a detour. Despite our cautions "not to talk to the driver at any time!" someone spoke up and luckily got us turned around and headed in the (correct) opposite direction. The thermostat was set at UBERCHILL, and the Internet service was spotty at best - I could sometimes check email, I could never stream Pandora or Hulu.

Somewhere in between radio stations I took out my headphones to discover that my teens, on our way to the National Speech & Debate Tournament, had engaged the entire back of the bus in a series of debates about the state of national politics.

Oh dear Jeebus.

Somehow that discussion received a warm welcome and avid participation, and the only real "I will CUT YOU" moment came when one kid started to hum along with his iPod. Okay.

When we arrived in Chicago my kids bid adieu to their "new friends" and received mandatory hugs, which as chaperon I probably should have tried to save them from, but I was more concerned with avoiding one of my own. Put on your own oxygen mask before helping children, right? Anyways, buoyed by our excitement for the still-new trip, we survived leg one, a bit chilled and dragging. Somehow we made up our lost time (though nobody was willing to tell us what time we'd be arriving at our first destination, and in fact the driver announced "stop asking me when we will arrive, I'll make an announcement for everyone when I make an announcement and that's why I make an announcement." I may have a few words off, but it was that mean and unintelligible. So it was a pleasant surprise when we rolled in to Chicago only about a half hour late and had enough time to grab lunch downtown.

Leg 2 was actually the best of the trip, the bus was barely occupied, we all got our own seats, it was dark and the temperature was more moderate and I just whipped out True Blood and did a quick recap on Season 4 before the impending premier. I also didn't realize that we crossed a time zone during that leg of the trip until one of the kids came up to ask if we should call a cab, being about 10 mins away when I thought we were still over an hour out. Time travel, nice!

Then the actual trip took place, blah blah, too long away from my baby, fun but stressful competition, la la la.

The trip home sucked royally. We left our hotel at 5:30am, meaning I got up at 4, which was really 3 in my timezone. And then we lugged our crap 10 blocks to the bus stop, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Our 6:35 departure came and went, and somewhere around 7am I got ahold of Megabus to ask what was going on, and was pretty much told "F YOU."

No, seriously. They used other words. The woman said "I haven't heard anything." Okay. "What happens if we miss our next bus in Chicago? "Well, you can file for a refund." Uh, okay. But how do we get out of Chicago, do you put us on another bus? "No." So I'm just stuck in Chicago with 7 kids and an urge to stab your eyeballs with salad forks? "Yes, that's our policy."

Awesome, thanks, Megabus, for reminding me that "cheap" is not necessarily the best option when it drains a significant portion of my will to live.

An hour later I got ahold of the actual customer service line (that didn't open until 7:30am CENTRAL time) and was told 1. yes, that is their policy "if we're late, you're screwed! ha ha ha!" 2. She was such a nice person, she would try to get us on the next bus anyways (okay), and 3. She officially advised people to never try to make a connection on Megabus (?!?!? What does that mean?!?!? What is the proper window of time to devote to Megabus then?!?!) and that they were soon putting it on the website and in their terms that they were not responsible for anything. Ever. And also, F you.

I may have added words to explain the tone of the conversation at the end there.

So just as we were told the bus was coming at 9am, there it goes and rolls up at 8. Right after everyone else who was waiting had dispersed to various other locations, and I was on the phone looking for a car rental (I WAS going to get home that day. Regardless of method required.)

So we get on the bus, seats together, leg 3 goes okay and we even make up some of the time, so instead of missing our connection we roll in to Chicago with about a half hour until our next bus leaves, just enough time to disembark and stand in a luggage pile while the kids ran for fast food. Then we were "those people" who ate stinky food on the bus, but sorry man, it was a long freaking day and we got up at 3am.

Also, everyone else on that last leg of the trip were giant dickheads and deserved much worse than a little french fry scent. Case in point: we all sit together in the back of the bus. Moments before leaving, woman with baby enters and sits just in front of us. Proceeds to "shush" us the next 8 hours so her baby can sleep.

Um, no. I'm a parent. 1. I'd never take my baby on Megabus, but 2. It is not the rest of the world's responsibility to cater to your baby. 3. You're a jerk, if we want to talk at a normal level in what is basically a public space, you can either deal with it, or move. Especially since we were seated first, and in a large group. I was too tired to argue at this point, but will hope that this woman gets her just desserts in some other horrible way. She also had the strange parenting choice of leaving her baby (in a carrier) on the bus while she disembarked to smoke. And I thought I was mother of the year!

Speaking of ignoring your kids, we also got stuck entertaining a precotious 10 year old traveling with his grandfather, the later whom never said a word to the kid and even left to go sit downstairs for a while when clearly the kid was being an intrusive @$$ and we were all sick of him long ago. He has 2 girlfriends who he kisses French, he is THE BEST DANCER (self reported) and THE BEST EVERYTHING (self reported) and spent hours taking photos and videos of us, interjecting into our conversations, asking for our food, and other such obnoxiousness. Again, too tired to deal with the fall out of telling the world how their actions were wrong, but egads, I still hate other peoples' kids. And other people. Just in general.

This bus had the AC set on sub-zero, which I kindly asked the driver to remedy at a stop, and he did...for a while. Then he cranked it back up inexplicably and announced "stop telling me about the temperature, it is set on 75 (lies!) and I have to concentrate on the driving." I wonder if Megabus has their own charm school? So I shivered and suffered in my jeans, knee-hi socks, shoes, t-shirt, sweater, and jacket - yes, even all those layers were no defense. My poor kids with shorts and flip-flops were miserable. Also on this final desperate ride, the Internet didn't work at all (Megabus is very clear that they provide internet on every bus! Also, if it doesn't work, F YOU! Again with the customer service).

Lessons learned:
- Megabus, while cheap, is not worth it.
- Megabus has an odd but apparently successful business model built around possibly delivering some services for a good price, but not necessarily guaranteeing anything, and must encourage their drivers to be surly and rude. Also, though they say your luggage can have a combined dimension of 62", if you actually bring a bag that size they will yell at you, make you wait till the end to load, and tell you to "cut back next time" (?!?!?).
- 8 days is too long to be away from my Cupcake so far.
- In 8 days away The Hubs may have taught TC to sleep through the night (Also ?!?!?!)

Yeah, crazy happening everywhere. Based on my experience with MB I'm not even going to attempt a strongly worded letter, since they've been bold with their lack of customer service intentions and clearly do not care. I survived. I learned. And now I'm home and settling into my still new life.


I've decided (much like Megabus?) not to give a hoot and deal with editing this, so hey, it's free, deal with it :)

It can't be a spoiler if there is no plot to begin with...

Last night my "book club" took a field trip. In case you are new here, my "book club" at one time DID read and discuss actual books, but at some point we switched to watching TV shows instead, and instead of barely meeting once a month we upped it to once a week and attendance is better than ever now. We mostly rally around True Blood, but when that is on hiatus we try other strange combos of gratuitous ab-shots and paranormal tangents, such as Walking Dead, Spartacus, and Sherlock Holmes. Usually followed by an episode or two of Wipeout or American Ninja Warrior. While I still maintain the "book club" moniker, others have dubbed it "art film night."

So clearly "willing suspension of disbelief" is not a problem for us, everything we watch (and often discuss quite scholarly) is strange and absurd (even the reality shows) and yet, last night, I think we hit on the most unbelievable of all...

Battleship.



O.M.G.

I cannot even completely fathom what I just watched. And it's not the aliens that are throwing me. I'm tangentially okay with aliens, though I always prefer they don't show them directly (it's easier to believe if they're sort of imaginary still, like a book, and usually scarier) and of course when they DO show the aliens, you start deciding if that jives with your own idea of aliens, and questioning the special effects, and it just snowballs. Aliens should be implied, not fully exposed. And let's not even wonder why a movie based on a board game decided to work in aliens. This just happened. And it was potentially the MOST believable part of the movie.

More believable by far than Taylor Kitsch's character falling through the roof of a convenience store (twice) in order to impress a chick with a burrito, and then being tased (twice also). And then joining the navy, being assigned to the same area as his brother, and being made captain of the competitive soccer team.

More believable than the flattest sea imaginable with nary a wave (let alone a tsunami) despite bombs, huge spaceships, and other sky-scraper-sized debris plunging into it at a high rate of speed.



Probably more believable than Rhianna in the navy.

Definitely more believable than a crew of WWII vets helping to arm the floating museum that was once a battleship and taking it to war (with a Japanese captain nonetheless!) no questions asked.

Yeah, that last one is where the uncontrollable laughter really overwhelmed the levies and we all pretty much lost it. I have a hard time believing they could have written or filmed that "plot twist" with a straight face. I really liked Armageddon, but this was like an SNL parody of that...only serious? I expected to hear Aerosmith at any moment (and would have probably died of laughter if that had really happened).

I'm also a fan of the Friday Night Lights series, but it seemed to me that Riggins was playing Riggins and Landry was playing Landry...I am pretty sure we only went to see the movie in the first place because of Alexander Skarsgard, who they killed off much too soon (so soon we kept wondering when he would pop up again).

There were 20 minutes of bad action-flick previews, so we knew we were in for something outside of our demographic, but I don't think words can accurately convey just how laughable this movie was. I actually had a great night and was fully entertained, but I can't help but believe that was NOT the intention.

I suggest seeing this movie in an empty theatre so you can "MST3000" it. It's almost impossible to keep quiet and watch.

Oh, and Kitsch, I'm worried about you...first John Carter is a box office joke and now this bomb...I want to cheer for you, I really do, but you make it so hard...

Look! A whole post without mentioning TC!

Book Review - Tales from the Bed

I finished up the memoir I was talking about yesterday, Jenifer Estess' short life story as told to her sister Valerie. It was my first library book in YEARS, and it was a quick read (when TC wasn't trying to wrestle it out of my hands). Jenifer was diagnosed with ALS in her mid-30's and died 6 years later.





This book was just okay. The idea of ALS, the idea of a woman my age being derailed so completely and unexpectedly, forced to watch herself disintegrate, knowing that her family will go to any lengths to care for her and the guilt that brings - all of that is tragic. I felt the tragedy of the situation, but the emotion was my own, not brought on by the writing. This was a major disappointment. I had picked up the book hoping it would hold a great dramatic piece for speech competitions (I coach), but the writing is fairly flat. All the blurbs on the book talk about what a great person Jenifer was, how funny she was - and I'm sure that is true, but the book doesn't convey those things.

Speaking of the blurbs, they were by some pretty big names - Sarah Jessica Parker, Christopher Reeve, forward by Katie Couric...Jenifer had a lot of great contacts, both before and after she started her foundation to fight ALS, and their names are liberally peppered throughout the pages. Listed out at times 5-6 in a series. I'm not sure if the purpose was to thank the stars who stood by her side, or to magnify the importance of Jenifer's life by her nearness to these figures, but I found it distracting from what should have been the emotional heart of the story. I also found it disrupted what I thought to be the overall idea - Jenifer was any woman, in a place in her life where there seemed more left to do than done - she was making plans and working to achieve them. But she was never able to. Encounters with the rich and famous only served to undermine the idea that Jenifer was "any one of us". The book can't seem to decide if she was average and we should all see ourselves in Jen's plight, or if she was extraordinary and we should all be in awe.

One element that seemed glaringly absent was talk of money and insurance. Jenifer quits her job when she becomes too exhausted to navigate it any longer, and yet still is able to meet with various doctors across the country, pay for her own (multi-room) apartment in NYC, have what is eventually round the clock care...it doesn't all add up. As someone who has had a few family medical crises and who has pretty crappy insurance right now (though is luckily healthy), this is a major concern that feels suspiciously missing from Jen's struggle. 


Both of these are probably true in the minds of her loved ones, who finished and published this book after Jenifer's death. I'm sure they did it to honor and remember her. I'm guessing that Jenifer's own words were probably too understated in their views (a lot of her friends say she was witty and joking about her situation to the end), too nonchalant to portray the greatness they felt at being a part of Jenifer's life and the sadness they felt at losing her so slowly and utterly aware.

I also felt strange about the foundation she & her sisters started. While I obviously support the idea of researching and aggressively searching for a cure or treatment, the attitudes Jen & her sisters had at starting the project seem...pompous? Can you say that bout a gravely ill person? The 3 were unhappy with the news and diagnosis, and turned their attentions to fighting the disease - but they never seemed to target their hatred there. Jenifer talks repeatedly about wanting to attack her neurologists - even the ones that were giving her good care - but that seems blatantly misplaced. The neurologists didn't make her sick. They gave her the diagnosis, they did not give her the disease.  As a former science nerd, I felt a bit defensive of their attack on scientists - yes, research may be solitary and maybe a communal process would be helpful at times, but scientists working to find cures should not be blamed for not finding them. The audacity, mostly of Jen's sisters, to decide they knew better was a bit unsettling - though, if they are right or aren't, there is little harm in trying. I also found the wording of Jen's testimony to congress to be over the top, though it may have been taken out of context. She blamed the government for not finding a cure, saying they were denying her pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. This is ridiculous. The government did not give Jen ALS. They did not even create a situation in which she could have been protected but was not. I am extremely liberal, but I do not believe the government is charged with curing all disease. It would be nice, and I basically support NIH and other public research, but I think the rage was wrongly focused.

The book documents a life, but it is not a personal journey. Personal moments are shared here and there, but it is more a document of history - this person lived, these are the facts, Jenifer Estess was here. It must have felt important to those in the story to make that known. We are moved to tears by the situation, but not by the writing. At that point, the specific life involved doesn't matter - it is generic. The final pages, which I thought would finally bring me a great emotional impact, a bonding with Jenifer - were unfortunately...just boring.

To end on a positive note - it was a good balance to read this at this time in my life, when I am terrified of not having enough money to make ends meet as I embark on my new life as a stay at home mom, when I am lamenting "difficulties" that are nothing compared to ALS - a little perspective doesn't  hurt.