My kids have lots of toys. Lots and lots. But, the one thing they love to play with? Cardboard boxes. Big boxes. Little boxes. All boxes.They currently have two they’re playing with. A super big shipping box and a much smaller diaper box. So, knowing this, I wasn’t surprised the other day when I called to Ivy to see what she was doing and she said,

“I’m playin’ wif the widda box.”

The little box. Great. No problem there.

About 30 minutes later Ivy came over very sweetly and said, “Mommy…there is sort of a mess in the bathroom but don’t worry because you can sweep it up.”

When I asked her what the mess was from she said it was because of playing in the “Widda box.”

And then it dawned on me. “Do you mean the little box or the LITTER box?”

Can you guess which one she was talking about?

Yes. My daughter had been playing for the last 45 minutes in the litter box. As if it were a sandbox. Because, well, that’s apparently how my kids roll.

To be honest, I was so tickled by the whole thing that I couldn’t scold her without giggling. So, I just cleaned her up and explained that in the future we don’t play with, you know, the cat’s toilet. There’s a rule I never thought I’d have to make.

No building sandcastles in the litter box.

At least it was clean at the time…

I hate the word Miscarry. I hate that it sounds like something I’ve done. Like this baby was there, was inside, was growing and I miscarried it. As if there was some other way I should have been carrying this baby all along and I just messed it up somehow.

I hate it because I already find that I’m blaming myself for this anyways. Was it because I was breastfeeding while I was pregnant? Was it all those jokes I made about how crazy it was going to be to be pregnant 2 years in a row? Was it because I was embarrassed? Or because I hesitated in being happy right in the beginning? Is it possible that if I had loved this little one more in the beginning it would have stuck?

I know the answers to these questions. I know it is no one’s fault. I know it happened because it happened and nothing would have been able to change it. But for some reason that doesn’t stop these thoughts from climbing, unwanted, into my brain when I let my guard down.

I went to the doctor on Monday and found out that this surprise baby was gone. That he or she was just no longer there. There was no drama. No bleeding. No pain. No fanfare. It felt a little like some terrible biological practical joke. Now you see the baby. Now you don’t.

I’m sad. And heart sick. I’m confused and frustrated. I wasn’t planning on this, but I was looking forward to it. We all were. And now I feel emptied of something I never even knew I could have wanted.

On Monday after finding out we had most likely lost the baby (blood work confirmed it on Tuesday) I threw myself into helping Kai with her Bible verse memorization. I got goosebumps the first time I read it.

“To you, Oh Lord, I lift up my soul; I trust in you, Oh my God.” Psalm 25:1

It was the perfect verse for me that day. And I’ve found myself reciting it over and over and over these last two days. I’m trusting that there was a reason for this even though it makes no sense to me. Why would I conceive such a surprise baby only to lose it a few weeks later?

I know I’m blessed. I know that there are many women who struggle through pregnancy loss over and over again. And I feel selfish and greedy for being so emotional since I’m blessed to be able to snuggle on the sofa with my two big girls and my baby boy. I also know loss is loss and I’m going to allow myself to grieve this and not apologize for being sad.

And even though I’m going to allow myself this sadness, I’m going to remember what I have. And I’m going to cherish them and hold them tight and be thankful. I’m also going to be holding tight to Psalm 25:1 because I have a feeling that verse didn’t find me on accident this week…

For the record, I didn’t even remotely come up with these on my own. Do a Google search for Montessori play and you’ll find these and hundreds more. But, we did just recently add a lot of these to our homeschool room and since they’ve been such a huge hit I thought I’d share!

1. Sensory Box: I’ve been doing these for a while with the girls. They are such a fantastic distraction. Right now we have two separate boxes for play. One box has black beans, split peas, silk Fall leaves, & plastic spiders. The other has white rice, silk Fall leaves, & small twigs. The girls will sit and play with these for an hour or more and though they can be a bit messy they are generally easier to clean up than anything they’ve got in their playroom!

2. Locks & Keys: I can’t remember where I first saw this, but I thought it was brilliant! I went to Target and picked up some small padlocks with keys and Voila! a new play center was born. I put three little locks in a Ziplock container with a key ring containing all the keys that fit the locks. This is great for their matching/memory skills (match the key to the lock) and even better for Fine Motor Skill development. Both girls love it and feel a sense of accomplishment each time they unlock all of the locks on their own!

3. Nuts & Bolts: Another cheap & simple center to set up. I ran to Lowe’s and picked up a container of assorted sized nuts & bolts and poured them into a Ziplock container. This is especially good for Kai because she has some trouble with her fine motor skills and it requires her to decipher which size nut fits the bolt and then exercise her Fine Motor abilities by twisting the nuts onto the bolts.

4. Cooked Pasta: One of the new ways we practice our letters is by cooking spaghetti noodles and (once they’re cooled off) using them to shape letters on wax paper. It gives them practice with letter shapes with the added benefit of a sensory experience. You can let them dry into harder versions of the letters or you can do what we do and make them into a couple of mushy noodle piles and paint them with tempura paints. The girls love turning them into crazy colored monster brains.

5. Penny Polishing: This one is great for dexterity and fine motor skills, too. The girls take a toothbrush dip it in lemon juice and then in a bowl of salt and use it to polish the pennies. They think it’s totally fun, it keeps them busy, and I get to have the cleanest pennies in the world in my wallet.

6. Coin Sorting: I picked up this votive candle holder for $2 in the Target Dollar Spot and these coins came from the party section at Target for super cheap. This one is great because it’s super versatile. It can be used for counting, sorting or pattern making. The girls have come up with some really fun ways to play with this one and it’s amazing what kid’s come up with on their own!

7. Homemade Play-dough: There are a million different recipes for homemade play-dough. We make ours with 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of water (add food coloring to water), and 1 tsp. cooking oil. But no matter how you make it, play-dough is one of the coolest learning tools. You can use it for anything from hiding little objects in large lumps for the kids to find (and strengthen fine motor skills) to making letter shapes for learning the Alphabet. Plus, it’s cheap and easy!

8. Burlap embroidery: Burlap is cheap and is super easy for kids to “embroider” on easily so this has become a favorite of ours. Plastic kid’s needles are easy to find at craft stores and are perfect for using yarn to embroider on the burlap. You can use a marker to sketch a design onto it or let them free-hand to see what the come up with. Either way it’s a fun way to keep them busy, quiet, and learning new skills!

9. Texture stones: I’ve mentioned these before and wrote an article giving step by step details on how we make ours. These are great because they are so easy to do and can be used later as a memory game,  sorting game, or any number of fun learning activities.

10. Finger Knitting: This is one of my favorite little learning activities for kids (mostly because I actually love to do it myself). It’s great for teaching counting and develops fine motor skills. Plus, kids feel such a sense of accomplishment when they are able to have something cool and productive to show for their efforts! Check out this easy WikiHow to learn all about it.

For more Top Ten Tuesday head over to Oh Amanda’s place!

This post was originally published October 3, 2008. It’s one of my favorites so I thought I’d share it again.

Did I mention that Ivy’s teacher asked me to bring in a chicken to show the class today as part of their unit on Farms and Farm Animals? She did. And for some insane reason I agreed to do it.

Yet another of those “What on Earth was I thinking?” moments I have come to know and love.

It started out fine. The chicken was tucked sweetly beneath my arm. The children were excited. Then, the teacher asked to hold it. And the chicken must have realized that this was someone she didn’t know ’cause about 20 seconds into being held in the teacher’s lap she bolted. The teacher tried to grab her back but only succeeded in pulling out a handful of tail feathers and freaking her out more.

Of course, the children being in a circle were pretty much well-positioned for the greatest amount of freakout potential. The chicken half-ran half-flew across the room right into Ivy’s lap. Which set off a scream that terrified both the chicken and the other children who basically perceived the flight into Ivy’s lap as an attack that would be targeting each of them next. The more the children ran and screamed the more terrified the poor hen was. She flew, they screamed. Then she got scared by the screaming and ran away and they got scared by her running and they screamed some more.

God help us. It was insane. There was screaming and crying and shrieking and me chasing this chicken across the room and finally grabbing it and clutching it in a death grip beneath my arm.

Afterwards, the kids were still screaming about how much they didn’t like chickens and begging me to put her back in the cage and I’m pretty certain that they will all go home and tell their parents about the “Giant Chicken of Death” that Ivy’s mom brought to school today.

Guess the parents can pretty much count on chicken nightmares tonight…

I’ve mentioned I love Halloween, right? One reason why is that there is seemingly no end to the cool crafts you can make on Halloween. Here are a few of my favorite Fall/Halloween kids’ crafts from the internets…

Pumpkin Patch Creatures (above) from Martha Stewart are such a fun alternative to pumpkin carving. We’ll definitely be trying these!

No Time for Flash Cards came up with the most adorable and easy spider cookies ever. The best part? There’s no baking involved.

The Crafty Crow featured these fun (edible) monsters on a stick from Little Nummies. I can’t wait to try these with the girls!

Motherhood Rising has a great Skull lacing craft that my kids are going to love.

And don’t miss this precious Halloween paper doll printable from Babalisme. It’s easy, free, and too cute for words!

Those are a few of my favorites this year. What are your favorite Halloween craft ideas?

My little man is sick, sick, sick. I suspect an ear infection (102 fever but no cough, runny nose, etc.) so I’ve been spending the last two nights snuggling up with a miserable little guy. Which means I’m sleep deprived and there is no real chance of me writing anything funny, smart, clever, or meaningful. And so I’m calling in sick to my blog. If all goes well I’ll be back tomorrow. Or Saturday.

In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite Fail Blog videos to waste your time with. Because, as it turns out, being sleep deprived and exhausted are the best things to be when you’re on Fail Blog. Apparently everything is 100 times funnier when you’re punchy…

(This one’s dedicated to you, Thomas. I know it’s your favorite, too.)

Just trying to make sure he didn’t catch cold on his first trip to the county fair. I think it’s fair to say we were successful in keeping him warm!

(Thanks to our good friend, Halie, for capturing such a cute picture of Traveler!)

For more Wordless Wednesday, head over to 7 Clown Circus and 5 Minutes for Mom!

I don’t generally buy baby toys. I did with Kai and, honestly, they were all pretty much a waste. It’s not that I think all baby toys are a waste. It’s just that I never really know which ones to get and I pick them based on whether I would play with them which, as it turns out, is not the best method for picking toys.

So, when MomSelect and Fisher-Price gave me the chance to try out the Laugh & Learn Fun with Friends Musical Table I was excited. Because, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have gone out and spent $45 on a toy I wasn’t sure would be fun for a baby to play with.

You may have been following me on Twitter the day I got the Table and the Smart Bounce & Spin Pony (I’ll be reviewing that soon!). It couldn’t have come on a better day. Traveler is now mobile and as such needs to be entertained 24/7. This table was (and continues to be) a lifesaver!

Even though he’s crawling he’s still too little to use it standing up which is why I love that the legs come off so it can sit on the floor. I put in his crib or on a blanket on the floor and I’ve bought myself some sanity while he enjoys the lights, colors, music and words. It has a mode that teaches Spanish, a mode for music, and a mode for letters & numbers. My favorite thing about it? With the legs off it is super easy to throw in the back of the car and take it along to playdates or out of town trips.

The box says it is for ages 6-36 months and since Trav is just now 6 months old I get the feeling we’ll be getting lots of mileage out of this toy. And the best part is that it has been a way for Ivy (who is 3) to actually sit and play with her brother. She’s fascinated by the toy and will sit with him and enjoy repeating the Spanish words over and over.

I think now that he’s standing up and cruising (seriously, at 6 months?!?!?) I’ll put the legs on and let him try it that way. I’m sure it will add a whole new dimension of fun to it and give him the chance to practice an important new skill while playing with letters and numbers!

Now for the best part. Fisher-Price has offered my readers a $20 off coupon to download. Go here and download the coupon today before it runs out!

A Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Fun with Friends Table was provided to me for the purpose of this review. Please see my Disclosures page for more information on my review policies.

At the risk of outing myself as one not belonging to the group of intellectually elite who enjoy going to depressing art house movies that no one really “gets,” I’m going to tell you what I thought about the Where the Wild Things Are movie.

In a word? Mind-numbing. Wait, is that two words? Oh well. I told you I wasn’t a member of the intellectually elite.

Let me start by saying that Where the Wild Things are is one of our favorite books and we were thrilled to hear it was being made into a movie. So, we lined up for the earliest Saturday show with kids in tow very excited to see it come to life on the screen.

But, oh. my. gosh. It was awful. No kidding. Awful.

I’m trying to think how to tell you what I hated (yes, I said hated) about the movie. Was it the very adult themes of loneliness, melancholy, and discontent? The beyond depressing home life of Max? Or the ridiculously inappropriate (for children) and unnecessary  relationship problems the Wild Things were experiencing? Perhaps it was that within the entire movie there was not one shred of real hope or happiness. Not even a glimmer. Not even in the end.

I think critic Edward Douglas said it best when he said, “Jonze has produced a gorgeous $80 million Muppet Movie in the shape of an art film that will bore kids as much as it will depress adults.” And that is precisely it. I said it right after the movie and I’ll say it again, it reminded me of Samual Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” if it had been performed on Sesame Street. It was strange and dark and absurd and if they hadn’t been wearing monster costumes there would be nothing at all in the this movie to even make you think it was for kids. I agree with Rafer Guzman from Newsday who said, “The film is essentially a parade of negative emotions — sorrow, anger, jealousy, regret.” It was depressing from start to finish.

Don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate a good dose of melancholy as much as the next tortured poet, but at least make it interesting. And don’t sucker me into dragging my kids into it.

I will say two things about this movie. It is shot as beautifully as it looks in the trailer. That much is wonderful. And the cinematography is very true to the book’s illustrations. The soundtrack is also really, really good. We listened to it for a couple weeks before the movie came out and really loved it. So, maybe the trick to enjoying this movie is to watch it on mute with the soundtrack playing? That might actually work.

As for the content of the film? I’m trying desperately to wipe the movie from my memory so it doesn’t totally taint my love for the book because that would be the biggest tragedy of this film.

So, if you’re curious, check it out. Let me know what you think. But, I’d think twice before I took young kids to see it since the defining moment of our experience was when Kai looked at me and said, “Mom, I thought this was a kid’s movie? You didn’t tell me it would be such a sad movie.”

And it was sad, indeed.

I missed Wordless Wednesday yesterday. One minute I was waking up and getting Kai out the door for school. The next thing I knew I was going to bed without posting anything all day. Which ordinarily wouldn’t bother me but I had some really cute pictures of the kids’ trip to the pumpkin patch and I wanted to post them.

So, here’s my Wordless Wednesday. On Thursday. (I’m such a rebel.)