Great-Grandma Nola (my Mom’s mom) made the kids quilts for Christmas this year. We LOVE them and cuddle with them in the living room during movie time!! They have a very soft backing. Reagan’s has ballerina’s on the front but she prefers the heart pattern that is actually the backing. Zac’s is adored by Daddy! And, as instructed by Reagan, only the girls can use the girl blanket and the boys can use the boy blanket!
Reagan has started using small pieces of paper for stickers and drawing. My mom had sent me tons of quartered sheets of paper for scrap. She uses them all the time. I do too, but not like her!! She has me outfitted for at least a years worth of note-jotting! Anyway… I realized these are perfect sized papers for Reagan.
One day, a week or so ago, she was crumpling up said papers. Ones she’d already used. I asked her what she was doing and she replied “It’s Origami. It’s Japanese paper folding.” As if this was a common thing we do in our house. She remembered this from Little Bill (a cute cartoon about a 5 yr old’s point of view made by Bill Cosby). The picture below is the origami she made that day.
Since then, we saw a commercial for Kmart in which the blue light character folds a dollar bill into a Christmas tree. As Grammy Deb is my witness, I asked her what the Blue Light was doing and she said “Origami.”
Daddy was also informed last night about this art form. She took the packaging for the noodles we were having, crumpled it up and told him it was Origami. He asked her what origami was and she said, again, that it’s Japanese paper folding. Along with….. “It’s a sculture. A origami sculture.”
So, if you are in the New Haven area and want to see an honest-to-goodness art show, stop by our house to see our very own Origami Scultures! They are very impressive!! My favorite is the origami boulder I can make!
I have no idea what I’m gonna do with Reagan!!!
While I was wrapping presents, she was messing with some packing peanuts and making a huge mess, scrunching them so they would crumble into very small pieces. I kept telling her to stop, but of course, she didn’t listen. Finally, after I was finished with the last gift, I took the peanuts away and told her to pick up all the little small pieces she’d made and scattered on the floor.
To this she replies…. “Yes Mommy. I mean…. Yes Highness.”
All I can say is FINALLY!!! I’m getting addressed properly! 
As I’m cleaning out my fridge, I found something unrecognizeable to the naked eye. It was a bit fuzzy, grayish-green…. quite disgusting, actually. Reagan sees this and says “That is gross!! Rot is decompose and is yucky and then food gets yucky and the food is decayded.”
I simply said “Yep! And THIS is very decayded!” and quickly tossed it into the garbage, container and all!
(you gotta love Sid the Science Kid)
I think I’ve got it! A great way to motivate Zac with rewards for his behavior. I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before.
For every good action/decision/behavior demonstrated, he will earn 10 or 15 minutes of video game time. If he acts out/backtalks/etc he will get time removed. The markers will be in the form of plastic gold coins. Anyone who knows Zac knows that money means a lot to him, but not enough to behave or do chores to make extra. He’s just fascinated by the concept of money. So his time tokens will be fake gold money. Also, he has behavior summaries coming home from school. For each bad day he will get time removed. At the end of the week, he will have left the amount of time he’s allowed to play his gameboy or the Nintendo.
I will try this for a while and see how it works. Wow! Can’t believe I just thought of it!!! I feel smart and stupid at the same time!
A few days ago, just Reagan and I were in the van after some shopping. She had brought her pad of paper and a pencil with her to “make her list” as we were out.
While heading home, she starts asking me questions. “What is your favorite color?” I said… “Pink”. She scribbled on her paper and said “Pink… that is correct”. “What is your favorite food?” I say… “Pizza”. “Pizza” she says.. scribble,scribble…”That is correct”. “What is your favorite van?” I respond “Ours”. “Ours… (scribble) that is correct”. This goes on for a while, her asking my favorite store, my favorite sign, my favorite daughter! And each time she would scribble after my answer and inform me that I got it right. Well, I was getting very excited after about 10 questions, having gotten them ALL right. I was passing her test!!! Woo Hoo!!!
The last question…. “What is your favorite house?” I say “A gray one with a living room, dining room, back room, upstairs bedrooms, a garage, a backyard with swings….” She adds “and an attic”. I said “yes, of course an attic”. She said “That’s our house. And that’s correct!”
Then she says…”When we go to Illinois we will stay in a house to see Papa Randy and that will be our situation.”
She’s referring to moving to Illinois, which is in our future plans soon. How awesome that she realizes it and knows it’s our “situation”!! What a smarty-pants!!
