Super Stars!

Let me start with some background. When I was in first grade, my mom was a single mom. She didn't really have the time or energy to give my school projects much of her own personal attention. She would never approve of today's world of hyper-involved parents.

If, in first grade (??????) I'd been told that I needed to make my own architecturally correct rainforest diorama, I'm quite sure my mother would have told me to get busy. If I needed something that we didn't already have in the house somewhere, then clearly I wasn't being creative enough. I would need to do it alone and there would be no additional shopping.

Sounds harsh against the backdrop of the education system today, no?

However, looking back, when I did a project, it was MINE. I earned the grade I got for it - good or bad. And I certainly never went to school with a project that looked like an adult did it. My science fair projects were *terrible*, but that's really just because I actually did them by myself!

So having said all this, I've decided that I'm going to be the kind of mother that I had. I'm going to make my kids do their own work and I refuse to be a helicopter parent that saves my kids from their every mistake. Personally, I *learn* when I make mistakes, and I don't want to take any learning opportunities away from my children; and therefore, I have to allow them to make mistakes...

I will be more helpful to my kids with these projects, after all society in general is different now. For heaven's sakes, David doesn't even get grades in school yet (unless you can count "Meets Expectations" as a grade, which I do not). Anyway, I'll help my kids with big projects, and I'll give them the tools they need to complete projects, but I'm not doing it for them.

RIGHT?!?!?

Can I get an AMEN?!?!?

For our first item in evidence, I give you the RAINFOREST DIORAMA project in the FIRST GRADE. When I read the assignment that came home I about had a coronary. David was to complete a 3D diorama of a rainforest. He should include at least 5 animals and they all must be handmade. The animals should be represented in their correct layer of the rainforest (to which Mommy replied, "The rainforest has layers?" Who knew? And oh yeah, exactly what is a diorama?? Thank God for the internet).

Ummm, wow, this is a bit much for a 6-year-old who would rather have a root canal than play with play-do or really anything that doesn't require batteries or power.

So, to get him excited, we went shopping. That gets me excited, that should work for David too, right?

No, not right.

He was beaten down within minutes of the Michael's trip. We walked by a display of small plastic animals, which included several animals that would live in a rainforest...now WHY can't we use those?!?!?!

We bought modeling clay, professional clay, Crayola brand clay, plaster, paint and paint brushes and went on our happy way home to start work.

Oh yeah, we're gonna need a box.

I found an old purse box that should work well. Problem #1 - There is a glossy red finish on the inside of the box. No problem, sand that sucker down and get to painting. Problem solved, crisis averted.

So I pour out some paint for David and give him a paint brush. "Paint the bottom piece of the box brown" I tell him. He starts painting and misses spots. He brushes on the paint in a circular direction, paying no attention to the direction of the bristles of the brush.

Mommy can't watch and walks away.

He brings the box to me, bottom painted and says he's done. "Can I play Wii now?"

"Yes, of course you can, this will need to dry." He walks away. I need to clean up the paint and the brush, so it won't hurt to touch up the brown just a bit, right? It's not that big of a deal, I'll just make it look more solid brown than brown mixed with glossy red.

And so it began.

I'll spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say that this project was not exactly 100% at the hands of a 6-year-old. I believe there was one evening that John and I were meticulously cutting, gluing, staging, all from our knees at the kitchen counter, while David and Katherine played cards together in the living room. Now, in our defense, we were using super glue and did you know they CARD you now when you buy that stuff?? So clearly David doesn't need to be anywhere close to it.

Oh yes, we have joined the ranks of the over-zealous, perfection starved parents.

But hey, he had a pretty cute rainforest!

Here's the box after the painting was complete.

Daddy had the FABULOUS idea to cook spaghetti noodles in green food coloring to make the vines that run from tree to tree in a rainforest. What a great idea!! No way any of those other moms would have thought of that! I mean, kids.

Here's one of the trees. We made them by shaping foil and then covering the foil with plaster.
And here is the other tree.
When I was painting the trees (David couldn't hang with the painting trees task...it's not easy to paint plaster, especially when Mommy didn't spread it right, so the plaster full of holes), John walks in the kitchen and says, "Why didn't you just go outside and get some twigs?"

Ummm, well probably because I didn't THINK of that!! Any possibility you could have come up with that idea about 3 days ago?!?!

Eh, no matter, those trees look awesome.

Here's the spaghetti noodles drying before John and I carefully cut, place and glue them to the completed trees.
And here are the trees and vines. The animal on top of the right tree is a parrot. David made all the animals. Pretty much by himself. The parrot was all David. The red-eyed tree frog at the foot of the tree on the right has a bit of Mommy's help.
Then we added leaves from the fake ficus (that blew David's mind by the way - he thought that tree in our living room that has looked the exact same for his entire life was real), a butterfly, an eagle and a boa.
Project complete. That totally looks like a 6-year-old did it, right?

The kids all had their dioramas on display at Open House last Thursday night. I got to see pretty much all of them in David's class. I was going to try to get some covert pictures while I looked, but there were WAY too many parents (moms) doing the same thing I was!!

In his class there was probably one diorama that looked like the child did it alone. At least now I can tell myself it was intended as a "Family Project" as my friend/former 2nd grade teacher told me. I'm secure with that.

Whew - I'm so glad that's over. I can't wait to see what project the 2nd grade will bring. Sheesh.

Back to the pictures of our day-to-day.

David LOVES to play games...board games, card games, electronic games, soccer games, whatever. Katherine discovered cards recently and now wants to play ALL THE TIME!! David enjoys playing with her for a short time, but he tries to make her follow the real rules and sometimes that won't go over very well. But they do pretty well. Katherine calls all cards "Flash Cards." She brings a deck of Crazy Eights to me and says, "Mommy, let's play flash cards!"

Here's a heated game of Crazy Eights:

We got out the tent for the trampoline for the first time a couple of weekends ago. It's still too cold to actually sleep in it overnight, but it was fun to play in it for a while.

Lisa, remember sleeping on the trampoline in our sleeping bags?!?! Not these days, we have an actual tent that actually hooks to the trampoline and provides SHELTER. Amazing.

So Katherine got a little static-y while we were playing in the tent!!
We're still all enjoying the Band Hero Wii game. It's really fun for all of us. This was Sunday morning a week ago - the kids playing Band Hero together.
Then they swapped.
Last Saturday, Audrey turned THREE and had a super awesome birthday party full of princesses. Here are the three little piggies (all born in the year of the pig) in their princess best. Well, Audrey and Lily are. Katherine is more of a diva than a princess.
I didn't get one picture with all of them looking and giving me cutsie smiles, so this one is the best one of Katherine. The one above is the best one of Audrey and Lily.
That night, we went across town AGAIN for another birthday party. It was at a skating rink where the birthday boy's father's surprise birthday party was a couple of months ago. The birthday boy turned seven. I didn't get a picture of him because he plays hockey and he is FAST on skates. Well, that and my camera is a bit large to try to skate around with it around my neck.

Katherine put on the skates and actually did pretty well considering the two of them together are probably 1/2 of her total body weight. She scooted along while John pretty much held her upright. She didn't stay in the skates long, but she did try and she seemed to have a great time.

David certainly wasn't as good as the birthday boy or his hockey teammates, but he did pretty well. This was his second time ever on skates (the first time was for another birthday party in kindergarten) and he caught up to the progress he made the first time very quickly.
He actually asked to go skating again the next day (last Sunday). I took him to a closer rink and he did very well! He actually started to get some speed and challenged me to a race! I tried to tell him that I spent my entire 3 years of Jr. High at a skating rink and I haven't forgotten much, but he still wanted to race. I turned around backwards and he could almost win! Yes, I'm bragging. I can't beat Kelly Thurman, but I can beat a 6-year-old skating for the 3rd time in his life. (Now we'll see if Kelly reads the blog!!)

Tune in next time for the NEXT big backyard fun!!