A Tale of Thursday's Lunch

This week in school the 6yo is studying the life cycle of butterflies. Last night we spent time looking at different illustrations and graphs of the life cycle and stages. We talked about the process and tried to remember each stage by more than one name (larva and/or caterpillar), and at dinner we talked about how the butterfly's tongue works.

This morning while making her lunch I made her a lunch fitting someone studying the butterfly.

I thought the yogurt covered rasins were a bit like eggs...

I hope she likes it! Happy Thursday! 

A Tale of A Hump Day

This week's hump day is hitting hard at my house. 
Last night we went to a family event and didn't get home until nearly 10:00. Not too late, until you consider the kids are accustomed to going into their bed between 7:30 and 8 with lights out at 8. The 4yo actually turned to me and said "Mommy I think it's past my bedtime" last night. Thankfully she doesn't have school today but the 6yo does and it starts in a little over half an hour. As for me. I got to bed at a normal time, actually maybe a bit early. SO why am I so darn tired today? NO IDEA. My guess is the change in schedule. 

Anyway, this morning I woke with a start at 6 on the dot already 45 minutes behind schedule. WTH? I seems I forgot to set my alarm. D'OH! Well, I am more or less caught up but still feeling sluggish and in need of a laugh. 

In the spirit of Hump Day I wanted to share this clip from the 1990's tv show Friends. It's one of my favorite story lines and the reaction of the friends is priceless. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and wish you all Happy Wednesday! 

A Tale of Three Lunches

Here are a couple of the lunches from this week. 

Oh so simple, yogurt covered raisins, a couple of cookies, and a simple sandwich.

Another quick flower with apples and a couple whoknew cookies.

Anticipating St. Patrick's Day and Easter with a clover and tiny bunny, gummy hearts left over from Valentines Day, cookies, apples and pears.  

Tale of a Confused Mom

My children have an alarm that is set for 6:35 Monday through Friday. On Saturday we have a standing 8:30 breakfast date but I let them sleep until the last possible moment. Strangely the past few days they have started getting up before my alarm, not their alarm, but almost an hour earlier than that. What is going on?!?!?! I need that time to do stuff, like shower. This has got to stop.

A Tale of Tuesday's Lunch

Happy Tuesday! I've been a bit lazy about posting the lunches I've made for the Creepy Kids. Here is a fairly simple bento I did today for the 6yo. Pb&jelly on wheat with apples and 3 ginger snaps.
Seriously so simple!

A Tale of the Tooth Fairy and El Ratón Pérez

This week my 6yo daughter lost another tooth. This kid. She didn't even bother getting her first tooth until she was 13 months old and now she can't seem to keep them in her head! Anyway, the tradition in my family was the Tooth Fairy and both my sister and I had special pillows our mom had made for us with little pockets on the front for our teeth. I remember mine had lace around each side and a snap on the pocket. We loved having this special pillow just for our tooth mail and I can see now how smart my mom was for employing this technique back before Pinterest or other crafting social media outlets. Seriously, who is capable of finding one tiny tooth in the dark under a pillow without waking up the (already suspicious) child asleep in the bed? Not this mom! Im just not that stealth and my kids are far to easily disturbed. 

About a year ago, when her first tooth was showing signs of evacuation I set to work making a tooth fairy pillow for L. For her special pillow I recycled a pink cable-knit sweater and used some ribbon I had on hand for a handle. I made it tooth shaped-ish and included a pocket with a heart on it. 

L with her Tooth Fairy Pillow

I think it turned out cute.

Back to my story. On Monday she lost another tooth early in the morning just after the girls got up. When their babysitter arrived L ran to her and told her about her tooth. To this Tia (this is what the kids call her) said in Spanish "El Raton will come to the house tonight!" this had us both a bit worried. I don't know about you, but having a rat come to my house, sneak into my daughters room, and take her tooth is slightly unpleasant. But whatever, right?

That night as I was putting the girls to bed L said to me "Mommy, if the Tooth Fairy isn't real, would it be you or daddy that was doing it?" to which her sister (the 4yo) said "Duh! Mommy! Cuz fairies are girls!" which put them both into giggles and thankfully changed the subject. This comes after a conversation she had with my husband at Christmas where she explained to him that she was fairly sure that Santa doesn't exist. Six years old. Ugh. Anyway, already on to her I had prepped myself. We put the tooth in a tissue before putting it into the pocket. The Tooth Fairy replaces the tooth in the tissue with the money (and sometimes glitter) like magic! So I had a tissue from the same box in my pocket with her money and as I put them to bed I replaced switched out the package and took a huge sign of relief as I shut the bedroom door. Good thing I did the old switch-a-roo! Because with her parting words she warned me that she was planning on staying up all night to see the Tooth Fairy and find out how it all worked. HA! HA! Victory for now!

The next morning she was so cute. She came out and asked if we could look up Tooth Fairy traditions around the world and find out why Tia had said a rat would come to the house. So we read about the traditions of the Spanish, French and Italian speaking parts of the world that believe a mouse comes to their homes and takes the teeth. Sometimes the mouse or rat had a last name, Pérez, and sometimes it was the mouse of the teeth. We also read about what people did before these traditions started and how parents would burry or burn children's baby teeth to save them from witches or help usher their spirits into a favorable afterlife. Our favorite of all was the regional Scottish myth which blended the story of the fairy (which seems to originate in Scandinavia) and the Ratoncito by making it a mouse fairy. How cute is that? 

Hey look! They even made a movie about El Raton!

After all of this the good news is that I am still able to outsmart my 6yo for now anyway…...  

A Tale of Two Genders

Tonight while getting ready for bed I started my normal routine. At some point before bed I always go to the bathroom. Sorry for being so crude but here we go. As I sat to pee I happened to look over at the toilet paper roll. The last person who used that bathroom (my husband) had left exactly one square. One. When I pointed this out to him he said there was a fresh roll on the back of the toilet in the pack. This is not a new situation, but I think it sums thing up well. He used what he needed and then decided that the roll was not technically empty. Technically. Ugh!