One of these things...

One of these things is not like the other.... 

My parents have a dog. A huge dog with big paws and big teeth and big amounts of energy.  He's mostly Boxer, and giant.  I call him "Boom." That's not actually his name, but close enough.

JabberWalky both loves and fears Boom. 

There was a time when they were the same size with about the same ginger hair. Boom has grown much faster than JabberWalky.

We have cats. Two of them.  They are black. I love them. JabberWalky loves them. He loves to pet them.  Okay, he loves to poke them in the eyes and pull their ears, but he's working on "gentle."

He has clearly figured out that they're all pets.  He knows Boom is a "Dog," or more affectionately, an "ah, ah- sit." He knows the cats are "gat" or more affectionately, "kee-ee gat".  

He also knows that he can throw a ball and say "woo hoo!" and Boom will chase it like he's hopped up on pixie sticks.  

Here's the thing. One of these things is not like the other, and JabberWalky hasn't yet fully figured this out.  The other day he grabbed a ball, tossed it, yelled "woo hoo!" and waited for the cat to chase it.  Then he went and got the ball, put it in front of the cat's face, yelled "woo hoo!" and slowly threw the ball, probably thinking something along the lines of "I have to teach this pet what a ball is?"  Well, the third time he bopped the cat with the ball, said "ball," threw it, said "woo hoo!" and stared at the cat like she was defective.  Then he cried.

I'm working on explaining that cats don't fetch, but I think he thinks that if they don't fetch, they don't get pet.

Seriously, what healthy breathing creature wouldn't want to play toddler ball?

Doctor's Visit: Follow-Up

Remember Mr. Didn't Want To Go To The Doctor Pants?

The fussy whiny one?
The almost 30 word speaking, even though they only cared if he had 5 words one?
Mr. walks forwards and backwards, goes up and down stairs, runs, climbs, recognizes pictures of things like balls, tries to help mommy pants, otherwise known as Mr. Developmentally Spot On Pants?
Yeah, well, he went to the doctor and started screaming the moment I started undressing him.
He didn't stop except for when I was nursing him.
He tried four times to climb off the scale and the nurse just wrote down what it looked like.
The problem with that was, it was grossly inaccurate, such that the doctor came in all panicked that my 18 month old light weight had allegedly lost four pounds.  You know, when they're supposed to be gaining?
So after a much screaming, crying, trying to get away filled nightmare of a time, we determined that mommy could get weighed, then pick up the boy boy, so we could do some math and derive his weight.
Yes, he's on track, but he was not a happy camper.
At all.
At all, at all.
He was so upset that the doctor was surprised and said that if he wasn't feeling his regular happy self in two or three days, to bring him back.
Well, since then he's had a little diarrhea and has barely eaten. All he wants to do is nurse, and I'm okay with that, other than his new penchant for giving me a TSA pat down while he's nursing. That has made me say that I'm very glad that we didn't wean him early like so many people have pressured us to do.  I don't know what we'd do if he was feeling sickly and didn't have his favorite means of nourishing and comforting.
In any case, he slept most of yesterday and today seems to be just chipper. He has a bit of a runny nose, but when do teething toddler babies not have runny noses?  So I'm not too worried about that.
My biggest concern is how much he hates going to the doctor.  A friend recommended that I procure a toy doctor's kit so he can get used to the idea of the various equipment, like stethoscopes and the ear scopes.
Any other advice on making the trip to the doctor's office less traumatic?
Or, do you have a doctor's kit you love and want me to know about before I start seriously looking for one?

Buddha Bunz Dryer Balls Review & Art Project

So, I have this friend who makes wool dryer balls. They're awesome. I've bought a few of them and now have a grand total of 8 wool balls.
Basic questions and answers so I can get on to the fun part.

Do they work?
Yes. Very well.
I have been able to dry loads of laundry which normally took two to two and a half runs through the dryer in one to one and a half.  That makes me very happy.
How do they work?
They beat the heck out of your laundry to help soften it while the wool absorbs excess moisture, thus speeding the drying process.
How many do you need?
Buddha Bunz suggests around 9 to reduce your drying time substantially, but I started with three and started noticing a reduction in drying time immediately.
Will they lint-up your laundry?
Nope. I haven't had any trouble with them doing so.
Are they safe to use with cloth diapers?
Yep. And they make it so your cloth diapers actually come out much softer, way faster.
What if I don't use a dryer so much, is it still worth it to own some?
Definitely.  The kids seem to love them as much as I do. Mongoosine likes juggling with them and Snapdragon simply adores playing with them.  I like that they're lightweight and soft enough that I don' tworry when the kids are tossing them about in the house.
Shouldn't I just go ahead and order them from anywhere?
Nope.  I've gotten three different kinds of wool balls, and I've started experimenting with making my own, and here's what I have to say, Melinda from Buddha Bunz does 'em best.  My Buddha Bunz weigh the same as my Wooltopia, but are wound much more neatly and tightly, so all the same ability to absorb, without any of the "hey, could this come apart?" worry, plus they're nearly perfect little spheres.  My other ball, which I bought from a fair, though pretty with swirly black green and yellow (JabberWalky picked it out) is nice and big, but super light-weight, so not nearly as inclined to actually absorb excess moisture.  As for mine, well, lets just say that if I wanted to make them as perfect as my Buddha Bunz, I'd likely give myself carpel tunnel AND an inferiority complex.
Besides, Buddha Bunz are less expensive by the time you add shipping.


There. Done. Now the fun part.
Buddha Bunz sells plain dryer balls, colored dryer balls, and even specially custom designed ones.  They come scented or unscented, and she even makes ones specially as toys with la jingle bell in the center for extra kidlet amusement.  Well, I like the specially designed ones a *lot* but I'm A. cheap, and B. one of those creative types who always wants to figure out how to do things myself.  So, when Melinda from Buddha Bunz was having a sale on undyed wool dryer balls, I couldn't resist the urge to get some plain ones and see what I could do with them.

So, I turned to my favorite know it all, Google, and came up with these two sites on how to dye wool with common household or kitchen ingredients.  No really, very common ingredients.  One is on how to dye wool with kool-aid drink mix (here), and the other is on how to dye wool with vinegar and food coloring (here).

The first thing I noticed about both of these sets of directions was that they're for dying skeins of wool yarn.  Well, I'm dying balls, so it's a little different.

First I decided to try to dye wool using the kool-aid drink mix, so that's what I'll show you here.  I had my heart set on doing a Battlestar Galactica inspired Eye of Jupiter dryer ball, you know, because I'm a geek.

See? Pretty Eye of Jupiter?

So, I gently soaped and rinsed my pretty plain dryer ball, then wet it a bit more as per the instructions I'd read, and then I mixed the contents of a lemonade and a cherry  Kool-Aid drink mix pouch in separate empty clean baby food jars with a tiny bit of water in each, and then a blue raspberry generic drink mix in a third.  I started to paint on the color with a water color brush, but it didn't seem to be working well, though I admit that is likely because I started with the yellow, so I pulled out the baby-medicine syringe and sucked up the mixture into it and gently tapped the color into place until I was happy with my design. I should have taken a picture then.

So, if you're doing a 3 dimensional ball of wool, bear these tips in mind

.

1. if you oversaturate it, the color will settle to the bottom.  

2. the directions i read said to heat set it in the microwave for 2 minutes, let it sit, then heat set it for 2 minutes... well, don't. heat it 30 seconds at a time because at 2 minutes, you start smelling something unpleasantly scorchy, well, i did.

3. if you have a lovely intricate pattern which you've carefully painted onto the ball, be sure to put that side UP when you are heat setting it, even if you're using a non-microwave heat setting method, because you'll be irritated when you open it up to find a hot ball of wool where the color has bled over the bottom half, obliterating half your design.  Also, see tip 1.

See how that started out  Eye of Jupiter-ish but ended up being all red on the bottom instead of nice concentric circles?  Yeah. Dang it.

It's still cool, but that was a bit disappointing.

4. wear gloves

Definitely wear gloves, that way you don't have to walk around with "Red Right Hand" stuck in your head all day, night, weekend, week, month, year, however long...

Well, after I heat set it, let it cool a bit, rinsed it, resoaped it, and rinsed again then wrapped it in a paper towel and rubbed it to verify that it was color fast, I realized two more things.  

A. This smelled good.

B. Melinda is better at it than I am.

Bottom line? Buddha Bunz wool dryer balls are the BEST ever, and it takes a while to wash kool aid off your fingers.

Don't worry, I'll show you what I do with my other ones too.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated at all in any way shape or form for this, and I really hope that my friend Melinda who makes the balls isn't irritated with me for sharing this.  But as I said, you can have her do the messy work for  you, get radder results, and not walk around with stained fingernails for a week.

Pink Saturday: Independent Punks

Happy Independence Day!

This year, independence day has inspired some crafty goodness around the house, including but not limited to the crafting of some rockin' sock monkeys I like to call my "Punkle Sam" series.  Okay, as of today, there's just the two of them.  This first one with the blue yarn fuzzy mohawk went to my husband's best friend's son who just graduated from high school.  

This Sock Punky was a lot of fun. I've never done button eyes before, and I found that I really enjoyed them, and I also learned a valuable lesson about mowhawking a punk.  Yarn good. The other lesson I learned about punking a monkey?  Embroidery floss bad.  Not bad as in ugly, but bad as in TIME CONSUMING.

That said, my first Punkle Sam?  Radtastic too.

See the raditude?

Admit it, you want a Sock Punky.

And since it's Beverly's PINK SATURDAY, I think I'll leave you with a bit of my pink princess enjoying a summer party as her 4th of July week of fun gets started.

The original Punk.

Pink Lemonade Anyone?

So when you're done here you can head over to Beverly's Pink Saturday for more fun pinktastic goodness, well, and maybe some red white and blue this weekend.  

Have a great weekend and remember, only you can prevent forest fires.  So stop barbecuing in the trees, silly.

Great Blocks of Goodness

Why so silent?  I've been stewing about some Things that I wanted to respond to objectively.  I'm almost calmed down enough that I can write rationally, but not quite, so I thought I'd talk about something mostly happy!  I like happy, don't you.

A big block of monstrously happy making goodness.  It's soft cushy baby friendly goodness, and Snapdragon likes it profusely.
The minky is swirly pettable fun, the print has Monsters proudly proclaiming what type of monster they are, whether they're friendly monsters or the egg monster, and the ribbons are fun. The ribbons are the MOSTLY happy part. I'll get back to that in a minute.
Snapdragon LOVES his block.  He positively beamed when he got it on his birthday.  He seemed to like the colors and he likes pulling on the ribbons and sucking on the ribbons.  I think the ribbons are delightful too.  Spouse's favorite feature is that it's just the right kind of squishy to use as a pillow in a car on road trips while I'm driving.  Snapdragon also thinks it's great for road trips.  See?

Perfect for car trips.

Snapdragon also thinks that it's the perfect amount of squishy to use as a ball when he can't find one and that it is a good compliment to his world balls for being ruler of the universe.  You know, Earth, Mars, Monster Cube Planet.  

As a mom who loves to sew, I'd also like to point out the fact that the block is very well made, remarkably block shaped for a stuffed toy (or am I the only one who has trouble with stuffed cubes looking like pointy spheres?) and is altogether fun.

I got this block from my dear friend Ailie whose Etsy shop is just bursting with fun felt food and sensory blocks.  You should check her out. You should like her on Facebook too.  She's rad.  She also makes other fantastic blocks, you know, if you don't heart monsters the way I do.

Radness.

Yummy yummy radness.

The MOSTLY part.

This is one of the things I have known I was going to have to blog about but didn't have the words. I'm not fully there yet, but this is a beginning.

See the ribbons?  See how they're lovely and pennant like in that they stop abruptly, are heat-sealed wonders of infant joy inducing raditude?  They're why Snapdragon has a block. My good friend Ailie needed to test out a way to keep the ribbons and not have them loop, yet not fray.  Why can't they just loop?  Because there's this company with a punitive policy of hounding, hampering the business of, and otherwise messing with the groove of WAHMs who have great baby friendly products.  They've somehow managed to get a ribbon loop sewn between two layers of cloth patented.
Yes, that's right.  That tag on the inside of your shirt as a child?  On the backside of your toy?  Those loops of ribbon telling you how to wash your mom's fifty year old blouse that was her mother's?  Well they have somehow managed to get a patent on that technology, despite the fact that it's been used for a long time prior to them. Maybe I'll patent water.  I also think they have a patent on being jack asses, so next time you see someone doing that, be sure to tell them someone else holds a patent and they need to cease and desist.  
Note I'm not naming the company.  I want their internet trolls to have to do their work before finding this post, because troll they do, and mostly on Etsy.  A friend with looped ric rac (you know, because that's SO exactly like a ribbon, except for the part where it isn't a ribbon at all) on her baby friendly product just had her products pulled the other day.  So not cool.
So yeah, these blocks are made of AWESOME, and I love ours.  The WAHM who makes them is a great mom, a creative woman, and an all around delight to have in the online business world and as a friend.

So yes, I think people should buy her awesomeness because she's my friend, but more so because I don't like bullies, and I view spreading awareness of her goods as a way to stick it to the corporate man, and lets face it, he needs it stuck.

Disclosure: Yep, I tested her non-loopy prototype all freetasticly.  Also, if there's actually some poor government employee who has to read these ridiculous disclosures, you straight up should buy one of these for the next baby shower you attend.  It'd be like sticking it to the man while sticking it to the man, oh, and go eat a cupcake.  Working for the government is probably pretty soul sucking, and cupcakes are good for that.

Too Much Time Tweeting

Hello, my name is @fentonslee, and I have a problem.
That's the first step, right? Admitting you have a problem?

Let me explain.
This week, Spouse, Snapdragon, and I are on a business trip which involves a few days in St. Louis. Well, it occurred to me that I have a RL friend who lives in the area, and one good "tweep" in the area too. So what do I do?. I start the FB and Twitter hounding so they'll entertain me while I'm here.

It gets worse.

First, I go to my RL friend's house. We're having a lovely time, a lovely TALKING TO ADULTS TIME, which is priceless, but in the back of my head I'm thinking "why did I leave my phone in my diaper bag? I can't tweet without my phone." I know, you're shaking your head in disdain, but it's not just me. At some point she picks up her laptop and quickly updates her Facebook status and then says something about Twitter. Apparently she's addicted too, so I grab my phone and now I'm following her.

Then I was meeting one of my tweeps, @HeathensHearth, for the first time in real life. You might know her from her Etsy shop.

First, let me say, she's awesome. But that's not the point.

We sit down to eat, and Snapdragon is wearing @crossbones_inc handmedowns, and then I mention how the day before he was wearing @crossbones_inc handmedowns that were actually @RockerByeBaby's kids' before that.

Then she notices my diaper bag. "Is that a @HautTotes bag? I like the bandanna fabric." "Yes, it is, but I'm hoping to soon be able to get a @brookevangory bag, because they have pockets and zip closed and have longer straps."

So then I pull some felt food out of said bag for Snapdragon, "this is @MomaLoveBug bacon."

And so it went. The @HygeiaKate expressed milk bottle holding his cheerios... the @GroBaby diapers.

It's like when things grew a ".com" only now everything has an @.

Yes, my name is @fentonslee, and I have a problem...

not that I'm looking to solve it.

Do you have a problem?

Boikido Blocks Giveaway!

CLOSED

I've been pondering what to get for Snapdragon and Mongoosine's birthdays for a while now. I had the brilliant luck to have children with birthdays less than two weeks apart, so it means trying to think tween and toddler at the same time. (No, he isn't toddling yet, but he will be soon!) One of the hard things about thinking in both directions is finding places that let you shop in both directions. Well, I have gotten quite a few ideas from AllChildrensFurniture.com. I mean, their kids bedding section alone has over two THOUSAND options from little bitty baby bedding up through the trendiest of teen options... one of which, just might involve sock monkeys.

See? How PERFECT is that?

And talk about toys! The number of options AllChildrensFurniture.com offers is positively mind blowing. Even better? They've generously offered to give away something delightful to one of my readers!

It's something fun for the kidlets, and since I love color, natural materials, and things which inspire the wee ones to be creative, I'm quite excited about this!

(drumroll please)

The Boikido 50 piece blocks set.

Cute? Do you heart them as much as I do? Well, All Childrens Furniture has generously offered to give a set to one of my readers. This is one of those giveaways I wish I could win!

The Boikido 50 piece blocks set are hand made and hand painted wooden wonderment. Did you catch the car and the moon? I love these.

You wanna win?

Mandatory Entry:

Head over to the CSN Stores sites and tell me what your favorite thing is that they carry. Okay, that's impossible, how about something you really really like instead? Leave the description or the link in your comment along with your email address, unless your email is linked to your blogger profile and easy to access. If I can't contact you, you can't win.

Extra Entries, because we all like to benefit from trying harder. *Leave a separate comment for each*

1. Follow my blog.

2. Subscribe to my blog via email and confirm said subscription.

3. Blog about this giveaway linking back here and to the host. (3 extra entries)

4. Grab my button and let me know where you put it.

5. Tweet this giveaway, up to twice daily. Tweet must link to this post and include @fentonslee. Leave the permalink to your tweet in your comment. (get the permalink by clicking on the time beneath your tweet)

6. Leave a comment on a non-giveaway post somewhere else on my blog, and then leave a comment here letting me know where to find it! (unlimited)

Contest is open to US and Canadian residents or people who live elsewhere but plan to have the item shipped to a US or Canadian address.

Contest will close April 12th 2010 at 11:59 CT

Winner will be selected via a random number generator and notified via email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to said email. Should winner neglect to respond for whatever reason (chased by rabid iguanas, not caring, or overwhelmed with tax season) a new winner will be selected using whichever method seems the most amusing at the time. Tongue twister tweet off, perhaps?

DISCLOSURE- I wasn't compensated for this giveaway.