Jack in the Box

My friend Ashley and I took our kids to lunch with us at Jack in the Box on Friday (I know, I eat out a lot!). Christina decided it would be fun to play with the wet floor tent and put it on over her head. (You wouldn't even know she's in there except for the little legs at the bottom!)

At the Jack in the Box that we went to, they had two options for ordering. You could wait in line to speak to a person, or you could order your food from a kiosk. I decided to try out the kiosk, and it worked great. I even got finished ordering and paying before Ashley, even though she started first (she was ordering from a person). Although, she did get her food before I did. I was telling her, before we know it we'll be like the Jetsons, where you just tell a machine what you want to eat and it spits it out for you. Or maybe it will be like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where you get a whole meal from one piece of gum.

Speaking of Johnny Dep (Did you follow my train of thought there?), I saw a picture of him from the new Alice in Wonderland movie that's coming out next year, and it's pretty freaky. This does NOT look like a kids movie!

McDonald's

Christina's and my only outing today was a trip to McDonald's this evening. Sean is with his friends in Seattle enjoying the Penny Arcade Expo for the weekend (He just comes home to sleep, and two of his friends are staying with us. Then they take off early in the morning.). I was in a lazy mood today, so Christina and I mostly took turns watching our shows on TV (very productive, huh?). But I decided I wanted to try to get out of the house and do SOMETHING, and all I could really think of was to grab a bite to eat.

So we got our food at McD's and started to eat, then I remembered that we needed to pray. I asked Christina if she wanted me to pray or if she wanted to. She decided to pray this time, saying "Dear God, thank you for fries to eat. Amen." Then she said she wanted to pray for church (I had told her we're going to church tomorrow morning). So again she folded her hands and bowed her head, saying "Dear God, thank you for church. Amen." Watching Christina pray is just the highlight of my day. I'm not sure if she totally understands what it means - I've told her that when we pray we're talking to God, and she seems to get that. I pray all the time that she will grow up to have a closer relationship with God than I've ever had. I want that so much for her.

So after we were done eating we went out to the car, and as usual, Christina wanted to spend a few minutes sitting in the front seat and pretending to drive us home. Then she saw the full moon outside the window. She started reaching up to try to "touch" it, and I told her it was up so high, we'd have to fly in a rocket just to reach it. So she said she wanted to fly up in the rocket to get to the moon and then we could "throw it like a ball!" I guess from way down here it does look like a good size to throw around.

"Fireproof" Movie

My friend Kristina loaned me this movie quite a while ago, but I just got around to watching it tonight. It was great. I highly recommend it to anyone who's married, especially anyone going through marital problems (and who hasn't?). The story lags a bit in spots, but the message is fantastic!

The Happiest Toddler on the Block: The New Way to Stop the Daily Battle of Wills and Raise a Secure and Well-Behaved One- to Four-Year-Old by Harvey Karp


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
The farther I got in this book, the less I liked it. Many of the authors methods - like "Patience Stretching" - are very manipulative. He even admits that it may seem like teasing, but he says that because a toddler's brain works differently than an adult's, it's actually an effective exercise. This guy does not follow Attachment Parenting at all, and a lot of what he advocates just makes me uncomfortable.

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Things to Do with Toddlers and Twos by Karen Miller


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book gives some great ideas for activities to do with kids. It seems specifically written for day care centers, but most of the activities can also be done at home. There's also great advice on how to interact with kids and build their creativity. I especially like that there are recipes for homemade finger paint and play dough that cost a lot less than store-bought. Some of the activities are things that parents would most likely come up with on their own - playing with pots and pans, drawing, sand and water play, filling and emptying a bucket, blowing bubbles. But there are lots of new ideas as well, so this book is definitely worth checking out. Best of all, most of the activities don't require a lot of set-up - I hate it when I have to take 20 minutes to prepare an activity that only holds my daughter's attention for 5 minutes!

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The Happiest Toddler on the Block: The New Way to Stop the Daily Battle of Wills and Raise a Secure and Well-Behaved One- to Four-Year-Old by Harvey Karp

My review

I'm only on page 47 so far. Really agree with the idea of viewing kids as little cave-people rather than little adults. But I hate it when books talk about "the good old days." In this case, it's the days when the village, not the nuclear family, raised the child, and kids could play outside by themselves without parents having to worry. I'm sure those days were great, but reminiscing often doesn't provide any actual help. Once you get past that, though, there are some really good pointers.


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Blogging/Trip to the Zoo

OK, so where do parents get the time to keep up with a blog? I mean, I know moms with two kids who keep a regular blog, and I can't do it with one! If you're paying attention, the last time I blogged was well over a year ago. Yet I know that this is the best time to blog, because there are so many little moments with Christina when I think "I need to remember this." But having a little kid taking up all of my attention, there's just no time to get on the computer, and when I do, I use my time to check email or check out a new website I read about. There's just so much information that I want to GET, it's hard to prioritize writing down my own stories.

Anyway, recently Christina and I went on a trip to the zoo in Seattle, and I actually remembered to bring my camera with me this time, so I got some pretty cool pictures.

Here she is checking out the flamingos next to a boy:


And here she is checking out the new penguin exhibit (Actually, the day we went, May 2nd, was the first day that the penguin exhibit was open.) :

There was also a peacock wandering around in the middle of the crowd - look how close Christina got to it! I had to make sure she didn't try to touch it. I know that a peacock's defense mechanism is spreading its feathers (of course, the question is, why then was it roaming free?).

Christina desparately wanted a penguin toy, since they had a big display of them out for the exhibit opening. But with a price tag of $16 for the big toy and $5 for the small one, I had to say no. (You may think I'm cruel, but it would have lost its novelty by the time we got home anyway.) She did, however, decide to have some pictures taken with them:



We also got to see some gorillas...

...and birds and snakes and bats and an armadillo. Even though it was raining pretty heavily by the time we left, all in all it was a very fun outing. I'm so glad I decided to get a membership for the year. In this one trip I don't think we even made it through a quarter of the zoo (With a young child, you've got to get home for naptime, so you can't be there all day!). So there will be many more trips to come!