Family

4 Lessons My Daughter Learned Raising Monarch Butterflies

July 17, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake 1 Comment

My daughter’s new preschool focuses on nature and has a very hands on component. They caught tadpoles in the spring and have raised them into polliwogs. My daughter has thought this to be the most marvelous of things.

Kind of gross and slimy to me, but whatever.

That is, until they started raising monarch butterflies.

The school she attends in on a large plot of land with a huge field where milkweed grows. The head of the program started ordering monarch caterpillar eggs several years ago for the kids to raise then release back into the milkweed.

This year, they were able to find eggs on their existing milkweed, which the director brought a few inside for the kids to watch hatch, grow, then spin their own chrysalis.

This has created a unique learning environment. So far, here are some the things we’ve talked about.

1. Caterpillars Eat a Lot.

They had to pick a lot of leaves to feed their little caterpillars. A lot. They learned that caterpillars eat 200 times their weight in milkweed leaves before becoming a butterfly. To put that into perspective, it would be like a seven pound newborn eating 1,400 pounds of formula in fourteen days. Yeah. Wow.

2. Gross Stuff Can Lead to Beautiful Things

Apparently, while in the chrysalis, a caterpillar digests itself. She called it caterpillar soup, which has even me a little grossed out. But, as she pointed out, after being soup, the caterpillar turns into a “beautiful butterfly”. I can guess from what book she stole that!

3. It Can Be Hard to Say Goodbye

After showing me the caterpillars then the chrysalis every day I picked her up, she was very sad the afternoon I came and the chrysalis was empty. As fun as it was to watch the caterpillar grow up, it was very sad to take the butterfly outside and set it free.

4. But It Can Still Be Amazing

While it was hard to let her butterfly go, she was ecstatic to watch him stretch his wings and fly. The excitement in her voice as she talked about watching him fly melted my heart. As we were walking to the car to go home, she saw a monarch fluttering around her school, and she decided it was the one she’d let go and he was coming back to say goodbye to her. Who knows. Maybe it was. I hope it was.

An Introvert’s Nightmare

July 3, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake 2 Comments

As I may or may not have said, my older daughter takes dance. My younger daughter has been begging for months to go to dance class.

So, I signed her up for the summer session at the same time as her sister.

Unfortunately the time slot meant a race across town from work to pick up the girls, and a race back across town to get to the studio, get them changed into their outfits and ready on time.

But, I figured I could do it, and it would let the younger child enjoy the class she wanted. So, I packed granola bars for the girls to eat in the car, and I packed up all of their dance stuff into their dance bag and put it in my car the night before so I wouldn’t forget.

drive — Too much truth for too many parents.

Then came the first day. I left work on time, but I went to two wrong doors before finding where my daughter is let out from her summer school program.

Okay, so I’m running five minutes late. No big deal as I had a fifteen minute cushion.

I got to pick up my second daughter about two minutes away. But the road construction has intensified, and traffic is backed up almost two miles from the red light. I am now starting to panic. It takes ten minutes to go a distance that should have taken no more than two. We’re now cutting it close.

I go to pick up the my younger daughter, and my older daughter starts making a scene. Of course she does. She wants to be the center of attention, and here’s a new audience. Then the younger child starts ripping out her ponytail, a ponytail she needs for dance class, and I failed to bring a second ponytail holder if she breaks this one.

So, amid tears, anger and frustration, I all but drag them back out to the car.

Where the chocolate chips in the granola bars have melted from the heat. I grit my teeth, give them to the girls anyway, knowing I’ll have a mess to clean at the dance studio.

We get in the car and head across town. We are now cutting it close. There will be less than five minutes to get the older daughter changed for her class.

Deep breath. I can do this.

Until I get stuck behind someone doing five under the speed limit, which results in me getting all five red lights between daycare and the dance studio red.

We walk in the door and a hurry the girls to the changing room. The older one is having trouble changing because we’re rushing, so I stop to help her. She’s changed and ready to go just as dance class starts.

Okay. I’m calling it a success.

Now for child two.

She has started to put on her tights as the older one got ready, but she is jamming her feet in. Tights are evil, even for adults, and wrangling a preschooler into them is torture. But we do…And then I realize she hadn’t taken off her shorts.

ballet-2789432_640 — Somehow, someone got them in tights AND shoes.

Gritting my teeth as people keep coming in and out of the changing room and leaving the door open, I help her take off the tights, get her shorts off, get the tights and leotard back on.

She hates the tights and wants them off. I manage to get her tap shoes on her, and we head back out to the waiting room. Yes, all the “dance moms” are giving me snide looks, but a few more minutes and the second child will be in dance class and I can ignore them while I read my book.

Dance class starts, and I try to walk her to the door, but she won’t let go of my leg. She screams and cries. As I’ve learned from preschool, I deposit her in the room and walk back to the waiting room.

Only she doesn’t stop.

After fifteen minutes, the dance instructor brings her back out to me. Where she proceeds to scream and cry for the entire rest of her sister’s class.

I was so embarrassed and mortified I think I managed to turn new shades of red. Here I am, being stared at with condescension and derision, as my child screams. She even tries throwing herself to the floor a few times. I can’t escape because I can’t leave the older one there alone. I can’t go outside because it’s too hot to sit in the car and pouring down rain.

All I can do is count down the minutes until the older child is done with class. Until I can escape.

I have no idea what came over my daughter. No idea why she wouldn’t go play with the parachute, or do froggy jumps, or all the other fun things they were doing in class. No idea why she begged to take this class for months. And frustrated beyond words that I paid for the class, tap shoes, ballet shoes, tights and leotards for her to attend.

But mostly, I never want to show my face in that dance studio again.

4 Reasons Why Americans Don’t Take Vacation

June 26, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake 4 Comments

Yes, it’s true that Americans don’t take all of their vacation days.

It’s also true that Americans tend to get far fewer vacation days than our counterparts in the rest of the industrialized world.

So, why aren’t we taking those days?

Here’s my four reasons for not wanting to take another week off of work anytime soon.

4 Reasons Why Americans Don’t Take Vacation

You have to Plan Them

At least my vacations don’t plan themselves. Sad, really, but my reality. When you add in two children and no real history of taking family vacations when I was a child to draw from, trying to figure out where to go and what to do that will interest both children without making me want to claw out my own eyes is a feat.

Then there are all the logistics that go with them. If something goes wrong spending six hours in O’Hare with two cranky children might be its own circle of hell.

2. Work Waits for No One

There’s not just the work of packing and planning, which is a pain in itself. I’m talking about getting everything ready at work. I’m a desk jockey for a living. That means no one is covering for me while I’m out. Or at least, not covering more than the very basics. So everything else must be done before I leave. This adds to the stress of going. I seriously do not know how my counterparts in our foreign offices are able to take off two or three consecutive weeks every year. Last time I got off two consecutive weeks was when I was in college.

3. You Have to Recover From Them

Laundry. Unpacking. Putting everything away. This is all some of the last things anyone wants to do when they come home from a family vacation. My family tends to be tired and grumpy. And some of us need our space and alone time that we haven’t gotten since the “vacation” started.

4. Are They Really Fun?

The jury is still out on this. I enjoyed vacations much more when my husband and I were younger. We didn’t need to plan so much, and we were able to go with the flow more. Not go with the flow, exactly, but go with it more. Kids don’t go with the flow. Ever. The amount of crying, yelling, fussing and general malaise makes me wonder why we did this. Why we spent the money and time on this.

Then I look back at the pictures of the kids smiling and laughing. No, Maybe I didn’t have fun, but they sure did. And they keep talking about the things we saw and did. So maybe that’s why. And maybe I’ll remember it being better later.

How about you? Did you take family vacations as a kid? Did you or do you take them with your own kids? Any tips or advice for someone new to this?

Six Tips for Busy Parents to Keep Kids’ Rooms Clean for Good

June 19, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I can think of no parents that don’t regularly fuss at their kids to clean their room. I have had that “discussion” with my daughter more times than I want to count. Part of it is my daughter loves to be served. Part of it is the task really was overwhelming.

As we’ve been working on redoing her room, we’ve also been coming to terms with the mess. Here are a few things I’ve learned.

Six Tips for Busy Parents to Keep Kids’ Rooms Clean for Good

1. Plan for Hidden Storage

Kids have stuff. Lots of stuff. Pretty design websites don’t think children do. Or that their stuff is all magically color-coordinated with their room. Uh, yeah, my daughter’s room *totally* looks like this rather than multi-colored elf Legos and piles of mismatched books everywhere.

Hint: It totally doesn’t. Who has four baby strollers, anyway?

Our plan included under the bed drawers, a full closet organizer, and a dresser. She does have some open shelves, but those are used sparingly and treated like “displays”. Not sure how long this will last, but so far, it’s been great. She knows her plush Link and Zelda dolls go on one shelf, her queen dragon on another. It’s been working.

2. Box Like Things Together

I love plastic ware. Yeah, I admit it. But it really does work. I bought some plastic snap lid boxes, and these are now used to keep like things together. Lego pieces not on display? In a box. Disney clip dolls? In a box. Some beloved Little People? In a box. Now, when she plays with them, she can take the box down, and when she’s done, she knows where they all go.

3. Tame the Paper

My daughter loves to do art, and when she’s done, the pieces of it end up everywhere. In every box, bin and clothing drawer I’ve gone through so far. To tame this, I bought her two nice plastic folders in Hyrule blue. My husband is stenciling the royal symbol of Hyrule on the cover. This is where her art goes, and we’re not above pulling the Princess Zelda trump card out and asking her if Zelda would leave stuff all over her bedroom. No, we didn’t talk about the fact she probably has a legion of maids.

4. Purge

I purged anything broken. Anything that didn’t have all the pieces. Anything that looked like it could’ve come from a Happy Meal. I purged anything that came home in one of those party favor bags. I purged toys that were geared to children younger than her sister.

I filled the back of my vehicle with stuff that was still in great shape and could be donated, and I filled a garbage can with the rest. This taught me we really need to go through stuff at her birthday and Christmas and weed out toys she’s outgrown. It’s also taught me to be a better gatekeeper. Really, those “goody” bags from birthday parties never need to make it past the kitchen garbage.

5. To the Basement

After taking everything out of my daughter’s room, only things that she’d use, wear, or play with were allowed to return. Should be easy, right? It meant taking out her winter clothes, even the things she’d stuffed into the nooks and crannies of her closet and dresser, down to the basement to be stored for next year. I do this every season as our winters are regularly down to -20F and our summers are in the 90s.

Once this was done, I still found A LOT of stuff in her room. Stuff I hadn’t seen her play with in ages, some of it I’d never seen her play with. But she NEEDED all of it. *eye roll* So, we went through it and boxed a lot of it up for her to play with in our finished basement. We’ll see if she plays with it or not.

6. A Place for Everything

This gets me to the most important thing I’ve learned. Everything that remains has a place. She doesn’t have to figure out to do with it. She knows where it goes, and when she’s playing with it, there’s clearly a spot for it when she’s done.

This has been HUGE. Everything else we did really led up to this, and it’s made a huge difference. Perhaps not surprising as it’s hard enough to put something away, even harder when you don’t know where “away” is.

So far, it’s worked. Her room has stayed clean, and while she still wants help cleaning it (aka for a grown-up to do it for her), she is now capable of doing it herself.

How about you? Any tips or tricks you’ve discovered? I can always use more insight into trying to tame the mess!

The Lion and the Deer

April 17, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

My daughter invented a new game she calls “playing lions”. It involves a lion and a deer.

No, it doesn’t end like that. She’s a toddler, and the nature videos she’s seen are basically Simba on the safari. She hasn’t even seen The Lion King because that movie still makes me cry.

But I digress.

It’s a new game we play where I am the lion, and she is the deer. My job as the lion is to chase her around the house while she giggles and laughs. When she needs a break from being chased, she runs to her room and closes the door, giggling behind it.

A few minutes later, she’s out again laughing and asking to be chased.

She forgets from time to time that she is the deer and roars at me. I ask her if she wants to be the lion, but she reminds me that she’s my little deer.

So, of course, I chase her again.

It’s helping me to get my steps in, that’s for sure, and she is getting MUCH faster!

On nights when momma lion has had a long hard day at work, it can be difficult to summon the energy to be a lion. I understand why they like to bask in the sun.

But those precious little giggles are totally worth it. In another year or two, she’ll be too big for lions and deer, so best to enjoy it now.

And I love knowing what an active imagination she has. It’s my privilege to be included in her fun.

Any silly games you ever played to amuse yourself or someone else? What was it? Did you ever find it fun?

Will Retail Compete?

November 13, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

I had a pretty frustrating experience with retail shopping this week that reminded me why I do all of my shopping on line. Made me wonder if retail is even truly trying to compete with online shopping.

Saturday morning, I ran to the bank with my toddler. While for some, this would be a painful and frustrating experience, my toddler loves running errands. She loves going to the bank. So, we took care of our transaction and headed back to the car.

She begged not to go home.

toddlerroadtrip — **She can be convinced to do a lot for a ride in the car. Like getting dressed.**

I’d been planning to head home and order a Christmas present online, but I checked the Toys R Us website on my phone, and it said my “local” store had them in stock. The closest store is about twenty minutes away, but the toddler loves the ride, and I love the quiet.

So, we headed over there. Only, they didn’t have it in stock when we got there. Because of course they didn’t. A snotty floor attendant informs me of this, at which point, I showed him the website on my phone saying that they did, in fact, show it in stock on their site.

Biting back several expletives that I don’t want my toddler to parrot back to me, I took her to the mall which is right down the road from Toys R Us. I was going to pick up a Christmas ornament that JCPenny said they had in stock.

Only, at 9:45 am on a Saturday morning, JCPenny wasn’t open. Because who is out on a Saturday getting all of their errands done before taking one of their children to a friend’s birthday party then going over to see family for dinner?

StoreNotOpen — **No, just twice, because I couldn’t believe it the first time.**

I am not waiting fifteen minutes outside in 34F/1C weather with a toddler. Or even without a toddler. Especially not when I can order the same thing from Amazon, with free shipping, and it’s $0.03 cheaper.

Finally, we swung by a cabinet store to get a special knob to spruce up a plain white desk. I wanted a sparkly knob to make it look less like furniture we put together, even if it totally was furniture we put together.

I’d done some perusing of the internet before going to the cabinet store, and I almost laughed myself and my toddler out of the store when they were charging $27 for the exact same knob, by the same maker, as one I’d found online at several different place for less than $10. That $10 included shipping.

All in, three stores and well over an hour of my life, and I came back with nothing I’d set out to get.

Much to my toddler’s chagrin, we went home at that point. I popped open my iPad, and less than fifteen minute later, I had the toy ordered, the Christmas ornament for the tree on its way, and the knob for the drawer bought.

Even when I want to support local stores, I’m reminded why so often I don’t. I either can’t afford to, they don’t have what I want, or they just aren’t open.

Anyone else have these kinds of struggle with retail lately? Is it just me? Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by online shopping for so long?

Family