Spoiler alert! You will grow up to be the tooth fairy

Oh yes, we have all been here.

Playing the "tooth fairy" has to be one of the strangest parts of being a parent. Sneaking in at night to take your weird, bloody teeth? For money? Who thought this was a charming idea? I don't quite get it but we're playing along anyway

For the first tooth you lost - we were on it! New toothbrush and toothpastes, cute-as-heck note from the tooth fairy, Sacagawea coins, stealthy exchange under the cover of night. We could have been gold contenders if there were Tooth Fairy Olympics!

Fast forward to tooth #5 and I am carrying on my parents' tradition of making a half-hearted effort to conceal the truth, pretty much forgetting about it unless you remind me, and giving random gifts found around the house for your prizes.

Don't worry, you are making out like a bandit. The guilt from forgetting a night and not having any ready prize bumped your cash payment up to $5 - in the form of 1 dollar bill, 4 quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, and a Thomas Jefferson dollar coin (pretty much what we could scrounge out of the change drawer last night at 11 pm).

What bounty!! I wish the tooth fairy had been so generous after I reminded my parents that my tooth had been under my pillow for a few days.

And now I can relate to this end of things.

Alas, Henry's first tooth should be coming out soon. We'll try to get back to our A-game for that special day.  Not sure this tooth fairy can promise anything beyond a linty sucker after that.

Love,
Mama

Work Party: Valentines for Vetrans, and Homeless Care Packets

We are getting ready to have a work party for Dad's birthday. We will be making valentines for veterans and homeless care packets like we did last year on MLK day. Several people have asked what we included so here are lists and photos.

Valentines for Veteran's included:

• Deck of cards
• Pen
• Rolled up sudoku and word puzzle
• Tissues
• Gum
• Candy and/or snack
• Packaged in valentines bag with personalized tag

Kids can make tags from plain paper or use stickers and labels that say "Happy Valentines Day Veteran. Thank you for serving our country!" The VA Hospital was happy to hand these out in their in-patient and out-patient facilities.

Homeless care packets included: 

• Water bottle 
• Tissues Snack 
• Gum 
• Socks and dental care tools as available 
• Packaged in gallon-sized ziplock bag, decorated with stickers

We bought most of the supplies from the dollar store and Oriental Trading Company. Lining them up in plastic bins made assembly go fast and easy. Kids and adults did a great job!

¡Me gustan Taco Tuesdays!

No cooking, no cleaning up, and fun times with estos animales.

It's a dream. A muy delicioso dream.

Reading's put a spell on you

Dear Lucy,

This year, you have quickly become a voracious reader. You favor fantasy series, especially ones that feature characters from fairytales or greek mythology. You have NO interest in books about typical kids; Ramona Quimby, Junie B, and the like do not capture your imagination or your interest for long.

But there is such a thing as being TOO EXCITED about a book you are reading. As in so excited that YOU CANNOT SLEEP! This has happened on and off with the Harry Potter books. You were falling asleep late, sneaking back up to read, and then waking back up at 2 pm ranting about the book and asking to listen to stories so you could get back to sleep.

So we created a new rule, NO reading anything new after 7:30 pm. If you've read it before, great. But if you don't know how it ends, you can't read it before bed! This works well if we remember to enforce it.

We forgot last night. And lo and behold,  Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban had you coming downstairs an hour past bedtime saying, "But I can't believe Sirius Black is..." I missed the rest as your dad steered you back to bed.

You're too funny girl. So happy that you love books. But we will be remembering to enforce our rule tonight.

Love you,
Mama

The Alien Game

In the "alien game," I pretend to be an alien from a distant planet, who doesn't know anything about anything. It is your job to be the ambassador conducting a tour, and introducing me to everything. I like that it is a good way to rest my brain. And it is interesting to see how you define and describe things.

Lucy is often very descriptive and specific.

Lucy: That is a cat.
Alien: What is "cat"?
Lucy: A cat is a cute little animal?
Alien: What is "cute"?
Lucy: Cute is something sweet to look at, or huggable.

Now, I have "sweet," "look," or "huggable" to ask about. Thus - without much thinking from me, we can go on forever.

Henry, on the other hand, is very concise, circular, AND fast. It is almost weird how you can define things in such easy terms.

Alien: What is "girl"?
Henry: A girl is a baby mom.
Alien: What is "mom"?
Henry: A mom is a grown girl.

Here, I'm only left with "grown." This kind of looping makes it harder for me to continue without paying careful attention. I have to work hard to keep it going.

I would say it has always been obvious that your brains work differently. But it is eerily strange how obvious it is after playing this game.

Snowman soup

Important fact: snow that just won't stick to make a snowman is absolutely PERFECT for Snowman Soup. Since this non-sticky snow is the most common kind we get in Portland, it's pretty lucky that we thought up this recipe.

We've been making this for ages, every time we have enough snow. It isn't quite as fun as sledding, building a snow fort, or (yes) making an actual snowMAN - but it brings fun into that little bit of snow that just isn't good for much else.

Here's the recipe:

Snowman Soup

• 1 Snowstorm
• Large bowl 
• Concentrated Crystal Light (preferably lighter colored flavor, or substitute with any punch or juice)

It is preferable to put out cookie sheets early in the storm to make it easy to gather clean snow.

Fill your bowl with the cleanest snow you can find. Bring into the house (traditionally this comes along with a trail of small puddles). Serve into smaller bowls and top with concentrated punch.