“Hey, Mom! I Wanna Do a Projick!”

Molly loves a good craft projick (project) and is constantly trying to rope me into doing one for with her. Hey, I’m as crafty as the next gal and I really don’t mind but somehow it seems that even if Molly can do the project by herself, I end up doing the lion’s share of the work with the set up, material prep, instructions and clean up.

And Molly hardly ever picks a project that she can do independently, although there are plenty in the craft cabinet.      No, she wants the seriously detailed, difficult projects.

In addition, she always wants to do them at the most inopportune times. Like when I am cooking dinner, or paying the bills.

Oh, I understand what she is doing. She sees me not paying attention to her for 4.5 seconds and remedies the situation by roping me into something that puts 100% of the focus back on her. I’m onto her little plan, but somehow she sucks me in every single time.

Here is one of Molly’s favorite projicks….Perler Beads:These were lovingly given to Molly on her birthday by her sweet friend Avery and her evil equally sweet mother Christine. Just look at them. A five-year-old with teeny tiny beads. I can’t imagine how anything could go wrong with this.

So what you do is take these teeny tiny beads and put them on teeny-tiny pegs to form a design. You do this with teeny tiny tweezers.

You also have to follow a complicated pattern to make the design come out correctly. Well, you don’t actually have to follow a pattern but the ones on the box look so cool that you would be a loser parent if you could not help your five-year-old replicate the design.

Molly has enough patience to place about 20 beads onto the pegboard pattern.

And then she is content to rummage through the beads looking for the correct colors….

while you-know-who finishes the projick.

After about 10 minutes of bead hunting, even this becomes boring and Molly begins to lose interest.So, she wanders around the house playing with other toys and occasionally checks in with me to make sure that I am still working.

Finally I am finished placing all of the teeny tiny bead on the teeny tiny pegs and I call Molly over to inspect my work. 

She jumps for joy….which causes about 20 or so teeny tiny beads to fall off of their respective pegs. So I reapply.

Then I must use the iron to melt the beads so that they all stick together in one big beady design. Another step that Molly cannot do. You know, the whole hot iron thing.

While I’m busy ironing beads Molly grabs my camera and begins to take pictures of herself. Wonder where she learned that???

After the design is ironed/melted it must be placed in the freezer (next to the pumpkin muffins we made during a different projick), so that it can cool down quickly because five-year-olds don’t like to wait for anything.

Soon enough the project is done.

And Molly horses around with it.

Molly poses with all of the Perler Bead projects that I she has done this far.

And I go clean up the mess. I know, I know. SHE should be the one cleaning it up, but the teeny tiny beads need to be transferred from the bowl we had them in while we were doing the project back into a Ziploc bag for storage. Would you trust your five-year-old to do that?

I didn’t think so.

Can You Tell Your Kid Is Stressed Just By Looking At Them?

I can. With Molly it’s easy. It’s all in the lips. She tenses the muscles around her mouth, making her lips into a weird little pucker. Even when she smiles her lips are tense.

Here’s an example….

Earlier this week we went to the park. This is typically a pleasurable experience for Molly and she squeals with glee when she sees the playground equipment from the window of the van.

But on this particular day she had the stress-mouth thing. I have no idea why. There was nothing different about the park, or the day, or the kids. At least I don’t think there was, but every.single.picture. I took made it striking clear that there was something going on. I asked her 10 different ways what was bothering her, but got nothing. Maybe she didn’t really know.

I felt so bad for Molly. Visiting the park is one of her all time favorite activities but she clearly wasn’t having fun. And to top it off her maniac mom was going around taking pictures of all that stress.See of you can tell in these pictures.

Like I said before it’s all in the lips.

Even when she was giggling, the lips were still tense. Can you see it, or is it just one of things that only a mother can tell?

After we returned home, I heated up a bowl of homemade chicken soup, one of Molly’s favorites….(Excuse the make-shift bib—Molly is a sloppy soup slurped!)

And all was right with the world again!

Let’s Go Shopping!

This was the most pathetic shopping event of Molly’s life. I wanted to buy her more. Lots more. Believe me I did. I love to shop for Molly. Molly loves to shop for Molly. But we still ended up with a pathetic haul when we got home.

The only person who was happy about all of this was dad, because he see clothes as dollar signs, whereas Molly and I see them as wonderful little chances to get excited every single day of the season.

The stores were full of cute little outfits but our shopping spree only netted 5 dresses, 2 pairs of leggings, 2 shirts, a hoodie and a sweater. That’s it. For the entire fall/winter season.

“Why?” you ask. It’s tragic, really. Kind of a perfect storm scenario. Lots of Molly’s clothes from last year still fit. Lots.

Lots of Molly’s summer dresses can be transformed to winter dresses simply by pairing them with shirts and leggings. Lots.

And finally lots of money was spent on the house, and the move, and the adoption. Lots, and lots and lots.

Spending money on necessities is fine but spending recklessly on indulgences is not really in the budget.

So here are the sad, few, meager purchases that we made this year.

Dresses: Must have the spinabilitiy factor to even be considered.

Molly wanted to get in on the photo session so plopped herself right into this picture. No worries, there will be more of her to come later in the post.

Utilitarian pieces for layering.

The next two dresses have a spin factor of 10!

This fleece hoodie was too cute for words. It was the last one left so I had to buy it 2 sizes too big. You’ll probably see it a lot over the next few years.

Thank God for small favors. Even though her body didn’t grow much, Molly’s feet did. At least we could go just a little crazy on shoes. If you call four pair crazy.

If you can’t see detail, the pair of shoes next to the boots are sequin covered tennis shoes. Very sparkly.

Molly finally outgrew her Size 3 coats so  new heavy and light weight coats made the cut. If we would have moved to Florida--like I wanted--we could have skipped these. Just sayin’.

This is Molly’s absolute favorite dress. She wore it to school the day we bought it (although she did wear different shoes). Molly judges every dress by how much it pulls out. You know, like a princess. Dresses that pull out a lot have maximum spin factor, as she will now demonstrate.

The wind up.

Half way through the rotation…

Full spin on the skirt. Now that’s what Molly is talkin’ about right there.

Acting like a ballerina.

Thanks for hanging in there for yet another post about clothes. I keep this blog as a scrapbook for Molly. If I take pictures of the clothes and post them, it makes them easier to give up when she outgrows them. Otherwise I ‘d have boxes and boxes of clothes that I would have difficulty parting with.

Why is it that everything your kid wears, or draws, or colors, or writes, or whatever, becomes a memory that you want to hold onto forever?

Oh, by the way, I did pick up a little something for myself…

The bus stop momma rain slicker available at Amaz0n for $12.95. Stylish, yet practical, don’t you think? Okay, maybe it’s not stylish, but it’s a necessity when you have to wait at the bus stop on rainy days!

Mom! Take My Picture!

To say that we have been busy over the past few months would be an understatement. With the move (which is still kicking my butt), the start of Kindergarten, updating our home study for baby brother’s adoption and the million other things that must get done in life, I have been a bit neglectful when it comes to taking pictures.

Molly has noticed and I think that it bothers her that there might be a millisecond of her life that doesn’t get recorded by a camera. Her new mantra is, “Mom! Take my picture!”

Molly’s idea of a photo-op and mine are a bit different. I typically capture her doing things. Events. You know, Molly at the Zoo, Molly at Playgroup, Molly at a Birthday Party, Molly Going to School.

Molly is more interested in pictures of nothing. Well, not nothing but not anything in particular. For example….

Molly discovered if she twirled around in this dress while sitting down it forms a circle around her body. To a five-year-old that is something that simply must be photographed.(And then be repeated about 500 times, showing anyone who will look in her direction.)

Or when you figure out how to take the sheer window curtain that Mom took down and turn it into the world’s longest wedding veil, you definitely need a picture of that, right?

Cuddling up in Mom and Dad’s comforter while Mom is making the bed is certainly something you want to remember for the rest of your life…

And then there’s the ever popular “Take a picture of my picture, Mom!” I have taken pictures of artwork before…mostly stuff that was going to be given to someone. Somehow Molly has got the notion that I need to take a picture of every. single. thing. she. draws. Seriously.

Here’s Snow White with 5 of the 7 Dwarfs.

The take my picture thing is not limited to still photography. Oh, no. The other day I gave her a piece of bubble wrap from a packing box. My thought was that she would pop it and that would be that.

Nope. She grabs a spoon and a butter knife from the silverware drawer and tells me to get the camcorder ready. Here is the result:

Now that’s entertainment right there, folks. Couldn't have made it through childhood without capturing Molly’s “Laughing Music.”

So there you have it. A taste of what Molly thinks is picture-worthy. And I guess she is right. The small little moments are just as important to remember as the bigger ones. Leave it to a kid to teach you something important.

 

We now return to your regularly scheduled update….

Last week Mandarin Class started up again. Since the Families With Children From China group here in our new city doesn’t offer this, I decided that it would be advantageous for us to drive 2 hours (each way!) to attend Mandarin in our old city.

That’s four hours in the car for a one hour class. Four hours of “Are we there yet?” and “Are we home yet?” for one hour of Mandarin instruction. What was I thinking?

What I was thinking is that Molly would have to opportunity to see her China friends twice a month. And get Mandarin instruction to boot. I may regret this after making 18 round trips this year, but the next few pictures made the first trip worth every single  minute we spent in the car.

After class we asked the girls where they wanted to go for lunch. They held hands, jumped up and down and screamed in unison: “NOODLES!”

Getting ready to shop at the warehouse store before returning home.The girls loved being together and we loved seeing them loving being together. Did you get  that?

Back at home Molly and I found a new park. Molly is a park-aholic and we have be struggling to find a decent park close to our new house. It took some work, but we finally found a winner. We visited our new park every single day this week.

Told ya, my gal is a park-aholic…and I  am her best enabler!

Back Dated Blog Posts

I back dated several blogs from events that fell during my blogging hiatus (during the big move). I didn’t want to let these events go unmentioned so I wrote them and slipped them back in the order in which they occurred.

Now it’s kinda like I was superwoman and had time to blog and make a major move at the same time. When I really wasn’t. But it looks like I was, and that’s what counts.

Click on the links below to catch up on all the stuff I neglected to post.

My Little Fashionista

The Same Old Yankee Doodle Molly

House Hunting

Sprinkler Fun

It's a Playgroup Luau

Also, don’t forget to scroll down to read Molly’s Back-to-School blogs that were posted earlier this week!