Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Tickets and Turkeys

Ok, the truth is that Wade spent a lot, A LOT of time in front of the TV the first 3 months of Chloe’s life. We have slowly been weaning him to a reasonable amount over the last 2 months but mommy and Wade are still in the habit of turning to the TV in moments of boredom or low patience.

Recently, I have developed a need to rid myself of a massive roll of tickets. You know, like the kind you would get at a Premier Designs Jewelry party when you ask a question or something. Then the ticket gets put into a drawing for some (usually) ridiculously chinsy prize from the Dollar Tree. I mean, just an example. 

Yesterday morning I used up all 5 of my brain cells for the day with this clever little idea: MOVIE TICKETS! Wade loves to call things “tickets” – like receipts or little pieces of paper. Anyway, the plan is that each day he receives 2 movie tickets.  He can use the tickets whenever he likes, given mom or dad gives permission. And for whatever movie he likes. But there’s only 2 per day and when they’re gone they’re gone. This will be good accountability for mommy and Wade.

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Since I had used all my brain cells by 8:30am this next idea was stolen. Absolutely no credit can be given to me (except for my ability to wrap yarn around a ball, which as you will read, I still need some practice with). A friend posted on Facebook their family tradition: starting Nov. 1st they write something they are thankful for on a “feather” and put it on a turkey. They do this until Thanksgiving Day when their turkey is all full of feathers. I have been up to my eyeballs brainstorming what our Christmas Advent and celebration will look like. So much so that I hadn’t given any thought to Thanksgiving. So I decided to steal Kylie’s idea. A quick google search led me to Parents.com and I was able to hijack another idea. And here is the result:

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I may be a little crafty but my creations are usually trial and error. I have a small obsession with yarn so I definitely had plenty of that lying around. I failed to read the instructions on Parents.com (a frequent occurrence for me) so I chose to wrap the dark brown yarn around a small ball of Wade’s. Then my turkey rolled right off the table. So I had to unwrap all the yarn, cut the bottom of the ball off so it would sit flat and rewrap it with an entire skein of yarn. Then I started with a tennis ball for his head. After having it completely wrapped and cutting my finger trying to connect it to the body, I found that it was far too heavy and made turkey fall over. Since it didn’t take too much yarn I just trashed the tennis ball and started over with a whiffle ball. Finally my turkey sat up straight. And that’s what I have to show for naptime yesterday. Two balls wrapped in yarn…productive.

Anyway, last night Wade wanted to write that he was thankful for corn. Which was evidenced by the 3 helpings he ate of it at dinner. You ever changed a diaper after 3 helpings of corn…yah, gross.

So there ya go. Tickets and Turkeys…well, really just one turkey but it sounded better to make them both plural.