Rapunzel to the Rescue!

I’m going to be brutally honest: if I have to play Rapunzel with my adorable 3-year-old one more time I just might blow my brains out. 

Over and over and over again we play each day; by her rules, of course. The other day when I tried to deviate from the rules she actually “paused” me with her imaginary remote control, told me exactly how to play and what to say. Then she said, “OK, Mom? Now start at the beginning.” She then proceeded to “unpause” me. And don’t even get me started on the pieces. Tangled’s tower came with these itty bitty cups, saucers, a ladle and a frying pan which I considered to be pretty much worthless. Well, I guess the frying pan is important to the story—how else is she supposed to keep that conniving thief Flynn in line? But the other pieces? I didn’t think they served any purpose except to drive me nuts trying to keep them off the floor and out of the vacuum. Until Sunday, that is.

Brayden’s loose tooth would move until it was perpendicular to the other teeth in his mouth. He could wiggle it and wiggle it, but it still wouldn’t come out. So I decided to help him and pulled that tooth right out of his mouth.  Then I handed it to him. He was soooo excited! He ran right into the bathroom to check out his new smile in the mirror.

His dad, who was watching the NCAA basketball tournament on the couch, yelled, “Don’t drop it down the drain!” That sent me running to the bathroom. I placed a paper towel on the counter and told Brayden to put his tooth on it. He was still so excited that he more or less threw the tooth at the paper towel. It bounced once and—you guessed it!—went straight down the drain. Nothing but net! And so our own March Madness began.

Using our real remote control, I made Andy pause the game and come help me. He unscrewed the drain and we could see that the tooth was stuck in the gunk on the side of the pipe. Gross, I know. We scratched our heads and tried to figure out how we could get it out without knocking it further down. Most everything we could think of was too fat to even fit through the drain hole. Then Andy asked if there was something that we could attach to a wooden dowel to retrieve the tooth. I knew just the thing! So, using our mad MacGyver skills, we taped Rapunzel’s ladle to the dowel. 

It was the perfect size for the tooth! Mission accomplished! 

I sanitized the ladle, hung it back up in the Tower and everyone was happy. The tooth fairy came and left Brayden a treat and a quarter. Hooray!

The moral of the story is: don’t judge a book by its cover. Even something that seems small and insignificant can be a huge help given the right circumstances.

Frisbee Fun!

I finally came up with a good use for all of those Frisbees piled up in our garage. You know, the ones that certain restaurants serve kids meals on? We have given some away to friends and family, donated some to charity and yet, we still have about 20 of them sitting on a shelf.

On a nice spring day, we went outside to play. As I sat looking the yard around I came up with this idea for a fun, educational activity for preschoolers that helps the kids identify capital letters with their lower case counterparts. I kept the playing field small so it wouldn't be too hard, writing 8 capital letters and 8 matching lower case letters using sidewalk chalk. Each set of matching letters was also the same color to make it a little easier. It's a little hard to see in the photograph, but easy to see in person.

Then I covered each letter up with a Frisbee and called the kids over to play.

Even though my Kindergartners can already easily identify the lowercase and uppercase letters, they still had a great time playing. Now that they know how to play the game, they can create new game boards for their little sis and practice their handwriting skills. Hooray for activities that are fun and educational at the same time!

Toothless

Since January 31, this little girl has lost 4 teeth! I love her toothless grin, although it does make for a messy face. . .the food just won't say in her mouth.

She had a very loose tooth that she had been wiggling during January. Then she got sick and started puking her guts out. Her dad and I told her if the tooth fell out while she was throwing up that we weren't going to fish it out of the toilet. I left the room for a minute. When I came back, she was holding the tooth in her hand with big wide eyes. I think she was worried if the tooth went down the toilet the Tooth Fairy wouldn't come. Poor girl!

She was ecstatic the next morning to find that the Tooth Fairy left her a whole dollar! This was quite the increase from the first visit from the tooth fairy last year when she knocked her front tooth out. The Tooth Fairy left her a quarter and a treat, which I thought was very generous. But the other kids at school were bragging about the "paper money" that they got. The going rate at their school is between $1 and $2 for each tooth, and cousin Kara got $2 for her tooth as well. Brayden and Makenzie both wanted to know why this was. So, the Tooth Fairy had to raise rates at our house. I'm curious. . .how much does your Tooth Fairy bring? 

Makenzie lost another tooth at school when she bit into her snack, another at home just from wiggling it, and then the dentist decided to pull the fourth one on the bottom in order to give a little more room to her very crooked permanent teeth, hoping that they would grow a little less crooked. (Wish the Tooth Fairy would leave a little extra for Mom and Dad to pay for braces with!)

Meanwhile, Brayden is still patiently waiting for his first tooth to fall out. Makenzie keeps giving hie twinsightful advice like "wiggle it more" and "eat something sticky" but nothing has worked yet. We just might have to get the piers out before long!