Cartooning

Baby panda!

 I thought perhaps some drawing lessons would improve Jed's penmanship. He loves all things artistic. We found some cartooning videos for kids on YouTube. Everybody loved it, even mom! The kids were begging for more, but have to wait till tomorrow. Here are some of Jed's creations. 

Fish, rabbit, butterfly

Puppy

Here is Zoe's "scary bear". She says she wants to pin it to her Halloween costume and make people scream. 

In case you can't tell he is eating a purple ant. 

This boy has a broken collarbone.

 But you'd never guess because he's such a happy little man!

Just over a week ago, the kids were up on the bunk bed watching a video when somehow Zane fell off the ladder and onto the floor.  He landed on a rug, and we have an unusually short bunk bed, so initially I thought he would be ok.  But he cried and cried that night, and kept pointing to his neck, which was concerning.  He had a big ol' black bruise on his ear, so we thought maybe that was it.  Not sure but decided to give him some painkiller and a good night's sleep and reassess in the morning.  

The next morning he woke up sad.  I felt his shoulder and there was a familiar feeling bump.  Yes, we had another little boy with a bump like that just about four years ago!  Jed fell down the stairs and broke his collarbone at approximately the same age, vividly remembered because he managed to break it about 12 hours before his baby sister was born, and the poor kid didn't get diagnosed for days in the flurry of a new house-mate.  Anyway, we knew the drill and that most likely nothing could be done, but we got it checked anyway just to make sure the bone wasn't displaced.  It wasn't, he came home loaded up on Daddy-love and M&Ms and woke up the next day right as rain.  Supposedly in two weeks he should be pretty much self-repaired, and over the next few years as he grows his body will naturally correct the angled bone. (Isn't that amazing!?  He's an amazing kid.)

This little beauty drives a hard bargain.

I’ve been taking the kids garage sale-ing nearly every week this fall.  I figure what better way is there for kids to learn money, math, and financial management than to earn their money and then go out and buy stuff every week. Jed in particular has been a huge proponent of this plan, and I will say the kids have bought some pretty sweet new toys with their weekly coinage.

Last Friday Zoe had 25c in small change clutched in her sweaty, mashed up ziploc bag.  She came over to me, thrilled with a small kaleidescope she’d found rummaging around in a box of miscellania.  She wanted to know how much it cost, and I told her to go ask the lady running the sale. Before, this would have been a tremendously scary proposition, but the drive for money and toys will overcome all fears.

Zoe walked up to her.  “How many dollars is this?”

“Twenty-five cents.”

She looked back up at me.  “Is that all my money?”  

“Yep.”

She frowned at the little bagged sack of coins in her palm.  Then she looked at the kaleidescope.  Then back at the coins.  She turned to the woman.

“Hmmmm....Can I pay you....”

Pause. 

“Can I pay you... one...?”

Muffling a laugh as I realized my daughter was bargaining to buy this toy for one cent, but couldn’t remember the name of her coins, I gently suggested she offer one dime, rather than one penny.

“One dime!” she offered generously and slid it across the table.

The lady, grinning widely, laughed at said “Little girl, you can just have it.”

“OK, here’s my dime.”

“No, little girl, you keep the dime and you keep the kaleidescope!”

Triumphantly, Zoe returned with bag of coins and kaleidescope in hand.  

That’s my girl.