Susiej

Only one of the 306 Easter Eggs we hid this weekend at the lake drifted off into the water.

In spite of the 48 degree water temperature (72 degree air temp), the egg was soon rescued. This is the best shot of the weekend.

All of the eggs that showed up at the lake this weekend were combined, for a total of 306. One mom was a former preschool teacher; and she brought tubs of eggs from those years. As moms, we struggled to find enough hiding places. We hid the eggs among the logs stacks, on top of house signs, and underneath the prickly branches of pine trees whose branches reach down to form tents on the ground.

(Secretly, I think, we had the most fun hiding them.)

We started the hunt with my new purchase from my favorite store; a cow bell. Each child had a limit: 34. Excess. Excess. Excess. The ones that found more, shared with those who found less. The lack of snow this year, made the eggs much more difficult to find.

This experience pales in comparision to my own memories of Easter Egg hunts at the town park. In those hunts, I eyed the eggs I wanted and waited for the whistle to start the hunt. I took off, only to find that a hoard of children who ran faster than me, had already scratched my hand to pull the egg from me and to plop it distinctly in their own basket. And no one cried foul on those tricks that happened again, and again.

I wonder, now, if those Egg Hunts were good for me; helped me build character. Except there was no lesson. No proof that the world was indeed a good place; no evidence of kindness. I can remember leaving that park with a hollowness in my chest and hoping that I would never have to come back and do this again. The only solace I had, as I walked from the park with my empty basket, was that I had new white shoes and a brand new purple Easter dress to wear to church the next morning. That, and the belief that if I ever grew up and had kids, I’d make sure they’d never have to go through what I just experienced on the Saturday morning before Easter.

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Filed under: Laugh, Life, boy, holidays, the lake house by SusieJ - 2 Comments →

Not only did I overhear my kids talking about the pot of gold that was going to show up on St. Patrick’s Day (as it does every year) but I also learned from them that there was going to be an actual Scavenger Hunt to find the gold. Please.

Lifetimes are made up of the little things. But a Scavenger Hunt? That’s not just a little thing. But listening to those voices in my head repeating the words “it’s going to be so eggciting…” I had no choice but to start my clandestine efforts for the treasure. The pot of gold would be simply, chocolate coins. Except the store didn’t have them. The shamrock cookies I made, of course, were too sticky and gooey to cut, so I picked up store-bought shamrocks that looked better than anything I could have made. Snicker mini bars, wrapped in gold foil, and Hersey Almond Kisses, wrapped in gold, were added. (Thank you for that!)

A shinny metal bucket was stuffed, and the rest of the cookies and candy were hid in the oven to avoid an afternoon sugar-high.

The scavenger hunt clues?  Surprisingly, the clues did come easy. I thought about how to make them move from outside to in, into different floors. Figuring out how to get them there, turned into a chain of memories from the year that touched each one. Post-It notes were the perfect, stick-on medium.

The clues:

Where food melted because someone forgot…

(The freezer in the basement that was left open by accident.)

The first place you head to in winter mornings, hoping for some warm socks.

(The hot register threw them off… but it was actually the dryer.)

Now, take these to your room while you wait for your older brother to get home.

(Great way to incorporate a chore!)

The next clue was in the hallway outside of their room.

Where you tried to touch wire.

(They couldn’t figure this one out. That’s when they got the paper and started marking up the clues and making a treasure map. Finally, my oldest son came home and he was the only one who knew this one. When we first moved here, he thought it would be cool to stand on the roof of the tree house and try to touch the telephone wires. He didn’t.)

The smelly place where I once held office.

(Our mudroom is actually my old office space.)

What code was created on a cold icy day?

(The littlest one got this one… the garage door was fixed, and we created for the first time, a pass for out keypad outside the garage door. I stuck the clue to the inside of the garage door; but of course, they punched in the code, and up went the garage door. But not to worry. “Oh, there it is,” as it tumbled to the garage floor cement. )

Now, pour yourself a glass of milk, to get ready.

(No one bothered to take the time for that. They just pulled the clue off the milk.)

Where are the snowmen?

(Not those. The ceramic snowmen are still sitting in the hutch.)

And, there, in the waning glow of the afternoon sun, there was the pot of gold.

Now, they tell me, this is how they want to do Christmas.

Later that day…
I preheated the oven to 450 to make baguettes for dinner. There was an awful smell. It was, of course, the bags of snickers, kisses, and cookies in the plastic store-bought containers, melting all over the oven racks.

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Filed under: Laugh, boy, holidays by SusieJ - 7 Comments →

The soap boy is now into WRENCHES. He really likes wrenches. So, of course, he wanted a “wrench valentine” box. After puzzling for weeks, I finally convinced him today (the day before the Valentine party) to create a toolbox valentine box, complete with a bolt and wire secret clasp. We can now add this latest creation to our ongoing list of valentine boxes.

Must add the caption, “We Work Great Together!”

This was a “learn as you go” project, but oh so easy. You can reap the benefit of learning from my mistakes.

We found that it was best to cut the box, without the aluminum foil, first, and then wrap it in foil. Once the cardboard was cut, it was easy to just feel around for the slits and use an exact-o knife to cut the foil.

• Glue or tape closed the top of an empty cereal box.
• Cut the top off the box, only on three sides, so that you have a “flap” lid.

• Cut a slit below your lid so that kids can insert their valentines. (Resist the urge to follow your 6-year-old’s please to cut this slit into the shape of a wrench. The effect will be lost, and you’ll end up with a crooked, off-center slit. See box above.)
• Wrap box like a present with aluminum foil, using duct tape as tape.
• Find your cuts, and slit the aluminum foil with an exact-o knife.
• The cut edges will stick up, so finish them off with a nice layer of duct tape to hold them down.
• For the bolt closure, reinforce, with duct tape, a spot on the inside and outside of the box where you want to insert your bolt. Directly above the slit, centered.
• Somehow make a hole, smaller than your bolt, and work your bolt through by twisting. You want your hole to be smaller than the bolt so that it will stay in place.
• Follow the same procedure for the wire on the top of the lid, only a much smaller hole.
• Cut 4 inches of picture wire and insert through the hole, securing with a knot and duct tape on the inside of the lid.
• Now, you simply pull down the wire to wrap around the bolt. You now have a secure “seal” on your valentine box, so no girls can get to your stash.
• My teenager used sandpaper to cut out letters to write his name. Wire would have been best… but, it’s the NIGHT BEFORE THE PARTY!
• For embellishment, we added a real wrench. (Try saying that 6 times real fast.)

He is thrilled to have this toolbox valentine. He thinks the picture wire is real “electric wire” and wonders if his kindergarten teacher “will even allow it!”

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Filed under: Life, Make Something, boy, holidays, try this by SusieJ - 3 Comments →

In college, a UPS man’s appearance at the front desk simultaneously aroused curiosity and surprise. The UPS man was nothing other than a harbinger of joy, as he dropped off his cardboard package of, what else? Cookies.  We could find cookies on campus, especially on Thursday nights in the dining hall — but they weren’t Mom’s cookies. And they weren’t pre-meditated cookies. Cookies that were baked days earlier with kindness, thoughtfulness, and set aside (i.e. not eaten by everyone else in the house) to be packaged in a box, and driven to the UPS store to be mailed to a specific person.

Cookies that came from some other place — far from here, where there were ovens, hotpads, and a kitchen sink loaded with hot soapy water, and a person who thought of you.

Today, another brown box arrived — just when I needed a good pick-me-up.

Inside were cookies. All decorated and pretty from my Mother-In-Law. We had just eaten our last crumb of Christmas cookies, and I was thinking it was time to bake more for the boys. It is Christmas vacation, after all. But I was thankfully spared from that drama. Nothing like getting another dose of Christmas just when you thought it was all over. Brown paper, by the way, does a surprisingly amazing job of keeping cookies fresh.

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Filed under: holidays by SusieJ - 3 Comments →

Couldn’t put a smile on his face again.

He was the one who woke up first – two hours before everyone else, as he “ohhed and ahhed” over the packages left by the man he really doesn’t believe in if you ask him; but couldn’t help but wonder as the lights twinkled across the packages, and his face, as he examined all the loot left behind, if he was real after all.

At 7, he somehow has enough empathy not to wake us up, waiting for a decent hour. We gave him the honor of going first. With wide-eyes and excitement, he tore off the wrapper and no longer held in his hands hopes for what he wished for, but rather held Jenga. Tears immediately flowed. Yes, he had asked for this – maybe, many weeks back – but that was before he fell in love with Toa Mata Nui.

No tears on Christmas. I grabbed another package and gave it to him, except that in my haste, I inadvertently grabbed the package of socks. Despite their wool content, they only made the tears fall faster. (Just wait till that first snow falls baby; and you’ll have dry toes. Let’s see who’ll be crying then!)

I wasn’t sure what to do. I want him to be gracious and thankful for the gifts; but yet, I don’t want to turn him into Scrooge, dreading Christmases in his Future. This Christmas was nothing but a big, fat heartbreak. Where are the altruistic meanings of Christmas that I am responsible for teaching?

His little brother had quite the opposite reaction. Opening presents, giddy with glee. You could have given him bags of coal, and he would have been doing flips. His castle, with horses and men entertained him for hours. The big boys in the house, much tougher to please, were fine and dandy. Gracious, curious and appreciative.

The tears finally did die down, and the pile of “Stuff I’m returning tomorrow” dwindled down as he eventually pulled them out of the pile because, “I’ll play with them if it makes you happy.”

In retrospect, the only time he didn’t cry in the morning was when a present he had picked for someone else was opened. Those sore feet and seemingly endless trips to the store to buy presents for each other was really, the best gift I could have bought this Christmas.

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Filed under: boy, holidays by SusieJ - 3 Comments →

“Mom, I wasn’t snooping or anything…”

“Yeah, but… what?”

“Well, those Under Armour shirts that are under my bed are too small for me.”

Not only was he looking — but he tried things on?!

“Why in the world were you looking under your bed last night? After ski club? Weren’t you so tired that you just dropped into bed?”

“Well, I was bouncing a ball, and it rolled under my bed, and I reached under to …”

“The reason the presents are in your room is because your little brothers found them in my room, so I had to come up with a new spot real fast – and your room is the one place no one ever goes… and I certainly didn’t expect you to crawl under your bed at midnight. So keep quiet, OK?”

“Oh. OK. Well, Mom, also…you know that OSU hat under there? Is that for me?”

“No, it’s for your brother.”

“Well, I need one of those too

I’m really glad Christmas is tomorrow, because I can barely keep up with myself anymore, and I am clearly running out of spots to hide presents.

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Filed under: Laugh, Life, boy, holidays by SusieJ - 3 Comments →