¿Por qué?

Why is there a rock there?

Why is that car yellow?

Why is Syndrome a bad guy?

Why is that a duck?

Why are you Mommy?

It's not just that these questions are clearly impossible to answer. It's that he doesn't even really want an answer. He is just compelled to continue asking why? why? why? We tried at first to come up with thoughtful or funny replies. Now we just laugh. (He laughs, too, 'cause he knows he's a nutbag.)

Powers Rangers, Mama's Fury

Dash is obsessed with Power Rangers. I cannot begin to fathom how they are even on his radar. He has never seen an episode of the show, and I'm not sure they're even still airing them.

(The things three-year-old-boys obsess over are beyond my comprehension and I should just give up trying to guess what's cool and why: Short sleeves are cool , longs sleeves aren't. No matter how cold the weather. I learned this the hard way.)

Anyway, Dash has a couple of Power Rangers books that he conned us into buying for him during recent bookstore outings (I've since wised up and instated a new "no-tv-or-movie-related-book rule.)

But the thing is, when I read him the books at bedtime, he insists that the Power Rangers be called by the names of his school friends, rather than the names printed in the books. I assume that, at school, they all have assigned characters and he's just being true to the cause. But I'm about to lose my mind. Check it:

Blue Ranger aka Dax = Glenny & Xander (yeah, I have to say both names when I read the story.)

Pink Ranger aka Rose = Zoe

Red Ranger aka Mack = Dash

Yellow Ranger aka Sonny = Sophia

Black Ranger aka Will = Heaven (his name is Evan but Dash absolutely insists I call him Heaven).

So, this is mainly why I can't drink wine during the week any more. I really can't even remember all the name switches when I'm sober. Tipsy, it's a lost cause.

Art Box

Our darling friend Luke turned five today. His Mama said he likes to draw, so we made up an art box for him:

I got a photo storage box from Joann.

And filled the box with art materials.

I personalized an awesome image I found & had saved for a rainy day, & printed it onto card stock.

All the different markers, pencils, crayons, paint sticks & watercolor pencils went into little pouches made from cheerful fabrics & backed with felt.

Yup, still refusing to iron.

Another view of the wrinkles.

The crayons & brushes went into a little tin bucket.

I hope hope hope he likes it. It's always hard to not choose the cool toy of the month. But I figure even if he hates it now (like Dash almost always does when I try to make him something) eventually he'll come to see the awesomeness of having something totally unique and made with love.

Shorts

Today Dash rocked the first shorts of '09. Getting him to take a reasonable picture is an exercise in futility.

Look! Dash!

Because, ostensibly, this blog is still about Dash & not just my insane crafting: Lookit! A picture of Dash! Cute, yes?

Skirts

"Hey, have you heard from Liz lately?"

"No, last I heard she moved to Valencia, had a kid & started sewing her own clothes."

"Huh. That's sad."

"Right?"

(Wrap skirts, from a pattern found for free on the Internet, fabric $4.99/yard from Joann.)

More Tote

I spend a lot of time thinking about storage. Our house is small and I'm a neat freak and Dash has a lot of everything. Also, I am slightly insane, so storage must be not just utilitarian, it must also be cute. (You wouldn't think a mother of a three-year-old with a full time job, a long commute, no house keeper and a little problem with OCD would have the time to decorate every single thing she owns. You'd be wrong. I make time. Because I'm nuts.)

Anyway. We need a system for library books. We check out upwards of ten books a visit, and kids books are skinny and oddly-shaped and unwieldy. And they just upped library fines, so if you're late or (God forbid) lose a book, you could be out $40, easy. Which kinda defeats the purpose of going to the library in the first place.

Jesus this is a long preamble.

Look! I made a library book storage tote bag! I put a "D" on it! For Dash! The End! (I stopped drinking wine during the week and it's Saturday, 6:45 pm, so I'm a little bit drunk. Can you tell?)

("D" made from Jay McCarroll fabric from Sew, Mama, Sew and Under Wonder. My favorite thing about this picture is that I had to use an iron to adhere the "D" to the bag. And, yet, I still couldn't be bothered to iron the rest of the wrinkles out. Now that is a commitment to hating ironing if I ever saw one.)

Garden Update

OK! So the seeds sprouted much more quickly than we expected and Josh had to haul a little bit of ass to get the beds built and filled. But he did it! So far everything looks awesome. If you know us in real life, please cross your fingers and we promise we'll return the favor with lots of fresh veggies come Summer.

Here are the egg cartons I planted last weekend. They're coming up!

A couple of days later they were looking like this. Nice work, green beans!

Josh & I headed to Lowe's for some wood and braces and screws. We found a whole incredibly complicated tutorial for building raised beds online, but we were all, "fuck it. how hard can it be to make a rectangle?"

Not that hard, but we're a little impressed with ourselves, so here's another picture.

Soil all spread out and ready to go. Those papers at the bottom right are graphs on which Josh plotted out the spacing of the seedlings based on the instructions on the packets. He was out there with a tape measure, hand to God.

I got sick (just a cold) when it was time to start planting so Josh was on his own. It was night by the time he was finished. But our little seedlings are all safe and sound in their soily, loamy homes. We'll tend them with a little organic fertilizer and home-made compost. I really hope it works.

Book Hammock

Dash insists on bringing whatever book we read at bedtime to sleep with him. It's all very cute, but we end up with a giant pile of bent and slept-upon books all over and under his bed. So when I happened upon this book sling idea, I knew I had to give it a shot.


I got the awesome circus fabric from Sew, Mama, Sew for $9 & I lined it with the some natural linen I got for $2/yard about two years ago and have been using for everything under the sun ever since. The double brackets were $8 at Target & I had the curtain rods in the garage, abandoned from some other unsuccessful project.


I followed Megan's tutorial almost exactly (except I couldn't be bothered to find a ruler so I didn't actually measure anything). The whole thing came together in about 20 minutes. I am deliriously happy with it.

ICE CREAM!!!

I got some ice cream
I got some ice cream
And you don't have none
Wanna lick?
Psych!

First ever visit to the Ice Cream Truck

Straight from nap, still in jammies (Spiderman popsicle, naturally)

Dolls are for Boys

I have but one regret about having a son: no dolls. But I figured a way around it.

A lovely soul posted some plain boy paperdoll and costume line drawings on Fickr for download. I replaced the drawn heads with photos of Davey & Dash in Photoshop. Then I printed everything onto card stock and stuck it to adhesive magnet paper.

The idea was for the boys to color everything in, but Aunty Nic figured out right quick that they would just fuck everything up, so she took over the coloring. I turned away for a minute and Dash did indeed draw black lines through every single magnet. Here they were while still pristine:

Harry Potter

Pirate & Rocker

The wallet chain kills me.

Everything went into these paper bags, personalized with custom "D" stickers I made in Photoshop
(because if it's not worth overdoing then why bother?).

Slime

Dash usually gets to pick a book to buy on our trips to Target. He gets enormous pleasure from avoiding the actual books I try to steer him toward and choosing instead those weird paperback picture books based on tv shows or movies. The most recent was based on Monsters vs. Aliens, a movie of which I was vaguely aware, but apparently he knew all about.

Anyway, one of the characters in the book/movie is a slime creature and he was entranced but kinda struggling to understand ("it's sort of like see-through gum!" I explained, unhelpfully.) So I set out to make slime.


First thing you should know if you're contemplating trying this with a three-year-old is: have a glass of wine first. It's going to make a huge mess and you're not really going to know how to dispose of it and they're going to be over it after about three minutes. But if you've had enough wine it'll all seem pretty hilarious.






How to make Slime:

Materials
	Two mixing bowls
	Measuring cups and spoons
	White glue
	Borax
	Food coloring
	Water

1. Mix together 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup white glue and several drops of food coloring in the first bowl.

2. In the second bowl, mix together 1 teaspoons borax and 2 cups water.

3. Pour the contents of the first bowl into the second, and stir. If you knead it it'll become more like Silly Putty.

4. If you want to save it, keep it in a zip-top bag.

Boys

So. You're six months pregnant and it's time to learn the sex. You want to make a big production so you have the doctor write it all down and seal it in an envelope. You open said envelope nine hours later at a restaurant with your very closest friends as witnesses.

"Boy."

You look over at your husband and you realize that you have never seen him happier. Not on your wedding day. Not on the day you tell him he's going to be a daddy. Never.

Here's why:

Speechless

I cannot even describe how happy I am that my husband (who had eyelid surgery--don't ask--and needed to protect his coworkers from looking at his swollen, bruised eye all day) opted for the black pirate eye patch! I'm going to buy him a parrot at lunch.

Not Tired!

Angry that I had gone to the store without him, indignant that Josh was insisting he needed a nap, he refused to lie down in bed or on the couch for some quiet time--though he was obviously too exhausted to carry on. So he curled up on the ottoman out of spite.

Starting Seeds

Last year I was determined to grow something--anything--in the horrible patch of clay we call a yard. I amended the soil as well as I could and then just sorta hucked some radish seeds at a bare spot and stood back. I did actually get some radishes, but they were kinda measly and woody and not really worth talking about.

So this year I've decided to stop fucking around. I have recruited Josh to build me some raised beds so I can just put some good organic soil down and ignore the crappy dirt-hand we've been dealt. I started the seeds this weekend.

I emptied a couple of egg cartons and filled them with good soil and seeds for two types of tomatoes, cucumbers and peas. I also have carrot seeds ("it'll never come up!"), but I guess those need to start in the ground. I'm seriously counting on making gazpacho from my very own tomatoes this year, so wish me luck, won't you?