Maddie the Sock Monkey and Other Fun Tidbits

Summer is officially over, and our thoughts begin turning towards indoor mayhem to replace the wet and otherwise dirty escapades of past months. Last week we re-enacted the bear hunt that I remember from childhood. I printed some pictures of bears off the computer and hid them sereptitiously in the bathroom "cave." Then I prepared my build up speech. Flashlight in hand, I approached Alli with one simple directive: "Do you want to go on a bear hunt?"

We sat down in the playroom and sang the song, only I changed the locations to places in our house. So instead of wading through the cornfield, we "came to a table" and so on and so forth. Then we set out on our trek. After crawling under the dining room table and climbing up and over the couch, I asked Alli if she saw any bears. She took on her matter of fact tone and said, "No Mom. There aren't any bears. And there aren't going to be any bears in the cave either."

Maybe she hadn't yet heard of a little thing called Mom Magic, but she would soon learn. We ended up in the bathroom, in the dark, with our flashlight lit. When she discovered the first bear taped to the sink faucet, she nearly went into hysterics. Then we spent the next hour finding bears with our flashlight. After the third time, I made her hide them, and the game became self perpetuating.




On another long afternoon, we decided to make "crayon glitter." I rounded up all the old crayon stubbs and we chopped them and melted them in the oven. Alli got really nervous when I started chopping the pink and purple crayons, but she caught the vision once she got her hands on some of the confetti colored fun.


As a side note, both of these ideas originated from my friend Ashley, who is a great mom. I hope I can be like her when I grow up.