Tag: stickers

Toddler Art.

Published on by Darlene Dee1 Comment

Ever since we started going to Nook in January, Babystar LOOOOVES to ‘do art’. One of my most very very favorite things about Nook is that the Toddler Art stayed on tables that were miles from my house. (Because it sure as hell didn’t stay on the paper.) But alas. No longer.

My craft closet used to be very grown up, but now all the fun dangerous needles and permanent markers and poisonous glues are on the high shelf (where I can’t even reach) and the closet is full of crayons and washable markers and finger paints and water colors and cool painting books and construction paper. And stickers. Oh em effing gee with the stickers.

Babystar loves them. I’ve mentioned the reusable ones I got at the Children’s Library in Richmond. We ordered more from Amazon ($x.xx) because she can actually ‘do stickers’ by herself, but only with the puffy set. I like having seven whole minutes to get ready to go out or cook an entire dinner or clean an entire room or whatever (I can do amazing things in seven minutes), so we needed more puffy sticker sets. They do eventually wear out. Especially the way she uses them which is to put ALL OF THE STICKERS on top of each other in a big pile. It’s hilarious. And ridiculous. Just like a toddler.

She also loves coloring, and will color with her crayons by herself at her little table for a giant chunk of time (like maybe NINE minutes). She has been telling me the names of the colors, and she is right about 61% of the time. (She nails yellow 100% because yellow is her bae.) It’s kind of amazing.

The regular stickers and the markers and stamps and the paint books and the water colors are all fully supervised activities at this point. I once got up to change the water in her water color cup and she was sucking on the paintbrush when I got back. So. Yeah.

I have not braved the finger paints yet. Some day. There is no return from that kind of madness.

However, I love arts and crafts so I’m excited that Babystar does too. I hope it sticks. The Teenager and I have so much fun doing cool arts and crafts so I am hoping that Babystar will still be into it when she’s old enough to up her game.

  • Jumbo crayons (her first pack got pretty broken at play dates) $2.99
  • 24-pack of smaller crayons (she prefers these anyway) $1.39
  • Kid’s paints $4.99
  • Variety pack of cheap brushes and sponges $4.99
  • inkpad and stamps (one is an airplane of course) $4
  • finger paint and pad $8.35
  • 21 more packs of $1 stickers from Micheals (with coupon) $16.80

(I still love Nook. In fact, we re-nooked our membership for another $120 recently. I’ll keep it up as long as she keeps going and keeps loving it. I’m headed there shortly. Plus they have some safe hippie nontoxic version of play-doh which Babystar loves and I WILL NOT buy play-doh for the house. HAHAHAHAHAH. Until I do, right?)

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,829.48

VCU and Melissa and Doug and Lucy.

Published on by Darlene Dee4 Comments

Last Saturday was ‘Admitted Students Day’ at VCU in Richmond, and the Teenager is one of those admitted students. We woke up before the sun to drive down and check out the school. The Teenager has big decisions coming soon, but shhhhh, she doesn’t like to talk about it.

(Side note: Since I have been paying attention, I have noticed that literally every adult asks every college senior they meet if they know where they plan to go to college. Poor kids.)

So, we went to VCU. VCU is cool. Babystar hung out in the Tula for most of the walking tour bits. We all got free lunch at Chick-fil-A (thanks, VCU!) but had to pay $2.88 extra for Babystar. Pretty good deal.

(OMG, Babystar accidentally drank some of my husband’s lemonade instead of her water and then got obsessed. She cannot say ‘lemonade’ but she tries and it sounds like ‘ell-mell-mleh’ and her tongue literally turns upside down in her mouth and it is my new favorite thing. #favoritethings)

After college-ing it up, we did a 180 and went to the Children’s Museum of Richmond to let the toddler run out her wiggles. That place rocks, btw! There are a bunch of different areas all sponsored by local (or regional, I guess) businesses. There was a tiny Wegman’s play grocery store and a kid-sized play Silver Diner and a cool water table area and a tv studio and a stage and a reading room and a separate giant toddler area and and and we didn’t even have time to see everything. Legit cool. If the Teenager decides on VCU, we will definitely buy a family membership there. (No pressure, Teenager.) $30 after AAA discount plus a carousel ride.

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On the way out (we only left because they closed), I bought Babystar some cool Melissa and  Doug activity books. Except they aren’t really books. I bought some paint with water activities and reusable sticker scenes. They were $4.49 each, totaling $24.13 with tax. So far we have played with the puffy barn scene stickers and she is OBSESSED. We also did one of the Paint with Water pages and it was a huge hit. (I did one too — it’s super fun!)

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We were completely exhausted, but still hungry, and we can never leave Richmond without stopping at our favorite restaurant, Lucy’s. This is not the kind of place that has a kid’s menu, and it’s not really for kids. I mean, there’s no strippers or anything, but also their single high chair is from, like, 1973. (But luckily, they let us come eat anyway.) Thank you, Jason Lucy, for making a super yummy grilled cheese sandwich for Babystar. She totally ate one bite and lots of french fries. ($5.) And she loves the homemade ice cream on homemade cookie sandwiches. And omg so do I. ($3.)

The sun was setting as we finished dinner and headed home. So pretty.

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RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,615.20

 

Oh My Darling, Valentine.

Published on by Darlene DeeLeave a comment

I belong to a chapter of MOMS Club International (and I just paid my annual dues which are $25 but really $26.80 if you pay online and I paid online). This month our MOMS Club decided to have the kids make valentines to bring to a local assisted living home. This is the same place where my motherfreaking rockstar Teenager hosts a weekly ‘art club’ because she is an amazing human with nothing but kindness in her soul and also because she has to do a community service project to earn her IB diploma. Anyway. I have not met these seniors but I have heard a lot of great stories and I want them to have wonderful valentines from the adorable children in our club.

Something always comes up, right? On the day that we planned to make the valentines, one mama couldn’t leave her house because her children had turned into flying monkeys from Oz. Another mama had an exorcist-like vomit situation going on. Another mama had a baby that set the house on fire. Probably. I think the remaining children wrote an avant-garde musical and went on tour. Or something like that.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone showed up last week when we were meant to make the valentines. Babystar was actually the oldest of the only three children there, and she was all about the markers for approximately three of the one hundred twenty minutes. She created a stunning work of art. (The other two were a bit too young.)

Babystar loved the stampy markers at Nook last month and clearly remembered them because she basically reenacted that super fun marker time. Except these were not the right kind of markers. Whoops.


This past weekend I went to Micheal’s to find some of those stampy markers and some age appropriate valentine-making supplies. So basically, foam hearts and stickers. They were out of valentine stickers so we got animals and cars and stuff. I used a couple Micheal’s couponS and the total was $22.03. I did get one small pack of heart stickers at Target for $2.99.


We made some valentines. I know some other mamas in the group made some valentines. At least we won’t show up empty handed. If we run out, Babystar is A+ at blowing kisses.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $14,683.49