CrumbBums – Page 109

Montessori-Inspired

Montessori-Inspired, by lauren, December 4, 2014, 5 Replies

Sewing buttons! I can’t express how great it is to see my children enthusiastic and eager to practice the lessons (or variations on them) they have learned in school. Before Thanksgiving break, Oliver asked to sew buttons after school. I remembered having some extra fabric in my closet leftover from a ripped shirt I had saved for… I have no idea. I grabbed an old wooden frame from the basement, popped out the glass and backing, and tightly hand-sewed the fabric to the frame:

If I had a sewing machine, I would have used that, though I’m not sure it would have ended up as nice and tight if I hadn’t hand sewed. Either way, it didn’t take long and Oliver got started. I got him started by threading the needle and tying a knot in the end, and he carefully sewed his first button to the sewing frame.

Since that day, Oliver has sewn many more buttons onto his frame. He is improving his fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. The repetitive motions of sewing, weaving, and knitting is also a very soothing and calming activity.

Oliver’s work in progress

If you’d like a more in-depth Montessori lesson on sewing with preschool-aged kids (and up), check out this post on Montessori for the Earth. There’s also a very short video clip on how to teach your child to tie a simple knot by looping the string three times over the needle and pulling. Happy sewing!

Reading…

Books, by lauren, December 2, 2014, 19 Replies

Milo is reading (and reading and reading and READING) all the time these days, mostly Magic Treehouse books, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and most recently, the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket (obviously novelist Daniel Handler’s pen name). He seems to have no interest in picture books at the moment, labeling them “baby books,” which breaks my heart just a little bit.

But Oliver and Emil are still all about them, thank goodness! And some of our favorite (and funniest) books are the vintage finds we pick up at Goodwill, flea markets, and antique stores. The above are just a few of our growing collection. I love the illustrations and the gritty stories and lessons. And the innocent bunny books are Emil’s favorite. Go figure, he was born in the year of the Rabbit.

I’m currently glued to The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, an immensely interesting and scary story about the sixth major extinction humans are on the path to causing. In it, we are taken on several journeys through species extinctions humans have had a direct role in causing, and the brutality of each is shocking. I am a huge science and natural history enthusiast, so it is all fascinating to read about, but be warned, it’s not the light reading you might want to engage in if you want to feel good about humanity around the holidays, ha!

What are you reading?

Thanksgiving Weekend Shenanigans

Family, by lauren, December 1, 2014, 2 Replies

The day before Thanksgiving, while Andrew took the boys to their school for a few hours (it was an open house type of situation where family was welcome to drop in), I struggled through the motions of getting ready for a big dinner and party. It still didn’t feel like a happy time of year after all the events of Ferguson and emotions still running hot in this city. But sometimes going through the motions gets you somewhere. Sometimes you fake it ’til you make it, and then you happen to look out the window to see big fluffy snowflakes suspended in the air, floating slowly to the ground like magic, and despite what’s going on in the world it feels like the holidays for that moment. So while I chopped and prepped and rolled out pie crusts, beat eggs and whipped potatoes with cream and butter and the smells of baking goods filled the house, I forgot I was faking it and Thanksgiving crept into my soul.

The next day, with a dusting of snow on the ground, it still felt bittersweet, but we rallied and made it welcoming and cheerful in our house. We had a few friends over and ate and ate, and sat by the fire watching five little boys run laps around the house in various stages of undress (mostly Emil) and costumes from the dress-up box.

There were a few sweet quiet moments, but mostly those boys were so amped up all afternoon it was hard for any of us to hear each other above the roar of their shouts and thunderous hoofbeats! I fear our poor friends left feeling a bit frazzled, but I do think the boys all enjoyed it immensely. And I know Andrew and I felt grateful for good friends with whom to celebrate.

We did a lot over the next few days, too. There was the holiday picture ordeal, going out for pizza, yard work and playgrounds and a bit of Christmas shopping (mostly online). I was able to slip out for a drink with my good friend Elisha one night, and on Saturday afternoon we met up with our wonderful friends Maggie and Alex and their two boys for a grand time in Forest Park. The weather was gorgeous and perfect for tree climbing, exploring, walking, and stone-skipping. It’s such a treat to live close by!

Can you spot Andrew above?

Maggie and Alex are so lovely, it’s just such a treat to be around them — easy and always full of laughter.

And the above picture really sums up how I feel about little boys — the essence of them, fully engaged in nature and mischief and adventure. I wonder what would have happened if we had left them to their own devices for a few hours…And as if all this fun wasn’t enough, we got to top off the weekend with our friends Drew and Christine at their house for marshmallow roasting last night. Feeling really lucky to have all these great people in our lives! Hope you had a wonderful holiday, and Happy first day of December!

Dress That Mama: 3 Thanksgiving Day Outfits*

Style, by lauren, November 26, 2014, 5 Replies

*I hesitated to publish this post today — it feels in poor taste to write about things as trivial as Thanksgiving day outfits when such larger things are happening in Ferguson. Frankly, it’s hard to even be excited about Thanksgiving tomorrow when we have such heavy hearts all over the country. But this is what I had scheduled to go up days ago, so I will proceed… even when it feels strange to do so…

It’s hard to believe November is almost over and Thanksgiving is tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to Andrew’s legendary smoked turkey and the pumpkin custard pie with nutmeg whipped cream I’m probably baking at this very moment (not wearing this, obviously). Usually I’m wearing jeans and a sweater under an apron if I’m doing the cooking, right up until 10 minutes before the guests arrive, at which point I dash upstairs to change and throw on some lipstick. But Thanksgiving is a lot like any other party — we want to look our best! So here are three outfits I would wear to a Thanksgiving dinner.

The first, above, is my ideal party outfit, but it’s really better for a Thanksgiving I’m just showing up for — especially the hair, which needs to be pulled back if I’m cooking and serving food. And gravy…

I’ll never forget the time I was stirring the gravy (a little too vigorously) at my mom’s house and accidentally splattered it onto my sister’s beautiful silk shirt. Ugh. It was horrible. So yes, I would wear my favorite dress to someone else’s Thanksgiving (where I’m not going to be stirring anything), but probably not as the hostess to our own.

The outfit above is definitely more in the hostess ballpark for Thanksgiving — comfortable striped shirt tucked into high-waisted joggers with high heeled clogs and a pretty necklace, hair in a side ponytail. To dress it up a bit more, I would throw on some bright red lipstick.

And last, a bit of an edgier look (below) with black and gray. A form-fitting dress is layered under a nice warm sweater and topped with a pretty scarf for a colder-weather Thanksgiving (which we will be having here). Please excuse the bad hair, jeez. After dinner, I might trade the boots for some warm socks and sit next to the fire with our friends and enjoy an extra piece of that pumpkin pie!

Whatever you wear, have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

And I hope this finds all of you well and in as good of spirits as is possible in light of the turmoil we are feeling. I am going to take the next few days to reflect and be thankful for family and friends.

Ferguson

St. Louis, by lauren, November 25, 2014, 6 Replies

I tend to shy away from big news stories in this space — it has never felt like the right place to debate politics or religion, or war or genocide, to discuss Ebola outbreaks and child molestation charges or rape culture on college campuses. I don’t want to talk about those things because they are all over the place already, and I need a place where the media isn’t. It’s overwhelming, it’s heartbreaking, it’s all too much to wrap my mind around. But this is our city now, a place we love that is so divided it’s hard to brush past it, even on this blog. And the events recently have brought to light the underlying tension that speaks to the wounds around race relations this city has been unable to heal for generations now.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat in my car eating my lunch and listening to NPR, feeling the electric charge of the culmination of months of unrest and unease surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown this past August. I didn’t know that the grand jury would reach a decision in mere hours, but as the afternoon wore on, that became clear. Five blocks from our house, streets were barricaded off surrounding the courthouse. On my drive home from picking the boys up from school, I merged onto the parkway along with several police vans headed the same direction. After arriving home, I let the boys watch a movie so I could listen to live coverage of the impending decision while I made dinner. I went out to the garage to gather an armful of firewood, the sound of helicopters circling overhead and sirens in the distance filling up the evening air.

Andrew and I listened to the decision not to indict Officer Wilson and I felt a wave of emotion overcome me. I trust that the grand jury made an educated and fair decision based on the evidence that was presented, but somehow none of that makes me feel relieved or good in any way. I don’t know what to think or feel anymore, only that it is so sad and tragic and so much bigger than this. And the media’s involvement in this whole tragedy? Looking at video from last night, it’s clear that a huge portion of the crowds in Ferguson were reporters and cameramen… what part does this play in the entire story? There is so much anger, so much hurt here. I’m hoping for peace and progress in St. Louis today.