Cub Scouts

In our church, we are given "callings".  Basically, we are asked to fulfill a position of service in the church and it could be anything from the easiest hymn book coordinator to a leadership position.  It is interesting to have this opportunity to serve in positions I wouldn't dream I'd excel in or even necessarily want to do.  I can't say that I have always had the best attitude when I start out in a new service opportunity but I usually end up learning a lot.  I've never had to teach adults in church but I've had a lot of different opportunities to teach kids of a variety of ages and teenagers.  Right now I'm doing music with the young women.

In one of my last callings as a nursery leader (my second tour) I had a bit of a bad attitude.  I was tired of entertaining toddlers.  Our ward was trying to make nursery more than two hours of toys with a snack and a lesson.  We were encouraged to come up with projects for the kids.  The kids in the nursery are 18months-3years and I had Red Fish with me who was only a year old.  It completely stressed me out to come up with projects that could be done by a large group of toddlers dressed in their Sunday finery.  The interesting thing is that it really pushed me to think about art and little kids.  It was what initially got me into thinking up projects for Red Fish.  I'm sure I would have gotten into art with my kids on my own but being a nursery leader gave me a jump-start into thinking about how I wanted to deal with art and toddlers.

Two Fish and I were recently released from working with the cub scouts in our neighborhood.  We've had nine year old boys over for weekly activities for the last year and a half.  It has been a huge learning experience for me.  Everything I know about dealing with a group of little boys came from growing up with brothers.  I don't have any boys of my own or any kids that age.  I was never a scout,  obviously.  Two Fish has three brother and was a scout but claims to remember nothing.  Since Two Fish work outside our home much more than I do, it made sense that I planned most of the activities.

Cub scouts is an amazing program!  I'm so impressed with all of the learning opportunities it provides.  I learned a lot while preparing their lessons and activities. The biggest thing I learned was how to deal with boys. I learned how to get a large group of wild little boys to settle down and concentrate on an activity.  That was a huge feat for me.  I got to teach them about the ocean and fish and some of my other passions.  We did art projects and built bird houses.  We passed over dozens of goals. For the most part, I really enjoyed my time with them!

In the last few weeks we had several guests come speak.  We talked about science, food, marketing and communication.  Then last week we cooked salt dough and made dinosaurs and habitats.  It was a lot of fun.  I think I am going to miss scouts.

Red Fish's island, cave and dinosaur.

The best part was that my little girls adored the cub scouts.  The boys were very kind to them and really let them be a part of the group.  The girls are devastated that "our cub scouts" won't be coming around anymore.

2:00AM

2:00am- New Fish is screaming in her room.  We are trying melatonin.  It is working some nights, not all nights.
4:00am- New Fish is screaming in her room.  
8:30am- Red Fish ready and out the door to school, do some training with my dog.  I am training him on and off all day right now trying to "fix" him.
9:15am-11:15am New Fish and I are ready and out the door to my office.  She colors, plays on her sister's toy computer and builds with blocks while I work. We pick up Red Fish from school on our way home.
 
 
11:30-12:30pm We go to the library.  Some weeks we are there for five minutes, others an hour.  It depends on how long they need to look at the books.  This week was an especially good library week because they were quiet and delighted to spend time looking around at books and showing them to each other. 

 12:30am- The girls play a singing and dancing game while I fix lunch and set up an art project.  They eat lunch and spend some time grooming the dog.  They are really into "fixing his hair" right now.  Good thing he loves to be brushed.

 

1:30pm- The girls do a matching shape collage.  It's mostly for New Fish's benefit but Red Fish likes making things so she doesn't care if it's to learn about shapes.  New Fish turns all of  her squares to the side and tells me they are diamonds not squares.  She will not accept any other opinions.

2:00pm- New Fish goes down for a nap and Red Fish has quiet time while I work on my laptop.

3:30pm- Red Fish and I play several rounds of go fish.  

4:00pm- New Fish wakes up and I'm trying to clean the kitchen.  Somehow I really need to get it into my head that I need to plan time to do nothing but hold New Fish when she wakes up.  I don't know why I try so hard to get anything else done when she so obviously desperately needs me to do nothing but hold her right then.

5:00pm- I desperately try and clean up the kitchen and get dinner ready. 

5:30pm- Give up and turn on tv for girls.  It helps mildly.

6:00pm- We scramble to eat dinner.  Grilled spicy honey chicken with salad and peas.  I ruined the potatos and they are inedible- I guess that's what happens when you try and clean, cook and take care of a cranky kid at the same time.

 

 6:30-7:45pm- Mommy is a little stressed as the cub scouts arrive and I'm trying to shove dinner's dishes into the washer.  Red Fish tells me "It's okay mommy, it's just the cub scouts.  This is not a big deal."  Thanks for the reminder.  We practice writing stories and thank you notes with the cub scouts to pass off one of their achievements.
7:45pm- Clean up from cub scouts.
8:00pm Start bedtime routine.  Reading, songs, jammies, teeth brushed, prayers etc.  Red Fish gets knocked off the bed.
8:30pm- Take injured Red Fish to my room to cuddle because she is so upset.
9:00pm- Red Fish in bed.
9:30pm- Watch tv and surf internet for intersting pictures to use in my design work.
10:30pm- start getting in bed.  Read a little, read scriptures, talk to Two Fish.  Wash face etc.
11:20pm- Bedtime.

Cub Scout Monsters

New Fish/Red Fish

 For cub scouts this week, we made Frankenstein's monster posters for our ward party coming up.  The kids brought magazines and cut them up to make new creations.  Red Fish and New Fish had fun trying their hand at some monsters as well.

Explosions

 For cubscouts last week, we were working on our science belt loop.  I decided to focus on explosions. 
 To help the girls be included, I had them make a volcano out of clay earlier in the day.  We used air dry clay around a plastic cup.  Red Fish is fascinated by lava right now so she was really excited about the project.  They thoroughly enjoyed painting on the red lava.

 We had a scientist (one of the boy's dad is a doctor) come and take them through some explanations of the scientific method I posted on our back fence.  Then he drew some of my blood and showed the boys how blood clots.

 After we had talked through doing an experiment we errupted the girl's volcano.  We discussed what we thought would happen if we combined the vinegar and baking soda in an enclosed space instead of letting it fizz out of the volcano.

 We put baking soda in tissues and vinegar in ziploc bags and then dropped the tissue in an zipped it up. 

 The boys were very excited about their "bombs."

The highlight of the night was trying out the diet Coke and Mentos experiments.  The video is very short but if you pay attention you can catch me being shot in the face by our first attempt.

Electricity

 Cub scouts is back in full swing again.  Red Fish is thrilled that "her cubscouts" are back.  She loves feeling like a part of the group.  Last night we learned all about electricity.  We talked about maintaining a loop, giving the battery a load and experimented with conductivity.  We also built a little buzzer and practiced typing out our names in Morse code.  They thought that was pretty awesome.

Look how excited they were when they completed the circuit and got the light-bulb to light.  It was so funny to watch them.

Snippets Of Life

 We like to use the grill and eat outside on our picnic blanket a lot during the warm weather.  As soon as Two Fish opens the grill, the girls start dragging our heavy blanket out there.  They love eating outside.  Tonight, the girls were cracking me up.  They were playing in the blanket and being so cute.

The cub scouts made bird houses tonight.  Apparently my carpentry skills leave a lot to be desired.  I think we only ended up with one house that might still be standing. 

Mask Night

Tonight we made masks in cub scouts. We made "clown masks" that they drew on and paper mache masks with construction paper. I didn't want to paint them later so we just made them colorful to begin with. New Fish colored one for awhile but got bored. Red Fish was right next to all of the boys the whole time copying everything they did. She loves cub scouts. It's kind of fun to watch her do projects next to them because she copies a lot of things that they do. I have a tendancy to tie some kind of art project or drawing into a lot of activities because it keeps them focused on our goal for the night. Plus, it plays to my strengths. I may not be the leader that will great with tying knots or building a bird house, but hopefully they are getting some good out of all of these projects!

On an unrelated note- it snowed today. We were so desperate to run around and play, we went to a fast food play place and played. That in my book is a signal of desperation since I have only taken Red Fish one other time before New Fish was born. We actually had a good time and Lovely N and Kid A came to join us. Yesterday we went to the dinosaur museum to play in the dirt. I'm running out of indoor fun.

On Thursdays

On thursday nights, my girls think they are cub scouts. Tonight we cooked playdough and made dinosaurs with mountains, canyons and rivers.

Stuff we've made lately

Now that we are more into cub scouts and having weekly acitivities, the girls think they are cub scouts as well. We had a night on eco conservation and ocean conservancy (don't worry I used smaller words) and we made posters on fish anatomy and how we can help protect endangered species. We did a collage of our own new species of fish. Red Fish used the scissors to make her own fish. It was pretty cute.


Red Fish is obsessed with the footprint ghosts. She must have made at least 50 of them lately. They are all over our house. Everyone must have their foot printed to make a ghost.

Now I remember why we didn't own any glitter. I don't think I was meant to work with it. Red Fish had a blast helping me make these pumpkins.

New Fish has discovered contact paper collages and she is a fan.

Red Fish is getting really good with the scissors. She loves cutting piece of yarn and small papers over and over.

Felt monster puppets have also been a hit around here.

Random Things

I'm in love with our playroom right now. It gets disastrously messy but the girls are playing together in there a lot. They like me to be in there but don't mind if I'm working or reading. They just want me to sit in the corner and keep them company. It feels like a whole new phase of life. They play together and fight together and bake pretend cookies. They have both turned into totally different little people recently.

New Fish likes to shake her head no at me but she can't do it without shaking most of her body. It's funny. She wants to wear necklaces everyplace and carry a purse full of small toys.

Red Fish is talking up a storm lately. One of her speech therapist told me today that her progress is truly amazing and I was so thrilled to hear it from someone who knows what they are talking about. Red Fish has become super helpful lately. She is suddenly old enough to really follow directions well and to remember how to help with certain small tasks. She is so sweet about it. She is also getting really good at speaking politely by using please, thank you etc.

Today at her preschool they had a speech integration specialist come talk to the parents. They demonstrated some simple techniques for helping stimulate the kids. They painted one of their feet and made a print. They had the kids play with pumpkin guts, soapy water, sand, slime etc. Then they gave us a list of activities to do at home. It kind of cracked me up because if a little dirt and paint is all it takes, I think our life is one big sensory activity pretty much. It was a nice feeling though because it just reaffirms how Red Fish was meant to be our child. If sensory integration is what she needs to progress- sensory activities are what she is going to get whether I'm aware of it or not.

It has been interesting doing art projects with a second child. New Fish is picking things up even faster because she has her idolized older sister to copy. Sometimes Red Fish has been coming up with the projects and then teaching New Fish how to do things. Yesterday, they scribbled papers with washable markers and then painted over them in water to smear the color.

Also, Two Fish and I have recently become cub scout leaders. I think we were called so we can learn how to relate to kids in the nine year old age bracket. Turns out that I don't relate very well to them thus far. I'm good with the small kids and okay with teenagers but I think it will do me some good to spend some time with the middle ages. It's interesting trying to learn how to teach them small projects and goals. Any and all tips or den meeting ideas are welcome from my fellow cub scout leaders out there in blogland. Tonight we did first aid and my brother J came over to help. Red Fish and New Fish assume that they are also cub scouts and they hung on J's every word. They are going to be practicing CPR on their baby dolls, I'm sure. Red Fish was a little bummed that she couldn't do the chest compressions hard enough on the mannequin to make it's heart beat. She was looking for his sternum and stacking her hands exactly as directed though. It was pretty cute.

So that's it. Just random things from my busy, crazy life.