Not all milestones are hallmark moments...

I've been breathlessly awaiting the first time my son would...

You know those milestones... first smile, first step, first laugh, first word, first "I love you," first mumbled "whatever" Hmm. Well not that last one so much.

My newly minted five year old responded to a perfectly polite request for him to hang his coat up in the closet with a "whatever" mumbled under his breath. It was delivered with perfect sitcom accuracy in insolent tone. Where on earth did he pick that up?

I'll admit. I overreacted. Now it was like I was acting the sitcom moment. I, completely on autopilot, responded with, "What did you just say to me, Michael ______ _______?!?" He instantly knew I was pissed and that he had committed some major transgression. He just couldn't figure out what he had done. He froze in his sulky tracks and looked back over his shoulder at me inquiringly.

I repeated my incredulous "What did you just say to me?" question. He responded with a much more tentative "whatever." I vehemently explained that using that word was unacceptable in our house and that it was extremely rude and I never wanted to hear it again.

He wandered over for a hug and some reassurance and looked up at me and asked, "What does that word mean, Mama?" -- He didn't even know what it meant!!

In retrospect, he was experimenting. He had heard the term used at some point (possibly at preschool?), and made some fairly accurate assumptions, based on context, about when and how to use a new vocabulary word. He just didn't really understand the specifics. He decided to try it out at what seemed to him to be an appropriate moment.

I explained that using the word "whatever" tells the person you're talking to that you don't care about what they are saying and that using that word hurts people's feelings and is extremely rude.

I'm pretty sure he won't use the word again for a while and that he mostly understands why. Still, not a conversation I was expecting to have with my five year old.

Busy Bags Revisited

We are gearing up for another long car ride. We're driving 12ish hours down to New Orleans and then back. I dug out the busy bags yesterday. The busy bags were a mess after using them several months ago and needed to be sorted and refreshed.

I made a few new ones to replace some that didn't work well for my children.

Key Match

Go to a home improvement store and politely ask the key guy if you can dig through his discard bin. Choose as many keys as you can that have differently shaped heads. Gently place the keys on a photocopier and made a copy. Now you have a key matching activity. (You might want to wash the keys. They'll be pretty dirty.)

Lego Patterns

Make some towers out of basic lego bricks. Form a pattern with the colors. Then draw pattern cards leaving the bottom block blank with a question mark inside. Take your towers back apart and toss the individual bricks and pattern cards into a bag.

Dry Erase Tracing Cards

I printed some alphabet cards and some tracing activities and slid them into card protectors held together by rings (bought at Wal-mart). I stuck the set of dry erase tracing cards into a bag with some dry erase markers and a piece of felt for erasing.

Cutting and Drawing

A pair of scissors, crayons, and some cutting and drawing activities from a book of reproducibles went into this new bag. They will just sort through the pile of activities until they find one they like and then go to it.

Organization

Once all the bags were refreshed and ready to go I just "filed" them in appropriately sized boxes. (To see detailed descriptions of the contents of the rest of the bags, click busy bags.) I pull one from the front and when they're finished with the bag I move it to the back of the box. I keep one box at my feet so I can easily pull out another bag whenever one is requested.

I also made some lap trays lined with felt. Lots of the bags have multiple parts (beads, legos, keys, etc.) and they just open the bag and dump it into their tray. The felt keeps the small pieces from sliding around too much. This gives them some working/play space when they're buckled into their carseats. When they're done, they have to return all the parts to the bag before they can give it back.

The trays are also useful when feeding the kids in the car because they minimize crumbs and spills everywhere. I just pull out the felt during the meal and shake the crumbs out of the box and return the felt to the bottom after the meal.

If you like these activities, you may be interested in more.

• Car Ride Activities Set 1
• Car Ride Activities Set 2
• Car Ride Activities Set 3
• Car Ride Activities Set 4
• Car Ride Activities Set 5
• Car Ride Activities Set 6
• Car Ride Activities Set 7

Not as planned

Have you ever noticed that some projects just never go as quickly as you anticipated? Then, four hours later, you give up - less than half done - brimming over with irritation at the wasted time.

In my mind's eye, I had an hour-long project in mind. I'd do the project (getting something I needed to get done for the children at school) and then I'd write a nice blog post about how well it went. The project? Making 5 holiday cards for each child to send to a local nursing home.

I had recently gotten an email from Cricut about buying holiday card templates for $0.99. The plan was:

1. Purchase template instantly online.
2. Print 10 cards.
3. Print 10 liners.
4. Print 10 envelopes.
5. Assemble cards.
6. Have children draw picture and write names in cards.
7. Finish project. Take pictures. Write lovely blog post about project.

Reality:

1. Realize the cricut machine is not actually plugged in and spend 45 minutes digging behind desk for unattached cords.
2. Spend 30 minutes testing a free template before deciding it won't work.
3. Forget password and spend 15 minutes changing password so that I can log in and buy template.
4. Spend an hour printing (very nice) cards.
   
   
5. Spend 10 minutes designing liners. Print first one. Realize that the center of the "e" and "a" will have to be glued in to every single card.
   
   
6. Spend a half hour trying to fix that problem. Decide it can't be done and that you don't care if the center of the "e" and "a" are missing on the final cards.
7. Print two liners and decide to assemble those two cards for some positive reinforcement. The cards look great. Feel slightly better.
   
   
8. Vow that you will finish this project if it takes you until midnight.
9. Run out of glue.
   
   
10. Quit with only 2/10 cards done and no envelopes done.
11. Simmer in resentment that you will have to return to this project another day.
12. Write a slightly whiny and venty blog post about the frustrating experience.