Van d'Eau

Every once in a while you'll get an idea/inspiration from somewhere that's so simple but so GREAT. This happened to us last weekend. On Saturday we were passing by a neighbors house at 8PM (way too late to be out w/the kids walking but Saul dilly-dallied at the park shooting pix) and she was bringing out a small bucket of water and some (art) paintbrushes for her daughter Jenna to play with. I thought wow, what a great idea, "painting" with water on the sidewalk. Now let me step back, painting can bring about thoughts of messes and cleaning so we usually saved painting with Miles for warm days and we've never let the babies paint because, well, they're only 20 months but they've just started experimenting at daycare. Now that the weather has turned it's perfect painting outside weather (no I don't know if we'll ever let our 3 monkeys paint inside), but the mess issue still causes us to pause with concern over such a project. BUT thanks to Jenna's house, I thought let's let our little artists "paint" with water when we were in the backyard yesterday on a very hot pre-summer's day.

What a brilliant idea. They amused themselves for quite a while as Saul and I hung out sipping wine and not doing a thing. No paint, no mess, just water and paint brushes on the ground and the kids loved it. I have an idea we'll be bringing out the paints this Summer but until the perfect time/day hits us, the kids will be painting with DWP's finest.

Managing TV Time - The Sanity Sanity Saver

Kids TV programing can be awful. For $5 or $10 per month you can get DVR through your cable company and there's absolutely no reason your household needs to be subjected to Teletubbies or Barney. Our kids are young enough where they don't understand that there are a number of shows on at any given time. We pick shows out that we like to watch, record them and let the kids watch what we like/want. And all 3 have learned sign language thanks to Signing Time. Here's what the kids "programming" is on the Lewis family TV:

Jack's Big Music Show (Noggin)
Backyardigans (Noggin & Nick Jr.)
Wonder Pets (Noggin & Nick Jr.)
Miss Sunny's Spider Patch (Noggin)
The Upside Down Show (Noggin)
Signing Time (PBS)

We give them their TV Time/Downtime here and there for their enjoyment and our sanity, and in between our favorite Pixar movies and Pee Wee's Playhouse DVD's this is all they get on TV (oh maybe except for Mom's cooking shows and Dad's motorcycle racing). And luckily Saul and I can handle these shows and I usually catch Saul immersed in them too. My favorite is turning on Jack's Big Music Show where we can all get silly and dance and sing.