Redirecting: Just stories.

"You can't get on this truck," the 3-year-old boy said, towering from above as we walked into a new, unfamiliar mall play area. "It's for big kids. And, you're babies!"
Redirect to the slide.
Boy scurries over to the slide, hops on and blocks all entrances.
"You can't come up here. This is for Big Kids and you're babies."
Redirect to the airplane.
Boy runs over and hops onto a wing.
"You can't come up here. This airplane is for Big Kids and you're babies."
Redirect to other side where babyish toys stand. Spot half-dozing grandmother not paying an ounce of attention to boy.
"Is that your child?"
"Yes, did he do something?"
"Well, yes, he's blocking the equipment so my daughters cannot get on and calling them babies."
"Thank you for telling me."
Redirect to another location while grandmother scolds boy and makes him apologize.
"I'm sorry, Big Kids!" the boy yelled passing by and leaving them alone.

*****

An hour before dinner. A beautiful afternoon after a groggy rainy day. Wheels.
We were off for a walk.
Redirect. The story of my life right now. Redirect. Redirect. Redirect.
"Let's try a new walk today," I ring out.
"Yeah," the girls say, not knowing where we were heading in the first place.
"Walk," Jadyn whines.
"Walk!"
"We have to drive there, OK?"
"Walk!"
When we arrive we instantly see a dog romping through the grass.
My heart races. We've committed. There's no turning back without crying. Lots of it.
I hesitate. I wait.
Doggie goes off in the distance.
We get out and start walking.
We see more dogs. More dogs. More dogs.
I'm nervous, wondering how I get myself into these situations.
We walk to the edge where there are about a dozen dogs playing off leash in what is not a dog park.
An older man with his dog are about to leave and spot us. He trots his dog Mindy over and we meet.
"You don't want to go over there," he said. "Not with them."
"I wasn't going to," I tell him, adding that my daughters love to "hug" dogs.
"I'm John; who are you?"
We introduce ourselves, share the news that we've never been to this park before.
"You walking back?" he motions.
"Yes, let's walk back to the car with Mindy," I say.
Liana turns with a smile and reaches up with her small, soft hand for John's hand.
She manages to grab his two aging fingers and hang on to them for the whole walk back.
It was a hard good-bye, leaving all of those dogs and John who was standing there, flopping his hat on and off for amusement.
Jadyn and Liana tossed him a kiss and he beamed as we drove away.

How about you? Have any fun moments to share that involve your kids? Something that gets you out of your comfort zone a bit, breaks your own long standing rules? Something your glad you got out of the car for?


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Shake, shake, shake ...

Our letting go of the rules fun this week was going to be about traveling to Daddy's work, hitting a kid museum ... but then this morning we were struck by the Fun Bug that I wanted to share. I didn't get any pictures ...

But, for Easter Mom Mom gave Dan a box of Easter eggs filled with candy. We hid them from the Monsters because they aren't child-friendly and we don't give them candy anyway.

I just remembered that they were hidden this morning. I got them down to inspect them and realized as I pulled them out of the box that they would be more than just Easter eggs. They are clear plastic and filled with bright colored hard candies like carrots.

Perfect! Music is the one element of fun that I try to mix into our day, whether it be making our own, listening or dancing. It always brings a certain vibrancy to our day and so I know it's an essential ingredient to our better days.

They were already made shaker eggs, which among our clan is a big, big, big deal.

So, in a circle before the breakfast dishes were cleared we had this fun:

Shake them
Shake them up high
Tap them on the floor
Shake them behind your back
Shake them by your ears
Shake them on your belly
Shake them between your legs
Shake them down low
Shake them to the side
Shake them to the other side
Tap them together
Shake them fast
Shake them slow
(and the last two were so popular that we did that a few times)

We ended with Roll Them, which became a new game in itself.

To make your own egg shakers go here. I suspect that next year, I'll find some new items to store inside to mix it up a bit. But, for now, I think we've found a new fun game to start our mornings with ... add a little music, and let the FUN begin.


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Fun, fun, fun

Do you have any new Fun for Moms ideas to share this week? Time has slipped before my eyes and I have evidence of fun, but it will have to be posted later today.

In the meantime, how about linking to a post you've written in the past that involved having some Fun with your Kids ... doesn't have to include pictures or it could. Doesn't have to be long, but it may be.

What's your idea of having fun with your kids? Leave a comment or a link with Mr. Linky.



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Gimme an F; Gimme a U; Gimme an N!

The Mother of all Fun Blog Injections is back and it's your turn to share some fun with other moms who might need a new fun idea or a laugh. Please share your best fun moments from this past week in Mr. Linky. They can be messy, dressy or just plain weird. Write it, snap it, brief it, too.

Have fun with it!




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Where in the world was our FUN?

Fun was many places and came in many forms this week. Just in time, too, because both girls caught a cold late in the week. Hip Hip Horray for colds landing on a weekend! Fun this week meant trying to say yes more even when it might have been inconvenient to the schedule or to the Purse. We hosted a play date, went to Gymboree, went to two parks and took a long walk.

I saw a bit of a transition this week as I look back at our pictures. Jadyn and Liana are really becoming best friends and happy sisters. That is ... until they aren't and then, well, a girl has to do what a girl has to do: Check it out:

Here, Liana helps Jadyn after a slip at Gymboree, which the girls just LOVE to no end. I love it, too, actually.


Here the girls set up their chairs to sit in front of each other. Very cute, and best friend-like!


Then, at a local park they watched a fountain together.



Smelled flowers together ...


Later, they shared a snack side by side.

But then ... this happened:




Uh-Oh, as the girls say. Somebody got mad at somebody else for a little privacy invasion. J insisted Elmo be a part of our outside play, which I at first didn't agree with but relented nonetheless.

Turns out, it was kind of fun ... a girl without a playmate has to do something, right?










Later, after the sisters made up ... they created art together on our door. But, J wasn't about to push Elmo too far away -- just in case she crosses that privacy line, again.










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That F-Word Project

Did you have any fun this week? Extra special fun? The kind you are willing to share, proudly?

This weekly project is designed to help all of us stay awake to the fun in our lives and maybe even go out of our way to have a little more even when there's a really long list of things to do.

If you're new here, or you just didn't have any fun last week, perhaps you'll pick up some ideas for next week here among the F-U-N posts.

Please leave the link to your URL of your FUN post in Mr. Linky. Thanks!





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Can you say Messy?

This is my 301st post. A year ago this week, I started posting regularly on this blog and much of my posts were related to toddler activities like this one, or this one. Kind of like it is right now, actually.

Spring fever has settled in and this is my version of trying to stay sane, I guess. I've been setting our days up like a preschool day since the girls were 10 months old. But, this latest project is new in that I've never sat back and truly sought out the fun worth sharing with real life people.

I learned a lot this week as I put our level of fun under a microscope. I had lapsed into a bit of Mom-coma over the winter and forgotten to take my shoes off and stay a while. I also realized that some parts of our days, no matter how hard I try, are just not fun at all and that's because I have two 2-year-olds. In fact, there are parts of our days that are just plain awful and we really are spending 15 minutes arguing over who gets to wear THOSE yellow pants or when you turn your head and the next thing you know you have two toddlers completely naked for the fifth time that day.

And, then there's pee-pee inside the ottoman.

But, I also realized that we do have fun and much like I figured this project would highlight, it's also all about how the mind is willing to sit and soak up the fun. OK, so some of the fun might not have been my idea of fun, say, two or three years ago. But, it's still fun.

Fun took shape in a few forms this week.

While it was still cold all but one afternoon, we managed to get outside for some sunshine. On Tuesday, when it was warm, they splashed in a mud puddle. I true mud puddle. And they got dirty beyond belief ... which led to their very first shower, which was another mess in itself. But, they had a blast with both and so did I. Could I have been more fun? Yup ... I could have jumped in that puddle, too. But, I didn't. Maybe next time.

We also did some projects this week like puffy painting -- which was such a messy activity that I was only able to take one picture. This one:

But, the Fun I'm highlighting this week is the fact that we participated -- a wee bit late -- in another project I stumbled upon thanks to one of my new readers, Michie. The Unplugged Project is all about stepping away from the TV and doing something creative with your children. I'm all about that since we don't really watch TV here during the day except for one half hour.

Each week, Unplugged Mama picks a theme and you are supposed to do anything you want with your kids related to that theme. This week's theme was rocks. Next week's theme is books. Cool, right?

So, rocks. Yeah, my girls love rocks. And, we have a ton of them in our driveway. I stole our idea for this week's theme from Toddlebits, another participator in the project, which is a bit of a cheat ... I realize, but I knew it would work for us.

And, it was a real blast.

When Jadyn and Liana stopped drenching the rocks with paint, they painted paper towels, which turned out nice enough so we moved on to construction paper -- six sheets of it!

The girls had a great time with the paint -- as you can see. Yup. We had F-U-N this week!



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The F-U-N MEME for Moms

What kinds of fun did you have with your kids this week? Was it messy? Chaotic? Did it make you giggle? Were you in the moment enough to remember? Did you stay awake long enough to realize it was, indeed, fun?

Candace had an awesome amount of fun with a spontaneous trip to the beach with her toddler daughter. You go, girl! That's what I'm talking about!

How about you? Care to share your FUN ideas and proud moments with other moms who just today might need a pick-me-up, or a new idea or just the realization that there are fun times even in not-so-fun weeks???

If so, please leave your Name and URL below with Mr. Linky (if he's working) or email me at ubertwins at gmail dot com if you struggle.

Edited to add: Wow, I did it! It really is cool being JUST A MOM.

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Girly, 2-year-old FUN

We have had some fun this week despite being without a car some days, without being able to go outside for fresh air nearly every day thanks to wonderful painters painting our home on all four sides and rainy, cold weather the rest of the time.

So, I think we had some fun? Wait, did we have any fun?

I jest, of course. But, this is not the best starter week for us, I'll admit. My game is off with so many factors getting in my way this week and I do have high hopes for some major fun crafts and a play date today. I'd normally publish pictures of our bubble blowing moments ... but, um, did that already on Wednesday.

Oh, the joys of mothering!

But, for this Awesome Carnival ride, I'm going to focus on one of our favorite things to do around here: dress up -- as in one of us dresses up and the others gawk and laugh at her silliness! In this case, Jadyn did the dressing up, Liana threw a fit (but smiled later) and I snapped all the photos I could. The lighting is terrible, though, so sorry about that. Oh, and don't they look like we're having a total blast? (cough. cough.)





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The F-U-N Injection

So, I've been thinking all week (yes, it feels like Sunday right now) about how we can inject a little more fun into our roles as mothers, even when things feel just a little bit dull.

My real-life friend Deanna, mother of twin boys who are also 2, said she feels like every day is just about the same. Slightly different, but always very similar to the day prior.

And, since I've already confessed that lately dishes have seemed more fun than refereeing my daughters' play ...

Several of you chimed in comiserating with my words, helping me understand that A.) 2 is just a hard age and B.) All ages are hard ages.

So, for this challenge I'll need you to help -- a lot, actually.

Here it is: The F-U-N Injection Challenge: Highlighting the fun in Motherhood.

Many of life's great mysteries is the ability for our minds to play tricks on us and, I feel this is especially easy when two toddlers are fighting over which page you should read next, or when both want to wear the one and only pair of cupcake pajamas.

Sure, motherhood is hard and we all relate to that, but we all know that there is a lot of AWESOME involved.

I'd like to give the blogosphere a chance to highlight those -- kind of like my Mad Mama Cow experience. Sure, it was scary, but to this day it's down in history as one of the bravest experiences of my life. Earlier this week I took the girls on a ride up an escalator at the mall. It only took three tries and a lovely Sears employee to spot me from behind to do so ... but I did it! (We took the elevator down. R U Nuts?)

So, each Friday, this blog will unite mothers everywhere who have shared their proudest F-U-N moments of that week with other Mamas, giving new ideas about activities, events, decisions and moments proving that motherhood can be described with more than one F-word.

Need some examples of FUN other than being chased by a Mad Mama Cow?

How about coloring -- under the dining room table?

How about creating a new tradition -- and celebrating it?

How about doing something utterly, frustratingly, messy? And loving it!

How about turning everything upside, including the (gasp!) schedule?

How about creating a new game, including the rules?

The more "outside the box" the idea, the better it will be to share -- and write about.

But, Shawn, how can I share these F-U-N events of my week as a mother?

Good question.

You can do anything your heart desires as long as you post about said F-U-N anytime during the week on your blog with a link to this post, Between the Lines, mentioning The Carnival of F-U-N for Moms.

You may share a photo (or a photo collage or a series of photos) of your fun and leave it at that. Perhaps a short but sweet post is all that is necessary that week. Or, you might feel a narrative, a poem or a short story would be more fitting. This is a writer's blog, too, so the creative license is entirely yours to have and to hold. The idea is really to give other moms some new ideas as well as help us all point out the obvious -- or not so obvious -- fun aspects of being a mom in this century. (FYI -- Other bloggers participate in Haiku Friday, so this would be a big bang for your buck to combine the two, if you are into that sort of thing). Your fun might just be an after thought to another post and that's OK, too.

Of course, the Zen practice in this Carnival is being fully aware of each moment of each week about what is fun. Will we be awake for it? Will we be open to it? Will our idea of fun change over time?

Or, worse case scenario, no one participates at all and we, mothers everywhere, are proving beyond a doubt that we are, indeed, bored beyond hope.

Please join me this Friday with the first ever Carnival of F-U-N for Moms. Just email me the link to your direct post once your post is up at ubertwins at gmail dot com. You can post your F-U-N anytime during the week, but my list will go up on Friday mornings.

Please spread the word so more moms can participate and the more ideas we'll be able to share.

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