Tag: Emmy

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A Cheap…ahem–what I meant to say is: A Frugal Fix

Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper this week is all about Arts and Crafts…and I have done neither in the past few years that don’t involved washable paints or crayons. Oh, and there was the ribbon project I completed a couple of weeks ago….

This project all started when Lily asked her daddy why there were loops on the ends of her handlebars. Her bike is a hand-me-down from a neighbor, and the tassels that used to hang there no longer exist. So after Ed explained that there used to be ribbons hanging from the handlebars, we all piled into the car, and drove to Walmart to find new ribbons.

The only bike tassels at Walmart came in a package along with a Barbie basket and bike bell. It cost around $8.00. Ed said he was thinking bike tassels would be more along the lines of two dollars, especially since if we bought Lily the Barbie basket package, we’d need to buy Emmy one too and would end up spending $16.00.

If I had been by myself (what was I thinking when I typed that? By myself…hmm, interesting concept…) Anyway, if I had been with just Lily and Emmy, I probably would have bought the baskets. I’m a sucker for my little girls. Ed is too, but he’s a little more, well, economical than I am.

So we traipsed on over the the gift wrap section, and bought a three pack of wrapping ribbon–pink, purple, and silver– for about two-fifty. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” says Ed.

When we got home, I had to figure out how to attach the ribbons to the bikes. I looked in my craft box left over from my crafty days, and found some pink pipe cleaners. Perfect!

I don’t know how long these will hold up, but the girls like the sparkle they add to their bikes.

Emmy posing on her tricycle. She hasn’t figured out how to pedal yet, but she still loves her bike.

Emmy’s trike–It’s been rainy and cold, so these haven’t had a chance to fall off yet!

Lily is showing me how sparkly her ribbons are.

Lily on her bike–with ribbons!

*Normally I am entirely against wearing flip-flops while riding a bicycle due to damage inflicted on my own toes when I rode my bike without shoes as a little kid, BUT we just came outside for a couple of minutes on a rainy afternoon, so Lily decided to wear shoes that COULD get wet, which just so happened to be her flip-flops, which she wore to the pool this summer. I just wanted to clear that up.

**Oh, and Lily refused to wear her jacket since we were only going out to get the mail, originally, until I saw the bikes, and then saw the RIBBONS, and thought of SPIN CYCLE, so I ran to get my camera and we were outside longer than I thought we’d be!

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Sick Day

Bear Feels SickLily is sick, so this is her sick day, not mine. She is sitting on the couch, sneezing and sniffling and coughing, poor thing. I think she’ll stay home from preschool today, and we’ll do things like snuggle and read Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson and drink lots of juice. And maybe watch a movie. Emmy, who feels perfectly well, is already pestering her sister unmercifully, so I can see it will also be a day of refereeing.

Whenever one of my children is sick, I think of this poem by A. A. Milne, from Now We Are Six:

Christopher Robin
Had wheezles
And sneezles,
They bundled him
Into
His bed.
They gave him what goes
With a cold in the nose,
And some more for a cold
In the head.
They wondered
If wheezles
Could turn
Into measles,
If sneezles
Would turn
Into mumps;
They examined his chest
For a rash,
And the rest
Of his body for swellings and lumps.
They sent for some doctors
In sneezles
And wheezles
To tell them what ought
To be done.

All sorts and conditions
of famous physicians
Came hurrying around
At a run.
They all made a note
Of the state of his throat
They asked if he suffered from thirst;
They asked if the sneezles
Came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezle
Came first.
They said, “If you teazle
A sneezle
Or wheezle,
A measle
May easily grow.
But humour or pleazle
The wheezle
Or sneezle,
The measle
Will certainly go.”
They expounded the reazles
For sneezles
And wheezles,
The manner of measles
When new.
They said, “If he freezles
In draughts and in breezles,
Then PHTHEEZLES
May even ensue.”

Christopher Robin
Got up in the morning,
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky,
“Now, how to amuse them today?”