I’ll get to the confetti thing in a sec, but I have to include a preamble that sums up my day. Feel free to scroll on down if you’re not in the mood for self-indulgent sleep-writing.
This whole transition from mommy of one to mommy of two has been, more than anything else (except an over pouring of true love), just plain tiring. Exhausted is pretty much my normal state of being, especially since my kids quite literally never stop moving. Both started crawling (or scooting/crawling/scrawling) well before 5 months old, and I can barely remember a time when a baby wasn’t rolling or climbing up on something. K can now pull to a stand and tumble out of any bed or play area that isn’t mountain high or Fort Knox protected. In fact, just today she nearly gave me a heart attack by flipping head first off the bed and somersaulting into a (thankfully) filled hamper of blankets. She landed in a terribly precarious position and was quite scared for a few seconds before she became a hummingbird again. I had been next to her in the bed, attempting to get some quiet cuddle time (she doesn’t really do tranquil cuddles unless she’s being worn or sleeping, in which case she wants to be held tight). See, last night left me with NO sleep — or to be specific, 5 hours of broken sleep wherein K woke up every hour until we both moved into the nursery and crashed for 40 minutes, awakening when Raya began throwing a piercing tantrum because no one was in the living room playing with her. So I guess I’m giving myself some slack for zoning out momentarily and allowing K to slip right past me. After all, I haven’t slept more than 3 hours in a row since March, and at this point, I’d perform a lot of silly acts to get back to 3-hour stretches.
Anyhow, the confetti activity was sort of born of my fatigue. The thing is, Sundays used to be the perfect day for being tired and doing nothing. I’d love to rest, read, play on my phone and watch trashy (and too-embarrassing-to name) reality television on the E! network. But now I have littles, and if we’re home all day with nothing on the agenda, Raya ends up watching waaay too much tv. I don’t care too much about the whole screen time debate and we probably allow R to watch more than she should. But the thing is, nowadays, with two mini crazies, if one kid is wide awake, wild and demanding, what’s the point of the other indulging in precious tv time (a.k.a. mommy off duty time)? I like shooting all the little birdies with one stone. So in times like these (tired and lazy), I turn to crafts. Many of my mom friends find crafting with kids to be too messy or require too much planning, but for me it’s truly enjoyable and almost a break. It demands more energy than tv time, obvio, but less energy than make-believe (our make believe is extensive) or running around outside.
So I strapped K in the Ergo (her absolute favorite place to nap), pried my eyes about 3/4 open and combed the house for new artsy stuff. I found an abandoned wooden open-face box that once held a Melissa and Doug velcro fruit set (M and D, can you put covers on your awesome toys??), a can of green confetti (see the grab bag video!), sequins, glitter, paint and mod podge. We decided to make a decorative tray to use for a toy habitat, tea parties or display.
1. R squeezes mod podge into the box and spreads it around with a brush, covering all areas of the bottom.
2. R pours the confetti into the box and spreads it around with her hand, patting it down.
3. R pours more mod podge and then glitter and sequins on top of the layer of confetti.
4. R paints the sides of the box while waiting for the mod podge to dry.
5. R waits an hour and doesn’t want to finish the project but finally cons her way into getting a lollipop which provides her with frenzied fuel. She then tops everything off with one final coat of mod podge as a sealant so the tray can be useable. *We continued to spread and pat down the confetti throughout the project. Using smaller confetti is recommended.
ARTY MOMMY 