Sneaky Music Theory

We have struggled to get our six year old interested in playing piano.  The older two love it and even ask for us to find certain songs that they can learn and play in their free time.  My husband (the piano teacher) had enough a couple days ago and vented to me that he didn't know what to do to get the kid learning the notes properly.

I brainstormed and came up with this fun idea which combines snack time with music theory.  At the end of snack time yesterday, the youngest asked, "Can we do this snack again tomorrow?"  Yes, please!

We made up a word list of all the note-names on the piano (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), Then I had the kids spell the words with their snack mix on the music staff...

I told the kids that once they were done, they

could spell any word they wanted and they'd

get as many M&Ms as letters they used.

 B-E-A-D-E-D

 D-E-A-D

A good time was had by all!

All Night Long

How we finally got our 6 year old son to stay dry at night!

Sometimes I write about funny things; sometimes I write about life events. This time, I'm writing about something personal and kind of gross.  Poop.  And night-time peeing.

So if you don't like reading about poop or pee, go away.  If you'd like to know how we got our son to finally stay dry at night, please pull up a chair and listen to our story.

The boy has had no problems in the daytime since he was 3.5 years old.  He's never been consistently dry at night.  It got to the point that we bought cloth pull-ups (Super Undies!) to save money.

My very good friend told me about a book called "It's No Accident: Breakthrough Solutions to Your Child's Wetting, Constipation, UTIs, and Other Potty Problems" by Steve J Hodges, MD.  I read it and it was like a light bulb went on in my head about what the problem might be.  Constipation!  Armed with the knowledge from the book, we tried a "natural" laxative called lactulose but it didn't seem to do too much.  We got lazy about it since it wasn't consistently working and went back to doing the "same old same old."

A few months later, we were approaching The Boy's 7th birthday.  Age Seven seems to be the benchmark age at which doctors start seriously considering night-time bed-wetting issues.  So we made our appointment and went in.  The doctor asked a few questions and determined that The Boy had an overactive bladder (something that will correct itself over time.)

Then he had The Boy get up on the examination table.  After listening to his bowels moving (how cool is that???) he said, "His bowels aren't moving quickly enough."  I didn't know you could hear that with a stethoscope.  Now I want a stethoscope of my own so I can listen to all the different body sounds we've got going on.

He didn't give me his stethoscope, but he gave me something much better, ground-breaking advice.  Are you ready for it?  Do you want your world to be rocked?  No more night-time laundry?  Here's what he told us to do:

"Give The Boy a smoothie each morning.  Put some ground flax seed in it.  Put lots of fresh fruit in it; veggies too if he'll tolerate them.  Then, get him up to pee every night.  Do this for a year.  Come back if you have any problems."

At this point I'm thinking, "We've kind of already tried that.  Okay, not exactly like you said, but we've done the laxative thing and we've tried getting him up at night.  Maybe not together and maybe not every day.  I'll try it, but I'm pretty sure this isn't going to work."  


And then we got home.  We made smoothies.  The Boy even got to pick the colour of the smoothies.  (Green was fun.  He didn't even blink when I told him it had kale in it.  He likes kale chips.)  We got him up to pee every night before we went to bed.  And he was dry the second night we started.  Then the third night, and fourth, and fifth.  We've been doing this for three and a half weeks, and he's only had one night-time accident, the night after we forgot to make the smoothies.

It works!  

Two nights ago, as the kids were getting ready for bed an hour early, The Boy asked, "Mom, do I need to put SuperUndies on right now?"  I told him not to bother wearing them that night.  And last night too.  It may be a bit premature to be throwing a "Dry Nights Party", but we're fairly excited to have had this many dry nights.

If you're interested, here's what we do for our smoothie (which all three kids and I drink, The Boy getting the full cup before we divvy up the rest.)

Flax seed smoothie!

1 banana
1/2 cup to 1 cup of your favourite berries
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
1 small yogurt
1.5 cups juice 

Blend with hand blender.  Serve.  Enjoy.  
Check teeth for seeds.

(If you want to change it up, instead of yogurt and juice put milk with chocolate sauce.  The kids thought that was a great treat!)

If you've had success or if you're struggling with your own child's night-time bed-wetting, I'd love to hear what you've tried.  Drop me a line or two in the comments section!

Funnies from Riley

Two nights ago I made homemade lasagna, complete with hand-cranked lasagna noodles.

 Last night I waxed my eyebrows and left the strips to dry as usual.

This morning, my eight-year-old daughter walked into our bedroom and asked, "Dad, why is Mom making little lasagna noodles in the bathroom?"

 

Need some calamine lotion for that?

I've been noticeably silent for a while.  While I'm sure some of you have been thankful for that, I've been feeling guilty about ignoring you for so long.  After spending a busy summer running around with my family and my new business, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. 

Curiously, I find myself even busier.  But I'm more focused now, too.  I've re-dedicated myself to being there for my kids when they need me and to providing a safe and healthy home for them.  Part of what that means is that I'm making even more of an effort to cook things from scratch.  I realize that cooking from scratch means different things to different people.  I want to see how scratchy I can get in my cooking.  Today I rendered lard.  If you don't know what that is you'll find out soon enough (but only if you want to.)

I like this blog as it gives me a place to be random.  But I've also felt that with my new semi-organized self it made more sense to have a blog dedicated to the "from scratch" stuff that I do.  So, I will be posting homemade, from scratch stuff on another blog called "Scratch That".  (Check it out to see about the rendering lard thing-a-ma-hooey.)  I'll try to keep up over here too, but I really felt like I needed to have a different place to try to be "scratchy".  So I hope you join me over on the other side.

The daily anatomy lessons are paying off

I wrote this note two years ago and came across it this morning.  It was too cute not to share.  I'll be posting a few of these to my blog, just to have them over here where friends and family can read about the funny things my kids did when they were dirst learning how the world works.

June 2009...
The other day, over dinner, the word "bride" came up in conversation.  The four year old girl piped up with, "I know what a bride is!" My hubby asked her what it was so she explained...


4 yr old girl: A bride is the thing that moms put over their boobs to keep them from popping.
Dad: What?
4 yr old girl: A bride is the thing that moms put over their boobs to keep them from popping.
Dad: What happens if they don't have a bride on?
4 yr old girl: Their boobs pop!
Dad: How do they pop?
4 yr old girl: They just go *insert hand motions that show her breasts exploding*
Me: Well what about when moms are in the shower and they don't have anything on? Do they pop then?
4 yr old girl: Well no, well, I don't know. *laughing and slightly embarrassed* No, they don't!

We set her straight on the difference between a bra and a bride. :-)

But then today in church...

Our Pastor asked our three elders' wives to pray for a woman who is going in for surgery later this week. As we all sat with our heads bowed, The three year old (who was on my lap) nestled his head back onto my chest in an attempt to be quiet, yet comfortable. I think it was that very action that prompted him to whisper to me, mid-prayer, "Mom, you should be praying for that lady too, because you have boobs too."

I promise, we don't just talk about female anatomy all day. It does seem to fascinate the younger two children right now though.