Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Boxtopia: Special election day edition



The following speech excerpts are available courtesy of the Daddie for House Mayor 2011 Campaign:

Children of the Hunefeld family, we gather here, poised at a crossroads with an opportunity to create a new boxmopolitan society housed in a gleaming boxtropolis such as eyes have never seen.  If you choose me, Daddie, to be mayor of your boxy city, I will lead us to create a new reality, right here in this living room.  Envision a city of the purest cardboard, where everyone sleeps all night all the time, where noses are always dry, where there is no hysterical crying because of incidental bumping, and no one pitches a fit because they have the wrong spoon.  Also, not because their sibling has the preferred, identical spoon.   In this new world, everyone will be content with the toy in their hand and will not be tempted by the toy in their sibling's hand or neighbor's house.  Yes!  We can usher in an era of lactose tolerance, of listening the first time, and of putting our own mittens on, even getting the thumb part right!
skeptical voter
We can build this new world today... out of boxes! Yes, the same boxes that have been accumulating in the back porch, never quite making it to the recycle bin.  Then there's that awesome cardboard tube that came in the Giant Bubble Wrap.  That thing should be fun for something.  Hey, we can even blow the dust off of those mysterious dirty boxes in the basement, trusting that any animal remains we may encounter do not carry disease!

Friends, if we can dream it, with teamwork we can build it together.  To that point, some might say, "I can dream a house with pockets right on the front like a pair of slacks!"  Well, that kind of dream is a sign of madness, and we can't really build a house like that anyway.  But just about anything else we can dream, we can probably build something pretty close anyway.
Why is that box on his head?
We must be strong, for the work will not be easy.  There will be crying, that is certain.  Clumsiness will lead to bonking and yelling.  Things will tip over in an enfuriating fashion, no matter how much tape we use.  If we persevere, however, our destiny is a Fun Rating of no less than 8!  Daddie can use a utility knife to help you add windows and doors, and tape and hot glue to stick things together.  You, the future citizens of Boxlandia will join hands in the streets of Boxtropolis, using all available art supplies to decorate the outsides of the buildings, of yourselves and of each other.

So, consider carefully for whom you will vote this day!  I ask you, who was it that neglected to recycle those boxes for months on end?  And who is "hip" enough to put your three-year-old brother in charge while looking for supplies?  And who do you trust the most?  Well, that last one is probably Mommy, so just focus on the first two rhetorical questions and vote... for... Daddie!  Let us realize our Boxtopian vision together! Before nap time!  Stop hitting her with that!
Sam named these buildings "Akericio" (rear) and "Abaydo Wayo" (front)

cars go down the tube, across the table and in that building

Lady Iris Macbeth


Fun Rating: 8 out of 10
It was a lot of fun playing with the boxes and making buildings, but they were kind of fragile for us brutes.  Even with plastic on the floor, I was a little concerned that we might make a mess with the paints.  With a small house, Mommy did specify that we think about where the stuff we make on Tuesdays can be stored, which in this case is easy since it's all recyclable.
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Thursday, February 17, 2011

New floor... oh, and play-doh





The big news at our house this Tuesday certainly wasn't the crappy batch of homemade play doh we made, it was the new concrete floor we had poured in the basement. More on this soon! The anticipation is making my kidneys ache! Or else i just really need to pee...

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Robot Parade

This is our Sony Dream Machine clock radio, which we would recommend to anyone currently in the alarm clock market.

About a month ago, the kids figured out how to slide coins into a little opening in the CD player, pumping it full of  spare change until it didn't work any more and sounded just like a piggy bank.   To begin this week's activity, the kids and I used the tool set Sam had received as a gift from my sister to open the radio and look inside.
My wife was clear that if we were to open the radio, we should really try to remove the coins and repair it.  The kids and I agreed, but we kind of had that feeling you get bringing your rabid pet squirrel to the vet: you know it's going to end badly for the squirrel, but you're secretly excited, too. Well, similarly to how you can't wait turn that dead squirrel into twelve handmade fish hooks and a fuzzy coat collar lining, we were dying to turn our Dream Machine carcass into... robot parts!

"In a future time, children will work together...to build a giant cyborg!"
The idea was to fashion robot suits out of scrap pieces of giant bubble wrap, decorating them in a robotly fashion with the guts of the clock radio and a bunch of hot glue.  I should mention that I had been prepping the kids for this day by showing them this youtube video featuring my favorite kids song, Robot Parade by They Might Be Giants.  Oddly, my kids love that boring video.  Even more oddly, they absolutely love this disturbing, unrelated video. Our plan was to hold our own Robot Parade.

Complicating the project was the fact that the kids had recently come down with high fevers, sniffles, and coughs.  Still, they gave it their best shot, and we managed to make some hats and decorate some flags for our Parade before crying, sniffling, and whining took over.  We did early naps.

"wave the flags that the robots made"
During nap time, I decided the kids weren't probably in good enough shape to sit through much more craft time, so I put together some suits and robot crown hats.  It was a lot of fun, even though that damned hot glue really is hot on the hands.





When they woke up from their naps, the kids had a really good stretch before eventually remembering they were actually super sick.  We had the Robot Parade song on repeat with the volume up loud, parading up and down the hallway and around the furniture.  We brought the remaining robot materials to the neighbors, and later their little boy came to parade with us in a suit that conveniently featured a helmet with face protection.  Not a bad idea, given that my kids were exhaling pure SARS by that point.




"Robot Parade, Robot Parade.  Robots obey what the children say."
Fun Rating: 9 out of 10.  There were lots of fun steps (take apart the clock, build the suits, make the flags, do the parade, etc) that made it cool for 34 year olds, 3 year olds, and 20 month olds.  The suits are still sitting around and I think the kids will keep playing with them. Plus, I learned that my kids love parades, and those are easy to do whenever.  I wish they had been feeling better, but having something to do kept all our minds off it for a while.  Not to mention that we mined $2.90 in change and a crumpled post-it note out of the radio. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Bonus Post: Snow Day



Piles of snow so deep you could jump off the porch and discovery of a new weatherproofing application for re-used spider web tape:


 Snow day with Mom and Dad scored an unreasonable Fun Rating of 11 out of 10!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Snow Day, Plan B

Today's activity was supposed to be "Play in the Deadly Historic Blizzard", but it turned out to be waaaaaay windier and colder than the romanticized snowflake adventure zone I had imagined us romping in.  Instead of the foot of powder I was anticipating, today's blizzard brought thousand mile per hour winds carrying clouds of snow dust, gravel, chunks of sidewalk and the occasional wayward chihuahua.  I wasn't going to spend a half hour wrestling kids into boots and snowsuits, just to have them blow away with the neighbor's dog.

To make things worse, my second cup of morning coffee, while delicious, had the sudden, urgent, and unexpected effect of sending me racing to the bathroom, leaving the kids unsupervised for a few moments.  The girls took advantage by opening the fridge and dumping out a jar of mulled wine that had been recently given to us, the bulk of it flowing safely under the refrigerator.  Powerless and unable to see from the bathroom, I was forced to visualize the situation through Sam's cryptic narration: "Sisters...what have you done?!  You dumped out a bunch of beans and now Daddy is going to have to clean it all up with a cloth!" This did not prepare me for the actual non-bean-related scene I would encounter:
I think those "beans" are raisins
With our planned Tuesday activity postponed for a gentler historic blizzard, we had to turn to "plan B".  Here are a few of the activities we tried:

Plan B(a): Giant Bubble Wrap
At first mention, "Giant Bubble Wrap" sounds like something regular-fun that becomes really-super-fun through elargement, similar to  Pee Wee Herman's Giant Underpants.  In this case, however, I was just using that term in place of "radiant-heat thermal underlayment" in a Tom Sawyerish attempt to motivate my kids to help me with my work and think they were having fun. 
As I got ready to work, I noticed a reddish wet spot on the concrete floor.  Closer inspection revealed that the mulled wine puddle under our fridge had found its way through the floor boards and was dripping onto the water heater like some sort of Chinese wine torture.  Perfect.


Sam was content for several minutes attempting to bore holes in the brick wall with a phillips screwdriver bit in my cordless drill.  The girls found some forgotten, dirty toys to fight over.  The kids had some fun rolling on and over the giant bubble wrap as I worked, but I scrapped the project in less than a half hour.  The girls had stripped off their boots, sweatshirts, and snowpants, and were crying.   Sam was bored, and I wasn't getting any work done.  
Nice try, Daddie.  The "work with me" idea worked badly enough that I'm beginning to wonder if biographer Mark Twain may have fictionalized portions of Tom Sawyer's fence-whitewashing incident.


Plan B(b): Finger Paint
We finger painted.  

Sam finger painted with brushes and insisted I wash his hands when they got paint on them, so I don't know what you call that.  

Iris painted in her coat, which made her look kind of like the Ally Sheedy character from The Breakfast Club.  
The kids were prolific in their work and I'm hopeful we'll be able to chop some of the pieces down for use as Christmas thank-you notes.

Plan B(c): Couch For
Making a Couch Fort is a standard part of every day at our house, and as such doesn't warrant much mention here.  I mostly included this to showcase Iris' no-pants, no-shirt, winter coat with flats outfit.  It's like the racier, pantsless Ally Sheedy character they didn't dare script in an 80's movie.  This was one of five distinctly different outfits that Iris sported today.





















Fun Rating: 7 out of 10.  Not bad for plans B a through c.  Thank goodness I pulled the plug on the bubble wrap thing.  We'll do our snow games another day.


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