crooked house

Painting with Coloured Ice Cubes

Vivi painting with ice cubes coloured with food colouring. She loved the whole process -- mixing up the colours, freezing the ice, and then the painting. We got the idea from Amy Shearn at Household Words.

Heart-Shaped Local Strawberries

Or maybe they're butt-shaped. Either way, they're delicious.

Books Contain Worlds

Things That Caught My Eye This Week

Here is a cool "Mind Your Step" optical illusion in a city square in Stockholm.  Via A Cup of Jo.

Refreshing to read about a man who frets like a woman over the purchase of a bathing suit: Henry Alford shops for a swimsuit that will make him look like Jude Law. Via Anaheed Alani on facebook.

Parenting.com ranks the best American cities in which to raise children.

My cousin Tonya found my grandmother's recipe for opium... I mean lemon poppyseed cake and she made it. I want some. Yum.

Luke had a case of scarlet fever a couple of weeks ago. I was shocked. I thought scarlet fever had gone the way of Beth in Little Women* but no, it's still out there. And apparently there's a new more virulent strain appearing in China and Hong Kong right now. Some other "old-fashioned" childhood diseases are making a comeback, too, thanks to people who don't vacinnate. (Except for scarlet fever -- antibiotics virtually eradicated it but it has mutated and become resistant.)

*I'm kind of amazed there aren't any really pretty editions of Little Women out there. It's very odd it hasn't been included in one of those designer series of classics that keep coming out. You can, however, download it onto your kindle for free, which I just did.

Here is a gorgeous photo of Prague. I need to figure out how to get there.

And last but not least  for today, Amy Poehler makes Photoshop suggestions for her own photo. "Make neck smarter" is one of them.

 

Vivi Falls Asleep

Vivi doesn't need her nap every day any more -- and then, sometimes, she does. This happened at 4pm yesterday. (Far too late in the day for a real nap.) Thanks to Holly for videotaping it. Don't worry, she took pity on poor Sylvie after this and moved her into a reclining position on the couch. But when I came home twenty minutes later, I woke her up.

The Pleasant Rest Home

My friend Kat and I walked our two-year-olds past the Pleasant Rest Home today. It appears to be abandoned now -- unless absolutely everyone in the place was resting pleasantly. Either that's a ghost in front of the door or my camera lens was dirty. You decide. A few years ago the residents of this home rode on a float done up on a graveyard theme in the Exhibition Parade. And it wasn't remotely close to Halloween. Perhaps that is why the place is no longer in business.

This image is almost enough for the cover of a Stephen King novel. Except maybe we need some blood splattered up in the top lefthand corner or something.

School Socks

Pencil and notebook socks, via pinterest. Would love to get these for Vivi, for when she starts school but it doesn't look like they do children's sizing, which is very odd.

 

Some Things That Caught My Eye This Week

This is brilliant. Instead of saving all your kids' artwork or tossing it all, scan each piece, shrink them, and frame them like this.

A very upsetting National Geographic story about child brides. Via Brain, Child on facebook.

How to make life more like a game. Via notmartha.

How children use metaphor to deal with difficulties. Via magiciansbook.

Maybe everyone else has already seen this but I haven't, until now: a baby iPhone case from Fisher-Price. Sylvie loves playing with Talking Carl on my iPhone and it keeps her busy while we're waiting, say in a restaurant. But I'm always waiting for her to hurl it across the room and break it forever. Via pinterest.

If a mom had written would it have become a bestseller? Interesting article but I think yes, it probably would have. Although I'd love to hear what Tina Fey thinks. Via Patricia Storms on facebook.

Poems for Parents: Inspired by Mary Oliver

 

Inspired by Mary Oliver's The Summer Day:

Who made the world?
Where do babies come from; why do people die?
Who made the child?
This child, I mean --
the one who keeps asking all of these questions,
the one who is eating my ice cream instead of the one she dropped,
who is moving her tongue back and forth and also up and down --
Now she asks why is the sky blue? Why is the night so dark?
Now she snaps her mouth shut, and purses her lips for a milky kiss.
Let me tell you, I know exactly what a prayer is.
I know how to pay attention, how to pay too much attention,
how to listen for each breath instead of sleeping through the night,
how to worry too much, how to stroll along the sidewalk
slowly, very slowly, thinking up answers to difficult questions,
which is what I have been doing all day.
There are a lot of things I should've gotten done.
Of course she is growing up too fast, and too soon.
But tell me, what is it you would do
with one wild and precious hour to yourself?

Sylvie is Two

 She's so big, people think she's three. Watch out, little bunnies!

Her grandfather gave her a package of Disney princess shoes as a present. Although she has not yet told any of us that she loves us, I'm pretty sure that today as she was putting on the glass slippers she said, "I love these shoes."