Miles and Tobin and I were reading Jack and the Beanstalk.

A:  Look at that.  The goose is as big as Jack, and he’s carrying it.  How is he managing that?

M:  Hey, dude, ever heard of fiction?

The kids do the library’s summer reading program, which involves coloring in stars on a sheet that represent time spent reading.  Also of note:  Ms. Kathy is one of their favorite librarians.

T:  Last year in the summer reading program, you had to pee on the star and then color it in.

A:  Oh yeah?

T:  Ms. Kathy told me that.

As the third child, Callum has a lot of hand-me-down clothes that are getting pretty raggedy.  That includes a lot of perfectly serviceable 100% cotton onesies that are stained with the various horrors that come out of children.

The solution?  A kid-friendly fake tie-dye project.

You just take some Sharpies…

section off an area of the fabric with a rubber band over a cup and draw a design.

Then you dribble rubbing alcohol onto it.  The alcohol breaks down the dyes in the marker and makes the colors run together interestingly.

The result:  new life for stained onesies and an hour spent reasonably educationally with the kids.

When you’re done, it’s a good idea to iron the fabric and/or put it in a hot dryer for a while to set the color.

Callum and I went into Tobin’s room as he was waking up this morning.  We were cuddling on the bed and Callum was being smiley and sweet to me.

T:  Why is he so…into you?

Tobin admires his brother’s piano-playing song-writing skills, and he likes to try his hand at it as well.

T:  (mournfully) I have one song, and it’s not very good.

A:  Oh, honey, I’m sure it’s good.  Just keep practicing and you’ll get good at it.

T:  It’s not good because it’s all bad words.

A:  …Oh yeah?

T:  (mashing piano keys) He said, ‘Buuutttthead.’  He said, ‘Poopypants.’  He said ‘Baby poopy faaaaaaaaace.’  (pause)  See?  Not very good.

We’ve made these before, but our last batch was looking pretty sad, so we made some new ones.  They’re a super easy alternative to water balloons that take about 10% of the time to make and with no annoying latex crumbs all over your yard when they’re done.  Plus they’re reusable.  I think I got the idea for these on some Pinteresty website before Pinterest was invented.

You take some inexpensive kitchen sponges…

(please ignore surrounding evidence of life in my house)

cut them into strips and stack them up however you please…

put rubber bands around their middles and fluff them out a bit…

and you’re all set.  Just dunk them in a bucket or bowl of water and throw them at whoever doesn’t mind getting wet.

And that, friends, is what we call Splort Balls.

It’s summer.  We need something to keep us busy.  The kids like junk food and playing with Legos, so when I saw this video with instructions for making gummy Legos, I figured it would be a good activity.

You take half a cup cold water, mix in 1/4 cup corn syrup until well dissolved, then put it into a pot on the stove.  Add 2 packets of unflavored gelatin and one whole pack of your favorite flavor.  Stir with no heat until pretty darn much completely dissolved.  Turn on the heat to medium-low until fully liquified, then pour into molds.  We bought Lego molds on Amazon.

The only serious improvement I made on the instructions in the video was to throw them in the freezer for 10-20 minutes, then in the fridge for another 10-15.  That got them firmed up just fine and was a lot better for impatient kids than the 5 hours at room temperature the video recommends.  To be fair, his did turn out more clear and perfect than ours, but the kids didn’t mind.

We made red ones first.

Then we added some blue.

We made both bricks and people.

Despite the weird face, the kids liked eating them.  I think they enjoyed playing with them more, though.  They were just sticky enough to be stackable and mostly hold their position, but they weren’t hugely messy.  I’d call this project a win.