Friday, March 24, 2017

7 Quick Takes about Our First YouTube Tutorial, Baby Prizefighters, and the World's Worst Way to Learn Your Times Tables

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


I owe you something, readers. Two weeks ago, I asked for your input on what we should do with the old printer that had been tormenting us with its random error lights for months. And you delivered.


Thanks for making Phillip's day, guys. He's mostly the one who had to deal with the printer when it was acting up so I can't imagine how cathartic this was for him.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}


2


My baby constantly sucks on two fingers, always the same ones. This week, I noticed with horror that the webbing between those two fingers was all white, wrinkly, raw, and cracking (it's called 'macerated skin' if you want to win disgusting stuff trivia games) from being drooled on 24/7 and never getting the chance to air out.

We knew the skin would heal if we could just keep it dry for a few days, but how?

The baby refused to take a pacifier or even a different digit. What we needed was one of those cones dogs wear after surgery (at 18 lbs, the baby is approximately the size of a large Cavalier King Charles Spaniel so we could make it work.)

Then Phillip thought of this brilliant solution:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Voila! A strip of fabric separating the two fingers and duct taped to his sleeve.

The funny thing is, since we put this on he quit finger-sucking cold turkey. (It reminds me of how a visual barrier like a row of hedges will keep flamingos in their enclosure at the zoo, even though they could still easily escape if they wanted to.)

Anyway, the baby's fingers are healing nicely, and people tell us the hand-wrapping makes him look like Rocky Balboa.

3


Since November, I've had fabric to make a Christmas stocking for the baby sitting on our kitchen counter. (I intended to make it before Christmas, obviously, but life happened and we had perfectly good regular socks sitting around so there you go.)

I hate to sew so I've been resolutely ignoring said fabric, but I've been refusing to put it away because I also hate to admit defeat. I have a complicated relationship with life.

In a recent manic episode (which is incidentally the only way I ever get things done) I randomly decided that Saturday was the day I was going to stop procrastinating and just make the dumb stocking.

So I did.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

It's a really nice lined one that looks like you made it with magic because you can't see a single exposed seam anywhere. (I used this tutorial if anyone's interested in seeing the voodoo that makes this possible.)

4


While I was writing 12 Things Parents Forget that Normal People Do, Phillip walked by, glanced at the computer screen, and asked, "How many times does the word 'poop' appear on your blog?"

"I don't know," I laughed. "I should look that up sometime."

(My guess is about a million, since you write what you know and what I know is parenting, which is about 80% bodily fluid management.)

I still haven't figured out how to do an exact word count on the blog, but if you Google "jenny evans poop" I'm proud to say that I'm the 3rd, 4th, and 5th result. When you consider how common my name is and just how many Jenny Evanses are out there, that's pretty impressive.

5


We have a stash of old toys up in the attic and periodically rotate them out ('periodically' meaning 'sporadically, if the kids beg us.')

Lately the kids have been enjoying Automoblox, a bunch of cars that snap together in mix-and-match fashion to create all kinds of new cars.

My favorite creation so far is this one, for the obvious reason that the driver is completely separated from the zoo in the back.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

I really think Toyota should get on this idea.

6


I overheard my 3rd grader, who is working on his times tables, watching this video in his online homework portal.


I guess it's cool that this "shortcut" works, but only if you like shortcuts that involve more math and mental effort than figuring out the answer to 7 x 8 in literally any other way.

7


My 5-year-old decorated a terra cotta pot at a birthday party and brought home a packet of zinnia seeds, which she wanted to plant right away.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
That black thing on her head is a pair of dog ears on a headband. She's wearing it because it's a Wednesday and she feels like it.

As we sat on the floor planting a flower seed in her pot, the 8-year-old walked by and told her sagely, "Just so you know, it's probably not going to live long."

I started to tell him to let her just enjoy the process and maintain her childlike enthusiasm, but then I thought, "Eh, he's right."

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Unremarkable Files

12 comments:

Michelle said...

I loved your tutorial! That was strangely satisfying to watch.

Unknown said...

I used to have to wrap my son's entire hands in gauze like a burn victim because he would chew the back of his hand raw. He started eating holes in his shirt instead.

Jenny Evans said...

We've had a few fabric suckers/chewers. All the wrists of all the shirts, and the hems of most of their blankets, too!

Katy said...

Meh he's right. Lol, already hardened at age 8!

Nice stocking. And nice baby finger sucking solution.

Rachel said...

I was just writing about my mixed feelings on tutorials on the blog this week...safe to say, this is the kind of tutorial I actually think is awesome.

Also, successful sewing project, including magical no-visible-seams sewing projects, are awesome. high five!

Ann-Marie Ulczynski said...

Those were the same two fingers I sucked as a baby. I think that solution is brilliant!

Queen Mom Jen said...

I now know what to with all those old printers sitting in our garage! See how do we survive without YouTube videos!!

Jenny Evans (sister, not author) said...

Phillip must have had so much fun with that!

Unknown said...

Our oldest sucked his middle two fingers but usually only before he fell asleep. When it was time for him to give up the habit I used paper tape to tape the first and second fingers together and the third and fourth fingers together. It took no time at all for him to quit. (Favorite memory of that habit was sometimes while sucking on his fingers he would "anchor" things by putting his first and fourth fingers in his nostrils...One of my brothers commented that he hoped my son wouldn't suffocate).

Jenny Evans said...

If you don't need the catharsis, you could probably do something more ecologically responsible like donate them or recycle them. This was just something we psychologically needed to do.

Jenny Evans said...

I love that visual.

PurpleSlob said...

Yay for Phillip getting to take out his aggression!!
Brilliant baby behavior mod!!
Wonderful stocking!
Get used to it now, girl, everybody's a naysayer.