Dance Party

As a part of our One Hour Till Bedtime series, I thought I'd include: Dance Party. Dance Party and it's close cousin Freeze Dance are great because I don't actually have to participate, which I can't really do anyway because by the end of the day, I'm all swollen and puffy and tired and contracting and irritable, and no one really wants me at their dance party anyway.


Apparently, no dance party is complete unless you have a food storage bin on your head.


I made the mistake of asking Lillian whether or not she wanted to take a gymnastics class or a dance class. She chose dance, and she's really excited about it, but it doesn't start until June, which doesn't translate into 3-year-old speak.

Here comes a robot with electric brains

I'm a robot from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Here's another installment of our One Hour Till Bedtime series. The cleaning/organizing of the office/sewing room/spare bedroom yielded two boxes. Tyler turned one into a new cardboard house, much in the style of our old house. The other became a robot suit and Lillian wore it around saying "I'M A ROBOT, I'M A ROBOT" in her best robot voice for about 20 minutes. It was great. I wanted to color some dials and buttons on it, but Lillian vetoed that idea. Which is too bad because it would have been great.

The Fan Fort

Last night, we watched a family of kids from our ward. They left about 7 o'clock. I had Nora in the bath and forced Lillian to get in with her. Out by 7:20, Nora's in bed by 7:30. Exactly one half hour until Lillian was supposed to start her bedtime routine, which was already half over because she took her bath early.


Enter a fan tent. When I was growing up, we had a much more powerful fan which supported a much bigger sheet. Last night though, this was all we had to work with. Also, we do not own a set of encyclopedias which absence I've never felt until last night when I was trying to secure the sheet with the Twilight and Harry Potter books. Lillian enjoyed it but it made me claustrophobic. Maybe if we get a bigger fan I can do it again.

One Hour Till Bedtime

I'm completely baffled by what other people do with their kids all day because I run out of ideas all the time. I have this problem especially when Tyler has to leave in the evening and it's just me and the kids all night, after it's been just me and the kids all day long. After dinner is done and cleaned up, I just stare at them, and they stare back, all of us with a 'now what?' look on our face. We've already colored, done the dinosaur puzzle 4 or 8,000 times, watched probably too much TV, played with the blocks, and been on a walk. It's too late for playdates or to start any sort of big scheme. Nora's got to go to bed in a half an hour, so we can't go anywhere, and nothing's open anyway. (This was the time when I used to walk to Claire's house, but she lives in California, so it's a bit too far away. I've got to find another Claire, is what I've got to do.)

Occasionally, I'll call my mom because she's always got good ideas.

So, I thought I'd start documenting the things we do at this time. In case any other moms have this problem; but mostly for me, so next time I'm bored, I can look back and think 'oh yeah, that was a good time suck.'

Drowning in boredom

I don't know why my friend-making efforts have all crashed and burned. I mean, who wouldn't want to be friends with me? I've tried talking to people at church, in the complex, and I even failed at trying to join the local mom's club. I was complaining to my friend Candie (on the phone) how I feel like I'm running a failing restaurant and I can't seem to make people come eat no matter how much I advertise how fabulous the parmesan chicken is. She suggested I should have a slogan like "Amanda... she's funny." That was just her first try, I'm sure we could come up with something punchier. (Myriah, I'm looking in your direction)


I was ready to lose my mind what with being Lillian's sole entertainment and all, so I called mom who's always got good ideas on how to keep two-year-old hands busy.


Tyler told me this morning that he was out of shaving cream. I pretended I didn't know anything about it.

By the way, my legs are still so itchy I don't even want to talk about it. Plus, yesterday, I got five new bites on my ankles and some on my arms. Where are these bugs coming from?