Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Curse of the Monkey Skeleton

Halloween happened recently. We took Chumbercules out trick-or-treating to score us some candy for the first time. He was a tiny blonde Superman who kept trying to go into people's houses and, as the night progressed, was saying, "trickamatreat" when people opened their doors. It was pretty freaking cute. And it was warm here, which was nice. Though it isn't warm anymore. It's snowed the past couple of days.

Anyway, one of our Halloween decorations is some skeleton I scored in the discount bins several years ago. It's a coated wire frame and burlap, basically. The head has straw on it and the eyes glow red and it laughs. It's motion-detected, so when you walk by it, it does these things. Chumby thought the laughter sounded like a monkey, and from there, the dreaded Monkey Skeleton was born.

Chumb is both intrigued by and scared of the Monkey Skeleton. He cried when he first heard it laugh. The day after Halloween the Monkey Skeleton was sitting outside and we were going grocery shopping and dude wouldn't go out the door because the Monkey Skeleton was there. So, I tossed him in the laundry room and we got in the car.

I came home from work on Monday and the Monkey Skeleton was sitting on the back of one of the couches. I guess when Chumb woke up, he was asking about it, so Mr. Adventure pulled it out and let Chumby examine it. When I got home, it was kind of creepy. He was giving the Monkey Skeleton high fives and saying, "Monkey Skeleton loves me." or, "Monkey Skeleton gonna get me." I'm pretty sure both of those things come from Mr. A. Because Monkey Skeleton quickly became his new parenting tool.

"Eat your dinner or Monkey Skeleton is going to get you."
"Potty on the toilet or Monkey Skeleton is going to get you."

I come home from work and am greeted by these giant, round, blue eyes, asking me, "Monkey Skeleton gonna get me?" I have no idea how many times I have said, "No, the Monkey Skeleton isn't going to get you."

Hamburglar is two, so he's at the prime age for night terrors. Some of these bad dreams have horses and all sorts of things going on, but the other night, he was dreaming about the freaking Monkey Skeleton (which we still hadn't put away). I told the Mister that I thought it was time to pack up the Monkey Skeleton. Last night at dinner (Monkey Skeleton sits at the dinner table with us), Chumb looked at me and asked again, "Monkey Skeleton gonna get me?" and I said no and decided to put him away. Little Man ran from the dining room, screaming, when I picked up the Monkey Skeleton. I just tossed it into our bedroom on the bed, which prompted a whole new series of questions during dinner. "Monkey Skeleton on your bed? Monkey Skeleton sleeping? Monkey Skeleton tired. He sleeping," and so on. Finally, after dinner, I removed the batteries from Monkey Skeleton and shoved him in the Halloween box. Hopefully that will be the end of the Monkey Skeleton concerns.

In Brown Sugar news...

He went in for his two month exam. He weighs 13 pounds, 8 ounces, has a 16 inch head circumference and is 23.75 inches long. They say you should never compare your first and second child. I don't know about anyone else, but that's pretty much all I do. Chumby was 14 pounds at his two month exam. I don't remember the rest of the stats, but I see some sort of growth comparison chart happening within the next year, comparing the growth of my two boys. Because that's what you do when you're a mom scientist, right? Scientist mom? Mother of dragons? Chemistry? What?

Having another kid and a single income family can be pretty straining on the budget, so I'm making Christmas gifts this year. I will post pictures of things I make, if you're interested. Really, I will do it anyway. Because this is my blog, y'all.

I was inspired by the folks over at Happy Hooligans and their 70+ Homemade Toys to Make for your Kids. I already made the sock bunny rattle for Brown Sugar. The rad thing about that was, even with my shoddy sewing skills (I only know one stitch!) I was able to bang out the whole thing in a couple of hours. I did the cutting during nap time, around two in the afternoon. And between nursing, making dinner and putting the kids to bed, I had the whole thing done by 8p. I haven't put a face on it yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to.

I'd like to make a balance board for Hamburglar, but I'm trying to find an old skateboard deck for free or cheap that I can repurpose. And I have a ton of cardboard at my work I can use to make some cardboard construction pieces. I was going to make a couple foam lacing toys, then one of the moms  in my local moms group let us all know that they have wooden 8-packs of lacing toys in the Dollar Spot at Target for $3. So, I scored Chumby some robot ones. I also found a little wooden shape puzzle and some spiderman socks. And some ladybug playing cards for the Little Miss. Who isn't really little anymore. Kid isn't even 8 and she's a freaking Amazon.

Speaking of the Little Miss, we scored her a great tablet for $50 from Groupon Goods. I think she'll be pretty excited. And, since I'm making things for the boys, I thought I would make her something, too. I've seen those story boxes that are, like, $50, that come with a story printout and some dolls so you can act out the story. Then, I thought, "I bet I can make that for way cheaper!" And I found a tutorial online. I decided to go with Little Red Riding Hood because I will only need to make 4 dolls. Though, I keep thinking I should do a Little Prince theme instead. I don't know. She knows the story of Red. I have about a month to decide for sure. And I figured I would gift the dolls in their little story box with a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales. And, since she's nearly 8, I imagine she will make Present Face.

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