Dinosaur Eggs

After seeing the dinosaurs yesterday, Levi and I decided that we would make our own dinosaur eggs today.  Actually this was very very late in the day.  Today, Levi slept in until 7.30am and he had a slow one all day.  We didn't get out of our pajamas until after noon and watched TV, played and generally did very little.  By 2 pm though Levi was getting tired of my company and wanted to not only make dinosaur eggs but wanted Ty to come over to make them too. 

Now I am not the perfect Stay at Home Mother.  In fact, I am not a stay at home anything and frankly I am not great at the doing crafty things at home.  Anyway.  I looked up how to make Paper Mache glue on the Internet.  It said;

"Mix 1 cup flour into 1 cup of water until mixture is thin and runny.  Stir into 4 cups of boiling water and simmer for about 3 minutes and cool."

Really, that was it!  You wouldn't think that I could fail a recipe that easy but really, fail I did.  As Levi said;

"If you added green food coloring to this it would be exactly like snot!"

OK apart from that graphic (and fairly accurate) detail we still used the glue to make our eggs.  The boys blew up balloons and we covered them with paper strips and glue.  Levi wasn't overly fussed with the whole sticky, slimy sensory experience of it all.  Ty got into it and was happy to dip his fingers into this thick gelatinous goop and make his egg!  Levi's ended up more neat, probably because there was a whole lot less glue involved. 

It took about an hour to set up and about 3/4 of an hour to clean up afterwards.  For a fifteen minute activity, it just doesn't seem worth it at times.  Ah well, at least we have to paint it yet!  Thinking that is going to have the same prep/clean up/activity ratio, but that is what parenting is about hey!  Failed at the glue and it lasted fifteen minutes!

Levi and Ty then bounced on the trampoline for about an hour and a half, which served to reduce Levi's activity drive for the day and put his asthma into overdrive for the night!  They bounced happily until Ty face planted into the net.  At least by the time he did that, his Dad was here, so he could deal with the crying and then the subsequent tantrum after Ty's sister wasn't punished for the supposed slight to his pride.  Then it deteriorated into Ty 'hating' Levi (according to Levi) and Levi wanting him to come back!  Oh it will have blown over by tomorrow morning when we all go to beach, but it made for a hard night. 

Tonight Levi had trouble going to sleep.  First of all he was wound up because of Ty and second of all he was having breathing.  He kept getting up and saying his chest hurt and he couldn't get breath.  He had already had his inhaler but it wasn't quite enough.  He finally went to bed and I went and snuggled with him.  He said that he couldn't sleep because he got scared when he couldn't breathe and that he didn't want to have trouble breathing and end up stopping like Frankie and Ethan.  I explained that he wasn't going to have the same problems as Frankie because there was only one kid in the world at any one time that had his disease and Levi didn't have it.  I explained that Ethan had died of brain cancer and it was completely different.  I said that I understood it felt scary when it was hard to breathe but he was going to stay with me.

He said that was good and rolled over and went to sleep. 

I hope that he gets some comfort in that thought.  He wasn't having so much trouble breathing that I was concerned but I have to admit, the sensitivity on my 'Concern meter' is broken!  Needless to say, the mancub is in my bed tonight!