monster truck DIY

I still have pictures from Christmas to upload, and several others from January.

But meanwhile, today's adventure took us to Lowe's.  I didn't really need anything that was urgent, but it's too cold to play outside, and Clement likes to walk through the tool section and say "What's this, Mom?" over and over again.  Another big draw is the aisle with motion-sensor outdoor lights.  He likes that the fixtures turn on when they see him.  And there are always grandpas in that store who get a charge out of his fascination with everything.  It's a win-win for everyone.

As we were heading out, I saw a DIY section for kids.  You can get a little pre-made kit for less than $6.

Clement chose the Monster Truck and was absolutely GIDDY with delight over getting to take it home and make it.

He was so tickled, I decided to take pictures.  When we got to the stage of hammering on the last wheel, he knew it was almost ready and started emitting hilarious cries of joy.

It came with a sticker kit, which was good for the wheels, but I asked if he'd rather paint it or use the other body stickers.
He was adamant in his choice:

He also insisted that the truck be BLUE, until he saw all the other paint colors available to him and couldn't resist.

The hardest part was waiting for it to dry...

I'm not sure if he's been introduced to the concept of monster trucks before, or if it's little boy instinct, but he already knows that this is intended to CRASH.  So now our evening is fully planned.

dentist

Josephine had a proper teeth cleaning earlier this month and did really well; she was quite brave and still!  

All looked good.

Purple chair, pink apron.  Perfect.

Clement supervised from a little blue chair in the corner.

He wasn't too keen on getting in the real dentist chair, but he did let Dr. Roye count his teeth at the end, as long as he didn't have to get up out of the blue chair.

Her hands in the picture above are rather relaxed.  For the majority of the cleaning, she was still as a statue, but with her fingers sticking straight out into the air.  :)

Not a bit of complaining though!  She did really well!  He was impressed that she'd lost a tooth and already had most of her 6 year molars in.  Since then she's lost another one: the right bottom front tooth.  It came out on Thursday, Feb 19th.

After treasuring it and displaying it for a couple days, she was ready to cash it in yesterday.  Unfortunately, the tooth fairy accidentally forgot to come last night (...oops...).  But that did not faze Josephine who came downstairs this morning and announced to me, "Well the tooth fairy came last night!"
(Take a moment to imagine my pre-coffee confusion:  SHOOT-- I forgot her tooth!  wait a minute.  what did she just say?  hoowww...???)
"Good!!"  I replied, wondering how this information could possibly be anything short of nerve-wracking.
And then she clarified, "BUT the tooth fairy couldn't find the tooth, so she didn't leave any money!  I think because it was white and under a white tissue in the little box."
"Ohhh.  Gosh.  You're probably right.  You know what?  We should use a different color tissue paper in the box.  I have some purple.  We'll try that tonight."
"And we should put the tooth on TOP of the tissue paper," she decided.
"Good plan," I replied, utterly relieved on so many fronts.

She's showing the tooth in the box.
See? VERY hard for a fairy to find it in that white tissue paper.

(Don't worry.  I have notes EVERYWHERE tonight.)