Happy Wednesday!

I'm walkin' on sunshine, cuz the taxes are DONE DONE DONE, and it only took the last few hours of yesterday and the first half of today! Yippee!!

Had to share a couple of good ideas I've had lately. (I should write a post about all the BAD ideas, too!)

Daughter #3 (if I gave her a blog name, it would be "Pepper") is in the first grade, and really, really doesn't like practicing her spelling words. Torture for all involved. In a flash of inspiration (born of an idea sent to me by my sister long ago - can't find the link now), I poured some salt into a pan, and let her write her words in the salt.

Holy cow, if kids gave out Nobel Prizes, I'd have gotten one that evening. Who knew they'd be so enthralled?

A couple of days later, I was taxiing Pepper and some friends to our house, and I heard the following from the back seat:

"Just WAIT until you get to my house and see what my mom made!!"

(I may or may not have had a self-satisfied thought or two about the time put into homemade Christmas gifts this year, and maybe I wondered which one she was going to show off to her friends.)

And then . . . .

"It's SALT in a PAN and you can WRITE in it!!"

Ah, well. Good enough.

The following week, this idea hit:

Spelling words in dry erase marker on the counter. The kids were all a little skittish about this one . . . every one of them eying me like it was some dirty trick and I was about to start hollering and ground them all. Ouch. But after some encouragement, they busted out enough counter graffiti to put the local gangstas to shame. (95% of it erases, and the magic eraser takes care of the rest.)

And speaking of the counter, I am a big fan of having a bar in the kitchen for many, many reasons, but the kids just CAN'T resist climbing onto it. And then falling off of it. And then climbing back up. All the while, I'm begging them to STAY OFF, and I think I've developed a facial twitch every time I say it.

This idea occurred to me early on, but it seemed a little mean:

If only I had known it would train them to remain at safe elevations in a matter of a day and a half! (Set to stream, not mist.) Score one for the mother! (I have to take what I can get.)

Anybody else have some good ideas to share? (I've hit my quota now for quite some time to come.)