excellent.

Remember that Barbie City that S and I made out of cardboard last week? Well, it's turned out to be a pretty awesome idea. Here's why. For starters, (after I drew the parts of the city that she requested...a road, a palace, a playground, a church, and houses) we had to color it. And that took awhile. Then she played with her Barbies on the city. Between the coloring and the playing, a whole afternoon was taken care of. Also, the city is almost exactly the length of our sofa, so when she's not playing with it, I can slide it between the sofa and the table that sits behind it. She can get it out again on her own when she wants to play with it. Being able to get it out and play with it has eaten up loads of half-hour increments since we made it.

Then I had an idea the other day when T was fussy and I needed to make dinner and wanted S out from under my feet for half an hour. I grabbed the empty Cheerios (regular, not Honey Nut!) box and cut it into a few pieces. I drew a dog house and a tree with a swing on one piece, a car on another, and a school bus on another. I gave them to S, and she sat down for my much-needed half an hour and colored them. Then she taped them to the city because tape is her life right now. She tapes everything. Now I know that I can add to the city with box board anytime we want.

Today, I grabbed the animal pictures that I've been cutting out since she was born*, and she sat down and added animals and a zoo to the city. Boom. Another half an hour gone, and the girl was happy.

The whole point is this: if you're the mama of a small child, give that kid some cardboard and make a city. It can be a Barbie city or a Princess city or GI Joe's base or Gotham City. It doesn't matter. It will occupy children. Go forth and draw and thank me later.

*Before I recycle our magazines, I regularly cut out interesting pictures of people, animals, places, plants, and foods. Then I sort them because I'm me, and I stash them in plastic bags. When S needs something to do, I can break out a bag and a glue stick, and she has something to do. Viola. Again, you can thank me later. Apparently, I'm a mom genius today. Not really.

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Unrelated to kiddo craft time. I went back to the doctor today. I woke up so hot I couldn't stand it, and the scanning thermometer that we have wouldn't even work on me because I was sweating profusely. (Sexy, no?) I called Mr. Ouiser, who wasn't out of town yet on his morning commute (it was 545am by the way). I felt way, way wrong. He came home. By the time he arrived about eight minutes later, I was so cold that I was shivering. I went back to bed. While I never got so hot as to cause concern again, my body temp was fluctuating like crazy, so I just decided to go to the doctor. It could've been sugar withdrawals. It could've been hormones. It could've been something related to yeast that I know nothing about. It could've been something else entirely, and I decided that the time to consult Dr. Google was over and that I should talk to an actual medical professional. Now, I've got a couple of doses of Diflucan, and I'm hoping that it'll knock this out. I'll keep up with the ultra-low sugar thing, but I feel like I can relax about it a little bit. As in, I don't have to freak out completely when I read that a banana has 12 grams of sugar. You're welcome for the update.