Jonah Lisa Land

Conversations with a 2 year old :: 6

Jemima came into the living room wearing one of my bras...

Me:  What are you doing, little miss?

Jemima:  I peetending.

Me:  Oh.  Are you are mommy?

Jemima:  No.  I a monster wearing a bra.

Upcycled Vintage Hanky Bag for Kids

Remember the first one of these Hanky Bags I did?  Well we really use it all the time and it's allowed us to cut way back on buying tissues.

So why not take the idea upstairs into the kids room as well?  A Kid's Hanky Bag!

They've been using hankies (really just square scraps of fun cotton fabric cut with pinking sheers) in their room since Huck was a toddler.  But theirs were always in an old empty tissue box.  I can't recommend this enough as a fun and cheap toddler toy, as shown in this old post.  Every child I've known naturally loves to pull tissues and baby wipes out of the box.  

But with the kids older, and the box on it's last legs, it was time for an upgrade. 

On a recent trip to the local thrift store I found another gorgeous vintage embroidered table runner.  This one in pastels with Bo Peep on it.  

So it got the same treatment as the other vintage tablerunners.  I cut it in half and sewed it into a simple bag with a ribbon drawstring.  I hemmed under a small slit near the bottom of the bag for the hankies to poke through.

Both of my children, who must have a hanky under thier pillow before they go to bed at night, love it.  It hangs on a hook beside the door and just over their laundry basket, where they put the dirty hankies.

Why Is Sex Fun?

Did anyone catch this the other night?  Maggie Gyllenhall, star of our film HYSYTERIA, was the host of a Discovery Channel Curiosity Series episode called Why is Sex Fun?  It explores the female orgasm.  

Very crafty of you, Maggie, to do such a nicely timed, tie-in with the film.  Thanks.

By the way, in case you didn't know, Maggie is crafty in other ways, too.  She knits.  We knit some on set together along with the lovely Liz Healy from the wardrobe department.  Fun memories.

 

 

Official Vibrator Expert, at your service

Stephen and I recently did an interview about the history of the vibrator with a reporter from the "venerated" New York Post because, you know, we're considered authorities on the subject now. 

The craziness surrounding this movie has already begun.  We were listed as a hot viral video on Salon, made it onto Perez Hilton and the trailer is edging close to 400,000 views on You Tube alone. It's earlier than I would have expected but then, people do love to have license to talk about vibrators and orgasms. It's like being able to say a dirty word in front of your parents when you were a kid because it was a lyric in a song you were singing along to on the radio.  

I have a strange feeling that something about this will appear in my obituary one day.

Now, how to turn my expert status into a side income stream.  

Jonah Lisa Dyer, co-writer of HYSTERIA, the feel-good movie of the year, is available for lectures and seminars and can guarantee a provocative presentation complete with visual aids for your group or club.

Rachel Maines, author of the book The Technology of Orgasm, is the real expert. And if, after seeing the trailer, you're curious to know more about the housewife's best friend, it's a...stimulating read.  

See?  The jokes just write themselves.

One Sunday at a Time

Stephen's first post is up on Unplugged Sunday.  Check it out.  It's a funny, compelling post on how you don't have to consider unplugging for a day, or even just an hour, some huge lifetime commitment.  

Conversations with a 2 year old :: 5

Jemima: My favorite colors are pink and purple and red and chocolate.

Best Multi-Purpose Kid's Room Lamp

I discovered this idea totally by accident but it works so well I'm not sure I'll ever go back to using a regular lamp in the kids' room. 

See, a lamp broke right before bedtime.  Oh No.  The entire Universe was now out of whack.  There woud be no sleeping until this tragic event was recitfied.  These are the moments that make or break you as a mom and I'm happy to say I pulled out a win on this one.

I dug a battery-operated Coleman lantern out of the tub of camping supplies in the garage.  The kids thought it was very cool.  It worked so well that I recently replaced it with two small, LED mini camp lanterns from L.L. Bean.

Not only are they perfect bedside table lamps, they can also be carried into bed for reading, down the stairs to light the way to Mommy & Daddy's room in the middle of the night, or into the basement playroom for sleepovers.  And, of course, they are great individual lanterns for camping, playing outside at night or walking home from a party in the neighborhood.  They're very durable and I expect them to last for years.  They have 3 separate LED tubes so you can light 1, 2 or all 3 of them at once for more or less light.  They also have a no-slip rubber base, an on/off button easy enough for the tiniest fingers to operate and a flashing feature for emergencies.

Help! I need a glass of water!

Plus, they come in cool colors with a matching carabiner for hanging them places.  

I hadn't really intended it this way but having their own movable light really gives them each a degree of independence at bedtime.  After we read books, if one of them wants to continue to look at their book, they bring their lantern into bed with them, and turn them off on their own when finished.  It makes them feel big and in control.  

Anyway, they love their bedside lanterns so much that I decided it was one of those accidentally brillant ideas worth sharing with you.  

Sleeping Potion

We've started toying around with a new evening ritual: "sleeping potion" before bed.  

Can you excavate the desperation out of that statement?

Sometimes we have Nighty Night Tea, which is a mild herbal blend made by Traditional Medicinals especially for children, with milk and honey.  But recently we tried something new I learned abut during my Spring Cleanse.  

Warm Almond Milk
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
pinch of Cinnamon

I usually stir all the ingrdients together in a small pot with a little spout on the stovetop, but you can also warm it up in the microwave. 

Most of the time I buy almond milk at the store but it really is easy to make.  Try this recipe or this one or maybe this one or this one is good too.  There are a lot of them out there and the main difference is amount of water and the sweetener used, if any.  It's all a matter of persoanl taste.  I did homemade when I was on my cleanse and it really does taste even better than store bought.  Plus, you can use the leftover almond milk in all kinds of tasty baked goods, which many of the links above elaborate on.  Despite all that, somehow making almond milk regularly just hasn't made it into my weekly schedule.  Maybe this winter. 

But here's what I really need to tell you about the new sleeping potion thing...  

It works.  

I say it isn't really "drugging" them if it's natural, but Stephen pointed out that opium and marijuana are 100% natural, too.  So I guess I have to admit it, I'm drugging my children at night. I don't do it every night, just the nights when Mima has taken an afternoon nap or they seem particularly keyed up and we need something a little more ritualistic.  

Besides the calming warm blend of milk and spices, you have to sit very still when you're holding a warm mug.  This act alone is sometimes all that's necessary to let sleepiness creep up on them.

They also both love to have a scented eye pillow (seen above hanging over Mima's bed rail).  It feels good, it smells good, and again, you have to be still to keep it on.  

They've co-opted a few really old ones I had that don't have a ton of scent left to them.  This fall I'm planning to cut up an old silk dress of mine (a size 2, so it has hung in my closet unmolested for about 10 years now!) and make them their own eye pillows filled with buckwheat, flaxseeds, chamomile and lavender.  I think there are also instructions for eye pillows in Amanda Soule's Handmade Home. 

Conversations with a 5 year old :: 7

Huck:  I'm naked under this Ninja suit.

The HYSTERIA Trailer

In case you haven't seen it yet (it's on YouTube, Huffington Post and Deadline that I know of, and will soon be many many other places as well)....