McG Kids

This weblog tracks my kids’ early years. Each entry is a snapshot from their childhood.

Please pardon any type-o’s, misstatements, or factual irregularities. This blog is written by an often dazed dad, normally after 11 pm when he should really be in bed if he had any sense. Even the basic quick edit is not a regular practice here.

Goats!

| patmcg

We discovered some goats at the school down the street.  They’re so friendly and cute!  They’re basically vegetarian dogs.  Now we walk over and visit them form time to time.

Pound cake

| patmcg

Claire wanted to do some baking, so we picked a lemon pound cake recipe. It was a fun project and an expensive cake – $39 in supplies since I don’t do a lot of baking. At least we’re all set for the next baking project now.

Selling Slime

| patmcg

Would you buy this for $4.99 plus $2.77 shipping and handling?

12 oz of colorful, super stretchy slime handmade using my own recipe!

This slime features a beautiful array of colors inspired by Funfetti birthday cake 🎂. The beads make it crunchy! This one is so satisfying to poke, squeeze, and stretch!

This is a summer project for me and my friend, so it would mean a lot for you to purchase this item. 😁🌈

Thanks!
Claire and Susie

Well, someone in  Hesperia, California bought it within an hour of it being posted on Etsy.  Claire ended up breaking even because the shipping cost more than we had estimated, but still this was a fun project and a valuable small victory for Claire, who has been obsessed for months with making her own slime.

Claire has been perfecting her slime recipes and has every possible kind stacked up in little plastic containers in my living room.  There’s gooey slime, butter slime, opaque slime, translucent slime, green slime, blue slime, white slime, slime with beads in it, slime with sand in it.  They are all different, and they are all crafted with a lot of thought and creativity on Claire’s part.

Claire also has stockpiles of all the slime ingredients, including a full gallon of Elmer’s white glue, Borax, food coloring, liquid starch, and contact lens solution.

If you didn’t know better, you would think we were running a meth lab.  But it’s just homemade slime.

Claire has sold a few slimes at school for about $3 each, which is less than the materials used to make the slime.  So we talked about increasing her price to make a little bit of a profit, or at the very least break even.  Than Claire decided she wanted to take this nation-wide with mail order as a summer project.  I offered to help Claire with logistics if she would drive the vision for her Easy shop.

Wth this first sale, we learned a few things.  We need to increase the sales price or shipping fee to turn a profit.  And we need to have boxes and packing supplies handy to ship quickly.  Claire found a way to pack some extra Borax to help the buyer re-form the slime if it gets damaged by the head in the mail.

Also, it’s super fun to sell slime!

Claire’s friend Susie is also technically part of the venture.  She wants to sell hand-made fidget spinners for a little extra cash.  So far we don’t have a listing for a fidget spinner, and Susie had to run off to Hawaii for summer break, so it looks like it’s going to be a slime-only business for summer 2017 at least.

I am super proud of Claire for coming up with a vision for her product, seeing a real sale all the way through the process, and caring deeply about the end product and the customer’s experience.  And also for navigating with grace the potentially tricky prospect of going into business with a friend who has a different vision and level of interest in the business.

I’m hoping Claire can include her little sister, Molly, in this business as the summer progresses.  Claire is still flush in cash from her viral youtube video, but Molly really needs the cash.  A few dollars here and there could make a real difference for her!

Way to go, Claire!

Fidget Spinner

| patmcg

Molly has been enjoying her new fidget spinner, which was a birthday party favor.  For some reason, she decided to lay down on the carpet and spin the spinner on her forehead.  I couldn’t resist but get some photos of the adorable expression on her face.

Out for a Ride

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Molly and I had the morning together while Claire finished up a sleepover at a friend’s house.  I asked Molly what she wanted to do, and we ended up combining the top two things on her wishlist: going for a bike ride and going over the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge in downtown Austin.

In a hilarious turn of events not well captured in photographs, Molly ended up riding her bike right past an active film set on the bridge.  The crew yelled, “We’ve got a biker!  Heads up!”  Molly was not the only such biker, but she was the funniest by far.

Here is our route for Molly’s ride.

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Molly is really motivated to ride her bike but is so far frustrated with the process and thinks the training wheels aren’t working right.

Also, isn’t she adorable on that bike?

Molly’s First Playlist

| patmcg

Molly’s loves pop music, and she decided to put together a playlist of all her favorite songs.  Many of the songs are from the movie Trolls.  She seems love Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick.  Although Claire and I rag on her a little bit about those choices, it is a fine, lively pop playlist, and I’m proud of Molly for patiently organizing it in her mind.

OMG Slime!

| patmcg

Claire’s ongoing slime-creation project has finally yielded the perfect slime, thanks primarily to Sta Flo liquid starch, which works so much better than Borax.  This slime is gooey and stretchy and never wears out or sticks.  Plus it’s sparkly and just the right color.

Now that we have lots of slime, Claire and I just sit and play with it for long stretches.  We roll it out into perfect sheets using a ruler to get the edges straight, then roll the sheet up into a perfect slime cannoli, and then – and this is the topper – we cut the slime cannoli right down the middle with scissors.  Somehow the inside has a little different color and is extra gooey.

The ultimate relaxation for Claire and me is to just mess with the slime while watching Last Week Tonight.  John Oliver just kills us.  Claire is really into Last Week Tonight, or any other political/comedy combination such as Saturday Night Live.  So political comedy combined with slime is just the ultimate luxury.  Pure heaven.

Molly likes slime alright and can tolerate political comedy, but her obsession is still Rayman Legends on the PlayStation 4.  Molly is getting incredibly good at this game.  Molly plays Rayman while Claire and I do slime and TV.  We could spend all day like this.  Luckily, we usually only spend Sunday evenings this way as a way to wind down the weekend.  We all get so relaxed and zoned in that don’t want to disrupt our leisure activities.  We become slime / TV zombies and then scurry off to bed, a little upset that the day is ending.