{"id":11527,"date":"2015-12-31T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=11527"},"modified":"2016-01-04T10:22:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T14:22:58","slug":"rubber-band-strings-and-other-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=11527","title":{"rendered":"Rubber Band Strings and Other Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Kids,<\/p>\n<p>Here is one last collection of stories about you from 2015.<\/p>\n<p>One day earlier this year you littered the floor with strips of construction paper. Your father and I were appalled at the waste of paper, and we couldn&#8217;t understand why you had done it. But then we looked closer and realized that each scrap had a face. You had created a horde of friendly worms. They were sort of cute. So I couldn&#8217;t stay mad over it, but I did keep a closer eye on the paper for a while!<\/p>\n<p>We had an uninvited guest at one point this year. His name was Mr. Squeakers. He broke into our pantry, sampled a variety of foods, and made quite mess. He was physically evicted, but he stayed with us in spirit, becoming a sort of invisible friend or mascot for you. He sometimes left us notes, and you sometimes wrote letters to him. I thought it was sweet, but I never liked Mr. Squeakers, because he had had the nerve to take my Pop Tart. But you didn&#8217;t mind that. You thought it was hysterical, probably because it wasn&#8217;t your Pop Tart!<\/p>\n<p>I gave Livia a strong cardboard box top so that she could stretch rubber bands across it to make a &#8220;guitar.&#8221; I used to do the same thing when I was a kid, so I understood exactly what she wanted to do. I helped her to put the strings on and tune them. She played her rubber-band guitar well. I videotaped her and managed to catch this wonderful, impromptu song:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I got my own guitar with rubber band stri-i-ings.<br \/>\nI got my own guitar. Hmm-hmm-hmm.<br \/>\nI used cardboard for the bottom,<br \/>\nRubber bands for the tops and strings.<br \/>\nHmm-hmm-hmm.<br \/>\nI got my own guitar with a pick. Hmm-hmm-hmm.<br \/>\nTwo different, two the same.<br \/>\nI got my own guitar.<br \/>\nOhhh, yeah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It was a fun year with paper worms and Mr. Squeakers and rubber band strings. Ohhh, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<\/p>\n<p>Mom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Kids, Here is one last collection of stories about you from 2015. One day earlier this year you littered the floor with strips of construction paper. Your father and I were appalled at the waste of paper, and we &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=11527\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[348,243,456],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11527"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11564,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527\/revisions\/11564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}