Cleaning Corroded Battery Terminals

My kids recently decided to break out their "amphibious" remote-controlled cars, which they haven't played with in probably 6 months. Of course, as children's toys are basically expected to do, they had leached the batteries dry in the interim. To be clear, they have off switches. I just stopped trying to enforce "turn them off when you're done with them" a long time ago... probably shortly after they got them for Christmas last year.

Anyway, the point is this: 9 new AA batteries all together. And in the process of changing them, I discovered that one (somehow only one) of the battery compartments was encrusted with that lovely white destroyer of metals. Corrosion. Eww.

Instantly, I thought of the time my MP3 player got lost under a huge piece of furniture at my mom's house and was destroyed by that crust by the time I found it. I did not want to have to surrender this toy to effects of material degradation just as the kids found renewed interest in them, so I resolved to fix it if possible.

First, I broke out the rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs. I knew it was safe to use. I've read of others using it to clean metal fixtures in bathrooms and kitchens. Why not battery terminals?

That worked to a certain degree, but there was no way I could get enough scrubbing power in those tiny,  AA compartments to get the rough patches off of the springs and plates. So I did some research and some experimenting. Here's what worked:

Baking soda and water.

Things you need:

• Baking soda
• Water
• Tooth Brush (clean - I used the one I have set aside for stain removal purposes)
• Cotton Swabs

How we did it:

Remove the batteries - Obviously? How else are you going to access the terminals? I'm not really sure what would happen if you didn't, actually. Just do.

Sprinkle the soda - Sprinkle baking soda on the terminals. This process doesn't require a lot of baking soda. They don't need to be coated, just dusted. And any extra you put in there now is going to be extra for you to get out of there later. A little is enough.

Dampen your brush - dip your tooth brush in water. Here again, you don't want it to be too wet, just damp. I patted mine out on a rag a bit before I used it. You don't want to have so much water in the tooth brush that it puddles in the corners of your battery compartment, just enough to wet the baking soda.

Scrub - Use your damp tooth brush to scrub the baking soda onto the metal surfaces, then to clean the baking soda out of the battery compartment. This should result in clean, shiny, like-new surfaces. If you have trouble getting the baking soda out of the corners or crevasses , a toothpick will help.

Dry - I used cotton swabs to dry any remaining dampness out of the battery compartment. I suppose you could probably blow dry it if you're impatient, or air dry it if you really like waiting. Either way, make sure it's dry before you put new batteries in, for safety purposes.

Tips - This apparently also works for car batteries (and probably batteries of all sizes). If you disconnect the wires from the terminals of a car battery and follow these steps, probably with considerably more zeal, you can clean those as well.

Caramel Apples

These were quick and easy. They were also quite fun. I want to come up with or find some new, different, maybe even better ways to decorate them next time. This year, though, with 3 kids under 6 years old, this was simple and satisfactory for everyone. Now they want to know when we’re going to eat them. :)

Caramel Apples
Serves 5
Total time 30 minutes
Prep time 30 minutes

Ingredients:

5 apples of your choice
1 package (14 ounces) individually wrapped caramel cubes
2 tbsp milk

Other required items:

Skewers
Cooking spray
Cookie sheet

Optional:

Chocolate chips
Sprinkles
Other decorations

Instructions:

Remove stems and wash apples
Push skewers into centers of apples (one per) through dimple where stem was

Freeze apples on clean cookie sheet while you prepare caramel
Unwrap caramel squares and pile in a bowl
Microwave caramel squares for 2 minutes, stir once halfway through
Stir caramel again, until smooth
Remove apples from freezer
Spray empty cookie sheet with cooking spray
Dip apples one at a time, turning sideways for higher caramel coating 
place on cookie sheet
Return to freezer or place in refrigerator

At this point, you can call it done, or you can decorate. I microwaved some chocolate chips (the same way you microwaved the caramel) and used a spoon to spread chocolate over the top half of the apples 

so the kids could decorate the apples with sprinkles. Freezing the apples before I dipped them in the caramel helped the caramel coat better and puddle less at the bottom, but also made it almost instantly lose its sticky texture, so sprinkles wouldn’t stay.

Falling Leaves Diarama

This one was just for the twins, so we did it while M was napping. It’s a great refrigerator-hanging art piece. We finger painted leaves on the trees, so they had a lot of fun with it.

Things you need:

• Printed Falling Leaves Template (Link will open in new window)
• Construction paper
• Sandwich-size zip-lock baggie
• Hole punch (optional)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers, crayons, or paint

How we did it:

Cut or color - You can do either first. I cut out the tree shapes first so I could cut the square and hole punch the “leaves” while they were painting and reduce wait time. You could just go for being prepared with a bowl full of “leaves” before you get started.

Of course, whatever you did first, you do the other one second. We colored the trunks and the ground with markers and finger painted leaves on the tops of the trees. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with the way they turned out. I used disposable pie pans for paint and color mixing.

Hole punch - Like I said, I did this while the kids were painting. I used red, brown, orange and yellow construction paper (one sheet each) and punched... really a lot of holes in them. I have a 3-hole punch, so I lined up all four sheets of paper and punched once, then slid the paper down a bit and punched again. Just keep doing that until you’re satisfied. If you have a one-hole punch, it will still work, but... I’m sorry.

You will also use the square part of the pattern to cut out a blue square of construction paper at this point. Again, unless you were more prepared than me and already did this.

Put it together - We painted, so I let the trees dry while the kids napped. Then, I put what seemed like a reasonable amount of hole-punched paper in two ziplock bags. I used freezer size because that was all I had. It turned out fine, except freezer bags aren’t quite as transparent as sandwich bags. Zip the bags shut.

Next, I used tape, circled sticky side out, (you can use glue) to put the pieces together. I taped the trees to the front of the bag and the blue squares to the back (only taping where the trees would cover it).

I probably could have let them use the square pattern piece to cut their own blue sky... they probably could even have punched their own leaves. But I imagine they would have gotten bored of that.

20 Rules For My Unborn Son

Because I have three girls, and a boy on the way. I'm thankful for the fact that he will have a decent man for a father and role model. But here are some things I, his mother, think seem important about being a boy, a man, and happy. In no particular order, and certainly not a complete list:

1. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down.
2. There are plenty of ways to enter a pool. The stairs ain’t one.
3. The man at the grill is the closest thing we have to a king. Fetch him beers.
4. In a negotiation, never make the first offer.
5. Never cancel dinner plans by text message.
6. Request the late check-out.
7. When entrusted with a secret, keep it.
8. Don’t get married before you can legally drink. (or too soon thereafter, for that matter.)
9. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas.
10. Don’t fill up on bread.
11. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look him in the eye.
12. Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be.
13. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point.
14. Carry two handkerchiefs. The one in your back pocket is for you. The one in your breast pocket is for her.
15. You marry the girl, you marry her whole family.
16. Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.
17. Experience the serenity of traveling alone.
18. Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room.
19. Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
20. Don’t show off. Impress.

Pine-Cone Bird Feeders

I paired this project with talks about why birds benefit from bird feeders, particularly in the fall and winter months. This was super easy. A my five-year-olds could have done the whole thing on their own, but we cut and tied the strings for them anyway. My two-year-old also managed to do everything but cut and tie. The feeders have been up on our balcony and have already been visited by birds, which the kids find exciting.

Things you need:

Pine-cones
Smooth peanut butter
Bird seed mix
Twine
Spoons
Scissors

How we did it:

Tie pine-cones - Do this before you put anything on the pine-cone. You won’t want to stick your fingers in the mess later. Cut the twine to the length you want. If you don’t know where you’ll be hanging it, be liberal with length. Tie one end of the twine around the stem of the pine-cone, below the first row of horizontal spokes. If you tie the twine to the stem, above the horizontal pieces, it could easily slip out.

You can also tie the center of your twine around the pine-cone and tie the ends together if you want a loop to hang.

Butter it up - Provide smooth peanut butter on a plate or in a bowl, and a spoon, to each kid. Explain that they want to thoroughly coat the outer parts of the pine-cone and let them get started. This part is remarkably easy. I thought of using butter knives, but the curve of the spoon seemed to help them get a thicker layer of peanut butter.

Roll it in seed - We used a small cookie sheet with a raised edge as our seed tray. It doesn’t take very much seed, but I can’t tell you exactly how much you’ll need. Pour a pile of seed out and let each kid take their turn rolling their peanut buttered pine-cone in it. This is also incredibly easy.

Hang it up - Think like a squirrel... and try to outsmart yourself. We hung ours from plant hooks on the eve just outside the sliding door to our balcony. This seemed like it might have been a problem, but we used a pretty generous length of twine, so the squirrels can’t reach the pine-cones from the roof, the floor, the rail, or anywhere on the wall. Also, we have two large dogs who love an opportunity to chase a squirrel.

birdfeeders.com (Link will open in new window) says, “Hang your bird feeder away from trees, bushes, fences or buildings. Squirrels and other predators may use these to climb or jump onto the bird feeder. If you must hang the bird feeder on a tree, keep it at least six feet from the trunk or the tree limbs.”

Taking It Easy

In the three weeks since their week away with their dad, I’ve mostly been trying to correct bad attitudes, reteach basic behaviors, and reintroduce them to fairly simple and enjoyable lessons. I’m not keeping track of our time spent on lessons, I’m just giving myself a pat on the back when we manage to do one at all.

We work in math problems by saying things like, “he is 2 years older than me and I am 25.” when they ask how old my partner is. C is still super interested in reading, and even identified the store we were going to (Party City) when we were Halloween costume shopping. Over lunch, I just talked to them about the ways in which computers, phones, and video games were different when I was a kid, what a signature is, why some grapes have seeds and others don’t, and why wild gorillas probably wouldn’t just take your food if you offered it to them. They've helped me clean, made caramel apples, and finger painted.

Last weekend, we made pine-cone bird feeders and hung them on our balcony. I took that opportunity to talk to the girls about why bird feeders are particularly important for birds in the fall and winter months. We’ve also been observing the color changes in the tree outside their window. 

A friend of ours came over and played a couple of rounds of kid-friendly Mouse Guard (a role playing game that seems like the amusing and adorable child of Burning Wheel and the Mouse Guard comics by David Peterson) with the twins, Friday night. That seemed like the highlight of their week. They had a lot of fun, we got to have dinner with a guest, and I got a chance to make a craft store run so I don’t lose my mind being 28 weeks (and counting) pregnant, on the third floor, in the winter.

My partner does a great job of presenting learning opportunities at every corner, and doesn’t seem to mind when the information isn’t absorbed. As a result, we’ve spent a little time talking about coin and dollar values, reminding S that she can, in fact, tie her own shoes, and practicing riding bikes. But, last weekend, the temperature suddenly dropped and we even got a couple of inches of snow, early Friday morning.

So, we were basically stuck in the apartment for the weekend, since we’re still waiting on M’s new snow boots to arrive, and even after the snow melted it was too cold to seem at all appealing. But most of this week should be in the 70’s, so I’d like to enjoy that before winter comes crashing down on us again.

Anyhow, the last few weeks haven’t been a total loss as far as their education is concerned. It’s just been fairly unstructured and eclectic. That’s just fine.

Apple Muffins

Slightly sweeter than the previous muffin recipe I posted (Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins), these muffins still only have ⅛ cup of sugar per batch. Most of the sweetening is from applesauce and fresh apple pieces. My family found them delightful. Another hit for breakfast, lunch, or snack time, and pretty easy to make.

Apple Muffins
Serves 6 reg size or 12 mini
Total time 20-25 minutes
Prep time 10 minutes

Ingredients:

3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbs butter
1/8 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup applesauce
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 apple peeled and chopped very small

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Spray a muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray, set aside.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a small mixing bowl (but large enough to add other ingredients to, later), set aside.
In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter on high for about 30 seconds; add sugar, applesauce, egg, salt and apple pieces. Mix until consistent.
Pour the apple mixture over the flour mixture. Gently stir until just incorporated, do not over mix.
Fill the muffin tins about half full with batter.
For 12 mini-muffins: Bake for 8-9 minutes. For 6 standard size muffins: bake 15 minutes

Original recipe found at redtri.com with nutrition facts. Modifications made to instructions, based on my experience.