Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and so has the infamous shopping day:  Black Friday.  I used to get up early and fight the crowds with my mom and sisters to enjoy a day of shopping and to get ready for the holidays.  This year was a little different.  I slept in and took comfort in my own bed while everyone else was out literally fighting with crowds.  I don’t understand how people can get so vicious during such a happy time.  I know the economy isn’t the greatest right now and saving money is important.  The internet is the place to go.

My husband and I have taken a liking to online shopping.  It’s convenient, less stressful, and in the end we seem to save more money.  What can be better than that?  We are big fans of Amazon.com and several other websites offering great deals year round.  We use wish lists on Amazon to let our families know what we want for Christmas and we feel good knowing that the price is typically better online than at a brick and mortar location. Coupon codes from sites like retailmenot.com can offer additional savings.

It’s December 1^st and I am 99% finished with our shopping for the year.  I will admit, I do like to get a few small things at the store that I like to pick out…  for example, stocking stuffers.  I could order chapstick, candy and post-its online, but it’s easy to pick that up while I’m grocery shopping.

Jack likes to shop online, too.  He likes to get on Amazon.com and search trains.  Of course, Thomas appears and his eyes get as big as quarters.  He points to each one and tells me their name and how he is going to ask Santa for it.  Speaking of Santa, I’m dying to see if he will be excited to sit on Santa’s lap this year, or cry uncontrollably like he did last year.  He’s been practicing on my lap, and I can’t help but laugh to myself.  Things to tell him when he’s sixteen years old.

I hope you have a stress-free and successful holiday shopping season!

I am – by no stretch of the imagination – a girly girl. I rarely wear makeup and my hair is usually pulled back in a pony tail. Forget fashion. I’m at home in a worn pair of jeans, my law school sweatshirt and a ratty sneakers. I know far more about baseball than I do about barbie dolls.

Yet when I heard we were having a little boy, I completely freaked out. After leaving the doctor’s office, in the safety of my car, I started crying to hubby. “WHAT am I going to do with a little boy?” I sobbed. “WHAT do I know about army men? Or football? Or cars? And I HATE bugs!”

Hubby laughed at me and asked, “Do you think our son is going to come out knowing about any of that stuff? You’ll learn together!” He was right. (Don’t tell him I admitted that though)

I love watching Andrew explore and learn new things. And I am learning with him. This weekend, hubby tried to teach Andrew about football. I laughed because Andrew and I seem to have the same level of tolerance for the sport (roughly a minute).

Andrew is mildly obsessed with airplanes at the moment, which delights hubby and his dad who are both licensed pilots. They talk to him about planes and flying and I try to learn a thing or two…

So we really are learning together. And it’s actually pretty fun.

Except the whole bug thing – I’m never going to like those, no matter how fascinating Andrew finds them!

Hi, I’m Grandpa Wednesday, and I’ll be sitting in for two weeks, while Wednesday Mom is visiting Husband/Daddy in Southeast Asia. Thanks to Navy scheduling, those two are finally getting the honeymoon they should have had seven years ago. But that’s another story…

We’ve now had 48 hours as “parents” of a two-year-old. The basics are coming back quickly, but there’s no doubt that many of the trimmings have changed. The first thing I noticed was the toys. When our kids were this age, it was the child who talked to the toy. (And we said, “Isn’t that adorable.”) Today, there are few toys that don’t whir, talk, or otherwise make their presence known. So far, none has initiated a conversation, but I’m suspicious that they may be plotting something.

Case in point: the trains. As you learned last week, Wednesday’s Child is in the midst of a “train phase.” His prize possessions include two complete sets of trains. The simple wooden ones I remember well, though the number of possible track pieces seems to have multiplied geometrically.

Set two is an engineer’s dream. At least five remote controlled locomotives, each with a wireless controller, its own sound effects, cars, people, and other accoutrements.  My Powerbook laptop is a simpler tool to use. From what I can tell, the object of the game is to get as many trains running at once as possible, then set them all to create a spectacular crash at the bottom of the mountain.

I’m mastering all of this slowly, but Wednesday’s Child seems unfazed. He simply moves from one controller to the next…pushing and pulling the levers to make it all go smoothly. Mind you, this is the same kid who can pull up the Thomas the Tank Engine videos on Mom’s iPhone in about the time it takes me to figure out how to answer mine.

Different isn’t bad; it’s just different. Today’s toddlers can be just as creative as yesterday’s; they just have a much larger palette of options from which to choose. What matters is that Mom or Dad… or even Grandma or Grandpa… are around to help and applaud at the next great accomplishment.

Excuse me… there seems to be a caboose off the track…

More later,
Grandpa Wednesday