Boys Will Be Boys: Lord of the Rings meets Thomas the Train

Let me set the scene: There they are, chugging in a neat row across Nathan's floor, about 10-15 trains heading toward the middle of the room. Little did they know that it was bath time for teddy. Into the toy box teddy goes, and that is when the elephant comes out. "My elephant!" Nathan cries, and that is when the the trains get it. The train line is suddenly decimated by by what can only be called an "oliphaunt" by comparative size rampaging through the line scattering them across the Plains O' Nathan. Once the damage is done the scene is instantly forgotten and the stuffed elephant lies calmly on its side among the wreckage as Nathan moves on to other exploits.

At our house there is no peace if you are a toy. I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for them, a side effect of growing up in the Toy Story generation, setting them upright when they land at awkward angles or jumping to their rescue when they get stomped on by a raging three year old. But I just sit and watch as Lightning McQueen revs up and pushed Woody and RC the car off the coffee table into a pile of other toys and as a bear, a dog and a Mountie burst through the walls of Lincoln Log homes. I draw the line at crushing the Woody pez dispenser in the entertainment cabinet doors, and shoving lincoln logs into the vaccum but mostly out of a need to preserve the function of my home.

Sometimes it's enough to make you worry about what kind of a child you are raising but then I see Nathan sweetly tucking in Wembley and Woody with him when its time to sleep, and I see how he will search for the tiny skateboard as if it were the lost sheep, rejoicing when it is found. I know many a gentle man who started out with a toy pistol in one hand and a pretend whip in the other so maybe I should just accept that boys will be boys and hope that like the Velveteen Rabbit, these toys will someday receive their reward.

Dittos for Kiddos

So last night was my first experience with Dittos. It was amazing and crazy all at once! There were so many parents there, moms in particular, and maybe it was me projecting my own feeling onto everyone else but there was a sense of giddy revelry about due to the shopping without children. It was like black Friday for the frugal mom! People were dragging around laundry baskets and trash cans filled to over-flowing with items. The line to check out was about a 45min wait and that wasn't because the volunteers checking you out were slow, it was the sheer amount of people.
The next sale is in February which I think is perfect. I will be in my last two months of pregnancy and we will know just what we need to finish preparing for the new little one. I think I might try to sell some stuff this time around as well. There isn't much that we can sell other than toys and a few odds and ends because I refuse to sell clothes. I firmly believe that since all of Nathans clothes were such a gracious gift to us from so many people that I should pass that on to others for a similar price, that being, free.
So the only question I have is where will I get a rolling laundry basket?

Bulk Buying

I love buying things in bulk. I guess my hoarder instincts have to come out somewhere. It is never things I don't use all the time, for example my most common bulk purchases are the following:
Juice, Toilet Paper, Flour, Yeast, Paper Towels, Sugar...
The kind of things of which there is no doubt you will need and that are not a good thing to suddenly be out of. When I take the time to psychoanalyze my self I must admit it gives me a sense of security. A sort of, if there is no money tomorrow we will at least have toilet paper, kind of a feeling.
What I can't decide is where do you draw the internal line with that sort of thing so it does not become an actual problem, and am I putting too much of my confidence in material things? Though you have to wonder if just being aware and thinking about this things is in a sense a reassurance that you are not moving in an unhealthy direction. You could think your self in circles about this kind of thing. Who would have thought that I could make bulk buying so complicated.