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So after my Drowning in Presents Rant earlier, my day was actually really awesome in a wonderful post-Christmas way.
We went out into one of our rare "cold" days (in the 60s during daylight hours, with wind), in all our new sweaters and whatnot, feeling crisp rather than sweaty for a change, and did a lot of walking around the neighborhood with Aaron on his new bike and Annie on her new skates. Then we got home and I put Isaac and Jake down for naps (with almost no fuss or bother whatsoever, I think they were both out within 10 minutes of not even trying). Ananda and Aaron and I went out for tea for the first time in forever. My Nana and Pa got me a teapot and set of cups and saucers that are very nice, and we broke them in with hot cocoa, dark chocolate kisses and pieces of leftover candy canes while reading a penguin book Annie got, out on the sidewalk. Previously we've always used whatever coffee mugs were around for tea, with a saucepan.
In the process of washing out the tea stuff I saw that the undersides of the saucers say "Fine China" and I thought, Really? I've never owned anything that qualified as china, though many of our dishes say "Made in China" :p So I went to the website that kindly included a coupon for future purchases in the package the cups and all came in, and sure enough...my Nana and Pa spent between $15 and $40 for each set of cup and saucer, and at least $50 for the pot O_o For a teaset I plan on using outside, with small children! It's service for 6, so $200 is a modest approximation. I do like it and the kids think it's wonderful since it's "fancy", but...geez louise. I don't want to know what they spent on my french white corningware, which includes as a bonus 7 dessert ramekins I've already decided will soon be home to chocolate souffles. It's never been done in my family, at all, but somehow those two gifts - the tea set and the corningware - really make me want to send them a thank you card, this time around. I suppose because they're reminiscent of hope chests and bridal showers and other such things I've never really been exposed to but feel wistful about for my own daughter. I know it's Christmas, we all exchanged gifts, and said thank you a thousand times, etc etc - but I was thinking that pictures of the kids wearing and using new things tucked into a card, possibly even with some sort of treat I've cooked in a little package, would absolutely thrill them. I think my grandfather might cry about it.
I spent awhile on the phone with my sister expressing the rants of my last post, and she told me how her and Nana talked about it for awhile while she was still in Lakeland - my Nana was one of 6 kids in a VERY poor family with an alcoholic father, in a bad neighborhood, growing up. Then when my mom and uncle were young, she was a struggling single mother living in the projects and working two jobs to barely make ends meet. It's been this dream of hers her whole life to have a huge Christmas tree with an explosion of presents surrounding it. I do still think it's excessive to have large piles of presents lining every room of a house (which they were, at her place, just last week - seriously), but I'm trying to understand where she's coming from. Laura thinks I need to talk to Pa about how they buy such high quality things, and we save stuff so much, that it's just piling up as the years pass and it's getting to where we're out of room - he is more approachable and reasonable about these sorts of things and she thinks he might even be relieved, since it's possible that they are feeling we all somehow EXPECT the extravagance they've lavished on us year after year. And that could be getting to be a strain, as the numbers of people coming increase with time passing.
Anyhow, we started easing back into schoolwork after tea time. Ananda surprised me by fully grasping time concepts like "quarter after" and "quarter to", and their cooresponding numerals (6:45, etc) like nothing. She breezed through a couple of pages in about 5 minutes with all correct answers and then ran out back to play with Isaac on the new slide. I sat longer with Aaron, but he made me really proud. He colors so well now. It's funny, I have this reputation in booju as the anti-coloring book queen, and with Ananda I do think that was a good decision on my part, but in retrospect if I could go back I would SO have Aaron coloring things early on. It's amazing how it's helped his handwriting skills. And he can tell you what letter words start with off the top of his head like nothing now, and things like lower case e and s that used to be MAJOR hurdles, he doesn't even complain about and it all comes out legible. I think we'll be ready for 1st grade stuff before summer.
Sooooo...then everyone sat around with me on the back porch unwrapping and assembling this PlayDoh activity table that has a bajillion colors of Play Doh with storage, and built in every-cool-accessory, like the one that makes hair pop out of someone's head, and the Fun Factory and such, until G got home. And then we went out and around to places that I don't feel like describing anymore, except to say that 1. Having Isaac's carseat in the back next to Aaron is a horrible, horrible thing. They are like oil and water and my van goes from a peaceful respite where Grant and I get to talk uninterrupted, to a hellaciously loud lot of uber irritation and nonstop "telling". And slapping sounds. It will be back where it belongs in the second row STAT, now that we no longer need the storage space. And when the new baby comes, JAKE is going back there - Isaac can sit in the middle with the new baby. 2. Starbucks giftcards are a wonderful thing. And 3. This crazy necklace I got with a Target giftcard has made my whole wardrobe seem different, in a seriously cool way. It's a crazy, crazy necklace that says "I am Cuban and a former Madonna and Motley Crue fan" all over it, but I love it.
Just in case you were wondering;
-Isaac has not worn a diaper in about 3 weeks now, and hasn't had almost any accidents during that time. Not a single one on our out of town trip or anything. It's...so awesome.
-Jake is now saying "apple" (ap-uh), "Cracker", (cack-uh) and "pee" (peh) regularly, in addition to signing "milk" and "water", motioning for hugs or to be changed, and responding to our words a lot - for instance he throws things away if we ask him to, now, or comes over and sits down if I say it's time to take off his shoes, or runs to the door if I ask if he'd like to go outside. And he claps and waves and gives five and motions and says "Shh!" as appropriate. He's said ma and da for quite awhile, though he's never bothered to double them up. He is almost always happy and is the most affectionate toddler I've ever had.
...The end? (insert snappy conlusion here)
We went out into one of our rare "cold" days (in the 60s during daylight hours, with wind), in all our new sweaters and whatnot, feeling crisp rather than sweaty for a change, and did a lot of walking around the neighborhood with Aaron on his new bike and Annie on her new skates. Then we got home and I put Isaac and Jake down for naps (with almost no fuss or bother whatsoever, I think they were both out within 10 minutes of not even trying). Ananda and Aaron and I went out for tea for the first time in forever. My Nana and Pa got me a teapot and set of cups and saucers that are very nice, and we broke them in with hot cocoa, dark chocolate kisses and pieces of leftover candy canes while reading a penguin book Annie got, out on the sidewalk. Previously we've always used whatever coffee mugs were around for tea, with a saucepan.
In the process of washing out the tea stuff I saw that the undersides of the saucers say "Fine China" and I thought, Really? I've never owned anything that qualified as china, though many of our dishes say "Made in China" :p So I went to the website that kindly included a coupon for future purchases in the package the cups and all came in, and sure enough...my Nana and Pa spent between $15 and $40 for each set of cup and saucer, and at least $50 for the pot O_o For a teaset I plan on using outside, with small children! It's service for 6, so $200 is a modest approximation. I do like it and the kids think it's wonderful since it's "fancy", but...geez louise. I don't want to know what they spent on my french white corningware, which includes as a bonus 7 dessert ramekins I've already decided will soon be home to chocolate souffles. It's never been done in my family, at all, but somehow those two gifts - the tea set and the corningware - really make me want to send them a thank you card, this time around. I suppose because they're reminiscent of hope chests and bridal showers and other such things I've never really been exposed to but feel wistful about for my own daughter. I know it's Christmas, we all exchanged gifts, and said thank you a thousand times, etc etc - but I was thinking that pictures of the kids wearing and using new things tucked into a card, possibly even with some sort of treat I've cooked in a little package, would absolutely thrill them. I think my grandfather might cry about it.
I spent awhile on the phone with my sister expressing the rants of my last post, and she told me how her and Nana talked about it for awhile while she was still in Lakeland - my Nana was one of 6 kids in a VERY poor family with an alcoholic father, in a bad neighborhood, growing up. Then when my mom and uncle were young, she was a struggling single mother living in the projects and working two jobs to barely make ends meet. It's been this dream of hers her whole life to have a huge Christmas tree with an explosion of presents surrounding it. I do still think it's excessive to have large piles of presents lining every room of a house (which they were, at her place, just last week - seriously), but I'm trying to understand where she's coming from. Laura thinks I need to talk to Pa about how they buy such high quality things, and we save stuff so much, that it's just piling up as the years pass and it's getting to where we're out of room - he is more approachable and reasonable about these sorts of things and she thinks he might even be relieved, since it's possible that they are feeling we all somehow EXPECT the extravagance they've lavished on us year after year. And that could be getting to be a strain, as the numbers of people coming increase with time passing.
Anyhow, we started easing back into schoolwork after tea time. Ananda surprised me by fully grasping time concepts like "quarter after" and "quarter to", and their cooresponding numerals (6:45, etc) like nothing. She breezed through a couple of pages in about 5 minutes with all correct answers and then ran out back to play with Isaac on the new slide. I sat longer with Aaron, but he made me really proud. He colors so well now. It's funny, I have this reputation in booju as the anti-coloring book queen, and with Ananda I do think that was a good decision on my part, but in retrospect if I could go back I would SO have Aaron coloring things early on. It's amazing how it's helped his handwriting skills. And he can tell you what letter words start with off the top of his head like nothing now, and things like lower case e and s that used to be MAJOR hurdles, he doesn't even complain about and it all comes out legible. I think we'll be ready for 1st grade stuff before summer.
Sooooo...then everyone sat around with me on the back porch unwrapping and assembling this PlayDoh activity table that has a bajillion colors of Play Doh with storage, and built in every-cool-accessory, like the one that makes hair pop out of someone's head, and the Fun Factory and such, until G got home. And then we went out and around to places that I don't feel like describing anymore, except to say that 1. Having Isaac's carseat in the back next to Aaron is a horrible, horrible thing. They are like oil and water and my van goes from a peaceful respite where Grant and I get to talk uninterrupted, to a hellaciously loud lot of uber irritation and nonstop "telling". And slapping sounds. It will be back where it belongs in the second row STAT, now that we no longer need the storage space. And when the new baby comes, JAKE is going back there - Isaac can sit in the middle with the new baby. 2. Starbucks giftcards are a wonderful thing. And 3. This crazy necklace I got with a Target giftcard has made my whole wardrobe seem different, in a seriously cool way. It's a crazy, crazy necklace that says "I am Cuban and a former Madonna and Motley Crue fan" all over it, but I love it.
Just in case you were wondering;
-Isaac has not worn a diaper in about 3 weeks now, and hasn't had almost any accidents during that time. Not a single one on our out of town trip or anything. It's...so awesome.
-Jake is now saying "apple" (ap-uh), "Cracker", (cack-uh) and "pee" (peh) regularly, in addition to signing "milk" and "water", motioning for hugs or to be changed, and responding to our words a lot - for instance he throws things away if we ask him to, now, or comes over and sits down if I say it's time to take off his shoes, or runs to the door if I ask if he'd like to go outside. And he claps and waves and gives five and motions and says "Shh!" as appropriate. He's said ma and da for quite awhile, though he's never bothered to double them up. He is almost always happy and is the most affectionate toddler I've ever had.
...The end? (insert snappy conlusion here)
