While merrily doing some Christmas shopping online this evening, I started reading reviews of various Baby Einstein DVD when I came upon this review. . .
scroll down until you see viktor_57’s reviews. It’s probably close to the top of the list.
You can read the rest of his reviews
Amazon.com: here. I particularly enjoyed the one about the Hayley doll.
When watching Nas*car (yes, I’m ashamed to admit, but we only stopped on the channel it was on b/c D was rapt), D says, “Oh no! They are getting away!” as the cars sped around the track. Hee-hee.
There are a couple of intersections in suburbia where we live that are frequented by panhandlers. In the last year or so, the city has required any panhandler to wear a fluorescent vest. Go figure. Anyway, as we were stopped at one of these intersections yesterday, D observes, “That construction man is holding a sign.”
I don’t like to wear shoes in the house. The first thing I do even before setting the baby down or hanging my keys up when I walk in the house, is to kick my shoes off. I don’t like it when my husband keeps his shoes on inside for too long. “Are you going somewhere?” I ask, knowing that he’s not, but a person just isn’t relaxed if they still have their shoes on.
that’s been rattling around for a while.
With all my ranting about W and castigating any sane person who may have voted for him, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that D’s preschool teacher has a Bush sticker on the back of her giant blue pick-up truck. She is this tiny little person and has three daughters, all older than my kids. They come with her to the preschool in the morning and then walk down the street to their school. She works as a preschool teacher in her mother-in-law’s preschool and has some other job, too. But what I’d really like to say about her is that I’m so thankful she’s in our lives because she provides my son with things that I can’t always do. Patience, good humor, encouragement. She creates a warm, inviting place for the little guys. And for that I am in her debt.
The other thing is. . . I found out that I have a cousin (either 2nd or once-removed) in Baghdad. He’s my mom’s cousin’s son. I had no idea he was over there. His family (mom, dad & sister) will be joining the whole gang (my mom’s side of the family) for Christmas this year. J and I had already been talking about how if my uncle who’s an outspoken, diehard redneck, oops, I mean Republican from rural Virginia, starts in on politics, we don’t intent to hold our tongues out of politesse. If he can spout off, so can we. It’s everybody keeping their mouths shuts and being too reserved that got the Idiot-in-Chief elected again in the first place. (Politics aside, my uncle is a good guy and is a hoot, especially after several Scotches.) But, I hadn’t known that Mitchell was over in Iraq, so that kind of changes things a bit. So, no politics this Christmas. Damn. We were itching for a good debate.
Most of the things on my mind lately are stuff related to getting ready for the holidays, and I began to envision having a little Christmas blog to put my thoughts down.
And then, I thought it might be fun to get some others in on it, too.
So, if you feel like journaling your holiday preparations, please drop me a comment or an e-mail. The blog is at http://reindeergames.blogsome.com/
I’m gonna track some of you down via e-mail to join in, so be ready with your (lame) excuse or with a hearty “Why, of course!” 
I want to add some Christmas graphics, maybe a whole Christmas theme if I can find one.
I’m so frickin’ fed up with my kids right now. I was going to rant on the frequented mom’s site, but of course, it’s not loading right now. So you, my one reader, are going to witness my spewing.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. I don’t want to do this anymore. I think I suck at it. Can I quit and go on unemployment?
Did you see that SuperNanny episode where the mom is constantly telling the girls (twin girls) to “go play.” Well, I do that. And have been doing that quite a bit. Am I scarring my child for life? Am I “rejecting” him? I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know what else to do because I’m out of patience. Out. of. patience. Frickin’ kid is asking for stuff all the damn. day.
There’s been a kind of progression. When he would ask for something that I didn’t want him to do or didn’t want to give him right then, I wouldn’t say “no” outright. I’d say, “Well, let’s do that when x, y and z” or something like that.
But then, it would seem like he didn’t understand that I was telling him no when I tried to do it like that, so he’d keep asking.
So, eventually, I started adding the word “no” into my explanation. But he would still keep asking.
Now I see that it doesn’t matter what I say: he’s going to bug the crap out of me anyway, so my responses have become a snippy, emphatic, “NO!” At least, after he’s asked my ten times, that’s what it becomes.
I feel bad being like that, but I don’t know what to do. At least, when I raise my voice, he’ll stop asking.
And he’s whining a lot. I say that it’s the “Caillou-ification” of D. I avoided that show for a long time, but his dad has started letting him watch it lately. Caillou whines a lot. And now D is whining even more. I swear. C*aillou needs an episode about not whining. Seriously.
The only thing we can do lately without me losing my patience is watch TV.
The other one has given up his afternoon nap, goes to sleep at 7:00 p.m., but wakes up at 5:00 a.m. We are not happy. We just need to go to bed earlier, but I enjoy surfing the net in the evenings and J watches TV. The Daily Show is on at 11:00 p.m.
But we need sleep. Things go better with more sleep.
Do you agonize over holiday gift-giving?
I do.
Every single year, even when I tell myself (and J) that I’m not going to.
I make a list of the people we need to get gifts for. Then, I try to figure out what we should get them. It’s like I’m trying to come up with the perfect gift or something. I look at sales flyers. I search websites for gift ideas.
Yes, my perfectionism even extends to gift-giving. Heh.
What is the definition of a perfect gift, anyway? Well, it’s something that the recipient will really, really like and will thank me for from now on. “Wow, remember when you got me that _____? That was awesome!”
But the other primary criterion is that it must fit in our budget.
I go through several phases during this “What should we give x?” process. There’s the early list which includes the names and initial ideas. My attempt to short-circuit the decision-making process by getting all the shopping done quickly and decisively.
Yeah right. A few days pass and the things that seemed like good ideas a few days ago, no longer seem appealing.
Then, I begin searching the flyers or the internets, in earnest. Now, nothing seems OK, except stuff that’s just out of our budget, which is a lot of things.
Frustrated, I go to the store for stuff we actually need and end up impulse buying several things to be given as gifts.
Cool, I think. I’ve got a couple people taken care of.
A few days later: why in the hell did I buy that? Maybe I could give it to Bob instead of John. But then what should I get John? Or maybe I could give them both the same thing?
And so it goes. On and on. I’m giving myself a headache just writing this.
And then there’s the whole “well, we’re on a budget, so I could make some homemade gifts. . . But, when am I going to find the time to make quilts for everyone? (last year it was knitting scarves) . . . Well, maybe if you started now. It’s still early enough . . . . Yeah, but by the time you buy the materials and the patterns, guides, and babysitter time, it’s just as much as if you bought something. . . But homemade gifts are nice. . . They are nice to give to people who actually appreciate them . . .”
Argh.
And then there’s also the last minute “Oh crap. Am I supposed to give something to so-in-so? Oh, and what about our next door neighbors? Should we give them something? Maybe I’ll bake something for them. Bake something? When do you have time to do that? When I’m taking a break from working on the quilts, of course, silly.”
I’m 34 years old. You’d think I’d have this figured out by now.
