Thinking about toys

Before I move along to a post about the time we spent in London, I have to get some stuff out of my head about toys.

I've been thinking a lot about toys lately; wondering what to get The Boy for his 2nd birthday, thinking about what kind of outside toys would work on our little patch of concrete out back, debating the next level of educational toys to move to. That was all stuff I was thinking about before we went to the UK. Now I'm just wondering if we're depriving The Boy. I've never liked the idea of raising an over-indulged brat with a bedroom/playroom/house bulging at the seams with the latest and greatest of toys available. I've been thinking that he's got just enough, but not too much to be spoiled.

That was until we visited The Boy's cousins in England. Talk about toys galore! Toys all over the place. Outside toys, inside toys, kitchen toys, cleaning toys, train sets, tea sets, dollies, motorcycles, keyboards, pretend towns, blocks... I could go on. The Boy was in Heaven, and I was feeling like a miserly grump who only gives her kid lumps of coal to play with. And the kids we were visiting don't belong to particularly indulgent parents. Oof!

So does that mean I'm more of miser than a cool minimalist? Who knew toys could be such a cause for neurosis?

An Awfully Big Adventure, Part 1

My half-English son has, after 22 months, finally been to England. It was a short trip - a scant 12 days - but we made a triangle route around the country. We traveled to the West Country to Derbyshire to York and to Canterbury in our trusty VW rental before heading into London.

The Boy played in his grandparents' garden with his cousins, ran around his great-grandmother's house - taking great care to test her antique keyboard with his chubby fingers, he then played with more cousins before stomping around Canterbury and trying to wake Chaucer from the dead.

So here's The Boy in his grandparents' garden

And still in the garden, working with his auntie and cousins

Here's The Boy terrorizing his great grandmother

And taking his first turn on a scooter

And eating at Wagamama in Canterbury with his namesake

And enjoying a post-dinner walk by Canterbury Cathedral with his dad

That last one's kind of artsy, no?

Next up, London!

It's been a while since I've posted...

It's been even longer since I've posted piccies. In fact, the dearth of pics I have available to me make me realize how woefully slack I've been in taking pictures of my sweet boy. Boo. I must improve!

That said, here are 2 recent pictures taken of The Boy in all his beauteous splendor.

This first one is of The Boy, his mama and my mama. It's a rare pic of me in my gimp chariot, but as it was taken after our completion of the MS Walk I will allow such a pic to go out into the world. After all, how else am I to be expected to get through 5 kilometers without a car.

My mom's done the walk for a million years, but this is only the second year we've tagged along. Last year The Boy slept most of the way, but this year he was wide awake, walking with Hubs and catching rides with Grandma and I. So he earned his medal.

It was a good day, topped off by a big breakfast afterward.

Great leaps in language

Please excuse the alliteration, but I can't think of a better way to describe the last few weeks in terms of The Boy's language development. He's been mimicking like a parrot and saying two-word sentences like, er, someone who know how to form two-word sentences.

You can now have conversations with him, which is unbelievably cool. You can ask him something like, "did you enjoy meeting Grandpa this morning?" And he earnestly nods his head and says "yes!"

Then you can ask, "what did you do there." And he replies, "Bampa walk." Heartbreakingly cute.

And it's not just his everyday understanding and vocabulary that's improving. There is a cafe friend of ours who we haven't seen in nearly a month, he's called Tony. The Boy has never said this guys name and, as I said, hasn't seen him in like a quarter of his lifetime.

Well, today as my dad led The Boy off on their walk my son said, "Bye Mama! Bye Tony!" And went on his way.

I am so proud.

A terrifying, but totally expected, milestone

We finally did it! We finally took down the gate at the base of our stairs and moved it to a tenuous perch at the top of the stairs. The Boy loves it and must have climbed upstairs to say "hi Dada" 500 times before settling down for his nap.

We're still working out the kinks. We taped foam tiles to the ceramic tiles at the base of the stairs, but The Boy made quick work of that; tearing up the tape and lugging the big chunks of foam up the stairs... without holding onto the railing while doing so. Ug!

So, no more tiles until we figure out a better way to keep them attached to the floor. In the meantime I'll be spending lots of time sitting on the stairs, guarding him from a fall and bribing him off the stairs with hugs and stories.

And this is why MS sucks

I read THIS article by Perez Hilton today. It's all about Hef using a scooter to get around Disneyland. Do I feel bad knowing that The Boy's first trip to Disneyland will see me scooting around like a 90 year old? Yup. Does the fact that he's a bajillionaire and was flanked by scooting bunnies make me feel any better? Nope.

Crap!

Now if I could lose some weight and maybe look more like a bunny... that might make the scooter more palatable.

It's almost Easter!

My mom got me an antique Easter Basket when I was very little. Sadly, it was destroyed in a fit of teenage anger and I haven't given Easter much thought since then. Last year Mom hosted an Easter Brunch but this year she's been too busy to organize anything.

I didn't give any of this any thought until I saw The Boy's response to the tiny stuffed bunny Mom gave him on Saturday(in case she didn't see him again before Easter). He loved it yesterday and today he continues to love it. So, it occurred to me that, regardless of how not bothered Hubs and I would normally be by Easter, we've got The Boy now, and he deserves to have us give a crap about holidays like Easter.

So, I just bought THIS shirt to go with this THESE pants he's had forever. Together I hope they will make an acceptable Easter ensemble for a fancy Easter Brunch on Sunday.

And I hope to have my picture issues solved soon, thereby limiting the link action.