One Sixteenth

Christmas

Inflatable four-foot high dinosaur from Discovery Store. $20 and worth far more than that.

We inflated it at 1 am and left it set up in the living room, from Santa. When I got up, the big boys immediately swooped down on me to ask about it.

"Mom, who gave Griffin the dinosaur? Was it you and Dad, or Santa?"

"Ummm ... I think it was Santa."

"Wow. Did you know that Santa used Dad's air machine to blow it up? He left it plugged in in the office."

"Hey Mom, I think Santa must have used our gift tags, too. I guess he ran out."

What are the odds that they're pulling my string?

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Playmobil. Why have I never bought Playmobil before? This is another thing that seems to be worth every penny, and perhaps more. We got one boy a knights' castle, and one a Viking longship. Now they can play Viking invasion. The Viking ship will really work in the water. Lots of small parts, but these things are detailed and utterly fantastic. I will buy more, much much more. I think they should do a LOTR set. I've been quietly selling Connor on the fact that the Vikings look a great deal like the Rohirrim.

It is so clear that these sets are not made in the U.S. The knights (I think) each come with their own little tankard. Not only that, but there are little plastic inserts that you can put into the tankards, and it looks like there's a head of beer inside. There's another that makes it look as though the beer has spilled out. Connor told me what it was. I didn't get it at first. I thought it was pretty darned funny. As I left the room laughing, I heard him saying "Must ... drink ... beer ... and fire ... catapult!"

Some of you will think that's horrible. We laughed very, very hard.

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Our other good buy was a kidcraft train table. I was a little nervous as I've never actually seen one of these. It's sturdy, it assembled easily, and the bins that go underneath it to hold train parts are large. It will hold all our our trains and tracks in just one; we can probably use the other to hold all the Playmobil. The table came with one of those tops with trees, etc. on it that you can use to make a trainscape; the other side of the table is white. This has so very many uses.

So I think I did good this year. Many good ideas. Oh, we also got Aidan a LEM/command module combo, and Connor Age of Empires. And lots of train-type things for the babies. And there were even some books thrown in there.

Jeff and I opted to spend very little on each other, but he did give me a smoothie maker, a U2 DVD and enough bath stuff to keep me happy for a year. I got him a sweater, Casablanca, and a book about Medal of Honor recipients.

But mostly, I'm happy that the kids are thrilled, and that Jeff is home. It looks like he'll be doing the weekly commuting thing for longer. We thought it was over. Sigh. Never mind. I don't want to think about that right now. We'll think about that tomorrow. After all ....

Posted by Steph at December 25, 2003 05:37 PM