Learning to Give

An email was sent out at my office that a toy drive was going to be held and also that if you donated then your name would be put in for a raffle of a free vacation day. Heck I’ll take a free vacation day, especially since our vacation policy is pretty redonkulous I even won’t have enough vacation day next year to cover all the shut down time we have next year, nevermind all the days off that my kids have from daycare being closed for holidays I don’t get off. But that is besides the point.

So the toy drive is for needy children. There was a list of items that were requested the most. So this past weekend I decided to take the kids to the store. Now before we left I explained to him that the toys that we were going to buy were not for us. We were not keeping them; that they were going to kids that did not have a lot of money and could not afford to buy toys. He seemed to understand it. We headed over to the dollar store. I grabbed a cart and Aiden loved the fact that he was able to help pick out what we should give. We picked up coloring books, crayons, makers, books, puzzles(Aiden picked out the images), cars and generic Barbie dolls (Aiden picked those). He had fun putting all the stuff in the cart. Honestly, I think he was more excited about picking out toys in general, but it’s a start though.

 Later that day when Seth asked us what we did earlier in the day Aiden said,

 “Daddy we went to the store to buy toys.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! We bought toys because they can’t buy toys because they waste all their money.”

::facepalm:: 

Maybe next year little man. Maybe next year.

 (the back half of the cart was filled with the diaper bag and coats.)

 Rebecca checking out the dolls.

My One Consignment Purchase

Last fall at my first sale I bought a bunch of winter clothing for the kids. They needed it and in the need I just broke even with what I sold. The spring I found a few more sales in my area and proceeded to try to get rid of as much of the summer stuff I had from when Aiden was a baby and the previous summer  season of Rebecca's. It was a lot of clothing. I did manage to sell about 70% of the stuff. About 10% was not what I deemed sell-able, but from what I have seen of the racks it would be perfectly fine to some people. So not too bad. This Fall sale season I was tempted to go just to see what was there as far as toys went because the kids were all set in the clothing department, but I resisted the urge. I volunteer one shift at the sale that is most local to me and was my first sale because I like to. I get to talk with the different moms and its nice. Plus I earn a little extra percentage. I get a chance at a drawing to earn 100% of my sales and also because as a seller I can also buy anything that is unsold during the regular sale. During the sorting of the items that were being donated, I happen to come across this beauty.

 

 Its Techno Gears Marble Mania. Aiden has had some interest in marble runs because they have one in one of his old classrooms. I did have it down on his birthday list, but never got around to getting it for him.  So when I happen to see this I snagged it up and for a lovely price of $8.00. And the box looks brand new to boot. You never know what you are going to find at one of these sales.

How many kids are enough?

Many people ask this question when they are in the throes of the "baby years".  With the route that technology has taken us, the baby years are now a 20-25 year window.  There are so many questions when the topic of kids is brought up.

Do you want kids?

When are you going to start having kids? (this one comes up as soon as the ink is dried on the marriage license or you hit 30)

How many would you like?

Should you wait to have a significant other before having kids?

Once you have kids, do you want another? When?

No matter what the answers are to any of these questions, they are the answers that suit you and your life. Seth and I have discussed this many times. Our first discussion was before we were even married. Then while on our honeymoon cruise, we were relaxing in the hot tub one night and we started to talk about when we wanted to have kids and how many we wanted. At the time we decided that we wanted 3 kids and that we would start in December. We figured that it may take a few months before anything happened and so that we would have a baby in the fall. To us it wasn’t crazy to start that early. Yes we had just been married, but in the grand scheme of things we had been together for 7 yrs at that point so we had all that alone time. And we also did not think that things would happen as fast as they did- the first month.

Aiden is born and then reality hits. 3 kids ehh? Maybe not. Of course that was just the ‘new parent’ syndrome hitting. Once we had a handle of everything and had a pretty good routine down we started to discuss plans for baby number two. We definitely wanted a second, but a big part of me still wanted a third, but I also wanted a girl. In the end we left it open that if our second was a girl then we were done having kids and if the second was a boy, then it would be open for discussion when the time came. I know that if we did end up going for a third that we would not be guaranteed a girl had our second been a boy. You get what you get unless you have huge boat loads of money, but I can pretty confidently say that we probably would have stopped at just two children no matter what the gender was. For us it’s more manageable. The dynamics of the household just work better. Neither of us wanted our kids to share a bedroom. And while we can afford to have another child, we would not be able to do as much for the kids as we would like. There would be less vacations and activities and events. Maybe the correct word is ‘spoiling’, but we want to be able to properly provide for the kids we have and not have to worry about where very nickel and dime goes. We don’t have everything and I have no plans to try to give them everything lest they grow up to feel entitled.  Plus, *shhh* I might just lose my mind with a third one running around.

Either way, no matter what you decide to do, that is your decision and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Jealousy rears it ugly head.

This past weekend we had my college friend Shannon over. She just had her first child this past August and while we had been wanting to get together I knew that as a new mom it may take some time for things to settle into being normal and I didn't want to her to feel rushed that we needed to get together to meet the new little man.

We still have a few things in the basement form when the kids were babies, so I unpacked those and brought them up. Both kids immediately gravitated towards the toys. Their curiosity peaked. I had to explain to them that these were baby toys and that they were for Shannon's little baby. The whole time they were over the kids were great. Well they both napped half the time so that was a bonus, but they were still great with Alex. Seth even made the comment that even though I wanted a boy and then a girl, which is what we ended up with, he had a feeling that Rebecca would make a great big sister. That was until she saw me hold Alex. She got so angry and was grabbing at my leg. The whining started. I, of course, couldn't help but laugh, but when I picked her up she had nothing but the evil eye for Alex.

**You're a little too big for that.**

So after they left Rebecca decided that she was going to crawl into the bouncy seat. Maybe to prove the point that SHE is the baby of this house. 

(( And NO holding a brand new squishy baby did not make me want another one. I was perfectly fine to hand him back.))

Happy Halloween!! (2012)

Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone had a great night and stayed safe. We had great weather to go out. Not too cold and not wet either. The kids had such a blast. Aiden kept asking every few minutes if we were going to go out, but we had to keep telling him that we would after everyone was done eating dinner. Plus we went out really early last year and there was pretty much no one out until we were done so we wanted to go a little later when people would actually be out.

October 30^th the kids had their Halloween parties at school. I sent their costumes with them so they could put it on and I’m glad I did because I was able to take pretty decent pictures of them wearing the costumes then when we actually went out trick or treating. Aiden helped me put together his goodie bags for all his friends in his class. 

 

 Aiden didn't want to wear his ears at the party. Bee- Rebecca's best friend MacKenzie

 Painting a pumpkin.

 

 

Halloween night I was curious as to how Rebecca would perceive everything but she did well and pretty much by the third house she knew exactly what she needed to do at each house to get candy. She said “tee tee” or “tick a tee” and thank you. It was the cutest thing. Aiden was a man on a mission to go to as many houses as possible, until his bucket started to get too heavy for him and I forget to bring a third bucket with us to hold the excess candy like I did in previous years.  It only took us an hour to go up and down the street, but that was good for us. Next year we’ll venture down a few other streets when Rebecca’s older. As it was we didn’t get home until almost an hour after her bedtime, but its Halloween. You make exceptions for special occasions.

 The Mummy and the Pirate are our neighbors behind us. We met up with them along the way and walked with them a while until they turned to go down another street and we headed  home.

 Minnie's ears go lost some where along the way.

 Assessing the loot.