Me again...

Hey, two posts in two days! Amazing! Will wonders never cease?

I just didn't want to give you the chance to miss me...

I took my car in for an oil change today - big excitement around here. I had been putting it off for too long. I tried to call and make an actual appointment a few weeks ago to force myself to get it done but found out that the dealership no longer takes appointments for oil changes. So, it's the luck of the draw when you pull into the dealership. I thought about going yesterday and opted to grocery shop instead (yeah, that's exactly how excited I was at the prospect of sitting at the dealership - even grocery shopping seemed more appealing). So, today I bit the bullet and brought the car in at about 9:30 after dropping A off at preschool. I was mostly anxious about how long it would take given no set appointment on arrival. I had to bring E with me and I really did not want to have to chase her all over the place for an hour or more. I packed plenty of snacks and her stroller and figured I'd ply her with tasty snacks and milk and make her stay in one spot for as long as possible. Thankfully, it ended up not being the ordeal that I was expecting. I sat in the waiting room and gave E her snacks and milk and I sipped coffee and the car was done in about 45 minutes. I think E was only restless for the last 10 minutes or so and I was able to placate her by letting her play with the tape measure from my knitting bag. Yes, I even knitted a few rows on my socks while she was busy eating - the beauty of knitting is its portability!

After leaving the dealership I stopped in at the toy store down the street. It's one of those toy stores that only carries really "cool" stuff - you know, the stuff that wins all those toy awards every year or that brings some level of education/learning to the play experience. I could browse that store for hours quite happily. My credit card is usually quite flaccid when I leave the store but it's all good stuff! Today I found a few things for my 3-year-old nephew who will be here with us for Christmas (along with his dad, my BIL). And I found some cute little activity books to put in stockings. I think there were one or two other things but at the moment I'm forgetting what they are and I haven't yet extracted them from the back of the van - that will have to wait until the girls are in bed. On the way home I stopped in at Marshall's and found even more great deals - including a Barbie Vespa for A that I had seen in a catalog! I know she will love it and it was only $6.99 compared with what I already thought was a great deal in the catalog at $8.99! Cha-ching! I love finding bargains! I also found a talking Care Bear for E (with everything that we have for the girls in this house I'm hard-pressed to find something original...trust me, it was not my first choice but I have not seen anything else that I think she'll really love and I know she'll enjoy pressing the belly and having it talk) and also an activity cube thingy for her.

I hit upon a gift-giving dilemma when I was out shopping. I saw a really nice tea set at the "cool" toy store and am not sure what to do about it. R had a Madeline tea set that broke recently (well, the teapot shattered when she dropped it on the tile floor in the bathroom). A has a tea set but it's a plastic one - the kind that comes in a little wicker carrying case. They both loved the Madeline tea set and would spend hours filling the teapot water and having "tea" parties with their stuffed animals. Only after the Madeline teapot broke did they deign to use the plastic version - and only because the other option at that moment was to end the tea party. So the dilemma is: how the heck do I get away with only buy one tea set? Should I buy it and label it for both of them and risk tears on Christmas morning because they have to (God Forbid!) SHARE. Ugh. I'm ready to just toss the whole idea because I know it is going to create problems and I REALLY detest the idea of buying two tea set to keep the peace (plus, spending double the money on the duplicate gifts seems silly). I had an idea in the car on the way to pick up A and on the way home I broached the subject of "what she wants to buy her sisters for Christmas". After a few moments discussion I casually brought up the fact that R broke her teapot recently and "that might be a great gift for her!" At first, she seemed to buy into the whole idea but suddenly came upon the realization that SHE TOO wants a tea set because hers is "just plastic." Sigh....and here I thought I'd hit upon a solution. Let A be excited about getting R the tea set that they could share! But, nope - that idea struck out. Again...it's the damn sharing issue. What would you do? This is a problem with a lot of gifts at this stage of the game because they are both interested in a lot of the same stuff. So buying something for one and not the other can be a touchy thing. But, there are certainly toys that interest A waaaay more than they do R and vice versa...but just try to buy only one and the other will get bent out of shape!

R's bus just arrived and so I'd better sign off before she decides to read over my shoulder. That reading thing is such a strange concept and I have to be careful what she sees on my blog from now on!