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  1. Yay, PRESENTS!!!!...Ahem, I Mean, Presents

    Friday, November 11, 2011

    This is the time of year when another one of my anomolous tendencies reveals itself. Let me explain. I love the idea of simplicity parenting. All of us, myself included, have too much stuff. Jonathan and I joked before we even had kids when we saw how many toys some of our friend's kids had that we were going to send ours outside with a stick to play all day. Less stuff around promotes kids using their imagination. This is how I truly feel. AND I LOVE PRESENTS!!!! OK, there, I've said it.

    Seriously, I love presents, specifically the opening of presents. This year, when Jonathan and I were deciding on our budget for Sophie's Chanukah and Christmas gifts, it sounded less like a conversation and more like two people negotiating a deal. I was the one trying to drive the price up, if you haven't already guessed.

    My family has the rather unusual custom of celebrating Chanukah while we're all together for Thanksgiving. Every year we have to figure out, based on everyone's schedules, what night we open the gifts. If it's going to be later in the visit they always say, "Rachel? Is that alright with you? Can you wait that long?"

    Let me point out here that I have nieces, 5-years-old and 10-years-old, who aren't as excited as I am. Let me also point out that recently the adults have all decided that we are only getting gifts for the kids. This in no way diminishes my enthusiasm. I love giving gifts. I love watching other people open gifts.

    Right now Sophie is still too young to be able to anticipate and be excited about holidays and presents, but I know next year that will no longer be the case. I want to instill in her a thankfulness for family and the non-material things in life. I also want her to be empathetic towards others who are not as fortunate. But she's a sharp cookie, and I don't hide my feelings well...she's going to know how excited I am when we all open presents.

  2. Crazy In the Rain

    Thursday, November 3, 2011

    We had been prepping Sophie for Halloween for about a month. She knew that she was going to be a bee, and that bees say "buzz," and she tried her best at saying "trick-or-treat," which came out more like "teet teet." It got to the point once we reached late October that I could ask just about anything and her first answer would be, "A bee!" So, our plan was to go trick-or-treating at a few houses in the neighborhood and have her answer the door with us when trick-or-treaters came to our house. We also had a Halloween playdate planned in the afternoon. There was one thing we had not planned on...rain. This wasn't just a light drizzle, either. Halloween afternoon arrived along with a downpour.

    If Sophie were older, she likely would have been upset that bad weather was threatening her Halloween experience. Sophie, however, did not mind the rain. In fact, the rain was by far Sophie's favorite part of Halloween (tasting chocolate for the first time later in the evening was a close second). A friend of mine had planned the afternoon playdate at the park, luckily one with a large shelter. There were activity stations, yummy Halloween goodies, and lots of other kids. Sophie was not interested in any of that. She wanted to play in the rain. For the first half of the get-together, we were the only ones not under the shelter. By the end of the afternoon, Sophie had found two fellow nature-lovers with brave mothers.

    Recently I was writing in Sophie's journal and trying to describe how much she likes to explore and spend time outdoors. I didn't feel like my words were quite expressing the wonderful energy that is Sophie. I think these photos from our second Halloween illustrate it much better. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween and that if you didn't have good weather, you at least enjoyed the bad weather like we did!