Can we build it? Yes we can!

I wish someone could explain to me why I feel guilty that I am obliged to do some housework rather than hang out and play with my kids. Is it because a) I don't really want to play with my kids, because is there anything more boring than pretending to be Bob the Builder or one of the Thomas trains? Or is it because b) I feel guilty that by giving in to my desire to put away laundry and vacuum and maintain some semblance of order within the house, I am submitting to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and so I feel that I should just be able to leave the mess and play with the kids? (See a).

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Yesterday I spent the morning trawling the Red White and Blue thrift store. I went to look at maternity clothes but knew I couldn’t restrict myself to just those. I did however buy a nice plain navy blue dress with sunflowers printed on it that will do nicely for work. I also bought a little blue glass-bead necklace that caught my eye. (The nice thing about thrift store items catching your eye is that they rarely cost more than a few bucks and sometimes less, so you can indulge yourself with out too much guilt.)


I picked up some kids’ books (most of the adult ones I already owned or they were Harlequin romances…). I got Si two Richard Scarrys that we didn’t have, a counting one and What Do People Do All Day? (Answer: Damned if I know!); Amelia Bedelia’s Christmas; Ginger Pye (Eleanor Estes) and Runaway Ralph (Beverly Cleary) (we are moving towards simple chapter books to accommodate Si’s reading tastes and level); and two Elmo Golden books and a Teletubbies book for Jude.

The big score of the day however was Scoop from Bob the Builder, whom my boys have recently discovered. This Scoop is about 8 inches tall and talks and moves its shovel up and down and moves its eyes around -- for a dollar! I also picked up a Tonka tow truck for a buck. Jude immediately adopted Scoop – he slept with him last night and brought him into bed with me this morning. It’s freaky enough that I wake up to find Mimi staring me in the face some days (see the beauteous Mimi in pic at right), all I need is a backhoe too.




Total spent: sixteen dollars.

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I have been trying to finish A Year by the Sea for the past day, but it is not the kind of book that lends itself to being read while two small children squabble incessantly over who gets to play with Muck and who gets Scoop.