Better

Thanks to those who commented publicly or privately about my last post.  I'm sorry I haven't written before now, but it was a hectic, crazy weekend, as they tend to be around here.
I'm feeling a bit better about the whole "thing" situation.  I've been able to make peace with the fact that there are people in my son's life who will spoil him not only with their love but with physical representations of their love.  I truly understand that to some people I know, more is better and they must be the "cool" aunt or uncle who gets the kids the bestest (and biggest) gifts.  I'm safe and secure in my knowledge that my nieces and nephews and son all love me no matter what I give them on Christmas.  (Although, we'll see with Ant this year, his gift isn't cool on purpose...)
I'm also somewhat vindicated with the train Gak and I got our son vs. the one he got from Santa at the kids bowling party.  You see, that one is definitely an "eyes only" kind of train.  The track is easy for him to pull apart, but not put together.  Nor is it exactly easy to get the train cars together and on the track.  Not for clumsy toddler hands at any rate.  (And Poppa hands tend to have difficulty as well it seems...)  It's also not a "drive it myself across the carpet" kind of train.  It does make a lot of noise if you have the sound turned on and it goes around it's track nicely. I've got pictures of him opening it on the camera, I just haven't had a chance to get them onto the computer and uploaded yet.  It really is huge.  There are two sections of track that I didn't use and it still makes a pretty big oval around the table our tree sits on.  It will be really neat next year or the year after when he understands the concept of it not being such a hands-on kind of train.  You see, I've decided that this will be a "Christmas only" train.  It'll get set up around the tree when it goes up, and packed away when the rest of the Christmas decorations go back to the basement.  This is a good compromise I believe.  And like I said, in a year or two it'll be more fun for him when he can use his imaginations without having to use his hands at the same time.
So, yes, right now the little wooden train is much more in tune with what my boy-o wants and needs.  He needs something he can physically manipulate himself (without fear of breakage or too much frustration on his part) and can use his more than ample imagination going places, picking up and dropping off passengers and cargo.  I still have no idea where we're going to keep that one set up, but we'll figure something out.

Like I said, this weekend was hectic and busy.  Friday was my company's Christmas Lunch.  It was held at the "sports bar" just across the highway from the complex our office is in.  We all had a great time.  We had the "Casino Night" again.  It really was a lot of fun.  The prizes were all liked.  I really wanted to win one of the two Kindles we had, but I'm really happy that Julie got one, she wanted it so very badly.  (I still can't really decide between a Kindle and a Nook, both have good things going for them, but I figured if I won one, it would make up my mind for me... and I don't really need one as I don't travel any more and don't get much reading time anyhow.)  I did win a door prize though.  Unfortunately, it was the one prize that I really didn't want.  Mostly because I can't use it.  You see, it was a set of three cordless phones.  They're really nice phones, but we don't have a land-line any more.  (We weren't using it other than to get an occasional call from a couple of friends but mostly calls from political campaigns and telemarketers; we weren't even remembering to use it for outgoing calls... so we canceled it when we moved and had to go to Comcast for our Internet connection...)  Luckily I was able to get the receipt and was able to take it back to Staples for store credit.  It was a nice chunk of change too!  Now to figure out what to do with it, something fun.
Saturday was a doubly hectic day.  We didn't do laundry in the morning but came back to the house for a bit after dropping Gak off at work.  We then headed over to watch Zoe and Billy bowl.  Boo really does look forward to hanging out with his cousins while they bowl.  Not to mention all the other kids that are there that think he's all that and a cookie on top.  (Although, there was one adult there who I've never seen there before and I wanted to strangle.... but that's a totally different story...)  It was their Christmas party (since this coming Saturday is Christmas), which means that it was Rock-n-Bowl.  Boo didn't seem to mind this year.  He also successfully coned a couple of kids out of cookies and peanut butter cups and some other goodies.  Oh well, it's the holidays.  He doesn't get junk every day, so a splurge now and then isn't a bad thing.  But, we had to scoot out of there a bit before Billy finished up so we could get to our own party at the other Earl Bowl.  Unfortunately, Boo didn't snooze in the car like I hoped and had been totally overstimulated at the first bowling.  He was really good until part way through the bowling.  Then he just wanted to go home and melted down a bit.  I managed to convince him to stay and have some juice and not cry while Santa was handing out the presents.  Like I said, he was very excited about it, which made me smile.
Sunday morning I went and did laundry finally and Boo and Poppa went on an adventure to the Q-mart.  We then had lunch at McDonald's (another rarity) and Boo gave me a Solstice gift.  He and Poppa found a great little tree of life pendant for the necklace that Gak got me for Hanukkah.  It's very pretty and just the rite size. Then after nap time we head over to Kat's.  I had made up a batch of one of my brother's chilli recipes, and it went over quite well.  We all hung out, made cookies and decorated stockings, which is a tradition of Steph's.  It was a good time.  Kat had also found the backpack carrier that she'd used with Zoe.  We even managed to convince Boo to get in it and the kids and I took a nice long walk to the far end of the block and back (just shy of a mile).  Boo enjoyed himself.  The straps could use a bit more padding, but overall it's a good fit.  Hopefully he'll like to go orienteering with me this spring with it, or maybe we can all go hiking up in the mountains this summer.  (I miss hiking...)

Anyhow, today was yet another day at work.  I'm actually getting somewhere with some of the tickets I've got, but it's still a little bit of too much to do, not enough time and where's my focus?

I've got to wrap this up and head to bed.  Another long day ahead of me tomorrow.  But it's another 4-day week and then I've got just over a week downtime.  (I'm so not looking forward to the going back after being off... but that's another story.)

Peace to all and may your weekends be good, and your presents from the heart.