is it only november still?

Nov 28

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, caleb isaiah, clever toys, family, i want that, just another day in paradise, memories, parenting, ramblings, who wants to read this?

I ordered a workbench for Caleb from Sears.com on Thanksgiving night so that I wouldn’t have to brave Kmart on Black Friday in addition to my other stops. It is a My First Craftsman item, thus the reason it is only sold at Kmart and Sears. It was $10 off, and stupid Sears finally sent me an email Monday and canceled my order! I was pissed! They never even sent an order confirmation. I could look it up on their website using my order number though. Craptastic. Apparently it sold out, and they let people continue to order on their website and just canceled orders after letting people think they were getting their product for a few days. Asshats. Anyway, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find it, so we went to Kmart last night. Scott and Caleb stayed in the car while I looked through the chaos that is Kmart’s toy section. Finally I asked someone, and he found one in the stock room that had just come in yesterday. I got it, and we put a blanket over it in the back.

After Caleb was in the bed, we were going to start a movie. I wanted to be sure that the workbench had all its parts and pieces, for no Christmas Eve assembly surprises. We also wanted to check out the little drill to see whether to get a separate one from Kmart. Can I just tell you how cool this thing is? We put it together, which took all of three seconds (Little Tikes, how do I love thee, I can put our huge playset together in about three minutes. Literally.) It needs a lot of batteries, but I have a plan! I’m going to make a list of all of the batteries that we need before any wrapping happens, and I’ll put batteries in anything I can beforehand.

Wow though. My little mechanic is going to LOVE this thing! Daddy will be able to teach him all about it. Scott says he’ll have Caleb changing the oil by the end of January. When were were working on a project outside last weekend, Caleb said “Mommy can you please go get my tools? I help Daddy. I need my tools.” The same tools I have to make disappear shortly before Christmas! Not sure how I’m going to do that, but we have another Littles Tikes bench that we got secondhand. I want to sell his current tools with the bench on Craigslist. The new toolbench puts this other one to shame and takes up less space to boot (the other one got moved to the storage building).

The POWER drill has several different screwdriver and socket bits. It has a little hanging shoplight, a grinder, a saw, tons of nuts, bolt, screws, sockets, hanging pegs, a project car, and an engine to work on! The wheels can be unscrewed from the car using a screwdriver or the drill, he is gonna LOVE that. We got it out of the box around 11pm. Finally at 11:40, I looked up and said, “I thought we were gonna watch a movie tonight.” Scott said, “I’m having fun playing with my son’s toy right now, thanks!” *strongly resists the urge to abbreviate laugh out loud right here*

So about that procrastinating thing, did I mention that I unpacked my suitcase from Georgia so that I could go to Mom and Dad’s for Thanksgiving? Yes we were in Georgia at the beginning of October. Why? And all the crap that Scott took out of the Honda when he came to pick me up (when the car broke down)… Wrapped up in a king size comforter (used like a Santa satchel) and dumped on the other side of the bed. Go ahead and ask me about the boxes that all of Caleb’s Christmas stuff came in earlier this month. Piled in the corner of the playroom. Half a loaf of bread that we were going to turn into bird food? Sitting on the counter. For three weeks. Everywhere I look, there is more procrastinated crap! It is taking over!

I sure didn’t procrastinate on going to get that service plan this morning though. UPS showed up with our new camcorder (my first one!) this morning about 10:30. By 11, we were dressed (yes I was still in my pajamas when he got here, and if I hadn’t had anywhere to go, I still would be), and out the door to go get the service plan for the camera that Scott wanted. Best Buy offers a -if you drop it in a puddle, then run over it with your car, we’ll replace it free- service plan. They told me I had 30 days to get it, but it was easier if I brought it in new so they wouldn’t have to inspect it. See, looky! And you can even see this half written blog entry in the picture!

Is it just me, or have camcorders gotten unbelievably compact in the last few years! Remember all the parents standing in the back row at school plays with their big clunkers? I bet this thing would be really hard to use for someone who had big hands, it almost feels too small. And they have a 30GB hard drive packed in there! You can absolutely expect a ridiculous amount of Christmas footage. You can’t wait, I can tell! No doubt you’ll hear Ralphie’s mom in the background, “Put your arms down when you get to school!….Fra-gil-le! The warm glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.”

On that note, the house looks like a dump. So if you’ll excuse me…