presents?

The holidays are nearing and Bill and I are putting away the last boxes, of things that don't fit but we want to keep, in the attic. Getting ready for Auntie Meg, Uncle Nathan and Nanna- our Thanksgiving house guests. And people are asking about presents- "what should I get the kids? What are the kids interested in these days?" so, that's on my mind. This year Billie is five and I'm REALLY letting my sheltering of her go (I did let them have free range on their candy bags for Halloween night, remember). Bill is perhaps not as interested in letting her into the big bad world because he takes some convincing on most issues that come up. He wasn't sure about letting my two, adult, single, best friends for the last 17 years babysit because they don't have much 'kid experience' and that didn't even include Sloane! ( 3 kids at once is a bit much for their introduction to 'kid experience'...I'm trying to get them to come around to my side of thinking: everyone should have a baby right now!) Seriously, the older two are totally self- sufficient and know what they should do, and do it...but they might do it differently and they will certainly do it s-l-o-w-l-y(putting on socks can take up to 7 minutes!)...they do what they're told and if they were ever on their own- they would manage just fine.
Back to the point, Bill isn't ready to take that leap but in this vein I'm not going to regulate their gifts this year (of course, guns, barbie, bratz or anything with boobs is going to 'be lost' very soon after unwrapping) but really, that's all i'm limiting it to. Which, is kind-of a big step for us.
It's sort of hard to tell what they'll love. Billie has played with a my little pony set maybe two times or less this whole year but got it out yesterday and played with it for over 3 hours. Jackson likes his 'guys' collection but that halloween batman hasn't gotten any action since the day he brought him home. He spends way more time with the superhero books than his guys. Mostly I hate all the leapster stuff- anything that is touted as 'reading' which is not reading at all because the darn pen is reading aloud to you, or the computer set recognizes the page and reads the words...that is SO not how you experience a book. I just think the kids will expect every book to open up and start talking and making sound effects. oh yeah! the kids...what they like...okay, okay...they mostly like playing imaginative games with props. Jackson loads his guys in a wagon and they play 'art cafe' which involves a 'coffee machine' (they fill it with water and it perkolates) so that jackson is the waiter at the cafe while billie, and all customers, draw and order coffee and we hang the pictures on the walls of the cafe. puzzles are a big hit recently. up to 60 pieces or so. games get a lot of play: checkers and chess or board games and card games too. a big thing we've been doing lately is a 'word box' i gave this to billie in a really exciting way- talking about it like it was a big deal (really it's just an old pencil case of mine with a cute sailor moon on it) and each day she gets a 'word present' which is just a very cool word written on a small piece of paper so that it will fit in her box. Her words are "princess" "strawberry" "dagger" "Eva" etc. Each day I pick a word that is special to her in some way and she LOVES this and her word box and one night I even caught her sleeping with it all wrapped up. She is allowed, after lights out, to turn on her little bedside lamp and read her words once a night. She has a whole collection and can 'read' them all. I was thinking a great gift would be for someone to cover a shoe box in fancy paper and put some words in, with flashy paper and stylish writing and each day she could pick one out. Either of them would LOVE this gift and it would be excitement each day. They play with their musical instruments and dr. kits a lot, blocks, a building set, legos, a gift of karate lessons for a month or a kids cooking class would be fun too.
they don't know about toys on TV. they don't watch TV. let me clarify this because everyone is like "oh yeah, we don't watch much TV either" they don't see TV not for an hour a day, not for 10 minutes a day, not sesame street, not dora, not oprah, the TV is never EVER on when the kids are awake. It's not that I think TV is so bad- i love it, myself. Dora is a great little show but when that 30 second commercial comes on for SuperNanny and shows the drama of the two year old hitting his Mom and screaming "I HATE YOU!" it's clear what they're going to learn from that 30 minutes of TV. So, it's strictly videos for us, mostly from the library so we don't get too bored of watching one over and over. commercials are rotten.
They don't have a list yet and they don't know if they're missing out on the 'poopy puppy' craze or whatever is popular.
it's so fun to be able to preach here with all my hair-brained ideas!
next time i'll write a nicey nice blog- i promise. Pictures: the triple pony tail watching kareoke, going on a walk, Sloane zonked after a walk (notice the bootie!!!)