Nope

We started the holiday festivities with one part of the family this weekend. At the gathering, there was only one "child." Jacob, the oldest of all the grandchildren on both sides, is now 18 and barely considered a kid. The only child was my nephew, Shane. Adorable, and two and half, he was on display for all of us as he graciously opened presents and played with his new toys, one after the other. I was reminded, that it wasn't that long ago, Jacob was the one sitting in the middle of the floor, under the spotlight. My how time flies!

Shane is quite precocious, and he's verbal, which makes it lots of fun to interact with him. He seemed to really enjoy the gift we brought him. Admittedly picked out by my husband, it was an Imagination pirate toy. No music or noises, no batteries, it was a pirate ship setting with a little pirate action figure and an alligator. There were two manual mechanisms that made it lots of fun for Shane. One was a little cannon hidden in a panel at the top of the ship. You pushed a hooked spear into it and then there was a button you could press and shoot it out. The other was a post with a jolly roger flag, and when you turned it, a hidden elevator-like shaft opened and closed so the pirate could presumably hide from the alligator.

I laid on the floor playing with Shane for almost an hour. I was amazed at how he could play so repetitively for so long, and still get such a kick out of it. "The alligator is gonna get him!" and he would place the pirate in the shaft. "He better go up to the telescope to see him!" He would say and then the pirate could go up to a platform high above the ground. We would send the alligator "off to the lake," and then the pirate would come out again. Then the alligator would come back and the pirate would hide again. There were about three different scenarios, and we played them over and over, and Shane got such a kick out of repeating these actions at least 100 times.

It was wonderful to watch him play. He was so amused by a good old fashioned toy. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, he said to me, "Who are you?" I laughed. We don't get to see him very much and he's 2 1/2. I could hardly blame him for not remembering. "I'm Aunt Laurie." And he repeated my name and we continued to play.

We then ate dinner, and dessert, and hung around for awhile before it was time to go. When we packed up the car, and made our rounds to say goodbye, I swaggered up to my new play pal to say goodbye. "Can I have a hug?" I asked. And the g in hug was still hanging out of my mouth before he quickly retorted, "Nope." That's it. No bones about it. You gotta love toddlers.

The Year of Books

It's shaping up to be a very nerdy Christmas. My husband's mom and her side of the family use Amazon wish lists for holiday shopping. Everyone in the family generates a wish list of their own on Amazon, and then we all share access to our lists with one another. It takes the guesswork out of shopping, and generally everyone gets something they want. One of the cool things about this, is rather than try to figure out something "special" we all have random things we've been meaning to get ourselves, or have added to our wish lists throughout the year with the intention of purchasing them ourselves one day, when we get around to it.

Here's the one problem with it. I generally don't have much on my list. I find myself searching around for things to add. I feel blessed to have mostly everything I want and need in my life, with the exception of high priced items you plan to save up for, and would never ask someone to buy for you. In fact, this year I don't even have any of that on my wish list. So, like any good nerd, I end up with mostly just books on my list. I always have a running list of books in my Amazon cart for the day I'm ready to spend a little money, and I know I'll find the time to do some reading. This year, I just shifted some of them out of my cart and onto my wish list.

Boom! I got two of them already. This weekend, we celebrated an early Christmas together at my mother-in-law's house. It's funny. Family members sitting around the circle look at you like you're nuts. I guess that's more because of the kinds of books I had on my list. None of them were cookbooks or novels. They were all books related to my field and areas of study that interest me. My husband's grandma bought me one, and she even jokingly quipped, "It's the first time I bought a book as a gift and wasn't tempted to read it!" I acknowledged my nerdiness, and tried to give them a few sentences about the content. They seemed respectfully uninterested, but pleased that I enjoyed receiving both the books that came my way. I am so excited to have a week-plus off to dig into some of it. Both of them will help me in my planning for the course I will be teaching next semester.

Happy Holidays to me!