Even More Conversations with a Three Year old

Scene: In the car.

Sam -- starts to fake cry.

Me: What's up Sam?

Sam: I want some quiet time!

Me: Okay.

Sam: My mouth wants loud time and won't let me have any quiet time!

Me: Well you just tell your mouth it's quiet time and not loud time.

Sam: Mouth, it's quiet time! Mommy! My mouth's not listening!!!!

Now what makes this even funnier, is we had this conversation (or similar) THREE times today!

What a nut!

Teacher Gifts, Already?

Yes, it's that time of year again! The end of the school year is looming just around the corner. Sooner for some than others.

It hit me yesterday. My youngest son's last day of school in on Monday.

And not only did I not have any teacher gifts, I had no idea what to get!

I'm going to make a confession here... I hate buying teacher gifts! I never know what to get! And to top it off, I have so many that I need to get!

My youngest is three and has two teachers in his pre-K program. And not to be "cheap" but I don't really feel the need to go out and spend a fortune on each of the teachers. Plus, my oldest, in first grade, has three teachers I need to buy for. And I'm not even talking about "specials" teachers (like Art, Music, Gym, Spanish, etc...).

I'm a stay at home mom. We're a one income family. I don't have an extra $100 laying around the house to spend on teacher gifts.

So, I've been trying to think of teacher gift ideas that would work.

Obviously, there is the "Home Baked" gift. At Christmas time, each teacher received an assortment of cookies that I had made along with a coffee cup and some coffee. I thought about baking something, but seriously -- I have so much going on right now, baking is pretty far down the list of something I'd want to do, let alone have time to do.

Then, there is the Home Made gift. I'm not crafty. I can't draw or sew. My sister is a wonderful potter with her own kiln so her daughters always get home made pottery. And my mom can sew like nobody's business. I have some really lovely purses that she made for me. Perhaps I should have her start making some now for next year? I do knit, but time is of the essence here and I just didn't think far enough in advance to knit something up for them. And again, I have too much going on right now to do something I'd be happy with giving as a gift. Note to self: begin knitting Christmas gifts NOW.

Logically then, we're moving on to something store bought. I could do a gift card of some sort, but honestly, I always feel a bit cheap giving a gift card for less than $10. And where do I get it from? Not everyone drinks coffee (gasp!) or shops at the same shops as me. So, while they are great if you know the teacher a bit better, I just don't.

Of course there are some things I could do, like lotions and candles, but they just don't do it for me. I did consider a potted plant and may have to remember that one for later.

In the end, I decided on something I'd like to get. You see, I am a reusable shopping bag junkie. I loved these bags suggested by Charlene from the Shine staff, but again -- the whole "time" issue with ordering and all. So I began my search for a reusable shopping bag that was nice enough to use as a pre-school teacher gift.

I had to go to Harry's Farmer's Market this morning (Whole Foods) and I saw these adorable bags. At $7.99 they were a bit more expensive than the $.99 ones, but they are bigger and more substantial.

I bought a bar of my favorite, Lindt Chocolate and wrapped them up with ribbon.


So, what do you think?



And any ideas for teacher gifts for my son's First Grade Teacher, his Reading Teacher and ALP teacher would be greatly appreciated. I have 2 more weeks to prepare!


This post originally posted on Shine!

Sam's last day was yesterday and the teachers loved the bag! Apparently, I'm not the only "reusable bag junkie" out there!

Chaperoning The Field Trip

Josh's class had their last field trip this week. They went to a really cool animal park called Yellow River Game Park.

It was really a great day out. There are all sorts of animals, some roaming free, that you can feed and pet.



The animals there are rescued or would not survive in the wild on their own. They had lots of deer, sheep, goats, donkeys, brown bears, foxes, cougars, birds of all sorts, buffalo, pigs, and tons more.

Here are some raccoons playing on some of their toys.



You can bring your own food for the animals, or buy some there. I emptied out my crisper before leaving and we had quite a bit of lettuce and celery to share, and some stale crackers and a small bag of peanuts.

The boys' favorite part was petting the bunnies.



Several of the peacocks were displaying their feathers



Because I had Sam with me, I could only take a small group of kids, and the teacher was a co-leader with me. We had 4 boys from the class. Josh and one other were quite easy. The other two... well let's just say it's a good thing the group had 2 chaperon's! They were all over the place.

One of the boys wanted to see if he could make the skunk spray so he was trying to kick his cage. Luckily I stopped him. The strange thing is, he wasn't being mean or anything when he kicked the cage... he wasn't trying to torment the poor skunk, he just wanted to see what it would be like. I was a bit perplexed, simply because he seemed to have no thought about actions/consequences. It made me very grateful to have two boys that are generally well behaved and seem to be able to connect the dots.... most of the time.

We had a great time and we were all pooped in the car ride on the way home. Sam fell asleep, Josh played his DS and we made it home before the Atlanta traffic became a nightmare.

Both the boys are still talking about how much fun they had. We have been here before but last time Sam was barely 1. I don't even think he was walking yet. So, we've added that to the list of things to do when Nanny and Grandad.

Wordless Wednesday: Looking out the Window

It's a little blurry, but I still like it!

See more Wordless Wednesday Posts