This and That

It's been a rather uneventful day here at the Living Oak Academy (yes, that is our school name). The boys have enjoyed a game of Risk, went mountain biking with Papa and Big Dog, and have shot several rounds of hoops. They discovered that the local radio station has begun playing holiday music and I have heard Feliz Navidad at least twice, including upon waking. There has been lots of reading and Lego building, but all at an easy pace.

I was a bit slow myself, finalizing my Thanksgiving grocery list (we did most of it last night), checking over the finances, reading, and knitting, plus keeping up on housework and laundry. We had a couple of errands to do and I really didn't want to go out ~ I hate shopping on good days and the craziness that fills the stores in the days leading up to Thanksgiving are almost more than I can take. On the one hand I wanted to leave the boys home so that they could escape the chaos, and on the other I wanted to take them with me so that I didn't have to face it alone. I was very tempted to leave it all until Papa comes home, but needed to do a thrift store drop-off (me and a thousand other people, apparently).

The dread that fills me when I contemplate leaving the secure cocoon of my home for the traffic and noise of my errands makes me really stop and think what effect it has on my children. They held up well today, although they got squirrelly at the grocery store, which is par for the course with them when the store is crowded and we need to stay in a single file line.

T-Guy is very helpful when we run errands and truly enjoys going. J-Baby hates going and I can't say I blame him. When the boys were younger I made every effort to not take the boys into stores, and even now I do try to limit how often they go. Target and the like are the absolute worst stores for them, although I think J-Baby ranks Costco as his all-time least favorite store. I heartily agree with him; I wouldn't go to Costco if it wasn't saving me significant money on groceries right now.

We made it through today, and the plus was weighing our apples, onions, yams, and celery (it is priced by the unit but J-Baby wanted to weigh it anyway). The produce section wasn't nearly as crowded as the rest of the store and we weren't in anyone's way; very few people use the scales.

The boys are looking forward to watching NOVA this evening; it is going to be about dreams and J-Baby says he has wanted to know about dreams for a long time. I guess our PBS station decided not to carry it in the usual time slot, as it wasn't on.