My name is MUD

Today we are supposed to load up the car and make the trip to my IN-Laws house for Christmas.  I actually like going over there for the most part.  Here is the problem.  We have to drive 4 hours on good roads to get to their house.  Last night it dropped about 4 inches of snow and the storm blew on by going the direction that we are heading.  I checked the road report and it basically said “Nasty roads you’re an idiot if you get on them”.  Well my wife really really wants to leave today about 1pm.  That would put us there at about 5:00 and the sun sets tonight on according to the weather channel at 5:11pm.  I am not interested in driving on nasty roads in the dark.  I suggested that we wait until tomorrow and leave at like 9am.  This would give us a full day of daylight to get there in. 

My wife wants to get to her parents house tonight……I might have to toss in the “what is safe for our child” argument to win this one…..I know she want to do what’s safe but she is going to be disappointed if we have to stay tonight.  So I agreed to wait until later for the next road report to see if it gets better. 

Saturday Night—

Saturday night—This past Saturday night we went to a holiday party for a local group that we are apart of early in the evening and then from there on over to some friends house to celebrate the holidays with them. The early party was for a group that is focused around adopted children so naturally there is tons of kids running around.  My sidekick goes to daycare so he is in this environment all day long but I very seldom get to see him in this environment much (playing and interacting with other kids) so this was really neat to watch from my perspective.

OK on to the really interesting portion of the evening.  We buzzed on over to some friends house after the first party to exchange gifts and have a drink with them since we both will be out of town for the holidays.  By the time we got there the other couple was already working on the drinks part of the evening and feeling it.  They have two kids one is three and the other is about 3 weeks older then my sidekick (18 months old).

The kids start playing and we settle in for a drink.  The conversation goes towards the kids and they bring up that they are concerned about their son potentially having learning problems.  I was a little shocked.  We asked why the thought this and they said two main things.  1. He is not talking at all yet and his sister was talking about 4 months earlier at this age. 2. They are comparing him to our son who has been talking for about 5 months and is doing more physical activities. 

Now we are in the comfort mode telling them “no no every kid advances at their own speed”.  But they are doing exactly what I have done and I suspect is natural for all parents to do, Compare.  They said they spoke to their doctor about it and he brushed it off and told them not to be concerned yet.  But really what parent wouldn’t be concerned.  I personally would seek out a second doctor for advise jus tto ease my mind as a parent.

 Of course I didn’t mention to them how The Sidekick and I are working on dunking a basketball, bunting a baseball and high stepping when you go into the end zone this week and Algebra next week.

Christmas Gift

Gift Ideas- Some years I have it all planned out what I am going to get my wife for Christmas and yet other years I struggle.  This year I really didn’t have a great idea going for me when she suggest that we can the idea of getting each other gifts.  She suggested that instead of spending a few hundred on each other for this year lets grab a couple tags off of donation tree’s and spend that same money on this instead.  Well it was an interesting idea I decided so I went along with it.

We went down to the city Christmas tree where the local women’s shelter and food bank post tags with different wish lists for families.  We ended up grabbing 4 tags I think.  One of the tags was for a boy who wants cloths (size 8-10), a school backpack with school supplies, and a hoola-hoop.  Instantly it broke my heart to picture a kid going to school in 3^rd grade without a backpack or the correct school supplies. 

I remember being in 3^rd grade when my father got laid off and was unemployed for the better part of a year.  (He was never totally unemployed, he always worked what ever job he could find but it never was much pay during that year) I also remember going to the bus stop with my buddies and they where making fun of me because I was wearing the K-mart blue light special shirt while they where in the cool Nike shirt or what ever the name brand was that week.

So my wife and I started to go shopping for this boy the other day.  We went to the large Wally-came-apart story and started looking at the cloths.  Yes for about $25 dollars it seemed like we could get about 113 pieces of clothing.  But to me it seemed to close to what I was going through at 3^rd grade.  I finally said enough and we left our cart and ran away.  I explained my issue with buying these second rate cloths for kids.  I know it is extremely materialistic of me but damn it 3^rd graders are ruff.

We went to a different store where $25 got us 2 shirts but they had the “correct names on them”.  I ended up not buying 113 pieces of clothing but I did throw the limits out the window and tried to get close to 113. 

I have to say I had more fun then I ever did shopping for my wife.  She got to shop for the little girl that she doesn’t have.