Early Christmas

Christmas came a bit early to our house this year. After vacillating for years, we finally got Rob a new laptop for work. He's been using the Social Studies office computer for about seven years now, and nearly every other teacher in his department has caved and purchased a laptop on their own.

We went ahead and got the computer early for him because he has a huge project coming up for Pearl Harbor Day for which he could really use the laptop. He also has a new SmartBoard in his classroom, so he's made a huge leap into the 21st century.

I not-so-secretly despise it when there's not an element of surprise on Christmas morning. I love shopping in secret, hiding the gifts at home and then watching Rob open them up. I feel like there's not much surprise left in life and gift giving is one place in which you can still manage just a bit of it. Oh, well. He's totally happy, and that's all that matters. I'll try to be creative and find a few small things for him to unwrap that don't damage the budget too badly. That concept is pretty much toast anyway, as we'd originally said we'd try to stick to $100 each for gifts. I'm pretty sure the adapter alone for his new Macbook cost that.

Sam had a totally busy day yesterday and is paying for it today. He had a play date in the morning, followed by two birthday parties. He left the house at 10 a.m. and we didn't get home until after 6:30 last night. Today, the hint of a cold he started with is a full-fledged infection. He sounds like he has socks stuffed in his nostrils and every cough makes *me* wince. I kept him home from Sunday School so that he doesn't infect every other kid before Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that a true day of rest will make him feel better, too.

I'm also hoping he's feeling well enough to go to school tomorrow, since I'm on vacation and planning to spend the days before the holiday in the basement, transforming it into a playroom for him. He's only seen the basement in our house a handful of times, so he does not suspect anything as we work down there. He's absolutely dying for a Geotrax train set for Christmas. We're trying to get the basement playroom ready so that after he opens some new Geotrax on Christmas morning, we can take him downstairs and show him the whole new room he has to play in. We also bought a huge starter set of the trains on Ebay (sorry, Kim!) and are going to have those already set up for him when he goes down there.

I apologize again to Kim for even mentioning our delight over finding this great Geotrax deal out loud. As it turns out, the furious bidding war we had in the final moments of this particular auction were against HER. Of all the people anywhere in the world who could have been bidding on that particular set on that particular day, it was Kim and I fighting it out till the finish. The silver lining is that Ethan, too, will benefit. He's one of Sam's favorite playmates and will have lots of time to play downstairs with the new trains. He'd have even more time if Kim and Ted bid on a house in our neighborhood. ;-)