My stepson has shown an extreme interest in Harry Potter, even though he’s never read the books. I asked him if he’d like to read them, and the answer was a most emphatic yes.
So today, I went to a used bookstore just down the road from my house. They happened to have one copy each of the first and second books. The lady at the counter said “Just got them yesterday, and I knew it was pointless to put them out on the shelves.” They were on a rack behind the counter. Apparently they just can’t keep these things in stock for more than a couple of days, so whenever they get copies, they just hold on to them until someone asks for them. Like me.
They were in barely-used condition. If I hadn’t been buying them from a used bookstore, I wouldn’t have known they were used. The price? $3.50 a piece. Saaaaah-weeeeet!
So I get the books. When The Timinator got home from school today, I told him to close his eyes and hold out his hands. Then I gave him the books. Oh good heavens. You could hear the shrieks of joy three counties away.
Now call me selfish, but that’s pretty much why I did it. For the shriek of joy. That and the bone-crunching hug I got after he finished shrieking.
How great! I’ve been looking for the Harry Potter books used and have come up empty.
I’ve bought many a thing for my children, but what is the one thing that they love most of all: Playdoh. I make them each their own pan full and they play with it for hours at a time.
Oh, and since both love Caillou, I have most of those books.
In my infinite wisdom (NOT), in 1998, my son wanted Pokemon. It had become the rage while we were living on Guam and had not hit the states full force yet. So off I went to the base exchange to pick one up for him. Bought the Gameboy and the red version of pokemon. No prob.
Then I realized that it required quite a bit of reading and at 5 he wasn’t quite at that level yet. So Mom decided she’d “help.” lol 72 hours later I beat the Elite 4 and then had to teach him how to play. I must admit, my playing it made a huge difference in his learning it. He also thinks Mom is cool
Oh yeah, Pokemon isn’t all that bad. I look at it as an elaborate Rock/Paper/Scissors. (1) they have to be able to read to play, so they learn to read a bit faster to play. (2) they have to figure out that water will put out fire and electricity can be beat by rock (ground) and so on. So in a warped sort of way it teaches them too
In answer to your question, I let my 9 year old daughter give me “make overs.” She drags all her preteen, smelly concoctions out and has been known to paint my nails bright blue, put orange streaks in my hair, given me temporary tatoos, facials, and spritzings of preteen perfume. She absolutely loves it, but I just tolerate it, of course. But I give her praises for her efforts just because I know she loves the whole process.
My daughter doesn’t really talk yet (makes a LOT of noise though) and I try hard to not let her eat many sweets. However, China bambina knows where we’ve got some gummy bears or cookies stashed, will grab my finger, pull me over, point and make her noise/sign that she wants one. Sometimes I’ll give her one just to hear that joyful noise she makes and see a look of pure delight on her face
The Lion King! Each and every morning I hear the same thing from my kids. “I want to watch the Lion King mommy.” I’ve watched LK every morning and every afternoon for a month now. My kids squeal with delight each time I turn it on.
We go the Amtrak station. Booooooooring, but my son never tires of seeing the trains come in. We have only four trains through a day, so we have to know the schedules.
Often times there is at least one other parent/kid set there, doing the same thing. The conductors are so nice about waving.
Lieu lieu’s 51 weeks old, so the smiles come pretty easy. She loves when I act like an orangutang and sway from side to side with arms held high or when we go frotting, fast trotting through the house only to pull up withing inches of mommy’s nose. Busts her up every time.
My parents used to get their gasoline at Arco so my brother and I could get the Arco animals they used to give out (early 70’s). They were the neatest thing ever: a male and female pair of animals. Sometimes they were really obscure, like platypi, and they always differentiated the male from the female, except for the animals that you couldn’t tell the difference with, like turtles and frogs and koalas.
We also got STP stickers at Arco, which my brother liked.
Chase her up and down the hall, crying “running now”. Don’t know why, but this busts her up, and the laughter is oh-so-worth-it.
Sing. I’ve got a voice like a drunken frog, and neither my wife or my daughter can stand it when I try to sing a song, but when I’m answering questions or reading a book to her, if I sing what I have to say, my girl splits her head open with a silly grin and laughs 'till she can’t breath. I’ve gotten quite good at creating free-verse doggerel, that can be half-way sung, off the top of my head. My girl loves it.
The two kids I babysit just love to play with my sound editing board.
I’ll read them a story into a microphone, and when it’s the giant’s line they know to slide the bass and reverb switches to the bottom to turn my voice into a DEEP, LOW GROWWWWL, and when it’s a little pixie talking they know which switches to hit to [sup]make my voice really high and bouncy[/sup] !! And sometimes they’re just happy to spend hours babbling to one another in Minnie Mouse voices.
Another thing they enjoy is a game we invented called “Make a Language”. The little six-year-old girl will take a newspaper or magazine article and mark-out random letters, then I attempt to read to her it sans the missing letters. She just loves the way it comes out gibberish and she especially enjoys the tortured faces I make attempting to pronounce it. Little kids are pretty easy to entertain.
I come home with toys or movies for them. Just for the hell of it.
I came home with Shrek for them and they lost their freaking little minds. ::wipes of joy from eye::
Just this week, I gave them my 21" TV and installed it in their playroom so they can watch their movies and play their N64 when ever they want.
I know it’s said you can’t buy your kids affection, but my dad always did stuff like that for me and I have never forgotten it. My dad and I are closer now that we have ever been. (Now that I am in ‘his shoes’.)
Sometimes, when my daughter seems sad, I let her put her Britney Spears or Destiny’s Child CDs on my stereo, and just let her blast it.
She likes when we change the words to pop songs and put her nickname in them. She yells at us to stop, but if we don’t do it for a few days, she’ll start doing it herself, to egg us on.
Let her pick a place to go for dinner, which is inevitibly the Hometown Buffet.
Let her put on all my hockey gear and crash into stuff around the house.
When renting videos, let her pick out 2 or 3 and control the VCR, Popcorn and juice for the night.
My almost-two-years-old refuses to eat his dinner unless he can watch one of the Toy Story movies. I’ve got both of 'em memorized.
And for my follow-up act, I will now spend $100 for tickets for the family so we can all go to Disneyland for his birthday. Even though I know that, at the age of two, he’d probably get the same excitement if I took him to a shopping mall and let him watch the blinking lights and twirling fans…
Whenever we drive by this dairy farm, it is mandatory to stop and say hi to the cows.
Also, my son (3.5 years old) has this fear that I will never come home or I will forget him ( preschool, what fun!) . He asks me ( mostly out of habit now) at least 35 times a day,
“Mama will you forget me?”
My response is always the same, " I will never forget you, you are always in my heart." He just digs this response.
I dont do much for my kids, except we go to the movies. Alot.
I spend $35-40 for the threee of us to see a movie and get the good snacks. We see everything that is even remotely of interest to them. From Pokemon (cant beleive I SAT through that!) to Planet of the Apes, and XMen. They are 6 and 10, so I got a few ‘looks’ when we went to Apes. My kids are awesome at the movies though, really well behaved, and they love tv and movies as much as I do. With the spread in their ages, they dont do much together, but this is something we all enjoy.
Saw Monsters Inc on Saturday, it was great
Thanks Persephone, you have given me the idea I was looking for!
