My Saturday:

That's eight laundry baskets, six of them full and two of them half-full, and two and a half five gallon buckets full of dirty diapers. WTF? I don't know how this happens. How do we even have this many clothes??

Here's a part of the problem:

In this picture we've got one night's worth of dirtied laundry. On the worst of the nights Jacob pees the bed twice, Sabine's diaper leaks through, and both of the adults in the bed get hit with the pee as too. When we went to bed the hamper was nearly full. Then in three different instances it got filled, overflowed and then we just aimed for somewhere near the hamper with the urine clothes and blankets.

This is just one of the many things that have been keeping me from updating here. I plan to keep posting as much as I can and totally ignore my family tonight. Maybe I'll get as many as five new posts up. Also, I'm going to try to get back to a bunch of e-mails that have been waiting for a number of weeks. Ever since Sabine started crawling just before Christmas, life as I knew it basically stopped. And maybe in the coming days I can write Jacob and Sabine's monthly posts.

Dilemma:

You know all those hypothetical scenarios where someone asks you if you'd eat poop for a million dollars? OK, admittedly a gross example, but those are the kinds of things Zach and I talk about sometimes when we find ourselves with a few moments to chat but sans the energy to talk about something intellectual. In those cases it truly is hypothetical because really, that money's all coming from the same bank, and it's all gonna end up in the same place.

However, when I went into the bathroom to get washed up for bed I noticed a dime resting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. Wondering if it was ok for our septic system, I walked into the bedroom and gently woke Zach. "There's a dime in the toilet," I whispered.

"I know," he said, "I tried to flush it, but it didn't go down."

I headed back in to examine the situation. I thought for a minute and went over the options in my head.

I don't know what you would have done, but I just got ten cents richer!

You know you're a mom when...

Beckie sent this e-mail last night:

Subject: FYI, Bleach

Just so you know, poison control does not consider the fumes
from 2 gallons of bleach poured down your basement stairs
to be toxic.  Even if the bleach pools up on the floor and
all of the dirty clothes that you have laying in a pile 
there.

(not a gallon of paint this time, and not Harry - just the
cat, who is unharmed, the little shit.)

Then we were talking about it this morning on the phone.  I
was asking what clothes got hit by the bleach and hoping
aloud it wasn't any of the good ones.  She was running
down the list of clothes that got it and then said, "But you
know what really sucks?"

"Oh no," I said, "It wasn't your tan sweatpants from Peter
Harris, was it?"

"Yes."

We were both 'Oh man-ing' and 'boo-hoo-ing' about it
when it struck us how funny that was.

She said, "You know you're a mom when you're upset
about your good sweatpants."

Drastic Measures

I never wrote about what Jacob did with the scissors back before Christmas because we were so busy and all, but for the record, he cut through an electrical cord. Zach was in the middle of putting up the Christmas lights. A few minutes before Jacob cut the line, they had been plugged in to be tested. This now ranks in at number 1 on the list of Most Dangerous Experiments, just above the time he put a metal pot of Playdoh into the microwave and started it up when he was two.

Understandably, the scissors (you'd never believe how many pairs of scissors one household can contain) got packed away in a bag together and hidden from Jacob. And just when I thought it was safe to put one pair back into circulation:

He cuts his hair again. This time it was real bad. I'd been letting his hair grow out because we've been watching a lot of home videos lately, remembering how curly and blond his hair was, and we miss it. So there was a lot of hair to be cut. It might not look so bad but keep in mind that if brushed straight down his forehead it went about to his eyebrows. And there was a bunch missing on the top of his head too.

So what's the only sure-fire way to make sure your kid never cuts his own hair again?


Remove the hair completely.

We could have gotten a normal hair cut, but there was just no time for that because it had to be taken care of Right Then. There was no way this kid could go in public like that. Zach could have done it normal like last time but there was no time for that because he had to get going to spray a ceiling, so for practicality's sake, we all agreed it was best to just lob it off. Zach was all for it, infact, he wants to do the same thing for Sabine. I told him if he does that he can plan on finding a new home, new friends, and new money because I would take all of his. He tells me there is only one setting on his electric razor. I don't believe him.

Anyway, Jacob thinks it's hilarious. Zach loves it and thinks it makes Jacob look even more like him. I hate it. "Put it back on," I told him. Sabine isn't sure what she thinks. She can't stop touching it, sometimes intermittently screaming at it. She's probably pissed that there's no more hair there because, frankly, that was her only defense against him.

But it's funny, I've never seen Jacob with so little hair. Even when he was born he had more hair. I can see the shape of his skull, and there are different shades of hair on different spots of his head. You can see his birth mark a lot more. It's weird. But I guess there is an upside, as Jacob just told me whe I refused to give him scissors, "But I don't have anymore hair left to cut!"

Moment of Truth

We've been going through huge amounts of laundry in this house. When I make it through the day without being spit up on or peed on, I consider that to be pretty good and I always try to squeeze and extra day out of that particular outfit to reduce the washload.

Today I picked up this dark blue v-neck hoodie for my top layer....I had worn it the other day. When I pulled it over one arm I saw brown smudge on it. Then, remembering back to the blowout Sabine had earlier in the week, I realized it was poop. I thought for a minute; contemplated the alternatives. After a moment's hesitation I grabbed a baby wipe, applying it to the sleeve of the shirt, after which I continued to pull the shirt over my head and called it a morning.

There's a line I've never heard before...

After Playschool today we headed to the library because after three straight days of being in the house all cooped up, I didn't think our little trio could survive another afternoon at home. Inside the library I'm picking out books to read to Jacob and he's working on a puzzle when a chatty little girl comes around the corner. She's standing there waist-high to me, talking about the videos she's got in her hand. Then suddenly it's like we're in a dark bar as Jacob comes sauntering up to the girl and says, "Sooo....did you know I'm a farmer?" This is the moment when I realize maybe Mom should take a hike and give the boy his space.

Id vs. Ego

Here I am on the couch, after having not given Sabine a bath. She's asleep now, on my lap. I should be getting up to put her in the co-sleeper so she and I can both get used to it. I'm having a revelation of sorts. It turns out that self-discipline isn't something you can get better at. It doesn't become a habit. I am never going to get the hang of bedtime. I am never going to naturally be a routine kind of person.

These things will happen on any given night based on my amount of self-discipline on that night, not by how many days in a row we have successfully made it into the bed at a reasonable hour. It's like a person who is dieting. I don't think they ever get used to a strict diet, I think every meeting with a piece of cake is just as difficult as it was on the first day of the diet.

Even though Jacob might be getting used to going up to bed at a decent hour, getting into the pajamas, brushing the teeth, etc, he's not going to do it of his own accord. I have to be the one to tell him to do it (because Zach is already asleep on the couch). And if I'm downstairs folding laundry and he's there with me, folding alongside me and telling me how much he loves me, there isn't much to gain by sending him up to bed. So I have to decide what I think is more important: The short-term bliss of being together, or the long-term ability to read one's own sleep signals. Because when I'm letting him stay up with me, I'm giving him fond memories to look back on, but I'm also teaching him to ignore his body's way of saying, "Hey kid, this is tired. Get thee to bed!"

When I'm old, looking back to the time my kids were young, will I take more pleasure in knowing that I gave my children a good, solid foundation of sleep hygiene, or that I spent every moment possible cherishing the beautiful beings that they are? Afterall, I am obviously a sleep-challenged person and I don't really mind it that much. I consider myself well-adjusted in most other regards. Will it be so bad if my kids turn out to be bad sleepers? Is it selfish to want to take the easy way out? I mean, they clearly prefer to be with us, rather than away from us.

There's days that I'm in the mood for rules and I'm chipping away at the to-do list with a vengeance. I don't want to be slowed down by sleepy children. I'd prefer to be on my feet, and I'm sure the way to thrive is to keep a rigid schedule. Then there's the days when my heart takes over and we all fall asleep with limbs tangled together, teeth unbrushed and satisfied grins on our faces. Both kinds of days have their advantages. I just wish I could pick one already.

And so each night is a new challenge to work up enough strength to pull myself away. Here I am, still on the couch and I'm looking at her sweet, round face, the contrast of light flesh and dark hair swept this way and that. Tonight it's more than I can take. The weight of her in my arms feels too good to trade for the freedom of having two hands with which to type. I surrender to the inevitability that on this night I will not be letting her go.

Game Show In My Head

We were just getting ready to give Sabine a bath and get her down for the night. I'd used the word "naptime" in a sentence without putting it in air quotes or rolling my eyes, which is to say that we're getting better at the discipline and sleep issues. But Zach had turned the TV on to check a score.

Getting off the couch with a half naked baby, we saw a guy on TV half hanging out a port-a-potty trying to convince someone to give him a tissue or anything to wipe himself with. It was hilarious. Maybe it's because we haven't been habituated to much on TV lately, but everything seemed funny to us tonight. Anyway, we were laughing our asses off at this show - Game Show In My Head. There's one contestant and he's out on the street and he's given these challenges by the host, Joe Rogan. He's got a certain amount of time to find random people on the street and get them to do whatever it is he's been told - hence the hanging out of the port-a-john trying to get someone to give him something to wipe himself with. It could have just been this one contestant but he was freakin hilarious.

It probably won't last, and we probably won't even remember to watch it next Saturday night, just like a couple of other senseless gameshows we thought were funny. There was one really stupid one a few months ago - Hole In the Wall, where a moving wall came toward the contestants and they had to conform their bodies to fit through whatever the hole in the wall, whatever shape it was. Another one before that, Wipeout, where the whole show was people trying to get through these giant obstacle courses that were impossible and they always ended in them falling into nasty water. Incidentally, Hole In the Wall always ended with people falling in nasty water too.

Needless to say, we watched the entire hour and never gave Sabine a bath - details about her 'bedtime' to follow.

So anyway, if you're in the mood for some stupid laughs, or you want to feel better about yourself, check out the links.

Dear Jenn

What makes you think I took pictures of my hair? Do you think I'm vain like you? ;-)

Because sometimes they're just too cute for words

All in a day's work

Today I got so much done I felt like superwoman. I got up and worked out before the kids woke up because I'm a morning person now (she said with disdain). Got everyone bathed, dressed, and partially fed and arrived only 30 minutes late to Playschool!

After Playschool I had to rush to my dentist appointment. It was my first big appointment like this with two kids in tow. Sabine was asleep so I brought the carseat inside. She stayed asleep until the just before the hygienist came in. Then when the chair tilled back and my head disappeared from her view (which to a baby means you're completely gone) she freaked out. I spent the rest of the exam with her on my lap.

I've nursed my kids in a lotta places, and I figure the most notable place I nursed Jacob was at my own wedding reception. As of today, the most notable nursing experience I've had with Sabine is breastfeeding her through half my dental exam.

Next we came home and in I was so jazzed up from a successful appointment with both kids that I cleaned and straightened up like mad. I got more done in thirty minutes than I sometimes do in a whole day. Then my mom called and encouraged me go get my hair cut because she knew it'd been on my list for a good, long while.

The baby came with me for the haircut because of the thing where I can't leave her sight nowadays. She arrived fully awake so there was no chance of her staying in the carseat but I brought it in anyway because if she got to be a problem while I was getting my hair cut at least no one would think to themselves why didn't she bring something to put that baby in. And don't you know when I tilted my head back in the sink, effectively vanishing from her sight, she let out one long screech that lasted until I pulled her out mid-shampoo. Then she spent the rest of the haircut happy as a clam perched up on my lap looking around at all the shiny things.

So the hairdresser (Emily) and I, we got to talking. She looked about my age. Then I found out that she went to the same high school as me. Suddenly Emily starts looking familiar to me and I'm thinking haha, isn't that funny how I'm always running into people I went to high school with...I ask Emily what year she graduated. '06. Swell. Turns out she's not my age. Not a huge age difference, but enough of a difference to make a 28 year old who still thinks of herself as a 'young mom', feel Old.

For a while she's cutting my hair and we're taking turns naming people we know that the other of us might have gone to school with. Funny how people are always trying to make connections like that. It's not like you're going to go call up your friend from high school with exciting news that the girl who cut your hair went to school with their cousin. I guess it just makes us feel a little less distant from one another in a world that's becoming increasingly disconnected.

Anyway, none of the name-dropping is ringing a bell with either of us and it's starting to get a little awkward until I name a kid I used to change the diapers of. Her face lights up. Oh yeah, she remembers him from school. Double swell.

Then Emily names her gym teacher, calling her Miss instead of the name I know her by, and wrinkles her nose. I graduated with the gym teacher and to picture her like that, as a teacher who provokes a nose wrinkle, makes me think of a mean, old teacher. Not young and nice, but old and mean. Then I realize quite a few of the people I graduated with are now teachers at my old school. I start rattling off names and the ball is really rolling now.

Back at home I couldn't stop looking at my hair in the mirror. Emily used a super-ultra-mega flat iron that got so hot it could give you third degree burns. It's never been straighter and longer in my life. Now I'm usually the type who obsesses over her weight, but never have I really considered that my body might be aging. All the looking in the mirror finally brought my attention to my face. I don't look so young anymore; I discovered these little wrinkles.

No longer do people question me when they find out I have kids. I used to always be mistaken for a younger age. I never minded because I'd say, "When I get old I'll be glad to have people misjudge my age." But I was always mature for my age, responsible and wise, acted older than I was, I looked young though.

I'm used to the hairdressers and dental hygienists being older than me, having children my age. Maybe it's the fact that I'm the baby of the family and used to always being the youngest, or maybe it's just that I'm a young-at-heart kind of person, but for some reason I can't wrap my head around the idea that I'm actually acting my age.

I now know how I'll embarrass him when he's a teenager

I make Sabine's food from scratch and freeze it for future use. So far she's just had bites of food that don't amount to much and she doesn't seem interested in anything but milk and rice puffs.

The other day there was some applesauce that needed to be finished up because it'd been thawed for a couple days and Sabine had only put a dent in it. I asked Jacob if he wanted to finish the applesauce. "Yeah, sure!" he exclaimed (he loves homemade applesauce). Then he hesitated and with a scrunched face, asked "Is there breast milk in it?" I told him that there wasn't but asked what his answer would be if there was milk in it. He said he wouldn't want it.

I wondered aloud what would be so bad about the milk. I can't remember the reason he gave me, but it makes me feel a little sad that half his life ago he was still nursing and that he got so much comfort from the very thing he now turns his nose up at.

I was curious what Jacob would do if he wanted a drink of milk but we were out of cows' milk. He said he'd go to the store and buy it. I kept the scenario going:

"How would you get to the store?"

"I'd take the van." (excuse me?)

"What if there was a big snow storm and you couldn't drive on the roads?"

"I'd walk."

"Well say there was so much snow that you were completely stuck in the house and the only two choices were to have no milk or breast milk?"

"I'd have cows' milk."

"No, you can't have that. It's not one of the choices. So which would you choose."

"I'd get a big snow plow (or some such crazy plan) and dig out the snow and drive to the store."

"No, you can't do that. Your only choices are NO milk or BREAST milk."

"Well, I'd get the cows to come over and they'd give me milk."

"JACOB! Forget the snow! If there was no cows' milk anywhere would you rather go without milk at all, or would you drink my milk?"

"Oh. I'd have no milk."


I can picture it ten years down the road, he'll have friends over and I'll come into the room with a tray of snacks..."Would anyone like some cookies and breast milk?"

My Idea of Heaven

Jacob got a gift card to Barnes & Noble for Christmas so over the weekend we headed there for some book shopping. I don't normally go into book stores. Not because I don't like them, but on the contrary, because I love them. Too much. So much that it's unhealthy. Before I had kids, ie when I had some sort of disposable income, bookstores and I had an obsessive relationship. But then I had kids, was bound to home a lot and discovered internet shopping. Now I get most of our books used from Amazon or some other such bookseller. I preview the books from the library first and only buy our absolute favorites. It's a much healthier form of book shopping for me.

So we went to Barnes & Noble with the idea that we'd look for the second book set of The Magic Tree House series. Jacob got the first four books from Drew for his birthday and we've recently started reading them. We had books five through eight in our hand when Jacob spotted the shelf of Doreen Cronin books. I don't usually have 'favorite' authors, books or movies. I mean I have a collection of favorites, but not a one favorite. However, after randomly selecting two different Doreen Cronin books a few years apart, falling in love with them, then realizing it was the same author, I can say for sure that she is my favorite children's book author, along with the illustrator of her books, Betsy Lewin.

We first bought The Diary of a Worm when Jacob was a toddler. It was the first book I can remember ever buying him. I fell in love with the book and it's remained one of our favorites. The humor in her books is just so blunt, I don't know how to say it. I was reading a review of one of her books and they called it slapstick. But I don't really know that slapstick humor is what I would consider it. Anyway, they're hilarious. Recently we got Click, Clack, Moo from the library on a whim. It was the funniest thing Jacob and I have shared in quite a while. It's like she's living in his head. It's about farm animals on a farm and how they drive the farmer crazy with their anthropomorphic antics. This is Jacob's life! He goes around yelling about how his chickens got out of the hen house and are causing some kind of trouble that is normally a human activity.

So anyway, that would be my idea of Heaven. Being in this huge place of shiny, new books that are stacked to the ceiling. A place where you can read and learn about basically anything you want. And importantly, a place that is fully stocked with Starbucks coffee. I would gather all the people I love and keep them there so we could snuggle up and read books for an eternity. The only thing I would probably miss is my clothes because I also have a clothing obsession. Don't even get me stared on how I can't go into clothing stores. I actually had a dream last night about a store I was in the other day where I saw a couple of shirts I thought I couldn't live without (this happened in real life). In the dream I went back and bought them. But I didn't want to get started about that...

Besides the books I just mentioned, some of the others that we're reading, or just finished are The Secret Garden, which was mine when I was a kid. It took us almost a year to finish it because it's definitely not a fast-reading book, if you know what I'm saying. For book club last month we read The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. I really liked it, very good read. Right now I'm in the middle of reading a few different things, which I actually don't like to do. I prefer to read one book at a time. But I have all these parenting-type books that I need to get through, ones where you can't just sit down and read them straight through because it's too boring. There's a sleep book that I'm forcing myself to read, there's Living Simply With Children, which I hope to write more about in the future, and most importantly I'm reading The Vaccine Book (part of the Sears collection).

Beanie's yet to have any vaccines but I decided I'd start them at her six-month well-child visit. She actually hasn't had that visit yet because suddenly my doctor's office is a bitch to get on the phone to make an actual appointment. But I've got to hurry up and finish this book so I can decide which vaccines to get. Oh, so The Vaccine Book is the greatest book ever. Well, for the moment. Everything I've read about vaccines before has been put into one place. It makes sense, it's straightforward, and un-biased and provides information from several different angles. When I first started reading this book and discovered that it was everything I'd expected from it, I was so happy I almost started to cry (for real). It was like a breath of fresh air.

The End.

Where's the payoff?!!

Jacob woke up at the ass-crack of dawn today - which is to say around 7am, which I realize is a normal time for most people to wake up. But he'd been up the night before until 11pm because I was so busy sticking to my guns putting Sabine asleep that I didn't get around to Jacob until 9:30 or so. And then it was of the utmost importance that we bake chocolate muffins (a recipe I whipped out of thin air) to go with the last few chapters of the book we were reading. We got into bed before 11, but he was so wound up from God-knows-what that he didn't fall asleep until 11.

So on the way home from an errand this evening, Jacob fell asleep. It was 5:20. Right now it's 10:20 and we've yet to have both kids asleep at the same time.

Sabine was asleep in the car too, by the way. I pulled into the driveway and took all our stuff in on the first trip into the house. I prepared the bed for Jacob and took down the dog barriers. I went out to the car and got the baby in first. Settled her into a corner still in the carseat. Then I went out for Jacob. I took off his shoes IN the car so there would be no messing around with that after I was already holding him. I took all the precautions. Laid him into bed on the pad, then went downstairs to get stuff done.

That lasted five minutes. Sabine woke up and I was sitting in the living room nursing her when Zach came home a few minutes later. I was all excited to watch Old School (which we finally got a copy of today) but Zach informed me he had to go back to work. Cue deflating balloon.

He insisted we could watch it when he got back home. "What if Jacob is awake when you get back home?" Catch the foreshadowing?

Not thirty minutes later the phone rings and I'm running around the downstairs like an idiot looking for the cordless. Then I ran upstairs for the second handset, which we keep in the bedroom. Smart, huh? I forgot to take it out of the room when I laid Jacob down. And of course it woke him. He's hungry. I bring him up a bowl of cereal, then continue my phone conversation downstairs. I feel someone watching me. He's behind me now asking for more cereal. Great. Sabine sees him and gets all happy. Jacob sees Sabine and gets all happy. It's suddenly a party and everyone is wide awake. And that's where we are when Zach walks in.

The next couple hours are devoted to getting the kids to bed. Everyone gets ready for bed and climbs in. I read books for a while and have Zach sway with the baby, but she stills only wants me at night. I sway with her for a while and then lay down in bed for the final round of getting Sabine to sleep. I simultaneously snuggle with Jacob and put the baby to sleep laying on my chest.

Twenty minutes later I lay Sabine in the co-sleeper. Successfully. Then Jacob coughs. That's the end of that. Another fifteen minutes and she's back in the co-sleeper. Asleep. I go downstairs and do some dishes. I go upstairs to check on the kids while I'm waiting for Zach to finish up his stuff so we can watch the movie. While I'm up there, somewhere downstairs Ginger shakes; her collar and tags make noise. Sabine's awake. Another round of nursing her and ten minutes later I attempt to put her down. Then Zach walks in the room and asks what's going on. I leave it up to him to deal with her and go downstairs. Two minutes later he comes down. She's asleep. Finally. We start the movie and it's 10:20. Two hours that shit took.

I've been so diligent the past few days. Why is this not paying off? When will it get easier? Maybe it won't. Maybe we will just have to get rid of one of the kids...

The growing list of things we can't do

Two weeks ago Zach called from work and I answered by saying, "Guess we can't leave Sabine on the couch and walk away anymore." She'd been sitting up against the back of the couch when I walked to the other side of the room. As I started to head back she rolled to her side, then her belly and started to crawl forward, all in one motion. I lunged for her and made the catch in mid air. She looked up at me and laughed.

The week before that Sabine officially started crawling. Her motions were no longer predictable, she'd begun moving in erratic patterns based on what caught her attention in the moment. We declared it was no longer safe to leave her on the living room floor while we made quick trips to the basement for the rabbits or laundry.

Last week I was getting ready for the day while Sabine was playing safely in the middle of the bed. I left for a moment to retrieve something from the bathroom and when I came back Sabine, now going for something on the bedside table, was one hand placement away from falling off the bed. I grabbed her up and later announced to her other caretakers that it wouldn't cut it anymore to leave her playing 'safely' on the bed.

A little while ago Zach called from work to get someone's phone number. On my way downstairs for the address book I caught him up on the latest news. "So as of literally ten minutes ago we can't leave Sabine unattended in the co-sleeper." Minutes earlier I'd been on the floor sorting through something and turned around to see Sabine standing up in the co-sleeper with her hands on the edge and face peering down at me from over the side, her center of balance dangerously close to making a date with gravity.

Sabine is constantly on the move now. She has little tantrums if we dare to lay her down for a diaper change, try to dress her, or basically do anything that gets in the way of her explorations. Taking something away from her elicits great shrieks. She's starting to make little babbling noises, still sings her little songs when falling asleep, and she'll sing along with you if you're singing to her. She's going to give us a run for our money...

Assembly Required and Other Christmas Favorites

This here is the Melissa & Doug easel from Pop and Chris. It came in a flat box with many pages of assembly instructions. Zach had to work late that night. That means it was up to me to handle the assembly. This wouldn't be a big deal for a normal person but I am technically challenged in this regard. I take things too literally or something and for this reason I am never able to get past step II of any giving assembly instructions. I sit there yelling about what kind of idiot wrote these directions and how they need to be edited.

Well I am happy, downright proud, to announce that I put that thing together myself in about an hour. Much to Jacob's pleasure, it has not fallen down yet. Here he is at play with it. Writing his name backwards. Now all I have to do is get Zach to stop saying easel with a soft S sound. Eazzzel! Zzzz, zzz, ZZZ! I yell at him.

Here's Jacob with some of our Christmas creations. We made a shit ton of the cinnamon-y ornaments and photo magnets. Everyone got one of those a top their presents this year.

Right after opening the easel, Jacob seemed more interested in the styrofoam that came packed around it than the pieces that would eventually become his easel. He disappeared into another room and was a little too quiet for some time before I realized that meant Danger.

Mmm...fun times with the shredded styrofoam. Fun for me cleaning it up (still) three days later.

And what would Christmas be without a good box experience? Jacob fit perfectly in here with just a bit if feet sticking out. Later a face and arm holes were created. Despite the overwhelming amount of presents from Nana, this was clearly his favorite 'gift' from that branch of family. So remember that for next year; just dig out a big box from the dumpster, maybe some duct tape too, and save yourself the trouble of shopping. Just give us the cash you would have spent on his gifts and we'll put it in his 529 for college.