I should have told you about the first night, but I was in a Suf Ganiot (jelly donut) stupor.
Last night my Dad and Stepmother came for candle lighting and supper. The kids were excited to open their first round of gifts (trust me the excitement wanes by the third night), and even more happy to have company for candle lighting and dinner.
Since I didn’t provide you with a gift guide this year I’ll let you know what the kids have opened in the last two nights.
Alexander got a Yankee’s warm up jacket, and a Yankee’s cap, both are from Modell‘s in New York, both items have been worn from the second he gets home from school, until the second he goes to bed. Alexander is a Yankee fan. He also received a pair of pirate pajamas and the boxed set of How To Train Your Dragon Books. Jane bought him a watch. His big gifts will be tomorrow, the bummer about Hanukkah is that you give gifts at sundown. Alexander is getting a heap of sporting goods, so we’ll cheat the sundown bit and give him some baseball equipment around 3pm tomorrow.
Jane got a vintage looking Yankee’s tee from Modell’s as well, it’s really soft and it looks like a tee with a long sleeved shirt under it, but it’s really just one shirt, she is understandably thrilled, she also got a tee that she’d made at Hot Topixx some time ago, she was so happy to see how it turned out. There was a 2011 Eclipse calendar, and Alexander bought her earrings.
Presents for the children are wrapped and on the living room table. I’ve taken care to make them all look about the same. I bought some shirt boxes, and I decided to let Jane just pick one thing to open each night. Because she has incredible radar she immediately went to the “big gift” we got her this year.
She squealed. She jumped up and down. She hugged ME. She thanked ME.
I recognize that technically this is a gift from my husband and I, but the kids know that I’m the technophile in the house. I further recognize that it is petty, stupid and infantile to want your child to favor you. I see that it is not good parenting. I’ve admitted to my friends that I am absolutely spineless when it comes to gift giving for my children.
For about 15 seconds my daughter loved me best.
And even though rejoicing in that makes me a shitty mother, it delights me.
Sounds like fun to me! I hate to be a downer as you’re talking about a joyful occasion, but I have to say, the issue of young ones and cell phones really scares me given the new reports/discussion about cancer being linked to cell phone radiation. Are you at all nervous about that? I’m assuming she’ll be doing more texting than talking, which apparently is a good thing. I have no idea how I’ll handle it when my daughter gets to that age. Hopefully phones will be made safer… or something…
http://www.ewg.org/cellphoneradiation/Health-problems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npK5HSxukyA
Not a downer at all, but you are absolutely correct in that I don’t worry about radiation. My daughter has had a cell phone for about a year now, and has never used more than 10 minutes of talk time in a month.
She did, however, rack up a $300+ texting bill the first month (I promptly switched to unlimited text).
Your 12-year-old daughter has a nice cell phone than I do. (Oh well, so do the 10 and 8 year old kids next door to me!) :0)
But yes, Amber is right – radiation exposure is something we should all be concerned about. (Though I’m not sure quite what to do about it since it is EVERYWHERE – even when our cell phones are not pressed against our heads.)
I meant to say nicer (instead of nice) – curse my poor typing skills and the inability to edit comments left on other people’s blogs!
Not a shitty mother…but rather a human mother.
Quit being so hard on yourself.
@BeingSuper