Memory Lane and More

What an interesting trip down memory lane! Carter discovered that one of his books has something weird in it. It was what people my age remember as a record. He wanted to hear it so I got out my old fisher price record player that I haven't been able to part with and fired it up. I had to teach Matt how to use it too. Carter really enjoyed reading along to Peter and the Wolf. When it ended I asked Matt where all the other records were that had been in the record player. He told me that there hadn't been any in there. That's when my heart sank and I couldn't breathe! Where could my records be? I called my mom and she found a few in the entertainment center at home so a few are accounted for but seriously people I had quite the collection. I even had the McDonald's promo record that some of you may remember from back in the day. You know, if it plays the whole McD theme song you won a thousand dollars or something. Of course mine wasn't the winner but saying as a have had a pack rat personality from early childhood I saved that record and the rest of them. Carter meanwhile had a mild tantrum when I told him we didn't have any more records. He's tired from the exciting day at the farm with friends. To be honest I almost had a tantrum about the records myself so I wasn't too hard on him about it. I'm really hoping to find some tomorrow at a garage sale to tide him over until I can get the few records that are still at my childhood home. We won't be there until June though. Matt thinks I'm crazy and thinks if Carter wants to read along with stories we should just get some books with cds but there is something SO cool about him using my old record player. It's so retro and exciting. While it's old technology it's actually new and fascinating to Carter so I want to encourage that. Maybe I can make a run to DI this week. :-) It's really kind of silly when I think about it logically. I mean here's a kid that reads a magic treehouse book in 20 minutes flat asking to read along with a record of fairy tales and stuff but I have to keep reminding myself that even though he technically can read a newspaper doesn't mean that developmentally he'll want to read a newspaper. These fairy tale-ish stories are what is developmentally appropriate for him and what he is enjoying at the moment so I may as well let him get all he can from it.

In other news, we are all doing well and I'm feeling the baby move really often. It's so exciting! We have our ultrasound on May 2nd so then providing that the tech can get a good picture of the baby we should be able to know the gender of the baby. When I had my ultra expensive, total rip off ER visit a few weeks ago, I got an ultrasound and asked the tech if the baby was a girl or boy. She said that they all look like girls right now. I don't really buy that saying as I was 16 weeks and by then you should be able to tell. Later on, though admittedly I was in a lot of pain and may not have heard correctly, I could swear she said "her elbow" and then followed up by saying "the baby's elbow." Again it was 2am and I was in a lot of pain but judging from that comment and the ultrasound I really think it is a girl. We'll see!

Spring break has been wonderful! Monday we went to the gardens and had a blast, Tuesday we had a pajama day which was fun, Wednesday we had piano lessons and met Sabrina (my sister in law's twin sister) at the mall to play, Thursday I did laundry all day but it was fairly restful, and today we went to the farm and stopped by the new smoothie place! It is over by costco and is called Roxberry Juice Co. There hasn't been a Jamba around here and I've really missed getting smoothies. When I saw that this one was open we had to try it. Carter had an Ocean Breeze and I had a Carribean Crush or something. They were both delicious and the perfect texture! Hooray! I imagine I'll be there weekly this summer! Tomorrow I'm getting up early to go garage sale-ing. There are several listings as well as a major community sale so I've definitely got my hopes up. This summer I have the following to find since I refuse to pay for brand new. Besides I'm helping our planet by using something twice rather than buying new: a pram (yes I really really want the old fashioned style but new ones are outrageously priced), a papasan plug in swing, a newer cradle (I'm still trying to decide between cradle and co-sleeper actually), and now of course 45 records. Those are the keepers but I also need to be looking for things to resell. The market is not good right now so I'm going to have to be very picky. After all I don't want to get stuck with stuff in my garage. Did you see how clean it is now? Here's a pic. We can actually fit my car in! Hooray! When we started finishing the basement everything went into the garage and I wasn't able to park in it for awhile. You all read about the cleaning so I figured I may as well post the picture. In all we were able to empty 11 bins of stuff and gave the bins away to a neighbor who is moving. Yes there are still bins but we've gotten it down to just holiday decorations. We were amazed at some of the stuff we were hanging on to. It was bizarre to say the least but we are so organized now and it feels great to have less.