Quality not Quantity

Yesterday was the eldest's birthday. We did the day our with Thomas thing for him. It was a flippen 2 hour drive to get there and a 2 hour drive to get back. My wife made plans for us to meet my family at a restaurant at 5:30 pm, we had a 1pm train ride on Thomas and too much junk to see. Dianna though we would leave at 10am we didn't leave until about 10:20am the venue had moved so we had to find out where it moved to so that ate up more time I think we finally got in at 12:40pm. Then the friken train ride didn't go until 1:30pm. That left us a whopping hour to check out what the rest of the place was about. Thomas had a bit of fun on a bouncy castle and a hay stack maze. David picked a fight with another kid, the kid hit him David laughed and pounded him. The other kid wanted a piece of him but his dad stopped him. I think he knew David would smoke him. Thomas got a shot with Sir Topemhat it wasn't going to happen for David. So we had them play for a bit in the imagination station got them some hats and a Thomas a train whistle. Had them head out and David had a meltdown because he had to leave. The both crashed in the car shortly after, thankfully David slept the whole ride back.

Overall impression with a Day out with Thomas... it sucked. I think it would have been better if we weren't so rushed but even then I think it still would have sucked. It was set up in a dusty area. The lines to get on to the train were poorly organized, everything was grossly over priced. Frankly not worth the money. Just a really crappy experience. I would have had more fun with the kids playing with the Thomas the tank engine train set at home.

meh...

OK I thought I was going to start a new blog and categorize things and to all kinds of wonderfull things. Well that was nothing but greif, for starters with the "new" blogger I can't import my old posts which irritates me, kind of unfair don't you think blogger people? Granted I am not the most blogg savvy person out there but it bugs me anyway... And I don't like it one bit :P

So anyway I have cool news! My little guy has been bumped into a special reading class where he reads with some grade ones and he says it's a really cool time and he has fun :) I am going to reward him too :) we are going to take a trip to the toy store and get him something to show how proud I am of his progress.

The business of the holidays...

Oh the commercialism of Christmas...

I oft' wonder if other cultures are as swept up in the consumerism that is Christmas. Living in Canada and that Christian religions being somewhat predominant and being Christian myself I wonder if other religions suffer from the same commercialism of their holidays and celebrations. for instance today I spent $50.00 on a gift card for a family member... why?... because he has everything he needs and or wants but we still feel obligated to give gifts guilted even... Think about how different the world could be if instead of buying the Xbox or PS3 or that big Plasma TV you just spent time with you family and played with your kids.

I got a huge eye opener yesterday from my interview with my sons teacher. They were doing a exercise about feelings and what makes them mad. My son said he gets mad when I don't listen to him. It was just about all I could do to not cry in front of the teacher, I know my eyes got watery I'm not sure if she caught it or not. The thing is I do listen to him but I do take him into the office with me and I do have to ignore him from time to time, because of customers etc. but I always make sure he understands why.

I was driving in the car with him today and we were talking about it and the topic of time came up and making time for him. He thought I didn't make time for him so we are going to start switching off the TV more often at night rather than letting that entertain us. We will start doing things more as a family rather than mindless zombies watching the TV or playing on the computer. So more book reading for me and the boy and maybe some discussions about the stories too, his teacher said his comprehension could be much better.

Anyway it's late and this chair is uncomfortable