Lego organisation

Now for an unusual post (not that our camping trip wasn't unusual). I told a friend I would "show" how our family organises our Lego. The boys don't actually play with it that much anymore, unfortunately. Though they aren't interested in giving it away. We talked on the weekend about how we could divide it up and "smuggle" it back to Australia as they all gradually leave home over the next eight years.

However, here is the system. The pieces are filed by function/size. So we have a drawer of flat pieces, a drawer of long thin pieces, one of weapons, etc. The yellow set of drawers in the top left has dismembered mini-figures!

The brown drawers are full of tiny bits. The white box has medium bits.

This one is technic lego.

We know people who have their Lego sorted by colour, but my guys are against that, saying that this is much easier to find the functional piece you want.

Goodbyes, pikelets, and boys

After being stressed yesterday about the finish of school and all that means for changes in schedules etc., it's been a great day so far (4.30pm right now).

I got up with my husband at the usual time and we had a quiet breakfast on our own! He then went off to work as usual. I dashed as fast as I could to my desk and got some good work done in the quiet of the morning. At 9.30 the first boy appeared and I woke up the other two snoozers because we had special guests coming at 10.

Australian pikelets for morning tea (mini pancakes)

It was a goodbye. A young family who we've shared the last five years with is returning to the US. We've chatted to them at church and school, seen both their young boys born, and had them over on a number of occasions. 

The mum was instrumental in helping overhaul the outdated design and process of the magazine I work on. (I told the story of her being an amazing answer to my prayer for a designer here) Together we also created some memorable covers for the magazine. Our friendship was strengthened by working together and it was sad when she had to stop working on the magazine (see here). She's not just a designer, but also a photographer and has taken several family photos for us in recently years, most notable was the one we used for our prayer card last year in Australia.


One of the fun things has been to see the relationship between her two little boys and my big boys. Her little ones love my big ones and my guys are wonderful with them. We have great memories. One of the best was when one of my guys looked at her eldest as a baby who was squinting a little in bright light and kindly called him an "evil baby".

We'll miss them when they're gone, but alas it is the way of life as missionaries. We say more goodbyes than most (though probably not as many as those in the military).

So this morning my friend came over with her boys to play, a play date with two- and four-year-olds in a house of 11-, 13-, and 17-year-olds doesn't seem feasible, but it worked. We still have toys (trains, cars, cooking toys) that the little boys love and remember. When they arrived they ran past me holding the front door, trying to get inside as fast as possible.

It was a fun morning that had varying participation from my recently awoken boys. But overall my guys did well, even consenting to one last photo with all five boys together.

We had a late lunch (I made pikelets [mini pancakes eaten cold] for morning tea with our guests, though my boys ate many, many more than our guests did and hence weren't in a hurry for lunch). Then I had a little lie down (still recovering from my cold-induced asthma), washed up some of the morning's dishes, and then have worked on the computer in quiet most of the time since.

The boys have not been on electronic devices all day (as is their tendency and our fear for the summer), there's been creativity and I'm happy! I know that not every day will be as smooth or nice, but often the first day after school is out is bad and today hasn't been.

Tonight we're going out for our annual end-of-year celebration. Another all-you-can-eat restaurant, specialising in meat! When tummies are moderately full we're going to broach the topic of time-use during the summer, as well as reassigning some of their regular chores to fit a different more flexible schedule. The big goal is them developing better self-control over how much screen time there is, as opposed to us being the policemen of screen time. The disincentive for a pattern of poor time use? The loss of screen time in a big way. We'll see how it goes—both tonight and the rest of the summer.

Results of the Big Bedroom Switch

The great bedroom switch is now a couple of weeks behind us now and maybe you're wondering how it went. It was a big couple of days, switching it all over (incorporated into a big weekend that I wrote about here). However, I think it has all been worth it!

Two desks. Our middle son loves having his desk
here. It's shifted around a little in the past, but mostly
been just off the dining room in the lounge so that I
could supervise him (he's a terrific procrastinator).
However, he loves being up here after school on his
own (his older brother hasn't been coming home until
6.30 or later from wrestling training recently). The
biggest difficulty with this is arrangement is me
remembering to go up and check that he is
actually working.

The reason we changed was to help one of our sons who needed a break from the brother he was rooming with. He's settled down a lot since he's moved out, for which we're very grateful. The biggest issue we're dealing with now is a preteen who's struggling to go to sleep at an appropriate time because he wants to talk to his beloved older brother, who stays up later.

With the shifting of furniture, the ambiance of both rooms has changed considerably, to my surprise. We wondered how our biggest extrovert would cope with being in a room on his own, but he seems to be fine, even enjoying the peace.

And, as I said in that previous post, the shift enabled us to throw a lot of stuff out or put it aside for sale at CAJ's Thrift Shop in April. That was a bonus!

Unplugged parenting

Today I realised again how anti-screen our parenting style is. We actively discourage our boys from spending much time watching TV, or on computers. We don't only have strict guidelines on how much time they can spend on these things every day, we have actively encouraged them over the years to develop interests that don't need to be plugged-in. And we've never bought them toys that are screen-based.

This began quite young, when we restricted TV to only one hour at a time, and only at certain times of day. That's faded out as they've become busy at school. These days they don't usually watch TV during the week and only occasionally on the weekend. As the years have gone on, internet usage has been given rules too.

But I realised today that having more than one child is definitely an advantage in this regard. When a Japanese mum of a young teenager and only child asked (in regards to the upcoming coming three weeks break from school), "What will they do, if they can't be on the internet?" I had lots of answers, but some didn't apply to her.

Our boys will be out getting exercise, playing board games with each other, and playing with their Lego, NInjago, action figures etc. They'll also be reading and perhaps doing crafty things. I'll be asking them to help me cook meals too.

Our teenager has developed a number of non-plugged in hobbies/interests including: Rubics cube, collecting dice and manipulation puzzles, learning various knots, working out (for wrestling), logic puzzles, and he is a voracious reader. He's also recently been creating an Australian version of Risk in his spare time. This boy, of his own volition, has spurned Facebook, which, I believe, is where a lot of his friends (at least the girls) are spending their time.

One of the reasons we steer the boys away from the internet and from TV is that it cripples their creativity. It also produces behaviour that isn't very helpful. A few weeks back they developed an obsession with a internet based game. Their behaviour was disrespectful and they couldn't think about anything else except getting to play that game. I banned it for a week and things improved significantly around here. That obsession has faded, thankfully.

Our guys live life at a pretty high intensity, we don't need anything that will add to that intensity. I guess every parent has to figure out what works best in their family. We've found a pretty good balance for us. We'll see how that progresses as our boys get older.

Cheap, fun outing for winter

These two days constitute Winter Break at CAJ. Not much of a break, but I won't complain. We've been trying to figure out what to do with these days. Camping was no good, neither was staying at home for the whole weekend. A park is our default mode, but to be honest (not that I'm not usually), the thought of spending maybe an hour getting to a park and then standing around in the cold for a few hours watching them play, and then another hour getting home just wasn't all that appealing. 


So I came up with another plan. We'll go to Costco. It is a comfortable under-the-hour drive. It was a job that needed doing and wasn't easily fitting into my schedule in the coming weeks. And the huge plus is that the boys enjoy it. It is one of the very few shopping trips that the boys enjoy (and that we're prepared to take them on). Part of the reason is that it involves food. Our routine is to shop from about 10 until we're done, go through the checkout and then have lunch at their basic and very cheap in-house restaurant. We also buy a cheap pizza for dinner (in actual fact we've bought ourselves lunch and dinner today for under 3,000 yen [$AU35]).


The other thing we discovered about the Iruma Costco is that in the neighbouring Outlet Mall is a Lego shop. Not that we were planning on buying any Lego, BUT they have the 2012 Catalogue available and this is what the boys have been asking for since New Years. It is a free resource that entertains month after month. The 2011 version still holds pride of place beside at least one of the boys pillows!


So we're all happy. Full freezer, full larder, and full of wonder at the amazing Lego that is out there. And tomorrow we'll all be happy to stay home.

Dumbbells

I bought something today I'd never thought about buying before. Dumbbells. 


As a result of the wrestling season finishing on Saturday, our 12 y.o. has decided to make it his goal to continue to work on his strength and fitness. He wanted dumbbells, 2 kg ones. So today my youngest (who was still home from school due to Grade 1 closing, see yesterday's post) and I trooped off to the closest shop we knew would have them. I think I exhausted myself just carrying them back up the stairs to the car (three floors); obviously I need to get back to the gym regularly again.


Our eldest came home earlier from school than usual — straight after school finished — because he had no sports training and all his friends either went home exhausted (basketballers who have before school training) or had practice for the middle school play (Aladdin, which is on next week). He was very happy to find we'd bought these dumbbells for him, not so happy that I said it was his expense and he now owed me 1,995 yen (a bit over AU$20). He then spent at least half an hour working out in the lounge room. I hope he keeps it up, despite having no coaches watching over him.


But dumbbells? I guess I have boys. Keep forgetting that. They aren't into clothes shopping, sitting in coffee shops or admiring the view. But a chance to get sweaty, to build muscle, to merely move—yes, they're into that.

Japanese puzzle box

Last week our 12 y.o. son first met a Japanese puzzle box. He loves manipulative puzzles and very quickly decided that he had to have one for himself. He very rarely spends money on anything, so we took notice. It turns out that these are only made in one locality in Japan. Believe it or not, the place down near Mt Fuji where I went last week (only days before I knew he wanted one). 

This is an amazing piece of work. The design on the side isn't painted on, it is all separate slivers of wood. The technique is called marquetry, read more here and about the unique Japanese style called yosegi here.

They aren't cheap, nor are they sold in many places. They are made by hand and there is only one type of wood that can be used for the interior to make it move smoothly. We found some online and our son is very pleased with his new acquisition. Here is the video of him opening the box (he's memorised the 14 moves). Sorry that the sound isn't very good.

Impulse buying

We went impulse buying the other day. Furniture, actually. Unusual behaviour for missionaries. It is probably more in character was that we did it in one of our favourite second-hand furniture stores. And it wasn't totally impulsive. The problems we were trying to solve had been hanging around for a while, but the solutions were new.

Old bed

Firstly our two younger boys' bunk bed has been very rickety for a long time. They are at least 20 or more years old. We on the end of a long line of missionaries who've used it, and even a boarding school. We were fearful that the boy on top would topple through to the bottom one night as the base under the top mattress was breaking.

Add to that the growing amount of stuff that our middle son has been storing on his bed. He's been asking for his own room for some time and this is his solution to the "not possible" answer that he receives. All "important" stuff, including his current book, Bible and devotionals, stuffed toys, special Lego etc. Really a child just trying to have a space to call his own. It was rearranged at night time down one side of the bed, reducing the space he had for sleeping by about a third! He regularly thumped the wall with his feet at night-time. We've been thinking and talking about solutions to this, but none seemed ideal.

New bed, with adjacent shelves.

The idea of an adjacent tall shelf to the bed came up at morning tea on Friday, then we looked at how we could rearrange the bedroom (for about the fourth time since we moved in 13 months ago). It was a logical step to think about a new bed too. 

Opposite corner to above.

We found a much studier bed that has a greater space between the bunks plus a ladder that the previous bed didn't have. And a tall shelf. And the price wasn't too bad, as compared to what you'd pay for something new. And an adjacent tall shelf as something of a bedside table to keep special stuff on that you can access from bed. The boys are happy and we are too.

The rearranged room looks great and there is even room for a desk for our middle son in the future.

So our "impulse" buying went extremely well. And now we're starting to feel ready to start a new school year.

Lego mania

Our boys have been keen on Lego for ever so long. I think we gave our eldest his first Lego at four years of age and it has been a favourite toy ever since. So our younger boys have never known life without it! 

One of the cool things we've found in Japan is Lego shops or ClickBricks shops as they're called. There is one in Karuizawa, where we often go for holidays. But we've found one much closer – across the road from the Costco we visit every couple of months, only 45 minutes away! We stumbled upon it on Tuesday and the boys are all abuzz.

But the problem is that while they've been talking and enthusing about Lego, there isn't any big project going on. Nothing much that they're working on. To add to that there is a fair bit of boredom running around. I don't like being bored myself, so I can understand how they feel. Therefore, this morning I made a suggestion. I suggested that they build models for every letter of the alphabet, photograph them and make the photos into a book. 

It took a bit of time for everyone to finally agree on this one. One boy particularly had a completely different goal – to demolish everything and start making sets again. So he boycotted the proceedings for a while, but soon found himself bored. I chatted casually with him at one point and suggested that if he helped his brothers achieve their goal then they'd get there faster and he could do his thing then. "Great idea", he enthused and ran up the stairs. He hasn't looked back. 

It's been a great idea. Everyone can contribute. I haven't built anything (yet, though I've been invited), but I did take some of the photos. Our six y.o. wrote a list of intended objects and our 12 y.o. is planning to take the photos and add captions using the computer. Our middle son did some photography and they've all (including David) done some building.

They haven't finished yet, but here are some of their efforts. Can you guess which letter goes with which picture?

Be aware girls: our house is full of boys

One of the interesting quirks of having a singe-sex brood of children is when you have adult friends who have children of the opposite sex. It seems that a number of my good friends have only girls. This is all very fine when we are chatting while they are all playing in the playground at school or church, but as soon as you bring friends like this into your house you have challenges!

Two 6 y.o.s play together. Girl and boy.

Yesterday we took care of a friend's daughter for a couple of hours. She is a classmate of our 8 y.o. middle son. They are both doing a day tennis school in the mornings this week at school. Our son bravely accompanied his classmate home (I daren't call her his friend). Then it got a little bit awkward. Usually when a boy enters our house, unless he is exceptionally shy, he immediately gets snapped up by the overwhelming boy-ness of our house and will be playing cars or Lego or shooting or some other very boy-like game. A girl, I'm discovering, is a different kettle of fish.

I guess she was probably expecting me to ask her about her morning, but I've learned not to do that with my boys. They cope much better if I ask them later or wait for it to come out later, but not immediately upon entering the house. She drifted in and around and no one knew what to do with . . . a girl!?! Eventually I asked my middle son to give her a tour of the house seeing as she'd never been here before. For the boys, that inevitably leads straight to the play centre of the house – their bedroom. After that I didn't see them for a while, so I presume they found something to do upstairs.

Then came lunch. The silence was awkward. So I slipped into my default mode – conversation stimulator. I asked our guest what she likes to do when she's on holidays (US=vacation). She gave us a lovely description of her and her sister's dolls and the three cars that she owns (stipulating that the Barbies have to lie down in the bus). This recitation predictably received no response from the boys. So I asked our middle son what he likes to do on holidays. He said "Toshimaen", which is a somewhat ancient amusement and water park that we've bought season tickets for this year. He also stated, "Lego" . . . still we had no interaction going on. The atmosphere was as stilted as a formal dinner party!

Eventually our guest mentioned that she'd seen the movie "Despicable Me" recently. Well, that was the key that opened the door. The rest of the meal consisted of everyone sharing memorable scenes and quotes. 

Phew!!! 

By contrast, the daughter of our visitors a couple of weeks ago had no hesitation in interacting. She has a brother. But she also has quite a dominant personality. A born leader – she talked, whether or not anyone was listening, she organised and planned. That's not to say she didn't have challenges in interacting with our overwhelmingly boy-household. Our six-year-old sometimes was happy to comply with her plans and enjoyed her company. At other times he withdrew and complained that she was "bossy". He also had periodic doubts about whether boys should be playing with girls at all.

It is an interesting experience watching these kids interact. As a friend has said, "Your boys are such Boy boys, Wendy." Yes, it is true. Nothing much subtle about them at all. It must be a bit intimidating for a girl to enter into their "lair", the place where they are most comfortable.

I grew up in a girl-household. Three girls, Mum and Dad. Poor Dad was quite out-numbered and certainly out-talked. I remember the odd occasion when a boy turned up. It WAS awkward. But then I wasn't a very girly-girl; so we'd ride bikes, dig in the sandpit or jump on the trampoline. At least that is my memory of it, so it is probably faulty.

What are your experiences of single-sex-children families encountering the opposite sex?

Where have you been?

 A friend/colleague who I usually have fairly regular contact with on email wrote the other day, "Wendy, you've been quiet, are you okay?"

The answer is "Yes, but I've been busy." Particularly busy during the day when I get the easiest access to the computer. Once the boys are home they all have school homework on the computer or piano practise that needs supervising and before I know it, it is dinner preparation time and then the push to bed. Next thing we're hitting 8.30 and wanting to relax a little before bed!

To tell you about every day recently would be boring, but let me tell you a little about yesterday.

In the morning my kindergartner had "Round-up" day. Meaning he got to go to Grade 1 for 1 1/2 hours. I joined him for a while, then the Elementary Principal spoke to us for a little while and then  he was dismissed for the day. We shot back home for some morning tea and then took off on our bikes to do some grocery shopping. When we returned I made a start on the cake for our eldest's birthday on Sunday (12, I cannot believe it!!).

Then, not long after noon the others joined us at home. Yesterday was a special presentation afternoon for the seniors at CAJ. They've each been doing a large project and yesterday they did presentations publicly. Because teachers from the whole school are used in grading this particular assessment, all other classes were cancelled for the afternoon. So, we had lunch (and they ate huge amounts, where do they put it?) and then some quiet reading time. 

Cake is in the top tin, tin in the middle is catching more drips.

All this time I was checking this cake in the oven. Because I tripled it, it took a long time to cook. And also because I tripled it, I ended up with this big mess - because there was too much batter for the tin I used!

One of the senior presentations was on Dyslexia, which is a topic of interest for this occasional Occupational Therapist. It was on at 1.45, so with all the kids at home, my plan was to put a movie on and dash down to school, see the presentation and dash back again before anyone had a chance to have an issue with anyone else! And the plan worked. Unfortunately a cake that refused to finish baking wasn't on my agenda. In the end I turned the oven off and left it in there. When I returned I simply turned the oven back on again. Who knows what it will taste like in the end!

Oh, and there was little waste for the cake. See that big glob on the bottom of the oven? My nearly 12 y.o. ate it for afternoon tea, minus the burnt bits!

After afternoon tea we did something very rare indeed. I shooed all the boys into the car and we went shopping. I used to drive boys around all the time in Australia, but it just doesn't happen here. If I hop in the car it is usually on my own during school hours or as a family on the weekend. Most often when we leave the house, though, it is on foot or on bikes. 

As it happens, our son's good friend has a birthday only four days before our son's. And he invited our son to a sleep-over tonight. Finding a present for this friend, within budget was pretty difficult. Our son didn't have any idea what his friend's hobbies were or what he like to do in his spare time. They basically spend their time at school chasing one another and tickling. Our son's never been to his friend's apartment (it is on the other side of Tokyo).

We eventually bought cheap water guns. One in the shape of a fire hydrant, the other in the shape of a banana!

By the time we arrived home it was 5pm and there my day had rushed past and was almost gone. I went to wash up lunch and baking dishes; and soon my husband arrived home.

We tag-teamed it and I dashed out the door after handing over the latest problems to him (like the youngest being banned from playing with the middle son's new $1 slinky due to frequent tangles) and headed to the gym for some exercise and clear head space. I felt much better when I returned in an hour. But my day was gone!

Last night was consumed with email, catching up with my husband and ordering some food on the internet that is hard to get or expensive in local stores.

Do I live an ordinary life? Yes, by all means I do. Lots of the ways I do things are slightly different, but so much is essentially the same as the lives of my sisters in my home country, Australia.

Aeroplane take-over

My house is being taken over by paper aeroplanes. 

On Thursday I innocently brought home a book about the subject from the school library. We already have one here, but it is only an origami one and in Japanese, and is hard even for me to read. That afternoon the fad began. I knew we probably had a cold, wet weekend coming up, so I wasn't too worried - except that they began a day early. Thursday afternoon we had trouble getting homework done.

The next afternoon my usually bookworm-but-ambivalent-about-libraries eldest son feverishly looked up paper aeroplanes in the library catalogue. He found one more and now it looks like the planes are having babies because almost anywhere I look in the house, there I find another plane.

It has lead to another rule. No throwing planes in the lounge room. If you check this post you'll see what these paper-covered sliding doors used to look like when we first moved in. Much of the small damage in this first photo happened on Thursday and Friday amidst a frenzy of paper plane attacks. 

The larger damage is the result of boys in general. Pretty normal damage, from what we see and hear. I've had one experienced mum offer to teach me how to repaper these doors called shoji (there is a glass door on the outside, if you're wondering). I'll have to take her up on that, but not yet. We'll wait till it gets a bit worse first. In the meantime, there is no paper aeroplane or ball throwing allowed in this room!

Chocolate puzzle a real headache

We were introduced to the world of Meiji Chocolate Puzzles a couple of years ago when a friend of our son's gave him the easiest version as a birthday present.

They look exactly like the chocolate bars you can buy in the shop, even down to the wrappers, but they are plastic puzzles. You can see the tetris-like pieces if you look closely at the photo. It is even clearer here. 

But the puzzle comes with no solutions page!

The official name for one of the puzzles (the second from the top in the photo) is Pentonimoes. Which Wikipaedia defines as:  a polyomino composed of five congruent squares, connected along their edges. Intrigued, here is the link to the article.

We bought the other three for the boys for Christmas.

While the bottom three have many solutions, the top one (officially a hexomino puzzle) apparently has only one and it is almost impossible to find accidentally. In fact the instructions advise you note what it looks like when you receive it, before you tip it out. Of course, our impulsive eldest didn't and we resorted to looking up someone else's solution on the web, it was just too hard, even for the mathematical fiends in my house.

A mum-of-boys

I feel distinctly like a mum-of-boys tonight. Dinner tonight was Pirate Ship Pizzas with various salad accessories (row boat tomatoes, lettuce sea, cucumber turtles etc.) Eaten with much enthusiasm by our boys. I also went shopping with our 7 y.o. to buy him his birthday present with the Gift Card his grandma gave him. We bought a large castle. I even paid a little extra to secure this gift, thinking it'd be a great addition to our family's collection. This boy thing is obviously growing on me. Finally yesterday at the meeting we went to in preparation for a post-Christmas Scripture Union camp, there was some pretty bad "boy" humour going around and I was laughing. My friend shook her head. They decided it was my boys who'd shaped and moulded me! And here was I thinking that I was training them!

Janglish

We bought a cheap toy yesterday and found this wonderful English on the back: CAUTION!

• Beware of missing parts. (Yep, always a concern around here, but why is it a caution?)
• Do not drop, use smoothly.
• Do not use in case it has any defect or breakage. (Does this mean I shouldn't use it in case it breaks?)
• Child fewer than 4 years old directly disable. (Huh?)
• Do not use on the road, stairs, any dangerous places. It causes of hurt. (The toy or the child gets hurt?)
• Keep on eyes on the children not to swallow. Make safe from the suffocation.(This one is a challenge, how am I supposed to make something with small parts safe from suffocating my child? Actually the parts were so small that it is unlikely to cause suffocation, choking might be a bigger concern.)

Finally the last one makes perfect sense:

• Keep out of reach of children. (It's a toy for Pete's sake.)

Guess what it is? A Police Toy Set! Small plastic police car with removable policeman and very large gun! I have to say I have not the least concern about my 4 y.o. playing with it. Thanks for the CAUTIONS anyway.

Thrift Shop at CAJ

Today was Thrift Shop at the Christian Academy in Japan. Doesn't mean a thing? Didn't to us when we first came here nearly four years ago. But everyone talked about it. Our first one was a real discovery tour. I'd anticipated it would be like the school fetes that we had as a child. But no, this was far more serious.

The Main event fills the entire gym. Over 2 1/2 days they turn the school gym into a massive garage sale. Then they sell for two days. Goods scrounged from most corners of every PTA member's house piled on tables, squeezed onto shelves and overflowing to every spare bit of a large cavernous place that was unbelievably once called a gym. 

Aside from that most of the rest of the day is a little understated. The soon-to-be seniors are working to sell goodies to fund their senior ministry trip, aromatic cinnamon rolls in the cafeteria, a blood drive and, if the weather permits, a short outdoor concert from the concert band. These are the usual fare.

Oh, and the popular Korean BBQ, with lines almost clear across the campus. But it all fades into the background when you consider most people are there to buy more stuff, very cheap stuff.

You can get amazing bargains at Thrift Shop. Clothes are an especially good bargain for a family with boys who are not only growing fast, but working hard to wear their clothes out faster that I can mend. The video/DVD and book corners are a great source of entertainment. And of course our boys' favourite department - the toys. This is where they head. We allow them to choose one toy to buy (about 100-200 yen, or AU$1.40- $2.80). It is like a open policy Christmas to them. Hard to choose - but look at all the exciting possibilities.

Today our 3 yo chose a Buzz Lightyear gun. Actually it looks more like a handle with an oversized soft ice cream attached to the end. But it makes an appropriate (but not too loud) sound and if you turn the lights out it makes an impressive light display under the 'ice-cream' end. He's had a lot of fun with it today. Many people would no longer be here if it were real, probably me too.

 Actually I don't usually buy guns. Not that that stops them playing with guns. Just a couple of days ago they made impressive rifles out of Duplo. Then after my 6 yo got tired of that, he remodelled his into a semi automatic! I applaud their creativity, even if I don't like the game. Understand boys? Not this mum!

The other thing about Thrift Shop that I didn't understand when we first came was that it is a social event. Even if you are not planning to buy much, you come to catch up with people. The campus doesn't have the space to accomodate whole-school events, so Thrift Shop is almost the only time everyone gets together.

Today I chatted with a number of my friends as we passed by in the controlled frenzy of Friday Thrift Shop. (I'll tell you about Saturday Thrift Shop another day, same place, same goods, but totally different atmosphere.)