aryanhwy | feels like Christmas

Or something like that.

The first of the two birthday presents for Gwen that I ordered from amazon a few days ago arrived today, and we just finished putting it together while she naps. I've secreted it in our bedroom with a blanket over it that we'll use as wrapping paper. We're going to celebrate her birthday next Saturday just the three of us; we've got a few presents from us and that I purchased my money from various grandparents, plus some that were delivered early in the year when we saw family in April and July.

It's tremendously exciting to have a surprise wrapped up and tucked away. I hope she likes it. I'd long planned that the big-ticket items for her 2nd birthday and Christmas would be a nice wood toy kitchen, and a glide bike. I started rethinking this when she and I went to Toys'R'Us a few months ago and it was clear that she's still a bit too short for the bikes (and she hasn't grown much taller since). Plus, what can you do with a bike like that indoors in winter? That might be a half-birthday spring present. As for the kitchen, that's still something I intend to get, but what I'd noticed recently at daycare is that when I pick her up in the evenings, she's doing one of three things -- eating snack, sitting and reading (oh, is that a lovely sight, to see a crowd of kids running around and Gwen sitting at the table with a large book spread in front of her, pouring over the pages intently. It rather makes up for the fact that at home "nother book" is almost more common a phrase than "nein", and I feel like she'd be happy if I did nothing but read to her all day long. In principle, that's a lovely thought: In practice, we really really really need more books. I hope she gets a lot for her birthday and Christmas!), or tucking dolls into the cradle, covering them up, and giving them good night kisses. She has three dolls at home -- Dolly, whom we bought as our Cape Town souvenir; Catherine, who was my baby and whom Grandma Friedemann dug out to gift Gwen last Christmas; and Baby (I find it really hard to name dolls/animals that are not my own. Her animals are all named according to vernacular species name, except when there are multiples and then they are distinguished by the given name of the person who gave them to her, e.g., Wendy-bear, Holli-bear, and Bonnie-bear), who was a gift from Grandma Uckelman, and likes to layer blankets (or kitchen towels) on the floor, put her babies on them, layer them up with more blankets, and give them kisses. So I figured that she might be really excited about having a cradle of her own for them at home, just like she has at daycare. So, I scouted around on amazon (because going to a toy store is pointless if you want something made out of wood, unless it's a special toy store and thus reeeeaaaaaalllly expensive), found a number of cribs, thought, narrowed, thought some more, solicited Joel's opinion, and eventually picked one out which arrived today. Pleasantly, since I didn't recall this in the amazon listing, it arrived with bedding, in a cheerful blue and white check with red and green letters and white bears and elephants all over it. Not pink! Score!