too many toys

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Things I Love Lately: Never Say Never Edition

My house looks like the scene of a collision between a LEGO truck, a dinosaur themed party supply warehouse, and a JoAnn Fabric. LEGO bricks and crafting supplies and dinosaur-themed things are strewn through pretty much every room. And our beloved housecleaner comes TOMORROW, along with the long-awaited plumber, so I need to de-toy-ify the floors at the very least. I am DREADING the act of finding a home for all these new things. WHERE will it all go? I’m sure it will lead to one of those things where you open the craft cupboard to put in new supplies and you decide the only way the new things will fit is if you reorganize the whole cupboard and I am not up for that.

Instead, I think I shall type up a blog post. 

New Nail Polish: I have been admiring some of Essie’s summer nail colors, but I have two problems with Essie nail polish. First, it is expensive. Second, it takes too long to dry and I am impatient, which means that any time I DO spend the $9 it costs to acquire an Essie nail varnish, I end up wasting a bunch of it because I smear my nails every time. Every. Time. I’m really a Sally Hansen Insta-Dri nail polish kind of girl, you know? Despite the absolute ridiculousness of spelling “dry” with an I, the Insta-Dri line has a wide variety of colors, dries in seconds, and costs under $5 per bottle. Done and done. But when I saw that Essie now has a quick-dry line of polish, I was very intrigued. The name of said polish – Essie Expressie – made me heave a deep, exasperated sigh, but what can we expect from those poor beleaguered nail polish marketing folk who have to continually pump out name after name for slightly different shades of pink? (In the Time Zone? Mall Crawler? Mic Drop-It-Low? How are these names? At least Get a Mauve On has an indication of the actual color.) This is all to say that I was intrigued enough to shell out $8.99 for a bottle of Crave the Chaos and I am very pleased indeed. The exact right shade of pink and it went on smoothly and with nary a smudge. Now all I need is a nail polish that sticks only to fingernail and repels instantly off skin. 

  • It is very hard to capture the polish bottle AND the polish on my nails in a single photograph so you get two.

Mask-Friendly Mascara: While I don’t really wear makeup, I do have one true love and that is mascara. I almost ALWAYS wear mascara, because my eyelashes are pale and stubby and I feel like I look very odd when I go au naturel. The problem, though, is that mask wearing, especially mask wearing plus heat and humidity, make my mascara melt down my eyelashes and onto my cheeks. (And I am still wearing a mask indoors, in public, so this is a Real Issue.) I recall with horror one incident this past winter where I wore mascara skiing, and when I removed my goggles – but not my mask – to greet some friends I hadn’t seen in many months, I registered the Disturbed Looks on their faces but brushed them off. Only once I’d ambled into the restroom, much later that day, did I discover the Severe Raccoon Eye Situation I’d been sporting. Ever since that day, I have been doing something I SWORE I would never do: I wear waterproof mascara. If you know of a good waterproof mascara, please let me know because I do NOT. And every waterproof mascara I have ever tried is IMPOSSIBLE to remove. I have to practically rip each individual eyelash out of my lids to get that infernal substance off me. But I have found a solution! I got a sample size tube of Chanel mascara when I bought someone  fancy face cream from Nordstrom, and it came with a sample size tube of Chanel La Base mascara base. (A rather redundant name, but at least it isn’t “Taxi Hopping” or “Lose the Snooze” or “All Things Ooo” which a real, live person or persons came up with and slapped on the side of a nail polish bottle.) So what I have been doing is applying the base – which is white – and then putting the waterproof mascara on top of it. Voila! The waterproof mascara stays put, but comes off much more easily with the base than without. I am assuming you can use any base-coat mascara, to avoid paying THIRTY-TWO AMERICAN DOLLARS for the Chanel.

image from nordstrom.com

Good Clean Dino Fun: My mother-in-law brought Carla this soap-making kit, and, best of all, the soaps are shaped like dinosaurs. They did the project together and made little soaps for the favor bags we handed out at Carla’s dinosaur themed party. It was an excellent craft, very easy to clean up, and made very satisfying little soaps. If you have a child in your life who like both dinosaurs and crafting, this should be on your radar. 

image from amazon.com

Dinosaurs and LEGO Unite: While on the subject of the dino-loving child, she received this 3-in-1 dinosaur LEGO set from a friend. I think it will be PERFECT for when we visit my parents later this summer, because it’s small and yet you can make three separate creatures out of the LEGO bricks included. In fact, I have had this in my Amazon cart, waiting until we got a little closer to our trip to order it. (I find it’s nice to have a couple little surprises on hand, to help with the stress and potential boredom of traveling.)

image from amazon.com

Maxi Skirt: I have continued my search for a maxi skirt I like. And I think I found it in this Tie-Dye Striped Midi Skirt from Loft. The fabric is lightweight but sturdier than jersey, so it floats over my lumpy hips rather than rippling magnifyingly along every bump and bulge. I am pleased that it is also white and blue, which means I can wear it for the Fourth of July. 

image from loft.com

More Jean Shorts?!?!?!: Also from Loft, I am really enjoying these Fresh Cut High Waist Boyfriend Shorts. They fit my criteria: high rise, roomy leg openings, not too short, and free shipping.

image from loft.com

I find the name perplexing – fresh cut? like flowers? or a bundle of garden-grown herbs? And I really doubt anyone’s boyfriend would wear these, ever – but they are comfy and long enough that I can roll up the hems if I want to. Somehow I have transformed, in a single year, from a person who owned zero pairs of jean shorts to a person who now owns SIX PAIRS. (The shorts I ordered most recently have a button fly, which I dislike… but they are also very cute so I may keep them. And I also got a pair of these striped denim shorts from Loft that I am pretty sure I will keep as well.) Now that I have these bad boys and two more Madewell tanks, I am thinking my summer uniform is now complete. 

Fun Raisins: Well, this is a post of eating my words, I think. I never thought I would be a shorts-sporter, or a waterproof-mascara wearer, or a person who buys $9 nail polish, but I NEVER EVER thought I would be someone who eats raisins for non-life-and-death reasons. And yet here we are. My sister-in-law had a box of strawberry flavored raisins with her when she came to visit, and I tried some to be polite, and they were SUPER YUMMY. They tasted more like slightly-sour candy than a raisin, which, I cannot stress enough, was always right up there with eating someone’s surgically-removed mole in terms of appetizing. But I liked them so much I bought a box MYSELF, and a box of watermelon flavored raisins to have as a cupcake backup at Carla’s birthday party. They are very tasty and I highly recommend them. Even if you are a raisin hater. NEVER SAY NEVER.

  • images from target.com

What are you loving lately?

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Holiday Talk: Keeping Gifts to a Minimum without Being an Ungrateful Brat or Where One Simple Question Becomes Eleven Questions, Each More Panic-Laden Than the Previous

As a form of self-care, I am doing my VERY best to steer clear of news and social media and relatives who like to talk about politics and the state of the world. It may not be SMART to just put my head in the sand, but it is HEALTHIER – for ME – than my previous state of Engaged And Informed But Also On The Edge Of A Panic Attack At Any Given Moment.

So! I am now going to be ostriching myself straight through the holidays! So far, I have managed to not fill my Christmas list up with survivalist gear and have successfully supplanted terrified googling of “what happens if another country bombs us” with endless Buzzfeed lists of What To Get For Some Very Specific Person On Your List.

Anyway!

Snow – actual, heavy snow that is sticking to the ground as I type! – is falling and I’m beginning to feel a tickle of holiday giddiness. But it seems that this year I have some Questions.

We have one set of grandparents whose love language is Financial Planning and another set whose love language is Gifts. I am trying very very hard not to express a preference, because both sets of grandparents are far too generous and kind and thoughtful for me to ever properly express my gratitude. My daughter, my husband, and I are all extraordinarily fortunate to have such loving people in our lives.

But we have TOO MANY TOYS. Too many. I know, I know – when you have kids, there will be toys. Yadda yadda. But it’s beginning to drive me crazy. I feel lucky it’s taken nearly three and half years to reach this point.

What I’m asking here is, have you any advice for… keeping the NEW toys to a minimum?

My husband and I are getting our daughter three gifts. Two are toys, and one is a set of books. That to me feels like PLENTY. Her Financial Planning grandparents have in the past – and we have no expectation of ongoing or future support! I am simply musing on this as a possibility – added some money to Carla’s college fund, and then they may also send A Toy, which I get; they want her to have something to open on Christmas.

And then the Gift Giver Grandparents – The Triple G, if you will – are going to unleash a torrent of toys on my child that I can only envision as a raging river of wooden vegetables and mismatched doll shoes and magna tiles and puzzle pieces and stuffed animals. I’m grateful! Truly! They think of her often and want to delight her and that is WONDERFUL! But. It’s making my chest tight just to think of it.

The other thing is, Carla is three and a half, and she has a limited attention span. She gets bored and, frankly, overwhelmed by the present opening process. I don’t want to be impolite and allow her NOT to open something, when the gift giver is right there, eager to see her little face light up in response to the treasure concealed beneath glittery wrapping paper. But I also don’t want to force her to overload her brain. And it is cranky-making, to be playing happily with one toy, and to have your family prod you into opening something else when you just want to KEEP PLAYING.

Was it last Christmas – no, I think it was two Christmasses ago – when the gift unwrapping took FOREVER. Hours and hours. I thought I might go mad. And poor Carla was SO overwhelmed. (Part of the reason may have been that we had ALL family members here. We have since switched to One Set of Grandparents Per Holiday, which eases the pressure a bit.)

We have asked the Triple G to limit their gifts to THREE, which seems reasonable and will still likely result in my eventual burial beneath a heap of lego blocks and Elsa gloves and doctor tools and My Little Ponies. But – how do I say this kindly, because I KNOW they are simply excited and full of love and generosity and certainly not malice? – they are not hearing us, I don’t think.

What do you DO in that situation?

I recall some other bloggers who did things like… whittle the present pile down to something manageable before Christmas, and then hold out some of the gifts for later in the month/year. I could totally see keeping a few presents in check and then handing them out over the TWO WEEK HOLIDAY BREAK what are we going to DO during all that time OMG.

But… that seems much simpler to accomplish when the gift givers aren’t present. When they are – when they’ve traveled thousands of miles to be with their beloved grandchild on Christmas Day – it seems pretty cold to say, “Nah, we’re going to save your present for next Tuesday.”

(You might say, well, perhaps you could hold back YOUR gifts. To which I say, pfffffffft. No.)

(TANGENT AHOY! I have suddenly thought of a NEW question, which is: who, in your family, is Santa? My in laws have often exchanged gifts with tags from “Rudolph” and “Mrs. Santa” etc. But… I kind of have this selfish feeling that Santa gifts should be from ME AND MY HUSBAND. Is that reasonable? Is that how you do it? Why am I feeling so petulant about Christmas this year?)

(And, if you have children, do you give your child gifts from Santa AND from you? I can’t remember what my parents did! I think mainly it was gifts from Santa.)

One happy option, I suppose, is Hanukkah, which overlaps Christmas this year. Perhaps we could spread out the Christmas gifts over the eight days of Hanukkah? My husband didn’t get a gift every night of Hanukkah when he was growing up, but potentially we could make an exception this year? (Will that set a bad precedent?)

Does that mean I need to get my niece eight Hanukkah gifts, though? That seems excessive. I would certainly not want my sister to feel obligated to get Carla that many presents.

ACK. TOO MANY PRESENTS. Let’s call it all off AND, on top of that, let’s collect all toys we currently own and donate them to charity!