The Giant Pencil

While we were at Disney, we saw stores with Disney clothes, Disney coffee mugs, Disney candy, Disney back scratchers, Disney nose hair trimmers, Disney pretty much anything you can think of  with a Disney character or story theme.  Personally, it was Disney overload.

I got a mug that was as understated Disney as possible.  We got my daughter some cute pajamas (or "night nights" as we call them,) and my husband got a shirt.  The children already have lots of Disney clothes and things, so we didn't overdo it.  But there was one thing that brought me back to my childhood.  A giant pencil.

I looked at the stack of fat, foot-long pencils sitting temptingly at the checkout line, targeted at people with poor impulse control.  It looked like, for lack of a better word, fun.  Why did it look like so much fun?  It was just a pencil.  It was colorful, it had a huge eraser to match and there was a giant pencil sharpener attached to it via a string.  But it was unwieldy.  It wouldn't fit comfortably in your hand, it was heavy and you'd need to build up extra muscle strength in your hands just to sharpen it.  So why did it look so exciting?

At some point in my childhood, I think I got a pencil like the one I was looking at.  I felt like I was the coolest person in my class because I had such an amazing pencil.  I'm not sure what happened to that pencil, but my memory of it and the level of "coolness" it conveyed has stuck with me.

The Big Boy Update:  Knock knock knock.  He learned how to knock at a closed door the other day.  Now he likes to close doors, knock, say, "knock knock knock" and wait for an answer.  Even if there's no one on the other side of the door.  On the physical front, he got on the scooter poorly just a bit ago and hit himself right between the legs with the handlebars.  He was upset, he was crying, he didn't understand.  Daddy told him that happened to boys and next time he'd better be more careful.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Jooce, Jooce"  Not only does she know the word "juice," she uses it in the proper context and as a request.  If she's thirsty, even if there's no juice around, she will ask for it.  We've missed this several times and then realized that's what she was saying.  She will also ask for it if it's sitting on the table and she wants a drink while she's eating her food.  Today, she had a good time asking for "jooce" every time I set the cup down.  She got that she could request and her request would be answered.

Someone Once Said:  A thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out.