Lucky Me, and a Crayola Review

Ed's boat left yesterday for 8 weeks. Lucky for me, Ed wasn't on it. He was supposed to go for 6 weeks and then get sent home early so he could start his last school. Lucky for us, the navy is having some budget issues. They didn't want to spend the money to buy him a plane ticket home. So instead of leaving me and Xander alone again, he get's to stay in and go to some other schools while he waits for his big one to start. I'm so grateful, being 7 months pregnant and spending the last 3 weeks alone with Xander was hell. I love my son dearly, but as anyone who's ever been pregnant can tell you, the last few months are never fun. Take all the back pain, exhaustion, and insomnia, add to it the stress of a husband that is out to sea, and throw in a toddler who is getting more active every day and it's a recipe for disaster. We have barely even begun to prepare for Ethan's arrival and Ed staying home means that we'll have more time for that as well. I feel extremely lucky, I haven't always had the best luck with the navy and them changing plans on us. In fact, the whole reason why he was supposed to have left yesterday was because of a mix up with his schools in the first place. When we planned this pregnancy he wasn't even supposed to get to the boat until the end of June. Even with him staying in, there are a lot of long days ahead of us, but at least he'll be home every night, and I don't have to worry about him missing the birth if I go early again.

On another note, yesterday we decided we would have some family time. During our trip to Wal-mart this weekend I finally decided to break down and buy Xander some crayons. We have boxes and boxes of crayons at home, but I keep seeing ads for the Crayola TaDoodles. You know the crayons that are made for toddlers to hold easily? I guess I'm a sucker for marketing, because even tho we had crayons at home the smiling children on the package convinced me that in order to be a good mommy I had to spend $6.49 for three crayons. Of course these weren't just any crayons, they come seated in these nifty looking holders that are wide and round and obviously made for little hands to hold on to easily. Crayola has always been my crayon of choice, so I decided we'd give them a try even tho the price made me cringe just a little. I also got him one of those huge coloring books, the book is taller than Xander and has pictures of the backyardigans, one of his favorite shows. So for family time yesterday, I bring out the coloring book, the crayons, and the TaDoodles. Xander and his daddy started coloring while I fought with the package of the TaDoodles, but pretty soon I had them out and I was very excited to see how Xander would do with them. He picked them up just right on the first try and immediately went to work coloring on the paper. Of course he was no where near the lines, but for a first time I was impressed he even found the paper. My first impression of the TaDoodles was that even tho I was a little disappointed in the price, and color choice (you get three crayons, and I would have expected them to be primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, but for some reason they give you red, green, and blue, green and blue being so close in color it seems pointless to me), I was impressed at how quickly my little artist picked them up. My first impression was quickly shattered when Xander started to show some frustration. They are heavy and awkward. After just a few minutes of coloring he started to get mad because they kept slipping out of his hands, he'd end up holding the side and rubbing the bulky plastic against the paper. After a few more minutes he did what most toddlers do when frustrated, he threw it on the floor. We were all sitting at the coffee table, so the drop wasn't very far, maybe a foot, foot and a half, but the crayon inside shattered as soon as it hit the carpet. I was disappointed and thought for sure that our great family time coloring was about to be cut short, but daddy came to the rescue just in time. He handed Xander a regular crayon and much to my suprise Xander took it as if he had been coloring for years. We spent the rest of the afternoon coloring happily using good old fashioned crayola crayons, and Xander didn't even think about eating them or snapping them in half as I had feared. As for the TaDoodles, I think they are great in theory, but poor in practice. I'm not sure exactly what I would do to improve them, I am sure I would tell other moms and dads out there that are considering this purchase to skip it, they really aren't worth the money.