Saturday was a good day!

In the last 2 years my life has been a bit different. I've been working from home full-time for about two years. This means I don't really have a lot of interaction with 'the outside world'; the exception being church. Yesterday was very different day for me. It started with Austin sleeping in. This meant that I didn't see him or feed him breakfast like usual, the honors went to Keith, come to think of it its also the first day in 17 1/2 months that I haven't changed a single diaper. I was a vendor at the Holiday Gift Bazaar at the PTC Christian Church. For those of you that don't know, I started selling Discovery Toys in January of this year. This is something I do in addition to my other three jobs (employers include Austin, Keith and Hewitt). I didn't plan on putting a whole lot of time into it, I thought I set a reasonable goal of having one party a month. I didn't quite meet that goal this year, but business has picked up a good bit in the last month. Hmm, wonder why that is? If you aren't familiar with Discovery Toys, they are education toys for children ages birth to about 8 and many are particularly good for kids with Autism and other spectrum disorders. DT has been in business for 30 years and the toys come with a lifetime guarantee. Anyway, I set-up my table at the Bazaar and really learned a lot. First, what I've been telling people about these toys lasting kids for longer than your typical toys is so true! Most of the parties I've done have been for kids Austin's age so I haven't seen a lot of children really play with the toys. It was fun watching parents come up and tell me which toys their kids had and how much they loved them (many had saved them for when they have grandkids). But I think the most fun I had was watching two boys ages 5 & 6 come up to the table and tell me about each of the toys they had. They moved from Denver recently so several of their toys were still packed away, but they remembered them and were so excited to see them. They played with the toys for about an hour. They played with Motor Works (starting at age 3), Hammer Away (18 months +), Busy Bugs (3 yrs), the Giant Peg Board (19 months) and the kicker was the Go Go Caterpillar. The Go Go Caterpillar is for 9 month olds. This is a friction 'motored' toy that is meant to encourage movement (crawl/run after it). Austin really enjoys this toy too. I had so many kids coming up and playing with that, it was hilarious. I had several sales and several took catalogs that seemed like they had more than a passing interest. I took their information and will follow up with them this week.

After the bazaar I went home for a little while then got ready to go to my friend Beatrix's wedding reception. She got married back at home in Malaysia last month, this was her 'state-side' reception. Beatrix and I started at Hewitt on the same day and landed not only on the same client team, but the same project. She is very quiet and extremely bright (graduated magna cum laude from GT). She and her husband, Darsono, met at church. He came from Indonesia (I think that is right) and she from Malaysia to go to school, both have been working here in the US since their graduation. It was very interesting hearing about all the different customs that originated in China but made their way to Malaysia. I got to visit with a couple of friends over dinner and sat with the grooms brother and his family. I got the honor of sitting next to their son who I think was 3. He was very quiet, but very sly. He kept reaching over and grabbing at my silverware, after the 2nd time I moved it away in typical mommy fashion. He kept to himself until after dinner. We were watching a video of the bride and groom and their progression from childhood, when I sensed movement behind me (I had to turn to watch the slideshow). I looked over real quick and saw him pull his hand away with my wedding favor. My friend Elizabeth had this look of shock but I had to laugh. The wedding favor was a little bag with a couple of chocolate truffles. Had the little boy just asked I would have given it to him, I'm not a huge chocolate fan (although I do like it more since I had Austin). I think he was lucky it was me and not Elizabeth, she probably would have taken it back. You just don't take some people's chocolate.

For those of you who were hoping for an Austin post, I apologize. I promise the next one will be about him.

Oh, and if you are interested in checking out Discovery Toys you can visit the website at www.discoverytoysinc.com, or if you are local just ask and I can get you a catalog. If you want to order something in time for Christmas give me a call by Friday. I will be placing the last order on Friday, you can still order after that but shipping goes up quite significantly. If you think you might want to host a party and earn free toys, I recommend you consider January. There will be a number of items on sale and you will get an extra 50% in hostess rewards. In addition to what DT offers hostesses, I give the hostess free shipping.

If you had Discovery Toys as a child (or children did), please post a comment and share your story(ies).

Merry Christmas and happy shopping!