"You'll know it is time to turn the page..."

On this, the first day of the worst month of the year, when the chaos and cabin fever reached a new level while I was (un)successfully attempting to prepare for tomorrow's co-op (which I did not procrastinate on, oh no, not me...), we stumbled upon buried treasure.  You see, someone was neglecting their children (wouldn't know anything about that...) with the electronic babysitter all.day. and it was no longer working.  Worse, said person was feeling just a tad bit guilty that "homeschool" today meant "leave mama alone, she's working."  Then I remembered something.  Something I forgot I had.  Something I had put away for a "rainy (do tears count?) day" when the kids were old enough not to mess with it.  Well, they may not be old enough yet, but I was desperate.  I rushed down to the basement, nearly capsized a colossal mountain of boxes and then finally found it, blew the dust off the box and carried it upstairs.  I turned off the TV, took both girls by the hand and sat them down on the carpet.  And then I set this up:



Complete with about 25-30 books and records.  Do you remember these?  I had the cassette tape version when I was growing up.  My Mother in law gifted this to us a few years ago and we had tried it once with our oldest...he had messed with the record player too much so I put it away.

Nostalgia hit me as soon as we opened the box.  I remembered rainy days, laying on my stomach and pouring over a book, dutifully turning the page "...when you hear the chimes ring, like this *chime*."

I so enjoy reliving my childhood through them.



(ignore the blurry feet, they were furiously kicking)

Something tells me that this February might not be so bad.  If things do start to go south, I'll just whip out our buried treasure.