This was the official month of “the sale” in the Guerra household. For those who don’t know, we recently launched a new business doing twice a year consignment sales on kids’ merchandise. There was definitely a lot of work leading up to the event — clothing racks to build, point of sale equipment to purchase, and all kinds of kids’ items to check in and organize before we could open our doors (we started with an empty 13,000 sq/ft building and ended up with this). Needless to say, the kids heard a lot about the sale. Examples:
- Dad couldn’t hang out and play often because he had to prepare for “the sale”
- Dad couldn’t read to them at night for nearly a week because of “the sale”
- Dad couldn’t hang out on the weekends as much because…well, you get the picture
Inevitably, the kids began showing their discontent at daddy’s time being monopolized by something else rather than them. Lilah expressed her dissatisfaction quite succinctly and pointedly, stating, “I’m tired of this sale because you don’t play with us anymore.” The good thing about this business, however, is that it’s not year around. There is a lot of marketing work a couple of months before the sale to get the word out, and then the a lot of physical work the week before the sale, but for the most part, it’s manageable. Plus a lot of the griping about the sale disappeared once the kids came out with Cathy to help set up and discovered they could get deals for themselves.
Lilah took the opportunity to buy another doll, some Spanish flash cards, and some other items with money from her own piggy bank. She learned a lot of lessons during the sale, but the funniest one was when she discovered that the size of an item does not necessarily correlate with the price. She just couldn’t figure out why a tiny doll cost five times as much as another doll that was 10 times bigger (which meant she had to choose which doll to buy rather than buying both). Welcome to the real world Lilah.
Luke also purchased items — a shake and go truck, a miniature u-haul truck and another item that escapes me at the moment. I, of course, was the cashier for both transactions. In any case, “the sale” was an activity the whole family got involved with in one way or another and we’ll definitely be doing it again in the spring.
Halloween
For Halloween, both Luke and Lilah dressed up as Ninjas. Originally, Lilah had planned on being a reindeer, but the antlers we ordered didn’t show up on time (they came the day after Halloween), so we had to switch to a plan B in which Lilah joined her brother as a Ninja. For the second straight year, I manned the candy bucket while mom and the kids ran through the neighborhood filling up their bags to the rim with treats. Lilah’s friend, Tori, dressed as Belle, joined the festivities so Luke was forced to be the one outnumbered this time. Last year, cousins Nicholas and Sebastian joined Luke, giving the boys a 3-2 advantage.
Kids Have Fun at Iced Pita Music Lessons Open House
Before the ash from the fires showed up, Lilah and Luke were able to try out different instruments as part of a big open house given by some friends of ours. Lilah experimented with a lot of different horns, but the instrument she liked the most was the violin. Luke, on the other hand, preferred the French horn — so much so that he asked to play it again right after lunch. And, believe it or not, he was actually able to play it. Play it, in this case, does not mean play a song, but rather make a sound. Actually, both Lilah and Luke were able to make sounds with all the horns, which is the first step in learning a brass instrument.
Iddy Bitty Basketball League
For 8 straight weeks, we all attended Luke’s basketball games (except the week of the sale, obviously) and cheered for his Dragons. It was funny to watch, because at this age they kind of get the game, but they’re also into just goofing off. A typical sight was seeing all the kids run back on defense only to drop to the floor and spin their legs around like they were break dancing (all it took is for one boy to do it and then they would all follow suit). But in between the goofiness and silliness the kids played and had fun. Luke also made great strides. You see, for most of the season, Luke treated the ball like it was a hot potato. I mean, anytime the ball came to him he would get that deer in the headlights look and then rush to pass it on to his friend Tony who had no problems shooting. But then somewhere around the 6th game Luke actually took a shot and made it. And then in the last game he made another shot and got such a boost of confidence that he just kept shooting anytime he got the ball. The coach said he was really happy to see that change in Luke. He added that one of the nicest things about being a coach is witnessing this type of moment where the game finally clicks for the child and he is able to enjoy it and have fun with it.
That’s all for now…can’t believe Thansksgiving is almost here again! Anyway, catch you all next month….