Keeping up with the feet, and our new project

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Keeping up with the feet, and our new project Current mood: accomplished Well, we finally took the kids to get new shoes today- they both needed sandals, and I suspected Littleman might need new tennis shoes. Lo and behold, we had to get 4 pairs of shoes today- Littleman is now in a 8 1/2 wide, and Sweetcheeks is fast catching up in a whopping 7 wide. (Poor kid- he was wearing a 5 1/2 x-wide shoe before. . . I had no idea his feet had grown so much! Luckily the difference isn't as big as it seems, since there is some growing room in the size 7s. But still!) Keeping growing kids in good-fitting shoes is so expensive! I did pretty well in finding deals, but we still plunked down about $100 at the shoe store today. Wow. But they are proud of their new shoes, and this time I was smart- no white tennies to get grimy-grungy! They chose brown (Sweetcheeks) and navy (Littleman). I also scored a great deal at the Carter's outlet on an adorable terrycloth sleeper for the new babyman's arrival. Now we have a sweet little outfit all his own to wear at the hospital! (Even though we have lots of baby boy clothes, I make sure each baby has something his own for his first picture. If nothing else, it will help me tell them apart when I look at the pictures years from now). LOL! I am excited about our (Littleman's) newest project. Littleman has been expressing quite an interest in "soldiers" lately. We have told him about how his Grandpa was a soldier, and have shown him pictures and the medals Grandpa won. Several times Littleman has said that he wants to invite a "good soldier" over for dinner, or for a "sleepover" (LOL!), or to swim in our pool. Finally it occurred to me that we should put this interest to good use by writing to a soldier in Iraq! We can brighten someone's day, help Littleman feel important and also practice correspondence skills, and have fun doing it. We now have the names and addresses of 3 active military personnel- 2 distant relatives, and one "adopted" soldier. There's a lot to learn about how to mail this stuff properly (customs slips, restrictions- like "no pork", etc) but Littleman is very excited and I am looking forward to sending things. Littleman and Sweetcheeks have already drawn pictures, and Littleman dictated a letter. We'll do some shopping tomorrow to pick out things to send in care packages. If you'd like to adopt a soldier, go to http://www.operationmilitarypride.org/ and sign up as a supporter. Someone will e-mail you a service man or woman's name and address, along with a list of suggested care package items and other helpful guidelines. Try to send something at least once a week. Brighten someone's day! It's tough work out there, and some of them have been there a good long while.