Monday, November 24, 2008

The Power of Paper

I am always looking for something to keep my kids occupied. Meg and Drew could watch tv until their eyes turned to goo and oozed out of their heads, so of course that is a big no-no in this house. As it is, when they do get an hour or so of tv, they turn into complete lunatics when it's over, literally rolling on the floor yelling for more, or running around the house screaming at the top of their lungs. Oh yes people, I've raised idiots.

Imagine my thrill when I discovered the power of paper. No, not reading (puhleeze) or drawing, but the power of the c-a-t-a-l-o-g. FAO Schwarz, Walmart, The Land of Nod, Fisher Price all hold amazing power over all of my kids. The FAO Schwarz catalog is so worn from constant reading by Annie and Izzie especially that I had to take it away from them, lest they completely ruin it. Today's mail brought another Fisher Price catalog and Drew was thrilled, until the contents were the EXACT same as the other catalog we already had. The kids sit on the floor and slowly turn the pages, looking at all the fantastical things that these catalogs hold. You would think that we have never taken them to a mall for crying out loud.

So thank you miss mail lady (yes, we have a FEMALEMAN) for bringing a few small moments of peace to my home. I shall miss those catalogs when they're shredded or in the recycle bins in the garage. Life will be back to my regularly scheduled chaos then.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

HA! I totally remember going through the catalogs when I was a kid. Heck, I was just doing it an hour ago!

Painless Mama said...

Love it!
I do the same thing with Claire, especially the One Step Ahead catalog, which is chock-full of babies, which she loves to point out to me. "BEE-BEE!"

Robyn said...

We have a postlady, too!

Maybe Drew and Megan would like a magazine subscription for Christmas -- could save YOU some headaches!

creative kerfuffle said...

what is it about those catalogs? my kids (11 and 9) do the exact same thing! of course, i do too. i remember sitting down w/ the sears wish book and a notebook each year, writing out my list : )
i say don't toss them after the holidaze, use them until they disentigrate. and a mag subscription sounds like a good idea : )

AndreAnna said...

Mike is the catalog king. He like hoards them and brings them in his man-potty in the basement.

Cass. Just Curious said...

Catalogs are amoung my fav things.

Astarte said...

Our kids love catalogs, too. It cracks me up to see Patrick on the couch, legs crossed daintily, thumbing through Hearthsong!

Anonymous said...

My kid will flip through a catalog, declare there's " 'nuffin good in here" and move on.

SO not like her mother--I have sticky notes on catalog pages of things I MUST have ;)