Thursday, July 26, 2007

A Little Swimming, A Little Shopping

After swimming today we went over to the little bookstore downtown so that T. could spend the giftcard he received when he won the HP look-alike contest and so that we could buy a birthday present for a soon-to-be two year old whose party we will be attending Saturday. It really is a marvelous bookstore! Very small, but with an Excellent selection (meaning, the kind of books I like!) and a strong emphasis on children's books (we recently learned that the store is named for the owners' daughter, who is now a teenager but was much younger when they started out). The owner is very friendly, and did not seem at all bothered that we were there for over an hour, touching everything and endlessly debating every possible choice. As well as books, the store has a lot of toys, of both the "nice" (like those Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles!) and "novelty" varieties (here I'm thinking of the drop-in-water-and-watch-them-grow rats and lizards). You would have thought T. had been to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes rather than a little Bible Belt book store if you went by the joke items he came home with! We now have a giant fly that winds up and zooms around the floor, a Very Large spider (meant to be strapped on and worn on one's back, why? I don't know), and a flexible and quite life-like snake. He did get two books as well, one cookbook and one drawing book. He considered several other books, but, as I told the store owner, he knows he can put books on his birthday and Christmas wish lists and stand a decent chance of getting them, but that there is no way his mother or grandparents are going to spend money on joke flies and spiders. So he was really being quite sensible.

We found a wooden puzzle for the birthday boy with various emergency vehicles which get fitted into their spots and then make "realistic" noises (the ambulance makes ambulance sounds, the firetruck makes firetruck sounds, etc.). Ed says it is a horrible thing to give a child whose parents we like, but he failed to find anything better so we bought it anyway. If they can't stand the sounds, they can take out the batteries.

Tomorrow is the last day of swim lessons! Hooray! T. has made very good progress, but I haven't noticed that K. had advanced at all. Parents are invited to attend tomorrow's lesson (otherwise we've had to watch through the fence, which still offers a fine view), so we will see.

1 comment:

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

That so reminds me of a small bookstore in Taos that I just love!

They have the wonderful children's section, the old-fashioned children's toys and even a store cat--one that likes to curl up next to you on the overstuffed chairs as you read. They also have herbal teas next to a tea cozy for customers to serve themselves.

Sigh. I haven't been to Taos in a while. Guess I'm just gonna have to go again!