Our First Miniatures Exchange

Will still needs a globe. He keeps asking me where Singapore and India are since that is where our Miniatures Exchange share partners are. Many times I say that they are far away, but when a map is available, we look for them on the map. We saw a globe at Barnes and Nobel that we might get, basically I am looking for something that is a real globe, not one of those plastic kids' globes. I'm not sure where I am going to put it, so I am considering a floor globe, maybe one on a stand.

Anyway, what is this Miniatures Exchange? I posted about it previously with a picture of my sound pocket for "W". It is something that a blogger mom in Japan set up. Our swap partners were in India and Singapore. Here is what we got!


India: Postcards (the Himalayas, India Gate, and Taj Mahal), M - Mirror that folds open to a stand, A small Taj Mahal, P - Puppets (soldier, women), O - owl coin purse, K - kites, S - Stamps, F - flag, hand-made paper envelopes, B - small round pink box, D - Die, E - Elephant, C - Coins, shape shifting toy. There was also a smiley face pin, but Will snatched it and put it in our "H" sound pocket for "happy". I was especially impressed by the little Taj Mahal sculpture. Will loved the mirror and the little box, trying to put the coins and the die in the box. The coins fit.



Singapore: Chinese paper cutting for the year of the ox, Postcards (Clarke Quay, Merlion), F - fish, F - Flower, O - ox, O - orchids, H - house, D - Chinese doll, S - stamp, D - dragonfly handmade using Chinese knots, M- merlion key chain, B/R - Bow/Ribbon, key chain from Sentosa, P - peanut, B - bottle, I - ingot, C - coins (old Chinese coin and Singapore coins). I loved the dragonfly and it was neat to get a little ox, from Singapore, in the year of the ox. I also liked the tiny bottle because it is an actual miniature. That is, I want items for the sound pockets that are small, 3 dimensional versions of real items. Will hasn't had much time to sort through these items yet as we received them right before nap time and he was really cranky. If he actually sleeps today, we will probably be looking at them again after nap.

Most of the items will go into our sound pockets. I'm thinking about getting a photo album, one with the peel back pages, for the postcards and stamps, so that we can start up a book of things from different countries. I'm open to ideas though as I also need somewhere to put the coins too because Will asked if they are for his gumball machine. So far, the countries I think Will should learn about include India, Singapore, Japan, Italy, Austria, Cameroon, and Canada.

Another Option
So if you think this is a neat thing to do, but you don't have sound pockets and want to do something more simple with your kid? Sign up for the postcard snack recipe swap before March 15 and get all sorts of neat snack ideas.

The "Say Crazy Things" Age

Yup, Will is at that age.  The "Say Crazy Things" age.  This is documented in the raising your child books, right?  Oh wait, I gave up reading back when I gave up eating meals because two kids suck away all of your time.

Will's crazy things range from embarrassing to insightful.  On the somewhat embarrassing side... we were at a restaurant eating and the hostess was seating an overweight woman nearby.  Will tried to explain that "that mommy has a baby in her tummy."  I tried to distract him from this statement.  the woman ended up requesting a different table.  

On the more insightful side... Will was in the office at my desk yesterday since they didn't let us drop him off at school because of pink eye suspicion.  He watched my computer boot and commented on the flags.  

Me: "Yes, Will, the flags are the symbol for Microsoft."

Will (pointing to coffee cup):  "What does this say?"

Me:  "That says, McCafe.  And look, under it is the symbol for McDonalds.  Do you want to learn about corporate logos today?  Look, here is the Dell symbol on my monitors."

Will (trying to say McCafe and failing):  "What does caffeine mean?   

Me (laughing, figuring he is close enough):  "Yes, Will, that says caffeine."

Will:  Does caffeine help you when you are tired?

Me:  Yes.  That's exactly what it means.

I see this conversation as lending creedance my claim about the statement Will made when I was contemplating Alex's upcoming birthday cake back in December.  You see, I was trying to figure out how to make a dinosaur cake.  I figured I could make a cake in the Pampered Chef batter bowl and maybe stick a dinosaur into it or something.  But, I swear, Will said, "We can make a volcano cake for Alex's dinosaur birthday party."  And yes, that's what we did.  

Forget smarter than a 5th grader.  Are you smarter than my almost 3 year old?  I'm sure I could keep up if I got more sleep.  But you see, I am in a Catch-22 there.  If I got more sleep, maybe I could convince Will to sleep more, but I don't get enough sleep because Will doesn't sleep enough. Zzzzz....

Got to go, need to consult Will about how to pull off his 3rd birthday party next month.  It's April 5th.  I'll send out the evite soon.  If you don't get it, drop me a line, I was too tired to remember to send it to you.  :)

Update:  I almost forgot to mention another outlet for Will's saying of crazy things.  You Tube.  You see, we can play you tube on our TV.  I almost have Will trained on the use of the remote.  Until then, I get to be the one to do the searches for Will's whims.  It turns out that not everything is on You Tube.  For example, "I want to see koala bears in the ocean"  didn't quite work out.