"Accidentally"?

Yesterday, my wife sent me the following email regarding Micah, our 5-year old:

Words I never expected to hear while being presented with a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich: "Mama, can I throw this away? I accidentally washed it."

Cue spit take. I'm at a loss for words.

New Toy

I recently fell into some birthday money (my birthday is August 13...mark it on your calendars folks), so I decided to actually buy something for ME. Rarely do I get to do that these days other than lunches out and the occasional kitchen gadget. I finally broke down and bought an MP3 player. I feel like I've finally joined the 1990s.

I followed PCMag.com's recommendations and bought a Sansa Express. It's a tiny little thing with 1GB of memory, but it's a great MP3 player, and it's at least a third of the cost of the Apple iPod Nano. It basically gives you all the basic functions: music, FM radio, voice recording, and FM recording. Furthermore, the USB port is directly attached to it, so you can plug it directly into your computer to charge it up and upload/download songs.

What's amazing/amusing is I remember my first portable Sony CD player that I bought $10 years ago for $100. This cost half that. Of course portable CD players now cost one-quarter that.

So, if you need me, I'll be plugged in to my new toy...probably listening to Kevin Mohl and the Burning Sensation.

National Junior Tennis League

I can't say enough about the National Junior Tennis League, a program founded in 1969, "as a way to gain and hold the attention of young people in the inner cities and other poor environments so that we can teach them about matters more important than tennis….Through tennis, lives can be changed and spirits reclaimed." Not being a tennis player...or previously having much interest in tennis...I had never heard of the program before. I strongly encourage other parents to check out the program, even if your kids have no tennis ability whatsoever.

We signed Omri up this summer for tennis lessons at the National Junior Tennis League of Indianapolis. I was looking for summer programs for Omri, and a friend of mine turned me onto the NJTL program. Luckily for me, she told me about the program about two days before the application deadline.

Omri is a complete tennis beginner. His only previous experience with tennis was running around on a public tennis court and trying to hit a tennis ball a couple of years ago with a racket I bought from Goodwill for about $2. However, Omri really enjoyed the program, and he did pretty well...for a beginning player. More importantly, it got him out of the house for about 2-4 hours per week interacting in the sunshine with other kids his age.

Even better...the program is very cheap. Depending on the location you choose, the cost is $25-$45 for an 8-week program.

So, depending on whether or not I can convince Omri to go to summer camp next year, we will most likely sign him up again. He loved playing tennis, we loved that he got some fresh air, and my wallet loved holding onto just a little more green stuff.