Raiding the Books for Less Warehouse Sale

I usually don’t get the chance to go out of my way to check out warehouse sales, but the everything-for-ten-pesos Books for Less Warehouse Sale was simply too irresistible to miss. After all, my main target was to get books for the twins and as I saw from blog and instagram posts from Nanay’s Trip and The Binondo Mommy, there are plenty of children’s books available.

So Don and I checked it out Saturday morning. On the way over we decided we’d be willing to get as much as 50 books, but at the end of the excursion I can’t say that I’m not happy with the 23 books we got to take home. Aren’t they beautiful? 🙂

the day’s book harvest. thank you Books for Less!

Going in, my mental list of criteria were:

• Preferably board books so my 20 month-old twins won’t end up destroying them within 2 minutes
• To suit the twins’ age and attention span, books that provide short, snappy lines per page and teach useful concepts or vocabulary.
• And of course, books that are in good condition even if they’re already used

I would say around half of our purchases fit these criteria, but I also ended up with some that didn’t make the criteria at all but ended up in my book bag anyway.

These two activity books have some stickers missing, but there are still plenty remaining and for P10 and given the twins’ fondness for stickers, I’m not going to be that picky.

activity books. lots of stickers and Bible characters on one, and instructions for kids on setting up their own party in the other!

This elephant book from Jane Goodall’s Animal Series got my attention because 1) the twins already recognize elephants from drawings and plushies I thought it would be nice to show them a book with real elephant pictures, and 2) there are twin baby elephants featured!

Elephant Family, by Jane Goodall

that modern dilemma of enjoying vs capturing the moment

So I’ve seen a couple of those stop-being-so-hooked on-your-smartphones videos that have been going around and it’s been hitting home, you know? I AM guilty of sneaking in some tablet time when I’m with the kids and they seem to be doing fine making a mess of the room playing on their own. I’ve been trying to lessen it, though. Especially since the twins have now become more interested in my iPad ever since they learned that it doesn’t only show their own pictures but also kiddie videos and dancing little stars (my bad, I know).

Moments like these, however, I itch to capture. I resisted a couple of times, but last night I simply had to, so I sneaked over to the desk where my iPad is, and took a few photos without them noticing. I had to push it, though. I crouched down to their eye level to get a little bit of their faces in the shot, and that’s it. They looked up, saw me with the iPad, and immediately got up to take a look at it. Moment over. Sigh. Lesson learned, though. Next time, just enjoy the moment, or at least keep the DSLR on hand instead of the iPad.

But in the meantime, there is this moment captured in time.