October Update

So far October has been a fun and enjoyable month. As posted before, we attended the Apple Harvest Festival for a fun day out with family. Last weekend, we traveled to Uniontown to visit Pappy Al, Grandma Deenie and cousin Gianna as well as to see my brother, Matt, sister-in-law Jennifer and nephew Jacob. We also had the pleasure of meeting my youngest nephew Elijah Joseph (Eli). Callum and Eli had about as much fun as two babies aged 5 and 7 months can have together. They smiled at one another, held hands a couple of times and had all of us in stitches watching them interact. I know that they will be great buddies and probably be lots of trouble together this time next year! Callum also had his second bath in Grandma's kitchen sink and took it much better than the first one. It was a very enjoyable weekend and we hope to see everyone again very soon. The trip from North Carolina to Pennsylvania is pretty long for Matt, Jen, Jacob and Eli but we hope that they come back up again in the near future! Well I've recently been introduced to EBay. I've never been on the site before, but my staff assistant, Danielle, suggested that I check it out as a possibility for cheap baby gear. I've been eyeing a Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo for the past month. They are kinda expensive-- $80 or so at Target and Babies R Us-- and I had been trying to find a discounted one at Amazon.com or on consignment somewhere. No luck. Amazon has the cheapest ones at $64.99 (we have two day pre-paid Prime shipping so there is no cost for this). Anyway, during my lunch break Thursday, I managed to find two Jumperoos on Ebay in the $30 price range. Man was I drooling over those. Now I almost won the first Jumperoo due to my super suave bidding skills, but got shut down at the last minute by soupfatherwife with his bid of $50. As Iain kindly pointed out, with my $49 bid and the $16 postage, I would have been paying the same cost for a used toy compared to a new Jumperoo as available on Amazon. (Boo to him- at least I didn't win.) Well, I kept my eyes open and the second Jumperoo was listed at $35 and with my superb bidding skills, I managed to hold off Ebay users t***r and 2***g (names hidden for privacy) and win the Jumperoo for my little guy! This time I managed to save us $5. Iain was not impressed. The important thing is that the Jumperoo is paid for and in true Sloan fashion, I can say that I won on EBay! On a final note for this update, Callum attended his first Halloween party last night and had fun for about 20 minutes. He was about the cutest penguin on the planet in my (biased) opinion. However, all the noise, lights, and people at the party drove him into his normal hysteric state that occurs if he is around strangers or out of the house after 6:30 p.m. We exited the party quickly after his howls scared most of the other children there. Iain and I are confident that he will become more braver with time and hopefully enjoy many Halloweens with us.