weaving the rainbow

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 ;

8:59 PM

ds1 started getting some bday presents already, from those who were going to travel out of town for the CNY.

This is from his Msian classmate.

Turned out to be a gun inside. At first, I was going to tell ds1 no weapons. But then Dh saw that it is not the normal machine gun toy. It was more scientific, as he called it. Yes, Dh was as excited over it as the boys.

It had a quintain or target board. Hang it somewhere, get the gun and shoot from afar. When you hit the bullseye, there'll be flashing lights, music and the machinery on the target board will spin. The kids love that.

Apart from that, the gun had all the parts (I dunno what to call them!) to aim. You can also adjust the height of the part in front of the gun (also dunno what's the term, only saw Dh explaining to ds1 how to "zero" the gun) and make other adjustments elsewhere too.

I didn't bother with the 3 males fiddling with the gun until Dh was done with the screwdriver that came together with the toy, and asked me to try it. He said he had "zeroed" the gun such that anyone can use it and hit the bullseye with the first shot. As long as I followed his instructions.

Ok, I was game for that. So the target was hung at one end of the house. I had to stand at the kitchen, and that was really really far. I would not be able to aim a basketball at a hoop that far, much less to say the laser gun, at first try. But Dh said it is possible. So with the 2 boys egging me on as well, I followed the instructions Dh was barking out.

First, hold gun, then look through the view finder thingy. Close left eye, use right eye to stare at the white triangle right in front of the gun. Make sure the tip of the triangle is just below the bullseye in the distance. After aligning the gun to that position, pull the trigger and shoot.

Hey! I did it! One shot, and I hit the bullseye! The flashing lights and music really did wonders to boost one's ego. My impression of that toy moved up several notches. So I allowed them to play with it much longer than I would normally tolerate.

The instructions on the box are hilarious though.
Photo below shows the part which says: "Please do not to place levelly, place levelly the quintain to can suffer the outsider influence, and should hang the quintain in the wall."

There are more, about the "gun voice".

I bought the Chinese cap from Dahutong for the boys. And this present is from H, before she left.

It was a Lego set. The kids had so much fun fixing the trebuchet and then playing with it. I allowed him to open his presents first, so that the novelty will be staggered. If he had too many new toys all at once (ie on his actual day), I am afraid he will not make full use of each.

And we also spent part of the weekend making his birthday invites together. It's a Jungle Party.

The back of the leaf reads:
"Join me in an expedition through the jungle at ADDRESS, on the DATE from 10am-12noon.

Please bring along your favourite stuffed jungle animal, and wear explorer gear, if you have any. Practise your wild animal sounds and be ready for a lot of fun!

If you can't fall in, please call the King of the Jungle at XXXX."

I wrote Dh's cell phone no. for XXX. Haha. I have planned out all the games and activities for the day already, and I will make Dh be the Lion. hee hee.

rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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