… and the other part of me realizes that I am remembering through rose-colored glasses that have quickly forgotten the cry of “Mom! We’re bored! What should we do?”

Ahem.

Anyway! Soon we’ll be back in the classroom; my little darlings will be learning important lessons, and I’ll be being hit up for Kleenex and hand sanitizer. It’s the circle of life! Or at least, the circle of public school!

Ty’s Toy Box understands that getting them there in the right mood is half the battle, so feel free to check out the new Back To School Store for all of your back-to-school needs. There’s enough backpacks in there to delight even the most hard-to-please kid, from Thomas the Tank Engine to Avatar to Dora to Hannah Montana.

(Funny, for some reason my daughter is still balking at my suggestion of the Little Miss Trouble bag. I cannot imagine why.)

Hey, I know summer flew by, but at least getting ready for back to school can be fun!

All over the web, tributes to Carlin are popping up; one person after another wants to recount what Carlin’s comedy meant to him or her. It’s mainly his more risque work that’s being discussed, too. But for those of us who are parents to little ones, it’s a little bit different*.

To us, George Carlin is better known as the voice behind Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. When I heard the new yesterday, I went straight to YouTube for the first episode my son ever saw. It’s unremarkable, I suppose, except that I had never before seen him stop everything and become utterly transfixed by the television, before. And really, how can you not enjoy Carlin earnestly reporting that Thomas was “a cheeky little engine?”

When I was nosing around for that, I also found this little tribute:

Yes, most people will remember him as the guy who talked about the seven words you couldn’t say on television, but I’ll mostly remember him as the voice of Thomas. And of Fillmore from Cars, too, I guess. But mostly Thomas.

*Sure, I went and saw George Carlin perform live, once, back when I was in college. I had really good tickets, too—my friend and I sat in the fifth row while he ran through a seemingly endless string of ranting about various things. What I remember most about that show is that he did a routine about names that no one uses for their kids these days, and he went from “Dorcas” and “Hortense” and the like—oh, we were laughing along with everyone else—down to my name. Yes, I once paid good money to listen to George Carlin heckle my name.

Did you know that Cyber Monday began as a marketing campaign, and was—initially, anyway—a hoax? There was no evidence to suggest that people did any more online shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving than at any other time. But it has since become the very definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and now e-tailers everywhere gear up for a flurry of fingers shop-shop-shopping on this famous Monday.

Ready for a sneak peak at Monday’s deals? Read on to find out how planning ahead can score you some big bargain’s during Ty’s Cyber Monday Sale:

• Bob the Builder Talkie TC Scrambler — $22.99
• Thomas Around the Tree Playset — $34.99
• Barney Let’s Go Laptop — $14.99
• Cars Mega Garage and Car Wash — $59.99
• Land Before Time 4-Movie Dino Pack, Vol. 2 — $24.99
• Curious George Jack-in-the-Box — $14.99
• Assorted Teletubbies Costumes — $14.99 apiece
• Assorted 3-Piece Strawberry Shortcake Outfits — $24.99 apiece
• Ship 6 of the most popular Doodlebops toys for just a penny
• Ship all items in the Ty’s Holiday Shoppe for just a penny

(Free domestic shipping for orders over $65, or a $10 shipping credit if you’re ordering internationally is still in effect, by the way.)

Not too bad for a special sale day that didn’t even exist a few years ago, right?